Michelle’s firm was in a high-rise called the John Sloane Building. Corfe knew it already, having come here the previous week to voice his suspicions to Michelle about DNC matters. They entered via a revolving glass door. Kevin saw from a directory on one wall of the lobby that the offices of Prettis and Lang were on the fifth floor. The day receptionist had left, and a security guard at the desk signed them in. After calling upstairs to verify that they were expected, he directed them through to the elevators.
Everything about the building seemed to have been formed by sticking together rectangular blocks, like Lego, Kevin thought, looking around while they waited. Even the numberless, internally illuminated clock overlooking the lobby floor. Or was the enclosed space formed by some kind of inverse process of subtracting blocks from some primordial Lego continuum that had once filled the universe? He wondered if architects got their inspiration from their children’s cereal boxes over breakfast.
Michelle was waiting for them when they emerged from the car. “Hi,” she greeted. “I was beginning to get a little worried. It took you longer than I’d have thought. You’d have been going against the worst of the traffic.”
“We stopped to pick up some stuff at a hardware place on the way,” Corfe said.
“No problem with the tape?” she said to Kevin. He shook his head and patted the school bag that he was carrying. Michelle led them across a landing area and a short distance along a corridor to a door bearing a brass sign that echoed the firm’s name. Inside was a reception desk facing a waiting area containing glazed parallelipipedal furniture vaguely suggestive of a table, couch, and chairs—probably designed by architects—and beyond that, a deserted area with desks and data terminals, file cabinets, other assorted office equipment, and a garnishing of potted plants to relieve the utilitarian blandness. A passage on the far side brought them to a door bearing Michelle’s name. It opened into a private office occupying a corner of the building, with windows in two adjoining walls. There were law books and begonias, framed certificates and degrees, and a corkboard of photographs and personal mementos, combining a businesslike appearance with a feeling of hominess in the way that femininity seems uniquely able to achieve—reassuring in its orderliness, yet with enough clutter not to seem clinical. A tape player and monitor on a metal cart were set up by the desk, which faced the room diagonally across the angle of the two windows. Kevin handed Michelle the cartridge from his bag while Corfe pulled up two of the chrome-armed visitor chairs. Michelle loaded the machine and sat down. Then she opened a manila file folder that was lying on the desk and pulled across a yellow pad.
“First, let’s get the background straight,” she said. “Now, just exactly what is this tape, and where did it come from?”
Kevin explained how, the previous Friday, a mec that Taki had set aside to take back to his place had gone missing. (He didn’t see any need to go into how Taki had gotten the mec over to Kevin’s house to begin with.) Well, what was the obvious way to find out where a lost mec was? “Couple into it from the lab and look around to see where you are,” he concluded.
“Makes sense,” Michelle agreed.
“So that was what we did. It was last Friday afternoon. Mom was getting ready for that seminar over the weekend. The front hall at the house was piled up with all kinds of stuff. That was where Taki must have left it, and it got put into one of the bags somehow . . .”
Michelle raised a hand. “Was it out on its own, in a way anyone at the house would recognize it? Or was it inside something?”
“It was wrapped in some plastic with a relay card that Taki had been testing, then put inside a folded plastic bag with a rubber band around.”
“Okay.”
“Anyway, that’s about it. I coupled in and sent out its ID code when we got to the lab. Taki was following on the external monitor. And this is what we got.” Kevin nodded at the player where Michelle had loaded the tape.
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