The 23rd Midnight [antikvár]

One AT DAW NTH AT morning, a man dressed entirely in black backed his gray Ford sedan up to the curb on Taylor Street. To the east, the morning sun struggled to rise through the clouds over San Francisco Bay. It was still dark but the man, who was now in "Blackout" mode, knew this street as well as he knew his own mind. He cut his headlights, released the trunk latch, lowered the seat back a few inches and adjusted his video glasses in the rearview mirror. With his unobstructed view of Victorian row houses and the wooden staircase behind him in the rearview. Blackout waited for Catherine. She was always on time, one of the many things he liked about her. At twenty-five, Catherine Fleet was a beautiful mother of a baby girl named Josephina, and an integral part of the masterwork he was creating. He wished he could talk with her about it, but there wouldn't be time. She was leaving her house on Leavenworth now. She would turn down Macondray Lane, the quarter mile of footpath that ran downhill and at a right angle to Taylor.