He looked around furtively. In a coffee shop, late at night and not a very clean coffee shop, it is remarkable how thoroughly inhuman people can look.
He left the shop.
Well, he had no way of knowing what was up, who was good or who was bad. But a lot of men had died, and until he knew why, and who did it, and how, and could protect himself, he was going to trust nobody. He was not going to walk deserted streets in the middle of the night looking for Bosco. He hailed a cab for the Statler Hotel. To his relief, he found that there was a Statler in Chicago.
He was given a room for which he could not possibly pay if he stayed here for any length of time, and he thought once more of Dundon.
He would have to call Dundon. He would explain the last few hours as some kind of amnesia, during which he had gotten out of the drugstore safely, bought some new clothes, read the alien's card, and boarded a train for Chicago, all without knowing it.
Although that was the most logical explanation, there was an odd feeling in his mind and he did not believe it. But he decided to tell Dundon that anyway.
It was while he was making the call that the Faktors found him again.
VI
Toward morning reality began to close in upon Ivy with a cold, numbing flow. She sat examining the things around her, the wall, the table, the ceiling. As the morning came on a soft rose crept into the sky. She went to the plastic window and stood watching the dawn.