colored band they got on Saturdays is just what he wants in mood music. Sex music. The music, a few boilermakers, and a present from Lady Luck at the bar: easily impressed bottle blondes who won’t ask many questions, legal secretaries in torpedo bras, the odd beautician. Heads. This is my city, my night.
She was talkative enough after she’d had enough Violet Marys. Suspicious at first when he pressed her too early for details about her job at United Elevator Co.—him being a notorious muckraker at the biggest trade journal there is,
Lift
magazine. He put on his 100-watt smile and waved his index finger at the waiter when the drinks ran dry. Keep ’em coming. He told her he didn’t mean to make her uncomfortable, he was just asking about her work, it sounded so interesting. She blushed and drained her Violet Mary. The sanctity of the journalist’s creed, the indefatigable war against industry corruption, throw in a toothy anecdote about his suffragette mother: these matters and more Ben Urich discoursed upon, to the effervescent delight of his companion, Miss Betty Williams. He was only laying the groundwork this night; the cover story would clinch the deal. Ensured of his integrity, there was no reason Miss Betty Williams couldn’t pinch a file or two from the United archives. For background purposes. The customary assurances that under no circumstances would he quote from the documents. Inviolability of sources. He was merely trying to serve the public to the best of his ability, he informed her, adhere to the values instilled in him by his mother at an early age, while she painted placards arguing for a woman’s right to vote. He noticed that her eyes flashed a bit when he dropped newsroom lingo, and commenced to disperse words like
copy
and
lede
into his lullaby, to a commensurate increase in eye-flashes. He’d drop a copy of his
Lift
cover story by her office and the next day or the next afterthat press his new acquisition for a choice file or two. Ben Urich kissed Betty Williams’s swaying cheek as he packed her off in a taxi. Fairly swooning.
Heads. It wasn’t all smoke, however. Ben Urich takes his job as self-appointed watchdog of the country’s vertical transport industry seriously, and he feels he deserves credit for his work. Like exposing the Fairweather Scandal, which resulted in the resignations of seven elevator inspectors and five clerks in the Buildings Department and caused the formation of the first city-Guild joint commission on irregularities in municipal elevator inspection. His series on the alleged (“alleged,” whirling the journalist’s baton) mob control of elevator maintenance in the city may not have brought any indictments, but still stands as the first public report on the industry’s biggest dirty secret. Well, one of them: now that Fulton’s black box is out there somewhere, the whole future of vertical transport is up for grabs. Ben Urich’s future, too. He’s paid his dues. Can scrounge up a legit reporting gig before long, after all the fallout. One of the city’s bigger dailies, maybe even a glossy. Heads.
There’s not much for a night watchman to do at the
Lift
building at this hour but scrabble at his university-by-mail course. So it comes to pass this night that Billy the night watchman is parsing Victorian English when Ben Urich taps on the front door.
“Hey,
Jane Eyre
,” Ben Urich says brightly when Billy unlocks the door. “Good book.”
“Good enough,” Billy mumbles. Billy’s a round gentleman. The loop of keys chime in his moist hand. “I woulda thought you’d be out on the town on a night like this.”
“I’m not working,” Ben Urich informs Billy, intrepid sentry of empty office buildings. “Did the printer drop by those advance copies of the new issue? I wanted to pick up a copy.”
“Got ’em right here,” the night watchman and nocturnal freshman says, withdrawing the bundle from behind the desk. He scissors the rope and pulls off
She was talkative enough after she’d had enough Violet Marys. Suspicious at first when he pressed her too early for details about her job at United Elevator Co.—him being a notorious muckraker at the biggest trade journal there is,
Lift
magazine. He put on his 100-watt smile and waved his index finger at the waiter when the drinks ran dry. Keep ’em coming. He told her he didn’t mean to make her uncomfortable, he was just asking about her work, it sounded so interesting. She blushed and drained her Violet Mary. The sanctity of the journalist’s creed, the indefatigable war against industry corruption, throw in a toothy anecdote about his suffragette mother: these matters and more Ben Urich discoursed upon, to the effervescent delight of his companion, Miss Betty Williams. He was only laying the groundwork this night; the cover story would clinch the deal. Ensured of his integrity, there was no reason Miss Betty Williams couldn’t pinch a file or two from the United archives. For background purposes. The customary assurances that under no circumstances would he quote from the documents. Inviolability of sources. He was merely trying to serve the public to the best of his ability, he informed her, adhere to the values instilled in him by his mother at an early age, while she painted placards arguing for a woman’s right to vote. He noticed that her eyes flashed a bit when he dropped newsroom lingo, and commenced to disperse words like
copy
and
lede
into his lullaby, to a commensurate increase in eye-flashes. He’d drop a copy of his
Lift
cover story by her office and the next day or the next afterthat press his new acquisition for a choice file or two. Ben Urich kissed Betty Williams’s swaying cheek as he packed her off in a taxi. Fairly swooning.
Heads. It wasn’t all smoke, however. Ben Urich takes his job as self-appointed watchdog of the country’s vertical transport industry seriously, and he feels he deserves credit for his work. Like exposing the Fairweather Scandal, which resulted in the resignations of seven elevator inspectors and five clerks in the Buildings Department and caused the formation of the first city-Guild joint commission on irregularities in municipal elevator inspection. His series on the alleged (“alleged,” whirling the journalist’s baton) mob control of elevator maintenance in the city may not have brought any indictments, but still stands as the first public report on the industry’s biggest dirty secret. Well, one of them: now that Fulton’s black box is out there somewhere, the whole future of vertical transport is up for grabs. Ben Urich’s future, too. He’s paid his dues. Can scrounge up a legit reporting gig before long, after all the fallout. One of the city’s bigger dailies, maybe even a glossy. Heads.
There’s not much for a night watchman to do at the
Lift
building at this hour but scrabble at his university-by-mail course. So it comes to pass this night that Billy the night watchman is parsing Victorian English when Ben Urich taps on the front door.
“Hey,
Jane Eyre
,” Ben Urich says brightly when Billy unlocks the door. “Good book.”
“Good enough,” Billy mumbles. Billy’s a round gentleman. The loop of keys chime in his moist hand. “I woulda thought you’d be out on the town on a night like this.”
“I’m not working,” Ben Urich informs Billy, intrepid sentry of empty office buildings. “Did the printer drop by those advance copies of the new issue? I wanted to pick up a copy.”
“Got ’em right here,” the night watchman and nocturnal freshman says, withdrawing the bundle from behind the desk. He scissors the rope and pulls off
Similar Books
