pulled up a chair, a spindly item that looked much too small for his bulk and too fragile for his weight. “This place is double-phony,” he said. “Have you noticed how the interior of every wing is in a different style from the exterior? Tell me this. Did Mondor ever try to date you?”
Adelle sat frowning at the copy he had brought. Who had tried to date her, Mondor or anyone else, certainly was none of Dolan’s business. She said, “Of course. He’s a normal male—lecherous and obnoxious.”
“And you consider me abnormal?”
“Supernormal. Lecherous, obnoxious, and nauseating.”
“But only in the presence of a two-legged refrigerator,” Dolan grinned.
She shook her head. “Freezer. When you’re around, any respectable refrigerator becomes one. Now if you don’t mind—”
“Tell me why you hate men.”
“I don’t. That’d be silly. Why hate half the human race? It’s just that at the moment I don’t care to own one.”
“One more question. Have you dated anyone at all since you came to Ann Arbor?”
Adelle smiled at him. She felt immensely grateful to Gerald Wyman, the nice young man in her apartment building. Thanks to his concert invitation, she could answer truthfully, “Of course I have.”
Dolan stared at her for a moment. Then he got to his feet, returned the chair to its original position, and strode away. Adelle’s smile broadened. In one afternoon she’d been called a word machine and a two-legged refrigerator. It made her day a double success.
Whether Z-R Publications was loony and sinister, or one or the other, or neither, she was being paid an extraordinary salary for a simple typing job, and she intended to work as enthusiastically as she could while it lasted and ask no questions. She finished the page of statistics. Then she typed Dolan’s copy and telephoned Madam.
A short time later Madam tiptoed in, beaming with pride and bringing the offset pages to show to Adelle. Adelle agreed that they looked excellent. Madam complimented Adelle’s typing, and Adelle generously gave the credit to her computer and printer, especially the printer, which produced even, crisp letters that looked very much like printed material.
“Those pants really are lovely, Darlink,” Madam said. She took the copy and departed, tossing a last, superfluous “Darlink” over her shoulder as she went out the door. Adelle wearily returned to Mondor’s statistics.
While she typed, she thought about the evening ahead of her: bath, book, and bed. Tomorrow, the visit to Greenfield Village. She was amused at the number of people she encountered who had lived in Southeastern Michigan all their lives and never seen it.
And then her Sunday date. She had met Gerald Wyman in the apartment building’s laundry room, and they chatted while their laundry was being done. She enjoyed talking with him, and they seemed to have a great deal in common, but she was far too practical to spin a fantasy on the basis of half an hour’s conversation. One date did not, as Dolan thought, constitute a relationship.
She began new columns of figures: Mondor’s figures, based on information Z-R Publications had obtained from—where? There was indeed something peculiar about a company that lodged itself in such sumptuous surroundings, produced so little, and paid its employees with insane generosity. On the other hand, a new publisher had to expect to make a substantial outlay in order to get its first books into print, and Z-R Publications might be paying ridiculously low rent for the preposterous building it occupied. There couldn’t be much commercial demand for a place like Feinstwaller Manor.
The one totally inexplicable item was their salaries. Adelle could think of no rationalization at all for them. She would have been willing and eager to work for less. So would hundreds of others.
The afternoon passed without further incident. When the grandfather clock in the hallway struck five, Adelle finished the page she was working on, saved her material, and copied it onto a backup disk. She filed the disk, covered her computer, picked up her purse and coat, and glanced around the room to make certain she hadn’t inadvertently moved a chair out of line or committed some other trivial outrage to the pseudo-antique decor.
When she reached the stairway, she saw Goon 1 standing at the far end of the hallway. She called, “Did you want something?” For a moment she thought he was going to speak, but he turned and disappeared into a side hall.
“Oh, well—he works here, too.” she said and shrugged.
At the massive front door, she paused to put on her coat and slip her purse strap over her shoulder. She was reaching for the door knob when she heard Madam’s voice. “Darlink!”
Madam came hurrying toward her on tiptoe. “You look nice today, Darlink. Such a practical thing to wear!”
Adelle murmured her thanks for the fifth or sixth time and wondered if Madam were enthusiastic enough to imitate her. The sight of this odd little woman in a pants suit would be one to cherish.
“I need a folder, Darlink. The one on automobile tires. Would you get it for me? I know it’s after hours, but—”
“Of course,” Adelle said. “Where is it?”
“In the basement. Down the stairs, straight ahead, and there are some black filing cabinets against the far wall. It’s in number two. Second from the left.” Madam paused. “I can’t remember which drawer. Sure you don’t mind? I’ve got to have the figures ready for Add to start on next week. You’re not in a hurry?”
“Not at all. Is the folder labeled, ‘Tires’?”
“‘Tires—Europe,’” Madam said. She sighed. “It’s supposed to be. It ought to be. It’s a folder that was used for something else, so the something else is crossed out and the ‘Tires—Europe’ is on the right hand side of the tab if someone hasn’t messed it up. I’m sure it’ll be easy to find. Second black filing cabinet from the left. ‘Tires—Europe.’”
“I’ll be back in a jiffy,” Adelle promised.
She flipped the light switch and moved quickly down the basement stairs. It was an enormously deep basement, and Adelle didn’t blame Madam not wanting to negotiate the long stairway with her worn heels. The scene at the bottom, with concrete pillars and cement block partitions, looked more like a parking garage than the basement of a mansion. There was nothing else visible in the lighted area except groups of filing cabinets in various colors.
But none of them were black. “Down the stairs and straight ahead” lay beyond the lighted area, and the dimness in that remote part of the enormous room was punctuated only by a single high, small window.
Adelle had been downstairs several times on errands but never to that part of the basement. She paused and looked about her. A metal pipe descended a concrete column and terminated in a box with two switches. The first turned off the lights behind her. She turned them on again and tried the second switch. Lights came on ahead of her, illuminating the basement to its far wall, and against it she saw the row of black four-drawer cabinets.
She walked forward confidently. “Second from the left,” Madam had said. A folder with something crossed out and “Tires—Europe” on the right. If the drawers were full, finding one folder might take time.
They
