Inside, the house was eerily quiet, so I went alone to the kitchen, and lifted the phone from its cradle on the wall. The cord was long enough to reach the pantry, so I shut myself inside, and dialed. On the other end, the phone rang nine times before someone answered. I heard laughter, loud music.

I asked for my brother.

Eventually, he came.

It took forty minutes to find the area Jason described, and again it felt like a scene from a movie, a grim night in some larger city. I cruised one side street and then another. When I found the right building, I knew it by the motorcycles and the women and the noise.

Lots of chrome and plenty of skin …

Just like Jason said.

I found a place to park, and backtracked two blocks to where a row of motorcycles angled in at the curb. I was out of place there, and everyone knew it. Bikers gave me the dead-eye or blocked my path or streamed smoke in my face. A crowd milled near the door, and as I squeezed into it, women crowded me back, and touched me and laughed.

Hey, sugar …

Hey, baby boy …

One hung on my shoulder and cupped me between the legs.

“Excuse me,” I said, and she laughed again.

At the door, a biker stopped me. Muttonchops. Long hair streaked with white. “Members and ladies,” he said.

“I’m looking for Jason French.” Nothing moved on his face. A beer bottle went up and down. “He’s waiting for me, I promise.”

“Well, if you promise…”

His voice rose on the last word, lips twisting. Problem was, I wanted inside, and he wanted me to try. It was a tense moment until Jason appeared behind him, and dropped a hand on his shoulder. “Take it easy, Darius. He’s with me. Come on, little brother.”

I followed Jason into a dark room, then through another crowd to a metal staircase at the back wall. Upstairs, Jason led me into a square room with brick walls, sparse furnishings, and a massive safe that looked as if it had been there forever. Jason saw my reaction to it. “Diebold cash safe—1905, I think.”

I smoothed a hand across the steel door, the enormous hinges. “It must weigh tons.”

“Three or four, at least. This place was built with steel beams in the floor to carry the weight. You can see them from a storage room downstairs.”

“What’s it for?”

“Originally? Payroll, I’d guess. Records, maybe.”

I sat at the table, and he leaned against the wall with his arms crossed. “What’s in it now?” I asked.

“What makes you think I know?”

“There are a million rooms in this city, but you’re in this one. Plus, you said originally. That implies that the safe, now, has some other purpose.” I rolled my shoulders. “Words matter.”