L Is for Lawless

while Laura did a quick survey, making sure she hadn't left anything critical. I took the chain off the hook and peered into the corridor both ways, motioning to the two of them. Ray and Laura took a right, heading for the fire stairs at the end of the hall.
    I moved to the left toward the elevators.
    The elevator felt like it was descending at half speed. I watched the lighted floor numbers move from right to left, counting backward in slow motion. When the elevator reached the lobby, there was the customary
ping
and then the doors slid open. Gilbert was standing two feet away, waiting to get on. For a moment, our eyes locked and held. His were bottomless dark holes. I let my gaze drift away casually as I passed, moving off to the right as if on ordinary hotel business. Behind me, the doors slid shut. I checked the lobby for some sign of the county sheriff's deputy. No sign of law enforcement. I picked up my pace, glancing back automatically at the floor indicator lights. The elevator should have been going up. Instead, the light remained frozen where it was. I heard a
ping
and the elevator doors slid open. Gilbert emerged. He stood on the wide expanse of carpeting just outside the elevators, staring in my direction. Crooks and cops often function with a heightened sense of awareness, a clarity of perception born of adrenaline. Their work, and just as often their lives, depend on acumen. Gilbert was apparently a person who registered reality with uncanny accuracy. Something in his expression told me he remembered my face from our one brief encounter at the Santa Teresa airport. How he put me together with Laura Huckaby, I'll never know. The moment was electric, recognition arcing between us like a lightning bolt.
    I kept my pace at "normal" as I turned the corner. I passed the entrance to the coffee shop and turned right again into a short corridor with three doors leading off it: one blank, one marked Authorized Personnel Only, one marked Maintenance. The minute I was out of Gilbert's visual range, I broke into a run, my shoulder bag thumping against my hip. I slammed through the unmarked door and found myself in a barren back hallway I hadn't seen before. The concrete floor and bare concrete walls curved around to the left. The walls extended upward into the fading light until the upper reaches disappeared into darkness. There was no ceiling in view, but a series of thick ropes and chains hung motionless among the shadows. I passed empty racks of serving trays, wooden pallets packed with glassware, stacks of linen tablecloths, carts filled with plates in assorted sizes. Bank after bank of stacked chairs lined the walls, narrowing the passage in places.
    My footsteps
chunked
softly, the sound blunted by the rubber tread on my Reeboks. I had to guess that this was a service corridor, bordering a banquet room, a circle within a circle with access to freight elevators and the kitchens one floor down. A short flight of stairs led upward. I grabbed the handrail and pulled myself along, skipping steps as I ran. The shoulder bag made me feel like I was dragging an anchor, but I couldn't part with it. At the top, the corridor continued. Here, stacked against the walls, were various seasonal decorations: Christmas angels, artificial spruce trees, two enormous interlocking comedy/tragedy masks, gilded wooden putti and cupids, enormous Valentine hearts pierced with golden arrows. A grove of silk ficus suggested a small interior forest bereft of birds and other wildlife.
    Behind me, I heard a door hinge squeak. I picked up my pace, following the deserted corridor. A metal ladder that looked like an interior fire escape scaled its way up the wall on my left. I let my eye take the journey first, uncertain what was up there. I glanced back, dimly aware that someone was coming along the corridor behind me. I grabbed the first rung and headed up, Reeboks
tinking
as I climbed. I paused at the top, which was some twenty feet up. A steel catwalk stretched out along the wall ahead of me. I was close enough to the ceiling to reach up and touch it. The catwalk itself was less than three feet wide. Below me, through the yawning shadows, the floor looked like a flat still river of concrete. The only thing that kept me from falling was a chain rail supported by metal uprights. As usual, when confronted with heights, my greatest fear was the irresistible urge to fling myself off.
    I slowed to a creeping pace, hugging the wall. I didn't dare