She shook her head. “You know the regulations. Got to have a watcher to watch the watcher.”
“Afraid I’ll grab the money and run off to the Adriatic ;coast?”
He laughed. “Not that it isn’t a thought.”
“No, of course not.” She knew her face was slightly red. “But I’m in charge of the vault and if anyone found out…”
“Don’t sweat it, I’ll cover for you.” She still hesitated.
“Go ahead, Carolyn, get out of here-there’s not that much left to do anyway.”
She reached for her coat which was draped over a desk chair and said, “You sure you don’t need me?”
“Of course I need you but why spoil both our evenings?
Besides, the weather’s getting bad and if you wait any longer, you won’t be able to go at all. The guys in the architects’ division left an hour ago.”
“Thanks a lot, Lex.” She paused at the door. ‘Anybody ever tell you that you’re a very nice man? Thanks again.”
He touched an imaginary cap with his forefinger and said, “My pleasure.” She had talked about the trip all last week and had mentioned several times that the son of her uncle’s best friend was also visiting and that her uncle had wanted her to meet him. She had made fun of the idea she had no hopes, none at all, but then, who knew?
She deserved a last chance. Besides, his evening was nothing to look forward to even if he went home.
With good luck, Hughes thought, Carolyn would do better with her uncle’s visitor than he had done with Maggie. Maggie. How had it all happened, anyway? The year in New York, the chance with the show-for peanuts, of course, but a chance nonetheless. And then Maggie had told him she was pregnant. One could barely live on an Equity salary in those days; it was absolutely impossible for two. So he had done the decent thing and married her-abortion was out-and got himself a clerk’s job, the type of work he had done ever since. And Maggie hadn’t changed. Still giddy, with a vivacity that was charming in a girl of twenty and appalling in a woman of forty, and an absolute conviction that clothes made ‘the woman-if the price was high and the labels right.
He finished the last entry and began to run the totals.
When he was through, he picked up the tray of money to take it to the vault. So much money, he thought again, more than thirty thousand dollars-a lot more, closer to forty. And there was more money in the vault, plus negotiable securities and bonds that some of the officers kept there. If he were a dishonest man, now was his chance. And that was the irony of it all, he thought. He couldn’t be a thief if his life-depended on it, his early training had laced him into a moral straitjacket.
Hadn’t it?
He glanced up at the camera eye scanning him. Of course it had.
Thou Seest Me.
The spark has grown stronger now, fanned by the faint breeze from the ventilator. It glows brightly, like a firefly in the evening shadows. The strand of frayed cotton, slowly eaten by the spark, feathers into a light gray ash that falls as dust to the floor below.
The spark has nibbled its way two inches up the wispy hair of cotton to two threads, the warp and woof of the fabric above it. The new supply of food is too much for the spark and it slowly starts to darken, dying of indigestion. The threads at the juncture point blacken, pulling heat away from the sparkles now too weak to burn past the slight pressure point where the two strands of cotton meet.
It dims some more; the beast is dying before it’s ever really had a chance to live.
The temperature in the room has continued to drop and somewhere in the depths, of the wall, near the ceiling, two dissimilar metals of different coefficients of expansion twist in a common embrace, reaching out in their struggle to touch a cadmium nickel contact. A brief electrical flash marks the tripping of a relay many floors below and a fan deep in the bowels of the building slowly sobs to life. Overhead in the room,.warm air abruptly floods from the ventilator grill. The sudden displacement of air in the darkened room blows away the smothering layer of combustion products and fresh oxygen swirls around the fading spark. It flares under the sudden gust of air and leaps the juncture of the two threads. In the next instant, the juncture separates and two sparks glow in the darkness where only one had glowed before.
The flow of warm air from the ventilator grill in the ceiling grows stronger. The sparks grow brighter.
The infant beast now has two arms.
CHAPTER 7
Well, the old saying was sure right, Krost thought to himself. It took a real drinker to recognize another drinker.
He smiled half crookedly with secret knowledge and said, “Mr. Donaldson said, you got trouble up here, Mr. Bigelow?”
Bigelow stared at him with red-rimmed eyes and read the same message.
“Back there,” he said curtly, jerking his head in the direction of the executive suite. Krost padded obediently after him through the storage room, glancing curiously about at the styrofoam Santa Clauses and reindeer; it looked like the toy section of a huge department store, he thought. Then they were in the suite itself and Bigelow was pointing an accusing finger at the refrigerator in the kitchen nook.
“How the hell can a man entertain a client without any ice? I don’t know what’s wrong with the damned thing, the light won’t even come on.”
“Yes sir, it sure must be inconvenient, but we’ll have it fixed in a jiffy, Mr. Bigelow.” His eyes were darting about the suite as he was talking.”If Bigelow was entertaining, there wasn’t much indication of it; he was the only one present in the suite, there were no coats on the sofa or business papers scattered over the coffee table or brief cases leaning against it.
Krost knelt down by the refrigerator. “I don’t know what’s wrong with companies any more, you get things right from the factory and quality check or something before they shipped them out but, no sir, they never seem to touch the things, it’s just sell ‘em and forget ‘em.” What was wrong was that the plug had been pulled out of the wall in back but it was hard to get at and not immediately noticeable. You’d have to get down -on your hands and knees and fish around in the dust behind the unit, but Bigelow didn’t look like the type who would be willing to wrinkle his trousers or get grease on his fancy, thick-heeled shoes. “Should have it fixed in a moment, Mr. Bigelow; doesn’t look like anything major.”
Bigelow was nervous and getting more so. “Just go ahead and fix it, don’t talk my ear off about it.”
“Yes sir, Mr. Bigelow, like I was telling Daisy the other night, you really can’t concentrate on anything difficult if you’re talking at the same time. If silence isn’t golden, at least it sometimes pays off.”
Krost spotted it then. The closed door, probably the bathroom, had to be the bathroom. And not a sound from it. He had left a pair of pliers on the counter and stood up to get them. Two glasses in the sink, one with a thick smear of red around the rim. Well, it just had to be that way; who would be entertaining a client on Thanksgiving Eve?
Maybe Donaldson was dumb enough to think so but he certainly wasn’t.
He made noises with the pliers for a moment, then pushed the plug into the wall socket and blinked at the sudden flood of light from the refrigerator in its darkened nook.
“I guess that’ll do it, okay, Mr. Bigelow?” He’d give a lot to know who was up there; Bigelow didn’t look like the hooker type. Maybe one of the secretaries who worked in the building; that’d make for a nice scandal, maybe even a profitable one. He slipped the pliers in his rear pocket and backed out of the nook.
“Yeah, that’ll do it,” Bigelow muttered, holding open the door at the other end of the suite. Then Krost caught something out of the corner of his eye and turned slowly to admire the view of the city through the huge windows.
He was right-a copy of Variety wedged between a couch cushion and the armrest. He wasn’t in any hurry to leave now.
“You sure do have a beautiful view from up here, Mr. Bigelow. Never seen the city look so nice before, even if it is raining
.”
Bigelow stared at him for a second, then pulled out his wallet and found a five-dollar bill, folding it into Krost’s hand. “Thanks a lot for fixing the refrigerator,” he said grimly.
“I really appreciate it.”
Krost looked down at the bill. “Why, there’s no reason for you to go doing this, Mr. Bigelow! We maintenance people don’t charge for our services; it all comes with the rent …” He still didn’t move and Bigelow slowly pulled out another five, this time holding it just outside the door.
“I know what it’s like to be pulled away from your regular duties for something like this. I’m sorry I’ve kept you this long.” His looks were murderous and Krost knew the game was over, though he considered he had done rather well in playing it out for,an easy ten.
“Thanks again, Mr. Bigelow.” Once in the hall, Krost thought: Who did the dirty old bastard think he was kidding with that story about a buyer from out of town?
If there was any buyer, it was Bigelow himself and. the price he was paying was probably pretty steep. Women like Miss Elmon didn’t come cheap, that was for sure.
Hell, he hadn’t asked Bigelow to give him any money, he thought self-righteously; that was all Bigelow’s idea-his guilty conscience speaking. Then he remembered his electric lantern; he had left it on the kitchen counter. He thought of going back for it, then figured it wouldn’t be wise. ‘Not right then, at any rate.
He took the elevator back up to twenty-five and paused before the door of the Apex utility room, fumbling for his key. -God, he could use a drink right now; the least Bigelow could’ve done was to offer him one. Probably have saved him ten bucks in the bargain, but, of course, that had been guilt money….
It was then, with sudden panic, that he remembered the coffee cup with the immersion heater. Sweet Jesus, not again! He could feel the sweat start to pop on his forehead. He thrust the key in the lock and slammed into the room, to lean against the door with a sigh of relief.
The cup was just where he had left it, the heater leaning against the inside edge. Then he noticed there wasn’t any steam coming from the cup. He leaped for it, but not soon enough.
Krost reached for the wall plug at the precise moment the heater exploded. It was at that second in time that all the water in the cup boiled away and with no water to cool the coils, the aluminum covering melted and slumped.
The coils promptly short-circuited and the aluminum covering itself erupted in a shower of metal sparks. One of them hit the back of Krost’s hand and he swore and jerked his hand away, knocking over the Windex bottle.
The brandy spilled out on the porcelain table top and in a flash, the surface of the table was covered with flickering blue flames as the burning brandy spread.
Krost hastily tried to smother the flames with his bare hands, scorching the hair on the back of his knuckles, The flaming brandy was now dripping on the floor in front of the table and running in blazing little rivulets toward The solvent locker. Krost stomped frantically on the flames, then ran to the mop sink and grabbed up the mop leaning against it and swung the head against the fiery streams. The blue flames had just started to dance around the bottom of the locker when he brought the damp strings down on them, extinguishing them more by the violence of his action than by the faint moisture in the mop.
He turned back to the table. The puddle of brandy was already drying, the alcohol having burned itself out, but there was still some liquor in the tipped-over bottle.
Flames were puffing from its throat as the alcohol vaporized and burned at the mouth. Panicky, Krost lifted the mop and swung it down on the bottle, knocking it off the table to shatter on the floor. The brandy was all gone now, the last of the alcohol dying in a faint burst of azure.
Krost stood there gasping, frightened now by the heavy beating of his heart. It had almost been the Melton Building fire all over again but, thank God, this one he’d caught in time. He looked around. Jesus, what a mess … He got a broom from the locker and swept up the little pieces of glass, then wet the mop and scrubbed the floor and the table top. A flat piece of cardboard served as a dustpan. He brushed the shards of the cup and fused remains of the immersion heater onto it and started to dump them into a nearby trash barrel, then hesitated.
That’d be a dead giveaway. Instead, he wrapped the debris in paper towels from the locker and stuffed the thick wad into a pocket-he’d dispose of it on another floor.
Finally, he stood back and inspected the room. Except for the several burned spots on the table where droplets Of hot metal had splashed, there wasn’t anything to indicate there had been a fire. He put the spoon and the jars of coffee and dried cream back in the top locker and then washed out the mop. Nobody’d ever know, he thought.
The faint odor of brandy and the smell of burning metal had already disappeared into the air-conditioning ducts.
Now, sweet Jesus, he could really use a drink. The brandy was gone but there was more where it had originally come from-the wet bar and liquor display in Consolidated Distributors - on the twenty-second floor.
Well, why not? He had to check on the cleaning women anyway and he could get rid of the cup pieces and the fused heater up there, too.
Or … He teetered in the doorway, uncertain. He could always go back to where he had left the bottle he had brought to work. He considered it for a moment, then thought hell no, grinning to himself.
It was too early and, besides, he’d save that for dessert.
Consolidated was out of anything of real quality and along about midnight, he’d be in the mood for quality.
Krost was starting on a bender but as well as he knew himself, at that particular moment, he didn’t realize it.
CHAPTER 8
The duty roster read like a crossword puzzle with half the words missing, Garfunkel thought, annoyed. Mirisch in particular had a checkered attendance record; he was a moonlighter and didn’t actually need the job, which probably explained it. He’d show up the next duty shift with some elaborate excuse but it was a cinch he wouldn’t show, tonight. Garfunkel was damned if he would call him; that was Mirisch’s obligation. Well, there were plenty of men on his waiting list; he’d pick a returned vet they needed the work and they were usually reliable.
Better to hire a new man and go to the trouble of breaking him in than to have a man continue to crap out just when you needed him. You had to be a hard nose, Garfunkel thought, or you’d get it jammed up your butt every time. He picked up the copies of the check lists that Jernigan and the lobby guard had given him and ran his eye quickly down the names. Not many people were working late, which was understandable, and it looked like the bulk were away for the weekend. He would have headed south himself and spent the holidays at his sister’s if it hadn’t been for the mass truancies among the guards. He took a final glance around the lobby-the dinner crowd was showing up in force now-then walked up the short flight of stairs to the surveillance room.
It was a small office, about the size of offices in automobile agencies, with one wall lined with sensor indicators for heat and smoke, plus about a dozen monitoring screens that covered the sensitive areas of the building-the lobbies, the garage, the tellers’ cages in the bank as well as the vault area in National Curtainwall’s Credit Union, and similar stations. Ordinarily he’d have two men on duty to spell each other at the screens and make fire patrols, but Sammy was also out for the evening.
“Things under control, Arnie?”
Arnold Shea twisted in his chair and said, “Hi, chief, glad you’re here. You know, I almost think we’re going to have a heist in the Credit Union.”
Garfunkel quickly moved in to look at the scope. On screen, Hughes was counting money and banding the bundles of bills, occasionally looking up at the camera with a thoughtful glance.
“I don’t like it, chief, if I ever saw a guy who was planning on beating it with all the money, that’s him.”
“You’re out of your mind. Give Lex Hughes a chance and he’ll quote the Bible at you
until it’s running out of your ears; he’s a member in good standing at one of those revivalist churches.”
“They’re not above passing the plate in church, are they?”
“If Hughes saw you drop a penny on the sidewalk, he’d run a mile to give it back and you better believe it. I made the mistake of showing him the screens once and he turned white; probably thinks it’s the eye of God watching him and every once in a while he can’t resist watching back. The time to worry is when he starts talking to it. Not a bad guy otherwise; poor bastard’s stuck with a wife who’s forty and thinks she’s still sixteen.”
Shea smiled. “What’ve you got against women, chief?”
“Nothing-I was married to one once, wasn’t I?” Garfunkel glanced at his watch. It was close to seven o’clock and in a few minutes the electrical locks would be activated on the stairwell doors and the whole building would be buttoned up. If he wanted to, he could head for home after that; Arnie could handle the scopes and Jernigan the residential floors and he had three other men scattered throughout the building, which should be enough to cover everything. And it would sure as hell be nice to be able to take his shoes off; physically, as well as professionally, he had become the complete flatfoot.
Shea was Yawning. “These things can really hypnotize you. I’ve damned near fallen asleep a dozen times; it’s different when you’ve got somebody here to talk to.”
The bastard had read his mind, Garfunkel groaned to himself. It was part of a plot, anything to keep him from being able to wriggle his toes in the privacy of his own apartment. He couldn’t trust Shea to last until the next shift, let alone be sure that the next shift would even show up.
“I don’t know,” Shea said thoughtfully, back at the screen again.
“I tell you, Dan, that guy’s got the South America look in his eyes.”
“He’s probably thinking of the Virgin Mother Mary,” Garfunkel grunted.
“I told you, he’s the most honest guy in the building-with the exception of myself.” He sat down on a nearby chair and glanced through the tenant lists again, matching’them up with the Promenade Room reservations. Quite a few were eating upstairs, including Lisolette Mueller and Harlee Claiborne-now there was a deadbeat for you. But he couldn’t blame them; it would be nice to eat out on Thanksgiving Eve but not with the kind of weather that was blowing up outside.
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