1. Safran-Bright residence: 518 W. 35 now Lieber Braid and Trim. (bet. 9th and 10th)
2. Detective Samuel Polito (ret.) cell # 917 555 2396. Lunch at 1:30, call him for details
3. RK Developers new address: 420 Seventh Avenue (bet 32d and 33rd)
4. Roland Korvutz new address: 762 Park Avenue, 9A (bet 72d and 73rd)
5. Korvutz favorite restaurants:

a. Lizabeth (breakfast), 996 Lexington (bet 71st and 72d)
b. La Bella, 933 Madison (bet 74th and 75th)
c. Brasserie Madison, 1068 Madison (81st)

6. Your hostelry: The Midtown Executive, 152 W. 48 (bet 6th and Broadway — give my regards to…)

By nine a.m. I was presenting myself to a droopy-lidded clerk in the closet-sized lobby of the Midtown Executive Hotel. The space was eye-searing bright and beautified by a rack of postcards, maps, and miniature I Love NY pennants.

The clerk moved his lips while studying my reservation slip. “Bill’s being paid by some kind of voucher…”

“L.A. Police Department.”

“Whatever.” He checked a card file. “Doesn’t include incidentals.”

“You’ve got room service?”

“Nah, the phone. Rates are a ripoff, I’d use a cell.”

“Thanks for the tip.”

“I need a credit card. Four thirteen. That’s the fourth floor.”

Cracking the door allowed me to squeeze into the room.

Eight by eight, with a lav half that size, all the charm of an MRI chamber.

A single mattress as thin as Tony Mancusi’s Murphy bed was wedged by a nightstand fashioned from a pink-blond mystery material. A nine-inch TV screwed to the wall fought for space with a snarl of wires. Completing the décor were a bolted-down floor lamp and a soiled watercolor of the Chrysler Building.

The sole window was stationary and double-paned, the glass thick enough to mute the din of West Forty-eighth and Broadway to a persistent, peevish grumble punctuated by random honks and clangs. Drawing the lint-colored drapes turned the room into a tomb but did nothing to lower the volume.

I stripped down, got under the covers, set the alarm on my watch for two hours hence, closed my eyes.

An hour later, I was still wide awake, trying to synch my brain waves with the urban soundtrack down below. Somehow I managed to drop off only to be slapped awake at eleven by the alarm. I called Detective Samuel Polito (ret.), got a canned female voice permitting me to leave a message. During the time it took to shower and shave, my phone registered a return call.

“Polito.”

“Detective, this is Alex Delaware—”

“The shrink, how you doing? I got an appointment before you. Where are you?”

I told him.

He said, “That place? We used to put witnesses up there, characters you needed to stick around to testify but they wouldn’t unless you babysat ’em. Used to give ’em a giant pizza, pay-per-view, and a good-looking female A.D.A. to chaperone.”

I said, “Zero out of three ain’t bad.”