When Jacqueline ducked into the alleyway, Ben kept on walking a few paces, snuffing his cigarette and slipping a nickel into a newspaper stand. The fresh press was the same crock of shit that Ben had come to expect from propagandist media - [i]everything is fine, nothing has been better than they are now under your glorious leadership.[/i] Turning the brim of his hat to the sun, Ben leafed through the paper absently. Just another John waiting in the heat for his commute. 

Seeing movement from the alley in his peripheral vision, Ben tracked his mark, now in one one of those wide-brimmed sun hats that the European women so enjoyed. It was only natural, Ben suspected, for the wife of a kraut politician to dress like she belonged on the other side of the pond. Everyone who was anyone going anywhere dressed the way the cultural committee wanted. What Ben found peculiar was that she was traveling alone. Ben would have expected attaches and hangers-on stretching all the way to San Fransisco, but here Jacqueline was, running solo through the streets of Los Angeles. 

"Curiouser and curiouser, Missus Schultz," Ben muttered to himself, watching her hop on the street car. Folding his paper and tucking it under his arm, Ben crossed the street with the next gaggle of pedestrians to return to his car. He was in no particular rush. Cable cars could only follow their particular routes at their strictly mandated speeds. Everything had to run on time, all part of the 'grand machine'. Pulling out from his parking spot on the curb, Ben cruised at a casual speed as he followed the rails. 

It wasn't long until he was a few car lengths away from the same cab that Jacqueline has hopped on, so generously numbered and labeled. Eyes pinched against the glare of the sun, Ben continuously searched for the ostentatious hat that Jacqueline had hidden herself under. It was somewhat brilliant, he had to admit. So overt, it was covert. 

Tailing a mark was inglorious, but such was the job. Ben followed the line for as long as his mark was aboard. When they came to stop at an intersection, Ben snapped a picture of the trolley, sure to frame the numerical designation and the destination of the line. He could see her hat in the viewfinder of the camera like the pale bloom of an edelweiss.