a little longer.

Helen was over at her mother's helping her hang drapes when I got
home. The icebox gave me a cold Jumbo bottle and I turned on our
little portable set. On every station the spot broadcast crews were
hoarse. I spun the dials and finally concentrated on one
announcer--you know who I mean--with the raspiest, most grating voice
this side of a vixen file. Unfortunately, the housewives seem to like
him, including Helen, and it's the housewives who have the radio on
all day. I knew he was broadcasting from the roof studios of one of
our highest buildings, and I took an enormous and perverted pleasure
in holding my breath and thinking about the elevator system there. On
second thought, I held my breath again and the station left the air in
the middle of a word. I hope he liked the walk downstairs.

The newspapers next day couldn't make things add, as was natural. They
published silly interviews with all the top engineers in the city and
a good many all over the world, including the Chairman of the Board of
the company where I worked, and his answer was just as asinine as the
rest. All in all, it had been a good show, and I put in another letter
to Naval Ordnance. I knew I had gone much further than I had intended,
and I suggested they get in touch with me, if they wanted, through the
personal columns of one of the Detroit newspapers. I didn't want to
get into trouble with the city police. I didn't sign my name to the
second letter either. And that was a mistake.

* * * * *

Early in the morning of the tenth I felt good. I'd been sleeping well
lately, now that I was rid of the Olsens' radio, not to mention the
Werners', and the Smiths'. I rolled over and squinted at the luminous
hands of the' clock. Beer cheese in the icebox. Half a Dutch apple pie
left over from dinner. Milk. Helen didn't wake as I eased out of bed
and groped for my slippers, and the rustling and shuffling I heard as
I tiptoed down the back stairs I attributed to an overbrave mouse. One
of these days, I thought, I was going to have to get some traps and
catch me a mouse. When I turned on the kitchen light the mouse was
holding a howitzer nine inches away from my head.

"All right, you," the mouse snarled. "Reach!"

I reached. Quick.

The gunman backed to the outside door and flicked it open with one
hand, never taking his eyes from me. Footsteps pounded on the back
porch and hard faces filled the kitchen