Summary

Before she found Jim and John searching her apartment, Lila Mae had intercepted her friend Chuck at the bar inside a bathroom stall. Another woman, an alcoholic named Piefaced Annie, was also in the restroom but was unconscious. Chuck told Lila Mae that the elevator at the Fanny Briggs building went into total freefall while the mayor was showing it to a visitor, but luckily no one was hurt. Lila Mae decided to go home for the night, but remembered on the train platform that she told the dispatcher, Craig, she would report to the office. She decided she would tell Internal Affairs that she thought he was calling about an unimportant paperwork task.

The next section is an excerpt from “Theoretical Elevators, Volume One” a textbook on elevators by James Fulton, the pioneer of elevator inspection. It talks about the quest for...