I didn't listen for the rest. I went into the booth, closed the door, pretended to drop a coin and dial a number. But all the time I was in there, I was reaching out through the glass for the clock. At this range it wasn't difficult to stop the balance wheel.
Just the same, when I came out I was wringing wet.
"Now will you please tell me what this is all about?" she said stiffly.
"Gladly. Let me buy you a cup of coffee and I'll explain."
She glanced at the bags. I told her they'd be all right. We followed the short, fat man into the coffee shop.
Over coffee I explained it all to her, how I had this extrasensory ability, how she was the first person I had ever revealed it to, and how I had discovered what was in her overnight bag.
During the telling, her untouched coffee grew a skin, her face grew pale, her eyes grew less curious and more troubled. There were tears there when I finished. I asked her who put the bomb in her bag.
"Joe did," she said in a toneless voice, not looking at me any more but staring vacantly across the room. "Joe put it there." Behind her eyes she was reliving some recent scene.
"Who is Joe?"
"My husband." I thought she was going to really bawl, but she got control again. "This trip was his idea, my coming down here to visit my sister." Her smile was bleak. "I see now why he wanted to put in those books. I'd finished packing and was in the bathroom. He said he'd put in some books we'd both finished reading—for my sister. That's when he must have put the—put it in there."