It was almost ten o'clock when Lefty came into the room where I was looking over the maps of the city. He jerked his head.
"Hey, you."
A weasel-faced man who had been blowing smoke in my face slid off his stool, dropped his cigarette and smeared it under his shoe.
"You," Lefty said. "The new guy."
I belted my coat and followed him down the dark stairway, and out across the littered tarmac, glistening wet under the polyarcs, to where Haug stood talking to another man I hadn't seen before.
Haug flicked a beady glance my way, then turned to the stranger. He was a short man of about fifty with a mild expressionless face and expensive clothes.
"Mr. Stenn, this is Smith. He's your escort. You do like he tells you and he'll get you into the city and see your party and back out again in one piece."
The customer looked at me. "Considering the fee I'm paying, I sincerely hope so," he murmured.
"Smith, you and Mr. Stenn take number 16 here." Haug patted a hinge-sprung hood, painted a bilious yellow and scabbed with license medallions issued by half a dozen competing city governments.
Haug must have noticed something in Stenn's expression.