'All right'
'Good night, Ellen.'
'Good night, Gordon.'
She replaced the receiver and remained sitting on the bed, biting her lower lip and drumming her fingers the way she always did when she was toying with an idea.
Snapping shut her purse, Ellen looked up and smiled across the lobby at Powell's approaching figure. He was wearing a gray topcoat and a navy blue suit, and the same smile he had worn the previous evening. 'Hi,' he said, dropping down beside her on the leather divan. 'You certainly don't keep your dates waiting.'
'Some of them I do.'
His smile broadened. 'How's the job-hunting?'
'Pretty good,' she said. 'I think I've got something. With a lawyer.'
'Swell. You'll be staying in Blue River then, right?'
'It looks that way.'
'Swell...' he drew the word out caressingly. Then his eyes flicked to his wristwatch. 'We'd better get on our horses. I passed the Glo-Ray Ballroom on my way over here and there was a line all the way-'
'Ohh,' she lamented.
'What's the matter?'
Her face was apologetic. 'I've got an errand to do first. This lawyer. I have to bring him a letter... a reference.' She tapped her purse.
'I didn't know secretaries needed references. I thought they just tested your shorthand or something.'
'Yes, but I mentioned that I had this letter from my last employer and he said he'd like to see it. He's going to be at his office till eight-thirty.' She sighed. 'I'm awfully sorry.'
'That's all right.'
Ellen touched his hand. 'I'd just as soon not go dancing,' she confided. 'We can go someplace, have a few drinks...'
'Okay,' he said more cheerfully. They stood up. 'Where is this lawyer?' Powell asked, standing behind her, helping her on with her coat.
'Not far from here,' Ellen said. 'The Municipal Building.'
At the head of the steps that fronted the Municipal Building, Powell stopped. Ellen, in the quadrant of a revolving door, relaxed her about-to-push hand and looked at him. He was pale, but that might have been the grayish light filtering out from the lobby. 'I'll wait for you down here, Ewie.' His jaw was rigid, the words coming out stiffly.
'I wanted you to come up with me,' she said. 'I could have brought this letter over here before eight o'clock, but I thought it was kind of odd, his telling me to bring it in the evening. He's a greasy looking character.' She smiled. 'You're my protection.'
'Oh,' Powell said.
Ellen pushed around through the door, and after a moment Powell followed her. She had turned and was watching him when he came out of the door. He was breathing through partially opened lips, his face barren of expression.
The vast marbled lobby was silent and empty. Three of the four elevators were black behind latticed metal gates. The fourth was a yellow-lighted cell with wooden walls the color of honey. They walked towards it side by side, their footsteps drawing whispering echoes from the domed ceiling.
In the cell a tan-uniformed Negro operator stood reading a copy of Look. He tucked the magazine under his arm, toed the floor button that released the big sliding metal door, and threw the latticed gate across after it. 'Floor please,' he said. 'Fourteen,' Ellen said.
They stood in silence, watching the steadily advancing position of the lighted numeral in the row of unlighted numerals over the door .7.. .8.. .9... Powell rubbed his mustache with the side of his forefinger.
When the light jumped from 13 to 14, the car came to a smooth automatic top-floor stop. The operator drew in the gate and pulled down on the jointed bar that opened that outer door.
Ellen stepped out into the deserted corridor, Powell following her. Behind them the door slid shut with a hollow clangor. They heard the gate closing and then the decrescent hum of the car 'It's this way,' Ellen said, moving towards the right. 'Room four-teen-oh-five.' They walked to the bend of the corridor and made the right turn. There was light behind only two of the frosted glass door panels in the stretch of straightened corridor before them. There was no sound except their feet on the polished rubber tiles. Ellen groped for something to say... 'It won't take long. I just have to give hip the letter.'
'Do you think you'll get the job?'
'I think so. It's a good letter.' They reached the end of the corridor and turned right again. One door was lighted, up ahead in the left wall, and Powell angled towards it. 'No, that's not the one,' Ellen said. She went to an unlighted door on the right. Its frosted panel was inscribed Frederic H. Clausen, Attorney at Law. Powell came up behind her as she futilely tried the knob and looked at her watch. 'How do you like that?' she said bitterly. 'Not even a quarter after and he said he'd be here till eight-thirty.' (The secretary on the telephone had said 'The office closes at five.') 'What now?' Powell asked. 'I guess I'll leave it under the door,' she said, opening her purse. She took out a large white envelope and her fountain pen. Uncapping the pen, she held the envelope flat against the purse and began to write. 'It's a shame about the dancing,' she said. 'That's okay,' said Powell. 'I wasn't too keen on it myself.' He was breathing more easily, like a novice aerialist passing the middle of the taut wire and becoming less uncertain of his footing.
'On second thought,' Ellen said, glancing up at him, 'If I leave the letter now I'D. only have to come back for it tomorrow anyway. I might just as well bring it over in the morning.' She recapped the pen and put it back in her purse. She held the envelope at an angle to the light, saw that the ink was still wet, and began to wave the envelope with quick fanlike motions. Her gaze drifted to a door across the corridor, the door marked Stairway. Her eyes lighted. 'You know what I'd like to do?' she asked.
'What?'
'... Before we go back and have those drinks...'
'What?' He smiled.
She smiled back at him, waving the envelope. 'Go up to the roof.'
The aerialist looked down and saw the net being drawn out from under him. 'What do you want to do that for?' he asked slowly.
'Didn't you see the moon? And the stars? It's a perfect night. The view must be tremendous.'
'I think we might still be able to get into the Glo-Ray,' he said.
'Oh, neither of us are crazy about going.' She slipped the envelope into her purse and snapped it shut. 'Come on,' she said gaily, turning from him and crossing the corridor. 'What happened to all that romance you displayed in the hall last night?' His hand reached out for her arm and caught empty air. She pushed the door open and looked back, waiting for him to follow.
'Evvie, I... Heights make me dizzy.' He forced a thin smile.
'You don't have to look down,' she said lightly. 'You don't even have to go near the edge.'
'The door's probably locked...'
'I don't think they can lock a door to a roof. Fire laws.' She frowned in mock disgust. 'Oh come on! You'd think I was asking you to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel or something!' She backed through the doorway onto the landing, holding the door, smiling, waiting for him.
He came with a slow trancelike helplessness, as though there were part of him that perversely wanted to follow her. When he was on the landing she released the door. It swung closed with a soft pneumatic hissing, cutting off the light from the corridor and leaving a 10-watt bulb to fight a losing battle against the shadows of the stairwell.
They climbed eight steps, turned, and climbed eight more. There was a dark metal door with a warning painted on it in large white letters: Entrance Strictly Forbidden Except in Emergency. Powell read it aloud, stressing the words 'strictly forbidden.'
'Signs,' Ellen said disdainfully. She tried the knob.
'It must be locked,' Powell said.
'If it were locked they wouldn't have that.' Ellen indicated the sign. 'You try.'
