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"That’s how he keeps getting your phone nu your pardon?"

"He doesn’t need a confederate at the phone company If he knows his way around computers, he can hack his way into the phone coet unlisted numbers that way"

"It’s possible to do that?"

"So they tell me"

"Well, I’m hopelessly old-fashioned," she said "I still do allon a typewriter But it’s an electric typewriter, at least" He had the name, the address, the car, and a precise description Did he need anything else? He couldn’t think of anything

"This probably won’t take long," he said

He found Tyler Boulevard, found Five Mile Road, found Loud amp; Clear Software The co with its own little parking lot There were ten or a dozen cars in the lot, many of them Japanese, two of them white No white Subaru squareback, no plate nuiven hi today, ot directions to Fairview Avenue He found it in a pleasant neighborhood of prewar houses and big shade trees Driving slowly past number 411, he looked around unsuccessfully for a white Subaru, then circled the block and parked just down the street fro structure, three stories tall, with overgrown shrubbery obscuring the lower half of the first-floor s A light burned in aon the third floor, and Keller decided that here Cressida was, typing up happy and instructive tales of woodland creatures on her electric typewriter

He had lunch and drove back to Loud a around for a while, found his way to Fairview Avenue again No white Subaru, and no light on the third floor He returned to his ht there was a movie he wanted to see on HBO, but the channel wasn’t available on histo another nboard promised HBO, as well as waterbeds in selected units He decided that was ridiculous, and that he was ratification in this area, even as he had to postpone the gratification of dispatching Stephen Lauderhei the hell out of Muscatine

He leafed through the phone book, looking for Lauderhei, which didn’t surprise hi she wouldn’t be listed There were several Wallaces, but none on Fairview and none named Cressida

There were Kellers, one of them with the initial J, another with the initials JD Either one could be John

He did that soe cities, as if he ht actually find himself there Not another person with the sah, his was not an uncoether different life in soht, really He wasn’t schizophrenic, he knew it couldn’t happen He wondered, though, what that psychotherapist would have made of it He’d had his probleive the devil his due; thefor himself in Muscatine, Iowa -Dr Breen would have had a field day with that one

He went out to the pay phone, fed in a slew of quarters, and called his apartment in New York Andria answered

"I should be home tomorrow or the next day," he said, "but it’s hard to tell"

"It’s a sha you’ll be"

"Well, it’s the nature of the business"

"And iteverything out, turning chaos into order"

He’d told her initially that he was a corporate expediter, sent in to put things right when the local boys were styht it became clear that she knehat he did, and could live with it as long as he didn’t do it to her But now you’d think she’d forgotten the whole thing

"Well, take all the tireat old time"

"You knohat I did?" he said abruptly "I looked up my name in the local phone book"

"Did you find it?"

"No But what do you figure it means?"

"Let me think about that," she said "Okay?"

"Sure," he said "Take all the ti Keller had breakfast at the diner, swung past the house on Fairview Avenue, then drove out to the software company This time the white Subaru was parked in the lot, and the license plate had the right letters and numbers on it Keller parked where he could keep an eye on it and waited

At noon, severaland walked to their cars and drove off None fit Stephen Lauderheiot into the white Subaru

At twelve-thirty, two ether, deep in conversation Both wore khaki trousers and faded deni shoes, but in other respects they looked coy, with dark hair combed flat across his skull The other, well, the other just had to be Lauderheim He fit Cressida Wallace’s description to a T

They walked together to Lauderheim’s Subaru Keller followed them to an Italian restaurant, one of a national chain Then he drove back to Loud amp; Clear and parked in his old spot

At a quarter to two, the Subaru returned and bothKeller drove off and found a superar and a funnel At a hardware store on the sae screwdriver, a hammer, and a six-foot extension cord He drove back to Loud amp; Clear and went to work

The Subaru had a hatch over the gas cap You needed a key to unlock it He braced the screwdriver against the lock and struck it one sharp bloith the haas cap, inserted the funnel, poured in the sugar, replaced the cap, closed the hatch and wedged it shut, and went back to his own car and got behind the wheel

Ean to trickle out of Loud amp; Clear shortly after five By six o’clock, only three cars remained in the lot At six-twenty, Lauderheiot into a brown Buick Century, and drove off That left two cars, one of them the white Subaru, and they were both still there at seven