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large mouth. “You’re my husband,” she said.
    I pulled away. We were almost at the door.
    “No,” she explained. “I’m going to tell them you’re my husband. They’ve never seen him. I’d never bring Paul around here. I don’t want anyone to see the Abominable Snowman of Brooklyn. Just follow me.”
    We went into the lobby, which was full of people coming in to register, going out for dinner, or waiting for a good time that would probably never show up. I followed Pauline through a door, looking at her in good light for the first time. A little overweight, but not much. Good skin. Nice teeth. Fine legs. Her dark hair was piled high to show her small ears. The face had seen a bit too much but it was a nice face. I didn’t think I could hold up as well to her inspection, but I guessed I did. At the door she turned to look at me and grinned.
    “Ready?”
    “Ready,” I answered and we went in. I was worried about running into Sudsburry, who might take some time from the desk to have a smoke or a Coke with the behind-the-scenes staff, but it was soon clear that the phone room was far from the lair of the keeper of the registration book.
    “A minute.” Sitting me on a folding chair outside of a door marked PHONE CENTER , Pauline came out in about ten seconds. “Adella will cover for me. I’ll be right back.”
    Beyond the closed door I could hear Adella’s voice from time to time, a pleasant tinkle of a voice over the buzz-buzz of the phone lines. Pauline was back in no more than five minutes with three ledger-sized books in her hands. She dropped them in my lap. “Couldn’t get the current one,” she apologized.
    “Probably won’t need it,” I said. “I’ll take them up to my room, five-fourteen, and bring them down as soon as I can.”
    “I’m off at midnight,” she whispered. “I’ll come up and get them.”
    She kissed me, Scotch and poppies and something else knowing and warm and sweet. I couldn’t kiss back. My arms were filled with ledgers.
    “I can do better,” I said.
    “See you at midnight.” She laughed and went into the phone room. Her laugh was raw, deep, wading right through the trough of time. She had to be drunk, but she held it better than the kids at the bar.
    I skulked back to my room, turned on the light, threw my jacket on the bed, and dropped the ledgers on the desk in the corner. Pulling the letters to Einstein out of my suitcase, I commenced comparing handwriting. I took a breath to call Gunther back in Los Angeles. Luck was with me. Mrs. Plaut didn’t answer the phone. Joseph P. Hill, the mailman, picked up and told me that Gunther was out. Hill took down the name of the Taft Hotel and promised to pass it along to Gunther. I hung up and made myself comfortable.
    While I worked, I listened to the standard white hotel radio, an Arvin. Fred Allen was the guest on the “Quiz Kids.” The kids were a little surprised when the baggy-eyed comic with the thin reedy voice beat them to a couple of answers. Their respect and mine increased even further when Allen identified Lorenzo Da Ponte as the librettist of Don Giovanni . I didn’t even know what a librettist was. I was almost at the end of the first ledger, with no match to the handwriting, when “Junior Miss” came on at nine on WABC. I’m a sucker for Shirley Temple. It took me almost an hour to finish that first volume.
    I was midway through the second volume, MARCH 15–30, when I spotted the name Alex Albanese. I turned off the radio and realized for the first time that I needed glasses. It was a depressing thought. I squinted at the signature, checked and triple-checked it against the letters. It was possible. I checked again and decided it was certain. Alex Albanese in Room 1324 had written the threatening letters to Albert Einstein. I was buttoning my shirt when a knock came at the door.
    “Toby?” It was Pauline’s raspy voice. “You in there?”
    I opened the door and she stood, grinning. Her grin