over on this side. She was going to catch the bus at the stop in front of the coffee shop.
I walked down that way behind her. There were five or six other people waiting, and a bus was coming now. It was already well loaded, but it pulled to the curb and the doors opened. She got on. I was last in line, and for an instant I was afraid I wasn’t going to make it. Then the driver yelled for everybody to move back, and I got aboard.
She was just beyond me, standing in the aisle and holding onto the bar. I could see more room at the rear, and squeezed past her, through the other standees. She didn’t even look around. I went all the way back. I could see the dark head without any difficulty.
The bus went through the downtown section, and she almost caught me by surprise when she got off. I stepped down just as the doors were closing and picked her up again in the throngs hurrying along the sidewalk.
She went in the Second Avenue entrance of Waldman’s, the city’s largest department store. It was nearly six p.m. now, and the street lights were on. I picked her up again inside and stayed close behind her in the crowd. It occurred to me a professional would probably wince at the crude tailing I was doing, but she never once looked around, so it was all right. She went up an escalator to the second floor and stopped at the hosiery counter. I moved over to another aisle, staying behind her, and pretended interest in perfume while she bought a pair of nylons. She gave the clerk a charge-a-plate. The clerk stamped it on the slip, returned it. and put the stockings in a small bag.
She crossed to the other end of the floor and went into the women’s lounge. I moved back to where I could watch the doorway without being conspicuous, and found a chair and an ashtray. I lighted a cigarette. Some ten minutes went by. I began to worry. There might be another exit; maybe she’d spotted me, and had gone in there to give me the slip. Then, when I’d almost given up hope, she came out. She took the escalator back to the ground floor and went out the Butler Street entrance. It was six-thirty now, and darkness had fallen, but the streets were still crowded.
In the next block she stopped at a newsstand and bought a magazine, then entered a restaurant. It was on a corner, with large plate glass windows on both sides. I could see her without going in myself. She ordered a sandwich and coffee and looked at the magazine while she was eating. The corner where I was standing was a bus stop. In about twenty minutes she paid her check and came out I moved back, and she came over and stood on the curb where I had been. I sighed. Maybe she was going home at last.
She boarded a Montlake bus, the number seven line. Two more passengers got on after her, and then I climbed aboard. She had found a seat and opened the magazine and didn’t look up as I went past. I went on to the rear and sat down.
I opened the paper and pretended to read, keeping my face down. The bus turned north along a heavily traveled arterial. We passed a district of apartment houses. Several passengers got off. She went on reading. After awhile the bus swung off onto quieter streets and we went past a large housing development. At every stop one or two passengers debarked. Soon there were only five of us left. I wondered why she lived so far out; we must be miles from downtown. Then she put the magazine away and started watching the stops.
“Stevens,” the driver called out. She gathered up her things and came back to the rear door. The bus stopped and she got down. The door closed, but just before we got under way again I glanced up suddenly from my paper and asked, “This Stevens?”
“That’s right,” the driver said. I grabbed the briefcase and got off. The bus went on. I took out a cigarette and stood momentarily on the corner as I lighted it. It was a run-down district of older frame houses. Diagonally across the intersection a service station was a glaring oasis of light, but there were few cars on the street. She