The building was seven storeys high. Heck had expected a dilapidated warehouse and a dingy suite of offices above it. What he saw was a gleaming glass-walled new office building in one of the best sections of town. A sign in raised metal-on-metal bank-style letters proclaimed the edifice to be the Finch Building. And that, Heck told himself in amazement, was more than either Amos Weatherby or Jason Spooner had.
The doorman smiled and tipped his hat. At first Heck, who smiled back a little self-consciously, did not know how the maroon-uniformed doorman knew him. But then he saw a big full-color portrait of himself hanging just to the left of the bank of elevators. Apparently the blonde had found it somewhere, or had had it made from a snapshot. The blonde thought of everything.
Heck got into the elevator. It was crowded with white-collar workers all of whom, Heck realized with a start, worked for him. They'd been talking animatedly when he entered the car, but the talk settled quickly into nervous silence. After all, weren't they in the presence of The Boss?
When the elevator got to the top floor and when the last of the other passengers got off, Heck stepped out on a plush red carpet and across it through a gate and past a row of smiling secretaries to an opaque-glass-walled suite of offices marked with the legend: Executive Offices.
There must have been half a dozen secretaries and clerks in the large ante-room. All were busy. All were gorgeous. If the blonde was responsible for hiring them, the blonde had taste. And obviously wasn't the jealous type. Or perhaps, Heck thought, Baldid had done the hiring. Or perhaps the girls just came with the building. Were they Earth girls? wondered Heck, or girls from the blonde's world? He found himself sighing with contentment. If they all had a collective moral sense the equal of the blonde's.... But what am I thinking? There's Patty. Isn't there?
"... waiting for you," a voice said.
"Er, what was that?" Heck realized that the secretary closest to the door leading to the Executive Offices had spoken to him.
"I said, sir, there is a Miss O'Conner waiting for you in your office."
Patty, Heck thought. He gulped. How had Patty learned of his new business so quickly? He was going to tell her, of course, but not immediately. He needed time to think. Unprepared, how could you explain a setup like this to a girl like Patty?