The official novelisation of the first film indicates which events take place on day one, day two, etc. after the Terminator and Kyle Reese's arrival in 1984, providing specific time stamps throughout the book.
According to that, the Terminator entered the Tech Noir nightclub where Sarah was awaiting the police at 10:31 pm on the same day it had arrived in 1984.
Tech Noir
10:31 p.m.
There was a slight tremble of activity at the front of the club. It caused the heads of a few near the door to turn momentarily toward it. But the heads soon turned away, intimidated into an intense unconcern.
A man had walked through the front door. A big man in a tight gray jacket a size too small and motorcycle boots. He moved smoothly, looking into the faces of those gathered at the door, just flicking his eyes over them for an instant, then going on to the next. The face he wanted was not there. He rolled past the ticket booth, and the woman inside leaned out-and glared at the impassive back moving away. “Hey!” she shouted to the bouncer. “That guy didn’t pay.”
“Hey, dude,” the bouncer said, slapping a meaty hand on the big guy’s shoulder.
Terminator didn’t even turn around. He sent his left hand to the section of shoulder where he felt the clamping pressure, grasped the other man’s hand, and squeezed. The bones collapsed with a snap. Then he released the mushy lump and kept going. No one heard the bouncer’s gurgling scream, and if they did, they pretended not to.
The Terminator novelisation by Randall Frakes
By 11:03 pm the same day, Kyle and Sarah have already left the nightclub in a stolen car, and the Terminator is pursuing them in the police car he stole from Officer Nick Delaney. So we know for a fact that he found Sarah in a little under 24 hours after he first arrived in 1984.
Westwood
11:03 p.m.
Unit l-L-19 slowly cruised up Sepulveda and turned right onto Massachusetts. Terminator sat impassively behind the wheel, focusing its twin infrared eye cameras into the darkened shadows of the near-empty street. The cyborg quickly scrutinized the interiors of the cars parked along the curb, flicking its vision into each one, methodically probing for the target.
Suddenly, the abstract pattern of static coming from the unit’s radio was broken by the calm female voice of the police dispatcher.
“All units, all units. Suspect vehicle located at parking garage at Colby and La Grange .”
Instantly, Terminator slewed the police cruiser around in the middle of the street, narrowly missing a red Volkswagen bug loaded with five very stoned teenagers on their way home from a Van Halen concert.
The VW jumped the curb and smacked headfirst into an old oak, crumpling the front of the VW like tinfoil. “Shit!” the bug’s young driver shouted. He saw the police cruiser tearing away and shouted again, pounding the dash in a fury of frustration. Cops were always fucking you up, and now they had fucked up his beloved bug.
The Terminator novelisation by Randall Frakes
The novelisation also clarifies that the scene in which Kyle is interviewed by Dr. Silberman in the West Highland Police Station takes place between 1:06 and 1:09 am the day after the Terminator's arrival in 1984. That's the first scene in the book which is indicated to take place on day two.
