which wouldn’t start happening until after the insurance adjusters and fire department investigators were through, which was unlikely to take less than a week.
Parker and Carlow and Mainzer arrived a little after two in the morning. The door had been locked and a piece of plywood nailed over the hole in it where the firemen had knocked out the frosted glass panel, but the lock was an easy one and they went through it practically without stopping. Parker had previously worked out the best route in here, trying it by day, going through the hotel, up to the roof and through a corridor window into this building, which was several stories taller than the hotel. From there it was simple to come down the stairs and through the locked door into the wreckage of Diablo Tours, which smelled inside of dampness and charred wood.
When they entered the inner office, Mainzer looked around and smiled in satisfaction, saying, “Nice job. Admit it, Parker, it’s a nice job.”
“You did fine,” Parker said, both because it was true and because there was the necessity to keep Mainzer happy. There was always the necessity to keep people happy, that was why Parker seldom got along with people away from work. When a job was at stake he was willing to make the effort, but otherwise he wasn’t.
They couldn’t use any light of their own in here, not even a flashlight, but the same streetlight that illuminated the ballroom in the hotel next door also shone in the window here, its bluish-white light softening the effects of the fire, making the room like a small stage setting before a performance.
The wall was plasterboard, and the fire had exposed some of the lines of separation between the panels. Parker went to the corner of the wall farthest from the window and felt along the edge of the panel there. “This will do,” he said.
Car low had brought along a small toolkit, which he now put on the desk. They got screwdrivers and pliers from it and went to work on the plasterboard panel, removing all the nails holding it to the supports, not worrying about gouging the wall. While Carlow worked on the left side and Parker on the right, Mainzer removed the molding from the bottom of the panel and then stood on a chair to remove a narrow strip of wood where the wall met the ceiling.
It took fifteen minutes to completely free the panel, which was four feet wide and ran from floor to ceiling. When they were done, they leaned the panel forward slightly and slid it to one side, then rested it back against the wall beside the new hole.
Inside, there were two-by-fours in a vertical-horizontal network, plus electric cables, and backed by a wall of concrete block. While Mainzer went to work with a small saw, removing some of the two-by-fours, Parker and Carlow began chipping away at the cement between the concrete blocks.
This part took longer, but by three-thirty they had pulled out eleven blocks, leaving a hole five feet high and about two feet wide, unobstructed by either two-by-fours or electric cables. On the other side of the hole was a blank sheet of plywood.
It was cumbersome to get at the plywood, but they managed at last to drill a series of holes in it and then to get to work on it with the saw, and in half an hour they had the plywood taken out in four pieces and were looking at a blank gray French door.
This was one of the doors Parker had seen in the ballroom, behind the maroon plush curtain. Apparently, in the days before this building had been here, there had been some sort of balcony or terrace off the hotel’s ballroom, to which the French doors had led. When this building was erected the French doors were nailed shut on the inside, covered with sheets of plywood on the outside, and more or less forgotten.
Parker reached in with a screwdriver handle and tapped the door twice. Lempke was supposed to be on the other side, was to have been in the ballroom since three o’clock—over an hour now—to let them know when it was safe to make the final breakthrough.
Parker’s knock was almost immediately followed by three slow raps from the other side. That meant everything was safe. If other people had been around, or if for any reason Lempke had wanted them to wait, his answer would have been two fast taps.
Mainzer did most of the last part. The door had been nailed into its frame, and Mainzer now had to pry it loose, while standing crouched half in and half out of a hole five feet high with jagged edges of plywood all around its perimeter. Nails came out slowly, reluctantly, with shrill squeals, as Mainzer forced the door away from its frame an inch at a time. Mainzer had to stop and rest twice, but after the second time the door suddenly gave all at once, fell away from the frame, and leaned sagging against the maroon curtain on the other side.
Mainzer stepped back, grinning, pleased with himself; beads of perspiration on his forehead gleamed like quicksilver in the dim blue-white light. He made an after-you gesture at the hole, saying, “There you go, Parker.”
Carlow said, “We did a little bit, too, Otto.”
Mainzer turned to make a sharp answer, but Parker said, “Let’s see what it looks like on the other side.” He stepped between them, diverting them, and led the way through the hole, wrestling the door off to one side.
The nearest break in the drapes was a few feet to the right, being held open by Lempke, who was just a dim small silhouette in the darkness. As Parker came through, Lempke whispered, “Christ, you made noise in there. I been hearing you half an hour.”
“Anybody come by?”
“No, but they could’ve.”
Parker stepped out of the way, and Carlow came through, carrying a pair of pliers and a screwdriver. He said, “I left the kit “That’s good,” Parker said.
Carlow had looked at Mainzer in disgust, but hadn’t said anything. Now he got to his feet and said, “I’ll go now. See you Saturday, Parker.”
“Right.”
After Carlow had left, Mainzer said, “What is he, Parker, do you know?”
“What do you mean, what is he?”
“What kind of name is Carlow? Is it Jewish?”
Parker looked at him and didn’t say anything.
