I became convinced it was a bust. Yet I stayed, wishing and hoping for the final vector.
On the 29th of June, when I had almost consigned myself to another year of watching and waiting and exercising and driving a front-end loader in the summer for Harvey Blocker (if he would have me again, that was) a blue car marked LOS ANGELES SECURITY SERVICES pulled up at the gate of Dolan’s house. A man in a uniform got out and used a key to open the gate. He drove his car in and around the corner. A few moments later he came back on foot, closed the gate, and relocked it.
This was at least a break in the routine. I felt a dim flicker of hope.
I drove off, managed to make myself stay away for nearly two hours, and then drove back, parking at the head of the block instead of the foot this time. Fifteen minutes later a blue van pulled up in front of Dolan’s house. Written on the side were the words BIG JOE’S CLEANING SERVICE. My heart leaped up in my chest. I was watching in the rear-view mirror, and I remember how my hands clamped down on the steering wheel of the rental car.
Four women got out of the van, two white, one black, one Chicana. They were dressed in white, like waitresses, but they were not waitresses, of course; they were cleaning women.
The security guard answered when one of them buzzed at the gate, and unlocked it. The five of them talked and laughed together. The security guard attempted to goose one of the women and she slapped his hand aside, still laughing.
One of the women went back to the van and drove it into the turnaround. The others walked up, talking among themselves as the guard closed the gate and locked it again.
Sweat was pouring down my face; it felt like grease. My heart was triphammering.
They were out of my field of vision in the rear-view mirror. I took a chance and looked around.
I saw the back doors of the van swing open.
One of them carried a neat stack of sheets; another had towels; another had a pair of vacuum cleaners.
They trooped up to the door and the guard let them inside.
I drove away, shaking so badly I could hardly steer the car.
They were opening the house. He was coming.
Dolan did not trade in his Cadillac every year, or even every two – the gray Sedan DeVille he was driving as that June neared its end was three years old. I knew its dimensions exactly. I had written the GM company for them, pretending to be a research writer. They had sent me an operator’s manual and spec sheet for that year’s model. They even returned the stamped, selfaddressed envelope I had enclosed. Big companies apparently maintain their courtesy even when they’re running in the red.
I had then taken three figures – the Cadillac’s width at its widest point, height at its tallest, and length at its longest – to a friend of mine who teaches mathematics at Las Vegas High School. I have told you, I think, that I had prepared for this, and not all my preparation was physical. Most assuredly not.
I presented my problem as a purely hypothetical one. I was trying to write a science fiction story, I said, and I wanted to have my figures exactly right. I even made up a few plausible plot fragments – my own inventiveness rather I astonished me.
My friend wanted to know how fast this alien scout vehicle of mine would be going. It was a question I had not expected, and I asked him if it mattered.
“Of course it matters,” he said. “It matters a lot. If you want the scout vehicle in your story to fall directly into your trap, the trap has to be exactly the right size. Now this figure you’ve given me is seventeen feet by five feet.”
I opened my mouth to say that wasn’t exactly right, but he was already holding up his hand.
“Just an approximation,” he said. “Makes it easier to figure the arc.”