the woman in a more private place. He forced her into the hall and headed deeper
into the house, looking in doors as they went until he found the master bedroom.
There, he gave her a hard shove, and she sprawled on the floor.
“Stay put,” he said.
He switched on the bedside lamps. He went to the big sliding-glass doors that
opened onto the patio and began to close the drapes.
The moment his back was turned, the woman scrambled to her feet and ran toward
the hall door.
He caught her, slammed her up against the wall, drove a fist into her stomach,
knocking the wind out of her, then threw her to the floor again. Lifting her
head by a handful of hair, he forced her to look him in the eyes. “Listen, lady,
I’m not going to shoot you. I came here to get your husband. Just your husband.
But if you try to slip away from me before I’m ready to let you go, I’ll have to
waste you, too. Understand?”
He was lying, of course. She was the one he was being paid to hit, and the
husband had to be removed simply because he was there. However, it was true that
Vince was not going to shoot her. He wanted her to be cooperative until he could
tie her up and deal with her at a more leisurely pace. The two shootings had
been satisfying, but he wanted to draw this one out, kill her more slowly.
Sometimes, death could be savored like good food, fine wine, and glorious
sunsets.
Gasping for breath, sobbing, she said, “Who are you?”
“None of your business.”
“What do you want?”
“Just shut up, cooperate, and you’ll get out of this alive.”
She was reduced to urgent prayer, running the words together and sometimes
punctuating them with small desperate wordless sounds.
Vince finished closing the drapes.
He tore the phone out of the wall and pitched it across the room.
Taking the woman by the arm again, he pulled her to her feet and dragged her
into the bathroom. He searched through drawers until he found first-aid
Supplies; the adhesive tape was just what he needed.
In the bedroom once more, he made her lie on her back on the bed. He Used the
tape to bind her ankles together and to secure her wrists in front of
her. From a bureau drawer, he got a pair of her flimsy panties, which he wadded
up and stuffed into her mouth. He sealed her mouth shut with a final strip of
tape.
She was shaking violently, blinking through tears and sweat.
He left the bedroom, went to the living room, and knelt beside Jonathan
Yarbeck’s corpse, with which he had unfinished business. He turned it over.
One of the bullets that had entered the back of Yarbeck’s head had punched
out through his throat, just under his chin. His open mouth was full of blood.
One eye was rolled back in his skull, so only the white showed.
Vince looked into the other eye. “Thank you,” he said sincerely, reverently.
“Thank you, Mr. Yarbeck.”
He closed both eyelids. He kissed them.
“Thank you.”
He kissed the dead man’s forehead.
“Thank you for what you’ve given me.”
Then he went into the garage, where he searched through cabinets until he found
some tools. He selected a hammer with a comfortable rubberized handle and a
polished steel head.
When he returned to the quiet bedroom and put the hammer on the mattress beside
the bound woman, her eyes widened almost comically.
She began to twist and squirm, tried to wrench her hands loose of the looped
adhesive tape, to no avail.
Vince stripped out of his clothes.
Seeing the woman’s eyes fix on him with the same terror with which she had
regarded the hammer, he said, “No, please, don’t worry, Dr. Yarbeck. I’m not
going to molest you.” He hung his suit jacket and shirt on the back of a chair.
“I have no sexual interest in you.” He slipped out of his shoes, socks, and
trousers. “You won’t have to suffer that humiliation. I’m not that sort of man.