"It's something fierce. I'll take this one."
"You got that one already," says she, pointing to the magazine I'd bought at Berkeley and was still clinging to. "Don't you wanna try something new?"
"Oh—it's the heat; the sun gets my head woozy." I picked out another and gave her a dollar, the smallest change I had. As she was walking to the cash register, Willitts passed the door and I was out on the sill, moving cautious to the sidewalk.
"Say," comes the girl's voice from behind me, "what are you doin'? You ain't got your change yet. You'd oughtn't to be let out in this sun."
"Keep it," I called back. "I was a working girl once myself."
At the corner of Fifth Avenue he stopped and, a bus coming along, he haled it. "Lord," thought I, "if he gets into that without me I'll have to run after it and they'll arrest me for a lunatic." Being quite a ways behind, I had to make a dash for it, waving my magazine and hollering like the rubes from the country. He was up on the roof, and the bus was moving when I lit on the step, and was hauled in friendly by the conductor.
We jolted downtown, me sitting sideways in a rear seat watching the stairs for Willitts' legs. It wasn't until we were below Twenty-third Street that they came into view, stepping lightly down. The bus heaved up against the curb and he swung off, me behind him. I was terribly scared that he'd begin to suspect me, and all I could think of that would look natural was to roll my eyes flirtatious at the conductor, who seemed to like it so much I was afraid he wouldn't let me off.
When I got down on the pavement Willitts was walking along the cross street back toward Sixth Avenue. Midway down the block, he stopped and disappeared through a doorway. I was quite a piece behind him and when I saw him fade out of sight I forgot everything and ran. At the door I came up short, panting and purple in the face—the place was a restaurant. It had a large plate glass window with white letters on it and a man making pancakes where he'd show plainest. Inside I could see Willitts seating himself at a littered up table.
"Lunch!" I said to myself. "He's going to eat, the cool devil. Now's my chance!"
Almost directly opposite was a drug store with telephone booths close to the window. I could get a message to the office, and if I caught the chief or Mr. George, I could have a man up in twenty minutes. If they weren't there I'd try headquarters, but I was afraid of that—they'd ask questions, waste time, want to know who I was and what it was all about. If only Willitts was hungry, if he'd only eat enough to last till I got some one, if he'd only order pancakes. As I waited for the connection I found myself sort of praying "Pancakes—make him order pancakes. They're made in the window and they take quite a while. Please make him eat pancakes!"