Driving slowly and taking great care not to attract any attention, I turned the car around and headed back to the south side of the school grounds. I followed the fence to the end, where the road ended and the pond began. I parked at the very end of the road in front of the metal barricade, invisible to Weiss at the padlocked gate, and got out. I moved quickly to the narrow path between the lake and the fence and hurried forward.

From the distant school building the bell rang. School was over for the day and Weiss would have to make his move now. I could see him, still kneeling at the padlock. I didn't see the large handles of a bolt cutter sticking up, and it would take him a few minutes either to pick the lock or cut it. But once inside he could simply move along the fence leisurely, pretending to inspect the chain link.

I reached the edge of the clump of trees and hurried through.

I stepped carefully over small heaps of garbage —beer cans, plastic soda bottles, chicken bones and other less pleasant objects —and came to the far end, pausing only for a moment at the last tree to make sure that Weiss was still there, fiddling with the lock. The van was in the way and I could not see him, but as far as I could tell the gate was still closed. I took a deep breath, drawing in the darkness and letting it flow through me, and then I stepped out into the bright sun.

I moved to the right, almost at a run, to come at him from the rear, around the back end of the van. Silently, carefully, feeling the stretch of dark wings all around me, I crossed the space to the van, came around the back end and paused as I saw the figure kneeling by the gate.

He looked back over his shoulder and saw me. “Whus hapnin'” the man said. He was about fifty, black, and very definitely not Weiss.

“Oh” I said, with my usual wit. “Hello.”

“Damn kids put superglue in the lock” he said, turning back around to face the lock.

“What were they thinking?” I said politely. But I never got to find out what they were thinking, because far away across the field, in the street in front of the main gate, I heard the sound of car horns, followed by the crunch of metal. And much closer at hand, actually inside my head, in fact, I heard a voice hissing, Stupid! And without pausing to wonder how I knew that the accident had been Weiss ramming Rita, I jumped up onto the fence, hooked myself over to the other side, and took off at a run across the playing field.

“Hey!” the man at the lock called, but for once I did not mind my manners and wait to hear what he had to say.