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Park–Lefferts Boulevard subway station, end of the A line, which, before it reaches its other terminus, in the Bronx, burrows through four of the five boroughs. But we don’t have to go there.

Chapter 8
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    The address was the Avalon State Bank Tower on Fifth Avenue, near St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Nineteen–year–old Judson Blint, hot inside his light gray Gap sports jacket, JC Penney summerweight necktie in aquamarine, Banana Republic short–sleeve white button–down shirt buttoned down, Wal–Mart black cotton socks, and Macy’s lace–up black dress shoes, none of which he was used to wearing, had walked up the twenty–some blocks from Penn Station under the August sun, having ridden the train in from Long Island to start his real life, now that the vacation he’d given himself after finally getting out of high school had come, by his own decision, to an end.
    Yes, there was the Avalon State Bank Tower, looming up ahead of him, bleak and gray and stern; but he would not be deterred. He was a winner, and he knew he was a winner, and he was about to prove he was a winner. Stepping through the glass entry doors to the lobby, he looked left and right, found the building directory, and went over there. Allied Commissioners’ Courses, Inc. —712. Good. He was about to turn away when another familiar name snagged his eye: Intertherapeutic Research Service — 712. Also room 712?

    Suddenly suspicious, he cast an eye over the rest of the business names arrayed before him, and there, at the far end of the alphabet, was another name he knew: Super Star Music Co. —712. What was going on here?

    Judson Blint had come to the city today thinking he’d solved the biggest mystery in this equation, which was where to find the offices of Allied Commissioners’ Courses, Inc., so he could meet the company’s owner, one J.C. Taylor. Mr. Taylor did not want to be found — he’d made that clear enough — but Judson had used many of the techniques he’d learned in the Allied Commissioners’ mail–order detective course, plus a few techniques from old private–eye movies and a couple extra he’d made up himself, all of which had led him here. To Intertherapeutic? To Super Star?

    Madly curious, Judson took a 5–21 elevator, got off at seven, walked down to 712, and found painted on the door the three names he recognized, plus, beneath them, a fourth he didn’t know: Maylohda, Commercial Attaché.

    Maylohda. What was that, a country? Who was J.C. Taylor, anyway?

    Only one way to find out. Taking one last deep breath, Judson turned the knob and entered suite 712.

    What a mess. This was a small, cluttered receptionist’s office in which the reception desk almost disappeared into the accumulation of stuff. All the available wall space was taken up by floor–to–ceiling gray metal shelves, stacked to bursting with small brown cardboard cartons. The computer and printer on the battered gray metal desk were the only neat things in the room, but they were upstaged by stacks of labels, piles of books, and leaning towers of what looked like most of the world’s unpaid bills. Columns of liquor store boxes, some empty, some full, obscured and jammed most of the space. And in the middle of it all, stacking books into another liquor store carton, was what had to be the receptionist.

    Oh, my God. She was something out of Judson’s dreams, but not the more soothing ones. No, more like the ones inspired by video games. In her thirties, she was a hard–looking brunette with gleaming eyes that caught the light, and a mouth that looked born to say no. Only louder than that.

    She looked over at him when he entered, and what she did say was, “You want something?”

    “I’m here,” Judson said, deciding that boldness was the only strategy, “to see J.C. Taylor.”

    Hefting a book in one hand, she looked him up and down. “I’m afraid he isn’t in right now,” she said. “Did you call for an appointment?”

    “Oh,