In River Street, on the wrong side of the tracks, after hours spent walking from the fashionable districts gradually down the economic ladder into a grimy, dilapidated neighborhood, Jurgen found the Charleston Residence Hotel. Brownstone, four stories tall, it had two windows boarded up on the third floor and unmistakable blackened marks from a conflagration that had never been cleaned away. There was a sign in the window advertising a weekly fee he thought he could manage—if the sign was not out of date. It was yellow, curling at the edges, and could hardly be read behind a smudged window laced with years of accumulated cobwebs. It did not seem like a wholesome place—but the price was right so he walked into the tiny lobby.
"Have you any rooms?" he asked. He had his viola case tucked under one arm and his cracked leather valise dangling from the other hand.
A short, bearded and balding man in a brown, pinstriped suit that might once have been new, stood at the front desk. The stub of a stale cigar not two inches long was stuffed between his lips. He cupped a hairy hand to his ear.
"I asked," Jurgen stated in a much louder voice, "whether you have a room to let."
"Yeah, we got a lot of rooms." The man grinned. "How many you want?"
"One will be sufficient, thank you." Jurgen carefully laid out one week's rent on the counter. "This is a week in advance." The man cupped his hand to his ear, and Jurgen was compelled to repeat himself loudly.
The man swept the money away—into a vest pocket—and handed his new resident a rusty key attached to a length of twine. Scrawled on a paper tag attached to the twine were numbers: a three, separated by a dash from the number thirteen.
"By the way," Jurgen inquired loudly, leaning forward, "you don't mind if I PRACTICE the VIOLA during the DAY?"
"Violin?" the man yelled back, with a dismissing wave. "Just so I don't get no complaints, you do what you want."
Relieved at last to be in some lodging—his last few nights had been spent in damp freight cars, cowering with one or another group of indigents—Jurgen ascended the stairs quietly to the third floor. Room thirteen was the last door on the right at the front of the building. He opened the door after some fumbling with the key. His room proved to be the one with boards on the windows. Only one window, on the left, was not boarded. The inside had been freshly painted, with white paint. The floor was painted a deep gray and partly covered with a threadbare carpet patterned mostly in shades of brown.