We drove around the corner and down the next block until we found an alley between two abandoned warehouses, wide enough to park the truck in and small enough to hide it. Philip Castler and I got out the passenger side, me carrying the portable mini-duffle that keeps me supplied on outings like these while fulfilling that womanly craving for a purse.
Sammy Moapa got out the driver's side, then reached behind the seat for the red metal toolbox. He pulled out a .38 revolver that would have looked huge and bulky in my hand but fit into his meaty palm like a Derringer. He stuck that in his belt underneath his dark trenchcoat, then reached back in for a sawed-off double-barrelled shotgun that I knew from experience was loaded with rock salt.
He looked across to me. "You ready?"
I laid my duffle on the hood and unzipped it. Out came my 9mm in a clip-on holster, which fit snugly at my waist. Two extra clips went into my front pocket. My lockpicking kit went into one back pocket, and a mini Maglite fit into the other one. Tonight's jacket was dark and short enough not to get in the way. I felt a little bulky, but fairly well-equipped.
Castler looked from Sammy to me.
"Um... do I get something?"
"No," I said. "You're here because we need whatever you might know about Mueller and his book, not because we need another trigger finger. If there's trouble, you hang back, make yourself as invisible as you can, and get the hell back here to the truck. Got it?"
"Yeah. I got it." From the look of him, his hands had never felt so empty in his life.
I motioned to Sammy and he took the lead, picking his way down the alley with more agility than one would assume from his size. Castler and I followed him to the other end of the alley, which looked across to the building with the curled swastika on the door.
"What does it mean?" I asked Castler.
"Huh?"
"The swastika. Why is it there?"
"It's some kind of protection. It keeps hostile forces at bay. Supernatural ones. I think."
That fit with what Ernst Vielstich had told me about the swastika being an amulet or symbol of protection. I didn't know if Mueller was trying to keep something out, or something in, but I suppose it was encouraging to see that he was taking at least minimal precautions when dealing with demonic forces from outside this world.
I leaned my head up to Sammy. "Think there's anyone inside?"
"I don't see anything, but I can't be sure."
"Then let's make sure."
I took the lead this time, walking at a casual but brisk pace across the road, my arms folded low on my chest so that my right hand could rest easily on the handle of my gun under my jacket. I crossed straight over and met the wall of the building, then walked along it to the marked door, ducking under the window set in the wall.
Castler and Sammy followed. I waited for them to catch up to me before I put my hand on the door handle and gently twisted. Locked.
There was a small wire-mesh window set in the door. I took a breath, then bobbed my head up like a seal to glance inside before dropping back down.
"Nothing," I said. "All dark."
"Maybe no one's here, then," Castler said.
"Or maybe they just like it dark," Sammy said with no apparent concern.
Beyond the door were two corrugated garage doors, locked at ground level. I got closer and saw line of something dark along the concrete at the bottom of each door, something that had been poured and had dried.
I dropped to one knee to look at it, then even lower to sniff it.
"Is it... blood?" said Castler.
"Wine," I said. "I think it's supposed to be another magical protection. Mueller's setting this entire warehouse up as a safe area to conduct his rituals, the mystical version of having a sterile laboratory."
I searched the garage door until I found the break between two loose metal slats that I had been looking for. I put my eye against it and waited until my vision/ adjusted to the gloom within.
The area just inside was a loading dock. It was empty, but tracks on the floor showed that someone, or several someones, had parked there since the time the warehouse was last legitimately tenanted.
"Well," I said, "it looks like he brings the truck inside whenever he comes here. Which means he isn't here now. Right?"
Castler didn't look like he was ready to commit to my logic. Sammy just shrugged, with the calm assurance of a man who's probably capable of taking on the entire Bolivian Army single-handed.
"All right," I said. "I feel a little too exposed to pick the lock out here. Let's find another window, somewhere not out front."
We went back along the wall, listening for any motor vehicles in the blocks of silence around us.
On the side of the building, in an alley like the one in which we had parked, several windows were set into the wall about nine feet off the ground.
"Lift me up, big guy."
Sammy hoisted me to his shoulders, where I knelt to peer in the windows.
"Damn, woman, you gotta start putting on some weight."
The room inside had been a combination office and storage area, now filled with nothing but empty shelves and dusty desks.
"Hang on," I said.
I struck the bottom edge of the window with the butt end of the mini Maglite a couple of times, until enough glass fell inward for me to wiggle my fingers inside and pull up on the catch. The window swung inward with a screech of metal on metal.
"You got something to land on?" Sammy asked.
"Yeah. But I don't know how I'm going to get you two in here."
"Howsabout you just go around and open the front door for us?"
"Good thinking."
I pulled myself up on my elbows and tugged my stomach in over the sill until I could get one knee in. Then I slowly edged the rest of my body inside, holding my weight up until I could lower both legs and drop to the top of the counter surface below the window.
My foot skidded on a small piece of broken glass that cracked under my heel.
"You okay?" said Sammy from outside.
"Yeah," I answered, and hopped down from the counter to the floor. The room held that sullenness that pervades places long-abandoned, as if they've gotten used to being without human occupancy and don't look kindly on the reintroduction.
"Rennie," Sammy said again. "Better get out to that front door. I think I hear someone coming this way."
