Mike said something deprecative of his own efforts and took the package. If it were in working order it would have been worth close to three hundred dollars—more than that on the black market. If it was broken, though, it was no good to Mike. A microcryotron unit is almost impossible to fix if it breaks down. But Mike took it because he didn’t want to hurt Old Harry’s feelings by refusing a present.
“Thanks, Harry,” he said. “Happen to know why it doesn’t work?”
Harry’s face crinkled again in his all-over smile. “Sure, Mike. It ain’t plugged in.”
4
Mike the Angel did not believe in commuting. Being a bachelor, he could afford to indulge in that belief. In his suite of offices on 112th Street, there was one door marked “M. R. Gabriel.” Behind that door was his private secretary’s office, which acted as an effective barrier between himself and the various employees of the firm. Behind the secretary’s office was his own office.
There was still another door in his inner office, a plain, unmarked door that looked as though it might conceal a closet.
It didn’t. It was the door to a veddy, veddy expensive apartment with equally expensive appointments. One wall, thirty feet long and ten feet high, was a nearly invisible, dustproof slab of polished, optically flat glass that gave the observer the feeling that there was nothing between him and the city street, five hundred feet below.