Mr. Contreras excused himself after he’d eaten half his ham sandwich. “I just thought of something, doll. You stay here and act natural.”

He was gone before I could protest, leaving me in mixed astonishment and anger. I am definitely not the waiting type. This was my second chance this evening to reflect on how evil I’d been all those times I’d left my neighbor pacing the floor unhappily at night while I jumped from gantries. I’m not sure either my character or my disposition was improved by the reflections.

After he’d been gone five minutes I took the bill to the cashier. I was on my way out to look for him when he came in, a look of such self-satisfied mischief on his face that my ill humor died down.

“Oh, there you are, doll. I thought you was going to wait for me.”

“I paid the bill. Someone’s just about to pick up the rest of your sandwich. You want to rescue it?”

“Nah. I ate enough. Tell you the truth, my stomach’s kind of jumpy. I got us something that’ll really help.”

I bustled him out to the Nova before he could proclaim it to the diner at large. When we were safely inside the car, he flourished a fistful of paper at me. I tried turning on the overhead light, but that had died during the car’s first hundred thousand miles. I pulled out of the lot and stopped under a streetlamp. Mr. Contreras had lifted a bunch of work orders from Klosowski’s Emergency Electrical Repair van.

“I saw the door wasn’t locked when we went by, and then, while we was eating, I thought, well, why not? They’ll look more official than anything we could make up down at your office.”

We had decided to take a chance on finding my office still in the clear and go in there to try to manufacture a document that would get us into Crawford, Mead. Mr. Contreras was right: these would be much better than something jerry-rigged on my Olivetti.

“And,” he added, his voice squeaking a bit with excitement, “I got you a cap, too—you ought to cover up those curls of yours.”

He pulled a Klosowski cap from his back pocket.

“Too bad you didn’t find me a false mustache and a beard as well. You know, I think we’d better move on south. Looks to me like someone’s heading for the van. This might be his favorite hat.”

We parked the Nova on Adams and circled around on foot to come at the Pulteney from the north. After getting in and out unmolested yesterday I was pretty sure we were dealing with people amateurish enough not to associate me with an office, but there was no point in revealing a car we’d been at such pains to get.