I could guess, but I didn’t tell her. I had a feeling she would insult at the drop of a hat.
“Tell me,” I said.
“I’d go downstairs and see the janitor. He’s a very helpful man.” Then she spoilt it by adding, “Are you sure you won’t have a plum?”
“Yeah, I’m quite sure. Well, thanks, I’ll see the janitor like you said. Sorry to have taken up so much of your time.”
“Oh, you’re welcome,” she said, and smiled.
I backed away, and as she closed the door she put another plum into the maw she called her mouth.
I rode down the elevator to the lobby and walked down a flight of dark, dusty stairs to the basement. At the bottom of the stairs a door faced me. It bore a solitary legend: Janitor. I raised my hand and rapped. A lean old man with a long, stringy neck, dressed in faded dungarees, appeared. He was old and bored and smelt faintly of creosote and whisky. He squinted at me without interest, said one word out of a phlegmy old throat, “Yes?”
I had a feeling I wasn’t going to get much help out of him unless I shook him out of his lethargy. From the look of him he seldom came up out of the darkness, and his contacts with human beings were rare. He and Rip Van Winkle would have made a fine business team, providing Winkle took charge of things; not otherwise; decidedly not otherwise.
I leaned forward and hooked a finger in his pocket.
“Listen, pally,” I said, as tough as an Orchid City cop. “Shake the hay out of your hair. I want a little co-operation from you.” While I talked I rocked him to and fro. “Apartment 246—what gives?”