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this time he was too late. While he’d been steadying his nerves and wildly speculating, the sun had moved on, the slot had filled with shadow, so that he could no longer make out his window, let alone any figure in it.
    His anger faded. He realized it had been mostly reaction to his little shock at what he’d seen, or thought he’d seen…no, he’d seen something, but as to exactly what, who could be sure?
    He stood up on his rocky seat, rather slowly, for his legs were a bit numb from sitting and his back was stiff, and he stepped carefully up into the wind again. He felt depressed—and no wonder, for streamers of fog were blowing in from the west, around the TV tower and half masking it; there were shadows everywhere. Corona Heights had lost its magic for him; he just wanted to get off it as soon as possible (and back to check his room), so after a quick look at his map, he headed straight down the far side, as the hikers had. Really, he couldn’t get home too soon.

7
    THE FAR SIDE of Corona Heights, which faced Buena Vista Park and turned its back on the central city, was steeper than it looked. Several times Franz had to restrain his impulse to hurry and make himself move carefully. Then, halfway down, a couple of big dogs came to circle and snarl at him, not Saint Bernards but those black Dobermans that always made one think of the SS. Their owner down below took his time calling them off, too. Franz almost ran across the green field at the hill’s base and through the small door in the high wire fence.
    He thought of phoning Mrs. Luque or even Cal, and asking them to check out his room, but hesitated to expose them to possible danger—or upset Cal while she was practicing—while as for Gun and Saul, they’d be out.
    Besides, he was no longer certain what he most suspected and in any case liked to handle things alone.
    Soon—but not too soon for him, by any means—he was hurrying along Buena Vista Drive East. The park it closely skirted—another elevation, but a wooded one—mounted up from beside him dark green and full of shadows. In his present mood it looked anything but a “good view” to him, rather an ideal spot for heroin intrigues and sordid murders. The sun was altogether gone by now, and ragged arms of fog came curving after him. When he got to Duboce, he wanted to rush down, but the sidewalks were too steep—as steep as any he’d seen on any of San Francisco’s more than seven hills—and once again he had to grit his teeth and place his feet with care and take his time. The neighborhood seemed quite as safe as Beaver Street, but there were few people out in the chilly change of weather, and once more he stuffed his binoculars back into his pocket.
    He caught the N-Judah car where it comes out of the tunnel under Buena Vista Park (Frisco’s hills were honeycombed with ‘em, he thought) and rode it down Market to the Civic Center. Among the crowders boarding a 19-Polk there, a hulking drab shape lurching up behind him gave him a start, but it was only a blank-eyed workman powdered with pale dust from some demolition job.
    He got off the 19 at Geary. In the lobby of 811 Geary there was only Fernando vacuuming, a sound as gray and hollow as the day had grown outside. He would have liked to chat, but the short man, blocky and somber as a Peruvian idol, had less English than his sister and was additionally rather deaf. They bowed gravely to each other, exchanged a “Senyor Lookay” and a “meestair Jues-ton,” Fernando’s rendering of “Westen.”
    He rode the creaking elevator up to six. He had the impulse to stop at Cal’s or the boys’ first, but it was a matter of—well, courage—not to. The hall was dark (a ceiling globe was out) and the shaft-window and knobless closet door next to his room darker. As he approached his own door, he realized his heart was thumping. Feeling both foolish and apprehensive, he slipped his key into the lock, and clutching his binoculars in his other