Gin Palace 02 - The Bone Orchard

with the back door. I was looking for something else, a ground-level window into the basement that I could tape up to keep the glass from falling when I broke it with the crow bar. But instead I found something better below the utility meters at the far corner of the back of the house.
    It was an old-style coal shoot, its double doors locked from the inside. I looked around the backyard, more out of habit than caution, and then felt around till I found the hinges. The bolts felt like a quarter inch at least. I put the flat end of the crow bar against the top knob of the bolt, then began to work it back and forth as I pressed forward. I was careful not to push too hard and risk sliding off and announcing my presence by hitting the door with the bar. It took a few moments but I broke through the rust and worked the bolt free. Then I worked on the lower bolt. It was more difficult, but once it got started it came out easily enough. After that I pried the unhinged door free of the jamb and lifted it as far as it would go. It was barely enough for me to squeeze through. I used the crow bar to prop it open, tossed the tape aside, and got down on my stomach and made my way on sore elbows and knees into even more blackness.
    Once inside I found nothing to grab hold of and rolled down the chute to a hard basement floor. I stood and kept still for a few minutes, listening to my breathing, which was the only thing to hear. The air that touched my face was cool and watery, like the air that rushes up from the bottom of a well. Disorientation screwed with my inner compass. I quickly lost sense of where the coal chute was, or where I was in relation to it.
    Finally I picked a direction at random. After a few steps I found a wall and felt my way along it. Made of rocks, it was damp and felt like the walls of a cave. A residue of moisture was applied to my palms with each touch, a dank film that evaporated when I removed my hand and reached for another part of the wall farther down. It took me a minute to cover a few yards, and then the toe of my right sneaker hit something solid.
    I felt around till I was touching something made of wood. I ran my hand across it till I made out the familiar shape of a staircase.
    The door at the top of the stairs led into the kitchen. Even though the lights were off, this darkness was nothing compared to what I had just stumbled through. I could see the appliances and the kitchen table and white cabinets and countertops.
    I stood there in the doorway for a minute and listened and sensed the house around me. I heard nothing but I knew I was not alone. I remembered my experience in Townsend’s cottage and went to the back door and unlocked it, in case I needed out fast. Then I backtracked through the kitchen and moved through a narrow dining room into a living room. Off that room was a study. I started toward it slowly. Below, the furnace kicked on. It sounded like the low, irritable grumble of a waking animal. I felt a slight rumble in the floorboards.
    I reached the door of the study and looked in. There was enough light to see the gun safe and the desk and the glass showcase filled with trophies behind it. The walls were covered from ceiling to floor with framed photographs. I thought of one of those old European estates where paintings of all sizes cover every inch of a wall like pieces of some jigsaw puzzle. The door was halfway open. I eased it the rest of the way with the back of my hand and took a step in.
    You can tell a lot about a man by his study. In Augie’s, like this one, there was a desk and a fireplace, but Augie’s walls only held a half-dozen framed photos. Hanging directly above his safe was a photo of Tina at the age of thirteen, at the firing range, orange ear protectors over her tiny head and safety glasses on the end of her nose and a .45 caught just in the first split second of recoil in both her hands, a puff of gray smoke in the air above the hammer. Standing just behind her, looking toward the target that was well out of frame, was Augie, beaming proudly. There were no photographs of Augie’s late wife anywhere. He had told me that this was because seeing her face just hurt too much.
    Though I wasn’t here to get to know the man better, I was curious what photographs were hanging on his walls. I felt around to the right of the door for the light switch and found it, but before I could throw it I heard the sound of someone rushing up behind me, a rustle of clothes and