Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 138, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 821 & 822, September/October 2011

Hangman’s Rhapsody by Clark Howard

Some of the most hardboiled of writers have led quiet, uneventful lives. Not so Clark Howard, and now that his highly autobiographical novel Hard City, first published in hardcover in 1990, is available in many e-editions, including Barnes and Noble’s Nook, his fans will be able to see how some of the themes in his fiction developed. Of course, Mr. Howard is not only a fiction writer; he is also a celebrated true-crime writer who has spent a lot of time around prisons, and those experiences have found their way into stories such as this one.

A creature of habit, Martin Sloan walked the same circle every day when he arrived home from work: across the living room to the bedroom to hang up his coat and tie, back across the living room to the refrigerator in the kitchen for a bottle of beer, back into the living room to drop into his favorite chair, slip out of his shoes, plant his feet on an ottoman that matched the chair, put on his glasses, use the remote to turn on the television, and take that first long, cold swallow of beer as the early news came on.

He expected the lead story in the news to be either more service personnel killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, or the continued exodus of people from the Gulf Coast, where the British Petroleum oil spill had now, like a forest fire, spread for miles in every direction, contaminating hundreds of fishing communities.

To Sloan’s surprise, however, the lead story that evening was a local one.

“In a surprise move at the state prison this afternoon,” the anchorwoman announced, “convicted murderer Roger Kalb, due to be executed on Thursday, chose to be hanged rather them die by lethal injection. Kalb, convicted of killing his wife and her lover twenty-one years ago, is the last remaining death-row inmate who has the option of how to die. Sentenced to death just two months before the state adopted lethal injection as its method of capital punishment, Kalb was condemned while hanging was still the prescribed procedure. The law therefore gives him the option of choosing which way he is to die: by the old method of the rope, or the newer, supposedly more humane method of the needle. Nine other condemned killers have already been given this option, and all nine have chosen lethal injection. Kalb, because of lengthy appeals, remains the only one of death row’s eleven condemned prisoners to still have the right to choose.

“Kalb’s surprising choice was announced by his attorney after a visit with the condemned man earlier today. A formal statement from the Department of Corrections is said to be forthcoming—”

Martin Sloan sat as still as a statue, holding the open bottle of beer, lips parted in silent surprise, eyes staring unblinkingly at the sight of an old news tape of Roger Kalb being led from a courtroom after being sentenced to die for his crime. Sloan slowly shook his head.

Choosing a noose and a trapdoor over simply going to sleep with needles in both arms. What was Kalb thinking?

Sloan was still sitting there when Hazel, his second wife, came home from her job as charge nurse at the local hospital. So accustomed was she to seeing Martin sitting there, in that chair, stocking feet up on the ottoman, bottle of beer in one hand, that she did not even notice the stuporous expression on his face.

“Spaghetti and meatballs okay with you for tonight, hon?” she asked, walking on into the kitchen without waiting for a reply.

Sloan finally took a swallow of beer just as the phone rang. He heard Hazel answer it on the kitchen extension. Then she called in to him.

“Marty, it’s your ex. You’re not late with her alimony, are you?”

Martin picked up a portable handset on the end table next to his chair. “Hello, Vivian.”

“Have you seen the news?” his ex-wife asked without preliminary.

“Yes. Just now.”

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Aren’t you just a little upset? I mean, after all this time? To have to go back to — to that?”

“What makes you think I will go back? I quit that years ago.”

“Well, if not you,” Vivian challenged, “then who? I mean, they can’t very well run an ad: ‘Must have a degree in Hanging 101.’ ”

“Vivian, I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

“Well, why on earth not, Martin?” There was a weighty pause. Then Vivian said, “Oh, I see. You haven’t told her, have you?”

Martin did not reply.

“That’s it, isn’t it, Martin?” she persisted. “You haven’t told the new Mrs. Sloan that you used to kill people for a living.”

Martin still did not reply.

“Hazel doesn’t know, does she, dear? That you used to be a hangman. Well, don’t worry, love, I won’t reveal your embarrassing little secret. I wouldn’t do a thing like that. You know, Marty, even after all we’ve been through, I still have feelings for you...”

Martin quietly turned off the portable phone.

In his office the following day, just before noon, Martin was buzzed by Barbara, his secretary. “There’s a Mr. Lawson on line one. He says it’s personal.”

Martin cursed silently. How in hell did they find him so quickly? He picked up his phone. “Martin Sloan speaking.”

“Mr. Sloan, good morning. Benjamin Lawson here. I’m the warden now up at Barnaby Prison. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“No. I haven’t been there for many years.”

“I imagine you’ve heard about Roger Kalb deciding he wants the rope instead of the needle.”

“Yes, it’s all over the news today.” Martin looked down at a newspaper on his desk. A headline read: Killer of Wife, Lover, Wants Rope.

“I imagine you know why I’m calling you, then,” Warden Lawson said. “Looks like we’re going to need your services one more time.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Martin said, trying to keep a businesslike tone in his voice. “I retired from that line of work many years ago.”

“Well, that’s understandable, Mr. Sloan, seeing as how the old noose isn’t still on the books anywhere but our own state, and Roger Kalb is the only death-row inmate in the country still entitled to a choice. But even though you’ve retired, I imagine you still know how to do it, don’t you? I mean, isn’t it kind of like riding a bicycle? You know, once you’ve learned how—”

“Mr. Lawson—” Martin began to interrupt.

“It’s Warden Lawson,” the caller corrected.

“All right then, Warden Lawson, it’s not a matter of knowing how to do it or not, it’s a matter of whether I’m willing to do it. And I am not. As I just stated, I am retired from that line of work. You’ll have to find someone else.”

“Just how would you suggest I do that?” the warden asked in a flat, correctional-officer voice. “Run an ad in the classified section?”

Wonderful. Just like Vivian had said.

“I don’t know how you would go about it, Warden,” Martin replied evenly. “In any case, it is your problem, not mine. Good day, Warden.”

Two-bit political appointee, he thought. Just like most every warden he had ever met. Put a man in total charge of hundreds, even thousands, of other men and he suddenly thinks he’s a god. Thinks he doesn’t have to take no for an answer. Well, Martin resolved firmly, he’ll take no for an answer this time.

At home that evening, Martin and Hazel were joined for dinner by Hazel’s daughter Susan, a pudgy young woman who, in Martin’s observation, seemed to have a somewhat prodigious appetite, and who was engaged to be married within the month.

“Has Don still not told you where you’ll be going on your honeymoon?” Hazel asked.

“No, the stinker,” Susan replied with mock dissatisfaction, chewing on a fried chicken leg. “Not even a hint. But it better be someplace I like.”

“Marty, he hasn’t let on to you, has he?” Hazel asked her husband.

“No.” Why the hell would he? Martin wondered. Don Engle was a bank manager, equal in pudginess to Susan, and he and Martin barely knew each other. “Why do you think he’d let on to me?”

“Oh, you know. Maybe a guy thing, a secret between the boys.”

“No,” Martin repeated. “Not a word.” And he hoped it would remain that way.

“It just better be someplace I like,” Susan said again, accentuating it this time with a pout.

The Sloan telephone rang and Hazel got up quickly to answer it. “I’ll bet that’s your bad boy right now, looking for his bride-to-be,” she said with what sounded to Martin like a middle-aged giggle. A moment later, she returned and said to Martin, “It’s for you, hon.”

“Who is it?”

Hazel shrugged. “I didn’t ask. Some man.”

Martin got up and went to take the call on the kitchen extension. “Hello—”

“Warden Lawson again, Mr. Sloan. Sorry to bother you at home, but in going through our old files I discovered something I thought might interest you. It’s your old employment contract with the state.”

“My what?”

“You signed a contract with the state back when you first took the job as executioner—”

“My God, that was more than twenty years ago,” Martin interjected. He felt a rising frustration. “Is that what this call is about? An employment contract I signed that long ago? Look, I told you I wasn’t available, Warden—”

“Well, sir, this contract says different,” the warden told him, with the smugness of authority. “See, this contract has an automatic annual renewal clause in it. That clause states that the contract will remain in force year after year unless and until either party terminates it—”

“All right, then,” Martin snapped. “I terminate it! Okay?”

“No, sir. The termination has to be in writing.”

“I’ll put it in writing!” He felt his frustration rising to anger. “It’ll be in the mail tomorrow, special delivery.”

“That won’t do, Mr. Sloan. See, the termination has to be thirty days in advance. You know, like thirty days’ notice. And you don’t have thirty days. Roger Kalb is due to be executed in eight days.”

“Look, for the last time,” Martin said tightly, “I am not going to do this. Don’t call me at home again!”

Back at the table, Hazel asked, “Who was it, hon?”

“Just a customer with a minor complaint. Nothing serious.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll take care of it in your usual efficient manner,” Hazel practically cooed, patting his hand affectionately while Susan smiled on.

Martin forced a smile of his own, trying to remind himself why he’d left Vivian for Hazel.

The next morning, for the first time in years, Martin’s breakfast was not settling. Pulling in to work, he parked his car in a space where a sign read: RESERVED — MARTIN SLOAN.

Opening the glove box, he searched around for any kind of antacid Hazel might have put in there, but found none. Exiting his car, he hurried into the main entrance of Stockman Cordage Company, one of the nation’s largest, oldest, and most respected manufacturers of rope and twine products, where Martin had gone to work after retiring from his previous occupation as a paid executioner for a number of states that had not yet converted from hanging, electrocution, and firing squad to the gas chamber, then to lethal injection.

Isaac Stockman, third-generation owner of Stockman Cordage, was the only one in the company who knew of Martin’s past work, and by mutual agreement they had kept the information private to avoid any stigma or snide amusement being attached to the firm. For his part, Stockman was pleased to employ Martin, because of his extensive familiarity with the world of fibers such as hemp, jute, cotton, sisal, and other materials that went into the manufacture of a wide variety of ropes and twine. Martin had proved his worth many times over in the years he had worked for Isaac, and the company owner had promoted him time and again, until Martin achieved his current position as vice-president of manufacturing.

Reaching his office, Martin spoke to Barbara, his secretary. “Barb, do we have any Turns or Alka-Seltzer anywhere?”

“No, Mr. Sloan, but I’m sure I can find you something. Stomach upset?”

“Yes. Breakfast not settling.”

“Let me see what I can find,” Barbara said, and hurried away.

Even with a queasy stomach, Martin did not pass up the opportunity to watch Barbara walk away. She had an amazing walk, kind of a roll, like she was on the deck of a ship. Martin’s first wife, Vivian, had a sexy walk like that. His current wife, Hazel, did not have a sexy walk at all, but what she had above the waist made up for it.

Barbara returned with a glass of something that was fizzing and bubbling. “This ought to do the trick, Mr. Sloan. I got it from Al Dixon down in shipping; he’s got an ulcer.”

“Well, I hope I’m not getting one,” Martin said, and downed the concoction in three swallows.

“Mr. Sloan,” Barbara said, a little hesitantly, “I know it’s not my place to ask, but is everything all right at home? Please don’t think I’m prying, but I’ve worked for you for nearly a year now, and I feel I’ve gotten to know you pretty well. For the past couple of weeks you’ve seemed, I don’t know, kind of tense. I hope you don’t mind my asking.”

“Not at all, Barb,” Martin assured her, giving her a friendly hug as he handed the glass back to her. “It’s sweet of you to be concerned.” He allowed himself a quick glance down the front of her dress as they parted. “Tell you the truth, I have been a little on edge for a while. My stepdaughter is engaged and she and my wife are involved in planning the wedding, and it seems like that’s all that gets talked about around the house these days: the wedding this, the wedding that, the reception, the honeymoon.” He sat down at his desk and tried to look embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know my mood was that obvious.”

“Oh, I’m sure no one else has noticed anything,” Barbara tried quickly to assuage him. “Listen, if there’s anything I can do to help you through your problem, anything at all—”

His telephone began to ring and Barbara hurried out to her own desk to answer it.

Help me through my problem, Martin thought, grunting softly. His stepdaughter’s wedding was nothing compared to a real problem that had begun two weeks earlier when he had run into his ex-wife, Vivian, at a local mall and ended up back in her apartment in bed. They had arranged to meet twice more since then. And now, on top of that, he had a prison warden calling him at home about hanging a man—

“It’s a Mr. Harvey Manlow,” Barbara said on the intercom. “He says he’s with the state attorney general’s office.”

“Okay. Will you close my office door, please, Barb.” He waited until she had reached in and pulled his door closed before answering the call. “Martin Sloan speaking—”

“Good morning, Mr. Sloan. Harvey Manlow here. I’m deputy attorney general down at the statehouse. I understand that you and Warden Lawson up at Barnaby Prison are having a little dispute.”

“Not really a dispute, Mr. Manlow, not to my mind, anyway,” Martin said. “He wants me to perform an execution, something I gave up many years ago, and I simply said no, I wouldn’t do it.”

“I’m afraid you can’t say no, Mr. Sloan,” the deputy attorney general said. “I’m looking at the original contract of employment you signed when you first agreed to take on the responsibility of performing executions in our state. The contract has an annual automatic renewal clause, so it is still in effect. You’re still legally obligated to perform that duty.”

“But I haven’t worked for the state since you started using lethal injection for executions—”

“Excuse me, Mr. Sloan,” Manlow interrupted, “but to put it more accurately, you haven’t performed for the state since then. Legally, you are still obliged to do so, if called upon, until the contract is terminated, which requires notification from you. Thirty days in advance. In writing. Notarized.”

“But this is crazy,” Martin protested. “Isn’t there some way we can compromise on this matter?”

“I don’t see how, Mr. Sloan. Bottom line is, the state needs a hangman — and you’re it. We don’t have anyplace else to go.”

“Well, I suggest you find someplace else to go, Mr. Manlow,” Martin snapped angrily, “because I simply am not going to do it! If you don’t like it, take me to court! Sue me for breach of contract! Go to hell, for all I care!”

Later that day, Martin called Hazel and told her he had to work late that night, and called Vivian to tell her there was a problem at work and he had to cancel their meeting in her apartment. That evening, for the first time, he took Barbara, his secretary, to dinner.

The next morning, Martin was summoned to the office of Isaac Stockman, the company owner.

“Sit down, my boy,” Stockman greeted him cordially. “Want some coffee?”

“No, thank you, sir. Just had some.” Martin had a nervous feeling that someone had seen him with Barbara at dinner, and Stockman was calling him on the carpet about executives fraternizing with their secretaries. He was preparing himself to talk his way out of that, and silently promising himself that from then on he would be more circumspect about where he took her. Because after last night he definitely was going to be seeing her again; everything above and below the waist that Hazel and Vivian had individually, Barbara had collectively. But at the moment, facing Isaac Stockman, Martin was prepared to be as contrite as he had to be.

As it turned out, that was not necessary.

“Martin, I had a call from the governor last night,” Stockman said. “He told me all about this problem that has arisen regarding the condemned man who insists on being hanged. Damned nuisance, if you ask me. Don’t understand why the fellow can’t be reasonable and just let them inject him. Probably been a troublemaker all his life, which is why he’s where he is today.” Stockman leaned back in his big leather chair and lit a cigar. “I understand the prison warden and someone from the attorney general’s office have already contacted you on the matter,” he said around his first big puff.

“Yes, sir. And I flatly refused to do as they asked,” Martin stated emphatically. In spite of his first memorable experience with Barbara, she was now completely out of his mind.

“I’m told there’s some sort of binding contract involved,” Stockman said.

“Apparently there is, yes, sir.”

Stockman gazed up at the ceiling. “As you know, Martin, we do a substantial amount of business with the state procurement office. Ninety percent of every length of rope or twine that gets tied in a knot in this state comes from Stock-man Cordage.” He lowered his eyes from the ceiling to Martin. “That aside, however, the governor happens to be an old family friend; we played college football together way back when. He was good enough to telephone me at home last night to discuss this matter. He said his attorney general’s office is prepared to obtain a court order requiring your performance under that contract you signed.”

“Can they do that, sir?” Martin asked. “I mean, is that legal?”

“Oh, yes. When one party sues another party in civil court for breach of contract, the party filing the suit — the plaintiff, that is — can ask the court either for monetary damages, or for what is known in tort law as ‘specific performance.’ In other words, instead of asking the court to make you pay monetary damages for breaching the contract you signed, the plaintiff asks the court to order you to comply with the terms of the contract.”

“The court can order me to hang this man?” Martin asked incredulously.

“Absolutely. And if you fail to do so, you can be held in contempt of court and sent to jail.”

“This is unbelievable,” Martin said, as much to himself as to Isaac Stockman. He rose and took a few steps around the office. “One of the main reasons I said no to these people is that I didn’t want to embarrass the company, embarrass myself in front of my coworkers. And put some kind of stigma on my family. For God’s sake, my own wife doesn’t even know about that part of my past life.”

“Sit back down, Martin,” the older man calmly directed. “This predicament might not be as bad as it seems. Would you be willing to carry out this assignment if you could do it with complete anonymity?”

“Anonymity?” Martin stopped pacing. “That’s impossible. We’re not talking about the electric chair here, where some unidentified hand throws a switch, or the gas chamber, where a couple of lethal chemicals are mixed together in a lead container under a chair. We’re talking about a hanging, Mr. Stockman. Up close and personal. The hangman has to meet the condemned man, examine him, take his measurements, weigh him. When it’s time for the execution to take place, he has to bind the man’s ankles, position him on the trapdoor, put the hood over his head, put the noose around his neck—” Martin abruptly sat back down and blotted his brow with a handkerchief. “There’s nothing anonymous about it, sir. Believe me, there isn’t.”

“Why not?” Stockman asked calmly.

“Well, because,” Martin spread his hands impatiently, “there are always people around: guards, doctors, priests, lawyers, reporters—”

“But suppose there weren’t?” Isaac Stockman said. “Suppose the entire procedure could be carried out with just a very select few people in attendance? And none of them knowing your identity?”

“But how could that possibly be arranged? What about the press? They’ll be all over the place, a story like this.”

“The press will simply be told that you have been hired to come in from another state on the condition that your identity not be released. The warden will cooperate fully in this, as will a few carefully selected high-ranking officers in the corrections service. All of these individuals will have many years of seniority in the state’s civil service ranks; they won’t risk losing that. Believe me, Martin, I have the governor’s personal assurance that this can be done.”

Martin locked eyes with Isaac Stockman. “Are you saying you want me to do this, sir?”

“I’m saying I don’t think you have a choice, Martin. Do it this way, keep your name and the company’s name out of it, and put the matter behind you.”

“And it won’t affect my job here?” Martin forced himself to ask.

“Certainly not,” Stockman replied with a smile. “As a matter of fact, I’ve been thinking about creating a new executive position: senior vice-president over manufacturing and marketing.” He winked at Martin. “How does that sound to you?”

Martin felt his heart skip a beat. “That sounds fantastic, sir,” he managed to say.

All at once, he felt like a heavy weight had been lifted from his shoulders. It looked as if everything was going to turn out all right, after all. His future suddenly was rosy.

All he had to do was hang this guy.

Piece of cake.

Martin’s ex, Vivian, prepared a nice little lunch for the two of them in her apartment the next day, and he stayed on an extra hour for what they had once called “playtime” back in the early days of their marriage, before an appendectomy had put him in the hospital and he had met a busty charge nurse named Hazel. During lunch, and before sex, Martin told her about his meeting with Isaac Stockman.

“It looks like I’ll be going through with this thing,” he said, “but no one will know my identity, so it should work out all right.”

“How are you going to keep it from Hazel?” Vivian asked.

“I’ll find a way,” he said confidently. “Vi, this tuna salad is terrific. Did you make this when we were together?”

“No, not that way. I strain the relish now, and chop up a hard-boiled egg in it.”

“Where’d you learn that?”

“A guy I dated for a while. He owns a deli. What makes you so sure you can keep all this from Hazel?”

“Won’t be hard. She’s so wrapped up in that kid of hers’ wedding, she hardly has the time of day for me anymore.”

“Hon, are you happy with Hazel?” Vivian asked quietly, as if the question were confidential in some way. Martin shrugged. “I don’t know that I’m actually happy,” he told her. “But I’m not aware of being unhappy.”

After they finished at the table, and in the bedroom, Vivian asked, “Do you think we could work in a dinner some night? In some romantic little place? Like in the old days?”

“I’ll try,” he said. Then he made up a quick lie. “Actually, I’m going to be working nights for a while to make up for the time I’ll have to spend up at the prison.”

He got dressed a little faster than usual, hoping that Vivian would not notice.

As he straightened his necktie, she put her arms around his neck and rubbed noses with him. “Do you think we might be working toward getting back together, Marty?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” he told her with a wink.

On his way back to the office, he stopped at the pharmacy for a Viagra refill, and began to plan where he would take Barbara for dinner that night.

Isaac Stockman gave Martin a week off to attend to business at the prison. Martin, in turn, gave Barbara a week off, and asked if she would like to take a little trip with him.

There was a lodge in the woods up near the town of Barnaby, he told her, where he was being sent to investigate some newly discovered plant fibers that could possibly be used for cordage manufacture. Barbara thought the whole thing was just too, too exciting: a free tryst trip with her boss, staying at some romantic lodge, walks in the woods together, entire nights together. Somehow she just knew that poor Martin did not have a happy home life. With that as a start, who knew what the future might bring?

They checked in at the lodge as Mr. and Mrs., which made Barbara giggle a little. The lodge was south of the town of Barnaby, and the prison was north of it. Martin explained that he had daily meetings planned with some botanists to conduct experiments on the plant fibers, but assured her that their evenings would be spent together. He stayed in touch with both Hazel and Vivian by cell phone. Vivian knew the real reason for his trip to Barnaby; Hazel had been told the plant-fiber story.

The morning of their second day at the lodge, Martin left for a meeting with the “botanists,” and drove to Barnaby Prison. Warden Ben Lawson welcomed him cordially.

“I hope there’s no hard feelings on your part about this thing, Mr. Sloan.”

“None at all, Warden,” Martin assured him. “I just want to get the whole thing over with. You on board about the anonymity business?”

“Entirely. The governor’s chief of staff briefed me thoroughly. I’ve got a captain, two lieutenants, and two sergeants picked out for your escorts. None of them know your real name, and all of them think you’re from back in Delaware, the last state besides us to quit using the rope. I’ll keep the media, lawyers, and chaplains under tight control. I believe this thing is going to work out just fine.”

“I hope so.”

“What do you want to do first?”

“See the gallows.”

Warden Lawson escorted Martin to an old two-story stone building in a far corner of the prison compound.

“This used to be the tag plant, back when cars got new license plates every year. Now that the motor vehicle department issues them little stickers, why, we’ve cut back to just making plates for new cars. We do that with a couple of punch-presses over in the shoe fac’try. Since this here old building’s not used for nothing, we thought it’d be a good place for the gallows.”

When they got inside, Martin saw, in the center near the back wall, a scaffold that looked for all the world like the bottom section of an oil derrick, with a trapdoor in its floor. As they approached it, Martin smelled the clean scent of newly sawn lumber. Putting a hand on one supporting beam of the framework, he found it to be solid, sturdy.

“I had our inmate carpenters copy it from one of our archive photos,” the warden said, rather proudly. “Even got thirteen steps, just like the original.”

Martin did not bother to tell him that it was not really necessary to have thirteen steps leading up to the trapdoor, any more than it was necessary to have thirteen loops in the noose rope. That was all nonsense, myth. It was the drop that mattered — and only the drop.

“Exactly how high is the platform from the floor?” Martin asked.

Lawson took a small spiral notebook from his shirt pocket and flipped it open. “Eight foot two,” he said.

“Okay. What do you guess this guy Kalb weighs?”

“Oh, one-ninety, ninety-five.”

“Okay. You need to build me a gallows tree now.”

“What’s that?”

“An upright frame with a crosspiece,” Martin said, a little impatiently. Where the hell did they get this hick? he wondered. “You know, to connect the rope to.”

“Oh, sure,” Lawson said, slightly chagrined. “Of course. Wonder why that wasn’t in any of the archive photos?”

“Lots of old-time scaffolds were outside,” Martin explained. “They just used a tree limb or a telephone pole beam, anything handy.” He bobbed his chin at the trapdoor. “Center the frame just behind the trap. I’ll tell you where to nail the crossbeam after I measure Kalb. And round me up four fifty-pound bags of dirt, too.”

“Sure. To test your rope,” Lawson assumed.

“To test your gallows,” Martin corrected evenly. “My rope will be perfect.”

Back at the lodge, Martin and Barbara had sex, then dinner, then sex again. Barbara pouted a little about not having anything to do when Martin was not there, but she came out of her snit after Martin mentioned that biannual salary increases were imminent at Stockman Cordage and that she could expect a very nice raise. She was so pleased that she did not complain when he left her alone the following day.

Back at the prison, Martin told Warden Lawson that he needed a private room in which to prepare his hanging rope. Lawson found him an unused office just off the infirmary.

“Used to be the prison doctor’s office, but since the state cut the corrections budget we don’t have a doctor no more. Inmate gets sick now, we call old Doc Upton over in Barnaby and he comes out.”

“This will be fine,” Martin said. He was carrying a round, black, wooden chest shaped much like an old-fashioned ladies hatbox, with a single handle in the center of its top. As he placed it on a table, Lawson peered curiously at it.

“Is that what I think it is?” he asked.

“I imagine so,” Martin replied. From his wallet, he removed a single key, and unlocked it. As he raised the lid, Lawson leaned over to look closely at its contents.

Coiled like some exotic snake inside the case was a shiny, pale yellow, twenty-two-foot rope. Martin pulled the top end of it out for Lawson to examine.

“I made this rope myself,” Martin said proudly, almost as if showing off a newborn child. “It has three strands: one of abacá, which is usually called Manila hemp, from the Philippine Islands; one of henequen, from the Yucatán; and one of sisal, from Indonesia. There are no man-made fibers at all: no nylon, Saran, polypropylene — none of that stuff you’ll find in a lot of ropes. Materials like that will last longer, of course; that’s why they’re used so universally. But their elasticity makes their product weaken over the long run. This rope here won’t stretch a quarter of an inch; it has no spring, no bounce, when dropping up to three hundred pounds. I’ve had it in storage for years. All I have to do now is lubricate it with mutton tallow. I have a gallon of it outside in the trunk of my car; I buy it from a Chicago slaughterhouse and keep it at work for special orders, like the mooring ropes on the governor’s yacht, jobs like that.”

“Well, I got to hand it to you, Sloan, you’re a real professional,” the warden said.

“I like to think so,” Martin replied smugly. “Now then, I’ll get the lubricating done today, and tomorrow I’ll want to see the condemned man, measure him, get his exact weight and all, and then we’ll test the gallows with those bags of dirt. When’s the execution set for?”

“Day after tomorrow. Right after breakfast. That’d be about seven.”

“Kalb ordered his last meal yet?”

“Oh, hell no,” Lawson scoffed. “We don’t go in for none of that fancy stuff like you see in the movies. This ain’t San Quentin or Sing Sing or any of them fancy penitentiaries. Kalb’ll get what ever’ other con in here gets: powdered eggs, couple strips of salt pork, a biscuit, and a tin cup of black coffee.”

On his way back to the lodge, Martin called Hazel. “How’s it going with the wedding plans?” he asked, trying very hard to sound interested.

“Not too well,” Hazel complained. “We had to get a seamstress to let the waist out an inch on Susan’s gown.”

Not surprising, Martin thought, the way she ate.

“When will you be home, hon?” Hazel asked.

“Sometime Friday afternoon.”

“Oh, good. I want you to get fitted for a tux at the rental place. You will look so snazzy at the wedding, hon.”

Just how I’ve always wanted to look, Martin thought. Snazzy.

Then he called Vivian.

“How’s it going up there, sweetie?” she asked solicitously.

“As well as can be expected, I guess. I’ll get through it.”

“Listen,” Vivian practically purred, “I went online and discovered that there’s a very romantic lodge up there near the prison. Why don’t I drive up and keep you company for the rest of the week? I’m sure it would be easier for you if you weren’t all by yourself. Where are you staying, anyway? I couldn’t find any l motels at all listed for Barnaby.”

Martin pulled a lie out of the air. “Actually I’m staying right at the prison. The warden has a very comfortable little guest house. I’ve been having dinner with him and his wife every night. They’re really nice people.”

“Oh. Well, I guess my idea’s no good then.”

“Listen, we’ll make up the time together when I get back. We’ve got some things we need to talk about, you know.”

“You mean about us, Marty?”

“Of course, what else?”

With Vivian placated, Martin drove on to the lodge just in time for dinner, at which Barbara was beyond pout, beyond snit, and had reached grumpiness.

“If I had known we weren’t going to spend any time together, I don’t think I would have come along,” she said.

“We’ve spent time together,” Martin replied lamely.

“Sure. Eating and... well, you know.”

“Look, I’m sorry, honey, honestly I am. I had no idea these botanist people were going to take up so much of my time. But we’re almost finished. Tomorrow we’ll have everything pretty well wrapped up. Then, day after tomorrow, I’ll be meeting them for breakfast and that’ll be the end of it.” He reached across the table for one of her hands.

“Listen, when we get back to the city, I’m going to hit old man Stockman up for some time off. A week maybe. Then we’ll go on a real vacation trip somewhere.”

“Reeeeally?” Barbara almost squealed. “Where would we go?”

“I don’t know,” Martin said. “You pick a place.” He was busy looking down the front of her scoop-necked dress. When Barbara became excited about something, she kind of... well, heaved.

For the rest of the evening, he had to listen to her go through an alphabet of places she had always wanted to go: Alaska, Barbados, Cancun, Dubai, Ensenada, French Polynesia, Grand Canyon, Honolulu, Ireland, Jamaica, Kenya, Las Vegas — she got all the way to the letter T, for Toronto, when Martin was finally able to drag her away from the dinner table and upstairs to bed.

The next day, at the prison, Warden Lawson had the condemned man, Roger Kalb, brought to an examination room in the infirmary, where the warden waited with Martin and old Doc Upton, who had been summoned from the town of Barnaby. Kalb was in handcuffs, waist chain, and ankle shackles, and had a three-man escort from the personally selected team of officers who were part of the anonymity scheme to protect Martin’s identity. The condemned man, who was in his early fifties, drew Martin’s memory back to many other men he had encountered under similar circumstances in the past, and it was startling to him how they never changed in appearance: pasty-white in complexion from deprivation of sunlight, thick around the middle from years of eating institutional food, flaccid from too little exercise. Martin was pleased to see that Kalb was nearly bald on top, which would make it easier to slip the death hood over his head.

“Kalb,” the warden said, “you know Doc Upton here; I believe he’s seen you a few times over the years. He’s here to give you a quick physical—”

“To make sure I’m healthy enough to hang?” Roger Kalb asked wryly. His voice was level and even, not shaky at all. Good, Martin thought. The calmer he was, the easier it would be to hang him.

“No, it’s just for our records here,” said the warden. “This other gentleman,” he nodded toward Martin, “is the executioner who will carry out the procedure. He’s here to weigh you and take some body measurements in order to make sure that ever’thing gets done properly.”

“Suppose I don’t want to be weighed and measured like a damned side of beef?” Kalb challenged, locking his jaw in defiance and staring at Martin.

“In that case,” Martin addressed him quietly, “I’ll just have to do some visual estimating. If I guess correctly, when you drop, the noose will break your neck and rupture your spinal cord, causing instant unconsciousness and immediate death. Painless death. On the other hand, if I guess wrong, the rope might just strangle you to death. Slowly. You could end up bouncing around, kicking and gagging, for a full minute, maybe even a bit longer.” Martin stepped up close to the condemned man. “Tell me, Mr. Kalb, why did you elect hanging instead of lethal injection?”

Kalb locked eyes with Martin, but did not answer.

“Tell me, please. I need to know,” Martin said.

“Be... because I... I’m afraid of needles,” Kalb replied, almost in a whisper.

“I’ll vouch for that,” Doc Upton interjected. “I recollect we had to have two guards hold him still one time when I gave him a flu shot.”

Martin and Kalb still had their eyes fixed on each other.

“Believe me when I tell you, Mr. Kalb,” Martin finally broke the silence, “that you’ll be doing yourself a very big favor by cooperating with me.” He put a gentle hand on Kalb’s shoulder. “Help me send you into eternity the easy way.”

Roger Kalb submitted to Martin’s calm, reassuring tone. Doc Upton made a cursory check of his heart, pulse, throat, ears, eyes, and blood pressure, announcing for the latter, “One-twenty-six over eighty-two.”

“Hell, I’d give one of my big toes to have that kind of blood pressure,” Warden Lawson announced cheerfully.

“I’ll leave it to you in my will,” Roger Kalb told him, resuming his wry tone.

When it was Martin’s turn, he used a tape to measure Kalb’s upper back and the inside of one leg from his groin to the ankle. With educated hands, he felt the man’s muscle tone in his calves and upper arms. Lastly, he measured Kalb’s midsection where most of his excess fat lay. When he finished, he turned to Lawson and said, “I’ll need to weigh him without all the chains.”

“No can do,” the warden declared unequivocally. “Strict regulations require cuffs, belly chain, and shackles on all condemned men outside their cell. No exceptions.”

Martin drew the warden aside. “I’ve got to know his exact weight,” he whispered. “Otherwise, the drop could tear his head completely off”

The warden’s eyes widened like two big marbles. “You mean, tear all the way off?”

“All the way off, yes.”

“That’d make quite a mess, wouldn’t it?”

“You cannot imagine the mess. Both body and head would drop to the floor, blood gushing out of the body, the head rolling around like a soccer ball—”

“All right! Okay! I get the picture!” Lawson pondered the problem, scratching his chin in contemplation. “How ’bout we weigh him with the hardware on, then weigh the hardware after we get it off him? Then figure the difference.”

Martin agreed to that plan, deciding that the warden wasn’t as big a clod as he’d thought.

When all the preliminaries were done, including testing the gallows tree and rope with two hundred pounds of dirt in four gunny sacks tied to a wooden plank, Martin returned to his car on the prison staff lot and sat for a moment behind the steering wheel staring at his hands. To his surprise, they had that same feeling in them that he remembered from the old days when he’d been a practicing executioner, traveling from state to state across the width and breadth of the nation — New Hampshire to Delaware to Iowa to Kansas to Washington — anywhere he was needed, hanging men, and occasionally women, on a regular enough schedule to earn a very good income at it.

The feeling in his hands — the palms and undersides of his fingers — was like a mild wave of electricity. It usually started shortly after he had examined the condemned person — felt that person — moved his hands over the living body, squeezing for muscle tone to determine whether the person was likely to go down kicking and twisting with spasms, instead of hanging nicely like a rolled-up rug.

There had been a time when Martin wondered whether his touching of a person so definitely close to death might somehow be drawing something of that person’s life into his own. Like some kind of human osmosis. Rather than troubling him, it eventually got to the point where Martin looked forward to it. And now, at the moment when it had returned after so many, many dormant years, he found it to be surprisingly pleasant.

That evening, as Martin and Barbara went into the dining room at the lodge, a nice-looking young man about Barbara’s age passed them and smiled at Barbara.

“Hello, there. Nice to see you again so soon.”

“Oh, hello. Did you find your room key?” Barbara returned his smile and Martin thought he saw her heave slightly.

“Yes, thanks. I’d left it in the gift shop. Have a nice dinner.”

When they were seated at their table, Martin asked, “Who was that?”

“Oh, just somebody I met at the luncheon buffet. He was all alone too, so we shared a table. It was nice,” she added pointedly, “not to be all alone all day again.”

“Did he tell you his name?”

“Brad something,” Barbara shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

“Did he mention what he was doing here?”

“Well, I guess he’s just staying here, Martin, like we are just staying here,” she replied peevishly. “Why all the questions, for goodness’ sake?”

“No reason,” Martin conceded. “It’s just that this is the off season for a lodge up here. I was only wondering what he was doing here this time of year.”

“Well, if you must know, he works for a travel magazine, selling advertising.”

“Oh. Well, that sounds like interesting work.”

“I guess anything would be interesting compared to making ropes,” she observed snidely.

Barbara seemed to have forgotten all about the vacation trip Martin had promised her. She sulked for the rest of the evening, then went to bed with a headache.

Martin arrived at the prison shortly after six the next morning, as usual using the staff parking lot at the rear of the complex. The visitors lot in front, he saw in passing, was already crowded with private cars and media vehicles. Warden Lawson’s personally selected cadre of officers met Martin as he exited his car, and escorted him back to the old tag shop where the gallows now stood. Warden Lawson was already there, sitting on one of a dozen folding chairs set up for witnesses in a roped-off area. He was eating glazed donuts out of a greasy white bag and drinking coffee from a metal mug.

“Want some coffee and a donut?” he asked.

“No, thanks.”

“Donuts are fresh-made in the prison bakery.”

“No, thanks anyway. Who are all the chairs for?”

“Witnesses. Law says we have to have twelve. Four media: one from the local paper, one from a wire service, one from a radio station, and one from a TV network. They draw lots to see who gets to come in. Not to worry, though: no cameras or recording devices allowed. Four other seats are for the prosecutor who sent the condemned person here, the arresting officers, and the judge who did the sentencing. The last four are for the family or families of the victims. The condemned is entitled to four passes if requested, in which case we’d set up extra chairs for whoever he invited. In Kalb’s case, he didn’t ask for any passes.”

“Doesn’t he have any family?”

“Two grown daughters, according to our records. But they’ve never visited him. He did murder their mother, after all.”

Sure, Martin thought. After catching her in bed with another man. What the hell was it about women, he wondered, that they couldn’t be faithful?

“Are we on schedule?” Martin asked, looking at his watch. It was six-twenty.

“Should be,” said Lawson. “I’ll step outside and check with my people.”

Left alone, Martin removed a small spiral notebook from his inside coat pocket and checked some of his notes. Kalb’s final weight had been determined to be one hundred eighty-eight pounds. Add two meals yesterday and breakfast this morning should make him about one-ninety-one. A drop of five feet three inches with the eyelet of the noose under the left angle of the jaw, he had determined, should snap Kalb’s neck between the second and third cervical vertebrae. That, Martin knew, would result in instant deep unconsciousness and rapid death. Much better, in his opinion, than all the theatrics of a gurney, a man’s arms stretched out akimbo, needles inserted into both arms, tubes running through the walls for a path to the poisons. Barbaric. Welcome to American justice showtime.

Putting the notebook away, Martin climbed the thirteen widely spaced wooden steps to the gallows floor. There were three folding chairs near the back of the structure. One was for the warden, one for the chaplain, and one for Martin. He sat down in the chair nearest the trapdoor and the wooden lever behind it that would spring the trap.

Lying on the floor near the lever were two leather belts and a black, eyeless hood with a drawstring opening.

Martin thought about Barbara. He had given her specific instructions before leaving the lodge that morning. She was to get up no later than six-thirty, get dressed to travel, pack their bags and have them taken down to the lobby, and wait for him there.

He would be back to pick her up by about seven-thirty, and they would leave at once.

What about breakfast? she had wanted to know. She didn’t want to travel on an empty stomach or she might get carsick. Martin had rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. Give me strength, he begged some unknown god. We’ll stop somewhere on the road, he promised, someplace close. In the back of his mind was a picture of Jack Nicholson ditching some dame at the end of some movie. Just leaving her in a goddamned coffee shop and vanishing. Goodbye, Barbara, goodbye, Vivian, goodbye, Hazel. What, he wondered, would that feel like?

His reverie was interrupted by Warden Lawson coming up the steps. “We’re set to go,” he announced. “My boys are letting the witnesses in now.” Two dark-skinned men dressed in what looked to Martin to be expensive business suits and neckties had accompanied the warden as far as the stairs. They walked on past and sat on two folding chairs on the far side of the gallows, chairs that Martin had not noticed before. Martin was about to ask Lawson who the men were, but was distracted by the witnesses entering. He looked over and saw a group of people being ushered toward the chairs in the roped-off area.

Martin looked at his watch again. It was now six-fifty. He could not believe how fast the hour was passing. “Do we have a specific time or what?” he asked.

“No, hell no,” the warden scoffed. “That’s television stuff. The ticking clock and the telephone line to the governor’s office, all that bullshit. No, we’ll do Mr. Kalb as soon as we get him over here.” He looked around. “Dammit, I left my donuts over there. Oh, well, maybe some witness will be hungry.” He grinned at Martin. “A little snack for the victim’s parents.”

Presently, a prison van pulled up in front of the open metal doors of the building, and Martin, the warden, and all the witnesses looked out to see Roger Kalb being helped out of the vehicle by four death-watch guards. As before, he was bound in chains: ankle shackles, waist chain, his wrists now cuffed behind his back instead of in front. He was dressed in an orange jumpsuit, his feet in flip-flops. Clearly outlined under the groin and buttocks of the main garment were the bulges of a thick execution diaper.

Kalb was hurried along inside, past the witness area, and hustled up the stairs to the gallows floor. Following quickly along behind him was a prison chaplain who ironically, to Martin, looked oddly like Pat O’Brien. As the death-watch guards moved Kalb to the trapdoor, Warden Lawson nudged Martin with his elbow.

“You’re on, Dr. Death,” he said, with a wink.

Martin rose from his chair and walked over to the man standing on the trapdoor. He felt an old familiar sensation in his body, not like the buzzing he had felt in his hands, but more like something pleasant and thick, like warm butterscotch was flowing through his veins. His chest heaved slightly, but he did not think of Barbara and the way her chest heaved. Sex, at that moment, was far from his mind, subservient to death.

Kneeling, he secured Kalb’s legs together at the knees with one of the leather belts, then rose to slip the other one under his arms in back and strap his elbows as close together as possible. The warmth inside him increased, rising to his throat, spreading down to his groin. He slipped the black hood over Kalb’s head and pulled the drawstring snugly tight, then reached up to the noose he had fashioned the previous day and pulled it down over the condemned man’s head, fixing it properly to the left angle of the jaw. Finally he put his hand on the trapdoor release lever, gripping it firmly. A great bliss engulfed his entire being.

“God bless you, Mr. Kalb,” he whispered through the black hood, as he moved the lever and opened the trapdoor, sending Roger Kalb to whatever there was beyond the noose.

Martin was in his car speeding away from Barnaby Prison within fifteen minutes after the drop, hoping that scatterbrained Barbara had done as he instructed, packing the bags and all. The quicker he got away from there, the better. As soon as he had dropped Roger Kalb, the warm, gushing feeling of ecstasy had disappeared. He remembered now that in the old days it had been the same way. Floating on a cloud while he did the job, then dropped back to reality when it was finished. Odd, that feeling — but one that he somehow cherished.

At the lodge, he found his own luggage packed and ready to go — but no bags for Barbara. And no Barbara.

“Your wife left this for you, sir,” the bellman said, handing Martin a sealed envelope. “And that’s a great picture of you in USA Today.”

“What?” Martin’s mouth dropped open. “What picture?”

The bellman produced a copy of the newspaper. There, column right, was what was obviously a telephoto shot of him arriving back at the lodge from the prison the previous day. The heading read: THE LAST HANGMAN. The byline read: Bradford Jamison.

Bradford, Martin thought. Brad. The man who had spoken to Barbara in the dining room the previous night. Advertising salesman for a travel magazine? The son of a bitch was a reporter.

Opening the envelope just handed to him, he found a note from Barbara:

“Telephone call for you, sir,” the bellman came back to tell him. “You can take it on the house phone over there.”

Martin answered the house phone and immediately heard the angry voice of Issac Stockman. “Well, Sloan, you really screwed up this time, didn’t you! Your picture’s all over the papers and on television down here! I’ve got reporters crawling in and out of the place like ants! You’ve made my company the laughing stock of the cordage industry! Don’t bother coming back to clean out your desk, because I’m having everything in your office taken down to the furnace room and burned, and then I’m going to fumigate the place. You’ll never work in cordage again, Sloan!”

There was a loud click as the phone at the other end was slammed down, leaving Martin holding a disconnected receiver in his hand. My God, he thought. My job. My future. When he finally marshaled enough presence of mind to hang up the house phone and turned away, it immediately rang again and the bellman shouted across the lobby, “Another call for you, sir.”

Martin turned and stared at the ringing house phone again. Another call? Who from? he wondered. Lucifer, welcoming him to hell? He picked up the receiver very gingerly, as if it might be hot.

“Hello?” he said tentatively.

“You dirty two-timing son of a bitch!” Vivian’s voice screeched at him over the line. “I tried calling you on your cell phone this morning to wish you a safe drive home but I couldn’t get through. So I called the prison, where you were supposed to be staying. They told me you were staying at this hotel. So I called there a little while ago and, guess what, I was told that Mrs. Sloan had already checked out, but that you were still there. I’ve been calling the hotel every fifteen minutes and, lucky me, I’ve finally reached you. Who the hell did you take up there with you, you low-life bastard? Some little whore of a secretary, or some little whore of a waitress? I’m calling Hazel right now and blowing the whistle on you, Marty! I pity you when you get home!”

Again the phone at the other end was slammed down. Martin shuffled over to a chair in the corner of the lobby and slumped down, chin on chest, like a man who had just got bad news on his cancer test. His mouth was a grim, lipless line. There was no expression in his eyes, as if he were staring at a blank wall. What, he wondered, was the most painless way to commit suicide?

Presently, Martin became aware of two men standing in front of him. They were the dark-skinned men in the expensive-looking suits and ties who had sat on the far side of the gallows and observed the execution. Martin looked up at them, anxiously. Were they there to accompany him to hell?

“Excuse us, Mr. Sloan,” one of them said with extreme politeness. “May we speak with you, sir?”

“W... what — about?” Martin asked with sudden trepidation.

“With your permission, may we introduce ourselves, sir? I am Shammar Tabuk, and this is my associate, Hufur Jabal. We are representatives of Prime Minister Al Hila Kut, of the Republic of Abadal.”

“W... what — do you want with me?”

“May we sit, sir? Thank you.” The two men drew two chairs close to Martin.

“We have the honor to present to you a proposal from His Excellency, the Prime Minister.”

Martin frowned suspiciously. “W... what — kind of proposal?”

“His Excellency wishes to appoint you as the official executioner for the Republic of Abadal. We were sent here to observe your performance at this morning’s execution, and it was our pleasure to report to the prime minister by overseas telephone that you carried out your duty with speed, precision, and complete professionalism. Therefore, we are authorized to offer you this important appointment.” “W... where — did you say you were from?” Martin asked.

“The Republic of Abadal. We are a small but prosperous independent country on the Gulf of Oman.”

“And you want me to become the official executioner for your whole country?”

“That is it, sir. You see, His Excellency the Prime Minister has decided that it is no longer acceptable for citizens of our country to be executed by one of their own countrymen. It has been decided that someone from outside our country should be appointed to carry out such punishments, thereby avoiding the stigma of one Abadalian killing another. Do you see the point?”

“Yes. Yes, I do,” Martin said. Feeling his apprehension diminish, he shifted in his chair and sat up straighten He was being asked to become a full-time hangman again. How about that? “Tell me, Mr...ah—”

“Tabuk. Please, call me Shammar.”

“Of course. Shammar. Tell me, Shammar, how many, uh, executions does your country normally carry out in, say, a year’s time?”

Both Shammar and his associate, Hufur Jabal, smiled widely and laughed softly to each other. “Oh, sir, many, many,” said Shammar. “You tell him, Hufur,” he said to the other man.

“Yes. Well, sir,” said Hufur, “the number of executions has been increasing considerably as more and more crimes have been made punishable by death. Those crimes include, as I am sure you might surmise, murder, rape, drug trafficking, espionage, terrorism, homosexuality, pedophilia, sexual misconduct outside the marriage vows, and prostitution. To those have recently been added crimes against chastity, embezzlement of money belonging to our citizenry, and most recently, witchcraft. And, of course, apostasy.”

“What exactly is apostasy?” Martin inquired.

“Abandonment of our religious beliefs, sir.”

Martin cleared his throat. “Well, naturally, I am honored by your prime minister’s generous offer of this appointment, gentlemen, but I must tell you that I do not subscribe to or practice any organized religion, and I don’t think I would fit in with the religious requirements of Abadal—”

“Oh, sir, you would not have to,” Shammar hastened to assure Martin. “You would not even be required to live among us. You would be given your own luxurious apartment in one of our new high-rise buildings overlooking the Gulf, where many expatriates from your country live, along with those from the United Kingdom, France, Italy — many countries. On days when your services were required, an official limousine would take you to your suite of offices at our central prison on the edge of the capital. There you would carry out the scheduled executions, after which you would be returned home. Your freedom and lifestyle would in no way be restricted, I assure you.”

“I see. Well,” Martin rubbed his hands together, “how many executions per year did you say I would be required to carry out?”

“We did not get to a figure, sir,” said Hufur, “but I would guess around a hundred.”

Two a week, Martin thought.

“How, uh — how soon would I have to decide?”

“At once, I’m afraid, sir. His Excellency the Prime Minister is awaiting your reply as we speak.”

“Well, how would I go about getting to Abadal? I have no passport—”

“Not to worry, sir. You will come with us now and travel under diplomatic status in a national government aircraft similar to your own Air Force One, only much more comfortably outfitted.”

“How, uh — would I be, uh — compensated?”

Shammar and Hufur exchanged smiles. “Generously, sir. Appointments from His Excellency Sheik A1 Hila Kut are set at five hundred thousand dinars per annum.”

“I see. And how much would that be in U.S. dollars?”

Hufur Jabal whipped out a calculator, pressed a few keys, and said, “About seven hundred thousand dollars, sir.”

“Well, that certainly is generous,” Martin allowed.

“Will you agree to the appointment then?” Shammar asked.

“Yes,” Martin replied emphatically. “Yes, I certainly will.”

Shammar looked past Martin and gestured to someone. At once they were joined by a stunningly attractive dark-skinned woman dressed in a smartly tailored matching coat and skirt that blended perfectly with the suits worn by Shammar and Hufur. A beautiful white blouse was open at the collar and from her flawless neck hung a single black pearl.

“This is Mina Zakum,” said Shammar. “She is to be your personal aide for whatever you need from this moment on.”

The young woman smiled and bowed slightly to Martin.

“We have a limousine outside to take us to the airport in the city,” Shammar said. “Shall we go?”

“By all means,” Martin replied.

The four of them moved across the lobby, where Martin collected his suitcase from the bellman, hoping that dimwit Barbara hadn’t overlooked his toothbrush when she packed.

In the stretch limo, Martin and his new aide, Mina Zakum, shared the rear seat, while Shammar and Hufur took the jump seats. As they sat down, Martin noticed that Mina’s skirt slid a couple of inches above her knees. She had lovely legs. But at that moment, Martin’s mind was not on sex. It was on hanging.

A hundred a year, he thought.

That warm, gushy feeling flowed from his throat to his groin.

Life couldn’t get any better than that.