Our Lady of Darkness by Fritz Leiber

than numbers) of all the hotels—and maybe of the apartment hotels, too.
    Before seating himself he glanced at his wristwatch. My God, it was later than he’d thought. If he didn’t make up some time, he’d arrive at Corona Heights after the sun had left the slot and so too late for the experiment he intended. And books like this didn’t circulate.
    He took only a couple of seconds coming to a decision. After a casual but searching look all around to make sure no one was watching him at the moment, he thrust the directory into his deep briefcase and marched out of the catalog room, picking up a couple of paperbacks at random from one of the revolving wire stands set here and there. Then he tramped softly and measuredly down the great marble stairs that were wide and lofty and long and broad-stepped enough for a triumph in a Roman film epic, feeling all eyes upon him but hardly believing mat. He stopped at the desk to check out the two paperbacks and drop them ostentatiously into his briefcase, and then walked out of the building without a glance at the guard, who never did look into briefcases and bags (so far as Franz had noticed) provided he’d seen you check out some books at the desk.
    Franz seldom did that sort of thing, but today’s promise seemed to make it worth taking little risks.
    There was a 19-Polk coming outside. He caught it, thinking somewhat complacently that now he had successfully become one of Saul’s kleptomaniacs. Heigh-ho for the compulsive life!

15
    AT 811 FRANZ glanced at his mail (nothing worth opening right away) and then looked around the room. He’d left the transom open. Dorotea was right—a thin, athletic person could crawl through it. He shut it. Then he leaned out the open casement window and checked each way—to either side and up (one window like his, then the roof) and down (Cal’s two below and, three below that, the shaft’s grimy bottom, a cul-de-sac, scattered with junk fallen over the years). There was no way anyone could reach this window short of using ladders. But he noticed that his bathroom window was only a short step away from the window of the next apartment on this floor. He made sure it was locked.
    Then he took off the wall the big spidery black sketch of the TV tower that was almost entirely bright fluorescent red background and securely wedged and thumbtacked it, red side out, in the open casement window, using drawing pins. There! that would show up unmistakably from Corona in the sunlight when it came.
    Next he put on a light sweater under his coat (it seemed a bit chillier than yesterday) and stuck an extra pack of cigarettes in his pocket. He didn’t pause to make himself a sandwich (after all, he’d had two pieces of toast this morning at Cal’s). At the last minute he remembered to stuff his binoculars and map into his pocket, and Smith’s journal; he might want to refer to it at Byers’s. (He’d called the man up earlier and gotten a typically effusive but somewhat listless invitation to drop in any time after the middle of the afternoon and stay if he liked for the little party coming up in the evening. Some of the guests would be in costume, but costume was not mandatory.)
    As a final touch he placed the 1927 city directory where his Scholar’s Mistress’s rump would be, and giving it a quick intimate caress, said flippantly, “There, my dear, I’ve made you a receiver of stolen property; but don’t worry, you’re going to give it back.”
    Then without further leavetaking, or any send-off at all, he double-locked the door behind him and was away into the wind and sunlight.
    At the comer there was no bus coming, so he started to walk the eight short blocks to Market, striding briskly. At Ellis he deliberately devoted a few seconds to looking at (worshiping?) his favorite tree in San Francisco: a six-story candlestick pine, guyed by some thin strong wires, waving its green fingers over a brown wooden wall trimmed with yellow between two