Stubbs nodded. “Grand Central,” he repeated. “Where’s Grand Central?”
The druggist opened his mouth, then hesitated. “Look, let me show you. Give me that map.”
Stubbs handed over the little red book. The druggist opened the map in the back, and showed him. He was here, 10th Avenue and 39th Street. Grand Central was over here, 42nd Street, the other side of 5th Avenue.
Stubbs nodded. “Thank you.”
“Not at all.” The druggist folded the map up for him and handed him back the little book. Stubbs went out to the sidewalk.
In his mind, it had seemed simple. He would come to New York and look in the phone book and it would say Charles Wells and give an address, and he would go to that address. So when he came through the Lincoln Tunnel he parked as soon as he saw a drugstore, and he looked in the phone book. There was a “Wells, C.” and a “Wells, C.F.” and two “Wells, Charles”. Four people in New York that might be the man he wanted.
And then at the last minute he’d been reminded that New York had other parts, like Brooklyn. Charles F. Wells might not be any one of these four, he might be somebody else entirely, in Brooklyn or one of the other parts.
He stood on the sidewalk, and he didn’t know what to do next. He could go look up the four people he already had, or he could go to Grand Central and maybe make the list longer. He thought about it and decided it would be better to try these four people first, and only go to Grand Central if none of the four was the man he wanted. But then he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to find Grand Central once he’d left this spot, this spot was the only place he knew how to find Grand Central from. So while he still remembered where it was, he got down on his knees on the sidewalk and opened the map up and made a mark with his ballpoint pen where the druggist had said he could find Grand Central. A woman going by looked at him in surprise and then, seeing the map, she smiled.
After he made the mark, Stubbs got to his feet again, put the pen away, folded up the map, and walked back to where he’d parked the car. He sat in it and took out his list of four names, and with the help of the book he found out where each of them lived.
C. Wells lived on Grove Street. That was downtown, in a section called Greenwich Village, which was not separate like Brooklyn but was really a part of Manhattan. It bothered Stubbs that the city had parts, and even the parts had parts. He put the map away and started the car.
He went the wrong way at first, but then he asked directions of a cop giving out parking tickets, and after that he went the right way. When he got to Greenwich Village he had to stop at the curb almost every block and look at the map, but finally he found Grove Street, and even a parking space.
The building he wanted had a narrow foyer with mailboxes and doorbells, and next to one of the doorbells was the name C. Wells. It was kind of a rundown house for a man as rich as Charles F. Wells had seemed, but you never knew if a rich appearance was just front. Stubbs rang the bell, and a buzzer sounded, releasing the door lock.
It was a walk-up. A door was open on the second floor, and a sharp-featured girl in her twenties was standing in the doorway. She had long black hair hanging straight down her back, and she was wearing a flannel shirt and dungarees. Her face looked dirty the way a face looks when you eat too much fried food. She watched Stubbs coming up the stairs.
Stubbs came up to the top step. “I’m looking for C. Wells.”
“I’m C. Wells,” she said.
“The C. Wells in the phone book?”
“What is this?” she asked. Her voice and face were both getting sharper.
Stubbs persisted. “Are you the C. Wells in the phone book?”
“Yes, I am,” she said, “and what the hell business is it of yours?”
“All right.” He turned around and started back down the stairs.
She came to the head of the stairs, frowning, and looked down. “What the hell do you want, anyway?”
“Nothing,” he said, not looking back. “It isn’t nothing.”
“Hey, just a goddam second!”
Stubbs went on down the stairs.
“I’m calling the cops!” she shouted, and stormed back into her apartment.
Stubbs went out to the street and back to the car, and looked at his list and the map again. C.F. Wells lived on West 73rd Street, and when Stubbs looked at the map he saw that that was a long way uptown. He sighed and started the car. Once he got above 14th Street, the going was easy, because all the streets were numbered, and as long as the numbers kept getting higher he knew he was going the right way.
It was another apartment house, but a better one, bigger and cleaner and not converted from a brownstone dwelling. But it still wasn’t any place where a rich man would live. Stubbs pressed the button beside the name C.F. Wells, and when the buzzer sounded he went into a quiet foyer with a rug. There was an elevator, self-service, and he rode it up to the fourth floor and then knocked on the door of apartment 4-A.
A young man in khaki pants and an undershirt opened the door, and stood there scratching his head. Stubbs had obviously waked him up. “I’m looking for C.F. Wells,” Stubbs said.
“Clara? She’s at work.”
“That’s the C.F. Wells that’s in the phone book?”
“Yeah, it’s in her name, that’s right.” The young man stopped scratching, and yawned. “You from the phone company?”
“No,” said Stubbs. “I’m looking for a person.”
He turned away and went back to the elevator. The young man stood in the doorway, scratching himself here and there, and frowned at the disappearing Stubbs, but he didn’t say anything. Stubbs got into the elevator and went downstairs and back to the car. Both of them were women, so far. Why didn’t they put their whole names in the book?
