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He wasn't happy, but he did pick up the keys attached to the chain on his belt. He unlocked the door and opened it a cautious three inches. "What do you want? I can't be doing this unless you're one of the tenants."
"I know, but Kinsey left her bag upstairs and she needs her car keys and wallet."
Unimpressed, Willard flicked a look at me. "She can come back on Monday. Building opens at seven."
"How's she going to do that? Without her car keys, she can't even drive. I had to pick her up at her house and bring her over here myself. This is her handbag, Will. Do you know what it's like when a woman's separated from her purse? She's going berserk. She's a private detective. She has her license in there. Plus her address book, makeup, credit cards, checkbook, every nickel she owns. Even her birth control pills. She gets pregnant, the burden's on you, so get ready to raise a kid."
"Okay, okay. Tell me where it is and I'll bring it down to her."
"She doesn't know where it is. That's the point. All she knows is she had it when we went up with Marty last night. Now it's gone and that's the only place she went. It has to be there somewhere. Come on. Be a peach. It won't take five minutes and we'll be out of your hair."
"Can't. The alarm system's on."
"Marty gave me the code. Honest. He said it's fine with him as long as we cleared it with you first."
The long-suffering Willard opened the door and allowed us in. I thought he'd insist on coming upstairs with us, but he was serious about his monitoring duties and didn't want to leave his post. Reba and I took one of the two public elevators, which made the four-floor journey at an agonizingly slow pace.
"You sure you know the code?" I asked.
"I watched Marty do it. Same code we had before when I was working for Beck."
"How come he's such a nut about security and so careless about his codes? Sounds like anybody who ever worked for him could get in."
Reba waved the observation away. "We used to change 'em all the time – once a month – but with twenty-five employees, somebody was always messing up. The alarm would go off three and four times a week. The cops came out so many times, they started charging fifty bucks a pop."
The doors slid open and Reba hit the Stop Run button while she stepped out of the elevator. I leaned around and watched as she punched in the seven-digit code: 4-19-1949. "Beck's birthday," she said. "For a while he used Tracy's, but he was the one who kept forgetting that date so he switched to his own."
The status light on the keypad shifted from red to green. She left the elevator on Stop Run, awaiting our return. I followed her into the reception area.
The offices were dead quiet. There were numerous lights on, which oddly contributed to the overall feeling of abandonment. "Bart and Bret, the cleaning twins, were in last night. Check the vacuum cleaner tracks. We better hope whoever comes in here first thing Monday morning doesn't wonder about our footprints ru
"How do you know the vacuuming was done by Bart and Bret and not the guys with the cleaning cart?"
"I'm so glad you asked. Because I'll tell you why. They weren't real cleaning guys, which is something I figured out in the dead of night. Know what bugged me about them?" She paused for effect. "Wrong shoes. What guy mops the floors wearing four-hundred-dollar shiny Italian loafers?"
"You are Sherlock Holmes."
"You're damn straight. You grab your shoulder bag while I satisfy my curiosity. This shouldn't take long."
I made a beeline for the roof, heading down the corridor closest to the stairs. Given Beck's edict about clean surfaces, every desk I spotted en route looked as barren and untouched as an ad for office furniture. I took the steps two at a time and pushed through the big glass door that opened onto the roof. The morning sky was immense, the perfect shade of blue. I slowed and crossed to the parapet, drawn by a desire to see downtown Santa Teresa from this vantage point. The sun had warmed the air in the rooftop garden, coaxing fragrance from the flowering shrubs while a light breeze rustled through the foliage. In the distance, light spilled like pancake syrup across the mountain peaks. I leaned over and looked at the street, which was largely empty at this hour. I tilted my face to the light and took a deep breath before I righted myself and turned back to the task at hand. I retrieved my bag from behind the big potted ficus tree and went downstairs. Reba had been right about my birth control pills. I pulled out my packet and popped two like after-di
When I got downstairs, she'd taken out a tape measure and was busy checking the length and breadth of the corridor, one foot on the metal ribbon while she extended the tape to the full. She released the button and I could hear the metal tape sing as she brought it zinging back to her hand. The tip-end whipped against her finger and dealt her a nasty blow. "Shit. Son of a bitch!" She sucked on her knuckle.
"You need a medic?"
"Look at that. I'm bleeding to death."
The nick on her index finger was a quarter of an inch long and she studied it with a frown. "Anyway, bet you dollars to donuts the friggin' room is right there. Press your ear to the wall and see if you can hear anything. Minute ago I heard a humming. Like machinery."
"Reba, that's the elevator shaft. You probably caught the sound of the service elevator going down."
"Not from this floor. We're the only ones up here."
"But we can't be the only people in the building. The elevator equipment is right above us. Of course you'd hear it."
"You think?"
"Let's try the obvious and check it out," I said.
She followed me around the corner where the service elevator was located. From the digital readout on the wall, we could track the car going down, the number changing from 1 to G.
"Told you," I said, and then glanced at my watch. "Shit. We better get out of here before Willard gets anxious and comes looking for us. I can't believe the nonsense you laid on him. Talk about maneuvering."
"I thought I did great… though that begging and pleading shit is only good for limited use. The next time we want in, I'll have to screw the guy for sure."
"You're making a joke, right?"
"Don't be such a prude. Screw one guy, you've screwed ' em all. You're only a virgin once, and after that, you might as well reap the benefits. Besides, I wouldn't mind. I think he's cute." Her gaze was raking the wall again and I could tell she was still speculating about the missing space. She said, "Maybe you get in by way of the roof. Through that little building that looks like a gardener's shack."
"Skip it. We don't have time. Let's get out of here."
"You're such a worrywart," she said, taking out O
"What about Beck's phony docs."
"Right. I got 'em right here," she said, patting her jacket pocket. She took the hem of her shirt and began cleaning fingerprints from the keys. "Wiping off the prints," she said. "In case they ever dust."
"Just get on with it."
She walked down the hall to O
"What are you doing?"
"I just figured it out. Hot damn." She reached out and pressed the button, calling the service elevator to the fourth floor. As we watched the digital readout, the elevator began its slow and dutiful climb. Eventually the doors opened. She reached in and pressed Stop Run, then entered the service elevator with me close behind her. The space was twice the width and half again as long as an ordinary elevator, apparently to accommodate moving boxes, file cabinets, and oversize office equipment. The walls were hung with quilted gray fabric like the blankets movers use to protect furniture.