Numbered Account

After having his photograph taken- standard convict's pose, front and side views- and allowing himself to be fingerprinted, Nick retraced his steps to the elevator. He punched the call button and while he waited for it to arrive glanced around him. Opposite the corridor from which he had just come were a pair of glass doors. "Logistik und Administration" was painted in large block letters at eye level. Nick thought it strange he hadn't noticed the doors earlier. They seemed oddly familiar. Dismissing the elevator, he crossed the landing and placed his fingers on the panes of milky glass. He had seen these doors before. He had passed through them with his father on that last visit, so long ago. Room 103, he remembered. They had visited Room 103 to visit an old friend of his father's.

Nick could see himself as a boy, dressed in his gray trousers and blue blazer, hair cut as short as his father's, marching down the endless hallways. Even then, the little soldier. One vivid memory of that day had stayed with him over the years. Pressed up against a giant picture window, he remembered peering down at a busy street, feeling almost as if he were flying above it. "This is my home," his father had said, and he remembered finding it incomprehensible that his father had ever lived anyplace but Los Angeles.

Nick checked his watch. He wasn't expected back at any particular time, and Sprecher seemed easygoing enough. Why not have a look at Room 103? He doubted the same person still worked there, but it was his only point of reference. Decision made, he opened the door and entered a long hallway. Every five steps he passed an office. Stainless steel plates were posted beside each door. A room number was written large across the plates, and below it a four-letter departmental abbreviation followed by several three-letter groupings, no doubt the employees who worked within. In every instance the door was closed. No sounds escaped that might provide a clue as to the work being done inside.

Nick quickened his pace. Ten yards farther on, the corridor ended. The doorways to his left were unmarked. No number; no departmental abbreviation. He tried a handle and found it locked, then hurried on to the end of the hallway. When he saw that the last door on the left sported the number 103, he breathed a sigh of relief. The initials "DZ" were printed under the number. Dokumentation Zentrale. The bank's archives. There was certainly no grand view from there. Nick considered going in but thought better of it. What business could a trainee possibly have there on this, his first day on the job?

A familiar voice echoed his precise thoughts.

"What the hell are you doing down here?" demanded Peter Sprecher. He was carrying a load of papers under one arm. "I couldn't have been clearer with my instructions. Follow the yellow brick road, I said. Just like Dorothy."

Nick felt his body tense involuntarily. Sprecher had, in fact, said just that. "Follow the gold carpeting from the elevator to Dr. Schon's office and back again." What reason could Nick give for being at the portal to the bank's archives? How could he tell Sprecher he'd been chasing a ghost? He took a deep breath, willing himself to relax. "I must have taken a wrong turn. I was beginning to get worried that I wouldn't find my way back."

"If I'd known you were such a navigational whiz I would have given you this stack of papers to take for me." Sprecher motioned with his chin to the bulk of papers under his arm. "Client portfolios bound for the shredder. Keep moving. First office round the corner on the left."

Nick was relieved by the diversion. "Can I help you with them?" he asked.

"Not now you can't. Just stay with me and hold on to that handbook. That's work enough. I'll personally escort you back upstairs. It doesn't do to have new trainees wandering about the bowels of the bank."

***

Peter Sprecher led Nick back to the second floor and accompanied him to a suite of offices situated far along an interior passageway. "This is your new home," said Sprecher. "We call it the Hothouse."

A line of offices divided from one another by glass walls sprang from either side of a spacious central corridor. Executives sat inside several of the offices, engaged on the telephone or with their heads buried in a pile of documents. Nick's critical eye ran from the beige carpeting to the pabulum furniture to the pewter wallpaper. Despite all the glass inside the building, there wasn't a single window looking onto the outside world.

Sprecher laid a hand on Nick's shoulder. "Not the most glamorous of spots, but it does serve its purpose."

"Which is?"

"Privacy. Silence. Confidentiality. Our holy vows."

Nick motioned toward the hive of offices. "Which one of these belongs to you?"

"Don't you really mean which will belong to you? Come on. I'll show you."