What would it be like, he wondered suddenly? What would it be like in this fairy-tale kingdom called Landover — this kingdom that had somehow come to be offered for sale in a department store catalogue? Would it be like the land of Oz with Munchkins and witches and a tin man who talked? Would there be a yellow brick road to follow?
He resisted a sudden urge to pack up his suitcase and get the hell out of New York before going any further with the whole business. When you got right down to it, what mattered was not the sanity of his inquiry or the future into which he might choose to step. What mattered was the conscious decision to make some change in his life and in making that change to find something that would offer him the purpose of being that he had lost. When you held your ground, the old saying went, you stopped moving. When you stopped moving, everything about you would eventually pass you by.
He sighed. Trouble was, those old bromides always sounded truer than they were.
The variety show gave way to the late news, weather, and sports. Ben undressed and put on pajamas (did people wear pajamas in Landover?), brushed his teeth (did people brush their teeth in Landover?), shut off the television, and went to bed.
He was awake early the next morning, having slept poorly as he always did the first night away from home on a trip. He showered, shaved, dressed in a dark blue business suit, caught the elevator to the lobby where he purchased an early edition of the Times, and went into Oscar’s for breakfast.
By nine o’clock, he was on his way to Rosen’s.
He chose to walk. The decision was a perverse mix of stubbornness and wariness. The store was only half a dozen blocks from the hotel on Lexington, and anything that close ought to be walked. The day was iron gray and chill, but the rains had moved northeast into New England. A cab was a waste of money. Furthermore, by walking he could approach the store at his own pace and on his own terms — kind of work up to what he was going to do. The trial lawyer in him always appreciated the advantage of being able to orchestrate one’s own entrance.
He took his time, letting the feel of the autumn morning bring him fully awake, but he was there by nine-forty anyway. Rosen’s was a fifteen-story chrome-and-glass cornerstone to two thirty-plus-story skyscrapers that ran half a block on Lexington and the better part of a short block on the cross street west. An old establishment, the store had obviously been remodeled when the skyscrapers had gone in, the aged stone facade giving way to a more modern look. Plate-glass display windows lined the walkway along Lexington, filled with fashions displayed on mannequins with frozen smiles and empty stares. The late morning rush hour traffic passed them by unsmiling, unseeing. Ben followed the line of windows south to a recessed entry and passed through two sets of double-doors sandwiching a weather foyer to the store within.
The ground floor of Rosen’s opened out before him, cavernous, polished, sterile. Rows of metal-and-glass display cases filled with jewelry, cosmetics, and silver filled the hall, gleaming and shining beneath a flood of fluorescent light. A handful of shoppers browsed the aisles that ran between the display cases while store personnel looked on. No one seemed much interested in generating sales. It all had the appearance of some arcane ritual. He glanced about. To his right, an escalator climbed through the ceiling to the floor above. To his left, a bank of elevators lined a distant wall. Straight ahead, where even the most bewildered shopper could not fail to see it, a glass-encased directory announced the departments and the floors on which they could be found.
He took a moment to read the directory. There was no listing for Meeks. He hadn’t really expected that there would be. The departments were listed alphabetically. Under the letter C he found the heading, Customer Service, special ordering — eleventh floor. Fair enough, he thought — he would try that. He angled his way through the maze of cases to the elevators, caught one standing open and took it to the eleventh floor.