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or to reserve a
periodical.
       At 9:30 Ms. Yardley let up a bit and
permitted herself to lean ever-so-slightly on the counter.  The other
three employees were also leaning on their counters and one of them, Mrs. Kahn,
slipped one shoe off and massaged the ankle of her other, still-shod foot with
fat, naked toes.  At 10:00, Ms. Yardley sat down.  Two people asked
to register for the course on science fiction, and she sent them to Mrs. Kahn
to fill out the forms.  I took the slide out of the crack where I'd stuck
it and nodded my head at Ms. Yardley.  She nodded back a nod that meant -
in this place - something like `five minutes'.
       I imagine she thought I wanted to go
to the bathroom, but I went to the Reading Room.  `Agitator' didn't exist
in either the Encyclopedia Americana or in the Britannica.  Webster's
Dictionary defined it as a political subversive.  The scientific
dictionary completely ignored it. I tried to think where else I might find
something about `agitators', and again I asked myself what there was about this
word that was so familiar yet so different from the other words on the slide,
like "pneumatic valve" or "exhaust valve".
       The answer might even be inside the
computer, programmed to locate books by subject, which sat in the Catalog Room
next to my counter.  But Ms. Yardley would never in a million years let me
use it when I was supposed to be helping the public.  There was another
terminal, in Section A of the stacks, which the librarians used to locate lost
books and books that had been returned without call letters.  I went
around the copy machine and opened a door that led to a long, dim corridor.
"Stacks Section A", blared a red sign, "Authorized Personnel
Only".  The farther I went, the mustier the air got with the heavy
odors of dank paper, glue, and mold.  There were books everywhere - on
carts, in boxes, in mailbags.  A telephone was ringing its head off on a
low table next to a terminal whose screen winked green letters.
       I typed in my request:
"AGITATOR?"
      The screen shot back: "ENTER
SUB-CATEGORIES”.
      "NONE," I typed.
      It quickly fired in response,
"AGITATOR: NO SUCH ENTRY”.
       Again I felt defeated.  But this
time I was attuned to every tiny movement - including the sound of soles on
cement.
     "Who's there?" I asked.  Of
course, no one answered.
       I peeked between the stacks of books.
 Two or three of the aisles were lighted; the rest were dark.
      "WAITING" the computer winked,
but I couldn't go on.  Now I thought I could hear something else, a kind
of slow, steady, measured breathing, as if someone was watching me.  This
is probably what a blind man feels, I thought as I called out,
"Hello?"  Somewhere an air conditioner kicked in.  I went
back to the computer.  "AGA...” I typed again, but I made one mistake
and then another until I realized that I was too busy looking into the screen
to see the reflection of anyone who might be coming up behind me.  I typed
"CANCEL", took the slide, and turned back down the corridor.
       By then I was positive I had heard
footsteps.  They could have been the echo of my own steps, but they
could've been someone else's, too.  I didn't stick around to find out.
 I know that fear is not one of those things the world expects from a guy
of more than seventeen and a half, but, after all these years, I don't mind
telling you.  Besides, I'm sure you'll agree that my fear was justified.
 After all, what would keep someone who was going to commit murder on the
7th of September from killing me just because I had heard something I wasn't
supposed to hear?
       After turning twice I came to a
slightly less dark part of the corridor, and for a minute I almost relaxed -
except that just then someone grabbed my arm.
     "Aha!" Ms. Yardley cried, dragging
me like a prisoner through the door that led to the Reading Room. Her grasp
wasn't all that strong, but I was so startled and so busy just trying