I looked around and picked up a discarded newspaper. Folding it so that it fit the inside contours of my left hand, I pulled out the key with my right. I placed my hand on the large iron door handle being careful to keep the newspaper in place around it so that I left no fingerprints and gently placed the key into the dead-bolt housing. It turned with ease and made no sound as it unlocked.

The poor lighting from the alley penetrated only a few steps inside. A dim glow from the windows above showed an old wooden stairway leading up along the back wall. I took out my lighter, slapped it three times against my hand and lit it. The small flame threw sparse light around the back room and up the stairwell to the rafters of the second floor. To the left was an open door to a dingy bathroom. Directly in front of me opened up into a large dark expanse.

I stepped into the main room on the first floor, careful not to overstep the small circle of illumination the lighter provided. The ceiling was a cross-hatched pattern of floor joists, cross beams, and electrical conduits, no sprinkler system. The ground floor was a concrete pad painted battleship gray like the outside brick. Eight roughly hewn square wooden posts supported the weight of the second floor. There was no sign of light or life anywhere as I retraced my footsteps to the staircase in the back.

Decades of footfalls had worn the rough cut stairs smooth in the centers. I climbed into brighter light with each step. The tall windows I had seen from the sidewalk opened to the street lights on one side, projecting long rectangles of light onto the hardwood floor. I walked along the wall next to the side street, checking each window in vain with a newspaper covered hand to see if it would open. The gray paint on the outside bricks ran wildly over the wooden window frames, locking them tight. The ceiling looked exactly like the one below: no sprinkler system in place. I turned away from the wall, surveyed the second floor. "It's going to have to start up here. Let's figure out how to burn this place."

1 The Ohio Hotel stands at the corner of East 7th and Ceres

2 The LA Weekly is an alternative local paper with club listings.

2

I went over and over the job in my head as I walked back toward downtown. The sun lurked just below the horizon when I reached the Ohio Hotel. I pushed open the front door and walked into the empty lobby, realizing I had never seen it in the morning.