Time Thieves

she asked.
        
        “Nothing.” He sat down, frowning. “He was gone by the time I got out there. The cashier said he paid with exact change. He wasn't anywhere in the parking lot.”
        
        She reached across the table and took his hand. “Don't worry about it, huh? The fact that you recognized him and knew he was from-from that blank period, that's a good sign. Maybe, like Doc said, it'll all come back, slowly.”
        
        They finished the meal without dawdling. At the cash register, Pete had some trouble figuring out how many bills he needed to pay the tab. He kept trying to give the cashier too much, and when she gave him his change, he was certain she had shorted him. Della did not like the looks of him, harried and distraught.
        
        She tried to make the evening as light as possible. They took Barbara's clothes back to her apartment where they had a drink or two. He had always enjoyed talking and kidding with Barb before, but he was too much of another mind tonight. At home again, Della came close to him in bed, warm and soft. She persuaded him, with little trouble, that they should repeat Billings' first piece of advice. Afterwards, content and sure that he must be too, she fell asleep.
        
        But he remained awake. He stared at the ceiling a long time, wondering. Two weeks minus two days…
        
        Where had he slept all that time? Who had given him a bed and food to eat? He had left home with three dollars in his wallet, and that was what he had returned with.
        
        Credit cards. Of course. He could have slept in motels and eaten in restaurant with his credit cards. The thought was immensly comforting. Next month's bill would tell them where he had been. He sighed and relaxed a bit, leaning back into his pillow.
        
        Why? That was the major question remaining.
        
        Why had his mind rejected reality; why had it run loose and blind for twelve days? He loved Della; there was no conflict between them that he might wish to escape. He liked to think they were not just in love with each other, but that they also liked each other, something rare in most marriages. They had seldom argued, even with Della's strong will. The business? He had not been lying to Billings when he said it was fine. What else, then? He was apolitical-or liked to think he was-and could not have been unduly disturbed by the state of the nation. He had long ago decided that politicians would have everyone in their graves ahead of time, either by ignoring pollution or fostering wars. His duty was to live his own life and to hell with having children and planning on a future. Maybe it was not a gallant attitude, but it led to fewer hassles and more chance at happiness in the end.
        
        Sleep would not come.
        
        He slid to the edge of the bed and put his slippers on. Perhaps, if he found a book and read for an hour or two, all would be well. He stood and was passing the single window in the room when he saw the man standing under the willow tree on the lawn, watching the house.
        
        He stepped quickly to the glass only to find the lawn quiet and uninhabited when he got there.
        
        Della turned, mumbled and settled into sleep again.
        
        He remembered the nightmare: the face without eyes, the many-fingered hand reaching for him…
        
        But this watcher had been someone else, for there had been nothing inhuman about him. He was certain it was the same, tall, lean man he had encountered in the restaurant earlier in the evening.
        

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    III
        
        
        They drove out of town Tuesday morning, nestled in the airconditioned comfort of the big car, a picnic lunch packed in a cooler on the back seat. The day was bright, with but a few puffy clouds that scudded across the top of the sky under the lash of a high altitude wind which did not make itself felt down here. Pete turned on the radio; the music and the passing landscape combined to settle both of them and to make everything seem fine and good and uncomplicated.
        
        Except for the stranger who had been standing by the willow tree last night, watching…
        
        He had not told Della about that. It was not that he feared she wouldn't believe him. They were too close and knew each other to well to mistake sincerity for joviality. And there was nothing, surely, he