Ascending

by Wright, T. M.

  He felt people around him, crowding close.

  ~ * ~

  MID-MORNING, THE FOLLOWING DAY

  "You know what it sounds like to me, Rye?" Dan Creed said into the phone. "It sounds like you're trying to redeem yourself."

  "And is that so ignoble?" Ryerson asked.

  "No. It's not ignoble. It's simply not necessary."

  "Dan, I can help you."

  Creed sighed. "We can use all the help we can get, Rye, but I'm afraid I can't get authorization for any further payments to you. Any help you give us will have to be in the nature of a gift."

  "Of course," Ryerson said. "I'll be in touch."

  Ryerson put the receiver on the hook, sighed, and turned to Creosote, gnawing at an argyle sock at the foot of the bed. "It looks like we've got to carry the ball alone on this one, fella."

  Creosote gurgled.

  Ryerson went to a window that overlooked downtown Toronto. Ten stories below, on the opposite side of Yonge Street, construction had just begun on "A Multilevel Shopping and Banking Facility," as the architect's sign proclaimed. Apparently, Ryerson thought, the word "skyscraper" had become passé.

  Cement mixers were everywhere. A crane was lifting huge girders to the second-story level, where beefy construction workers guided them into place as if they were pieces in an Erector set. Ryerson had watched such work before, and it fascinated him. He knew that within a couple of days, the building's skeleton could be completed up to the seventh or eighth floor. Such speed was incredible. And dangerous. Men died as a result of it, because, as the cliché said, "Time is money." Put up a skyscraper in three-quarters the time allotted, and someone made a hell of a lot of money.

  Ryerson thought that there was something unusual about the men who worked the high steel. The fact that they displayed no fear as they walked on a girder at forty or fifty stories up was remarkable. But fear was destructive, Ryerson realized. It made people overly cautious and stiff. The men who worked high steel had to walk those girders in the same easy way that other people walked boardrooms or lines at the supermarket. But this attitude had to alter their sense of reality, Ryerson thought. Because a girder fifty stories up simply was not a line at the supermarket. If a man stepped the wrong way on line at the supermarket, he would simply have to go back to the end of the line. If a man stepped the wrong way on a girder fifty stories up, that man was history. Such men were therefore alive in a vital and consuming way that others simply weren't. And it was possible that, in the very act of falling from one of those girders, such men were more alive than they had ever been. It was a grisly idea.

  Behind him, Creosote gurgled, wheezed, grunted, then leaped from the bed, ran over, and looked pleadingly up at him. Ryerson picked him up and stroked him at the back of the neck, which the dog loved. "Creosote," Ryerson whispered, "I think someone is still falling."

  NINE

  Ryerson didn't immediately recognize the chunky man in the ill-fitting white suit who was sitting in the lobby of the Sheraton Toronto. And because he didn't immediately recognize him, but knew he had seen him somewhere, his gaze lingered on him too long. Finally the man looked up from his Sunday edition of the Toronto Sun Times, a smile broke out on his round pink face, and he rose and ambled over, his hand extended.

  "I've been waiting for you, Rye," the man said.

  Ryerson sighed. It was Lenny Baker, the man who had wanted to play Watson to Ryerson's Sherlock Holmes.

  "Nice dog, Rye," Baker added, nodding at Creosote, cradled in Ryerson's arms. Lenny still had his hand extended. Ryerson shook it quickly. "Good to see you, Mr. Baker," he said, and started for the revolving doors.

  Lenny fell in beside him. He held the Sunday Sun Times out so Ryerson could see the front page. "Are you going to be looking into this, Rye?"

  Ryerson glanced at the paper, saw the headline: BIZARRE MURDER AT COMMERCE COURT WEST. He stopped, took the paper from Lenny, and read the article quickly:

  Police are looking for a suspect in the murder of Leonard Peters 54, a janitor employed at the Commerce Court West Building, on Bloor Street. Peters' body, wrapped in plastic, was found Tuesday. It had apparently fallen from above a false ceiling, where it had been tied to overhead pipes. According to the Medical Examiner's office, Peters had been dead at least two days before his body was found.

  ‘It's a very strange case,' said Inspector Dan Creed of the Toronto Police Department's Homicide Division. ‘Probably the strangest case I've ever dealt with. We're trying to find a parallel, which would help us locate a suspect, but so far our efforts have produced little of value.'

  When asked if Ryerson H. Biergarten—the psychic detective called in to help in a recent missing-persons case—would help with this case, Creed replied, 'No. Mr. Biergarten will have no connection with our investigation.

  Mr. Peters had been employed at the Commerce Court West for nine years—

  Ryerson gave the newspaper back to Lenny. "No," he said. "I've been asked to stay clear, at least at an official level, and that's what I'm going to do."

  Lenny was astonished. "Stay clear? By who? This guy Creed? Why? Did you louse up?"

  Ryerson stared hard at him. "Yes, Mr. Baker. I loused up." He pushed through the revolving doors, turned left, and walked quickly toward Queen Street, heading for lunch at an outdoor cafe called The Coachman.

  Lenny pushed through the revolving door and jogged heavily toward him. "Wait up!" he called. Moments later, he was puffing along beside Ryerson toward Queen Street. "Hey, Rye, you walk pretty fast."

  "Yes, it's good for the heart."

  "Not my heart."

  Ryerson looked appraisingly at him. He stopped walking. Lenny stopped. Ryerson said, "What is it you want from me, Mr. Baker?"

  "You can call me Lenny, Rye."

  "Thank you."

  Lenny pushed at his white suit coat to flatten it out—it had ridden up on his waist—then fished in his pants pocket, pulled out a crumpled pack of White Star Little Cigars, and held the pack up. "Cigar?"

  "No," Ryerson answered. "I quit."

  Lenny grinned apologetically, pulled one of the cigars from the pack, and stuck it in his mouth.

  "So?" Ryerson coaxed.

  "What do I want?"

  "Yes."

  "Just the chance to work with you. I've studied your career and your methods. I know everything there is to know about you, Rye. I know you've got an interest in this Commerce Court West thing, and I want to be a part of it."

  "You're wrong, Lenny. I have no interest in it. I'm here on vacation—"

  "I know you left for Boston two days ago, Rye."

  This took Ryerson by surprise.

  Lenny's grin reappeared. "See, Rye, I really am psychic, like I said."

  "Many people are," Ryerson said and started walking again toward Queen Street.

  Lenny kept pace. "I know you stopped somewhere south of the Canadian border. I don't know why you stopped, but I know that you did."

  Ryerson kept walking. He looked at Lenny. "As I've told you, I work alone. I've always worked alone."

  "Is that an admission that you're working on this Commerce Court West case?"

  Ryerson stopped at the corner of Queen and Yonge to wait for the light. Around him, the curb edge began filling up with people also intent on going somewhere for lunch. Lenny whispered secretively, "Someone's going to scream, Rye."

  Ryerson looked sideways at him.

  Lenny explained, "In a few moments, before the light changes."

  Someone screamed quickly, and shrilly. Ryerson turned his head sharply to the right. He saw a tall woman several feet away who wheeled around and slapped a man standing just behind her. "Pervert!" she cried. Then the light changed.

  Ryerson looked at Lenny, then at the woman, who was halfway across the street and walking very stiffly, as if in anger, then at the man she'd slapped, who was rubbing his face, had his mouth open, and was shaking his head in confusion.

  Lenny grinned from ear to ear. "I've got the
gift, Rye."

  "Of course you do," Ryerson said, then jogged across the street leaving Lenny at the curb.

  ~ * ~

  Officer Stephen Lake poked his head into Inspector Creed's office. "Missing Persons is on the line for you, inspector."

  "Missing Persons?"

  Lake nodded. "Yeah. They say they've got something that might interest you."

  Creed picked up the phone. "Inspector Creed here."

  A woman at the other end said, "Sergeant Eady, Inspector. I've got a missing person report. Granger, Jason, age thirty-two, postal clerk—"

  "This is homicide, Sergeant."

  "Yes, Inspector, I know that. But this man—this Jason Granger—was last seen on the space-deck level of the CN Tower. I thought there could be a tie-in to this murder at the Commerce Court West Building."

  Creed hesitated, then said, "Yes, okay. Go ahead."

  "I'll send over our file on it, then."

  "I'd appreciate it," Creed said.

  An hour later, the file had been delivered, and Creed had gone over what little information was available on the Granger disappearance (the man's description, occupation, the names of people who had last seen him and where). He went immediately to the CN Tower's 1,465- foot Space Deck level—billed as "the highest observation deck in the world"—with Detective Max Tyler who, true to his habits, was shrugging a lot and pooh-poohing the whole idea of a link to the murder at Commerce Court West. "How could there be a connection, Dan?" he asked. "I mean, where's anyone going to hide a body up here?"

  It was a good question. The Space Deck was simply a circular glass-enclosed concrete observation deck, to which access was gained by an interior elevator that operated from the 1,165-foot "Skypod" observation level. The Space Deck had one storage closet, in a dark triangular area to the right of and behind the elevator, a solid black ceiling in which there were two one-foot-square electrical-wiring-access doors, two circular steel stairwells which led from the observation deck itself to the elevators, eight feet below. The steps were just over a foot wide, and solid; a landing several feet from the bottom of each stairwell was also solid metal and four feet square. A huge poster of the Matterhorn over the elevator—the doors to the elevator were dark red—was littered with graffiti and bumper stickers. One piece of graffiti read; "This elevator is good to the last drop." Creed was surprised at how seedy the place was.

  Max Tyler had been up here a number of times, usually in an effort to impress various women with his nonchalance about being at such a dizzying height. His name was inscribed on a small rectangular copper plaque, as proof that he had been on the "highest observation deck in the world," and was therefore a member of the "Sky-High Club." The plaque was displayed, along with several thousand others, on the walls of a short hallway at the center of the Space Deck.

  Creed had already interviewed the attendant on duty at the Space Deck elevator's Skypod entrance level; she had been on duty the night of Granger's disappearance:

  "I remember him going up," she said. "He was alone. People don't usually go up there alone, you know. I mean, the kick's in being up there with someone, right? But he was alone. And he didn't come down."

  "You're sure of that?"

  She shook her head. "No. I'm not sure. He could have gotten past me when I wasn't looking. I mean, we tell everyone, ‘Take the elevator down to the Skypod level; don't get out here.' But no one ever listens. They all get out here, and they run into people getting on, so they have to crawl under that railing." She nodded at a set of red-painted railings at right angles to her station; the railings led people to the ticket counter and then into the elevator, down a short, dark hallway.

  "So, in other words, this man could have gotten out at the Skypod level—isn't that right?"

  The ticket seller shrugged. "Sure. He could have. But Leslie was down there. She was on duty that night, and she says he never got past her."

  "Oh," said Creed, and made a mental note to talk to Leslie.

  The one closet, behind and to the right of the stairway, had been checked by a uniformed cop the morning after the disappearance. The same cop had even checked the electrical-wiring-access doors in the ceiling: "Jesus," he had said, "you couldn't hide a kitten up here, for God's sake!"

  Tyler said now, "Like I told you before, Dan"—he shrugged—"this guy Granger is somewhere's else."

  Except for Tyler and Creed, the Space Deck was empty. Four hundred feet below, the revolving restaurant was beginning to fill with business people. On the observation level, a family of five from Schenectady, New York was discussing the merits of riding the interior elevator to the Space Deck.

  "I'm not going up there!" Paul, the husband, proclaimed. "If you want to get sick, Florence, then you're going to have to do it all by yourself." He had stayed well clear of the windows that overlooked Toronto 1,165 feet below, twice the height of the Washington Monument. In the exterior elevator that had brought him and his family to the Skypod level, he had kept his eyes closed tightly all the way and had swallowed hard several times to keep his ears from popping while the elevator operator droned on about the CN Tower's vital statistics.

  Poking Paul playfully in the stomach with her forefinger, Florence said, "Chicken!"

  "Yeah, daddy," chirped four-year-old Kevin. "Chicken!"

  "Bawk, Bawk!" said Debby, who was eight.

  Paul gave her a withering gaze. She shrank away from him and hid behind her mother. "Bawk, bawk!" she whispered.

  "Besides," Paul began, but was upstaged by two-year-old Dorian, in Florence's arms, who let out with something that sounded like a cross between a war whoop and a belch. Paul grimaced. "I told you we shouldn't have had those clams last night," he said.

  Florence announced, "Well we're going up! You can stay here if you like, Paul, but we're going up!" She marched over to where the red-painted steel rails curved tightly around to the ticket counter for the elevator ride to the Space Deck. The tickets were one dollar each, Canadian. Florence looked back at her husband. "Paul, I need—" She looked at the ticket seller—the same woman who had talked to Dan Creed, the woman who had last seen Jason Granger.

  Florence asked her, "Are the children free, miss?"

  The woman nodded. "Under five, yes, ma'am."

  Florence turned back to Paul, who was standing sullenly a couple of yards away. "Paul, I need three Canadian dollars."

  Paul sighed, fished in his pocket a moment, pulled out a five, shuffled over, and handed it to her.

  Seconds later, Florence and her three children went through the blood-red elevator doors and were on their way to the Space Deck observation level.

  Where Dan Creed was saying, "Did anyone check the elevator?"

  "The elevator?" Max Tyler said.

  Creed nodded. "Up above it. Did anyone check there?"

  Tyler shrugged.

  Creed said, "You shrug too much. What is it, some kind of nervous twitch?"

  Tyler shrugged again. "I guess so, Dan. I'm sorry."

  "Don't be. As long as you're aware of it."

  "Sure, Dan. And no, I don't think anyone checked above the elevator."

  Creed shrugged. "Maybe we should."

  "Maybe," Tyler said. They started down one of the sets of circular black steel stairwells which led to the elevator level eight feet below.

  That's when two of Florence's children—four-year old Kevin, and eight-year-old Debby—erupted from the elevator and clambered up the opposite stairwell while Florence, who was having second thoughts about being up here, began to shift two-year-old Dorian from one arm to the other. "You're getting heavy, little man!" she cooed, though her voice had a quiver of nervousness in it.

  Dorian dropped his plastic bottle of orange juice then, while he was being shifted from one arm to the other. The bottle was nearly empty, so when it hit the concrete floor, it rolled. "Damn!" Florence breathed, stooped over, and began to pad after it. The bottle hit the wall near the circular stairwell. Florence put Dorian on the floor. He stood qu
ietly for a moment, confused that the building he was in seemed to be swaying slightly, then toddled toward the stairwell.

  Behind Florence, Tyler and Creed had reached the elevator level and were pressing the button for service. There was no "DOWN" or "UP" button. Everything was down from here.

  Dorian pointed under the four-foot-square solid-steel landing which was just a few feet away from where his mother was retrieving his nearly empty bottle.

  Tyler said, "I've been up here before, you know. I like it up here."

  "Good for you," Creed said.

  "I'm not afraid of heights. I was going to work in construction once. On the high steel—that's what they call it, Dan. The 'high steel.'"

  "I know that's what they call it," Creed said. He added, clearly miffed, "You know, that would be the first place I'd check if I were looking for a body up here. I'd look over the elevator."

  Two-year-old Dorian was still pointing to the area under the black solid-steel landing, "Look!" he said. "Bag in there!"

  TEN

  The following afternoon, Ryerson Biergarten, having a lunch of gnocchi piemontese and green salad at the Gran Festa Ristorante on Front Street West, only blocks from the CN Tower, found the front page of the Toronto Star shoved under his nose. He stared at it a few moments, then let his gaze rise very slowly and deliberately up the arm of the person holding the newspaper, then to the person's face. It was Lenny Baker, and he was grinning.

  Ryerson said, "Hello, Mr. Baker."

  Lenny nodded at the newspaper. "Go ahead. Read it."

  "I'm having lunch, Mr. Baker." Actually, the gnocchi had yet to arrive; Ryerson was nursing a cup of espresso—the Gran Festa did not serve regular coffee.

  Lenny's chubby pink grin faded. He went around, sat leadenly in the chair opposite Ryerson, and held the newspaper up so Ryerson could read a bold headline halfway down the page. The headline read: BODY FOUND IN CN TOWER

  Lenny asked, "Did you know about this, Rye?"

  "I knew about it."