“Maybe you think so and I think so but a lot of people out there, they don’t think so. Otherwise, he would have been able to use that master’s.” The lobby was emptying rapidly now. A few people milled before the information desk, checking on reservations. A group of cleaning women, most of them Puerto Rican, waited by the elevators, chattering away in soft Spanish. Garfunkel left to start his security rounds; Barton picked up his bag and walked over to the elevator bank.
He nodded to one of the women whom he had met while working overtime during the dedication: Albina Obligado, a graying woman with a startling amount of gold in her white teeth. She was so pleasantly Earth Mother that he felt a small pleasure at seeing her again.
One of the elevators emptied out and the cleaning women crowded in, Albina holding the doors open for Barton. He signaled for her to go ahead and press the call button for the end cage.
Then something about marble cladding around the elevator bank caught his eye.
The grout around the slabs was already crumbling. Sloppy workmanship, he thought, irritated. Then he frowned and took a closer look. It wasn’t real marble after all but a polyester synthetic.
He’d never noticed it before, but then the synthetics were excellent visual copies. Still, he was damned sure it wasn’t what the architectural team responsible for the interiors had called for.
Somewhere along the line, somebody had been sold a bill of goods.
Another man joined him at the elevator and Barton nodded. One of the early commercial tenants whom he knew slightly; he and his partner ran an interior decorating shop on the floor below National Curtainwall’s executive offices. Brian-no, Ian-Douglas, a large man who always seemed to dress a shade too elegantly for his size; he was the type who had probably been a swimmer in college and was now tending to softness.
About forty-five, Barton decided, a good ten years older than ‘his partner, whose name Barton couldn’t recall.
“Lousy night,” Barton said idly.
Douglas started. “Oh, yes, dreadful,” he mumbled. He didn’t say anything more and Barton decided something was on his mind. Business was probably bad and he was working late after having gone out for a quick supper.
Too bad, it that were the case. Barton rather liked the big man, though his younger partner seemed a little selfconsciously … what did they call it?”
“hutch”? Well, everybody had their hang-ups.
The elevator doors slid silently open and they stepped in. Barton punched 18 for his floor and 17 for Douglas.
The doors had just started to close when suddenly a tall, rail-thin man in a wrinkled janitor’s uniform. hurried toward them.
“Hold it, fellas-hold it, will ya!”
Barton stuck out his foot to intercept the photoelectric eye beam at the bottom of the elevator doors. They slid open again and the thin man scurried in, still puffing.
“Thanks a lot, Mr. Barton.”
“Any time, Krost,” Barton said indifferently. He had never liked Michael Krost, who was maintenance supervisor for five of the office floors, including those of National Curtainwall. A sour-looking, middle-aged man with a thick head of coarse, graying hair, there was a furtiveness about him that put Barton on edge. Word had it that Krost was a lush and had once been caught drinking on the job. For some reason, Leroux had interceded to save him. Probably for old time’s sake, Barton thought.
Krost had come over from the Melton Building where National Curtainwall had been headquartered until they moved into the Glass House.
“Sure good to have you back aboard, Mr. Barton,” Krost said.
“Just the other night I was telling Daisy that you were out there on the West Coast showing them how a big architect and a construction team operate.
Mr. Leroux must think a lot of you to send you out on a project like that.”
Douglas retreated to the far end of the elevator to avoid the odor of stale beer and faintly mildewed clothing that hung around Krost like a fog. Barton ignored it.
“What floor, Krost?”
“Make it twenty for me, Mr. Barton.” Yellow teeth showed through in a thin smile. “Got to ride herd on them cleaning women up there, yes sir.”
The cage stopped at seventeen and Douglas got out, obviously grateful to get away from Krost. Then it was Barton’s Turn, Krost shouting after him: “Daisy and I, we both hope you have a good weekend, Mr. Barton!”
National Curtainwall’s offices occupied the entire floor, as well as a portion of the two above it. The entrance to the executive suites was at the far end and normally one ran the gamut of three secretaries before entering.
Tonight, all the anterooms were deserted. Barton shucked out of his topcoat and draped it on the tree before entering the inner suite.
A few lights glared in the Credit Union area, as well as some of the other offices. He might luck out and run into, somebody with some solid information after all, he thought hopefully. The Credit Union people, of course, would be working on accounts. NC employed close to five hundred people in the local offices alone and a lot of them must have withdrawn money or c paychecks for the long weekend.
Barton snapped on the lights in his. office, dropped his small suitcase on the floor, and stepped over to the window to stare -out at the darkening city, half hidden by clouds and pelting sleet. They’d be spending the night in a hotel for sure; he wouldn’t drive out to Southport after supper for all the tea in China. And it might be a good time to talk to Jenny, to set some things right that had been going very wrong these last two years.
He loosened his tie and hung his suit coat in the small office closet; then he started down the hall to see who might still be around.
Lights glowed in the architects’ division. He walked into the first office, knocking on the door as he entered.
“You ought to be home watching the tube, Joe, how come so late?” he asked. Joe Moore had left Wexler and Haines the same time he had and was one of the few men at NC with whom Barton felt genuinely comfortable, probably because he wasn’t a company man. Five, years younger than himself, Moore was a crackerjack architect whose only character flaw-if it could be considered a flaw-was that he preferred to spend his evenings bowling and his Saturday afternoons golfing rather than putting in overtime doing and dying for dear old Curtainwall.
It wasn’t a lack of ambition, but rather a sense of proportion an out life, an attitude that Barton admired.
Moore shifted his chair away from the drawing board so Barton could see better. “Leroux’s new brainstorm.
Take a look.”
Barton glanced over his shoulder at a superb color rendering of a new high rise. “It’s for a site in St. Louis.
The property was acquired and cleared last year and next month they start excavating for the foundation.” Moore paused. “Once they start, it should go pretty fast in spite of the weather.”
There was something in his voice that made Barton bend closer to the board. It was a beautiful building, he thought; it would be a credit to any city. Then he felt the back of his neck go red.
“You know,” Moore said slowly, “it’s the same kind of similarity you find in housing developments where all the homes are built from the same master plan and only the exterior trim and the details differ-the garage is on the left side instead of the right or maybe there’s a car porch instead. Why shouldn’t St. Louis have a Glass House? Color it blue instead of gold, put the scenic elevator on the northern exposure, make a few minor changes in the curtainwall …”
“The industry would laugh at him,” Barton said in a flat voice.
“You think so? Start figuring the savings, the speed in construction. You practically eliminate the architectural expense.
You know most of the problems in advance-you crank them out like the houses in a subdivision. He’ll be selling a beautiful building at a cut-rate price and he’ll still make a killing in time savings alone.”
“You’re not kidding me?”
