I did exactly as I was told. I didn't move and I didn't make a sound. Which left me quite free to study him.
He was rather short, perhaps three inches shorter than me, with a bony high-cheekboned face featuring deepset eyes and a thin-lipped mouth. He wore gray slacks and shirt, with brown slippers on his feet. He looked exactly like a spy ... which is to say that he didn't look like a spy, he looked overpoweringly ordinary. More than anything else, he reminded me of a rather taciturn milkman who used to make deliveries to my parents' apartment.
His gaze darted this way and that. Then he motioned with his free hand at the descending stairs and whispered, "Where do they go?"
I had to clear my throat before I could speak. "All the way down," I said.
"Good," he said—just as we both heard a sudden raucous squealing from perhaps four flights down, a squealing which could be nothing but the opening of a hall door. It was followed by the heavy thud of ascending boots. The Army!
But if I had any visions of imminent rescue, the spy dashed them. He said, "Where do you live?"
"One fifty-three," I said. This was a desperate and dangerous man. I knew my only slim chance of safety lay in answering his questions promptly, cooperating with him until and unless I saw a chance to either escape or capture him.
"All right," he whispered. "Go on." He prodded me with the gun.
And so we went back up the stairs to one fifty-three, and stopped at the door. He stood close behind me, the gun pressed against my back, and grated in my ear, "I'll have this gun in my pocket. If you make one false move I'll kill you. Now, we're going to your apartment. We're friends, just strolling along together. You got that?"
I nodded.