NINETEEN
MEISSNER AND Deborah Cochrane!" A voice echoed against the front of the building. "There is no need to extend this charade. Don't make us come into the building with dogs, which we will do if you don't come out on your own accord. The Bookford Police are on their way. I repeat! Come out immediately."
"So much for our carefully crafted aliases,' Deborah said.
"If I thought they'd turn us over to the Bookford police, I'd walk out of here in a heartbeat."
"They're not going to turn us over to anyone," Deborah said.
"That's my point," Joanna said. "Come on! Let's check out the freight elevator before I lose my nerve."
Gaining some familiarity with the building, the women retraced their route back through the fourth floor to the stairwell they'd used earlier. At first they tried to descend without turning on the flashlight but quickly realized the risk of knocking some of the unseen debris down the stairs was greater than the risk presented by the shielded flashlight. They turned it off again before they entered the third-floor corridor. While in the corridor they heard the bullhorn message again.
They had to turn the light on again in the freight elevator vestibule. The elevator was exactly the way they had left it with the doors half open. Joanna shined the light into the car. Through the wire-mesh of its back wall a ladder was visible attached to the brick of the elevator shaft.
"You were right about there being a ladder," Deborah said. "But how do you get to it?"
Joanna moved the light beam to the side wall of the elevator. Attached to the cab's wall were ladder rungs. The rungs led up to a wire-mesh trapdoor in the elevator's ceiling.
"All we have to do is climb to the top of the elevator,' Joanna said.
"Is that all?" Deborah questioned sarcastically. "Where are you finding this sudden chutzpah."
"I'm pretending I'm you,' Joanna said. "So let's do it before I revert back to me."
Deborah gave a short, derisive laugh.
The women stepped over the half-open lower elevator door. Joanna held the light while Deborah climbed the ladder rungs. While holding on to the top one, she pushed up the trapdoor. Just beyond ninety degrees it hit up against a stop and stayed open.
Joanna handed up the flashlight, and Deborah placed it on top of the elevator before hauling herself up. The elevator swayed slightly when she stood up, forcing her to grab the supporting cables, which were covered with grease the consistency of petroleum jelly. A moment later Joanna came up through the hole. She stayed on her hands and knees rather than standing up.
The ladder ran along the back wall of the shaft and cleared the elevator car by only twelve inches.
"Well, what do you think?" Deborah asked.
"I think we should give it a try," Joanna said. She shined the flashlight down the shaft. It wasn't strong enough to reach the bottom. The ladder merely disappeared into a murky haze.
"You first," Deborah said. "And you keep the light."
"I'm not going to be able to climb and hold the light at the same time."
"I know," Deborah said. "But you have a pocket, and I don't."
"Okay," Joanna said with resignation. She was accustomed to Deborah's being the leader in such a circumstance. Joanna turned out the light, plunging them into utter blackness. She pocketed the flashlight, then groped for the ladder. When she got a hold of it, she had to argue with herself to abandon the relative safety of the elevator, especially when the elevator swayed slightly during the transition. Gripping the rung of the ladder tightly with both hands, she tried not to think about being suspended on a vertical ladder four stories above a black hole.
"Are you doing okay?" Deborah whispered in the dark when she didn't hear any movement.
"This is harrowing," Joanna said.
"Are you on the ladder?"
"Yes," Joanna said. "But I'm afraid to move."
"You have to!"
Joanna lowered one foot to the next rung and then the other. What she had more difficulty with was letting go with one hand. Finally she did it, and then repeated the movement with the other hand. Slowly at first, and then with building confidence she descended between the elevator and the ladder. It was a tight fit, which made the process more difficult.
"Can you give me a little light so I can see where the ladder Deborah asked from above.
"I can't," Joanna said. "I can't let go for that long."
Deborah mumbled a few choice words as she reached blindly with one hand while maintaining the grip on the i:- -cable with the other. But the ladder was too far away. Eventually sat had to go down on all fours like Joanna and creep over to the e: of the elevator's cab. Finally she got a hold of the ladder, transfer herself onto it, and followed Joanna down.
The women moved slowly, particularly Joanna. Although she began to build up confidence, a new concern emerged from feeclass="underline" . corrosion on the rungs. She began worrying that one of the rungs might have become so weakened from rust that it could give way under her weight. Before she put her weight on any rung, she kicked at it to get an idea of its integrity.
The blackness of the shaft aided Joanna, especially after passing below the elevator cab. Without being able to see, the height was only a mental problem, not a visual one.
Deborah had to slow herself down when she caught up with Joanna.
After a quarter-hour of climbing, Deborah was ready to reconnoiter. "Can you see the bottom?" she questioned in a whisper. The muscles of her arms were beginning to complain, and she imagined Joanna's were as well.
"You must be joking," Joanna answered. "I can't even see my nose.
"Maybe you should shine the light for a second. You could hook your arm around one of the rungs."
"I think I should just keep going until my foot touches the floor," Joanna said.
"Do you want to rest?"
"I really think I should keep going."
Another ten minutes passed before Joanna's outstretched foot touched litter-strewn pavement. She pulled her foot back. "We're here," she said. "Hold up!" Hooking her arm in a rung as Deborah had suggested earlier, she got out the flashlight and turned it on. The bottom of the shaft was filled with debris as if it had been a garbage dump over the years.
"Can you tell if we're at the sub-basement or not?" Deborah asked.
"I can't," Joanna said. "Come on down, and we'll see if we can get the doors open."
Joanna used her foot to push away some of the trash at the ladder's base before stepping onto the pavement. She waited for Deborah to come the rest of the way down, keeping her hand over the flashlight lens.
"Wow, it's freezing down here," Deborah said, rubbing her arms once she got off the ladder. "It certainly feels like a sub-basement."
The women gingerly made their way to the doors through the junk which was mostly paper, rags, and miscellaneous pieces of wood interspersed with a few cans. While Joanna held the light, Deborah reached up and got her fingers between the upper and lower doors. Try as she might, they wouldn't open.
Joanna put the light down on the floor and lent a hand. Still the doors wouldn't so much as budge.
"This is not good," Joanna said.
Deborah picked up the light and took a step back. She shined the light around the periphery of the doors. She stopped at a spring-loaded lever arm protruding out from the wall at the edge of the doors just above where they came together.
"That's our problem," Deborah said. "I haven't seen too many action movies, but that has to be a fail-safe mechanism to keep the doors locked until the elevator is in front of the doors."
"Meaning?" Joanna questioned.
"Meaning one of us has to hold it down while the other opens the doors."
"You're taller," Joanna said. "You get the fail-safe mechanism, I'll try the doors."
A moment later the doors cracked open, although it wasn't until Joanna leaned her full weight on the lower door that they opened fully. Deborah shined the light into the space beyond.