magazines from a rack on the wall. There was a tiny counter inside with three wooden stools crammed in front of it, where you could get a soda on a hot day or a coffee on a cold one. For a nickel extra Jerry’d put a slug of something he called bourbon in the coffee, but it wasn’t bourbon really and you were better off blowing the nickel on one of the dirty books he kept behind the counter.
When the coffee ran its course you could hold it till you got back to your office, wherever that was, or you could use the little toilet in a closet at the back. Jerry could be counted on to have his hands full opening coke bottles, breaking dollar bills for parking meters, and—this time of day—watching all the cute secretaries going by on their way back from lunch. So he didn’t pay much attention when you went to use the can. Or when you came back.
Or when you didn’t.
The toilet was filthy and dim, but not completely dark despite having no bulb overhead, and not completely airless, either. What there was overhead was a piece of frosted glass laced through with chicken wire. This piece of glass was hinged at one side and wedged open about an inch, letting in what little light and ventilation the room got.
I swung the lid of the toilet down, climbed onto the seat and then onto the tank, and pressed both hands—both gloved hands, I was taking no chances—against the glass. And shoved.
It took three tries before the hinge creaked open far enough for me to pull myself up through the opening. I used my heel to swing it shut again behind me. The surface of the roof was caked with bird droppings and piled with years of refuse thrown from windows higher up. Behind one such pile I saw a long-tailed rat eying me hungrily, its whiskers twitching. “You’re on your own, friend,” I told it.
I’d been up here once before, when casing the job, and I knew where the rain gutter was. It was a narrow pipe that ran the height of the building and you’d have to have been a Chinese acrobat to climb it if a pipe was all there was. But the pipe was clamped to the stone every three feet with a sturdy metal bracket and those brackets had just about enough room on either side to hold a carefully placed shoe-tip. There was also a bare inch or so of space between the pipe and the wall and I’d worn a girder-man’s safety belt around my waist. I threaded the buckle behind the pipe and clicked its latch shut. I’d have to re-open and close it one-handed every three feet all the way up, but it was worth the extra effort. A fall from ten feet up might only break my leg—from fifty, it’d kill me for sure.
Or else leave me wishing it had, when my long-tailed friend came to feed.
I climbed.
Eleven stories may not seem like much when you’re riding up in an elevator; even climbing stairs, it’s no more than a good work-out. But let me tell you, climbing eleven stories one handhold and toehold at a time is agony. Your fingers seize up. Your calves start to ache. You want to let go, but you can’t, not even for a moment, because what if the belt’s not strong enough to hold you after all?
And four stories up, the windows start. Windows into offices, and unlike nightclubs, offices have people in them at two in the afternoon. You pray they’ll be empty or if, when you glance in, they’re not, you pray the people inside will leave quickly. Or if they don’t, you pray they won’t look your way.
And you keep climbing. Praying and climbing. And your fingers cry out with pain and stiffness, and your back and shoulders, and your ears from the tunneling wind of the airshaft around you, and your head’s about to burst, and your bladder too because you didn’t bother to actually use the toilet before climbing on top of it—and then you realize with a start that you’ve made it.
And then the real fun begins.
I reached into my jacket pocket and took out the fist-sized stone I’d picked up on the way downtown. No fancy devices for me. I
When the coffee ran its course you could hold it till you got back to your office, wherever that was, or you could use the little toilet in a closet at the back. Jerry could be counted on to have his hands full opening coke bottles, breaking dollar bills for parking meters, and—this time of day—watching all the cute secretaries going by on their way back from lunch. So he didn’t pay much attention when you went to use the can. Or when you came back.
Or when you didn’t.
The toilet was filthy and dim, but not completely dark despite having no bulb overhead, and not completely airless, either. What there was overhead was a piece of frosted glass laced through with chicken wire. This piece of glass was hinged at one side and wedged open about an inch, letting in what little light and ventilation the room got.
I swung the lid of the toilet down, climbed onto the seat and then onto the tank, and pressed both hands—both gloved hands, I was taking no chances—against the glass. And shoved.
It took three tries before the hinge creaked open far enough for me to pull myself up through the opening. I used my heel to swing it shut again behind me. The surface of the roof was caked with bird droppings and piled with years of refuse thrown from windows higher up. Behind one such pile I saw a long-tailed rat eying me hungrily, its whiskers twitching. “You’re on your own, friend,” I told it.
I’d been up here once before, when casing the job, and I knew where the rain gutter was. It was a narrow pipe that ran the height of the building and you’d have to have been a Chinese acrobat to climb it if a pipe was all there was. But the pipe was clamped to the stone every three feet with a sturdy metal bracket and those brackets had just about enough room on either side to hold a carefully placed shoe-tip. There was also a bare inch or so of space between the pipe and the wall and I’d worn a girder-man’s safety belt around my waist. I threaded the buckle behind the pipe and clicked its latch shut. I’d have to re-open and close it one-handed every three feet all the way up, but it was worth the extra effort. A fall from ten feet up might only break my leg—from fifty, it’d kill me for sure.
Or else leave me wishing it had, when my long-tailed friend came to feed.
I climbed.
Eleven stories may not seem like much when you’re riding up in an elevator; even climbing stairs, it’s no more than a good work-out. But let me tell you, climbing eleven stories one handhold and toehold at a time is agony. Your fingers seize up. Your calves start to ache. You want to let go, but you can’t, not even for a moment, because what if the belt’s not strong enough to hold you after all?
And four stories up, the windows start. Windows into offices, and unlike nightclubs, offices have people in them at two in the afternoon. You pray they’ll be empty or if, when you glance in, they’re not, you pray the people inside will leave quickly. Or if they don’t, you pray they won’t look your way.
And you keep climbing. Praying and climbing. And your fingers cry out with pain and stiffness, and your back and shoulders, and your ears from the tunneling wind of the airshaft around you, and your head’s about to burst, and your bladder too because you didn’t bother to actually use the toilet before climbing on top of it—and then you realize with a start that you’ve made it.
And then the real fun begins.
I reached into my jacket pocket and took out the fist-sized stone I’d picked up on the way downtown. No fancy devices for me. I
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