He ate dinner in a good restaurant and went to bed early.
Tomorrow he had a lot to do.
The next day, with the face of his Victim before him, Frelaine walked through her neighborhood. He didn’t look closely at anyone. Instead, he moved rapidly, as though he were really going somewhere, the way an old Hunter should walk.
He passed several bars and dropped into one for a drink. Then he went on, down a side street off Lexington Avenue.
There was a pleasant sidewalk café there. Frelaine walked past it.
And there she was! He could never mistake the face. It was Janet Patzig, seated at a table, staring into a drink. She didn’t look up as he passed.
Frelaine walked to the end of the block. He turned the corner and stopped, hands trembling.
Was the girl crazy, exposing herself in the open? Did she think she had a charmed life?
He hailed a taxi and had the man drive around the block. Sure enough, she was just sitting there. Frelaine took a careful look.
She seemed younger than her pictures, but he couldn’t be sure. He would guess her to be not much over twenty. Her dark hair was parted in the middle and combed above her ears, giving her a nunlike appearance. Her expression, as far as Frelaine could tell, was one of resigned sadness.
Wasn’t she even going to make an attempt to defend herself?
Frelaine paid the driver and hurried to a drugstore. Finding a vacant telephone booth, he called ECB.
“Are you sure that a Victim named Janet-Marie Patzig has been notified?”
“Hold on, sir.” Frelaine tapped on the door while the clerk looked up the information. “Yes, sir. We have her personal confirmation. Is there anything wrong, sir?”
“No,” Frelaine said. “Just wanted to check.”
After all, it was no one’s business if the girl didn’t want to defend herself.
He was still entitled to kill her.
It was his turn.
He postponed it for that day, however, and went to a movie. After dinner, he returned to his room and read the ECB pamphlet. Then he lay on his bed and glared at the ceiling.
All he had to do was pump a bullet into her. Just ride by in a cab and kill her.
She was being a very bad sport about it, he decided resentfully, and went to sleep.
The next afternoon, Frelaine walked by the café again. The girl was back, sitting at the same table. Frelaine caught a cab.
“Drive around the block very slowly,” he told the driver.
“Sure,” the driver said, grinning with sardonic wisdom.
From the cab, Frelaine watched for spotters. As far as he could tell, the girl had none. Both her hands were in sight upon the table.
An easy, stationary target.
Frelaine touched the button of his double-breasted jacket. A fold flew open and the gun was in his hand. He broke it open and checked the cartridges, then closed it with a snap.
“Slowly, now,” he told the driver.
The taxi crawled by the café. Frelaine took careful aim, centering the girl in his sights. His finger tightened on the trigger.
“Damn it!” he said.
A waiter had passed by the girl. He didn’t want to chance winging someone else.
“Around the block again,” he told the driver.
The man gave him another grin and hunched down in his seat. Frelaine wondered if the driver would feel so happy if he knew that Frelaine was gunning for a woman.
This time there was no waiter around. The girl was lighting a cigarette, her mournful face intent on her lighter. Frelaine centered her in his sights, squarely above the eyes, and held his breath.
Then he shook his head and put the gun back in his pocket.
The idiotic girl was robbing him of the full benefit of his catharsis.
He paid the driver and started to walk.
It’s too easy, he told himself. He was used to a real chase. Most of the other six kills had been quite difficult. The Victims had tried every dodge. One had hired at least a dozen spotters. But Frelaine had reached them all by altering his tactics to meet the situation.
Once he had dressed as a milkman, another time as a bill collector. The sixth Victim he had had to chase through the Sierra Nevadas. The man had clipped him, too. But Frelaine had done better.
How could he be proud of this one? What would the Tens Club say?
That brought Frelaine up with a start. He wanted to get into the club. Even if he passed up this girl he would have to defend himself against a Hunter. If he survived, he would still be four hunts away from membership. At that rate, he might never get in.
He began to pass the café again, then, on impulse, stopped abruptly.
“Hello,” he said.
Janet Patzig looked at him out of sad blue eyes, but said nothing.
“Say, look,” he said, sitting down. “If I’m being fresh, just tell me and I’ll go. I’m an out-of-towner. Here on a convention. And I’d just like someone feminine to talk to. If you’d rather I didn’t—”
“I don’t care,” Janet Patzig said tonelessly.
“A brandy,” Frelaine told the waiter. Janet Patzig’s glass was still half full.
Frelaine looked at the girl and he could feel his heart throbbing against his ribs. This was more like it—having a drink with your Victim!
“My name’s Stanton Frelaine,” he said, knowing it didn’t matter.
“Janet.”
“Janet what?”
“Janet Patzig.”
“Nice to know you.” Frelaine said, in a perfectly natural voice. “Are you doing anything tonight, Janet?”
“I’m probably being killed tonight,” she said quietly.
Frelaine looked at her carefully. Did she realize who he was? For all he knew, she had a gun leveled at him under the table.
He kept his hand close to the fling-out button.
“Are you a Victim?” he asked.
“You guessed it,” she said sardonically. “If I were you, I’d stay out of the way. No sense getting hit by mistake.”
Frelaine couldn’t understand the girl’s calm. Was she a suicide? Perhaps she just didn’t care. Perhaps she wanted to die.
“Haven’t you got any spotters?” he asked, with the right expression of amazement.
“No.” She looked at him, full in the face, and Frelaine saw something he hadn’t noticed before.
She was very lovely.
“I am a bad, bad girl,” she said lightly. “I got the idea I’d like to commit a murder, so I signed for ECB. Then—I couldn’t do it.”
Frelaine shook his head, sympathizing with her.
“But I’m still in, of course. Even if I didn’t shoot, I still have to be a Victim.”
“But why don’t you hire some spotters?” he asked.
“I couldn’t kill anyone,” she said. “I just couldn’t. I don’t even have a gun.”
“You’ve got a lot of courage,” Frelaine said, “coming out in the open this way.” Secretly, he was amazed at her stupidity.
“What can I do?” she asked listlessly. “You can’t hide from a Hunter. Not a real one. And I don’t have enough money to make a good disappearance.”
“Since it’s in your own defense, I should think—” Frelaine began, but she interrupted.
“No. I’ve made up my mind on that. This whole thing is wrong, the whole system. When I had my Victim in the sights—when I saw how easily I could—I could—”
She pulled herself together quickly.
“Oh, let’s forget it,” she said and smiled.
Frelaine found her smile dazzling.
After that, they talked of other things. Frelaine told her of his business, and she told him about New York. She was twenty-two, an unsuccessful actress.
They had supper together. When she accepted Frelaine’s invitation to go to the Gladiatorials, he felt absurdly elated.
He called a cab—he seemed to be spending his entire time in New York in cabs—and opened the door for her. She started in. Frelaine hesitated. He could have pumped a shot into her at that moment. It would have been very easy.