In the only field of activity she cared anything about, she was terrific.

I didn’t see her for a couple of days, and then on Thursday night I was too busy to think about her. It was the cloudy night I’d been waiting for.

7

I WENT TO THE MOVIE and sat through a double feature without seeing it, feeling the tension beginning. When I came out at 11:30 it was still overcast, with thunder growling far off in the west. I got in the car and drove a long way down the highway, beyond the river, killing time which died too slowly. It was a little after one when I came back to town, the streets deserted now and the only lights the all-night café and a filling station on the other end of Main. I circled through back streets and stopped under some trees by a vacant lot a block away from the Taylor building.

I cut the ignition and lights and sat there in the car for ten minutes. Nothing moved. The one-man police force would be drinking coffee and kidding the waitress under the fluorescent lights three blocks away. There was no use waiting any longer. This was as nearly perfect as it would ever be. I got out and opened the trunk. Everything I’d need was in the cardboard box except the flashlight I’d bought, and I dropped that in my pocket.

A lone drop of rain splashed wetly in my face. It was so dark I could see only the faintly blacker loom of the trees against the sky. Then I could just made out the square shape of the building across the vacant lot. I was at the rear of it now. Suppose someone had discovered the unlocked window and fastened it again? Well, suppose they had? I couldn’t help it now. I came around the corner and felt for the sash.

It slid upwards. Nobody had ever noticed it. I reached the box through and set it on the floor of the washroom, and then climbed in myself and pulled the window down. After feeling my way out of the little room I closed the door and sighed with relief. So far, so good, I thought.

I went up the stairs. It was hard to breathe in the hot, dead air up here under the roof. My footsteps echoed through the building as I picked my way through disordered piles of rubbish.

I set the box down against a wall and swept the light around. Anywhere would do. This was as good as any. I set the light in an old chair and opened the box, lifting out the pitch pine shavings I had whittled out that Sunday in the woods. Taking four kitchen matches out of the box, I bound them to the wire cross-arm as I had done before. Then I wound and set the clock, checking it against my watch, and wound the alarm. I set it for 12:30, and released the catch. I was sweating profusely now.