He had to get back to the hotel room.
There was only one trouble. He didn't have a picture of the room in his notebook.
Dorothea had said that it was almost impossible to go to a place one hadn't been to before. Mike Fueyo had been able to pick up any red Cadillac in the city because he'd concentrated solely on the symbol of a red Cadillac. But he never knew which Cadillac he'd end up at.
Malone closed his eyes and tried to remember the hotel room. He half-wished he had a photograph of it, but Dorothea had told him that photos wouldn't work. They were too complete; they required no effort of the mind. Only a symbol would do.
Of course, the job could be done without a symbol by somebody who'd had plenty of practice. But Malone
had made exactly one jump. Could he do it the second time with nothing to work with except his own recollection and visualization of the room?
He didn't know, but he was certainly going to try. He had to.
Something was wrong; something had happened to Dorothea.
He tried to imagine what it could be, and then realized that such thoughts were only delaying him by distracting his mind from its main job.
He kept his eyes tightly closed and tried to form the picture in his mind. The couch—there. The dresser—over there. The easy-chair, the rug, the walls, the table—wait a minute: he was losing the couch. There. Now. The table, the desk—all there. In color. And in detail.