"Heinlein, Robert A - The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

The operator gave him a look of marked restraint. "See for yourself." He shot the car upward and halted it. "Twelve." He raised the car slowly, the figure 12 slid out of sight and was quickly replaced by another. "Fourteen. Which way will you have it?"
"I'm sorry," Randall admitted. "I've made a silly mistake. I really was in here this morning and I thought I had noted the floor."
"Might ha' been eighteen," suggested the operator. "Sometimes an eight will look like a three. Who you lookin' for?"
"Detheridge & Co. They're manufacturing jewelers."
The operator shook his head. "Not in this building. No jewelers, and no Detheridge."
"You're sure?"
Instead of answering, the operator dropped his car back to the tenth floor. "Try 1001. It's the office of the building."
No, they had no Detheridge. No, no jewelers, manufacturing or otherwise. Could it be the Apex Building the gentleman wanted, rather than the Acme? Randall thanked them and left, considerably shaken.

Cynthia had maintained complete silence during the proceedings. Now she said, "Darling-"
"Yeah. What is it?"
"We could go up to the top floor, and work down."
"Why bother? If they were here, the building office would know about it."
"So they would, but they might not be telling. There is something fishy about this whole business. Come to think about it, you could hide a whole floor of an office building by making its door look like a blank wall."
"No, that's silly. I'm just losing my mind, that's all. You better take me to a doctor."
"It's not silly and you're not losing your grip. How do you count height in an elevator? By floors. If you didn't see a floor, you would never realize an extra one was tucked in. We may be on the trail of something big." She did not really believe her own arguments, but she knew that he needed something to do.
He started to agree, then checked himself. "How about the stairways? You're bound to notice a floor from a staircase."
"Maybe there is some hanky-panky with the staircases, too. If so, we'll be looking for it. Come on."
But there was not. There were exactly the same number of steps-eighteen-between floors twelve and fourteen as there were between any other pair of adjacent floors. They worked, down from the top floor and examined the lettering on each frosted-glass door. This took them rather long, as Cynthia would not listen to Randall's suggestion that they split up and take half a floor apiece. She wanted him in her sight.
No thirteenth floor and nowhere a door which announced the tenancy of a firm of manufacturing jewelers, neither Detheridge & Co. nor any other name. There was no time to do more than read the firm names on the doors; to have entered each office, on one pretext or another, would have taken much more than a day.
Randall stared thoughtfully at a door labeled: "Pride, Greenway, Hamilton, Steinbolt, Carter & Greenway, Attorneys at Law." "By this time," he mused, "they could have changed the lettering on the door."
"Not on that one," she pointed out. "Anyhow, if it was a set-up, they could have cleaned out the whole joint, too. Changed it so you wouldn't recognize it." Nevertheless she stared at the innocent-seeming letters thoughtfully. An office building was a terribly remote and secret place. Soundproof walls, Venetian blinds-and a meaningless firm name. Anything could go in such a place-anything. Nobody would know. Nobody would care. No one would ever notice. No policeman on his beat, neighbors as remote as the moon, not even scrub service if the tenant did not wish it. As long as the rent was paid on time, the management would leave a tenant alone. Any crime you fancied and park the bodies in the closet.
She shivered. "Come on, Teddy. Let's hurry."
They covered the remaining floors as quickly as possible and came out at last in the lobby. Cynthia felt warmed by the sight of faces and sunlight, even though they had not found the missing firm. Randall stopped on the steps and looked around. "Do you suppose we could have been in a different building?" he said doubtfully.
"Not a chance. See that cigar stand? I practically lived there. I know every flyspeck on the counter."
"Then what's the answer?"
"Lunch is the answer. Come on."
"O.K. But I'm going to drink mine."
She managed to persuade him to encompass a plate of corned-beef hash after the third whiskey sour. That and two cups of coffee left him entirely sober, but unhappy. "Cyn-"
"Yes, Teddy."
"What happened to me?"
She answered slowly. "I think you were made the victim of an amazing piece of hypnosis."
"So do I-now. Either that, or I've finally cracked up. So call it hypnosis. I want to know why."
She made doodles with her fork. "I'm not sure that I want to know. You know what I would like to do, Teddy?"
"What?"
"I would like to send Mr. Hoag's five hundred dollars back to him with a message that we can't help him, so we are returning his money."
He stared at her. "Send the money back? Good heavens!"
Her face looked as if she had been caught making an indecent suggestion, but she went on stubbornly. "I know. Just the same, that's what I would like to do. We can make enough on divorce cases and skip-tracing to eat on. We don't have to monkey with a thing like this."
"You talk like five hundred was something you'd use to tip a waiter."
"No, I don't. I just don't think it's enough to risk your neck-or your sanity-for. Look, Teddy, somebody is trying to get us in the nine hole; before we go any further, I want to know why."
"And I want to know why, too. Which is why I'm not willing to drop the matter. Damn it, I don't like having shenanigans put over on me."
"What are you going to tell Mr. Hoag?"
He ran a hand through his hair, which did not matter as it was already mussed. "I don't know. Suppose you talk to him. Give him a stall."
"That's a fine idea. That's a swell idea. I'll tell him you've broken your leg but you'll be all right tomorrow."
"Don't be like that, Cyn. You know you can handle him."
"All right. But you've got to promise me this, Teddy."
"Promise what?"
"As long as we're on this case we do everything together."
"Don't we always?"
"I mean really together. I don't want you out of my sight any of the time."