Линвуд Баркли - Elevator Pitch

Barbara saw nothing to be gained by joining the scrum. No reporter ever got an exclusive by following the pack. She glanced out the media room door and spotted Chris Vallins’s bald head. He was walking speedily, as though he wanted to distance himself from the chaos as quickly as possible.

Barbara chased after him. When she was within a couple of feet she reached out and grabbed his arm, spinning him around. His startled expression lasted only until he realized who it was that had a hold on him.

“Hey,” she said. “Tell me. Just how bad is this?”

He glanced about nervously. “You’re the last person I should be seen talking to.”

Barbara turned her head to the closest door, a sign screwed to it that read Ladies. She hooked her arm deeper into his and dragged him toward it.

“You gotta be kidding,” he said. By the time he got his arm free, they were already inside, in an area with some cushioned chairs ahead of where the room opened up and the stalls could be found.

Barbara pushed Chris into a chair and dropped into one next to it.

“Spill,” she said.

“I’ve got nothing to say,” he told her as he turned his head to the door, clearly worried that another woman might walk in at any moment.

“How big is this? Who’s behind it?” she asked.

“They don’t have any idea,” he said.

“What about these Flyover nuts?”

Vallins shrugged. “They’re looking at them. But no one really knows anything.”

“What’s connecting the elevator events? Is there some commonality?”

Vallins pressed his lips tightly together, as though conducting an inner debate. “Okay, I shouldn’t be telling you this, but...”

“Come on,” she said anxiously.

“Cameras,” he said.

“Cameras?”

“Someone installed tiny cameras to monitor what was happening in the elevators that killed people.”

Barbara’s eyes went wide. “Jesus. Why would someone do that?”

Another shrug. “Maybe to see that someone was inside before making them go haywire. No sense dropping an elevator if there’s no one inside to fuck with.” He sighed. “You really made Headley look like a fool in there.”

“He doesn’t make it that hard. What else can you tell me?”

“Nothing. I shouldn’t even have told you that much. But it’s going to come out. Landlords are being told what to look for. They see one of those cameras mounted on top of an elevator, they know it’s an elevator that might be targeted.”

“This is insane,” Barbara said. “Why would anyone do this?”

“You can be sure there’s a reason,” Vallins said. “And I’m betting that eventually it’ll come out.”

Barbara said, “You have my number?”

“Oh, I think everyone’s got your number.”

“Fuck off. My phone number.”

“I’ve got it. And your email.”

“How’d you get that?”

Vallins gave her a duh look. “It’s at the end of your column.”

“Oh, right.” She rolled her eyes at her stupidity. “If there’s anything else you can tell me, off the record, get in touch.”

“Don’t hold your breath.” His face softened as he asked, “How’s the elbow?”

“Aches like a motherfucker,” Barbara said with a hint of smile. “But it’s fine.”

The door started to swing open. A woman took one step in and stopped when she saw Chris. Before he could say anything, Barbara pointed to the hall and said, “Find another one.”

The woman disappeared.

Chris said, “You really are a piece of work.”

“You’re not so bad yourself. And I still say you were following me.”

Chris shook his head and sighed. “Lucky for you. Or you wouldn’t be here, now, being a pain in the ass.”

She eyed him slyly. “He’s got you checking up on me. Looking for some way to discredit me.”

“I’m not saying that’s true,” Chris said, “but even if it was, I think he’s got bigger things to worry about now.”

“So I better stop looking at my phone when I cross the street, then. My guardian angel is otherwise engaged.”

“Something like that,” he said.

“Too bad,” Barbara said.

The sound of a text came from inside his jacket. He dug out the phone, looked at the message, grimaced.

“What?”

“They need me,” he said, then rolled his eyes. “The mayhem has begun.”

Amad Connor, fourteen years old, and his friend, Jeremy Blakelock, who had turned fifteen the week before, were pulling the same stunt they’d pulled several times before.

They had both left their Hell’s Kitchen apartment building after breakfast, supposedly on their way to a full day of school, where they were both in the ninth grade. Their parents — Amad lived with both of his, but Jeremy lived with his mother during the week and then went to live with his father, in Brooklyn, most weekends — always left for work later. Amad’s dad was employed in the massive shoe department at Macy’s, while his mother was a secretary for a condo development firm in the Upper West Side. Jeremy’s mother was the head, dayside chef for a restaurant just off Union Square.

Amad and Jeremy actually showed up for homeroom, when attendance would be taken, but they vanished on their way to first period. That way, it would take longer for school officials to figure out they were absent, at which point there was a chance they would call their parents and ask where they were.

But they also knew, from past experience, that often the school didn’t make that call. After all, they were teenagers. They weren’t some kindergarten toddlers who’d failed to show up. So what if they didn’t get to class? Odds were they hadn’t been kidnapped.

With an entire city at their disposal, one might have thought they’d explore it. Ride the subways, go to Midtown Comics and steal some graphic novels, then hit the multiplex and take in the latest adventure featuring the stars of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

But they did none of these things. They headed home.

They were going to surf.

From watching various YouTube videos, the two had learned that once you were inside an elevator, if you kept the doors open, looped a wire over a small bracket tucked in the upper corner where the doors retracted, and pulled down on it, the outer doors would remain open even after the elevator had moved on. So, they’d send the elevator one floor down, jump out, and once the elevator had stopped one floor below, step through the opening and stand atop the car.

To cover their tracks, they would make sure the door closed behind them. (Later, when the elevator stopped for long enough, they would pry open the doors one floor above the car and leap out.)

Up and down the shaft they’d go. They had no control over the elevator at this point. That would be determined by whoever got on it, and it was the unpredictability that made it so much fun. The elevator would be summoned to a floor, but which one? Someone would board, but where would they want to go? Whispering back and forth so as not to alert anyone they were there, they would take bets on where they might end up.

They’d recorded some of their earlier adventures on their phones and posted them anonymously to YouTube. The site was filled with this kind of stuff. They only wished they lived in an even taller building, so they could go on longer, wilder rides.

It sure beat school.

Except that afternoon, something odd happened.

It seemed that no one needed the elevator. They had been sitting on the roof of the car, at the top of the shaft, crouched below the ceiling and above the exit to the twenty-fifth floor without a door beside them to crack open. Ten minutes had gone by and they had not moved. And they could hear neither of the other elevators moving, either.