Shiver

11

This was bad. Very bad.

Franklin Rood sat in his car, breathing hard, fighting pain and weakness. His shirt was untucked, his belly exposed to the pale yellow glow of a streetlight. Blood oozed from a jagged vertical gash in his side. Not a great deal of blood, but enough to have trickled down his pants and pooled on the driver’s seat, soiling the tan upholstery. He hoped he could remove the stain.

He’d driven at least a mile from the apartment building on Palm Vista Avenue before parking on a quiet side street to inspect the wound. He couldn’t tell how serious it was, though it sure hurt like the dickens.

He sighed, a low wheezing sound that startled him, the kind of sound an invalid would make. He had to admit that the last round of the game had not gone exactly as planned.

Shortly past eight o’clock Rood had arrived in Miss Wendy Alden’s neighborhood and parked in a curbside space. Before leaving the car, he clipped the cassette recorder to his belt. He played the blank tape for a few seconds to get past the leader, then pulled on his gloves and checked the pocket of his coat to confirm that the garrote was inside.

He smiled. Ready to go.

Holding the bag by its strap, he got out of the car and walked toward the apartment building where Miss Alden lived. It was a simple two-story frame structure, put up back in the late Fifties or early Sixties, in those simpler times when nobody felt the need for a security gate or an intercom system or any protection at all. The doors opened directly onto the street-or, in the case of the apartments on the second floor, onto a gallery that could be reached easily enough via the outside staircase.

How wonderfully convenient.

As the building drew near. Rood became aware of raucous rock music blaring from a ground-floor window. He wondered if Miss Alden were throwing a party. He hoped not. If she were, he’d have to wait for her guests to leave.

A few yards from the building Rood stopped, removed the night-vision binoculars from his bag, and squinted through the eyepieces. The world was suffused in a green fog; the brass numbers affixed to the apartment doors shone brightly in the enhanced luminescence of the streetlights. He rotated the focusing knob, bringing the numbers into crisp resolution, then located the door marked 204. Miss Alden’s apartment.

She lived in an upstairs corner unit directly above the noisy apartment. The curtains in the side window were drawn, the place dark and silent. She must be out.

Rood replaced the binoculars in his bag and considered his options. He could wait in his car till he saw the lights go on in the apartment. Eventually the window would darken again when she retired for the night. An hour or so after that, he could silently break in and surprise her in bed. She would awaken from a dream into a nightmare.

Yes, he could do it that way. But there was another, more interesting, slightly riskier possibility. He could pick the lock on her door, conceal himself in the apartment, and wait for her to come home. There was danger in an ambush; suppose she returned with her boyfriend or with a group of friends. But then again, suppose she didn’t. He could watch her from his hiding place, then pounce for the kill. What fun.

He decided to chance it.

Briskly he walked up to the staircase. He’d just put his foot on the lowest step when the door to the ground-floor apartment swung open in a blast of frenzied guitar chords and a young woman emerged with a bulging sack of garbage in her arms. She stopped short, her eyes fixed on Rood from a yard away.

“Oh,” she said very simply, as her eyes tracked from his face to his gloved hands, mottled in dried blood.

“Hello,” Rood said pleasantly. “What’s your name?”

The bag slipped from her fingers and hit the ground with a moist plop. She whirled. She was almost inside the doorway of her apartment when Rood caught her from behind. He pushed her forward into that cave of crashing stereophonic sound. She fell sprawling on hands and knees. He kicked the door shut, tossed his bag on the floor, advanced on her. She tried to crawl away. He grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head back. She screamed. It was a healthy scream, the shriek of a vital young animal, a high, ululant wail that ordinarily would have alerted the neighbors, who might have summoned the police. But the stereo was awfully loud; Rood was certain nobody outside these four walls had heard a thing.

Still clutching a fistful of reddish-blond hair, he pulled the woman to her feet. She screamed again, a lovely trilling sound registering pain and terror, infinitely sweeter than that raucous noise she seemed to regard as music. He spun her to face him and clapped a hand on her mouth, then swept his gaze over the living room, a place of white pile carpet and teakwood occasional tables, lit by ceramic lamps and the fluorescent panel in the adjacent kitchenette. A hallway led to what must be a bedroom and bath. Corner windows looked out on the lower branches of a fig tree.

The apartment appeared empty. He saw no sign of company. Well, she had company now.

Gripping her thin shoulders. Rood pulled the woman close.

“Tell me your name,” he ordered.

She swallowed. A tremor ran over her face, like a current of wind rippling through a field of tall grasses.

“Jennifer.”

“Your full name.”

“Jennifer Kutzlow,” she said hastily, then caught herself and corrected, “Jennifer Ellen Kutzlow.”

Rood nodded. Still holding her by the shoulders to prevent any attempt at escape, he examined Miss Jennifer Ellen Kutzlow. He estimated her age at twenty-five and her height at five-two, a head shorter than Rood himself. Her feet were bare, the toenails painted pink, a detail he found oddly alluring. White beltless shorts showed off her lithe, shapely legs. A low-cut blue T-shirt was pasted to her breasts, the thin cotton pinched by the hard knobs of her nipples. Small brown freckles stood out prettily on her cleavage, her pert nose, her flawless cheeks. Her green eyes made a pleasing contrast with the strawberry blond of her hair, long silken hair so marvelously luxuriant it seemed to beg you to put your hands in it and feel its gossamer softness, its spun-gold delicacy.

“Lovely,” Rood said softly.

Miss Jennifer Kutzlow shuddered. Her lower lip went spastic, squirming and writhing, a worm on a hook. Rood felt the trembling of her shoulders in his fingertips.

“No,” she whispered. “Please, no.”

She thought he was going to rape her. Rood realized. But he wouldn’t. He wasn’t even going to make her beg or recite the words he liked to hear. That ritual was reserved for those whom he chose as contestants in the game; Miss Kutzlow was merely an innocent bystander. Besides, the noise of the stereo would make a decent recording impossible. No, it would be a swift, clean kill this time.

“Don’t worry, my dear.” He smiled kindly. “I won’t try anything. I just happened to notice how attractive you are, that’s all.”

His words did nothing to reassure her. She trembled violently in his hands. Her body shook as if with palsy.

“And I wanted to know,” Rood went on smoothly, “if you don’t mind my asking, why such a charming young lady as yourself would be home all alone, taking out the garbage, when she ought to be on the arm of some dashing young gentleman, enjoying life.”

“I… I was supposed to be out of town tonight.”

“Where?”

“Seattle. I’m a flight attendant, see? But my flight was canceled. Mechanical problems…”

“That’s too bad.”

“Yes.” She giggled. “It is, isn’t it? I… I really wish I’d gone to Seattle.”

“I’ll bet it’s nice up there,” Rood said. “Beautiful.” His smile widened. “Like you.”

Miss Kutzlow swallowed. “Look. Don’t hurt me, okay?” She spoke so softly that her words were covered by the thunder of the stereo, and Rood had to read her lips to make out what she was saying. “You can take all my stuff, take everything, but please don’t hurt me,”

He didn’t answer her directly. Instead he asked, “Who’s that you’re listening to?”

She blinked, surprised by the question. “Guns N’ Roses.”

Rood rather liked the way those words went together. Guns, roses. Guns meant death, and roses meant love. Death and love-he could hardly imagine one without the other.

“I’m afraid I’m not familiar with them,” he said mildly.

“They’re pretty famous. They’ve got a real unique sound, you know? They…”

Her words trailed off as she appeared to grasp the absurdity of discussing the merits of Guns N’ Roses with a man whose leather-gloved hands were clamped on her shoulders like an animal’s claws.

“They are good,” Rood agreed, although in truth he found such ugly, discordant noise intolerable. “But that music is awfully loud. I’m afraid it’s giving me a headache. Would you do me a favor and turn it down?”

“Turn it down?” Miss Kutzlow echoed as if she were unfamiliar with the concept, which, all things considered, might very well be the case. Then she smiled and nodded with desperate affability. “Oh, sure. No problem.”

Rood released her shoulders. She turned toward the stereo, and in one practiced motion he plucked the garrote from his pocket, grasped the wooden handles firmly in both hands, and tossed the noose over her head. She staggered backward, her hands flailing wildly, fingers scrabbling at the garrote in a desperate, doomed effort to pry it free. Rood twisted the handles clockwise, and the wire bit deep, severing the carotid arteries. She whipped her head crazily from side to side, gargling bloody froth, while her reddish- blonde hair was stained a purer shade of red.

Blindly she thrust her hands backward, seeking to claw Rood’s face. Laughing, he dodged her stabbing fingernails. She balanced on one leg and kicked backward with the other, striking again and again with the ferocious determination of the dying. The heel of her bare foot bruised Rood’s ankles and shins, but he barely felt the blows; the momentary twinges of pain were lost in the buzzing, humming cicada song of euphoria rising in his brain.

Rood tugged harder at the garrote, choking off the last of Miss Jennifer Kutzlow’s blood and breath. He felt the burning strain in his forearms, biceps, shoulders, felt the muscles of his neck standing out in sharp relief, felt the pressure of his gloved fingers on the garrote’s wooden handles. Looking down through a mist of sweat, past the bloody mop of the woman’s hair, he saw the tanned and freckled cleavage exposed in the vee of her T-shirt, her small firm breasts jogging frenetically while her body spasmed and sunfished and jackknifed. Whose hands, he wondered, had fondled those lovely breasts? Whose lips had kissed them? What secret pleasures had she known in lovers’ beds? She would not know pleasure again, any kind of pleasure, ever.

She was still struggling, but more weakly now, her energy ebbing, life and strength spiraling away, her arms and legs moving sluggishly, with the slow-motion languor of an underwater dancer. Finally her knees buckled, her legs folding under her like broken flower stems. Her body sagged. For a last moment her lithe arms beat listlessly at air, and then her head lolled back on her shoulders, her hair matted and sticky with blood, her eyes open, her green gaze lifted to Rood as if in supplication. He stared down at her, studying those round hopeless eyes brimming with tears, the tongue protruding from her mouth as if in a last futile gesture of defiance, the freckles on her nose and cheeks standing out against the bloodless paleness of her skin. Her death rattle was swallowed by the stereo.

Rood lifted the garrote from around her neck, peeling the blood-slick wire free of the deep wound it had gouged.

“You’re mine now. Miss Jennifer Kutzlow,” he whispered, his voice suddenly husky and so low that the pounding music rendered it inaudible even to his own ears. “All mine.”

Tenderly he kissed her forehead. Slowly his mouth traveled down her cheek to her lips, then farther down, to her neck, her cleavage, the round hill of a breast. He licked her skin, tasting the salty sweat glistening there. He pressed his lips to the T-shirt, his tongue probing her nipple through the thin fabric. She was beautiful. So beautiful.

A sudden frenzied need possessed him, the same need he’d felt after every previous kill. With frantic haste he tore at the T-shirt, stripping it from her body, then ripped off her shorts and pawed at her panties till they shredded in his hands. He tossed the bloody rags of her clothes in a corner. Gulping air, heart pounding, he lowered her body to the carpet and kissed her naked breasts, her smooth belly, her tanned legs. His gloved hands fumbled with the zipper of his fly. He mounted her and thrust himself inside, grinding his hips and gasping. An instant later it was over; he was empty and flaccid and satisfied.

Exhausted, he lay atop her, breathing hard, planting more wet kisses on her face. After what seemed like a long time, he got to his feet and zipped his pants again.

“Thank you, my dear,” Rood breathed, smiling down at the corpse. “I hope it was good for you too.”

He’d shared something with Miss Kutzlow tonight, something so special it must be honored. Although she was not on his list, he wished he could leave a statuette with her; she deserved that tribute. But he had only one clay figure, and that one was for Miss Alden upstairs. Well, he could take her head, at least.

Rood shut off the stereo, grateful to hear the throbbing din finally subside, then reached into his bag and removed the hacksaw. He set to work, guiding the tungsten-carbide blade back and forth in swift, regular strokes. When the head was finally detached, he dropped it in the jumbo Baggie he’d brought with him, then tied the plastic bag shut with a wire tab.

He looked down fondly at Miss Kutzlow’s remains, lying in a tangle of limbs on the white carpet that was now a lake of blood. When he checked his watch, he saw that the time was nearly nine o’clock. He’d spent more than half an hour with Miss Kutzlow. At any moment Miss Alden might return home, if she hadn’t already, and the opportunity for the ambush would be lost.

Quickly he went around the living room, switching off all the lights. Normally, when leaving the scene of a kill, he left the lights on and the door open, proudly displaying his work to the timid, craven world of sheep and ants. But for the moment he wanted the apartment dark and uninviting, to discourage visitors. It would hardly do to have someone find Miss Kutzlow’s remains before Rood had taken care of her upstairs neighbor.

In darkness he returned to the front door, stepping carefully over the body in his path. He found the canvas bag and hefted it. The bag was heavy, bulging with the trophy he’d won.

Opening the door a crack, he peered out. He saw no one. He stepped outside and shut the door behind him, careful to leave it unlocked so he could return later to switch on the lights before he left.

The sack of garbage lay on the ground where Miss Kutzlow had dropped it. Afraid the sack might attract attention and curiosity. Rood picked it up, carried it around to the side of the building, and deposited it in a trash dumpster. Then swiftly he mounted the outside staircase and hurried to Miss Alden’s apartment. The side window was still dark; no sound was audible from within. As best Rood could tell, she wasn’t home yet. To make certain, he knocked loudly, rapping his gloved knuckles on the door. No answer.

Her door was protected by a common mortise lock with a spring-latch bolt and a dead bolt, both of the pin-tumbler type. Defeating the dead bolt would require a delicate touch. Rood took off his gloves and flexed his fingers rhythmically, then rummaged in his bag until he found a tension wrench and a homemade wire tool. The tool was a six-inch length of medium-gauge wire that he’d bent with pliers into a hooked shape. The design wasn’t original; he’d followed a diagram in a book on locksmithing he’d found in the public library, a book that had told him everything he needed to know about picking locks.

Carefully he inserted the tension wrench in the keyway of the dead bolt, applying gentle pressure with his index finger in the direction of the lock’s rotation. With his other hand he slid the wire tool into the keyway, then drew it back and forth in a rapid sawing motion.

In theory, what he was doing was quite simple. Inside the lock there was a row of pins set in tiny pin wells, holding the lock cylinder and the central plug together. The right key would nudge those pins up into the pin wells, liberating the plug from the cylinder and allowing it to turn independently, thus retracting the dead bolt. Rood, of course, had no key. But if his wire tool could bump the pins into the desired alignment just for an instant, the pressure of the tension wrench should be enough to turn the plug.

Yes, easy in theory. But although he’d practiced the technique on the locks in his own apartment for many hours, this was the first time he’d tried it in the field. Mrs. Julia Stern had not engaged the dead bolt before taking her shower. Miss Rebecca Morris had obligingly opened the garage door for him. And most recently he’d chosen to break Miss Elizabeth Osborn’s window rather than struggle to defeat the intimidating locks on her front door.

Rood was sweating now. His glasses slid down his nose. He jiggled the wire hook desperately. Nothing happened.

Suppose he couldn’t open the door. The only way he could then get inside would be to break the window, and that was no good; when his quarry saw the damage, she would never fall for his trap. No, he had to defeat the lock, simply had to.

With a click of tumblers, the plug rotated ninety degrees, and the dead bolt was released.

Rood smiled, expelling a shaky breath. He’d done it.

Now only the latch bolt remained.

From his bag he removed a small sheet-metal loid, which he slipped between the door and the strike plate. He pushed, exerting pressure on the bevel edge of the latch. The latch depressed, the doorknob turned, the door swung open.

He was in.

Before entering, he pulled on his gloves once more, then wiped off the doorknob and the locks, in case he’d inadvertently left prints. Then he crept into the darkness, closing the door behind him. The spring latch snicked into place automatically. Because he wanted to leave no sign that the locks had been tampered with, he turned the knob that slid the dead bolt back into its socket.

He didn’t dare turn on a lamp. If Miss Alden saw a light in her window, she would know someone was inside. Instead he removed the Micro-Lite miniature flash from his bag and switched it on, cupping the beam with his hand to narrow its focus.

He directed the flashlight at different parts of the living room. As best he could tell, the apartment’s layout was identical to that of the unit below. The same kitchenette, the same corner windows, the same hallway leading, presumably, to a bedroom and bath. He swept the faint funnel of light over a sofa, a coffee table, an armchair positioned beside a potted plant nearly as tall as he was. A man could easily hide behind that chair, concealed by its bulk and by the plant’s leaves. Perfect.

With nothing else to do while he waited, Rood prowled the apartment, examining the contents of closets and drawers, trying to get a sense of Miss Alden’s personal life. He noted few dates marked on the calendar in her bedroom, few scribbles on the notepad by her phone. Apparently she was not a very social person.

Returning to the living room, he observed a telephone answering machine on an end table by the sofa. The red LED was not blinking; no messages had been recorded since the machine had last been used. Still, there might be old messages on the tape, messages that had never been erased.

Curious, Rood pressed the button marked Playback. A man’s voice crackled over the speaker.

“Wendy, this is Jeffrey. Calling to see if you wanted to catch a movie tonight. There’s a Kurosawa film playing at the Nuart. I’ll be home all afternoon.” He gave his number, then hung up. The tape beeped. A prior message, partly recorded over, came on in midsentence. The same man’s voice “… thinking of checking out this Ethiopian place on Melrose.” As before, Jeffrey left his home number. Another beep, then the tail end of a still earlier message. “… not usually real big on these equity-waiver shows, but I’ve heard this one’s not bad.” Once more, his number, the click of a cradled handset, a beep.

Silence.

Rood wondered if it was only coincidence that all three messages had been left by this Jeffrey person. Didn’t Miss Alden have any other friends, any family?

He shook his head sadly. He had a feeling that the woman led a lonely life. Well, she would not be living it much longer.

The rumble of a car engine cut into his thoughts.

He padded across the living room to the corner windows. Pressing his face to the glass, he peered out. Through the scrim of the fig tree’s branches, he saw a blue Honda Civic park in a reserved space at the side of the building.

A moment later Miss Alden emerged from the car.

“You’re mine,” Rood told the distant figure. “All mine.”

Hastily he concealed himself behind the chair, shoving the potted plant out of the way to get into position, then pulling it back into place. With a stab of disgust he realized that the plant was fake, a plastic replica, a lifeless thing. Such artful imitations repelled him. He would no more have a phony plant in his home than take a mannequin’s head as his prize.

Crouching low on his haunches, hugging the drawstring bag close to him, running his hands over the lumpy shape inside, Rood waited.

Footsteps pattered up the stairs, then drummed on the gallery. A key rattled first in one keyhole, then the other, drawing back both bolts. The door opened. The lights came on.

From behind a mesh of leaves. Rood stared at Miss Wendy Alden. She paused in the doorway, glancing nervously around the living room in a way that reminded Rood of a startled doe scenting the woods for danger. For a second he was sure she sensed his presence; then he realized she must always enter a room this way, alert to any possible threat.

A moment later she relaxed visibly, and Rood knew she had no inkling anything was wrong.

She entered the apartment, shut and locked the door behind her, and vanished down the hallway immediately to his left. Rood remained hidden, even though he knew it would be easy enough to kill her now. He wanted to watch her a little longer.

As he awaited her return, his right hand crept into the pocket of his coat and closed over the garrote, gripping it tight.

A considerable length of time passed before Miss Alden emerged from the hall. When she did, she was wearing white satin pajamas, a blue terry-cloth robe, and slippers, an outfit that made her look girlish and vulnerable and appealing. Her hair had been unclipped to fall loosely over her shoulders. Idly Rood reflected that she ought to wear it that way all the time. The advice would do her no good now, of course. But he would keep it in mind when he prepared her head for display.

She crossed the living room, taking dainty steps, soundless as a shadow. Entering the kitchenette, she turned on the overhead light, then fixed herself something to eat. Rood peered out from behind the chair, observing her over the chest-high counter that divided the kitchen from the living room. The portable TV on the counter came on, and a newscaster’s voice said something about the Gryphon; with surprising abruptness Miss Alden snapped the TV off. Rood frowned, disappointed; he would have liked to hear that report.

He watched as she put a sliced apple on a plate, poured a glass of milk, and carried her snack to a table in the far corner of the room. She sat with her back to him, eating and looking out the windows at the leaves of the windblown fig tree scraping the glass. He wondered what she was thinking.

After a while he became aware of a certain stiffness in his legs, bent in a half-crouch. Slowly he bobbed up and down, trying to exercise his muscles and loosen his joints. His right knee creaked loudly in protest.

Miss Alden stiffened in her chair.

She heard that, Rood thought, dismayed. She must have.

He sank down, well out of sight, and remained there for a silent count of fifty. His heart was beating fast, his body charged with tension. He was ready to leap into action if she showed the slightest hint of alarm.

But when he looked out from behind the chair, he found she’d gone back to her snack.

He breathed easy once more.

A few moments passed, during which time Rood promised himself he wouldn’t shift his position again no matter what, for fear of making another telltale sound and bringing this most pleasurable round of the game to a premature conclusion. But he couldn’t help it. He could think of nothing but the numbness in his ankles where blood was pooling, the tingly pins-and-needles sensation stitching pain up his calves. His legs seemed to be going to sleep below the knees, and he knew he couldn’t allow that; it was imperative he have the mobility to strike at will.

As quietly as possible he flexed his knees to restore his circulation. But his caution was wasted. His right knee creaked as it had before.

Damn.

He decided to risk a peek in her direction to see if she’d heard. As bad luck would have it, he peered over the top of the chair in the exact moment when she was turning in her seat. He ducked. He didn’t know if she’d seen him or not. She might have.

There was nothing he could do but wait. If she showed any sign of alarm, he would have to finish the job right now.

But she did nothing suspicious. She merely sat there for a few minutes, then carried her plate and her glass into the kitchen. Rood heard running water and the low clatter of dishes. She was humming softly, some tune he didn’t recognize, a pleasant, soothing melody, perhaps a love song or a lullaby. Whatever it was, he much preferred it to Miss Kutzlow’s high-volume noise.

Still humming to herself, she left the kitchen and recrossed the living room. Rood huddled behind the chair, feeling the floorboards vibrate gently under the soft tread of her slippered feet.

Then suddenly, shockingly, she broke into a run, racing for the front door.

She’s onto me, Rood’s mind screamed.

And she was quick, yes-but not quick enough. Rood leaped to his feet, covered the distance between them in two strides, and kicked the door shut as it was opening under her hand. Then the garrote was around her neck, and everything was fine, just fine.

He had great fun making her say the words he liked to hear; her stammering terror, her confusion, her inability to remember the lines he fed her, all served only to increase his enjoyment of the ritual. And her pathetic little monologue listing all the trivial, inane reasons that justified her continued existence-that was deliciously amusing as well. Rood was almost sorry to end their encounter. But he was tired; though tonight’s game had gone wonderfully well, it had taken a lot out of him. He was ready to go home and put the two new heads in the freezer next to Miss Osborn’s, then relax in bed with his memories and smile himself to sleep.

Rood slowly pulled the garrote tight, taking care not to gouge deeply enough to open her arteries, not yet; first he wanted to hear her choked, gargling protests, wanted to get them on tape. He was still reveling in the effortless pleasure of the kill when silver flashed in Miss Alden’s right hand. Her fist arrowed backward. Pain hit him. A shaft of hard, steely pain in his side, like a hot wire plunged into his flesh. He looked down in numb bewilderment and saw a knife jutting out of his body at a crazy angle.

A knife.

She’d stabbed him-drawn blood-the bitch. The evil, butchering little bitch.

The jolt of mingled shock and agony loosened his grip on the garrote. The handles slipped from his fingers. Miss Alden pulled free of him, leaving the knife embedded in his side, and lunged for the door. Rood watched as if in a trance. He knew she was getting away, knew he ought to stop her, but he seemed unable to react; he stood staring as if from some great distance as she yanked the door open and ran outside onto the gallery. Her footsteps beat a ragged tattoo on the stairs, then faded with distance, diminishing to silence. She was gone.

Gone.

Blinking, Rood snapped alert.

Slowly he closed his fist over the handle of the knife and pulled the blade free. Blood leaked from the wound. His own blood. The sight sickened him. He coughed, doubled over, as black spots flickered before his eyes. He was going to pass out. But he couldn’t. If he did, they would find him here. They. The police. They would find him, arrest him, throw him in a cell. And when he regained consciousness, he would find Detective Sebastian Delgado staring down at him, smiling in triumph.

No. No. No.

Steadying himself. Rood forced down the waves of faintness that threatened to wash him away. After a few moments he was certain he was all right. He felt a trifle light-headed, and there was a liquid looseness in his knees he didn’t like, but he was still strong, still in control.

He had no idea how long it would take Miss Alden to summon help, but he surely wasn’t going to hang around and find out. He retrieved the garrote from the floor and slipped it in his pocket, then dropped the bloody knife in his canvas bag. Carrying the bag, he lurched out the door and down the staircase.

He reached Miss Kutzlow’s apartment, pushed open the unlocked door, then quickly circled the living room and the kitchen, switching on all the lights. Part of him knew it was absurd to waste precious seconds on this ritual, so meaningless now, when the police might be racing to the scene. But he didn’t care. He would not run like a rabbit before the hounds. He would depart with dignity-at least, as much dignity as possible under these trying circumstances. He would show them that despite his regrettable failure in the apartment upstairs, he was still a man to be feared; he was still the Gryphon.

He left Miss Kutzlow’s door wide open, the light spilling out onto the walkway, inviting any passerby to look inside and get a glimpse of hell. Then he staggered down the street to his Falcon, climbed behind the wheel, and sped off.

For twenty minutes he drove aimlessly, putting distance between himself and the crime scene, before finally parking on a quiet street to examine the wound. It was not bleeding too badly. He had been lucky, he saw; the blade had missed his abdomen and merely passed through the small fold of fat at his waist-what some people would call a love handle. The injury was painful, but not serious; no arteries or internal organs had been damaged.

Of course he ought to go to the hospital anyway, but he didn’t dare. The police would alert the staffs at all the local emergency rooms to be on the lookout for any man with a stab wound. No, he would have to deal with this little problem on his own. Like the physician of the proverb, he was obliged to heal himself.

He removed the knife from the drawstring bag and held it up to the glow of a streetlight, studying it. A common kitchen knife. Kitchen. So that was where she got it. When she was in the kitchen, humming to herself and pretending to do the dishes. She must have hidden the knife in her robe. Then, when he ambushed her, she in turn had ambushed him. And had beaten him, quite literally, at his own game.

But how could she have been capable of a deception like that? He’d seen no evidence of icy coolness or low cunning or even simple courage in her. Quite the contrary. She’d been so witlessly flustered and starkly terrified she couldn’t even get her lines straight. Unless her fear had been only an act. Yes. That must be it. She’d never been afraid at all. She’d been toying with him, feigning innocence and helplessness, while poised to strike and kill. Kill…

For the first time. Rood realized how close he’d come to dying tonight. If she’d stabbed him in the stomach… or the heart…

Suddenly his hands were shaking. For a moment, just one moment, he considered forgetting all about Miss Wendy Alden. He could count Miss Kutzlow as his victim and call tonight’s contest a success.

Then he shook his head, angry at himself. The rules of the game were clear. Miss Alden, not Miss Kutzlow, was the player he’d selected. Now he must play out the game to its conclusion.

Besides, he wanted revenge. He hated that bitch.

She’d tried to kill him, for God’s sake.

But she’d failed. And that was her mistake. A fatal mistake. He would not rest until he had her in his hands again. And when he did, he would take her life slowly, not with the garrote, but with the knife she’d used on him. He would cut her to pieces while she grunted and groaned, unable to scream; it was hard to scream without a tongue.

“You’ll be sorry, Miss Wendy lying-slut Alden,” Rood said aloud, his voice hollow in the confines of the car. “Oh, yes, I swear, you’ll be oh-so-very sorry you fucked with me.”