He passes by a restaurant with a squat concrete blockhouse in front, its openings covered with blackened steel grates, rusty exhaust pipes sticking out the top to vent the diesel generator locked inside. NO BROWNOUT has been proudly stenciled all over it. Beyond that is a postwar office building, four stories high, with an especially thick sheaf of telephone wires running into it. The logo of a bank is bolted to the front of the building, down low. There is angle parking in front. The two spaces in front of the main entrance are blocked off with hand-painted signs: RESERVED FOR ARMORED CAR and RESERVED FOR BANK MANAGER . A couple of guards stand in front of the entrance clutching the fat wooden pistol grips of riot guns, weapons that have the hulking, cartoonish appearance of action-figure accessories. One of the guards remains behind a bulletproof podium with a sign on it: PLEASE DEPOSIT GUNS/FIREARMS TO THE GUARD .