jackhammers and cement mixers and other equipment would create the cacophony of construction work. Today, it was silent.
“No, the one to the right of it,” I said.
On the next lot, a tall, gray building stood, its dignity sagging like the chain-link fence which surrounded it. Like a lonely old woman whose dress and makeup are passe, it was both ornate and abandoned. At the top of the building, at each corner, a pair of angels stood, wings long and tucked close, hands folded in prayer, long robes draped heavily to their feet. Faces solemn and watchful.
If they were guardian angels, there was little left to guard, but perhaps it was through their protection that one or two of the large street-level windows miraculously remained unbroken. The owners and patrons of what I would guess were once opulent shops and elegant restaurants were long gone, no wares displayed in the windows dull with dirt and brick dust from the project next door. Still, the bright red Chinese characters painted on one of them were plainly visible, as were the words which had caught my attention: Great Wall of China Restaurant.
My gaze moved to the building’s front entry. At the top of a set of stairs, a banner held by two smaller stone angels spelled out a name: The Angelus Hotel.
“Looks like you were right,” she said. “Two Toes was talking about the Angelus.”
“It was the only hotel on Corky’s list that fit with anything Two Toes was saying. I’m not sure they ever served ham and eggs in there, but maybe he was just saying that it was a restaurant, not the actual Wall of China.”
“Saying?” she chided. “I think it was as much a secret code to him as to us.”
We got out of the car and started walking toward the old hotel. It looked like it had been built in the 1920s, one of Las Piernas’s boom periods.
“Sure. I went to Catholic school, remember? Should I sing a few bars of
“Some other time. Wonder if a Catholic built the hotel?”
“That or someone who was trying to connect this town up with Los Angeles. But L.A. might not have been such a big place itself when this was built, and given all those angels on the corners, I’m betting this was put together by one of our more devout brethren.”
“One of our more affluent brethren,” Rachel said.
The fence along the front of the hotel was intact, if not exactly forbidding. We walked outside it to our right, away from the construction site and toward an alley on the other side of the Angelus. The alley was deserted, cut off from a one-way street by three large metal posts with bent reflector signs on them. I burrowed my hands into my coat pockets and followed Rachel as she walked down the alley, studying the building.
Ahead of us, in a section that would have been out of sight from the construction workers, the fence had been cut. Rachel pulled back on the mesh of chain link and made an “after you” bow.
Squatting low, I made my way through, then waited for Rachel. We now stood on a long strip of ground that might have once been a lawn or garden. A pair of tall palm trees and a few clumps of weeds were all that remained of it.
A long paved drive ran between the strip and the hotel. Beyond the drive was what must have been a parking lot-what I could see of it was cracked asphalt studded with weeds.
Rachel stood still, looking at the hotel, and then at the ground. “Good thing it rained the other night,” she said. “That will help us find the preferred entrance.”
“Footprints.”
“Right. The ground is dry now, but some folks definitely took shelter here when it rained. These ought to point the way.”
The trail of bent grass and depressions in the dried mud angled to and from the back of the building. We followed them.
“Don’t slip on this palm crud,” Rachel said as we crunched our way across the messy drive. The “palm crud” was actually hundreds of unfertilized dates, dropped onto the concrete over God knows how many seasons without a gardener.
We made our way closer to the building. At one end of the hotel, we went past a metal door at street level-it was welded shut. Two floors above it, a series of small windows began, going to the top of the building. The lowest windows were broken out.
“So much for the stairwell,” Rachel said, looking up as we continued toward the back of the building. “Look- even the fire escape has been welded in place. Bad news.”
“Because of the danger to the unofficial tenants?”
She nodded. “These guys light fires to stay warm; if they fall asleep, or if they’re drunk or high or careless, there goes the building-and maybe everybody in it. Or they suffocate-the fire stays under control, but they don’t have proper ventilation in the room, and the fire burns up all the oxygen.”
We climbed some concrete steps at the back of the building. A little less picturesque than the front, the back was comprised mainly of a series of doors that had been boarded up.
“Wood’s fairly new,” I said. “Doesn’t look like this was done so long ago.”
“No, but look-here’s one that’s already been jimmied back open. Let me go in first, just in case any of the unofficial residents are in.”
She pulled the big flashlight out of her belt and turned it on. As she cautiously opened the door, we were greeted with the sharp, overpowering smell of excrement.
“Yeeech,” I said, backing away.
She laughed. “You weren’t expecting the maid service to have the place all clean and tidy, were you?”
“No, but I wasn’t expecting to walk into the bottom of an outhouse, either.”
She turned her back to me, flashing the light around the large room, which was lined with rusting pipes and sets of valves. A shaft of some sort rose from one end of the room.
“Laundry room, I think,” she said.
“Maybe so. But nothing’s been cleaned here for a while.”
“This isn’t so bad. Think how awful it would be if it were a warm day-just watch your step in this one place near the door,” she said, spotlighting it with the flashlight. It was about two feet away from where I stood.
“Let’s move on, okay?”
“Prop that door open,” she said. “I want to be able to get out of here in a hurry if we have to.”
The door still had a stop attached to it, so I kicked it down. It held.
We made our way to an interior door. We stepped into a long, dark hallway. Several doors led off it. The floor was sticky, and the odor of urine permeated the cold air. I tried not to think about it, and swore I’d throw my shoes away when I got home.
“Prop that one open, too,” Rachel said. “Make it easier to find our way out.”
As we walked away from the door, the hall grew darker, and it was the darkness and sense of confinement, not the stench, that began to stir a growing panic within me.
I once spent a few days locked in a small, dark room as the guest of a couple of creeps who got their kicks out of hearing people scream. One result of the experience is that I sometimes have to sleep with the light on. Other times, it’s better not to go to sleep at all. Darkness is not my old friend.
I tried to keep my mind away from memories as we went on. Rachel kept moving forward. I followed more closely. She looked back at me, holding the flashlight so that it didn’t blind me.
“You okay? You want to wait outside?”
I wanted it more than just about anything, but I shook my head. “Lucas knows me, he doesn’t know you.”
“He’s not likely to be hanging out here during the day.”
“I’m going with you.”
She shrugged and moved on. She stopped often to listen as we approached doors. The only noises to be heard were the now-distant sounds of occasional traffic on the street, our sticky footsteps, and the hammering of my heart. My claustrophobia was kicking in.
