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“…yep!…still on…what time?”
“How about six?”
“…see you then…” Jason gasped, and disconnected.
He covered two long slippery blocks of city sidewalk, and finally came to a painful halt at a large intersection. There was no sign of Dreyfus or Boz, but he could see the fun house on the opposite corner. Terry was right. You couldn’t miss it.
Jason hop-hitched across the street, managing not to get hit—or drowned—by the passing cars. Out of breath and pissed off, he reached the double doorway beneath the giant leering head of the evil clown.
It was an old structure. Probably early 1900s. A large, long building with a plain brick façade and plenty of industrial-style windows. It had probably begun life as a factory of some kind.
The weather-beaten wooden sign on the door said CLOSED.
Which was false advertising given that the door stood open about a foot. On the other side of the entrance was a spilled bag of fast food.
“Dreyfus?” he yelled.
To his relief, he heard her yell back, “West! In here! I can’t find the darned door!”
Fan-fucking-tastic.
Did he call for backup or continue on? Technically, legally, Boz was within his rights to refuse to answer their questions. They did not have a warrant. Boz had not been placed under arrest. Running away was strange and highly suspicious, and they could probably charge him with some variation of fleeing, eluding, and obstructing, but no way was that ever going to trial—unless he did turn out to be involved in the theft of Michael Khan’s art collection.
No. The best thing to do was find and retrieve Dreyfus and persuade Cheyenne PD to execute a search warrant on that shop, Boz’s home, this place—and whatever additional storage facility Boz owned.
What he did not want to do—could not afford to do—was turn up in any police report or newspaper story. If that happened, Sam would have a fit—and rightfully so.
He slipped through the open door, avoiding the spilled soda and slimy contents of several scattered burgers, and found himself in a dark corridor about the size of a large walk-in closet. It smelled old and unstable: an unhealthy blend of deteriorating wood, rotting cloth, and fried electrical circuits.
The only light was afforded by the daylight from the outside entrance. He did not see an interior door, but he walked up a gradual incline to the wall in front of him, pushed, and the wall turned out to be a giant swinging door. Jason walked through the door and found himself in another longer, slanted corridor. By the illumination of the yellowed emergency lights, he could see the peeling walls were painted with clowns chasing balloons and rabbits and each other. The style looked maybe mid-20th century. The faces of the clowns seemed oddly malevolent, but their pastime looked harmless enough.
There were several identical doors in a row. Jason tried one, and it led to another corridor which led to another corridor which led to another corridor which led back to the room with the clowns.
Square one. Literally.
The second and third doors opened onto closets as black as night and painted with glittering stars
and planets. The floor of one closet was a few inches lower, so when he stepped inside it felt for a crazy second like he was falling through space. Which, given the swollen and soggy condition of the wood, was probably a real possibility.
The fourth door led down a corridor which led to a mirror maze. So…progress? Jason glimpsed disorienting views of himself stretched ten feet tall and then ten feet wide and then upside down. Sometimes his head was enormous and his body tiny. Some of the mirrors were broken. One of the mirrors was not a mirror but a silvered painting on glass, so that it looked like a hooded figure was staring at him. That one made Jason grab for his weapon, even though he knew better, and did not improve his mood.
Dust. Cobwebs. Mold. All present. In fact, the only thing missing was booming, maniacal laughter coming from everywhere and nowhere. Happily, no way would the sound system in this place still work. Even turning on the lights was liable to set the structure on fire, and he hoped to God Dreyfus did not press any buttons or throw any levers.
“Dreyfus?” he yelled.
This time she did not answer.
“Shit.” But she could easily be a couple of corridors ahead and not hear him.
He had to hand it to Boz. Leading them in here had been smart. He had basically invited them to get lost—and they had accepted the invitation. By now, their quarry was probably halfway across the county.
To Jason’s relief, the maze of mirrors led onto a deck with a huge skylight. Despite the years of grime, gray daylight poured down, illuminating macabrely cheerful wall paintings of more demented clowns and anthropomorphic animals wearing sailor suits and ballerina tutus. The artwork here was more modern, maybe late forties, early fifties? Jason could finally see where he was—and that seemed to be the heart of the fun house.
Several rickety staircases led off in different directions, he glimpsed the middle section of a giant slide disappearing into what was probably the bowels of hell, and four distinct clown-head entrances led to rooms that almost certainly meant more delays and sidetracking. No thank you.
A sunken floor in the center of the deck offered a view of dingy stuffing spilling out of ripped padded walls surrounding some kind of giant disk. Presumably, in days of yore, fun seekers had piled onto the disk so they could be hurled against the wall for laughs. What would liability in a place like this be now days?
Anyway, down was not the direction to head. Boz’s clerk had said he lived over the fun house, which meant they needed to go up.
