Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 124, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 757 & 758, September/October 2004

The Gin Mill by Doug Allyn

If there’s one thing six-time Readers Award winner Doug Allyn knows how to do, it’s to create characters readers want to see again. Though the phenomenal storyteller says he doesn’t like the idea of creating ongoing series, he often ends up doing so due to the popularity of his creations. The cast of the following story’s a good example: We saw them last year in the Readers Award-winning “Palace in the Pines.” Mr. Allyn’s new novel is The Burning of Rachel Hayes (Five Star).

Sunday morning in Malverne, a quaint little resort town dreaming on the shores of Lake Michigan. Autumn in the air, maples and elm trees streaked with auburn and burnished gold, the sweet scent of burning leaves perfuming the breeze. Lawns trimmed, sidewalks swept. Older homes faithfully maintained. The kind of town where people walk to church of a Sunday morning.

Not me. I was here strictly for the money. Scrounging for work on my day off.

Driving slowly, I threaded my pickup through the downtown business district. What there was of it. Like many western Michigan towns, Malverne was on hard times. I knew the feeling.

My computer map was perfect. Took us straight to the Belknap Building.

The old red-brick five-and-dime store towered above its neighbors, five stories tall, filling half a block. At street level, its display windows were soaped over, filled with crudely lettered signs. FINAL DAYS! GOING OUT OF BUSINESS! EVERYTHING MUST GO! From the shabby look of things, everything had gone. A long time ago.

A few windows in the second story still had glass in them. The upper stories were completely closed up, rows of gabled windows blinded with weather-stained plywood panels, eyeless and forlorn.

“Dynamite,” Puck said grimly.

I glanced at him.

“Four sticks. We plant one at each corner, blow this baby into a big-ass brick pile, truck her to a landfill, and start over.”

“C’mon, it’s not that bad.” A major difference between us. Eyeing that relic of a building, Puck saw nothing but head-aches. I saw a big-budget remodeling job that would keep my construction crew working indoors through the winter. Assuming the old brick monstrosity didn’t come crashing down on our heads the first time somebody sneezed.

A new SUV pulled to the curb behind my pickup truck. A woman climbed out. Big woman. I’m six foot and she looked almost as tall. Dressed in denim, matching jeans and jacket, fashionably faded. So was she. Late thirties, easing into forty. Raven hair showing a few flecks of gray, careworn eyes. But still a very handsome package.

Puck and I joined her on the sidewalk.

“Mr. Shea? I’m Olympia Belknap. Pia, for short. Thanks for coming.” We shook hands, looking each other over. I was wearing a sport coat over a flannel shirt, jeans. Work boots. Hadn’t shaved for a day or two. North-country business chic.

“Sunday’s a down day for us anyway, Mrs. Belknap. This is my foreman, Dolph Paquette. Puck, to his friends. And everybody else.”

“Ma’am.” Puck nodded. A long speech, for him.

“Have you looked over the floor plans?” she asked.

“I checked them, but Puck hasn’t. Why don’t you run the project past us?”

“All right. Simply put, Central Michigan University plans to build a satellite campus on the far side of the river. Six thousand students. I want to convert this white elephant of a building into off-campus housing. The ground floor will be subdivided into four units of commercial space. I already have options for two of them, a Borders bookstore and a Radio Shack. They’ll supply their own requirements once the building is up to code. The other two units are to be prepped for rental: cleaned, carpeted, wiring and lighting brought up to commercial standards. Are you with me so far?”

“You haven’t scared us off yet. Go on.”

“I want the four upper floors converted to condominium-sized apartments, eight per floor. Each unit will consist of three bedrooms, two baths, full kitchen facilities. In addition, each floor will have its own laundry room, fitness center, tanning salon, and a communal game room with large-screen televisions and state-of-the-art Internet hookups. How does that strike you?”

“Like a place I’d like to live but couldn’t afford.”

“I meant as a project, Mr. Shea,” she said impatiently. “Is it something you’re interested in doing or not?”

“I don’t know yet. It depends on the condition of the structure. If the building’s solid, then the project should be feasible. Can we do a walk-through?”

“Certainly. This way.” She set off at a pace so brisk I had to trot to catch up. Puck didn’t bother, taking his time, looking things over. Pia Belknap unlocked the dime store’s front doors first. Rundown counters, grimy linoleum-tiled floors, fluorescent tubes hanging on rusty chains from the high ceiling. About what I expected. A mess. But fixable.

“Do you have a timetable in mind?” I asked doubtfully.

“It’s mid October now. Ideally, I’d like the first floor finished by Christmas, the apartments above prepped and ready by next July. Is that possible?”

I glanced the question at Puck.

He nodded. “Structure looks sound. The guys who did the original brickwork were craftsmen. Building must be a hundred years old, should last another hundred easy. Some of the bearing walls have been knocked out but the jack posts are still in place. Rebuild the partitions, level the floor, rewire everything from the ground up. Having the first floor ready by Christmas shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Okay,” I said. Puck Paquette is a rangy, wind-burned Canuck who moves slow and talks slower. Impatient people assume he’s lazy or even stupid. He’s neither. He’s a deliberate man.

Like me, he learned this trade from the business end of a hammer. He’s good with machinery and men, not so hot with figures. Puck couldn’t price out a job like this if his life depended on it. But he definitely knows whether a project is doable and what it’ll take to make it happen.

“Shall we continue?” Pia Belknap asked.

The second floor was a rabbit warren of small rooms, dusty, dimly lit. Apparently they’d been used for storage during the dime store’s heyday. The wallpaper was faded, but the partitions looked solid, even the doors still hung true.

Puck and I were more interested in the outer walls. No staining or bowing; they looked as solid as the day they were put up. Our eyes met; Puck nodded.

I glanced down the long corridor, frowning. “What was this place? Originally, I mean?”

“It was a combination lumberman’s hotel and mercantile building, built by my late husband’s great-grandfather. There were shops and a general store on the ground floor, hotel rooms above. In a sense, we’ll be restoring it to what it once was.”

“Only better, I hope,” I said. “Let’s see the rest of it.”

“Actually, this is as far as we can go. The building hasn’t been occupied for more than twenty years and the stairways to the upper floors were sealed off even then. I haven’t been able to find a way up, but according to the original plans, the floors above are more of the same.”

“We’ll need to see the roof,” Puck said.

“There’s a fire escape out back. Will that do?”

It did. The rear of the building faced a parking lot, with a loading dock probably used by wagons when it was built. Still, the fire escape seemed as sound as the rest of it, heavy wrought iron that barely vibrated as Puck and I made our way up to the roof, leaving Mrs. Belknap pacing impatiently below.

A long climb, but worth it. One hell of a view. Across the parking lot, an old factory as vacant as the Belknap Building. Beyond it to the west, Lake Michigan rolled away into the glittering distance. Ashore, the town spread out around us, quaint as an Amish quilt draped over the foothills. Higher up, multistory mansions stood like sentries overlooking the village.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“Definitely a fine-lookin’ woman. And a rich widow to boot? Wish to hell I was twenty years younger.”

“So do I, Puck. What about the job?”

“I’d say it’s doable, Danny. Roof’s sound, no sign of termites or water damage below, which is the big worry in a box this old. Walls look solid, almost perfect, in fact. Five stories of brickwork, not a crack or a bulge. They don’t build ’em like this no more.”

“It’s outdated, though. The wiring will have to be completely replaced.”

“That won’t be so tough. Electricity was still new at the turn of the century when this sucker went up, so they ran the wiring in exposed conduits alongside the plumbing. It’ll be easy to get at.”

“How do you know it was built at the turn of the century?”

“See that big water tank at the corner of the roof? Before nineteen ten, water pressure in small towns couldn’t climb above two stories. Taller buildings like this one had to have their own tanks. I’d guess this one went up in, say... eighteen ninety-six.”

“Wow, you’re exactly right,” I said, surprised. “The date was on the plans she sent me. I’m impressed. How could you guess that from a water tank?”

“Because the date’s stamped on the side, you young punk.” Puck grinned. “We gonna take this job or not?”

“Looks workable to me and the lady can afford it. The Belknaps own half of this town and then some. Old money.”

“New, old, just so it spends. We’ll have to add some crew, a couple gofers, and at least one finish carpenter for the interior work.”

“We’re only forty miles north of Grand Rapids here. Should be able to pick ’em up locally. Let’s nail this deal down before the lady changes her mind.”

Ten days later, we invaded. Rolled into Malverne after dark, a caravan of work vans and pickup trucks. A gypsy construction crew, eight men plus Puck and me. North-country boys from up around Valhalla. Wild and woolly and rough around the edges. Hard workers who knew their trades.

We ripped into the Belknap Building like a wrecking crew, gutting the old storefront, tearing out counters, ripping up the tile floor. Filled three dumpsters with debris the first day, another three on the second. By then we were working in the glare of generator lights as the electricians ran new power lines in from the street to the basement.

Pia Belknap checked in every day to see how we were doing, but she didn’t kibitz and didn’t hang around long. Which was good. Pretty women and construction sites are a risky mix. They can break your heart. Or make you saw off your hand.

Work on the first floor went quicker than expected. But as we began moving up to the second floor we hit major problems.

Puck guessed right, the building’s original wiring was neatly boxed in with the plumbing. But nothing else was where it was supposed to be.

Walls didn’t line up. Stairways were missing, apparently torn out or walled over. Crazy as it sounds, we couldn’t find access to the upper floors anywhere in the building. Even the power lines ended at the second floor.

“I don’t understand,” Pia Belknap said, frowning over the blueprints I had spread out on a table in an empty second-floor office. “These are the plans registered with the zoning board.”

“My guess is the building was remodeled at some point and for some reason they didn’t register those changes. Maybe they were trying to avoid zoning or building codes. Is there anyone who might be able to tell us what was done?”

“My husband’s grandfather worked here many years ago,” she said doubtfully. “I can ask, but he may not remember. Some days he’s a little hazy about who I am.”

“I have days like that myself.” I sighed. “Look, this isn’t a deal breaker, Mrs. Belknap. I can redraw the plans as we go, but meanwhile we’re working blind. An updated set of blueprints would be a huge help.”

After she left, I scanned the plans again, trying to make sense of the measurements. Couldn’t. They simply didn’t line up. Hell, even the office I was in was the wrong size. According to the drawings, this room was supposed to be twelve foot by eighteen, but it was obviously smaller. I quickly paced it off. Twelve by twelve, period. Not an inch more.

So what happened to the missing six feet? Frustrated, I grabbed a hammer and pounded a fist-sized hole through the wallboard. And saw the inside of the wallboard to the next room. An ordinary partition, six inches thick, tops.

Crossing to the opposite wall, I repeated the process. Or tried to. The hammer chipped the wallboard but rebounded. This wall was solid. And it shouldn’t have been. According to the drawings, the building’s outer walls were plaster laid over lath. I should have punched through it easily.

Frowning, I examined the wall more carefully. And found a seam in the corner almost perfectly concealed by the vertical molding strip. A false wall.

I pressed it, trying to gauge its strength, and it moved. Slid slightly to the left. Easing the hammer claw into the gap, I moved it a little further... and it just kept on going. Disappeared neatly into the adjoining wall. A sliding panel. That concealed a freight elevator.

I’ll be damned. What was this about? I stepped into the cage, felt it shudder a little under my feet, giving me pause. How old was this contraption?

No roof on it, only a yoke supported by heavy steel cables that snaked up into the yawning darkness overhead.

Couldn’t see a thing up there. The building’s power was off and the generator-powered work lights in the office only cast shadows in the elevator. Grabbing a flashlight off my worktable, I played it around overhead.

An empty shaft, three stories, straight up. Couldn’t see a landing on the next floor up. Or even the one above that. Apparently this elevator went from the basement to the top floor. Which made no sense at all. Why go to all this trouble to conceal it?

No floor numbers on the controls, just three buttons: up, down, stop. I glanced around, wondering how many years ago this relic had been boxed in, and why. I absently tapped one of the buttons — and the elevator lurched upward!

Stumbling back, I banged off the wall and went down. The elevator cage was still climbing upward, bucking beneath me like a ship in a hurricane. Somewhere in the dark a lift motor was howling like a mad thing, straining to shift rusty cables as stiff as steel beams. Naked light bulbs flared to life in the shaft overhead, revealing quivering wire ropes, then exploding, raining down fiery sparks and broken glass.

The cage was shaking so fiercely I couldn’t get to my feet. So I crawled across the bucking floor on hands and knees, groping for the off switch—

With a deafening bang, something snapped. The cage floor dropped out from under me, plunging six or eight feet before jerking to a halt, slamming me into the floor face-first, knocking my wind out.

And then I was scrambling desperately to get out of the way as the elevator cable came whistling down out of the dark, crashing into the cage, whirling around like a crazed snake, gouging the walls and floor as it coiled and recoiled on itself.

Its jagged head tore into my jeans, slashing my leg open — and then, suddenly, everything stopped. I sat up slowly, my head ringing like an alarm bell, shin on fire, blood oozing through my torn Levi’s.

Puck’s face appeared in the opening above, ashen, wide-eyed.

“Danny? You okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“What the hell happened?”

“Don’t know that, either.” Swallowing, I took a deep breath, then got slowly to my feet, taking inventory. Both arms and legs worked all right, no bones broken. Left shoulder was sore as hell where I landed on it.

Checked my leg. The ragged end of the broken cable had sliced a five-inch gash across my shin. Bleeding pretty good, but it didn’t look too deep. Shin cuts always bleed a lot.

Okay. Working construction, hard knocks come with the territory. I was banged up, but not seriously. No thanks to the Belknap Building. That broken steel cable could just as easily have taken off my head.

“Danny?”

“I’m okay, Puck. The freakin’ building just tried to kill me, is all.”

“What happened?”

“Damned if I know. I hit the switch and the elevator kicked on but the cables were too rusty to take the strain. One snapped. Cage dropped half a story before the automatic brakes grabbed it.”

“What do you mean, it kicked on? There’s no juice in here. The mains are disconnected, all the power to the building is completely off.”

“All I know is this cage jumped the second I hit the switch. Motor sounded like it was above me, so there must be juice up there somewhere and we’d better find it before somebody gets fried. I’ve had enough surprises out of this place. Slide a ladder down here before this damned cage drops me into the basement!”

No need to see a doctor. Mafe Rochon patched me up. Mafe is Ojibwa, full-blood. Hard drinker, serious bar-fighter, a major attitude case. We’ve tangled more than once. I put up with him because he’s, swear to God, a genius with a torch. Mafe can cut metal or join it together so seamlessly you can scarcely see the line. But when you hire Mafe for his talent, his craziness comes with the deal.

As a bonus, I got an on-the-job medic, a skill Mafe picked up in the army before they booted him out. He’s a fair hand at patching people back together. He’s even better at busting them up.

Mafe was taping up my leg when Olympia Belknap showed up for her daily update.

“My God,” she said, paling at my ragged, bloodstained jeans. “What happened?”

“Nothing heavy. Broken cable. On the upside, I solved our bogus floor-plan problem. There’s a false wall at the east end of the building that conceals a freight elevator. Looks like there’s another false wall at the opposite end, too. Puck’s up on the roof, trying to find a way down...”

I broke off, listening to a strange shuffling sound. Footsteps, coming closer. From somewhere inside the walls.

Easing down off the table, I walked down the corridor, listening, as the footsteps drew closer. Mafe and Pia followed.

The sound stopped. So did I. Facing a blank wall.

“Danny?” Puck’s voice was muffled. “You out there?”

“Yeah. Where are you?”

“Back away from the wall, this thing’s nailed shut.” A couple of resounding kicks, and suddenly the wall burst outward. Swung open, actually. A concealed door, blended perfectly to match the paneling. Just inside, Puck was standing on a stairway, dusting himself off.

“Come on up,” he said quietly. “You’ve gotta see this.”

“The third and fourth floors are old hotel rooms,” he explained as we followed him up the stairway. “Once they sealed the doors off on the second floor, there was no other way up.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “They aren’t just closed off, they’re hidden.”

“You’ll see why in a minute.”

The stairway ended on the fifth-floor landing, facing a magnificent double door. Oaken, with leaded-glass panels.

I pushed through it, and stopped. Stunned.

It was a nightclub. A long, low-ceilinged room, filled with tables. A massive oaken bar at one end, bandstand at the other, facing a large dance floor with a mirrored ball turning slowly overhead, filling the room with swirling lights. Only a few lamps along the walls were still functional, but even in their wan glow, you could see how strange it all was.

The tables were still draped with dusty linen; some had plates, glasses, and silverware still in place, as though the revelers had just stepped out for a moment. Music stands still filled the stage, and there was a microphone up front. The bar still appeared to be stocked with liquor...

A long sigh filled the room. As though the building were taking a deep breath. It sounded so... human, we all took an involuntary step closer to each other.

Puck glanced the question at me, eyes wide.

“Probably the wind,” I shrugged. “Or maybe an air vent opening. The place has been closed up a long time.”

“It doesn’t look like it,” Olympia said, wandering slowly among the tables. “Except for the dust, it could have closed ten minutes ago. Look, some of the plates still have food on them, or what’s left of it. What happened here? Where did the people go?”

“It’s your building,” I said. “Don’t you know?”

“I’m not from Malverne; I never heard of this town before I married Bob. When I asked his grandfather about the problems with the floor plans, he just said to stay away from this building. That it’s a terrible place.”

“What did he mean by that?”

“I have no idea. I told you he’s a little drifty sometimes. That was all he’d say and it was the longest conversation I’ve had with him in months.”

“I see,” I nodded, though I really didn’t. “In that case, do you know anyone else we can ask?”

“It was called the Gin Mill,” Artie Cohen said, looking around the room, grinning like a schoolboy. He even looked like one, a gawky, fifty-year-old schoolboy with an unruly salt-and-pepper mop, sweater vest, and bow tie. Editor of the Malverne Banner, amateur historian. “My father told me about this place when I was a kid. I assumed it had all been torn out years ago.”

“Obviously not,” Pia Belknap said impatiently. “What can you tell us about it?”

“Quite a bit, I think. This building was originally a hotel, built for the lumber trade around the turn of the century. By the ’twenties, the lumber was gone, so when Prohibition came in, the Belknaps converted the top floor of the hotel to a blind pig.”

“A blind—?” Pia echoed.

“Blind pig, speakeasy. An illegal drinking establishment. A gin mill. A very classy one, I might add. Wow. Being in here is like stepping back in time. Look at that bar.”

“It’s great,” I agreed. “So what happened to the place?”

“When Prohibition ended, they tried going legit, but things were tough in Malverne during the Depression. A lot of businesses closed, including the hotel. Then World War Two came along and saved everybody.”

“How so?”

“The town boomed. Literally. Guncotton, a component in artillery shells, can be made from tag alder, a trash tree that grows wild around here. The Belknaps built a plant to process the stuff, and landed a big government contract. Which is where the trouble started. Malverne’s a small town. So many men had already enlisted there was almost no local labor available.”

“What did they do?”

“They brought in blacks,” Cohen said simply. “There’s a village nearby called Idlewild, a black enclave in those days. Cyrus hired nearly two hundred colored folks to work in the plant. And when locals refused to rent rooms to them, he put them up in this hotel. And reopened the nightclub. As a black and tan — a place where blacks and whites could mix. Remember, in those days most of the country still had Jim Crow laws. Segregation was the rule, even in little backwaters like this one.”

“So this was a black nightclub?” Olympia said, glancing around the room, taking it all in.

“More or less,” Artie agreed. “And the place was a gold mine. Had a built-in crowd from the hotel. Cy hired a colored band from Detroit, Coley Barnes and the... Barnstormers, I think they were called. A big band. People flocked here from all over — Grand Rapids, Detroit, even Chicago. The place rebuilt the Belknap family fortune...” He trailed off, reading the surprise in Olympia’s face. “I’m sorry, I meant no offense.”

“None taken. I knew Bob’s family was wealthy, I just assumed... you know. Business or real estate, that sort of thing.”

“They did all of those things later, but their original bundle came from bootlegging, guncotton, and this gin mill.”

“What happened to the place?” I asked. “Why was it abandoned like this?”

“There was a holdup,” Artie said. “The summer of ’forty-five. The war was ending, so the government canceled the munitions contract. The Belknaps had to lay off the workers and close the factory, which pretty much emptied the hotel. Old Cy tried to keep the club operating, but there was no business. He was getting ready to close it down when Coley Barnes did it for him.”

“The bandleader?” Olympia said.

“Yep. Held the place up at gunpoint, roughed some people up, and took off with the money and another man’s wife. The Gin Mill closed down that night, never reopened.”

“Until now,” Pia Belknap said quietly. I glanced at her.

“Look at this place,” she continued, walking slowly around the dance floor. “The bar, the bandstand, all these authentic fixtures? This place has an incredible retro atmosphere you couldn’t replicate for a million dollars. And it’s already here, free and clear. Could you bring the Gin Mill up to code, Mr. Shea?”

“I suppose so,” I said, chewing my lip. “It’ll need to be rewired, but we planned to do that anyway. The plumbing and light fixtures will have to be updated, but beyond that...” I shrugged. “Hell, the place looks like it closed a few weeks ago. How much trouble can it be?”

A lot.

I had Puck scope out the saloon while I rode herd on the crew remodeling the first-floor storefronts. At street level, we were well ahead of schedule. Which was a good thing. Because the upper floors were another story.

“Thing is, the Gin Mill may have closed in ’forty-five, but it was built back during Prohibition,” Puck explained. We were at the Lakefront Diner, a little mom-and-pop joint just up the street from the Belknap. Our unofficial lunch-break spot. Cheap grub, draft beer in Mason jars. My kind of place.

The crew was at a large table, scarfing down enough chow for a small army. Puck and I were sharing a booth in the corner.

“The biggest problem is the wiring. They ran it in from the factory across the parking lot, snaked it up phony drains so it wouldn’t show on the hotel’s electric bill.”

“So? We’ll have to replace it anyway.”

“Hell, Danny, we can’t even turn it off without getting access to the old guncotton factory and it’s locked down tight as a drum.”

“No kidding? So what’s it like inside?”

“About what you’d expect.” Puck grinned. “I got in through the skylight. The place folded the same time as the Gin Mill. Looks like they just turned off the lights and locked the doors. All the machinery’s still in place and some of the storage rooms even have guncotton in them.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“Nah. It’ll burn but that’s all. They only made the raw material here. The explosives were added to it somewhere else. I found the electric power lines against the back wall. I shut them down, but they’ll have to be disconnected.”

“Good. What else?”

“That water reservoir tank on the roof? It holds a couple thousand gallons, and it’s nearly full. Must weigh seven, eight tons.”

“Dangerous?”

“Nah. Tank’s in good shape and the building could support one twice that size. Still, it’s a lot of weight, and we should drain it, only the pipes were cut off years ago. We’ll need a permit to pump it into the storm drains.”

“I’ll get one and—”

“Dan Shea?”

I glanced up. Three men, one in a suit, two in work clothes like my guys. All big.

“I’m Jack Romanik,” the guy in the suit said. “Carpenters and Laborers Union, Local 486. You called my office a few days ago looking for some men.” He eased his bulk into the booth without asking. Puck slid over to give him room. Romanik needed it. Lard ass, roll of flab around the middle, pasty face, double chins. Razor-cut hair worn collar-length. Manicured nails buffed to a soft shine. Not exactly a working stiff. He didn’t offer to shake hands. Neither did I.

“Actually, I called last week, Mr. Romanik, but who’s counting? I need two journeymen and a finish carpenter. Hard workers. Can you help me out?”

“Three men? You’re sure there’s nothing else I can do for you, Shea? Give you a back rub, maybe?”

“I don’t follow you.”

“Then I’ll spell it out.” He leaned across the table, his face inches from mine. “You come into my town with your raggedy-ass backwoods crew, steal a big job away from my people, then you want us to help you out?”

“Hey, I didn’t steal this job, Mr. Romanik, I bid for it like everybody else. We won it fair and square, and all my guys are in the union, so what’s your problem?”

“I don’t have a problem, Shea, you do. You stole a job that’s too big for you. You need at least six more men.”

“Three will do fine.”

“And three’s what you’ll get. But you’ll carry six on your payroll.”

“Ah. I get three workers, but pay for six? And the three no-shows, they’d be you and your two pals here, right?”

“Who they are is none of your business, Shea. Consider it a tax for poaching.”

“Poaching?” Puck echoed. “Sonny, I was in the union when you were still—”

“Put a cork in it, Pops, nobody’s talking to you.” Romanik didn’t even look at Puck. Too busy trying to stare me down. Big mistake.

Puck glanced the question at me. I gave him a “Why not?” shrug. And Puck popped him. Clipped Romanik with his elbow, just above the ear. The blow only traveled about five inches. And fifty-odd years. But it hit Romanik so hard his eyes rolled back. He was out cold before his face bounced off the table.

“Damn it, Puck!” I griped, sliding out of the booth. “Look what you did! The guy’s gonna bleed all over my hash browns.” By now I was up, facing Romanik’s thugs, who were still staring in stunned surprise. “Just chill out, fellas,” I whispered. “Don’t buy into this.”

The goons looked past me. Mafe Rochon and my crew were already up and grinning, eyes alight at the prospect of kicking some ass for dessert.

The biggest thug shook his head. Smarter than he looked. A pity.

“Good man,” I nodded. “Now get your boss out of here before anybody else has an... accident. Okay?”

“You won’t get away with this,” the goon muttered as he and his pal helped Romanik up, heading toward the door. “We’ll file a complaint with the union. We’ll get you all canned.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” I said. “If we’re unemployed, we’ll have plenty of spare time to hunt you up. We’ll make messing with you a full-time job. Tell your boss that. When he wakes up. And tell him anybody he sends nosing around my job site had best have his major medical paid up. Clear? Now take a hike.”

They hiked. We finished our lunch. But our problems were just starting. Later that day, Mafe found the booze.

“I’m workin’ in the basement,” he explained, grinning like a kid in a candy store as we toured the miniature brewery. “I’m tracin’ down power lines when all of a sudden I smell it. Whiskey. Swear to God.”

“I believe you.” I sighed. The four stills were in a concealed room in the back of the basement. Invisible to the eye. But not to an educated nose.

There were even a few bottles on a shelf. “Belknap’s Best,” Mafe read, blowing the dust off one of them. “Best what, I wonder?”

“Put it back,” I said. “We’ll have to turn it over to the law.”

“Are you nuts? This stuff’s gotta be fifty years old! Lemme have one taste, anyway.” He took a deep draught, came up sputtering. “Whoa! Tastes like turpentine. But, man, what a helluva kick.” He started to raise the bottle again. I snatched it out of his hands.

“One more jolt and you’re fired, Mafe.”

“You gotta be kiddin’, Danny.”

“Do I sound like I’m kiddin’? You know the rules.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mafe said, wiping his mouth with the back of a greasy hand. “You’re no fun anymore, Shea.”

“He never was,” Puck snorted. “Boy was born forty years old. Hey, check out the setup, boys, a Michigan twist. Car radiators instead of copper line to distill the hooch. Model T Fords, looks like, from the ’twenties. Must have set all this up during Prohibition, used it right on through the war. No booze shortages at the ole Gin Mill. Who do we report this to, Danny? Eliot Ness?”

“We’ll let Mrs. Belknap worry about that. Meantime, nail the door shut, Puck.”

“What the hell, Danny,” Mafe protested. “Don’t you trust me?”

“No,” I said.

“Don’t take it personal, Mafe,” Puck added. “He don’t trust nobody else, neither.”

Mafe laughed. But Puck wasn’t kidding.

I’d been staying at an el cheapo motel outside Malverne, but after the hassle with Romanik and his goons, I moved a sleeping bag into the Belknap Building. Just in case.

There were plenty of bedrooms, two floors’ full. But I felt most comfortable sleeping in my office on the floor. Very lightly.

Which is why I heard the truck.

Early the next morning, six A.M. or so, a vehicle pulled up out front. Snapping awake in a heartbeat, I crossed to a window with a view of the street. A pickup truck was parked at the curb, engine idling, driver eyeing the building. Checking the place out before he made a move.

I made mine first. Grabbing a chunk of two-by-four, I trotted out to the truck. Black guy at the wheel. I rapped on the side window and he rolled it down.

Café-au-lait complexion, work clothes. Calm brown eyes. “Yeah?”

“It’s awful early, pal. What are you doing out here?”

“It’s a public street, isn’t it?”

“Sure it is, but we’ve had some trouble. So I’m asking. Politely. Is there something you want?”

“I’m looking for Dan Shea.”

“Why?”

“That’s my business.”

“Mine too. I’m Shea.”

“Really? You don’t look much like a boss.”

“I’m still Dan Shea. Want to check my driver’s license?”

He smiled. A good one. Warmed his whole face. “I’m Guyton Crowell,” he said, offering his hand. “I’m looking for a job. I’m a finish carpenter. Got a notebook here with some of my work in it.”

He passed me the ring binder and I flipped through the photographs. Kitchen cabinets, entertainment centers, even a spiral staircase, all expertly crafted.

“You do good work,” I said. “Or you fake good pictures. Did the union send you down here?”

“Nah, I heard you were fixing up this building, thought I’d come down, see if I could help out.”

“Why?”

“My granddad worked here years ago. A waiter in the old Gin Mill. Had an accident. Fell down some stairs. Lost his sight.”

“Tough break.”

“Could have been worse. Old Cyrus Belknap took care of him. Paid his hospital bills, put him through a trade school. Did the same for my dad, later on. Back in the day, the Belknaps hired black people when nobody else would. I figure maybe I owe them something for that. Anything else you want to know?”

“Yeah. When can you start?”

Guyton Crowell was a treasure. A master craftsman, easy to get along with. He even hit it off with Mafe Rochon. Had Mafe laughing till the tears came two minutes after they met. A rare talent. One I envied.

Crowell also found me the journeymen I needed. Two young guys fresh out of trade school. Hard workers. I told Guyton about our trouble with the union but he shrugged it off.

“This local’s no help to Aframericans. But folks around Idlewild still remember what the Belknaps did for ’em during the War. You just let me know if you need any more people.”

Actually, I was getting more people than I needed. Artie Cohen, the gawky Banner editor, came by my second-floor war room of an office a few days later, with an older black gentleman in tow. A slender man, maybe seventy, a halo of silver hair around a bald pate, granny glasses, expensive gray suit, and a Moroccan leather briefcase.

“Mr. Shea, this is Reverend James Jackson, of the First Bethel Baptist Church. We were wondering if we could see the old Gin Mill.”

“It’s not exactly prepped for tourists—”

“I don’t mind a little dust,” Jackson said quickly. “It would mean a lot to me, Mr. Shea. My mother used to work there. And Artie said you had some questions about the old days...?”

I had plenty of them, but I saved them until we were actually in that strange, silent room with the moving lights from its revolving mirrored ball dappling the dance floor and the tables.

Jackson looked it over, then walked slowly to the stage, staring up at the microphone for a long time. Then he nodded. When he turned to me, his eyes were misty.

“I was here a few times, as a boy. Twelve or thirteen in those days. Rehearsal days. My mama sang with the band, Coley Barnes and his Barnstormers. Lula Mae Jackson. Went by the name Misirlou. Wonderful singer. My daddy was high church, didn’t approve of Mama singing here, but she loved it so. And truth was, the family needed the money. I brought some pictures with me.”

Opening his briefcase, he took out several old black-and-white 8x10 photographs, publicity shots for the band. “That’s the Barnstormers. A big band: five reeds, four brass, piano, bass, and drums. That’s Mama at the microphone.” A tall, slim woman in a dated dress, old-timey hairdo. “She was beautiful,” I said.

“I thought so.” Jackson smiled. “The tall, thin fella next to her is Mr. Coley Barnes. Wonderful trumpet player. Sounded like a cross between Harry James and Louis Armstrong, only better. Played so fine that some folks said he’d been down to the crossroads.”

“The crossroads?” I asked.

“You know the old legend. Swapped his soul to the devil in trade for his talent. Superstitious nonsense, of course, but that man surely could play a trumpet. And the way things turned out, he maybe knew the devil by his first name.”

“What did happen, exactly?” I asked. “Artie said there was a robbery.”

Jackson nodded. “On the Gin Mill’s last Saturday night. The Barnstormers finished at two A.M. and the club emptied out. Afterward, a few folks hung around, drinkin’. Coley Barnes, my mama, some fellas from the band, old Cy Belknap. ’Course Cy wasn’t old then, wasn’t much more than a kid himself. Twenty, maybe. That’s Cy in this picture here.”

Jackson handed me a photo of the Gin Mill staff. Waiters, waitresses, black and white, all young, looking very proper in aprons, white shirts, bow ties. A lanky kid in a zoot suit stood at the rear. Glaring at the camera, hard-eyed. Trying to look older. Trying to look tough. I knew that feeling well. I passed the photo on to Artie.

“The way I heard it, Coley Barnes pulled a gun, made Cy empty the till. Pistol-whipped him, hurt him bad. Then Coley and the others took off. Took my mama with him. Nate Crowell, Guyton’s grandfather, was there that night. Just a kid, but he’d been drinkin’, too. When the trouble started he ran, fell down the stairs. Lost his sight. It was a terrible thing, all of it.”

“And your mother? Did she come back?”

“No, she never did. Or the others, either. They stayed gone, long gone.”

“Didn’t the police ever—?”

“Police weren’t called into it. Cy Belknap was pretty bitter about what happened. Maybe he had a right to be. Wouldn’t talk about it after, not to police or anybody else. With the A-bomb dropping on Japan and the war ending, nobody worried much about a gin-mill stickup. But there were rumors...”

“What kind of rumors?”

“You have to understand what those times were like. A lot of local rednecks resented blacks getting wartime factory jobs. Both the KKK and Black Legion had chapters here. There was talk maybe Coley and the others were caught by the Klan, lynched, and buried in the pineywoods. Maybe that’s why they never came back.”

“Do you think that’s possible?” Artie asked.

“I don’t know, and it’s a terrible thing not knowing the truth.” Reverend Jackson sighed. “Which is worse, Mr. Shea? Thinking your mama might have been killed all those years ago? Or that she stayed gone because she cared more for her trumpet-playin’ man than her own children?”

I had no answer for him. But I often thought of Reverend Jackson in the following weeks. The pain of loss in his eyes, even after all the time that had passed. It’s not fair. Good memories fade away while bad ones sting forever, painful as ripping a bandage off an open wound.

But I was too busy to worry about Jackson for long. The remodeling was going well. I was sure we could meet the Christmas deadline for phase one. If we didn’t get fired.

Olympia Belknap and I were checking over the condominium plans when the doorway darkened. Huge guy standing there, ancient as an oak and nearly as tall. Black suit, white shirt, a cane clutched in one gnarled fist.

“Grandfather?” Pia said, surprised. “What are you doing here? Mr. Shea, this is my husband’s grandfather—”

“Cyrus Belknap,” I finished for her, offering the old gentleman my hand. “I saw your picture the other day.”

“Who the hell are you?” the old man asked, ignoring my hand. “Pia’s new boyfriend?”

“No, sir,” I said, taken aback by his hostility. “I’m—”

“Mr. Shea is the contractor I hired to renovate the building, Grandfather. I told you about him.”

“And I told you to stay the hell away from this place! It’s a bad place, no decent woman should be here. I want these men gone, right now! All of them!”

“Grandfather, be reasonable. I explained my plans—”

“Your plans? You have no right to make plans. This is my building, and—” He broke off suddenly, listening. “What’s that noise?”

With all the construction clatter outside, I wasn’t certain which one he meant.

“It’s just men working, sir. We’re planing down the doors to—”

He waved me to silence, cocking his head to hear the hallway racket better, his eyes flicking back and forth, anger and fear battling in them.

Fear won. He turned and stalked away without another word.

I glanced the question at Olympia.

“Bob’s grandfather,” she said ruefully. “He’s a handful sometimes.”

Pia had shrugged off the old man’s ravings, so I did, too. I shouldn’t have.

A few days later I was on the phone arguing with a supplier when I got a call on my other line. Olympia Belknap.

“Something has come up, Mr. Shea,” she said brusquely. “We need to talk. Can you come to my home, please?”

“Um, sure. When?”

“Now,” she snapped.

Oh.

I hate those calls. Every contractor gets them, and it’s never good news. Usually it means your guys have screwed something up, or your client wants to make big changes or re-haggle your price.

Sometimes it’s even worse. Financing has fallen through, somebody’s filed a lawsuit, your client’s got cancer and wants to die in Tahiti. Bad stuff.

So far, Pia Belknap had been an ideal client. She stayed in touch, visiting the job site often, but never for long. She knew exactly what she wanted and wasn’t shy about saying so. The only change she’d asked for was restoring the Gin Mill instead of converting it, which actually made our job easier.

Which was too bad. Because that meant any problem requiring an emergency meeting had to be dead serious.

I’d never been there before, but the Belknap home was familiar. It was one of the hillside beauties I’d admired from the roof of the Gin Mill — a three-story Georgian Colonial manor high on a bluff overlooking the lakeshore. Square and imposing, it had a magnificent view of the lake and town. Very handsome. Very pricey.

A maid answered my ring. Directed me to the library. I trotted up the broad staircase, taking it all in. A two-story foyer, Tiffany chandeliers, classic mix-and-match furniture, mostly leather. Elegant but homey. Old money.

Pia wasn’t alone in the library. A guy in a suit was seated at a writing desk, looking over some paperwork. Mid sixties, sleek, with silver hair; his jacket probably cost more than my truck. He didn’t even look up when I came in.

Cy Belknap was there, too, standing off near the fireplace, gazing out the French doors that opened onto an observation deck with a panoramic view of Malverne and the lake. His frame was shrunken, his slacks and flannel shirt hung on him like death-camp pajamas, but when the old man looked me over it wasn’t a comfortable experience. His face was puckered and drawn, but his stare was hawk fierce.

“I remember you,” he muttered.

“It’s all right, Dad, I’ll handle this,” the man at the desk said, closing the file with a flourish. “Mr. Shea, I’m R.J. Belknap, Olympia’s father-in-law. I’m sorry to call you in on such short notice, but I’ve been away. I spend most of my time in Washington these days, serving on the President’s Council of Economic Advisors.”

He paused, waiting for applause, I guess. I nodded.

“I’m afraid you’ve stumbled into an unfortunate situation here,” R.J. continued. “As an advisor, I was required to put my assets into a blind trust. I also deeded several family properties, including the Belknap Building, to my son Robert, which passed to his wife after his untimely death. This was not my intention. The Belknap Building bears our name, so naturally I want to keep it in the family.”

“You’ve lost me,” I said. “Isn’t Pia a member of your family?”

“Of course, and always will be,” he said smoothly. “But she’s young. She may well marry again. In any case, I intend to purchase her interest in the hotel. Ergo, we won’t have any further need of your services.”

“Ergo?” I echoed.

“It means—”

“I know what it means, Mr. Belknap. It’s Latin for ‘You’re getting screwed.’ ”

“No need to get testy, Mr. Shea. I’m willing to compensate you for your labor and expenses to date. Within reason, of course.”

“No offense, Mr. Belknap, but I don’t know you from Adam. My contracts are with Mrs. Olympia Belknap. Are you saying she didn’t have a legal right to sign them?”

“No, of course not. She had a legal right, but—”

“Then hold on,” I said, cutting him off and turning to Pia. “Have you changed your mind about going ahead with this?”

“No,” she said firmly. “I wasn’t even aware there was a problem until R.J. flew in this morning. The building isn’t part of the family trust; I own it free and clear. Or I thought I did.”

“The point is, Mr. Shea, the project is the focal point of a family misunderstanding,” R.J. interjected, “that Pia and I need to work out with in the family, and there’s no need for you to be caught in the middle. As I said, I’m willing to compensate you—”

“I heard what you said, Mr. Belknap. You apparently didn’t hear what I said. I don’t have a contract with you. Only with Pia.”

“Then let me clarify things for you, Mr. Shea. I’m a presidential advisor, and as such, I have considerable political influence, especially in this part of the state. I can be a generous friend, but you don’t want me as an enemy. Are we clear?”

“Yeah, I followed that.”

“Good. Then let’s settle this like gentlemen. I’ll pay off the balance of your contract. Today. Every dime, plus a ten-percent bonus. You can have the check in your hand when you leave this room. Your services are no longer required.”

“Whoa. You’re willing to pay me off in full? Just to walk away?”

“Plus ten percent. It’s a very generous offer.”

“It sure is. But I don’t understand. Why do you want to buy me out?”

“That needn’t concern you, Mr. Shea—”

“But it does. I’ve got a contract with Mrs. Belknap. Since you’re asking me to break it, I’d like to know why.”

R.J. flushed, visibly trying to control his temper. “Very well. Since you’ve been working on the building, I’m sure you’ve heard some ugly rumors, of... illicit liquor sales and—”

“I’ve heard some stories. We’ve also found the stills. So?”

“They say behind every great fortune is a great crime,” R.J. continued uncomfortably. “The family bootlegging business is not a story I care to have revived at this point in my career. Pia’s a wealthy woman, Mr. Shea, I don’t think she realizes what having real money means yet. There’s certainly no need for her to become a saloonkeeper—”

“I’m not opening the Gin Mill, R.J.,” Pia snapped, “I’m reopening it! It’s already there, in perfect shape, and I’d be a fool not to make use of it. Maybe I’ll even put a few bottles of Belknap’s Best on the bar—”

“You snotty little bitch!” Cy spat. “You got no right—”

“Dad, stay out of this, please! Pia, you can see how upsetting this is to my father. You must understand—”

“I only understand that when Bob died, I nearly did, too. I started this project just to keep busy, but rebuilding the Gin Mill is important to me now, R.J. If having a saloonkeeper in the family embarrasses you and Cyrus, I’m sorry. At least I’ll be a legal one. As for buying me out, the Belknap Building isn’t for sale. Period.”

“Very well, if you intend to ignore my wishes, I guess the matter rests with Mr. Shea. My offer is still on the table, sir, full price plus ten percent. What do you say?”

“Damn,” I said, shaking my head. “Your offer’s tempting, Mr. Belknap. The problem is, I’ve got a contract, and more importantly, I gave my word. The only escape clause is an act of God and since you’re not Him, I guess I’m stuck.”

“You’ll regret this, Shea.”

“Mr. Belknap, I regret it already. Now if you folks will excuse me, I have to get back to work.”

“Thanks!” Pia Belknap shouted. We were in my rat-hole second-floor office later that day. I could barely hear her over the hammering and Skilsaw whine from down the hall.

“For what?”

“Don’t be coy, Shea. For standing up for me.”

“Yeah, well, I’d like to play the hero but I can’t. I didn’t do it for you. Will your father-in-law cause trouble?”

“Probably. He’s obsessed with protecting his career and reputation. Claims reopening the Gin Mill could damage his prospects in Washington.”

“Maybe he’s right. I don’t know much about politics.”

“I gathered that from the way you roughed up the union rep,” she said drily. “But R.J. can bring more pressure than Romanik. Licensing boards, inspectors. He wasn’t kidding when he said he’s a bad man to cross.”

“Then why cross him? Why are you doing this? I take it you don’t need the money, right?”

“This isn’t about money. My husband was a good man, too good in some ways. He handled all our financial affairs, every dime. But now I’m alone and this project is the first thing I’ve tried since Bob’s death. If I don’t see it through to the finish, I’ll end up like Cyrus, just another ghost drifting around that mausoleum on the hill.”

“Then we won’t let that happen.”

“No,” she said, gathering herself, “we damned well won’t. I want you to pick up the pace, Mr. Shea. Hire more men, do whatever you have to, but I want this project finished before my father-in-law finds a way to stop it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Whatever you say.”

But it was a lot easier said than done.

For openers, I stretched our shifts from nine hours to twelve. Nobody griped. Most of the men were bored with motel living anyway. Longer days for overtime pay? Where do we sign up?

Adding more crew was a tougher nut to crack.

Swallowing my pride, I called the union rep, Jack Romanik, and asked for his help. He told me to screw myself. Big surprise.

I found Guyton Crowell in the basement, leveling the jack posts. Told him the situation and asked if he knew any local men who might be willing to sign on.

“I can find a few. They aren’t in the union, but they’re good workers. All from Idlewild. Black. Any problem with that?”

“Not as long as they can swing a hammer.”

“Good. I’ll see to it, then. Need a favor, though.”

“Name it.”

“It’s my grandfather. He’s a cabinetmaker, did some of the finish work in that portfolio I showed you. He worked in the Gin Mill as a boy and he really wants to be a part of reopening the place. I could use his help on the kitchen remodels once we hit the second floor.”

“Didn’t you tell me he lost his sight?”

“He won’t be any trouble. He’s worked construction his whole life, Mr. Shea. He’s not a civilian. I’ll look out for him.”

“You’d better. Okay, we’ll try it, but if there are any problems...”

“There won’t be.”

Actually, there were lots of problems, but Guyton’s granddad wasn’t one of them. With the extended shifts, we finished off the carpentry on the first floor a week later. It still needed carpeting and whatever customizing the tenants required, but phase one was finished, and the crews moved completely up to the second floor.

Which made my temporary office almost unworkable. Between the dust and din of construction, I couldn’t hear myself think in there. Amid all this chaos, Guyton introduced his grandfather.

Nate Crowell was half of a before-and-after photo of his grandson. The “after” half. Long after. Tall, spare, stooped, and bald as a billiard, the old man had to be in his mid to late seventies. But he carried his years and his blindness well.

He shook my hand with an iron grip that could have been painful if he’d wanted it so.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Shea. My grandson tells me you’re the man gonna turn back the clock on the old Mill. Hope I can be of help.”

“Guyton says you’re a master cabinetmaker, Mr. Crowell. Are you as good as he is?”

“Even better.” The old man smiled. “The boy still gets impatient sometimes. I never do.”

“What?” I yelled, as a Sawzall’s chatter drowned him out.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Nate continued, “I’d like to do my work upstairs in the Gin Mill. I used to wait tables in the ballroom so I know my way around pretty good up there.”

“No problem, we aren’t working there yet.”

“Maybe you should be. Noisy as hell down here. Why ain’t you usin’ the main office?”

“What office?”

“In the Gin Mill. C’mon, I’ll show you.”

It was odd being led by a blind man, but Nate Crowell had no trouble navigating the hallway or the stairs. Using a cane to probe ahead, the old man moved only a step slower than normal and seemed to have an unerring sense about obstacles, circling around men and machinery without a misstep.

He paused on the fourth-floor landing. I thought he needed a breather. He didn’t.

“This is where I ended up that last night,” he said, aiming his cane at a corner. “Sixteen years old. Got a snoot full of joy juice, fell down these stairs, busted an arm and a leg, lost my sight. Damn.”

“Sixteen was a little young to be drinking, wasn’t it?”

“It was closing night for the place, everybody was doin’ their best to drink up the last of the stock, even me. Only I didn’t have no belly for it, had a bad fall. God’s punishment for a drunkard, I guess. Ain’t had a taste since. C’mon.”

He trotted up the final flight, stepped into the ballroom, and stopped, his face wreathed with a wide smile.

“Man, it’s like comin’ home,” he breathed. “Even after all these years. That was my section over there, from the dance floor to the far wall. Runnin’ my ass off every night from six until midnight. Mr. Cy always closed at twelve sharp, didn’t want nobody to be too hung over to work in the mill the next day. His office is over there by the bandstand. See that big mirror with the table beside it?” He aimed at it with his cane. “That’s Mr. Cy’s table. Sit there every night, tryin’ to look hard. Wasn’t much more than a boy hisself in them days.”

“How do you... remember all this? Where everything is, I mean?”

“The Gin Mill was my first job.” Nate shrugged. “And except for them stairs I fell down, this ballroom was the last place I ever saw.”

He showed me Cy’s old office, concealed behind another nearly invisible sliding door. A perfect setup, insulated from the noise below, a desk big enough for blueprints, even a cot in the corner for catnaps. I moved my gear into it the same day.

Nate set up shop beside the dance floor, pushed four tables together to make a workbench, and began trimming out the cabinetry for the apartments below. His work was impeccable. The problem was, he kept scaring the hell out of me.

I’d find him up there working with no lights. Darkness didn’t bother Nate, of course, but it startled me to step into the ink-black ballroom, switch on the lights, and — whoops! Hello, there.

Mafe Rochon was more trouble than Guyton’s grandad. He’s always had a problem with booze, but as long as he doesn’t drink on the job I ignore his morning-after surlies. But with the longer working hours, he didn’t have time to sober up entirely before work. A risky situation.

Puck warned me Mafe was sliding out of control but I was too busy with our new schedule to worry about it. Mafe was still carrying his weight, so I let it pass.

And that was a mistake.

Romanik and his two goons showed up at the site one morning, taking pictures of the crew as they arrived for work, jotting down the license-plate numbers of their vehicles. Intimidation, pure and simple.

And I wasn’t in the mood.

I went storming out. Romanik saw me coming, waved his two buddies away, but stood his ground.

“Mr. Daniel Shea, just the man I want to see.”

“You’ve seen me. Now take a hike.”

“Don’t push it, Shea, it’s a public sidewalk. And I’m just here to deliver a message.”

“Messenger boy is about your speed. Say it.”

“You’re a backwoods rube, Shea. You don’t understand who’s got the juice in this town. You’re backing the wrong Belknap. Mr. R.J.’s offer is still on the table but the clock’s running on it. You’d better take it.”

“What’s that to you?”

“I know construction sites, Shea. How dangerous they can be. And I’m telling you to quit now before somebody gets hurt.”

“You’re threatening me? You two-bit—” I was half a second from clocking him when Puck grabbed my arm.

“Don’t be stupid, Danny,” he whispered. “Look up the street.”

He was right. A patrol car was parked half a block away, two uniforms in it. One had a camera, getting the whole scene on video. Romanik wanted me to deck him. In front of witnesses. The local law would bust me and Mr. R.J. Belknap could use his political juice to keep me in the slammer until I was as old as Guyton’s granddad.

I was so hot I nearly punched Romanik’s lights out anyway.

Didn’t, though. Instead, I dusted off his lapels, waved to the camera, and walked calmly back inside. Then punched my fist through a wall. Brand new drywall, freshly painted. Which Puck made me patch all by myself as a penance for being a moron.

After I finished repairing the wall, I headed upstairs to my office to cool off. But I didn’t make it that far. As I neared the fifth-floor landing, I kept hearing a strange sound. A steady thump. Not hammering. Heavier than that. I could feel it through the stairs, like a giant heartbeat. Coming from the ballroom.

Easing through the door, I froze as the full wall of sound hit me. The room was pitch black, but a big band was playing, hammering out a tune I’d never heard, drums and bass fiddle thumping in my chest like a pulse.

Couldn’t see a damned thing. Fumbled for the light switch. Couldn’t find it.

And somewhere in the dark a soft voice said, “Good evening, sir. Welcome to the Gin Mill. Table for one?”

My heart seized up, frozen solid as an ice block. “Nate?” I managed. “Is that you?”

“Of course, Mr. Shea. Just practicing. Maybe when the place reopens I can get my old job back, waiting tables.”

“Maybe you can. Where the hell is that music coming from?”

“The jukebox, there next to the bandstand... oh. Are the lights off?”

“Yeah, they are. And I can’t seem to find the switch.”

“Hang on a second.” Nate threaded his way between the tables to the switch and the place came to life. “Sorry about that. I forget you handicapped folks need lights to get around. You don’t mind about the jukebox, do you?”

“No, I — to tell you the God’s truth, Nate, you scared the hell out of me. Again.”

“Why? Oh, hearing the music in the dark, you mean? What did you think? Ol’ Coley Barnes came back from hell to play an encore?”

“Something like that,” I admitted.

“Well, that’s the Barnstormers all right. Great band. Misirlou Jackson singing, Coley wailing on that trumpet. Hearin’ them makes me feel like I’m sixteen again. Like somehow them times are comin’ back. Maybe we should call us up a couple foxy ladies, have ourselves a dancin’ party up in here.”

“The way my day’s going, Mr. Crowell, I’d trip over my own feet and break a leg.”

“That bad, huh? Then maybe you can help me out with somethin’. When I was makin’ my way to the jukebox, I found this on the stage.” He placed a small, finely tooled leather case on his worktable. “Know what it is?”

“Looks like an instrument case,” I said, looking it over. “Maybe for a trumpet. It’s got a brass nametag on it... Coleman Barnes.”

“Thought so. The case was beside Coley’s music stand. Funny, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“Look here,” he said, flipping open the latches, reversing the case to face me. “It’s empty.”

“Well, considering he’d just robbed the place, I expect he left in a hurry.”

“Maybe. Strange, though, that he took his trumpet but not the case.”

And it was.

It seemed like there were a lot of strange things about this job. One Belknap wanted it built, another wanted it stopped. Stairways were hidden in the walls and a freight elevator almost killed me. The union rep should have been glad to supply me with men; instead, he was trying to shut us down. And after fifty years, men from Idlewild were working in the Gin Mill again. Maybe Nate was right: In a strange way, history was repeating itself.

Compared to all that, an empty trumpet case shouldn’t have mattered much. But it did. Somehow that empty case seemed to symbolize everything that was wrong.

After my run-in with Romanik, I decided to keep a weather eye out for trouble, just in case. That night I set my alarm to go off every two hours. I’d wake and take a quick look around the building. Never saw anyone, but I had the definite sense of... a presence. Of movement. Odd noises.

Nothing I could put my finger on, just an uneasy feeling of evil lurking just around the corner. In another room. Or another time.

Dog-tired after making my rounds, I still couldn’t fall back to sleep. My mind kept trying to make sense of it, to find some connection. Can bad times really come around again? All the elements were in place. Workers from Idlewild. Nate Crowell, blind now, waiting tables in the dark. “Table for one, sir?”

Coley Barnes and Misirlou playing in the ballroom again. With his empty trumpet case still onstage. As though he’d just stepped out. And he’d be right back.

I finally managed to nod off, but still couldn’t rest. Tossing and turning, hearing Coley’s big band playing onstage. Withered corpses in tattered tuxedos, playing rusty instruments, their rotting skin sloughing off. And then Misirlou stepped to the microphone... and screamed!

Sweet Jesus!

I snapped awake. My freaking alarm clock was buzzing. Time to get up, for real. Stumbling to my feet, I got dressed, feeling like I hadn’t slept five consecutive minutes all night. Which wasn’t far from the truth.

I made my morning rounds anyway, making sure everybody was where they were supposed to be. But they weren’t. Mafe Rochon was missing.

“I don’t like it,” Puck said. “Maybe you’d better check on him.”

“Check, hell, he’s juicing again. You told me so yourself.”

“Maybe, but it ain’t like Mafe to miss work. And with our schedule, we need every man we got.”

“Fine, I’ll go check on him. But if he’s tanked up, Puck, I’m gonna fire him. And then I’m gonna kick his ass around the block.”

“Hell, in that case I’ll come with ya.” Puck grinned. “You been moody all week and Mafe’s mean as a snake when he’s hung over. The two of you havin’ a go ought to be worth seeing.”

“You don’t think I can take him?”

“Damned if I know, Danny. Maybe. Maybe not.”

“I don’t know, either,” I admitted. “But I’m in the mood to find out.”

The Aztec Motel was on the low-rent end of Malverne, two dozen cheap rooms with a Burger King on one side, Slaney’s Tavern on the other. Perfect spot for a gypsy construction crew. Most of the men shared rooms. Not Mafe. He preferred to drink alone, and nobody wanted to be in the same country with him when he woke up.

Except me. I hammered on his door. “Rochon! Wake up, dammit! Come on!” No answer. Tried again. Still nothing. Puck and I glanced at each other, worried now.

“What the hell?” Puck frowned. “If he’s here, he’s gotta be awake by — whoa. Somebody’s moving in there. Mafe? Are you okay?”

“...help me...”

It was barely a whisper but we both heard it. Rearing back, I kicked in the door. The stench of booze and vomit rolled over us like riot gas. Mafe was on his hands and knees by the bed, head down, drooling, panting like a dog.

“Danny?” he said, staring blankly toward us. “I can’t see.”

“Do you know what he drank?” the intern asked. We were at Malverne’s tiny emergency hospital, a four-bed doc-in-the-box.

“This,” I said, handing him the half-empty bottle of Belknap’s Best I’d found on the nightstand.

“My God,” he said, wincing as he sniffed the bottle. “Bad bootleg. Probably enough lead in it to poison a regiment.”

“Lead?” Puck echoed.

“Sure. Good bootleggers use copper tubing, bad ones use automobile radiators. Faster, cheaper, and deadlier. Radiators are soldered together with lead. The longer they’re in use, the worse the mix gets. Is your friend a heavy drinker?”

“Compared to what?”

“Oddly enough, that’s in his favor. His body’s built up some resistance, and he’s got the constitution of a Kodiak bear. His system should purge the worst of it in thirty-six hours or so, but it was a near thing. I worked Detroit before I moved up here. I’ve seen men go blind and suffer permanent brain damage from bad hooch. Some even die. Your friend was lucky.”

“Think so?” Puck shrugged, eyeing Mafe, still unconscious on the gurney. “He don’t look so lucky to me.”

“Where did he get it?” I asked. We were headed back to the Belknap in my pickup.

“Hell, Danny, he found the still, remember? Probably stashed a half-dozen bottles before he told us about it.”

“This started out to be a simple job, Puck. Remodel the storefronts, convert the upper floors to condos. Should have been easy, a warm, indoor gig for the winter. But since we found that damned Gin Mill, everything’s coming unglued.”

“Told you that first day we should dynamite it— What the hell is all that?”

Ahead of us, the downtown district was a sea of flashing lights, emergency vehicles, fire trucks, cops.

“It’s the Belknap,” I breathed. “It’s on fire.”

The streets were barricaded, so we ditched the pickup and ran the last two blocks to the site. Fire trucks were hosing the building down from the street side. My crew was huddled in a group behind the fire lines.

“What happened?” Puck asked, grabbing Deke LaPlaunt by the arm, leading him away from the others.

“Place blew up. Some kind of blast in the east side of the basement. Fire took off from there, tore up the elevator shaft. Hosin’ it down from out here won’t do nothin’, Puck. It’s in the walls. We tried to tell ’em, but—”

“Okay, okay,” I said, cutting him off. “Was anybody hurt?”

“A couple. Guyton Crowell got cold-cocked by the blast, they hauled him off in an ambulance. Jimmy Fee got burned, but not too bad. EMTs are tapin’ him up. Everybody else is okay.”

“Thank God for that,” I said, taking a deep breath, scanning their faces. And coming up one short. “Where’s Nate?”

“Who?”

“Old Nate Crowell, Guyton’s grandfather. He’s been working up in the Mill.”

“Jeez, I forgot all about—” But I was already running.

Vaulting the tape line, I sprinted past the firemen, ignoring their shouts. Bursting through the front doors, I charged up the stairway with Puck only a few steps behind. Deke was right. There was a lot of smoke, no flames. The fire was still contained within the elevator shaft, but as soon as it burned its way out, the old building would go up like a box of matches.

We found Nate Crowell in the Gin Mill, sitting calmly at his worktable, hands folded in his lap.

“Nate, are you okay?”

“So far, Mr. Shea.” He smiled. “I smelled the smoke, wasn’t quite sure what to do. Figured you or Guyton would be along presently. I was just beginning to wonder.”

“No sweat, everything’s under control,” I lied. “We’d best use the fire escape, though. There’s a lot of smoke below and we don’t want to be halfway down when the fire breaks through. Let’s go.”

We hurried through the ballroom to the fire exit that opened onto the roof. But at the last second, Nate stopped and turned back toward the room. Not seeing it, of course, but taking it in. One last time.

And then we were through the door, onto the roof. Five stories below, a fire truck was hosing down the building. Firemen shouted at us to come down. No problem, we were on our way.

Puck helped Nate onto the cast-iron fire escape. As soon as he got his bearings, the old man moved right along. At the bottom we passed him off to two young firemen, who headed off around the building, yelling at us to follow. I didn’t. Couldn’t. I was frozen, staring up at the roof.

“What are you waiting for?” Puck shouted. “Let’s go.”

“That old water tank,” I said, pointing upward. “It’s right over the elevator shaft. If I can punch through it, it’ll drown the fire.”

“Don’t be crazy! If the fire breaks out while you’re up there you’ll be trapped!”

“Dammit, Puck, we’ve worked too damned hard to lose this now.” I didn’t wait for his answer. Grabbing a fire ax off the truck, I was scrambling back up the fire escape before anyone could stop me.

Puck watched me go, cursing. Then started up after me. At the top, I halted, swallowing hard. The tarred roof around the water tank was already bubbling, puffs of smoke popping through, cooking in the flames roaring up the elevator shaft. The whole damned roof could collapse at any second.

No time to worry about that. Racing to the water tank, I was squaring off to swing as Puck clambered off the fire escape.

“Hold on, Danny,” he gasped. Gray-faced, panting, he knelt, trying to catch his breath.

“Puck, I can’t wait—”

“Dammit, listen to me! Don’t hit it on a seam. If the rivets start popping, the tank could split open and blast us both down to the parking lot. Punch a hole in the middle of a panel, the lower down the better.”

“Okay, I got it. Now get off the roof.”

“Hell no! I’ll croak of a heart attack if I try them stairs again. Bust it, Danny! Now! Before we burn!”

He was right, I could already feel the tar going spongy beneath my feet. Setting myself again, I took a savage swing. The ax head clanged off the tank, denting it but not breaking through. I swung again, and again, with the heat and smoke boiling up around me. But I couldn’t do more than dent it.

The hell with this! Moving over a step, I squared off and swung with everything I had, slamming the axe squarely on a riveted seam.

And punched it through!

With a roar, the gout of water ripped the axe from my hands, sweeping my legs out from under me, blasting me across the roof like a cockroach headed for a drain. Tried to get up, got a mouthful of foul water instead. Then something grabbed my throat, dragging me under. Trying to twist free, I managed to get a hand on — Puck’s arm.

He’d seized my collar as the flood swept me past. Clinging to the fire escape with one hand and me with the other, he was the only thing keeping me from being swept off the roof.

Rolling onto my hands and knees, I crawled across him, both of us clinging to the iron rail as the water roiled and swirled around us. With a shudder, a section of roof beneath the tank caved in, pulling the plug on the flood, sending thousands of gallons hurtling down the elevator shaft. Fire and flood collided in a swirling maelstrom, shaking the building like an earthquake, blasting a geyser of steam and superheated gas skyward before the crushing weight of the water prevailed, drowning the blaze in a matter of seconds.

A lifetime later, maybe a minute or two, Puck and I struggled to our feet, shaken, soaked, and damned lucky to be alive. Water was still gushing from the ten-inch gash I’d opened, but it was already losing pressure as the level of the tank dropped.

“Whoa,” Puck said, taking a deep breath, “that was closer than I like ’em.”

“Thanks for saving my neck.”

“Hell, nobody’d miss you much. Buy me a beer sometime. C’mon, let’s get below and find out what happened.”

After checking the crew to make sure everybody was okay, Puck and I headed for the basement. The local chief of police, a concrete block of a cop named Brodie, was already sloshing around the elevator shaft. Most of the water had vanished down the storm drains but the basement was still awash, knee deep in filthy water.

“Not much of a mystery,” Brodie said, pointing at scorch marks seared into the concrete walls. “Fire started here with a bang, then howled up the shaft like a blowtorch.”

“Arson?” I asked.

He nodded. “Definitely. Recognize this?” He opened his hand, revealing a dripping wad of greyish lint.

“Guncotton,” Puck grunted. “There’s a pile of it stored in the old factory across the back lot. Where did you find it?”

“All over the place. The initial blast scattered it around like dandelion fuzz. Looks like somebody stacked a couple of bales of guncotton in the elevator shaft and touched it off with a blasting cap. Raw guncotton’s flammable but not explosive, burns like gasoline only a lot hotter. If you boys hadn’t doused it when you did, the whole block might have gone up.”

Leaving Puck to scout the basement for structural damage, I made my way upstairs, checking out each floor. Despite the intensity of the blaze, there was remarkably little damage. Both fire and water had been confined to the elevator shaft, limiting the harm to that end of the building. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed. Even the Gin Mill was unmarked. Timeless as ever.

The roof was a different matter. The flood had ripped huge gouges in it. The whole thing would have to be retarred. The holding tank was only dripping now, drained to the level of the gash I’d opened. The support timbers directly beneath it were trashed: burned nearly through, then drowned. They’d all have to be replaced. A major repair job. And an expensive one. Damn.

I was taking a last look around when something caught my eye. An odd coil of metal was jammed in one of the water-tank braces. I tugged it loose. It was so twisted I didn’t recognize it at first. And then I did.

It was a trumpet. Corroded by time and warped by water pressure. But a trumpet all the same.

I didn’t have to ask who it belonged to. I even knew where its case was. But what the hell was a horn doing out here? Both Puck and I had examined this roof carefully before we ever took on this job. It definitely wasn’t here then.

So where had it come from? I scanned the roof again, but it was only a roof, stark and barren. There were no secret doorways up here. Nowhere to hide anything.

Only one thing had changed. And I was getting a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Ducking inside the Gin Mill, I grabbed a flashlight, then scrambled up the water tank to the inspection door. It was rusted shut, but I managed to yank it open, nearly tearing it off its hinges.

Inside, the tank was oddly pristine, its gleaming metal panels protected from the elements and ageing. Only a few rusting scratches near the top showed the passage of time. The bottom of the tank still held roughly three feet of water, roiled and stormy, reflecting my flashlight beam eerily on the dripping metal walls.

At first I couldn’t make out anything, and when I finally saw the twisted form, I couldn’t comprehend it.

Something monstrous was crouching at the bottom of the tank, the skeleton of some prehistoric beast... no.

It wasn’t a skeleton.

It was five of them.

The bodies were tangled together in a macabre jumble, welded by silt and sixty years into a single grotesque body. One was probably Coley Barnes, one was Misirlou. The others? God only knew.

Straightening slowly on the ladder, I realized I was staring across the rooftops and the river to the mansions on the North Bank. And even at this distance I could see the rear deck of the Belknap house. And the tall man at the deck rail who was watching me through binoculars.

Old Cy. We stared at each other a long moment, across the miles and sixty years. And then I raised my arm, pointing my finger at him. It wasn’t much of a gesture, but he damned well understood it.

Lowering his binoculars, he turned calmly and went into the house.

They didn’t have to tell the truth. The crime was ancient and the bodies in the tank couldn’t testify against anyone.

“No, I want to settle this,” R.J. said quietly. “We’ve carried this weight long enough. It’s time to put it down.” We were in his library: myself, Pia, and Malverne’s chief of police, Jonas Brodie, wearing a blue dress uniform and a respectful attitude.

Old Cyrus was sitting in an armchair beside his son’s desk, watching us in silence, his eyes smoldering like a banked fire.

“You’re entitled to have a lawyer present, Mr. Belknap,” Brodie reminded R.J.

“I am a lawyer,” R.J. said firmly. “I’m well aware of my rights, including the right to end this interview anytime I choose. Ask your questions.”

“You knew about the bodies in the tank?” Brodie prompted.

“My father told me about them years ago. That’s why we kept the building empty, never tried to do anything with it.”

“What happened?” Pia asked. “How did they die?”

“An accident. It was the Gin Mill’s last night. After they closed, a few diehards stayed on, drinking. My dad, Coley Barnes, Misirlou, a couple of boys from the band. Even the waiter had a few.”

“Nate Crowell,” I put in.

“Right.” He nodded. “They hadn’t been drinking long when it hit them. My dad got sick, said he felt like he’d been kicked in the belly. The others were even worse off. Foaming at the mouth, vomiting, passing out. It was horrible. Dad tried to go for help but collapsed. He was unconscious for several hours. When he woke, they were dead. All of them.”

“Why didn’t he call the police? Or a doctor?” Brodie asked.

“To say what? That his bootleg whiskey killed five people? Go to jail for years? It was an accident.”

“Prohibition was over,” Brodie pointed out. “Why were they drinking bootleg whiskey?”

“That was Coley’s idea,” Cyrus put in quietly. “Got me a taste for bootleg, he said. Let’s drink up the last of the Best, he said. Stupid black bastard.”

“In any case, bootlegging was a minor offense then,” R.J. continued hastily. “My father is only guilty of concealing the bodies. Granted, he used poor judgment, but he was quite sick himself at the time.”

“Was he?” I asked. “Apparently he wasn’t too sick to tote five bodies up that ladder.”

“Stay out of this, Shea,” R.J. snapped. “Chief, I admit this was an ugly business, but even if my father committed any... minor infractions, the statute of limitations expired on them years ago.”

“You’re probably right, Mr. Belknap,” Brodie agreed. “Which brings us to the arson.”

“My father will admit to hiring a man named Romanik to set the fire. But since no one was hurt—”

I scratched my fingernails across the end table beside my chair, startling R.J. and Brodie. They both glared at me but I ignored them.

My eyes were locked on Cy’s face as I scratched the tabletop again. He paled, swallowing hard, his hands gripping the head of his cane so tightly I thought he might snap it.

“You know that sound, don’t you?” I said. “It’s what frightened you so badly in my office that day.”

“Look, Shea,” R.J. said, “I’ve been patient with you, but—”

“You don’t get it, do you, R.J.? Your father didn’t put dead bodies in that tank. He put people in there.”

“No!” Cy shouted, lurching to his feet. “They were dead! All twisted up, foaming at the mouth. Coley hanging on to that damned trumpet. But he was dead! They all were. I felt their necks!”

“So you dumped them in the tank like so much trash. They were only blacks, right? Who’d care? But at least one of them was still alive. The water must have revived him.”

“That’s a serious accusation, Shea,” Brodie warned.

“The claw marks are still there in the tank, untouched all these years. And you heard it, didn’t you, Cy? Heard someone trying to get out. Why didn’t you help?”

Agony and rage battled in Cy’s face, giving him a demonic look. Like a madman. For a moment I thought he was going to deny it. But R.J. was right, he’d been carrying the weight too long.

“I couldn’t reach him!” Cy sobbed, his voice breaking. “It was Coley. The water woke him up but he was too far down. I ran to get a rope, but when I got back... he was gone. They were all gone.”

“My God,” Pia said softly. No one else spoke, all of us staring at the old man.

After a moment Cy looked up, meeting our eyes. “You’ve got to understand,” he said, his voice quavering. “I’d been breaking my back for years, working days in the guncotton plant, nights in the Gin Mill, trying to get ahead. I couldn’t throw it all away over a stupid mistake. I thought they were dead, dammit. It wasn’t my fault. I found Nate on the stairs, took him to the hospital, made up the story about the robbery. Later on, I even helped out the families a few times. What more could I do?”

He looked at each of us in turn, as though he expected an answer. No one said a word. “God, I’m tired,” he said, sagging back in his chair. “I thought telling about it would help, but... I just feel so tired.”

“Go ahead, Mr. Belknap,” Chief Brodie said. “We’ll talk again later.”

Rising stiffly, Cy shuffled slowly out. I didn’t think he’d make it to the door. He moved like a man carrying a world of guilt on his shoulders. Or perhaps the weight of five bodies.

When he’d gone, Pia crossed to R.J.’s desk, staring down at him like a stranger.

“You knew about this, didn’t you? All this time?”

“Not all of it, but... yes. I knew. Believe me, Dad’s paid dearly for what happened. I’ve had to sit up all night with him sometimes, ghosts all around him, taunting him, reducing him to a blubbering child.”

“I imagine the families of those poor people had some bad nights, too.”

“What could I do, Pia? Turn in my own father? I know you can’t make a thing like this right, but we did what we could. Made sure the families were taken care of, paid tuition for—”

“Tuition? My God, he’s a murderer! And you shielded him.”

“For my family. For my son. Even for you.”

“No, not for me, R.J. I never asked you for anything and I wouldn’t take it now as a gift. I’m leaving. But there is one last reparation you can make. Pay off Mr. Shea and his men. I want nothing more to do with that... terrible place. Or with you. Ever!”

She stalked out, closing the door behind her with an icy click. The sound couldn’t have been more final if she’d slammed it off its hinges.

Brodie rose as well. “I’ll have to confer with the prosecutor about charges, Mr. Belknap. In the meantime, don’t leave town. Keep yourself available. Clear?”

And then R.J. and I were alone. Neither of us spoke for what seemed like a very long time. Eventually R.J. pulled himself together. He asked how much it would take to settle our account and I gave him a figure. And he wrote me a check. Wages and expenses for my entire crew, including the men from Idlewild. Eight months’ pay. Just like that.

R.J.’s a very wealthy man, with a magnificent home and political power.

But I wouldn’t trade places with him for anything.

The bodies from the water tank — Coley Barnes, Misirlou, and their friends — were laid properly to rest in a hillside cemetery overlooking Lake Michigan, the Reverend James Jackson officiating. He delivered a moving graveside eulogy for his long-lost mom and the others. He even forgave old Cy for his part in their deaths.

Pia’s gone home to Detroit to start her life over. The local prosecutor made some noise about charging Cy and R.J., but I doubt he’ll push it. The evil is too old, and time is taking its own vengeance anyway.

What goes around, comes around.

Old Cy has disappeared into the past completely, talking only with the dead. Pleading for forgiveness. His victims are waiting for him on the dark side of forever, and before long he’ll join them there.

If R.J. concealed his father’s crime to protect his family, then seeing that family destroyed is probably punishment enough. His hopes for political office are gone, vanished in the smoke of the Gin Mill fire. He still owns most of Malverne, but the townspeople spit when they hear his name.

As for me, I came here looking for a job that would keep my crew working through the winter. And I found it. But not the one I wanted.

After R.J. paid me off for the unfinished remodeling job on the Gin Mill, he hired us again. For one final service.

We’re going to do what Puck suggested that first day, dynamite the Belknap Building. Knock it down, load it into dumpsters, and haul it away.

With the fire and water damage to the roof, saving it was an iffy proposition. And anyway, it’s the Belknap Building, and R.J. wants it gone. And I can’t say I blame him.

But despite all that’s happened, it’s not a job I’ll enjoy.

In foreign countries, some buildings are a thousand years old and more. Here in America we trash our heritage like kids stomping sandcastles.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a builder. And proud of it. I like construction sites, the whine of power saws, the slam of nail guns. The fresh, clean scent of pine lumber. I love seeing new buildings rise straight and true, knowing I had a hand in creating them.

But I’ll be sorry to see the old Gin Mill fall.

There was something special about that place. Everybody felt it. Maybe because so much happened there. Good times, bad times. Music and passion and violence. And death.

A building like the Gin Mill is more than cement blocks and drywall. Over time, the lives it shelters become as much a part of it as its very bricks. When we destroy it, we lose more than a structure. We lose our last contact with the ghosts and memories that linger there.

Scientists might laugh, but anybody with feelings knows what I’m talking about.

Some buildings have souls. Characters so strong you can actually feel them. Like the Gin Mill.

I sensed it when I first stepped into that empty, light-dappled ballroom.

And heard it sigh.

Sure, maybe it was just the wind. Or an air vent opening. But I don’t think so. Not anymore.

I think the Gin Mill stood silent and empty all those years.

Waiting.

For me.