“Miles! Long time no see, bud. How’s it going? Who’s this?” He turns eagerly to Zoey.

“Hey, Gus. This is Zoey.” I like Gus, but his proclivity for shooting the shit is not going to work to my advantage at this moment. “I wish we could stay for a drink, but we have a sort of emergency. Do you have any idea where this place is?” I show him the envelope.

“Oh, yeah,” he says, nodding. “It’s on Third Av and Third Street. Where that artisanal mayo shop used to be.”

“Artisanal . . . mayo?” Zoey asks.

“Yeah, real shame they had to close that down,” Gus says with a shake of his head. “It was practically an institution.”

“Right . . .” Zoey says.

“Thanks, Gus,” I say.

“You sure you can’t stay for a drink?” Gus asks. “We have six new IPAs on tap this week.”

“Some other time,” I say, and I immediately make a mental note that I should tell Jude about this bar.

“How far away is that?” Zoey asks as we leave and start making our way down Smith.

“About six blocks this way and three avenues that way.” I point.

“Well, aren’t you a runner?” she asks. “Let’s go!” And she takes off sprinting down the street, surprising me as she expertly avoids shoppers, scooters, and strollers. It takes me a moment before I take off after her.

She’s faster than I expected. “Are you secretly a runner or are you just extra motivated by weed?”

She laughs. “The latter. Also, I seem to be extra, extra motivated by beating you, so . . .” She puts on a burst of speed just as the light changes, leaving me in the dust.

I laugh. It wouldn’t be too hard to catch up to her, if I really wanted, but it’s somehow more fun this way. Chasing her.

She’s followed my directions until she’s ended up on Third and Third. I see her jogging in place in front of a large, slate gray building that appears to have no door, and no signs, but does have seven different hot pink spotlights that illuminate seemingly random parts of the slate.

I’d bet my last pair of boat shoes that this is Hotel The. And judging by the way Zoey is staring incredulously at it, I think she’s figured it out too.

“The unGoogleable hotel also has no door. This must be it,” she says when I reach her.

“Yup,” I say as I look up at the pink spotlights. Are they some kind of Morse code that points to an entrance? I try to see if I can decipher it, and then try to remember if I ever actually knew Morse code.