Westervelt and Rosenkrantz exchanged glances. The youth shrugged; he had been planning on staying late anyhow.
"Tell him to come back up, Joe," he suggested. "We have food in the locker for visitors, and he can clear a table in here to snooze on."
Colborn had heard him, and was shaking his head.
"I'd like nothing better, Willie," he said, "but I might as well start walking. It's better on the level than on the stairs."
"What do you mean—stairs?"
"I don't know about the other buildings around here, but they regretfully announced that there will be no elevators running above the seventy-fifth floor in this one. In fact, they only have partial service that high, on the building's emergency power generator."
Rosenkrantz looked worried. Broodingly, he fumbled out a box of cigarettes.
"What do you think, Charlie?" he asked. "I mean ... Lydman."
"That's why I called," said Colborn. "I think you better check the stairs and tell Smith. If he starts our boy down them, the ninety-nine floors will give him something to keep his mind busy."
The pressure from outside finally intimidated him into switching off. The last they saw of him on the fading phone screen, he was striving desperately to ease himself out of the booth in the face of a bellowing rush of harried commuters for the phone. Joe sighed, trying to light his smoke from the wrong end of the box.