From the window, he watched the shadow confer with another shape that emerged from an obscure recess of the patio. Then after a while the shadow went away, but the established watcher sidled back into his nook and stayed.
Simon crossed the living room and peered down from a curtained window on the other side. The back overlooked an alley which was more black than dark, so that it was some time before the glimmering movement of a luminous wrist-watch dial betrayed the whereabouts of the sentinel who lurked patiently there among the garbage cans.
Simon put on the kitchen lights and inspected his casserole. He added a little more wine, lighted the oven, and put the dish in. He hummed a gentle tune to himself as he poured a drink in the dinette and settled down in the living room to wait.
The apartment was very effectively covered — so effectively that only a mouse could possibly have entered or left it unobserved. So effectively that it had all the uncomfortable earmarks of a trap...
The question now was — what was the trap set for, and how did it work?
It was a quarter to midnight when the girl came in. He heard her quick feet on the stone steps outside, but he only moved to refill his glass while her key was turning in the lock. She came in like a light spring breeze that brought subtler scents than magnolia with it.
“Hullo,” she said, and it seemed to him that her voice was very gay. “I hope you haven’t been waiting too long.”
“Just long enough. There’s a bolt on the inside of the door — you’d better use it,” he said, without looking up. He heard the bolt slam, after a pause of stillness, and turned with an extra glass in his other hand. “Here’s your nightcap, baby. You may need it.”
He thought of a foolish phrase as he looked at her — “with the wind and the rain in your hair.” Of course there was no rain, and her hair was only just enough out of trim to be interesting, but she had that kind of young, excited look, with her cheeks faintly freshened by the night and her gray eyes bright and arrested. The incongruity of it hurt him, and he said brusquely, “We don’t have any time to waste, so don’t let’s waste it.”
“What’s happened?”