Shannon's mind churned busily as he hailed a cab, gave the address he had copied from one of her letters to Tony, and leaned back to contemplate his financial situation briefly. It wasn't what he could call sound; he had fifty-three dollars to his name and he was going to need a little bundle to set the wheels in motion. Someway, somewhere, somehow, he had to garner a sizeable stake, and for some reason he was convinced that Madeleine Poirier was also going to be his answer in this department.

The cabbie swung around the corner onto a narrow side street and slowed to study the housenumbers. Shannon noted the semi-shabbiness of the section with its near-ugly three and four storied red-brick buildings and their long ascending porch-steps. Momentarily, he speculated that Tony's little wife might not be making it too well and this didn't please him.

The Frenchman pointed out the right entrance and Shannon hopped out, paying but ignoring the tip.

"Merci, M'sieu'," the driver stressed sarcastically tossing his fare a disgusted side glance, as he pulled away from the curb with a squeal of rubber.

Shannon spat after him and cursed under his breath. Lousy frog. He climbed the steps irritably, hardly prepared to walk into the building superintendent. He had just entered the dingy, musty-smelling vestibule when the other appeared out of nowhere before him, a thin, narrow-shouldered, elderly Englishman with a fat little belly and a pinched face. His hair had long left him and his eyes bore a strange cloudiness about them that reminded Shannon of a junkie he had known a long time before in Syracuse. The little man looked at Shannon's six-feet from head to toe, appraising the close cropped, almost white hair, the hard blue eyes and straight lipped mouth in a manner that indicated he didn't like what he saw.