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“Good.”

“I wanted to talk to you about a couple things.” Nate made a few subtle gestures at the walls. “You know.”

She shook her head. “I really don’t have time right now.”

“Why not?”

“I got an extra assignment. It means some overtime. I can’t pass up the money.”

“Ahhh,” he said. “Of course.”

Her lips twitched and almost formed a smile. “I’ve been waiting over a year for this,” she told him. “Don’t worry, the building’ll still be here on Saturday.”

He went back to his apartment and searched the web for everything he could find on black light bulbs. It led him to other pages about basic electrical wiring and pages of terms he had to look up. Three hours later he felt like he didn’t know much more about UV lights than he did when he first sat down at his laptop.

Nate got up and switched on the kitchen light. His shirt and socks glowed. He held his hand out and examined the blue aura around his fingernails.

A few brilliant points of light spun and circled around his microwave. They split off and scattered across the counter. Some vanished into outlets, others raced up the wall. The green roaches were little flares under the black light.

A bright spot appeared from beneath the refrigerator. It scurried out to the middle of the floor and paused. He crouched to look at it.

It was his mutant cockroach again, the one with the extra leg. It had gotten bigger. Its body was an inch long now, and so were its antennae. They waved in the air for a moment, then it spun and dashed back under the fridge. The extra leg didn’t slow it down at all.

He straightened up and saw a few more flashes of light. He leaned over the counter and two of the roaches froze. Their gleaming antennae tilted back and forth, trying to sense his intentions. He looked at the gleaming patterns on their shells and the way their—

Nate blinked and squinted at the bugs. Both of the roaches had an extra leg. Four on the right, three on the left.

He looked over at one of the others. The glow made it easy to pick out details. It dashed under the toaster as soon as it sensed his attention, but not before he saw its bonus leg. He stretched his head back and tried to focus on the one by the light. Seven legs scurried across the ceiling and the roach vanished into the fixture. He saw its tiny shadow for a moment inside the light and then it was gone.

* * *

Tuesday was a band-aid peeled off as slowly as possible. Another crate of returns showed up. He was halfway through sorting the bundles of cards and magazines when Eddie showed up. “Staff meeting.”

Nate looked around. Zack and Anne returned his baffled look. He looked back at Eddie. “And?”

“Staff meeting,” repeated Eddie. “The boss wants everyone there.”

“I’m just the data entry guy,” Nate said.

“And I’m only a temp,” said Anne.

The heavy man shrugged. “They want you to feel included here.”

Nate tried to think of one time in the past two years he’d felt included during work hours. “I’m pretty sure she didn’t mean me,” he said. “And I’ve got a bunch of new work.” He tapped the mail crate with his foot. “I’d get way behind.”

“She wants everyone there. That’s what she said.”

The meeting he didn’t need to be at ended two hours later, and Nate had forty minutes to kill at his computer before the day was over. He spent most of it sorting the new returns into rough stacks and figuring out how much work didn’t get done while he was at the meeting. It was useful information to have later in the week when Eddie complained how far behind Nate was getting.

The workday ended. He struggled through Los Angeles’s famous rush hour traffic and then spent close to an hour trying to find a parking space. Wednesday morning was street sweeping for half the streets in the neighborhood; people were already jockeying for next-day positions.

Near the top of Kenmore’s small hill was a section of curb between two driveways. Two cars could fit there, but someone had parked a green Taurus in the middle of it. He grumbled for a minute and then noticed the driver behind the wheel. The man was staring at a laptop, mooching wireless from someone’s open signal.

Nate revved his engine, then revved it again. When it got no response, he tapped the horn. The man glanced up and gave him a cold stare.

“Hey,” called Nate, “could you pull forward a bit? I only need two or three feet and I could fit behind you.”

The man turned his attention back to his computer.

“Hey!” Nate hit the horn again. The man looked him in the eyes. “We all need to park here. Don’t be a jerk about it.”

The driver’s eyes hardened, and for a minute Nate had the sinking feeling he’d picked the wrong guy to berate for his parking skills. Then, as slowly as possible, the man set his laptop down in the passenger seat and started the Taurus. He pulled forward five feet and stopped.

Nate’s Volkswagen moved forward, back, and parallel parked. He was careful not to get too close to the other car’s bumper. He didn’t want to be hanging in the driveway behind him, but he was even more certain he didn’t want to bump the Taurus.

He grabbed his bag, locked his car, and headed down the hill. “Thanks,” he said as he passed the Taurus. He tried to make it sound as sincere as possible.

The man ignored him. He was focused on his laptop, watching a YouTube video or streaming porn or something.

Nate stopped at his mailbox, tossed some junk mail in the trash, and headed up to his apartment. He tossed his tie on the desk and pulled a beer from the fridge. While he drank it, he stared up at the kitchen light.

It was close to eight when he went down to see Veek.

“You’re getting kind of creepy,” she said, “and I’m saying this as someone mildly obsessed with this place.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ve just got a lot of ideas.”

“I don’t have a lot of time, though. Trying to finish up this other assignment.”

“Just one thing.”

“Seriously,” she sighed, “I have to get this done. It’s worth five hundred bucks to me.”

“Have you ever tried looking up all the plaques?”

“Plaques?”

“All the ones under the stairs.” He tipped his head toward the stairwell.

She shrugged. “It’s an old building on the edge of Hollywood. I didn’t think they were anything special.”

“What?”

“They try to make everything sound special around here. It probably just means Humphrey Bogart lived here for a week or something.”

“You think this place is a national historic landmark because Humphrey Bogart lived here?”

She blinked.

“And no matter what they’re for, there’s probably a ton of information about the building itself. Leads, at least.”

She stared at him for a moment. “I’m an idiot,” she muttered.

“I’ll remind you of it later,” he assured her.

“Department of the Interior,” said the man. “How may I direct your call?”

“Hi,” said Nate. “I was wondering who I could talk to about national landmarks?”

“There’s a full list of all registered sites and national historical landmarks on the Department’s website. W-W-W-dot—”

“No, I mean I have specific questions regarding a certain landmark. Is there someone there I could speak to?”

Like any good receptionist, the man’s sigh was quick and almost silent. “One moment please,” he said.

Nate glanced over his shoulder. He could’ve made the call on his cell, but if Eddie decided to walk in and he was on his own phone it’d be grounds for a speech. With the land line he could try to keep the illusion of a business call and wave away interruptions.

After an agonizing two minutes, during which he was assured his call was very important, the line picked up again. “Records,” said a woman.

“Hi,” he said. “My name’s Nate Tucker. I’ve got a couple questions regarding a specific national landmark. I was hoping someone there could help me.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Well, I’ve got a national historic landmark near me and there’s no mention on the plaque of why it’s a landmark. I was hoping someone there might know.”

“Did you check the internet? We have a full list of the landmarks up on our website with links to—”

“Yeah, I checked. It’s not on your list.” Which was true. He’d spent another hour online the night before. The building wasn’t on any lists—federal, state, or city.

There was a brief pause. “Sorry?”

“It’s not on your list. I was wondering if it might be under a different name or something, maybe?”

“Are you sure it’s a landmark?”

“There’s a big brass plaque down in the lobby. Three of them in fact.” He tapped a few keys and pulled up a picture of the plaque Veek had emailed him.

“It’s in a lobby?”

“Yeah. The landmark’s a building. I live there, actually.”

He could almost hear the woman frown on the other end of the phone. “If it’s a building it could be on the registry, but it shouldn’t be a historic landmark. You’re not living in Monticello, are you?”

“Nope. An old brownstone in Los Angeles.”

“And you’re sure it’s a historical landmark plaque?”

Nate described the slab of brass and read the words off it.

He heard the frown again and the tapping of computer keys. “You said you’re in Los Angeles?”

“Yep.”

“Address?”

He told her and there was more tapping, followed by rapid clicks from a mouse. “You said the date on the plaque was 1960?”

“Yes.”

She blew some annoyed air onto the phone and the mouse clicked again. “The Kavach Building?”

“Yes!” He sat up in his chair and glanced back at the door. Zack peered around the cubicle wall and Nate waved him away. “Yeah, that’s it. Do you know why it’s a landmark?”

He heard a few more taps. “Okay,” she said. “This is weird.”

“What?”

“The Kavach Building was one of the original ninety-two sites named as national historic landmarks in 1960 by Secretary Seaton. It’s the third to last on the list. But that’s pretty much it.”

There was a pause. “What do you mean?” asked Nate.

“There’s no links, no cross-files, nothing.” Her mouse went click-click-click. “It’s listed if I break down landmarks by year and by state, but nowhere else. I can tell you it’s in Los Angeles, California, and it was one of the first national landmarks. That’s it.”

“How’s that possible?” he asked. “That you don’t have anything else?”

“If you’d asked me half an hour ago, I would’ve said it’s impossible,” she told him. “I should have an encyclopedia’s worth of history, photos, annual reports by assigned agents... There has to be some sort of glitch.”

The door opened behind Nate. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Eddie standing in the door. He held up a finger and the fat man raised an eyebrow. “Could I call you back later?” Nate asked. “Would that be better?”

“Yeah,” said the woman. “My name’s Elaine, extension eight-twenty-three. I’ll try to see what I can find.”

“Thanks. You’ve been a great help.”

“Thank you,” Elaine chuckled. “This is the most excitement I’ve had here in six years. You take care now.”

“Yeah, you too,” he said. “Goodbye.”

He set the phone down, took a breath to steady his stomach, and spun his chair to face Eddie. “What’s up?”

“Who was that?”

He blinked. “Who was who?”

“On the phone.”

Nate glanced over his shoulder. “Oh,” he said, as if he’d already forgotten the call. “I was following up on a change of address. There was a number on file. I just caught her at a bad time. She said I could call back later.”

“Why were you calling at all? No one ever told you to do that.”

He shrugged and his mind raced. “Well,” he said, “according to the file she’d been a subscriber for a long time. I...I just didn’t want to see us lose a client over a bad change of address form.”

Eddie stared at him for a moment. It was his blank look, famous in the office. Nate couldn’t tell if he was considering the facts or if his mind was somewhere else altogether.

“You got lucky,” Eddie said.

He tried to look calm. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Usually if you give someone the option of ending the call that’ll be the end of it. It’s a good thing she said you could call back.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” said Nate.

“We’ll let it slide this time,” said the slack-faced man. “But from now on just leave contacting people to the subscription department. Or collections.”

“Sure thing. Sorry.” He steeled himself against the next part, but knew he needed to change the topic. “Was there something you needed from me?”

“Yeah,” said Eddie, “I wanted to see how far you were in this batch. Do you think you’ll be done soon?”

Nate closed his eyes and sighed. He managed to make it look like a yawn.