To get the maximum effect, you had to be precise, even scientific. How to hide something in plain sight was the tricky part. You wanted your handiwork to stay right where you put it. Not only did it have to look as if it belonged, but it also had to look as though it had been right where it was forever.

People had to see it without realizing it; they had to take it for granted.

The front room was the largest. There was a little light spilling in from the street, just enough for him to move around without tripping over anything. A long coffee table covered with American magazines sat up front, under the broad plate-glass window. At either end, a low sofa, just big enough for two, or maybe for a mother and two children, filled the remaining free space along the front wall.

He got on his knees and looked under the table.

He could probably put it there, but that was too easy. Besides, the table looked heavy and it might interfere. The desk was out, because it would be in the way there.

What about right on the table, he wondered.

Maybe with a magazine on top of it, not to conceal it, but just to give it a touch of belonging.

Why not? He asked himself the same question three times. When he could come up with no good reason, he went for it. A copy of National Geographic was just the right touch. Sitting at an angle, it showed one corner of the brown paper. But that was perfect. You could worry this sort of thing to death if you let yourself. But he wasn't going to let himself.

He slipped into the back room, picked up his flashlight and grabbed his bag. He was moving smoothly, the uncertainty gone. Out the back door, which he pulled shut. Once more he had to make it past the rats and flies. Knowing they were there made it more repulsive.