"Might as well." Jean pushed against Larry's shoulder and rose from her squat.

"Let's see if we can lift this thing," Pete muttered.

"Oh no you don't!" Barbara snapped. "No way! You're not carting that piece of trash home with us. Uh-uh."

"Well, shit."

"If you want an old jukebox so bad, go out and buy one, for godsake. Jesus, it's probably got scorpions in it."

"I think you'd better forget it," Larry said, rising to his feet. "The thing's beyond saving."

"Yeah, I guess. Shit." He gave his wife a sour look. "Thanks a heap, Barbara dear."

She ignored his remark and started climbing the slope. Below her rucked-up blouse her back looked tawny and slick. The rear of her shorts was smudged with yellow dust from the rock where she'd sat.

The fabric hugged her buttocks, and Larry could see the outline of her panties-a narrow band inches lower than the belt of her shorts, a skimpy triangle curving down from it. Jean, climbing behind her, was hunched over slightly. Her blouse was still untucked. It clung to her back, and the loose tail draped her rump.

Pete was watching, too.

"Couple of good-looking chicks," he said.

"Not bad."

"You ever get the feeling they run our fucking lives for us?"

"Only about ninety-nine percent of the time."

Pete choked out a laugh, slapped Larry's arm, and took a long drink of beer. "Guess we'd better be good little boys and go with them." He glanced back at the jukebox. He sighed. He shrugged. "Adios. No more music for you, old pal."

"So much for that," Larry said when he saw the padlocked hasp across the double doors of the Sagebrush Flat Hotel.

Pete fingered the lock. "Doesn't look very old."

"Maybe someone's living here," Barbara said.

"Hey, Sherlock, it's locked from the outside. What does that tell you?"

"Tells me we'd be trespassing."

"Yeah," Jean said. "The doors are locked, the windows are boarded.

Somebody's trying to keep people out."

"Kind of sparks my curiosity. What about you, Lar?" "Sparks mine, too. But I don't know about breaking in."

"Who's gonna find out?" Pete turned away from the doors. He stepped off the sidewalk, bent over and swept his head slowly from side to side in a broad pantomime of scanning the town's only road. "I don't see anyone. Do you see anyone?"

"We get the point," Barbara told him.

"I'll just mosey on over to the van." He started across the pavement, walking at an angle toward Holman's.

"What's he got in mind?" Jean asked.

"God knows. Maybe he's planning to ram the doors open."

"That'd be rather drastic," Larry said.

"It's a matter of pride, at this point. A challenge. Pete wouldn't be Pete if he let a little thing like a lock keep him out."

Jean rolled her eyes upward. "I guess this means we're going to explore the hotel whether we want to or not."

"Just consider it an adventure," Larry suggested.

"Yeah, right. Jail would be an adventure, too."

Pete climbed into the rear of the van. A few seconds later he jumped down, swung the door shut, and waved a lug wrench overhead.

It had a pry bar at one end. In his other hand was a flashlight.

He's really going to break in, Larry thought. Good Christ.

Barbara waited until he was closer, then called, "We've been having some second thoughts about this, Pete."

"Hey, what's life if you don't take a little chance now and then.

Right, Lar?"

"Right," he answered, trying to sound game.

"You're a lot of help," Jean muttered.

Pete bounded onto the sidewalk, grinning and brandish-ing his tire iron. "Got my skeleton key right here," he announced. "Fits any lock."

"Anybody want to wait in the van?" Barbara asked.

"Ah, pussy."

"Well, I guess I'd like to have a look around," Larry said.

"Good man."

Pete gave the flashlight to Larry. Then he rammed the wedge end of the bar behind the metal strap of the hasp. He yanked with both hands, throwing his weight backward. Wood groaned and split. With a sound like a small explosion the staple burst out of the door, bolts and all. "Well, that was a cinch."

He shoved the bar under his belt, turned the knob on the right and pulled the door open.

"I suppose we could always say we found it like this," Barbara muttered.

"You won't have to say anything. Half an hour or so, we'll be long gone." "If we don't get shot for trespassing."

Ignoring her remark, Pete leaned into the doorway and called, "Yoo- hoo. Anybody home?"

Larry winced.

"Here we come, ready or not!"

"Cut it out," Barbara whispered, slapping the back of his shoulder.

"Nobody home but us ghosts," he said in a low, scratchy voice, and turned around grinning.

"Real cute."

"So who's coming in?"

"I think we should all go in or none of us," Larry said, hoping Pete wouldn't figure him for a pussy. "I don't think we should split up. I'd be worried the whole time that something might happen to the gals while we're in there looking around."

"Good man," Barbara said, and patted his back.

"Guess you're right," Pete admitted. "If they got themselves raped and murdered while we were in there, boy would we feel like a couple of heels."

"Exactly."

"Real cute," Jean said, borrowing not only Barbara's phrase but also her disdainful tone.

"What do you say?" Barbara asked her.

"They'll hold it against us forever if they can't go in on our account."

"Admit it," Pete said. "You're dying to come with us."

"Let's get it over with," Barbara said.

Larry gave the flashlight back to Pete and followed him into the hotel. In spite of the closed doors and boarded windows, sand had found its way into the lobby. It made soft scraping sounds under their shoes.

"We probably shouldn't leave the door open," Jean said. There was a tremor in her hushed voice. "In case someone comes by." Without waiting for a reply, she closed the door, shutting out most of the daylight.

Light still came in around the doors, spilled through cracks and knotholes in the planks across the windows- pale, dusty streamers that slanted down to the floor. Pete turned his flashlight on, its beam pushing a tunnel of brightness into the gloom. He swept it from side to side.

"Boy, there's a lot to see in here," Barbara whispered. "What a find!"

The lobby was bare except for a registration counter. On the wall behind the counter were cubbyholes for mail or messages. Over to the left a wooden staircase rose steeply toward the upper floors.

"Should we check in before we have a look around?" Pete asked. "Probably no vacancies," Larry whispered.

"A couple of real comedians," Jean muttered.

Pete led the way to the counter, pounded its top and said in a loud voice, "How does a guy get some service around here?"

"Creep. You want to hold it down?"

"What's everybody whispering for?" He vaulted the counter, dropped into the space behind it and ducked out of sight. He reappeared, rising slowly, the flashlight at his chin to cast weird shadows up his face.

Where the beam touched him, his skin gleamed with sweat.

Goofing off like a kid, Larry thought. But he sometimes pulled the same gag, especially around Halloween, more to amuse himself than to frighten Jean or Lane. They had come to expect such antics. The old flashlight-on-the-face routine hadn't scared Lane since she was about two.

It did make Pete look strange and menacing. Larry knew that if he let his mind go with it, he would get a shiver. "Mmm-yes?" Pete asked, pitching his voice high. "May I help zee veary travelers?"

"God, it's hot in here," Jean whispered.

"A damn oven," Barbara said.

"Anything back there?" Larry asked, carefully avoiding his friend's face.

"Only me and zee spirit of zee night clerk, who hung himself many years ago."

"If we're going to look around," Jean said, "why don't we, and get out of here?"

"I'd like to have a look upstairs," Larry said.

"Vait. Let me ring for zee bell captain."

"Oh, the hell with him," Barbara muttered. "Come on." She turned around and headed for the stairs. Jean went after her, and Larry followed. Barbara's legs and the bare part of her back were nearly invisible in the darkness. Her white shorts and blouse, pale blurs, seemed to float above the floor on their own. Jean, in darker clothes, was a faint smudge in front of him.

He heard Pete strike the floor and stride up behind him, sand crunching under his shoes. The flashlight beam flicked across the backs of the women, swung over to the staircase and swept upward, skimming past balusters, tossing their long shadows against the wall.

Midway up was a small landing. The remaining stairs rose to the narrow opening of the second-floor corridor.

"You don't want to go first, do you?" Pete asked in his normal voice as Barbara started to climb.

"If I wait for you, we'll be here all day."

The light moved downward, gliding just above the stair treads, and something touched by the low edge of its aura winked like gold. A small, questioning breath of surprise came from Pete. The light skittered backward and down. Its bright center came to rest on a crucifix. "Christ," he whispered.

"That's right," Larry said.

The crucifix, directly below the landing, was attached to wood paneling that closed off the space beneath the staircase.

"What is it?" Barbara asked, leaning over the banister near the bottom of the stairs.

"Somebody left a crucifix on the wall," Larry told her.

"Is that all?" She leaned farther out, then shook her head. "Big deal," she said.

Jean stepped around the side of the staircase for a closer look.