“Aa-aah, that guy,” the operator said. “He was blaming me for the blueprints of the building. If you ask me, he’s got too much college education. What have I got to do with the blueprints?”
“I don’t know,” the starter sighed. “I sure as hell don’t know.”
“I’ll ask you another question,” the operator went on, with a little more certainty, now that he saw his oratorical way, so to speak. “What have the building blueprints got to do with me?”
Blake closed the office door and leaned against it. He ran his fingers through his thinning hair.
“Miss Kerstenberg,” he said at last in a strangled voice. “What do you think? Those cranks that were here yesterday—those two crazy old men—the home office went and rented the thirteenth floor to them!”
She looked up from her typewriter. “It did?”
“And believe it or not, they just went upstairs and took possession of their offices.”
She smiled at him, a rapid woman-smile. “How nice” she said. And went back to her typing.
The morning after that, what Blake saw in the lobby sent him scurrying to the telephone. He dialed the home office. “Mr. Gladstone Jimm,” he demanded breathlessly.
“Listen, Mr. Jimm. This is Sydney Blake at the McGowan. Mr. Jimm, this is getting serious! They’re moving in furniture today. Office furniture. And I just saw some men go upstairs to install telephones. Mr. Jimm, they’re really moving in!”
Gladstone Jimm was instantly alert. He gave the matter his full attention. “Who’s moving in, my boy? Tanzen Realty Corporation? Or is it the Blair Brothers again? I was saying only last week: things have been far too quiet in the real estate field; I’ve felt in my bones that last year’s Code of Fair Practices wouldn’t be standing up much longer. Try to raid our properties, will they?” He snorted long and belligerently. “Well, the old firm has a few tricks up its sleeve yet. First, make certain that all important papers—tenant lists, rent receipts, don’t overlook anything, son—are in the safe. We’ll have three attorneys and a court order down there in half an hour. Meanwhile, you keep—”
“You don’t understand, sir. It’s those new tenants. The ones you rented the thirteenth floor to.”
Gladstone Jimm ground to a full stop and considered the matter. Ah. He understood. He began to beat swords into ploughshares.
“You mean—those fellows—um, Toombs and Boole?”
“That’s right, sir. There are desks and chairs and filing cabinets going upstairs. There are men from the telephone and electric companies. They’re all going up to the thirteenth floor. Only, Mr. Jimm, there isn’t any thirteenth floor!”
A pause. Then: “Any of the other tenants in the building been complaining, Blake?”
“No, Mr. Jimm, but—”
“Have Toot and Boob committed any sort of nuisance?”
“No, not at all. It’s just that I—”
“It’s just that you have been paying precious little attention to business! Blake, I like you, but I feel it is my duty to warn you that you are getting off on the wrong foot. You’ve been resident agent at the McGowan for almost a week now and the only bit of important business involving the property had to be transacted by the home office. That’s not going to look good on your record, Blake, it’s not going to look good at all. Do you still have those big vacancies on the third, sixteenth, and nineteenth floors?”
“Yes, Mr. Jimm. I’ve been planning to—”
“Planning isn’t enough, Blake. Planning is only the first step. After that, there must be action! Action, Blake; A-C-T-I-O-N. Why don’t you try this little stunt: Letter the word action on a sign, letter it in bright red, and hang it opposite your desk where you’ll see it every time you look up. Then on the reverse side, list all the vacancies in your building. Every time you find yourself staring at that sign, ask yourself how many vacancies are still listed on the back. And then, Blake, take action!”
“Yes, sir,” Blake said, very weakly.
“Meanwhile, no more of this nonsense about law-abiding, rent-paying tenants. If they leave you alone, you leave them alone. That’s an order, Blake.”
“I understand that, Mr. Jimm.”
He sat for a long while looking at the cradled telephone. Then he rose and walked out to the lobby and into an elevator. There was a peculiar and unaccustomed jauntiness to him, a recklessness to his stride that could be worn only by a man deliberately disobeying a direct order from the reigning head of Wellington Jimm Sons, Inc., Real Estate.
Two hours later he crept back, his shoulders bent, his mouth loose with defeat.
Whenever Blake had been in an elevator full of telephone linemen and furniture movers on their way to the thirteenth floor, there had been no thirteenth floor. But as soon as, a little irritated, they had changed elevators, leaving him behind, so far as he could tell, they had gone right up to their destination. It was obvious. For him there was no thirteenth floor. There probably never would be.
He was still brooding on the injustice of it at five o’clock, when the scrubwomen who were coming on duty bounced their aged joints into his outer office to punch the time clock. “Which one of you,” he asked, coming at them suddenly with an inspiration, “which one of you takes care of the thirteenth floor?”
“I do”
He drew the woman in the bright green, fringed shawl after him into his private office. “When did you start cleaning the thirteenth floor, Mrs. Ritter?”
“Why, the day the new tenants moved in.”
“But before that…” He waited, watching her face anxiously.
She smiled, and several wrinkles changed their course. “Before that, Lord love you, there was no tenants. Not on the thirteenth.”
“So…” he prompted.
“So there was nothing to clean.”
Blake shrugged and gave up. The scrubwoman started to walk away. He put his hand on her shoulder and detained her. “What,” he asked, staring at her enviously, “is it like—the thirteenth floor?”
“Like the twelfth. And the tenth. Like any other floor.”
“And everyone,” he muttered to himself, “gets to go there. Everyone but me.”
He realized with annoyance that he’d spoken too loudly. And that the old woman was staring at him with her head cocked in sympathy. “Maybe that’s because,” she suggested softly, “you have no reason to be on the thirteenth floor.”
He was still standing there, absorbing the concept, when she and her colleagues bumped and clattered their way upstairs with mops, brooms, and metal pails.
There was a cough and the echo of a cough behind him. He turned. Mr. Tohu and Mr. Bohu bowed. Actually, they seemed to fold and unfold.
“For the lobby directory” said the tall man, giving Blake a white business card. “This is how we are to be listed.”
Blake struggled, licked his lips, fought his curiosity and lost. “What kind of intangibles?”
The tall man looked at the tiny man. The tiny man shrugged. “Soft ones,” he said.
They walked out.
Blake was positive he saw the tall man pick up the tiny man a moment before they stepped into the street. But he couldn’t see what he did with him. And then there was the tall man walking down the street all by himself.
From that day on, Sydney Blake had a hobby. Trying to work out a good reason for visiting the thirteenth floor. Unfortunately, there just wasn’t any good reason so long as the tenants created no nuisances and paid their rent regularly.