Elevator Pitch. Linwood Barclay

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      The elevator doors closed.

      Sherry pressed “33,” Sneaker Girl “34,” and the Business Guy “37.”

      When Stuart did not reach over to press one of the many buttons, the man, who was standing closest to the panel, glanced his way, silently offering to press a button for him.

      “I’m good,” he said.

      The elevator silently began its ascent. Sherry and the other woman looked up to catch the latest news. The elevator was fitted with a small video screen that ran a kind of chyron, a line of headlines moving from right to left.

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      Stuart moved forward half a step so he was almost rubbing shoulders with Sherry. “How are you today, Ms. D’Agostino?”

      She turned her head from reading the screen and said, “Fine, thank—”

      And then she saw who he was. Her eyes flickered with fear. Her body leaned away from him, but her feet were rooted to the same spot in the elevator floor.

      Stuart held out the FedEx package. “I wanted to give you this. That’s all. I just want you to have it.”

      “I told you to stay away from me,” she said, not accepting it.

      The man and woman turned their heads.

      “It’s cool,” Stuart said, smiling at them. “Everything’s fine.” He kept holding out the package to Sherry. “Take it. You’ll love it.”

      “I’m sorry, you have to—”

      “Okay, okay, wait. Let me just tell you about it, then. Once you hear what it’s about, I guarantee you’ll want to read it.”

      The elevator made a soft whirring noise as it sped past the first twenty floors.

      Sherry glanced at the numbers flashing by on the display above the door, then up to the news line. Latest unemployment figures show rate fell 0.2 percent last month. She sighed, her resistance fading.

      “You’ve got fifteen seconds,” she said. “If you follow me off, I’ll call security.”

      Stuart beamed. “Okay! Right. So you’ve got this guy, he’s like, thirty, and he works—”

      “Ten seconds,” she said. “Sum it up in one sentence.”

      Stuart suddenly looked panicked. He blinked a couple of times, his mind racing to encapsulate his brilliant script into a phrase, to distill it to its essence.

      “Um,” he said.

      “Five seconds,” Sherry said, the elevator almost to the thirty-third floor.

      “Guy works at a factory that makes clocks but one of them is actually a time machine!” he blurted. He let out a long breath, then took one in.

      “That’s it?” she said.

      “No!” he said. “There’s more! But to try to explain it in—”

      “What the hell?” Sherry said, but not to him.

      The elevator had not stopped at her floor. It shot right past thirty-three, and then glided right on by thirty-four.

      “Crap,” said Sneaker Girl. “That’s me.”

      The two women both reached out to the panel at the same time to press the button for their floors again, their fingers engaged in a brief bit of fencing.

      “Sorry,” said Sherry, who’d managed to hit the button for her floor first. She edged out of the way.

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      As the elevator continued its ascent, Business Guy grimaced and said, “Guess I’ll join the club.” He put his index finger to the “37” button.

      “Someone at the top must have pushed for it,” Sneaker Girl said. “It’s going all the way up first.”

      She turned out to be right. The elevator did not stop until it reached the fortieth floor.

      But the doors did not open.

      “God, I fucking hate elevators,” she said.

      Stuart did not share her distress. He grinned. The elevator malfunction had bought him a few extra seconds to make his pitch to Sherry. “I know time travel has been done a lot, but this scenario is different. My hero, he doesn’t go way into the past or way into the future. He can only go five minutes one way or the other, so—”

      Business Guy said, “I’ll walk back down.” He pressed the button to open the doors, but there was no response.

      “Jesus,” he muttered.

      Sherry said, “We should call someone.” She pointed to the button marked with the symbol of a phone.

      “It’s only been a few seconds,” Stuart said. “It’ll probably sort itself out after a minute or so and—”

      With a slight jolt, the elevator started moving again.

      “Finally,” Sneaker Girl said.

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      “The interesting angle is,” Stuart said, persisting, “if he can only go five minutes into the past or five minutes into the future, how does he use that? Is it a kind of superpower? What kind of advantages could that give someone?”

      Sherry glanced at him dismissively. “I’d have gotten on this elevator five minutes before you showed up.”

      Stuart bristled at that. “You don’t have to insult me.”

      “Son of a bitch,” the man said.

      The descending elevator had gone past his floor. He jabbed at “37” again, more angrily this time.

      The elevator sailed past the floors for the two women as well, but stopped at twenty-nine.

      “Aw, come on,” Business Guy said. “This is ridiculous.” He pressed the phone button. He waited a moment, expecting a response. “Hello?” he said. “Anyone there? Hello?”

      “This is freaking me out,” Sneaker Girl said, taking a cell phone from her purse. She tapped the screen, put the phone to her ear. “Yeah, hey, Steve? It’s Paula. I’m gonna be late. I’m stuck in the fucking eleva—”

      There was a loud noise from above, as though the world’s largest rubber band had snapped. The elevator trembled for a second. Everyone looked up, stunned. Even Stuart, who had stopped trying to sell his idea to Sherry D’Agostino.

      “Fuck!” said Sneaker Girl.

      “What СКАЧАТЬ