I look back at the cars waiting for bodywork. There’s an elevated steel catwalk around the building, and I follow it one quiet step at a time. I use the safety railing to steady myself. The sound of the freeways presses in close.

The windows are low and cranked open in the summer heat. Up on my toes I can see into the bay. It’s one big room, divided into side-by-side workstations by disposable paper drapes affixed to railings with sliding hooks, an industrial version of hospital privacy curtains. Some of the workstations have cars in them, in various stages of repainting. The color of each car is the color on the curtain around it, bright reds and blacks and silvers. Big industrial fans sway the sheets. No cameras that I can see.

A dead guy lies by a red Honda. He’s still got a painter’s breathing apparatus over his face.

Twenty feet away in the direction of the lobby are two more bodies, apparently men and apparently dead. One has a pistol in his hand. The other’s gun is a few feet away.

Another fifteen feet toward the lobby lie two other guys.

I stare at each one of the men again for a few seconds, looking for movement but seeing none. Just the lilting of the paper curtains.

I walk down to the next window. My heart is in my throat and the interstates are roaring in my ears. Other than that I feel a clarity that overrules fear.

From here I can see back farther toward the lobby, and I find exactly what I expect to. Two more men down near a yellow Thunderbird, their M243 SAW machine guns strapped around their necks.