An empty elevator was waiting. She pressed the button for the twelfth floor.

“I hear they give you a two-month concession when you sign a lease here,” Melnick said. “The wife and I have been thinking about it. How is it, not too noisy?”

Before she could reply, the man at the mailboxes turned and entered the elevator with them. He captured her attention instantly, and the thought jumped into her mind that under the pretense of reading his mail, he had actually been waiting for them to appear. That was impossible, of course. He was tall and broad-shouldered. His rumpled gabardine jacket was unbuttoned and the knot of his necktie was loose. The tiny button of a hearing-aid showed in one ear. He was dark-haired and ruggedly built, and he moved with the lounging grace of a professional athlete in top condition.

“Aren’t you in the diamond business?” he asked Melnick.

“Yeah,” Melnick said, surprised.

“Jake Melnick, sure. Melnick and Melnick.”

The door of the elevator closed, shutting them in. The big man glanced at the signal panel. There were eighteen floors in the building. A red light burned beside 12, Michele’s floor.

“Which for you, Jake? Eight?”

“Listen,” Melnick said, “I don’t know you and I don’t know what this is all about, but whoever you are-”

The car had barely got underway when the big man threw the emergency switch. The brakes grabbed with a sudden violence that sent Michele back against the wall.

“Sure you know what it’s all about,” the big man said easily. “Larry Evans in 8-C wants to give a dame a diamond. If you waited till tomorrow somebody else might beat you to the sale.”