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Unchecked, Moore proceeded with her plan. She arrived in Danville about 11 a.m. to purchase a chrome-plated .38 Smith & Wesson revolver from Fernwood for $145. She paid by check. He found her "in good spirits," although she claimed she was in a rush. "I had no way of suspecting that this gal was going to go out and commit the completely crazy act that she did," he insisted later. "Can you imagine it? A John Birch officer selling guns to radical kooks." Moore also picked up some cartridges, although she seemed concerned when he had only target loads of lesser charge available. "Will they do the job?" she asked. "Oh yes, they'll work," he replied, convinced that she was thinking about short-range defensive uses for the gun.
Fernwood was sure Moore could handle such a weapon. When she bought the first one, he had taken her to a nearby firing range to check her out. Moore, who claimed to have had training with guns as a WAC, "did rather well," Fernwood said. She had paid $125 for the first gun, also by check.
As she left Danville to drive back into San Francisco shortly after 11 a.m., Moore made a final desperate but still indirect effort to have her deadly mission averted. She headed west in her Toyota along Route 24 toward the Oakland-Bay Bridge and jammed down the accelerator, speeding at about 70 m.p.h. At the same time, she slipped six soft-nosed cartridges into her new revolver. "I was driving fast, loading the revolver and hoping I would get stopped for speeding," she claimed later. But no one stopped her, and she drove directly to the Union Square underground parking garage across the street from the St. Francis Hotel.
Moore emerged from the parking lot at 11:39 a.m. and stood on the corner in her neatly pressed blue raincoat. She lounged about, her hands in her pockets, her black purse on her arm. She chatted with San Francisco Examiner Reporter Carol Pogash, who had known her from the food program set up by Randolph Hearst, Pogash's former publisher. "You know, the Secret Service visited my house yesterday," Moore blurted out. "They kept me for an hour and questioned me. You know, they could have kept me for 72 hours if they had wanted to." Pogash thought she knew Moore too well to take her seriously and did not want to encourage her nonstop chitchat.
Moore trudged on. She walked up Powell Street, crossed Post Street and took up a position next to a small boxed tree in front of the Mexicana Airlines office. She had a fine view of the side entrance to the St. Francis Hotel directly across the street. Gradually the crowd grew, swelling to about 2,000. As her vigil continued, she was joined in the line at about 1 p.m. by Oliver Sipple, a man she did not know and, surprisingly, did not engage in conversation.