The Baldwin Hotel was located on the corner of West Thirty-third Street and Eighth Avenue. It was not one of Manhattan’s higher-quality hotels. Nor was it one of the city’s better neighborhoods. But since this was Vera’s first trip to Manhattan, she didn’t know any better. But then, Vera didn’t intend to stay in her room very much. She was going to do some heavy sightseeing. She had her guidebook. She had her maps. She was all set. Though it was late afternoon and cold and miserable outside, Vera Bundle wouldn’t be deterred. Besides, what else would she do with herself? Sit in her drab hotel room and stare at the four walls? The possibility caused Vera to start having serious second thoughts about the so-called Winter Surprise she had paid good money to be part of.

Now stop that, Vera, she said to herself, and went down to the lobby.

“So what’s going on in the city this week?” Vera asked the concierge at the front desk, an elderly black man named Elwood Figgus. That’s what the pin on his suit coat said.

“Not much,” Elwood answered with a smile, scratching his curly gray hair. “It’s February,” he said, “and not much happens in February ’cept it snows. An’ it gets cold. Real cold. That’s about all it do in February. Matter fact they be spectin’ a big snowstorm in the next hour.”

“Who said so?” interrupted Vera.

“The radio do,” said Elwood. “Radio’s been givin’ all these snow eee-lerts. They say they be spectin’ lots a snow t’night. I’d stay in yo room if I was yo. For t’night least. Sorry to say this, ma’am, but February ain’t a good time to come to New York to be sightseein’. These be the dog days a winter.”

“I think the term ‘dog days’ refers to summer,” corrected Vera Bundle, flashing her brittle teacher’s smile, a smile that wasn’t meant to be pleasant. “How would I get to Central Park?” she asked.

“Yo still wants to go out?” said Elwood with a good deal of surprise.

“Of course I do.”

The old concierge looked at his wristwatch, an old Swatch on a loose and tarnished cheap metal band. “At this hour?”

“Yes, at this hour,” answered Vera, a tad testy.

“Okay, then the best directions I can gives yo,” said Elwood Figgus, “is go out the front door, walk up to the corner and grab yoself a cab. Axe the driver to drop yo off at Fifty-ninth and Sixth Avenue. The park’s right there. Can’t miss it.”

“I’d rather walk,” said Vera Bundle.

“I don’t advise no walk,” suggested Elwood Figgus.

“Thank you for your advice, Mr. Figgus,” said Vera Bundle, becoming more annoyed by the minute, “but please give me—”

“Please call me Elwood.”

“Elwood…please give me the directions.”

“Okay,” said Elwood Figgus, shrugging his shoulders. “Go out the door an’ take a leff and when yo gets to the corner which be Eighth Avenue, take another leff and start walkin’. When yo gets up around Fifty-ninth Street, axe someone where Central Park is.”