* * *
Three businessmen entered from the street and went to the elevators. One, Mitchell Mosley, seemed to be in a trance, almost as if he were sleep walking, so the others unobtrusively guided him along.
“What do you say, Mosley, any interesting images in your dreams this day?” Mike Abbott asked.
Mosley looked up. “Huh?”
As the men entered her elevator Marshall said, “Call your floor, please.”
Mosley gave a start. “Oh!” He hurried back off the elevator and over to one of the nearby pay phones where he dialed.
“What’s he doing?” Hank Costello asked.
“Phoning his office upstairs. Sorry, I didn’t see he was with you until it was too late,” she apologized.
“Why’s he calling upstairs?” Costello asked.
“To get the message,” Marshall replied.
“What message?” Costello was intrigued now.
Marshall shrugged, “There isn’t one. He just does that every time I ask for floors if he’s distracted or daydreaming.”
“Doesn’t anyone stop him and explain his mistake?” Costello asked,
“It’d only embarrass him,” Abbott explained.
“Doesn’t this embarrass him?” Costello asked.
“Not really,” Marshall replied. “If he’s distracted enough to fall for it he’s also in too much of a daze to realize he misunderstood.”
“Plus there almost always is some message waiting for him since his advice is so much in demand,” Abbott said
“Or maybe he just has a very considerate secretary,” Marshall added.
Costello looked out to see Mosley hanging up the phone. “That’s amazing.”
Marshall said, “Quick, what floors are you fellows going to so I don’t have to ask again when he gets back here?”
“He might go through this more than once?” Costello asked.
“Six times one day. That was before I realized what was happening,” Marshall said. “Now I usually remember to phrase the question differently.”
“We want four and six,” Costello told her.
Mosley dashed back onto the elevator saying, “Great, you’re still here. Sorry about that delay.”
Squirrel Bait and Other Stories Page 8
