The Planck Factor

“Or-e-gahn, huh?” Or that’s how it sounded to Alexis. “Lotsa rain, I hear.”

“Well, sometimes, but . . . .” She cut herself off. Oregonians wanted people to think it rains there all the time so they won’t be overrun with transplanted East Coasters--Californians were more than enough to handle as it was. “But you get used to it,” she finished.

Mel shook his head. “Can’t abide rain awl the time. Brings me down, ya know?”

Alexis could just imagine how far down Mel was capable of going.

Mel left Alexis at the door to Katie’s Upper East Side condo. She hit the buzzer and a doorman in a regal maroon coat with gold epaulets let her in.

Alexis gave her name and started to say she was there to see Katie, but the doorman cut her off. “Ah, no worries,” he said, with a faint Irish brogue. “Mrs. Wilson told me you’d be showing up any time. I’ll be ringing her then, to let her know you’re on your way.”

Alexis wanted to correct the man, who apparently didn’t know that Katie had legally resumed using her maiden name after her divorce, but she simply smiled and nodded instead. She assumed the condo directory still had her listed as Katherine Wilson.

The doorman ducked behind a marble-topped counter and picked up the receiver of a blinding white phone so shiny, Alexis wondered if the man spent his idle time polishing it. He punched in a number and dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “Go on, now. I’m just announcing you.”

Alexis nodded again and turned toward the elevators. She could barely make out the doorman’s voice as he muttered into the receiver. This didn’t feel right. Alexis shrugged off the wave of anxiety. Daniel’s note must be putting my nerves on edge.

An elevator opened, and a man and a woman were inside. Apparently, they’d come up from the parking garage below, but they didn’t seem to be together. Alexis entered the elevator and hit the button for the fifteenth floor. She pulled out her phone and called Katie. When Katie answered, Alexis breathed a sigh of relief.

“Did the doorman just call you?” Alexis asked.

“Uh, yes. What’s wrong?” Katie’s voice. It didn’t sound quite right.

“I might ask you the same question.” Alexis glanced about her. The other passengers seemed to be listening to her. Ridiculous. It was just idle curiosity. After all, she was the only one doing any talking.

The elevator stopped on the ninth floor. The doors opened and the woman left. The man stayed on, averting his eyes from Alexis.

“I’m . . . fine,” Katie said.

“Well, you don’t sound like it.”

A long pause ensued. The man kept looking everywhere except at Alexis. His hand moved into his coat pocket.

“Is there something you want to tell me?” Alexis asked. “Should I stay somewhere else tonight?”

Alexis kept the man in her peripheral vision. He fumbled in his coat pocket for a bit and pulled out a key. Alexis felt overcome with gratitude and embarrassment at assuming it was going to be a gun or knife or a drug-soaked rag.

Katie laughed, but not with any sort of glee. “Of course you can stay here. But that’s entirely up to you.”

This was completely wrong. Katie would never have said that. It was after midnight. She would have insisted Alexis spend the night with her. Somebody was with Katie, so she couldn’t speak freely. And the doorman. He should’ve known her name. And he wouldn’t have shooed Alexis away like that, unless he had something to hide.

The elevator reached the fifteenth floor, emitting a bell-like chime as it did. Alexis and the man emerged and, as she headed toward the stairs, she heard him say, “Stop right there, miss.”

She stopped and turned with almost glacial slowness toward him. He held up the key. “Come with me.”

Alexis stood paralyzed, rooted in place for a moment. Then, she turned and bolted for the exit stairs. She glanced back at the man as she threw open the door and just before she ran into the stairwell, she saw him pounding toward her, pulling a small walkie-talkie from his coat pocket.

Alexis may have spent a lot of time in the library, but she kept fit. Oregon had lots of places to hike, a passion for both Daniel and herself. She bounded down the steps, taking them two at a time. The man pursuing her seemed to have substantial difficulty keeping up. The distance between them was growing greater with each flight, but Alexis knew that the test would be whether she could lose the man after she left the stairwell.

She reached the lobby and tried to open the door. Locked. Frantic, Alexis raced down to the next level and tried the door. It wouldn’t budge. She’d reached the bottom. No way out, at least none that she could see. She could hear the man from the elevator getting closer.

Alexis pounded on the door. “Open up!” she yelled.

The man’s footsteps were getting louder, and she pounded harder.

“Help! Anyone there?”

The door flew open and, in it, stood Mel.