“Sure it is,” the superintendent said, happy to have something he could be knowledgeable about. “Nobody came around at all.”
“That’s what I mean,” Parker said. He shook his head. “All right,” he said, “let’s get the damn thing done right this time. Is it locked up there?”
“No. I’ll take you up.”
“Good.”
Parker felt Formutesca trying to catch his eye, but the worst thing you could do in a situation like this was step out of character. Parker faced front and followed the superintendent down the hall to the elevator, Formutesca coming along behind him.
They rode up to the fifth floor and the superintendent showed them where the men’s room was. Then Parker said, “All right. What we want you to do is go down and turn off the water. You got a watch with a second hand?”
The superintendent was confused again, but he nodded. “Yeah. Sure.”
“Okay. We want you to time it. Turn it off for exactly fifteen minutes, and then turn it back on again. You got that?”
“Fifteen minutes,” said the superintendent.
“You can go a few seconds one way or the other,” Parker told him, “but get it as close as you can.”
“Okay,” the superintendent said.
“We’ll give you a couple minutes to get down there,” Parker said.
The superintendent turned away, shaking his head. “You never get any sleep in this damn job,” he said.
“You think you got troubles,” Parker told him.
“I know,” the superintendent said, walking away. “It’s rough all over.”
Parker and Formutesca went into the men’s room. Formutesca was grinning the second the door closed. “That was beautiful,” he said. “That was really beautiful.”
“Don’t giggle and wink when he’s around,” Parker said. “We’re not here for fun.”
Formutesca looked sheepish. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right. It was just nervousness. I’ll be better now.”
“Good.”
Parker went over and opened the window. Four feet away and about a foot higher than the windowsill was the rim of the museum roof. “Perfect,” Parker said. “Let’s have the ladder.”
They slid the ladder top-first out of the window till it rested with one end on the museum roof and the other end on the windowsill. Then, while Formutesca held the ladder in place, Parker went on hands and knees across it to the museum roof. He stepped off on to the roof and Formutesca pulled the ladder back in at the other end. If the superintendent should come back in while Parker was gone, Formutesca would just lean against the wall and be stupid.
The roof surface was tar, quiet beneath Parker’s feet. He hurried over to the mounded shape of the elevator- shaft housing, found the padlock holding the lid down, and took from an inside pocket a small envelope with a dozen keys inside. He tried three keys before finding the right one, then put the rest back in the envelope and the envelope back in his pocket. The right key he put in a different pocket, removed the padlock, and lifted the housing cover. He got out a pencil flash and looked inside the shaft.
It was fine. There was a broad metal beam one could stand on when one first climbed in, and the side cables were easily accessible for climbing down. The top of the elevator was a bare seven feet below him now, being stopped at the top floor, which was unexpected good luck. They’d assumed the Kasempas would keep the elevator at the first-floor level when they weren’t using it, in case Gonor or someone else should visit the place, but apparently they were feeling very secure and sure of themselves.
The elevator roof itself was perfect, mostly flat, metal, with the trapdoor into the elevator off toward a corner. The thing should work.
Parker put the pencil flash away, shut the cover, and put the padlock back on. Then he went back across the roof to the lighted men’s room window and saw Formutesca in there looking for him.
Formutesca smiled and waved when he saw him, then pushed the ladder out the window again. Parker reached for it, rested the top end on the roof rim, and went hands and knees back to the other building.
Formutesca helped him through the window and then pulled the ladder back in and shut the window. He turned to Parker, not bothering to hide his excitement. “Well? How is it?”
“Fine,” Parker said. “It’ll work. How long’s it been?”
Formutesca looked at his watch. “Just about eleven minutes.”
“Good,” Parker said. “We have time to make a mess.”
For the next five minutes they attempted to make the room look like a place where plumbers had been at work. Parker flushed the three toilets, emptying their water tanks, and smeared a few streaks of grease here and there on walls and fixtures while Formutesca chipped three tiles out of the wall above one of the sinks and then carelessly glued them back on again, grouting somewhat sloppily around their edges.
When the superintendent came back, the room looked right. He looked around and said, “You got it done?”
“We think so,” Parker said. “We’ll have to take a look in the basement, that’s all. You don’t have to stay with us any more if you don’t want.”
“I don’t know,” the superintendent said. “Maybe I better.”
