I clicked off the safety on the big Colt, the noise echoing through the darkness. There was no metallic mating call, so either they were unarmed or already in a position to fire.
I leaned out a little farther and could hear someone carefully retreat. I was momentarily distracted by an unpleasant smell but then slowly raised myself from the crouching position, stood, and listened to make sure I was hearing what I thought I was. Satisfied, I took a step and softly moved forward in the darkness on the balls of my cowboy boots. I got halfway down the hall and crunched the broken glass of the forgotten lightbulb.
Every muscle in my body seized as I waited for the incoming bullet.
After about forty seconds, I heard a slight sound and raised the Colt in my hand, aiming it toward the faint glow coming through the tiny window in the door leading to the stairwell where we’d descended.
In one flash of movement, the door was yanked open and somebody threw himself through the opening and let the door slam behind him.
I launched myself and ran down the hall as fast as my limited visibility would allow. I glanced off the wall, caught my balance, and turned right to claw at the handle with my free hand, finally getting some fingers wrapped around it and throwing it open.
Someone’s boots pounded up the concrete steps, and I followed at full speed, making the landing in two strides. I raised the Colt and took aim at the individual who had his back to the door, his empty hands outstretched toward me. “Don’t shoot!”
I looked at Barrett Long. “What the hell are you doing?”
He looked as if his heart might explode from his chest as one hand was placed over it, the other coming up to clutch his forehead. “What the hell are you doing?”
I lowered the. 45 and held out an open hand in supplication. “Investigating.”
His voice was hoarse and whistled in his throat in exasperation as he tried to catch his breath. “In the dark?”
“Sorry.”
He looked around, possibly for his breath. “Jesus.”
I holstered the Colt, more than a little relieved that most likely the possible shooting part of the evening was over. “I’m here with Albert Black Horse. I had an idea and wanted him to show me the old security room.”
He breathed for a moment. “Why didn’t you just ask me?”
“I didn’t figure you were around.”
“I wasn’t actually, but I got a call from Karl Red Fox and some friends of mine who said they thought they might’ve seen somebody breaking into the building.”
“That’d be us.”
“Jesus.” He took a few more deep breaths. “Is my sister with you?”
“No, she had to make a run to Hardin.”
“So, who’s with you again?”
“Albert Black Horse.”
“The casino guy?”
“And retired police chief.”
“Jesus.”
“Let’s go find him before he Tasers somebody.”
The young man turned and pushed the bar on the heavy door, but it didn’t budge. He paused for a second and then pushed on it again, this time with a great deal of force, but the thing didn’t move. “Shit.”
“What?”
He slammed an open palm against it, the echo filling the stairwell. “The damn thing must’ve locked when I came through.”
I stepped next to him and tried pushing on the lever, but it still didn’t move. “That’s strange; this is a fire door, and they’re supposed to always stay open out.”
“The building’s closed.”
I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It’s no big deal-there are three more exits in the basement; we just have to go down and come up another stairwell.”
I pushed off and started down the steps. “All right, but let’s hurry; I don’t want Albert to think that something’s happened-I don’t think his heart can take it.”
Barrett clomped down the steps behind me as I opened the basement door and walked through, my hand still clutching it when I stopped and jammed the doorway with my bulk.
The young man ran into the back of me as I stood there. “Jesus.” He stood still for a moment and then coughed. “Why’d you stop?”
I didn’t move. “Do you smell that?”
“Yeah… Smells like fart.” I ignored him, and he coughed again before leaning forward into the hallway. “What is that?”
I bent down, sniffing the air at a lower level. “Propane-a lot of it.”
16
If the overwhelming smell of the compressed, three-carbon-alkane, one-and-a-half-times-heavier-than-air compound was now at waist height, there was enough propane in the substantial basement to choke us to death, if not blow us to the moon if ignited.
Barrett made a face. “Gas leak?”
“Either that or somebody drove a propane delivery truck into the basement and opened the hatch.” I looked around. “Where are the other exits?”
He pressed himself against the door. “Four corner stairwells and two central on either side, but we should go back up and force this door open.”
“It’s a three-inch metal security door; if it’s been locked on the outside then there’s no way we’re getting out.”
“You think somebody locked it?”
“I don’t know, but Albert Black Horse was down here with me and went upstairs to check the mic designation in the Human Services office, and he didn’t come back.”
Barrett stayed planted. “You’ve got your gun; you could shoot the lock.”
I holstered my. 45 and explained. “With the amount of propane flooding into this basement, discharging a weapon would most assuredly blow us to hell and not necessarily back.” I did a few calculations. “Barrett, this basement is filling with propane, a highly flammable gas that sinks; pretty soon we’re not going to be able to breathe because the oxygen it replaces will be gone. Now, that’s the least of our problems, because if this gas reaches an ignition point like a pilot light or any kind of open flame, this entire basement is going to be like the ass end of a Saturn-V rocket.”
I started off again but then turned and looked at him and then down the hallway at the lightbulb filaments. “Whatever you do, don’t turn on any light switches or anything else for that matter.”
“You think Albert did this to us?”
I sighed, coughed, and breathed in more of the gas as we made our way down the hallway where the smell was even greater. “I don’t know, but somebody’s killing people around here and one of the key elements for pinning it on Artie Small Song is that doctored recording. I’ve got a suspicion that Artie’s side of that recording was made with the security mics in Human Services.”
“The old security recording system?”
“You got it.”
He’d caught up. “When he had that blowup with Audrey?”
“I’d avoid using the term blowup, considering our current situation.”
He shook his head. “There aren’t any fire sources down here; they’re all up in the utility areas.”
“That’s not what concerns me.”
“What, then?”
We arrived at the central stairwell. “I’ll tell you if the doors at the top of these stairs are locked, too.”
We hustled up the steps, and it was with a great deal of resignation that I pushed down on the latch. I pushed again, just to make sure, but there was only a little movement and the doors wouldn’t open. “Damn.”
Barrett stepped in as I peered through the small, rectangular windows and down at the bars on the other side, securely chained together with a heavy padlock. He shoved as hard as he could, but the two doors only budged open about an inch.
“Barrett, do they normally chain the security doors together when the building is closed?”
His eyes were widening a little as the realization of our predicament started settling in. “No, never. It’s against the law.” He went up on tiptoe again to look down at the heavy chains wrapped around the bars on the other side. “Jesus.”
I nodded. “Like rats.”
“We gotta get to another door.”
“They’re all going to be locked.”
His hands slammed against the solid surface. “Then we gotta get this one open.”