"Somebody find, maybe throw here—I dunno." Pete scratched his head. "You don't worry any more, though. I take away now. No smell, even."
He grinned at her and scuttled to the other end of the fire escape where he climbed through the window to the fourth floor corridor.
Ellen poured herself a second cup of coffee and lighted another cigarette, then turned to the woman's page in the paper. She read the Advice Column and the Psychology and glanced through the "Help Wanted—Women" in the classifieds. That finished the morning's reading. She looked at her watch. Almost ten.
She carried her coffee cup to the sink, rinsed it out and set it on the drainboard. There was still a cup or more coffee left in the pot. That could be warmed over later, but she took out the filler and dumped the grounds into the paper bag that held garbage. The bag was almost full.
I'll throw it in the incinerator now, she thought, before I straighten the apartment.
She emptied the ashtrays—the one beside her bed and the other on the breakfast table—then started down the hall with the garbage bag in her hand.
The incinerator chute was at the rear of the hall, next to the service stairs. Ellen could see the door standing slightly open. She hesitated. 410 might be there. It was bad enough to ride in the elevator with him, feeling his eyes on her, but there was something unbearably intimate about standing beside him, emptying garbage.
The door seemed to move a little, but nobody came out. She waited another minute. Oh, well, maybe the last person out there just forgot to shut the door tight. She opened it wider, stepped out on the stair landing. No one was there.
The chute was wide, almost three feet around. Ellen opened the top and started to throw the bag down. Something was stuck in there. Her eyes saw it, but her brain refused to believe.