Free No Place Like Hell by K. S. Ferguson

passed. She could find some other sucker to change it.
    The key he'd lifted from her purse opened the rear door. He slipped into the stuffy interior and strode to the elevator. On the sixth floor, he stepped out and prowled for the janitor's closet. It was tucked in next to the restrooms just a few steps from the elevator. It was locked.
    Goats! Susie hadn't said anything about a key for the closet. He walked all the sixth-floor offices looking for something to help him break in. Most of them weren't used.
    He found Susie's desk, another picture of her scruffy dog and a pamphlet for some hippie commune on the desktop. The drawer held five bottles of nail polish in various shades of pink and a long, sharp letter opener shaped like a jeweled dagger.
    The phony dagger proved ineffective on the door. The blade snapped off when he tried to pry the latch back. He kicked the steel-clad door, more from anger than a test of its strength.
    His Moses moccasins were no match for the metal. He hopped away bruised and cursing. Decker had done an excellent job protecting his private stash.
    Flummoxed, he walked each floor on his way down. These offices, too, were vacant. None provided the necessary weapon for his next assault.
    He went to his car and returned with the tire iron. Prying with it got him no farther than prying with the dagger. He took aim and bashed at the doorknob. Each contact sent an unpleasant jolt up his arms. After five or six blows, the knob surrendered and crashed to the floor.
    By fiddling with the internal workings, he drew back the latch and pushed open the door. He stepped in and wished he hadn't. The place stank of noxious cleaning compounds.
    He flipped on the light. The narrow slice of back wall visible between the metal shelving was covered by a bulletin board plastered with health and safety notices. He crossed the dinky space, gripped the edge, and tugged. The board didn't budge.
    Kasker didn't bother hunting for a latch. He jammed the tire iron under a bottom corner and pried. The lower half of the board snapped off and dropped on his toes.
    After more cursing and hopping, he levered off the remaining half to expose the safe. He twirled the knob, entered the combination, yanked the handle. The door swung back.
    The safe was empty.
    Kasker flung the tire iron to the floor. It bounced against a shelf, toppling a bottle, which fell and broke. More noxious fumes swirled.
    Coughing and squinting through watering eyes, he ran to the elevator. The stinging odor followed him. He gave up on the elevator and plunged through the stairwell door, running down all six flights.
    When he came out in the parking lot, he realized he'd left the tire iron behind. He wanted to use it on the windshield of Susie's car. The bitch had lied.
    He had no doubt that the diary used to be in the safe. The question was whether Decker removed it before he died, or whether Susie had taken it. If Susie had it, why had she told him it was in the safe?
    Sex, of course. When he didn't find it here, he'd go back to her. She'd use it as payment for another fantasy evening with her knight errant. He'd hunted souls for thousands of years. The females were always the more devious.
    The day had warmed to an unpleasant temperature. The flesh nagged for food, and he'd need forty minutes behind the wheel to return to Susie's. A pox on the woman.
    The drive to Susie's was hot, boring, and a waste of time. Susie wasn't home. He waited down the block for a useless hour. The neighbors began to stare—especially the little old man with the binoculars.
    Seve expected him. He needed to feed the flesh. He'd come back later, and then he'd settle the score with Susie. He'd get the diary. Right after they screwed.

15
     
    I swallowed my trepidation, tucked my hat under my arm, and pushed through the door of Travo's.
    Who would have guessed that Italian brothers would decorate their upscale restaurant Indian style? Sun shone in west-facing windows and glittered off