I went back to the elevator, rode the updraft to the roof landing. A police ship was idling over the Richmond Building. Coincidence. I saw a taxi drop his fare only twenty feet away, and I wanted desperately to hail the cab, but I couldn't take the chance. I remained for a minute by the doorway. The police ship also lingered.
I asked a building employe where the freight elevator was. He pointed the direction, and I stripped off my suit jacket and folded it around my waist beneath my shirt. Then I rolled up my shirt sleeves and stepped into the down-shaft. I hit bottom two floors below street-level. There was a clerk in a receiving room.
"Has some office furniture come in for 1108?" I asked in a shlub accent.
"Nothin' yet," said the clerk.
I thumbed at the doorway. "That the freight tube?"
"Yup."
"Maybe they're waiting for me outside?"
It was a silly thing to say but it gave me the excuse of looking. I ducked my head out and saw that the dock was empty. There was a rush of sewer-tainted air, and the hum of the city's subterranean conveyer belt.
"The idiots!" I exclaimed for the clerk's benefit. "There they are at the next building."
I slammed the door and hopped onto the belt which was moving at about five miles an hour. I jumped off at the next dock we came to, rode the freight shaft up, then got off at the sixth floor.