I was suddenly angry, at myself. In that same second or so of thought, I was finding excuses, telling myself that there wasn't time to go up there now; that we had to act, had to do something. And I took my anger and shame out on Jack. "Listen" – I was on my feet, staring furiously across the room at him – "whatever we're going to do about this, we've got to start doing it! So what do you say? You got any ideas? What'll we do, for God sakes!" I was actually a little hysterical, and knew it.

"I don't know," Jack said slowly. "But we've got to move carefully, make sure we're doing the right thing – "

"You said that! You already said that early this evening, and I agree, I agree! But what? We can't sit around forever till the one correct move is finally revealed to us!" I was glaring at Jack, then I forced myself to behave. I thought of something, turned to cross the room rapidly, winking at Jack to let him know I was okay now. Then I picked up the downstairs phone and dialled a number.

The ringing began, and I had to grin; I was getting a little malicious pleasure out of this. When a general practitioner hangs out his ethical little shingle, he knows he's going to be telephoned out of bed for the rest of his life perhaps. In a way he gets used to it, and in a way never does. Because most often the phone late at night is something serious; frightened people to deal with, and everything you do twice as hard; maybe pharmacists to roust out of bed, hospitals to stir into action. And underneath it all, to hide from the patient and his family, are your own night-time fears and doubts about yourself to beat down, because everything depends on you now and nobody else – you're the doctor. The phone at night is no fun, and sometimes it's impossible not to resent those branches of medicine that never, or rarely, have emergency calls.

So when the ringing at the other end of the wire was finally broken, I was grinning, delighted with my mental picture of Dr. Manfred Kaufman, black hair mussed, eyes barely open, wondering who could possibly be phoning.

"Hello; Mannie?" I said, when he answered.

"Yeah."

"Listen" – I made my voice exaggeratedly solicitous – "did I wake you up?"

That brought him to life, cursing like a wild man.

"Why, Doctor," I said, "where in the world did you learn such language? From your patients' foul and slimy subconscious, I suppose. How I wish I were a chief sawbones, charging twenty-five bucks a throw just to sit and listen and improve my vocabulary. No tiresome night-time calls! No dreary operations! No annoying prescrip – "

"Miles, what the hell do you want? I'm warning you. I'll hang up, and leave the damn phone off the – "

"Okay, okay, Mannie; listen." I was still smiling, but the tone of my voice promised no more bad jokes. "Something has happened, Mannie, and I've got to see you. Just as fast as possible, and it has to be here, at my place. Get over here, Mannie, as fast as you can; it's important."

Mannie's quick-minded; he gets things fast, and you don't have to repeat or explain. For just an instant he was silent, at the other end of the wire, then he said, "Okay," and hung up.

I was enormously relieved, crossing the room toward my chair and my drink again. In an emergency calling for brains, or almost anything else, Mannie's the first man I'd want on my side, and now he was on his way, and I felt we were getting somewhere. I picked up my drink, ready to sit down, and I actually had my mouth open to speak to Jack, when something happened that you read about often but seldom experience. In a single instant I broke out into a cold sweat, and I stood there stock still for several seconds, paralyzed, and shrivelling inside with fear.

What had happened was simple enough; I'd suddenly thought of something. Something had occurred to me, a danger so obvious and terrible that I knew I should have thought of it long since, but I hadn't. And now, terror filling my mind, I knew I hadn't a single second to lose, and I couldn't act fast enough. I was wearing elastic-sided slippers, and I ran to the hall and grabbed up my light topcoat from a chair, shoving my arms into my coat sleeves as I swung toward the front door. I had only one terrible thought, and it was impossible to do anything but act, move, run. I'd forgotten all about Jack, forgotten Mannie, as I yanked the front door open and ran out, and down the steps into the night, across the lawn and the sidewalk. At the curb, I had my hand on the door of my car when I remembered that the ignition key was upstairs, and it simply wasn't possible to turn around and go back. I began to run – as hard as I could – and somehow, for no reason I can explain, the sidewalk seemed hampering, seemed to slow me down, and I darted across the grass strip toward the curb; then I was running frantically down the dark and deserted streets of Santa Mira.

For two blocks I saw nothing else moving. The houses lining the street were silent and blank, and the only sounds in the world were the rapid slap-slap of my slippers on the asphalt pavement and the raw gasps of my breathing, which seemed to fill the street. Just ahead now, at the Washington Boulevard intersection, the pavement lightened, then suddenly brightened, showing every tiny pebble and flaw on its surface in the headlights of an approaching car. I couldn't seem to think, couldn't do anything but run on, straight into that glare of bouncing light, and brakes squealed and rubber shrieked on the pavement and the chrome end of a bumper slapped through the tail of my coat. "You son of a bitch," a male voice savage with fright and anger was shrieking at me. "You crazy bastard!" The words merged into a frustrated babble as my pumping legs carried me on into the darkness.

Chapter six

I could hardly see when I got to Becky's. My throbbing heart seemed to pile blood behind my eyeballs, filming my vision, and the whistling moan of my breath bounced and echoed between the frame walls of Becky's home and the house next door. I began testing each basement window, pushing each one inward with all my strength, using both hands, then shuffling over the grass at a jog, to the next. They were all locked. I'd circled the house, and now I bunched the hem of my coat around my fist, held it against the glass of the window, and pushed, increasing the pressure till suddenly it cracked. One piece fell inward, dropped into the basement, and broke with a tinkling sound on the floor. From the hole in the glass, the cracks flared out, the other broken pieces bulging inward, but still hanging in place. I was thinking now, and in the faint starlight I carefully picked out the broken fragments one by one, dropping them in the grass, widening the hole. Then I reached in, unlatched the window, opened it, then crawled in feet first, sliding down over the ledge on my belly till my feet found the floor. Pressing against my chest as I slid down, I felt the fountain-pen flashlight I carry in my coat; then, standing in the basement, I turned it on.

The feeble little yard-long beam was wide and diffused, and showed nothing at all beyond a step or two ahead. Slowly I shuffled around that dark, unfamiliar basement, passing bundles of stacked-up old newspapers, a rusting screen door leaning against a cement-block wall, a paint-smeared, saw-marked sawhorse, an old trunk, an old sink and a pile of discarded lead piping, the wooden six-by-six supporting pillars of the basement, a framed dusty group photograph of Becky's high-school graduating class – and I began to get panicky. Time was passing. I wasn't finding what I was certain was here somewhere, and what I had to find if it wasn't already too late.

I tried the old trunk; it was unlocked, and I thrust my arm down into it to the shoulder, stirring around in the old clothes the trunk was filled with, till I knew it contained nothing else. There was nothing among the stacks of old newspapers, or behind the screen door, nothing in an old bookcase I found, its shelves lined with empty, earth-crusted flowerpots. I saw a wooden workbench littered with tools and wood shavings, odds and ends of unused lengths of lumber stacked underneath it. As quietly as possible, I pulled most of that lumber aside, but still I made a good deal of noise; there was nothing under that bench but lumber. I shot the little beam up to the rafters; they were open and exposed, covered with dust and fluff, and there was nothing else on them. Time continued to pass, and I'd searched that whole basement. I didn't know where else to look, and I kept glancing at the windows, afraid I might see the first hint of dawn.