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as though they were trying not to show hysteria.
    She said, “Have you ever been in any trouble with the police?”
    “No.” He didn’t know if the business in the other town was trouble with the police or not, but too many disinterested people had been asking him personal questions. From now on, he would tell them as little as possible. “Name, rank, and serial number,” he said.
    She looked up from the form. “I beg your pardon?”
    “Nothing.”
    She was willing to forget it. She said, “We may have an opening in the shipping department. Please wait.”
    He said he would. She went over to a filing cabinet and looked at things in it for a while, and then went over to the desk, carrying a five-by-seven file card, and made a telephone call. She talked softly, and Cole couldn’t hear what she was saying. Then she came back and said, “Do you have any limitations as to what hours you can work?”
    “No.”
    “Is the four-to-midnight shift all right?”
    “Yes.”
    “Good. Just take this form,” she said, snapping another white form onto the countertop from underneath, “and follow the directions on it.” She stapled it to the form she’d filled in before.
    “How much does this job pay?”
    She seemed surprised. She said, “I really don’t know. You’ll have to ask at the finance office. That’s on your list there.”
    He picked up the form she was pointing at, and looked at it. It was mimeographed and the reproduction was uneven:
    JEFFORDS LEATHER WORKS, INC.
    Instructions to New Employees
    Read Carefully!!
    Welcome to Jeffords Leather Works, Inc., a locally-owned and fully unionized leather working plant organized in our city in 1868! And, most particularly, welcome to the Jeffords ‘family’ of employees!
    For your convenience, we have arranged the ‘orientation’ of new employees in as simple and short a manner as possible. Merely follow the steps outlined below, and you should have no difficulty of any kind. All locations are listed on the map.
    Note: You have already completed step (1).
    _ _ _ _ _
(1) Go to Employment Office and make your application. (You have already completed this step.)
    (2) Go to Finance Office in Building 4. Speak to Mr. Cowley.
    (3) Go to Union Steward’s Office in Building 1. Speak to Mr. Hamacek.
    (4) Go to Doctor’s office in Building 6.
    (5) Go to Shipping Dep’t in Building 3 .
    (6) Return to Employment Office in Building 2, and give this form back to the clerk on duty.
    _ _ _ _ _

    He studied the instructions and the map, then he said, “I have to cross the street four times.”
    “There’s very little traffic this time of day,” she said.
    He looked at her, to see if she was making fun of him, but she wasn’t. She’d thought he meant the traffic would delay him. He didn’t say anything else, but went outside and stood in the thin sunshine, looking at the instruction form. He looked at the arrow by the legend You are here , and then he gazed around at where he was. The building he’d just left, Building 2, humped squat and square, dirty bricks, behind him. To his right was some scrubby ground, and a concrete wall, on the other side of which must be the Swift River. Ahead of him, not shown on the map, were the railroad yards. To his left was the long low brick shed that was Building 3, the Shipping Dep’t, where he would go for step (5).
    He turned to his left, went around the corner of the building, and down the concrete walk between Building 2 and Building 3. The wet cardboard stink was much stronger here in the middle of the factory than anywhere else in town. He breathed through his nose because when he opened his mouth the smell became taste.
    He passed between Building 1 and Parking Lot 1, and went by the Union Steward’s Office. He paused for a second, but the Union Steward’s Office was step (3), and he hadn’t done step (2) yet, and he was sure they wanted the steps down in order, so he went on, and crossed Western Avenue. He went down between