"Robert A. Heinlein - The unpleasant profession of Johathan Ho" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

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