Free Put a Lid on It by Donald E. Westlake

number of taboos concerning the telephone. You had to use it, because you couldn't physically travel to every place where everybody was, but on the other hand you couldn't really say anything on it. So the phone was necessary in order to make contact, but useless for communication.
    However, within the general rule that you never write anything down, you
certainly
never write down any phone numbers, so in addition to the telephone having this severely limited usefulness it was also necessary to memorize all these phone numbers, in which at any moment the first three digits might change, due to seismic upheavals in the ether-world of area codes.
    Sometimes Meehan found himself thinking that, if the Pony Express was still up and running, he'd be a customer.
    So here's the drill. First he looks at a set of initials, then he reverses them, then he remembers who he had in mind when he put the initials down, then he racks his brain for that guy's last known phone number, and then he dials it.
    “The number you have dialed is no longer in service. The num—”
    Cross off a set of initials, repeat process for next set.
    “Hom yang.”
    “Uhh, is Mikey there?”
    “Fring mititako hoolak?”
    “Mikey. I'm looking for Mikey.”
    “Fleetferop! Miggle kaba fucking pibblesak? Fuck no!”
    “Sorry.”
    And repeat.
    “Hello.” Tired female voice.
    Meehan took another look at the initials, reversed them, said, “Hi, I'm looking for Bert.”
    “So am I, brother,” she said.
    “Oh.”
    “You got any other places to try?”
    “No, this is the only number I—”
    “You cocksuckers all cover up for him, don'tcha? All stick together. Let me tell you—”
    Even after he'd hung up, the phone seemed to continue to vibrate for another few seconds. Meehan gave it a reproachful look.
    Three out of eleven, gone already. It was true that the kind of people he tended to know did not make a habit of staying in one place very long, but this was getting ridiculous. He was almost afraid of the next set of initials. Who knew what might have happened to Woody in the last four months?
    Then it occurred to him he was supposed to call whatser-name. Ms. Goldfarb, the lawyer. Here was her phone number, completely written out with her name and address and everything, on a piece of paper in his shirt pocket. So probably the thing to do was take a break from calling up old chums, even though he was feeling the pressure of next Thursday's deadline, and call Goldfarb instead, give her the phone number at the motel here.
    So Meehan dialed the number on the piece of paper, and on the third ring it was answered by a very gruff male voice, saying, “Goldfarb residence.”
    “Elaine Goldfarb, please.” Who was this guy? Was Goldfarb married?
    “She's not available right now,” said the gruff voice, clearly trying to make itself less gruff, more telephone-friendly. “Could I take a message?”
    “Yeah, I'm supposed to give her a contact phone number,” Meehan said. “How to reach me.”
    “Sure, I'll take that.”
    “Okay, my name's Meehan, my—”
    “Oh, Meehan!” the guy said, very pleased. “Yeah, she wants to talk to you!”
    “I thought she wasn't available.”
    “She isn't here right this
second
, but she wants to see you. I think she said it was urgent.”
    “Oh, yeah?”
    “You got the address here, don't you?”
    On the same slip of paper. Meehan looked at it, squinting, thinking. “Yeah, I got it. Two-seventy-nine West End, apartment eight-H.”
    “That's the place,” the guy said. “Come straight over here, she wants to see you urgent. Okay? Come right now.”
    “Right,” Meehan said, and hung up, and sniffed the air.
    What is wrong with this picture?

19
    T WO-HUNDRED-SEVENTY-NINE West End was a big old stone apartment building in the Eighties, half a block wide, with an awning above the front door and a doorman inside it. Meehan had walked up from his new residence, maybe a mile and a half, pausing at a hardware store along