in-the new contact went home to the Taunton Building. She has Stairs 17 to 18 on the thirty-fifth floor.” “What’s the thirty-fifth?” I asked, heavy-hearted. “For couples.” “Is she-?” “She’s unattached, Mr. Courtenay. Our girl pretended to apply for the vacancy. They told her Mrs. 17 is holding 18 for the arrival of her husband. He’s upstate harvesting.” “What time do the stairs close at Taunton’s?” I demanded. “2200, Mr. Courtenay.” I glanced at my desk clock. “Call your tail off her,” I said. “That’s all for now.” I got up and told my guards: “I’m going out without you, gentlemen. Please wait here. Lieutenant, can I borrow your gun?” “Of course, Mr. Courtenay.” He passed over a .25 UHV. I checked the magazine and went out on foot, alone. As I left the lobby of Schocken Tower a shadowy young man detached himself from the wall and drifted after me. I crossed him up by walking in the deserted street, a dark, narrow slit between the mighty midtown buildings. Monoxide and smog hung heavily in the unconditioned air, but I had antisoot plugs. He did not. I heard him wheeze at a respectable distance behind me. An occasional closed cab whizzed past us, the driver puffing and drawn as he pumped the pedals. Without looking back I turned the corner of Schocken Tower and instantly flattened against the wall. My shadow drifted past and stopped in consternation, peering into the gloom. I slammed the long barrel of the pistol against the back of his neck in a murderous rabbit punch and walked on. He was probably one of my own men; but I didn’t want anybody’s men along. I got to the Taunton Building’s night-dweller entrance at 2159. Behind me the timelock slammed the door. There was an undersized pay elevator. I dropped in a quarter, punched 35, and read notices while it creaked upward. “NIGHT-DWELLERS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR OWN POLICING. MANAGEMENT ASSUMES NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEFTS, ASSAULTS, OR RAPES.” “NIGHT-DWELLERS WILL NOTE THAT BARRIERS ARE UPPED AT 2210 NIGHTLY AND ARRANGE THEIR CALLS OF NATURE ACCORDINGLY.” “RENT IS DUE AND PAYABLE NIGHTLY IN ADVANCE AT THE AUTOCLERK.” “MANAGEMENT RESERVES THE RIGHT TO REFUSE RENTAL TO PATRONS OF STARRZELIUS PRODUCTS.”
The door opened on the stairwell of the thirty-fifth floor. It was like looking into a maggoty cheese. People, men and women, squirming uneasily, trying to find some comfort before the barriers upped. I looked at my watch and saw: 2208. I picked my way carefully and very, very slowly in the dim light over and around limbs and torsos, with many apologies, counting … at the seventeenth step I stepped over a huddled figure as my watch said: 2210. With a rusty clank, the barriers upped, cutting off steps seventeen and eighteen, containing me and- She sat up, looking scared and angry, with a small pistol in her hand. “Kathy,” I said. She dropped the pistol. “Mitch. You fool.” Her voice was low and urgent. “What are you doing here? They haven’t given up, they’re still out to murder you-” “I know all that,” I said. “I’m grandstanding, Kathy. I’m putting my head into the lion’s mouth to show you I mean it when I say that you’re right and I was wrong.” “How did you find me?” she asked suspiciously. “Some of your perfume came off on O’Shea. Menage a Deux.” She looked around at the cramped quarters and giggled. “It certainly is, isn’t it?” “The heat’s off, Kathy,” I told her. “I’m not just here to paw you, with or without your consent. I’m here to tell you that I’m on your side. Name it and you can have it.” She looked at me narrowly and asked: “Venus?” “It’s yours.” “Mitch,” she said, “if you’re lying-if you’re lying-” “You’ll know by tomorrow if we get out of here alive. Until then there’s nothing more to be said about it, is there? We’re in for the night.” “Yes,” she said. “We’re in for the night.” And then, suddenly, passionately: “God, how I’ve missed you!” Wake-up whistles screamed at 0600. They were loaded with skull-rattling subsonics, just to make sure that no slugabeds would impede the morning evacuation. Kathy began briskly to stow away the bedding in the stairs. “Barriers down in five minutes,” she snapped. She lifted Stair