He hung up, looked up the number of 71 in his little black book, called it. A strange voice answered. Shane said: “Is Nick there?... Is Pedro there?... Never mind — what I want to know is what’s Thelma’s last name? Thelma, the cigarette girl?... Uh-huh — Never mind who I am—
I’m one of your best customers... Uh-huh... How do you spell it?... B-u-r-r... You haven’t got her telephone number, have you?”... The receiver clicked, Shane smiled, hung up.
He found Thelma Burr’s address in the telephone directory: a number on West Seventy-Fourth, off Riverside Drive. He got up and went to the table and took several cigars from the humidor, put all but one of them in the blue leather case. He lighted the cigar and stood a little while at one of the windows, staring at the tiny lights in the buildings uptown. Gusts of rain beat against the window and he shuddered suddenly, involuntarily.
He went to a cabinet and took out a square brown bottle, a glass, poured himself a stiff drink. Then he went out, downstairs to the sixteenth floor. He knocked several times at the door of 1611, but there was no answer. He went to the elevator, down to the lobby.
The night clerk said: “That’s right, sir — 1611, but I think Miss Johnson went out shortly before you came in.”
Shane went to the house phone, spoke to the operator: “Did Miss Johnson get any calls after I talked to her around ten-thirty?... Right after I called — huh?... Thanks.”
He went out to a cab, gave the driver the number on Seventy-Fourth Street.
It turned out to be a narrow, five-story apartment house on the north side of the street. Shane told the driver to wait and went up steps, through a heavy door into a dark hall. There were mailboxes on each side of the hall; he lighted a match and started on the left side. The second from the last box on the left bore a name scrawled in pencil that interested him: N. Manos — the apartment number was 414. He went on to the right side of the hall, found the name and the number he was looking for, went up narrow creaking steps to the third floor.
There was no answer at 312.
After a little while, Shane went back downstairs. He stood in the darkness of the hall for several minutes. Then he went back up to the fourth floor, knocked at 414. There was no answer there either. He tried the door, found it to be locked, went back down to 312.