Chapter Two, The Department of Factual Verification Summary

The narrator is late for work the next morning. On his way to work, he encounters a bum in the subway, roughly of his same age, who scares him with his "long-distance" eyes. On the train, he reads the New York Post, whose headlines give him an odd pleasure with their ghastly stories. He reads a poster on a light pole with the name of a missing young woman and hears a pimp advertising peep shows at Times Square. He dreads going into work and thinks of his boss, Clara Tillinghast, with apprehension, believing that she is out to get him and wants him fired. He greets Lucio, the elevator operator, and Sally the receptionist, two more exemplars of working class New Yorkers, before entering the hallowed editorial offices, covering two...