horrible idea whenever I want, though.”
“Of course you do. Just remember it’ll be a lot more dangerous for me if I go alone.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“Well, duh. C’mon, let’s get home!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The mapmaking had to wait until the next night. The day had seen a deeply hungover Lamar—who had apparently found, in his infinite wisdom, a thought that suggested he close the bar—struggling to make it more than an hour without vomiting. His customer, a longtime client having a leg covered in an impressive group of Hollywood heroes, was nice enough to allow for the necessary breaks. Though, as Mike was happy to point out to a laughing Becky, not quite nice enough to allow Lamar to beg off of the day entirely.
When finally the chaos of a busy day in the tattoo shop had subsided, Lamar staggered off to his secrets, Becky went to have a friend do her hair, and Mike and Deb went upstairs to work on what Deb was already referring to as “The Heist.”
Mike sat on one end of the kitchen table, Deb across from him. The bathroom door was shut. On the table between them lay a pad of eighteen-by-twenty-four-inch paper. Deb was grinning at Mike like an idiot, and he smiled back.
She said, “Well, c’mon, let’s get started.”
“I’m trying to find my muse.”
Deb grimaced. “C’mon, Mike, you’re killing me.”
“I don’t want to screw it up.”
He sketched a line just above the edge of paper closest to him, and then added little lines to indicate the doors. He added three more lines to section off the little foyer, and then he drew a long rectangle that covered about a third of the paper. Off of this he added four doorways that exited into separate chambers. In one of these he wrote the word “Bones” and added a hallway that connected it with the other chamber on that side of the main floor.
The other side mirrored the first, only this one bore the word “Animals” at its center. It too connected with the other chamber at its side, but it was a fair bit larger than the other. At the middle of that side Mike had drawn a question mark. He looked at Deb for the inevitable question, but she was busy boring a hole through the paper with her eyes. He spun the pad around and drew stairs ascending and descending at the end opposite the entrance and sketched staircases at the corners nearest the door as well. That done, he flipped the page.
Here he drew a rectangle similar in size to the first, but crossed out the center and said, “This is the second floor.”
“So it looks over the first?”
“Yup.”
Off of the rectangle Mike drew stairs at the rear and two more sets at opposite sides by the front doors. He sketched in three rooms on either side of the structure; predictably, those rooms that were over the larger rooms on the ground floor were longer than their counterparts. Unlike the ground floor, none of these rooms connected. The rooms on the larger side he labeled “Armor,” “Weapons,” and “Fossils.” At the rear of that side he added in one smaller room and wrote in letters than curled into the room, “Babies.”
Mike labeled the first two rooms on the opposite side “Mummies” and “Guns.” The third he left blank. He tore another sheet from the pad and placed it atop the other two. Almost as an afterthought, he set the pencil down and folded back to the first of the three sheets.
“Alright, I was starting to lose hold of myself. We need to go to the new museum.”
“We can go Monday.”
“OK. My guess, and remember, I got eighty-sixed pretty fast from the new one, is that there couldn’t possibly be space for much of the big stuff. You can see where I wrote ‘Bones’ and ‘Animals’ on the map—those were absolutely stuffed with exhibits. I bet most of that was left just like it was. We’ll need to go to be sure, but I can’t see them dedicating three-quarters of a new facility to old taxidermies and bones. The back of the museum is gone for
“Of course you do. Just remember it’ll be a lot more dangerous for me if I go alone.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“Well, duh. C’mon, let’s get home!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The mapmaking had to wait until the next night. The day had seen a deeply hungover Lamar—who had apparently found, in his infinite wisdom, a thought that suggested he close the bar—struggling to make it more than an hour without vomiting. His customer, a longtime client having a leg covered in an impressive group of Hollywood heroes, was nice enough to allow for the necessary breaks. Though, as Mike was happy to point out to a laughing Becky, not quite nice enough to allow Lamar to beg off of the day entirely.
When finally the chaos of a busy day in the tattoo shop had subsided, Lamar staggered off to his secrets, Becky went to have a friend do her hair, and Mike and Deb went upstairs to work on what Deb was already referring to as “The Heist.”
Mike sat on one end of the kitchen table, Deb across from him. The bathroom door was shut. On the table between them lay a pad of eighteen-by-twenty-four-inch paper. Deb was grinning at Mike like an idiot, and he smiled back.
She said, “Well, c’mon, let’s get started.”
“I’m trying to find my muse.”
Deb grimaced. “C’mon, Mike, you’re killing me.”
“I don’t want to screw it up.”
He sketched a line just above the edge of paper closest to him, and then added little lines to indicate the doors. He added three more lines to section off the little foyer, and then he drew a long rectangle that covered about a third of the paper. Off of this he added four doorways that exited into separate chambers. In one of these he wrote the word “Bones” and added a hallway that connected it with the other chamber on that side of the main floor.
The other side mirrored the first, only this one bore the word “Animals” at its center. It too connected with the other chamber at its side, but it was a fair bit larger than the other. At the middle of that side Mike had drawn a question mark. He looked at Deb for the inevitable question, but she was busy boring a hole through the paper with her eyes. He spun the pad around and drew stairs ascending and descending at the end opposite the entrance and sketched staircases at the corners nearest the door as well. That done, he flipped the page.
Here he drew a rectangle similar in size to the first, but crossed out the center and said, “This is the second floor.”
“So it looks over the first?”
“Yup.”
Off of the rectangle Mike drew stairs at the rear and two more sets at opposite sides by the front doors. He sketched in three rooms on either side of the structure; predictably, those rooms that were over the larger rooms on the ground floor were longer than their counterparts. Unlike the ground floor, none of these rooms connected. The rooms on the larger side he labeled “Armor,” “Weapons,” and “Fossils.” At the rear of that side he added in one smaller room and wrote in letters than curled into the room, “Babies.”
Mike labeled the first two rooms on the opposite side “Mummies” and “Guns.” The third he left blank. He tore another sheet from the pad and placed it atop the other two. Almost as an afterthought, he set the pencil down and folded back to the first of the three sheets.
“Alright, I was starting to lose hold of myself. We need to go to the new museum.”
“We can go Monday.”
“OK. My guess, and remember, I got eighty-sixed pretty fast from the new one, is that there couldn’t possibly be space for much of the big stuff. You can see where I wrote ‘Bones’ and ‘Animals’ on the map—those were absolutely stuffed with exhibits. I bet most of that was left just like it was. We’ll need to go to be sure, but I can’t see them dedicating three-quarters of a new facility to old taxidermies and bones. The back of the museum is gone for
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