Minders by Michele Jaffe Page B

stacked the dishes on the floor, surreptitiously pocketing a tiny crystal saltshaker, and poked his head into the dumbwaiter’s shaft. “One of the gears is stamped 1932,” he called to Nix.
    “And one of your time cards is going to be stamped FIRED,” the foreman’s voice said. Ford pulled himself out of the wall.
    “Harding, you’ve got to look at this,” Ford said, gesturing the foreman over. “It’s the entire mechanism, intact, from 19—”
    The foreman shook his head. “Yeah, I heard. Your job is to smash it.”
    “But it’s perfect. If we take it out I bet some decorator—”
    “Smash, smash, smash.” The foreman pointed to the sledgehammer Ford had dropped to the floor. “Go on, show me you know how to use it.”
    “It will be easy to get it out,” Ford kept on. “I swear to you if you tell whatever jackass we’re working for about it, they’ll thank you. It could be worth something.”
    “You’re right,” the foreman agreed. “Could be worth your job. Now smash—”
    “I’m the jackass.” The tall red-headed guy from the front steps walked into the room. He held out his hand to Ford again. “Mason Bligh.”
    This time Ford took it. “Ford Winter.”
    “What did you find?” Mason asked.
    Ford, suddenly taciturn— You’re shy! Sadie realized, feeling a tiny bit of kinship with him—just pointed his finger up into the shaft. “Dumbwaiter.”
    “For the dumb worker,” the foreman said, laughing at his own joke.
    Mason gave him a forced smile and looked at Ford. “How would you get it out?”
    “Saw around it. Shouldn’t take long, maybe an hour.”
    “I’d like to see that,” Mason said. “Let’s do it.” He turned to the foreman. “Do I need to sign anything, Mr. Harding? Pay you more money? Why don’t you draw up contracts for this spot project, and I’ll pay you today.”
    “Whatever you like, Mr. Bligh,” the foreman said pleasantly.
    Phony , Ford thought, perching himself on the edge of the opening and leaning in. Sadie watched his mind tracing a map of the mechanics of the dumbwaiter the way it had produced the street map earlier. He turned to Mason and asked, “What are you going to do with it?”
    “Nothing yet. But it’s too neat to destroy. Have you got a use for it?”
    Ford poked his head out of the hole to look at the guy Sadie heard him describe in his head as a twenty-three-year-old bajillionaire nerd. He couldn’t figure Mason out. He said, “I might.”
    “Great, you take it. And you find anything else like that, tell me. You’re right, I want to know.” Mason was heading for the door when Ford’s voice called him back.
    “Excuse me, sir,” Ford said, his voice sounding young and unsure.
    Mason turned. “Yep?”
    “I took this.” Ford held out the crystal saltshaker. “I didn’t think anyone would care, but obviously it’s yours. I—I just wanted it for my sister.”
    Right , Sadie thought. Because all eleven-year-olds really want a saltshaker.
    Mason shook his head. “All yours.”
    Ford worked with steady concentration after that, barely pausing to eat, but Sadie sensed an increasing jumpiness in him. Anticipation? Anxiety? By the time he scanned out at the end of the day she was certain he was about to do something illegal, and she was torn between excitement and wariness as he steered his bike in the opposite direction of his apartment.
    He rode from the mostly deserted neighborhood around the job site through two traffic-gnarled intersections into an area of wide, silent streets lined with the crumbling hulks of commercial buildings. His bike bounced over a portion of downed chain-link fence and up a cracked asphalt driveway to the front entrance of a large brick factory. It had what looked like a chimney on one side and appeared to be about seven stories tall, but peering through the open door Sadie saw it was empty inside from the floor to the roof except for rusted machine parts, some decaying wood pallets, and broken