And wasn’t Wall Street in lower Manhattan . . . ?
Stepping quickly to a map that was posted on the subway car’s wall, Emmett ran a finger down the length of the Seventh Avenue line. Finding the Wall Street stop revealed that in his haste he had boarded an express train headed south rather than a local headed north. By the time he realized this, the doors had already closed. A second look at the map told Emmett that in another minute, the train would be somewhere under the East River on its way to Brooklyn.
Taking one of the now-empty seats, Emmett closed his eyes. Once again, he was headed in the wrong direction by a factor of a hundred and eighty degrees, but this time he had no one to blame but himself. At every step, there had been someone he could have asked for assistance, someone who could have eased his way by directing him to the right staircase, the right platform, the right train. Yet he had refused to ask a soul. With a grim self-awareness, Emmett remembered how critical he had been of his father’s reluctance to ask the more experienced farmers around him for advice—as if to do so would somehow leave him unmanned. Self-reliance as folly, Emmett had thought.
As he rode from Brooklyn back to Manhattan, Emmett was determined not to make the same mistake twice. When he arrived at the station at Times Square, he asked the man in the token booth which exit would lead him downtown; on the corner of Forty-Second Street, he asked the man in the newsstand where he could find the Statler Building; and when he reached the Statler Building, he asked the uniformed man at the front desk which of the agencies in the building were the biggest.
* * *
? ? ?
By the time Emmett arrived at the Tristar Talent Agency on the thirteenth floor, there were already eight people gathered in the small waiting room—four men with dogs, two with cats, a woman with a monkey on a leash, and a man in a three-piece suit and bowler hat who had an exotic bird on his shoulder. He was talking to the middle-aged receptionist. When he finished, Emmett approached the desk.
—Yes? the receptionist asked, as if she were already bored with whatever Emmett had to say.
—I’m here to see Mr. Lehmberg.
She took a pencil from a holder and held it over a pad.
—Name?
—Emmett Watson.
The pencil scratched.
—Animal?
—I’m sorry?
She looked up from the pad and spoke with exaggerated patience.
—What sort of animal have you got?
—I don’t have an animal.
—If there’s no animal in your act, then you’re in the wrong place.
—I don’t have an act, explained Emmett. I need to speak to Mr. Lehmberg on a different matter.
—It’s one thing at a time in this office, sonny. You want to talk to Mr. Lehmberg on a different matter, you’ll have to come back on a different day.
—It shouldn’t take more than a minute . . .
—Why don’t you take a seat, Mac, said a man with a bulldog at his feet.
—I may not need to see Mr. Lehmberg at all, persisted Emmett. You might be able to help me.
The receptionist looked up at Emmett with an expression of serious doubt.
—I’m looking for someone who might have been one of Mr. Lehmberg’s clients. A performer. I’m just trying to track down his address.
As Emmett completed his explanation, the receptionist’s face darkened.
—Do I look like a phone book?
—No, ma’am.
As several of the performers behind Emmett laughed, he felt the color rising to his cheeks.
Stabbing her pencil back into its holder, the receptionist picked up the phone and dialed a number.
Imagining she might be calling Mr. Lehmberg, after all, Emmett remained at the desk. But when the call went through, the receptionist began talking to a woman named Gladys about what had happened on a television show the night before. Avoiding eye contact with the waiting performers, Emmett turned and headed back into the hallway—just in time to see the doors to the elevator closing.
But before they shut completely, the tip of an umbrella jutted through the gap. A moment later, the doors reopened to reveal the man with the bowler hat and the bird on his shoulder.
—Thank you, said Emmett.
—Not at all, said the man.
It hadn’t looked like rain that morning, so Emmett guessed the umbrella was somehow part of the act. Looking up from the umbrella, Emmett realized the gentleman was staring at him expectantly.
—Lobby? he asked.
—Oh, I’m sorry. No.
Fumbling a little, Emmett removed from his pocket the list that the deskman downstairs had given him.