“Yes, Mr. Jimm. I’ve been planning to—”
“Planning isn’t enough, Blake. Planning is only the first step. After that, there must be action! Action, Blake; A-C-T-I-O-N. Why don’t you try this little stunt: Letter the word action on a sign, letter it in bright red, and hang it opposite your desk where you’ll see it every time you look up. Then on the reverse side, list all the vacancies in your building. Every time you find yourself staring at that sign, ask yourself how many vacancies are still listed on the back. And then, Blake, take action!”
“Yes, sir,” Blake said, very weakly.
“Meanwhile, no more of this nonsense about law-abiding, rent-paying tenants. If they leave you alone, you leave them alone. That’s an order, Blake.”
“I understand that, Mr. Jimm.”
He sat for a long while looking at the cradled telephone. Then he rose and walked out to the lobby and into an elevator. There was a peculiar and unaccustomed jauntiness to him, a recklessness to his stride that could be worn only by a man deliberately disobeying a direct order from the reigning head of Wellington Jimm Sons, Inc., Real Estate.
Two hours later he crept back, his shoulders bent, his mouth loose with defeat.
Whenever Blake had been in an elevator full of telephone linemen and furniture movers on their way to the thirteenth floor, there had been no thirteenth floor. But as soon as, a little irritated, they had changed elevators, leaving him behind, so far as he could tell, they had gone right up to their destination. It was obvious. For him there was no thirteenth floor. There probably never would be.
He was still brooding on the injustice of it at five o’clock, when the scrubwomen who were coming on duty bounced their aged joints into his outer office to punch the time clock. “Which one of you,” he asked, coming at them suddenly with an inspiration, “which one of you takes care of the thirteenth floor?”
“I do”