way and--"

"No!" But he was less positive. I gave him two hundred more and he
said grudgingly: "All right. If I hear it. Say, what's in there that's
worth all that trouble?"

"Papers," I lied.

He leered. "Sure."

"No fooling, it's just personal stuff. Not worth a penny to anybody
but me, understand? So don't get any ideas--"

He said in an injured tone: "Mister, naturally the _staff_ won't
bother your stuff. What kind of a hotel do you think this is?"

"Of course, of course," I said. But I knew he was lying, because I
knew what kind of hotel it was. The staff was there only because being
there gave them a chance to knock down more money than they could make
any other way. What other kind of hotel was there?

Anyway, the way to keep the staff on my side was by bribery, and when
he left I figured I had him at least temporarily bought. He promised
to keep an eye on the room and he would be on duty for four more
hours--which gave me plenty of time for my errands.

* * * * *

I made sure Arthur was plugged in and cleaned myself up. They had
water running--New York's very good that way; they always have water
running. It was even hot, or nearly hot. I let the shower splash over
me for a while, because there was a lot of dust and dirt from the
Bronx that I had to get off me. The way it looked, hardly anybody had
been up that way since it happened.

I dried myself, got dressed and looked out the window. We were fairly
high up--fifteenth floor. I could see the Hudson and the big bridge up
north of us. There was a huge cloud of smoke coming from somewhere
near the bridge on the other side of the river, but outside of that
everything looked normal. You would have thought there were people in
all those houses. Even the streets looked pretty good, until you
noticed that hardly any of the cars were moving.

I opened the little bag and loaded my pockets with enough money to run
my errands. At the door, I stopped and called over my shoulder to
Arthur: "Don't worry if I'm gone an hour or so. I'll be back."

I didn't wait for an answer. That would have been pointless under the
circumstances.

After Philadelphia, this place seemed to be bustling with activity.
There were four or five people in the lobby and a couple of dozen more
out in the street.

I tarried at the desk for several reasons. In the first place, I was
expecting Vern Engdahl to try to contact me and I didn't want him
messi