Liddell stepped to the top of the stairs, started down. At the landing, he could see the room below. It looked like the lobby of a small hotel of sorts. The room was partitioned off with discolored plywood into an office in which there was a desk, a telephone on the wall, a rack of old-fashioned keys. It was presided over by a thin, undersized Chinese clerk.
Liddell decided to take his chances on making it. With no one in the lobby but the clerk, he estimated his chances as good. He continued down the steps.
When he reached the bottom, the clerk looked up, stared at him impersonally, nodded, went back to his study of the vertical columns of the Chinese newspaper spread out on the desk before him.
Liddell walked past the desk, made the street. Outside, he recognized landmarks identifying
