The Empress File

the hatch up an inch or so, scanned the rooftop, then shoved it all the way off and we climbed through.
    “Keep low,” she said. We crept across the tarpaper and gravel roof to the parapet. The City Hall was ten feet away, and the top was eight to ten feet above us. The windows facing us were dark. LuEllen crawled along the parapet, looking at the buildings opposite, checking lines of sight.
    “What do you think?” I whispered when she came back.
    “We can do it, but if there’s anybody on one of these other buildings, cooling off, we could be fucked,” she whispered back. “No help for that, though. Let’s get the ladder.”
    We went back down to the first floor and found an aluminum extension ladder. I carried it to the base of the stairs while LuEllen found apackage of nylon anchor rope. Then I took one end of the ladder, and she took the other, and we went back up.
    “What’s the rope for?” I asked.
    “We’re pretty exposed. If somebody comes after us, there’s the outside chance that we could tie the rope around one of the chimneys and go over the offside of the building and run.”
    “Yeah. Right.”
    “Hey. I’ve never done time—”
    “OK.”
    On the roof we sat quietly, listening for voices and looking for lights on adjacent buildings. All we heard were the different hums of the streetlights and a thousand air conditioners. All we saw was a car roll past, its windows up. We wouldn’t be visible from the street; the tree covered us on the front side. We would be visible from a cop car rolling down the alley.
    After ten minutes we’d heard nothing, and LuEllen touched my arm. “Let’s go.” We unfolded the ladder, propped it against the top of the City Hall. LuEllen sat on the hardware store roof, her heels against the bottom rung of the ladder; she’d hold it in place while I crossed. After a last look down the alley, checking against police cars, I crossed. It was about as difficult as climbing a ladder to wash a window, as long as I didn’t look down.…
    I hopped onto the roof of the City Hall, treadinglightly, and braced the ladder while LuEllen crossed. She moved like a cat, covering the gap in two or three seconds. I pulled the ladder across and laid it flat on the roof. We waited another minute, listening. Nothing. LuEllen crossed to the chimney, wrapped the rope around it, tied it, and left it lying in a heap. If we needed it, it would be ready.
    Unlike the hardware store, the City Hall had a full-size door at the top, its housing sticking out of the roof like a wedge. LuEllen tried the knob, found it locked, and dug in her bag.
    “Problem?”
    “Naw, it’s one of those old warded pieces of shit.” She used what looked like two lengths of clothes hanger wire and opened it in fifteen seconds. The stairs were built in a steep spiral, narrow and dark.
    “Wait until I call,” she muttered. Wooden steps creak; they always creak, it’s another of the basic laws of nature. She went down them slowly, her feet spread to the far edges of each step. There wasn’t a sound. At the bottom she listened again, opened the door, peeked out, and called me down. I went down as quietly as I could; in my ears it sounded as if I’d stumbled through the cymbal section of the New York Philharmonic.
    “We’re in some kind of closet,” she said. She had pushed the door open about three or fourinches; a filing cabinet blocked it from opening farther. Worse, the filing cabinet was jammed against another wall. I reached through, grabbed the top of the cabinet, and tried to pull it farther into the closet. It wouldn’t budge.
    “Now what?” I asked.
    “Take the door off,” she said. She found the pry bar in her sack and pulled the pins from the two hinges. We had to do some dancing, but eventually we got the door off and enough out of the way that I could boost her up on top of the file cabinet. The door to the closet was also locked.
    “Pain in the ass,” she whispered as she worked on it. “If we want to close them all again…” She was working blind on the closet lock, reaching down from the top of the file. After a couple of curse words the bolt slipped, and she eased the door open.
    “Whoa,” she said.
    “What?”
    She turned back and shone the light on her own face. She was grinning.
    “We’re
inside
the clerk’s office,” she whispered.
    “You want me to come?”
    “No point.”
    She climbed down off the cabinet into the clerk’s office. I pushed myself up on top of