elevators marked 59â74. Kelp said, âI thought you said she was on seventy-six.â
âThatâs what they told me.â
So they took one of the 59â74s, and Dortmunder pushed 74 . Two messenger boys and a blonde in a red dress and a pair of lawyers discussing a tax dealââTheyâll take seven mil and go away, but will they come back?ââshared the long vibrating ride with them in this functional metal closet. A messenger boy got off at sixty. The blonde sprayed her throat with breath freshener and sashayed off on sixty-three. The other messenger boy got off on sixty-eight, and the lawyersââJust so they donât start talking felony, weâre basically in the same ballparkââgot off on seventy-one. Dortmunder and Kelp rode on up to the top.
Except it wasnât the top. The helpful âyou-are-hereâ map next to the elevators showed them where the stairwell was, just around the corner, and when they went there and opened the door the plain broad metal stairs, painted battleship gray, continued on up. However, a locked chainlink gate blocked the stairs in that direction. The stairs going down were clear.
âI figured,â Dortmunder said.
Kelp leaned his cheek against the chainlink gate and strained to see upward. âTwo more flights,â he reported. âAt least two more.â
âWell, itâs this,â Dortmunder said. âOr itâs the special elevator that needs a key, that I donât even know where it is. Or we go up through the ceiling.â
âThrough two ceilings.â
âLetâs look around.â
They wandered the halls and found they were in the shape of an H, with the elevators in the crossbar. Four companies stretched themselves up here, taking a lot of space. There was a firm of architects, with a golden bridge symbol on their main door. A law partnership simply had a list of names on its entrance, while an engineering company sported on its door a black and gold bee inside the huge capital B of its name. The fourth company, taking up one quarter of the H, had a plain white door with very small raised letters on it reading: MARGRAVE .
For five minutes or so they wandered the halls, looking at doors, most of them marked with arrows pointing toward that firmâs entrance. At one point, they watched a young woman, looking worried and carrying a handful of papers, come out of one office, cross the hall, and enter another office, but other than that they were alone. There were no windows anywhere, and the feeling after a while was of being underground rather than nearly a thousand feet up in the air.
âThe thing to do,â Kelp finally said, âis bring May here, show her the proposition, let her make her own mind up.â
âSheâs made her own mind up. Letâs look at one of those elevators.â
So they went back to the middle of the H and rang for an elevator, which arrived empty. While Dortmunder propped the door open with his back and stood chicky, Kelp dragged the sandtopped butt can in to stand on, stood on it, opened the trapdoor in the ceiling, shoved it out of the way, and looked.
âWell?â Dortmunder said. The elevator door kept bunking him in the back, wanting to close. His ankle was sore and wanted to be placed in a raised position on something soft for a while, like maybe a month. âWhat do you see?â
âMachinery.â
âHow close?â
âRight here.â
âThe shaft doesnât go up to the top?â
âNo,â Kelp said, peering and peering. âThat might be a door there, so they can get to the motor and all, but thatâd just get you into seventy-five. This thing doesnât go to seventy-six.â
âFigures,â Dortmunder said. âLetâs take another look at the stairs.â
Kelp put the butt can back, Dortmunder released the now-buzzing elevator, and they went to take another look
Odd Arne Westad, J. M. Roberts