It was easy to pick out the office staff. They were younger, and they seemed tense with the effort to be sociable and agreeable. I picked up a drink at the bar as protective coloration and moved along into what was apparently the largest area of the office suite, the bullpen, soon to be filled with girls, files, desks, duplicators, and electronic accounting equipment.
I saw Biddy Pearson in a small group at the far side of the room, talking animatedly. I worked my way over toward her, circling other conversation groups. She wore a little turquoise suit with a small jacket and short skirt. The jacket and the skirt fastened down the left side from shoulder to hip with five big brass old-fashioned galoshes-clamps, three on the jacket and two on the skirt. Her
stockings were an ornate weave of heavy white thread with a mesh big enough for the standard seining net for bait.
She spotted me and looked flatteringly pleased and beckoned me over, introduced me to Jack and Helen Something, Ward and Ellie Somethingelse, and I moved in such a way as to block her out of the group just enough so that it dispersed. I did not trust my voice. I was afraid it would make a quacking sound. But it came tout with reasonable fidelity as I asked her, “How are things going?”
“Beautifully! Tom is so pleased. Don’t you think the decorator did a fabulous job?”
“Very nice.”
“And Maurie is being an absolute dear! She seems to understand how important this is, really. And she’s really being quite gracious.” She went to tiptoe and lifted her chin to look about for Maureen.
So you take the gamble as you find it, and you make it up as you go along. “She certainly looks very, very lovely. That’s a good color on her.”
“Oh! You saw her already.”
“Yes. Down in the lobby.”
She was still looking for her, so it was a slow take. She turned toward me. “What? Where?”
“Down in the lobby.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been here just long enough to get a drink. Five minutes ago? She got off the elevator when I got on.”
She clamped her fingers around my wrist. “Was she alone?”
“Yes.”
“My God, Travis, why didn’t you stop her and bring her back up here?”
“Look, Biddy. She looked fine. She told me to go right on up and join the party. She said she had to get something out of the car. She said she’d be right back. Was I supposed to grab her and bring her back up here, kicking and screaming?”
“Oh, she’s so sly! Oh damn her, anyway. Just when everything was going so well. Tom was dubious about bringing her. But she seemed so… kind of better organized. Excuse me. I’d better find Tom. I thought she was still with him.” She made a wry mouth. “And he probably thinks she’s with me. He’ll be sick, absolutely sick.”
I found windows and oriented myself and went to a wide corridor that led past small offices to the big offices at the end. People were roaming up and down the corridor, being given the tour by some of the Development Unlimited staff. I turned a corner and went into an office and looked out and down and estimated I was not more than fifteen feet too close to the street side. I moved back toward the corner of the corridor and realized it had to be a room with a closed door. Almost all the others were open for inspection.
A pretty little redheaded woman came trotting along and stopped and stared up at me. She wore green and a pint of diamonds and a wide martini smile. “Well, hello there, darling! Are you one of his darling new engineers? Christ, you’re a towering beast, aren’t you? I’m Joanie Mace way down here.”
“Hello, Joanie Mace. I’m not an engineer. I’m a mysterious guest.”
“With a lousy empty glass? Horrors! Wait right here, mysterious guest. Don’t move. Don’t breathe. I’m a handmaiden.”
She trotted away. My side of the corridor was empty. I heard voices approaching. I opened the door and stepped into a small office, unlighted. As I closed the door I saw that it was stacked with cartons of office forms and supplies. I made my way to the windows and found that the center window was fixed glass but that the narrower ones on either side cranked inward. A sliding brace stopped them when they were open perhaps eighteen inches. They were five feet tall, and the sill was a foot from the floor. The one on the left was open. I leaned and looked down. It was the right one. I closed it, then pulled my jacket sleeve down across the heel of my hand and pressed the turn latch until it clicked into the fully latched position. As I turned, my toe came down on something soft. I could tell by the feel of it that it was a small leather evening bag. I shoved it into the front of my shirt and tightened my belt another notch.