smashed it into the window, used it to knock out some particularly nasty shards of glass, then dropped it down the airshaft. I had to grope for a second before I found the latch. Raising the window from the position I was in turned out to be harder than I’d expected, but once it was open I had no trouble climbing inside. I took a moment to let my eyes get used to the darkness of the room and my breathing return to normal. I flexed my fingers inside the gloves, tried to work out the kinks.
Then I made my way to the door.
The room I was in was the storage room behind the kitchen. Boxes of canned food and bottled beer were stacked from floor to ceiling, like in a warehouse. I pulled down one of the boxes and started taking bottles out of it, stacking them on the floor.
I carried the empty box with me into the kitchen.
Here, the remnants of the morning’s work were tidied up: rows of metal pots and saucepans, washed and lined up face-down to dry; sacks of kitchen whites that were headed to the laundry because after a night of cooking they weren’t so white anymore; wooden packing boxes like the one I was carrying, some broken down for disposal and others filled with empty bottles or other trash and stacked by the dumbwaiter for pick-up. I set the box down and tugged at the dumbwaiter rope till the little compartment surfaced, then tied the rope off so it couldn’t go down again.
I listened at the swinging doors to the main dining room, heard the labored wheeze of a carpet sweeper being pushed back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I knew the girl pushing it, a scarred twenty-year-old Belgian by the name of Heaven LaCroix whom all the other girls on the cleaning crew—bohunks and Slavs, every one of them, and none too attractive themselves—made a point of calling ‘Heavy’ to her face. So she was carrying a few pounds—what business was it of theirs? Looked like it was all muscle anyway, the sorts of labor they had her doing.
I glanced at her through the circular window in the kitchen door, then ducked when she turned in my direction. I’d figured she’d be finished with the dining room by now, but it looked like she still had plenty to go. I’d have to take the long way around.
Hefting the box, I picked my way to the far side of the kitchen, past the cold storage room where steaks and butter and ice were kept, past the grills and deep industrial sinks, past the trestle table where the dancers and musicians bolted their suppers between shows, to the door that led backstage. This door was locked overnight but everyone who worked at the Sun knew where the key was kept. I pried up the cover of the light switch with one fingernail, fished out the key, and used it to open the lock. The area beyond ran behind the orchestra platform and the dance floor, past the wings, and to a corridor that, during working hours, always had a man in it, someone to keep any straying patrons—or employees, for that matter—from straying too far. This time of day it was empty. I made my way to the far end.
And here I faced another locked door.
This was the one that counted.
It could all end here. Or it could all begin.
I knelt in front of the keyhole. From the inside pocket of my coat I took a rolled-up square of felt, cinched around the middle with twine. I drew the knot open and unrolled the cloth. It clanked lightly against the floor.
There were three narrow pockets, and from two of them I drew a machinist’s hammer and a broad-edged chisel. The head of the hammer was a barrel-shaped slug of metal and heavy as hell. I wedged the chisel point into the groove where the shaft of the doorknob met the wooden surface of the door, then swung the hammer down, hard.
It took four blows before the knob came off. I paused after each, certain the clang of metal against metal had been heard. But this deep into the floor the place was silent and still. I went back to work like some ghostly blacksmith, hammering and pausing and
Then I made my way to the door.
The room I was in was the storage room behind the kitchen. Boxes of canned food and bottled beer were stacked from floor to ceiling, like in a warehouse. I pulled down one of the boxes and started taking bottles out of it, stacking them on the floor.
I carried the empty box with me into the kitchen.
Here, the remnants of the morning’s work were tidied up: rows of metal pots and saucepans, washed and lined up face-down to dry; sacks of kitchen whites that were headed to the laundry because after a night of cooking they weren’t so white anymore; wooden packing boxes like the one I was carrying, some broken down for disposal and others filled with empty bottles or other trash and stacked by the dumbwaiter for pick-up. I set the box down and tugged at the dumbwaiter rope till the little compartment surfaced, then tied the rope off so it couldn’t go down again.
I listened at the swinging doors to the main dining room, heard the labored wheeze of a carpet sweeper being pushed back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I knew the girl pushing it, a scarred twenty-year-old Belgian by the name of Heaven LaCroix whom all the other girls on the cleaning crew—bohunks and Slavs, every one of them, and none too attractive themselves—made a point of calling ‘Heavy’ to her face. So she was carrying a few pounds—what business was it of theirs? Looked like it was all muscle anyway, the sorts of labor they had her doing.
I glanced at her through the circular window in the kitchen door, then ducked when she turned in my direction. I’d figured she’d be finished with the dining room by now, but it looked like she still had plenty to go. I’d have to take the long way around.
Hefting the box, I picked my way to the far side of the kitchen, past the cold storage room where steaks and butter and ice were kept, past the grills and deep industrial sinks, past the trestle table where the dancers and musicians bolted their suppers between shows, to the door that led backstage. This door was locked overnight but everyone who worked at the Sun knew where the key was kept. I pried up the cover of the light switch with one fingernail, fished out the key, and used it to open the lock. The area beyond ran behind the orchestra platform and the dance floor, past the wings, and to a corridor that, during working hours, always had a man in it, someone to keep any straying patrons—or employees, for that matter—from straying too far. This time of day it was empty. I made my way to the far end.
And here I faced another locked door.
This was the one that counted.
It could all end here. Or it could all begin.
I knelt in front of the keyhole. From the inside pocket of my coat I took a rolled-up square of felt, cinched around the middle with twine. I drew the knot open and unrolled the cloth. It clanked lightly against the floor.
There were three narrow pockets, and from two of them I drew a machinist’s hammer and a broad-edged chisel. The head of the hammer was a barrel-shaped slug of metal and heavy as hell. I wedged the chisel point into the groove where the shaft of the doorknob met the wooden surface of the door, then swung the hammer down, hard.
It took four blows before the knob came off. I paused after each, certain the clang of metal against metal had been heard. But this deep into the floor the place was silent and still. I went back to work like some ghostly blacksmith, hammering and pausing and
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