Quickly, smartly, he moves through the city street. The dead of night is never dead enough for some. Even at this hour, Wacker is always alive. He wears a dark, modern tux and a black overcoat. A shadow in the shadow of the great Sears.
He reaches the ticket-taker. He gives her his ticket. She looks up from her book to chide him that he's too late for the performance, but somehow he senses her objection and folds a $100 bill in with the ticket. She smiles and points him toward an usher but he is already moving.
He takes the marble steps two at a time. He brushes past a plaque bearing many donors' names. One of them was once his.
At the landing he approaches the door of a private box and enters. Act III is just starting. Perfect timing; Sparafucile's house.
If his target hears him coming, she doesn't show it. He sits down just behind her and to her right. "Your 20 scudi," he whispers, handing her an envelope.
She opens it just enough. $10,000 and a photograph of Walter Kranz. She smiles a morbid half-smile.
"It has to look like natural causes," he reminds her.
"No problem," she says. "He's 80 years old and has leukemia. I would think you could just leave well enough alone and time would do my job for you."
He makes no reply.
"Any last message for him?" she asks.
He pauses a moment, considering, and finally replies, "No psychics in my streets."
"I don't understand," she says and turns to question further but he is already opening the box curtain to leave.
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