"I don't know, really."

"West Side," she told the phone. "Maybe downtown, one of the Spanish parts of Chelsea. He doesn't wanna pay MBA rates. He works for me, if that's a vouch. His name is Judson Blint." Hanging up, she said to Judson, "Go down to four oh six. They'll give you the address. Go now, come back after lunch."

"Thanks."

"Welcome to Big Town," she said.

He never did see Muriel. Four oh six said Top-Boro Properties on the door, and inside was a very high-class reception area with a very high-class receptionist. He gave her his name and she said, "Oh, yes, here you are," and gave him a card.

It was Top-Boro's business card, with Muriel Spelvin on the lower right. On the back was an address on West Twenty-seventh Street, and the name Eduardo.

"That's the super," she said. "Ask for him, he'll show you the place, if you want it, come back here."

"Thank you."

Not knowing any better, he walked the two miles, and found the block to be half very old tenement-type buildings in brick, with high stoops, and half tallish old apartment buildings in stone. The address he wanted was one of the original tenements, and at the top of the stoop was a vertical line of doorbells, half with names attached. The bottom one said SUPER, so he pushed it, waited, and a short, heavy guy in undershirt and work pants and black boots came out from under the stairs to look up and shout, "Hoy?"

"Eduardo?"

"Si."

"I'm Judson Blint, I'm here to see the apartment."

"Hokay."

Eduardo trotted up the stoop. He had shaved this week, but not today. He was friendly but distracted, as though in some other corner of his life he were busy cooking an elaborate lunch. He said, "Come wit me."

Judson went with him into the building, up two narrow, dim flights of stairs, and to the leftward of the two doors at the rear of the hall there. Elaborately he undid three locks, then opened the door, walked in first, and said, "Empty three weeks. I keep it clean."

It was clean — shabby, but clean. All the furniture looked gnawed somehow, as though some previous tenant had kept small, nervous wild animals in here. The layout was exactly as J. C. had described, though she hadn't mentioned how small the kitchen and bathroom would be — no tub, just shower — or how old the appliances. The refrigerator door was propped open.

"Is the electricity off?"

"You call Con Ed, they turn it on," Eduardo said. "Switch your account from your old place."

"I don't have an old place."

Eduardo shrugged. "You call Con Ed."

The bathroom and the bedroom end of the L-shaped room each had a window, old, large, double-hung, guarded by expanding metal gates. Judson peered through the metal strips at half a dozen plane tree branches and the back of a building similar to this one.

"S'okay?"

"I like it," Judson said.

"See you around."

Back at Top-Boro he signed a lease that the receptionist assured him was full of loopholes, so he could always walk away if he found something better. The rent was seventeen forty-two fifty-three a month, which meant he immediately owed three thousand, four hundred eighty-five dollars and six cents, none of which he had, but which the receptionist assured him his employer was taking care of. He left with a dizzy head, a copy of the porous lease, and a lot of keys, all to the same apartment.

Upstairs, he went into J. C.'s office and said, "You're paying the rent?"

"Because you don't have it," she said. "I'll take it back from your piece, ten percent a month, one percent vig."

He thought he understood what that was. "Thank you," he said.

She nodded. "You got more stuff to do?"

"Con Ed."

"Right. And open a checking account — people don't trust you if you give them cash."

"I will."

"And no matter how late it is, come back here and finish up today's stuff. You don't wanna let things pile up."

"No, I won't."

It was quarter to five before he got back, but he now had an apartment, electricity, and a checking account. He was becoming, he realized, an actual person.

J. C.'s door was open, and she was coming out, ready to go home, looking terrific in white dress and white heels. "Call Andy Kelp," she said. "I put his number on your desk."

"Okay. Thanks." Proudly he said, "I have an apartment and a checking account."

"Today you are a man," she said, but she seemed to be grinning to herself as she left.

Casting that from his mind, Judson phoned Andy Kelp, who answered right away, saying, "Hello, Judson, I understand you're moving to town."

"In a couple days, yes," Judson said, because he planned to start setting the place up tomorrow and make the move over the weekend.

But Kelp said, "No, Judson, you've got the place now, why not move in? You've got your electric?"

"I just came back from Con Ed."

"Good. Here's what I'm gonna do for you, my kinda welcome wagon. When you get done your work, call me, then go to your place, I'll meet you there. I have a little training session for you, then we're gonna rent a van, you and me, and while I drive you'll practice some more, and when we come back to town with your goods you'll do a little something for me, then give the van back and go to your new home and sleep like a baby."

It was after seven before Judson could phone Andy Kelp and say he was ready. "I'll walk down now, I'll be there in half an hour."

"Take a cab," Kelp said.

"Oh. Okay."

So he took a cab — more grownupness — and Kelp was waiting for him on the sidewalk, a big cardboard box standing next to him. "Give me a hand with this," he said.

The box was about the size of a wheeled suitcase and pretty heavy. They lugged it up the stoop and then had to wait while Judson figured out which key opened the front door. The two flights up from there were tricky, with a number of banged elbows, but then they got to the door of Judson's apartment, he figured out those keys, too, and they carried the box in and set it down.

The only change from this morning was that the electricity was on. The refrigerator door was still open, spreading light and cool into the kitchen, so the first thing Judson did was shut it, while Kelp was figuring out how to open the gate over the main room's window so he could open the window. Turning from that, he said, "My recommendation, get an A/C. Either that, or rent the apartment in front, too. What you want is your cross-ventilation."

"I don't know this place yet," Judson said.

"No, I know that," Kelp agreed, and turned back to the box. "Let's have a little training session, then grab a bite, then rent that truck."

Judson watched as Kelp opened the carton and pulled out of it a dark gray metal box, laying it on the thin dark rug on the floor. It was an alarm box. It looked exactly like the alarm box on that building Tiny had been studying. "That's the alarm box," he said.

"The one you wanted to be boosted up to, yeah," Kelp agreed. He was now pulling out of the carton a packet of soft black leather, which he unrolled to show a toolkit. "We got a better idea," he said. "Also, it turns out, the manufacturer did some modifications on these things since the last time I met one.

"How'd you find that out?"

Kelp shrugged. "I went on their Web site. People will tell you anything if they think they can make a sale. So I lifted this one from their warehouse so we could study it. And also use it." He rooted around in the box, came out with a little pamphlet. "Okay, here's the instruction manual. It'd be better if it was attached to a wall, but we don't wanna mess up your place, so we'll do it on the floor. I'll read from the manual, and you do like it says. Here, take the tools."

Judson took the toolkit, admiring the softness of the leather, and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the alarm. Kelp sat on the sofa, bounced experimentally, and said, "My advice, get a sheet a plywood, put under the cushions. Your springs here are but a memory."