Chapter 5
DENE STAYED only long enough in the modest two-dollar bedroom he engaged at the hotel to wash his hands and change his collar. The June evening was stifling. Far below the open window Broadway was strident under its cascade of lights and the side-street where the hotel reared its twenty floors to the leaden night sky belched a constant stream of traffic, jarring and honking, stemming and advancing, into the main artery. From time to time, with a roar like an earthquake and in a flurry of streaming lights and thunderous bogies, a train rushed across the gaunt viaduct of the Elevated at the other end of the block.
So this was New York! Hat on head, Dene paused an instant at the window on his way to the door. There was something stark and rather awe-inspiring about this Manhattan
