They were obviously professionals. They worked with a cold precision, item by item, methodical and disinterested. First the obvious places, the places an amateur would have put it: shelves, suitcases, bureau drawers. Everything was put back exactly into its place, every shirt refolded along the original crease marks, the dirty laundry piled carefully into its original disarray.

The taller man spoke. "Nothing. You?"

The other was compact, sleek-headed, with a V-shaped, rodentlike face. "No."

They walked to the door of the room without speaking further and fanned out slowly along the walls, the tall one going to the left, the other to the right. Now they moved to the less obvious places. They uncovered the plates to the two electrical outlets; they fingered the linings of ties, removed light bulbs and looked in the sockets, sought hollow places in the heels of shoes, belt buckles, razor handles, book bindings. They went over the bedding and the bed frame, then carefully remade the bed and put the head-shaped depression back in the pillow. They bent a wire hanger, went into the bathroom, and explored the drain of the sink and the toilet trap. They unscrewed the barrels of ballpoint pens and twisted the erasers on pencils to see if they would come off.

It took an hour. Finally the taller man said, "No. If he’s got it, he’s got it on him. Too bad for him."

"What time?" said the smaller one.

"Nine-fifteen. He’s not going to be back for a while yet. Should we turn the lights off?"

"Turn them off."

They sat in the dark for a while. The tall one said, "He’s a pretty big guy, you know. Six-one, six-two. Strong-used to box in college."

"So?"

"So he’s going to be full of booze. He’s liable to get smart."

The sleek-headed man grinned. His neck was long and muscular. The light from a street lamp, coming in through the window, glinted on his teeth.