"What'll we use for money—and papers? It would cost hundreds. Unless——" I added, "——we worked our way. But that's no good. We'd still need passports—plus union cards and seamen's tickets."
"Your friend," Foster said. "The one who prepares passports. Can't he produce the other papers as well?"
"Yeah," I said. "I guess so. But it will cost us."
"I'm sure we can find a way to pay," Foster said. "Will you see him—early in the morning?"
I looked around the blowsy room. Hot night air stirred a geranium wilting in a tin can on the window sill. An odor of bad cooking and worse plumbing floated up from the street.
"At least," I said, "it would mean getting out of here."
[CHAPTER V]
It was almost sundown when Foster and I pushed through the door to the saloon bar at the Ancient Sinner and found a corner table. I watched Foster spread out his maps and papers. Behind us there was a murmur of conversation and the thump of darts against a board.
"When are you going to give up and admit we're wasting our time?" I said. "Two weeks of tramping over the same ground, and we end up in the same place."