“So…” he prompted.

“So there was nothing to clean.”

Blake shrugged and gave up. The scrubwoman started to walk away. He put his hand on her shoulder and detained her. “What,” he asked, staring at her enviously, “is it like—the thirteenth floor?”

“Like the twelfth. And the tenth. Like any other floor.”

“And everyone,” he muttered to himself, “gets to go there. Everyone but me.”

He realized with annoyance that he’d spoken too loudly. And that the old woman was staring at him with her head cocked in sympathy. “Maybe that’s because,” she suggested softly, “you have no reason to be on the thirteenth floor.”

He was still standing there, absorbing the concept, when she and her colleagues bumped and clattered their way upstairs with mops, brooms, and metal pails.

There was a cough and the echo of a cough behind him. He turned. Mr. Tohu and Mr. Bohu bowed. Actually, they seemed to fold and unfold.

“For the lobby directory” said the tall man, giving Blake a white business card. “This is how we are to be listed.”

G. TOHU K. BOHU Specialists in Intangibles For the Trade

Blake struggled, licked his lips, fought his curiosity and lost. “What kind of intangibles?”

The tall man looked at the tiny man. The tiny man shrugged. “Soft ones,” he said.

They walked out.

Blake was positive he saw the tall man pick up the tiny man a moment before they stepped into the street. But he couldn’t see what he did with him. And then there was the tall man walking down the street all by himself.

From that day on, Sydney Blake had a hobby. Trying to work out a good reason for visiting the thirteenth floor. Unfortunately, there just wasn’t any good reason so long as the tenants created no nuisances and paid their rent regularly.

Month in, month out, the tenants paid their rent regularly.