“I’m from your father, Mrs. Benton.”
“He knows better than this. I don’t have anything to say to him.”
“I only need five minutes of your time, Mrs. Benton. It’s just some papers he wants you to sign.”
“I thought I already did that years ago. How come he...?”
“It will only take a moment,” Wesley said, as he gently pushed the door open and stepped past her and into the apartment.
The place was quiet except for the raucous meow of a Persian cat reclining on the velvet sofa. Wesley walked toward the wall-length sofa as though he intended to sit down. The woman followed close behind him at a quicker pace, nervously patting her piled-up hair into place.
“Look! I told my father and I’ll tell you, I—”
Wesley wheeled suddenly and slammed his right fist deep into the woman’s stomach. She grunted and fell to the rug, retching. He slipped the brass knuckles off his hand and knelt beside the woman. She was struggling to breathe, her face a mottled mask of red and white. Wesley reached into his pocket and brought out anaesthetic nose plugs. He inserted them into the woman’s nostrils, put a handkerchief over her mouth, and watched closely until her breathing became slow and measured. He put on the surgeon’s gloves, then carefully removed all his clothing, folding it neatly into the opened attache case. A thin stream of blood ran out of the corner of the woman’s mouth.
Wesley laid the Beretta on the rug beside the woman, fitted the tube silencer, and doubled-locked the front door. The cat vanished. Pet had told him that the husband was a gourmet, so he knew what to look for.
He found the butcher knives—hollow-ground Swedish steel with rosewood handles—and the portable butcher block on the stove island. He brought the whole set back into the living room.
Wesley gently laid the woman’s head on a couch pillow and placed the butcher block under her neck. When he pulled the pillow out from under her head and tugged back on her hair, the skin of her throat stretched taut, the veins in her neck leaping out against the pale skin. He held the heavy chopping knife poised eighteen inches from her throat and mentally focused on a spot three inches beyond the butcher block. Wesley took a deep breath. The butcher knife flashed down like a jet and blood spurted from the neck arteries. It took three more full-strength blows before the head fell off.
Wesley grabbed the headless body by the ankles and dragged it toward the bedroom, leaving a thick trail of blood and paler fluids. He dumped the body on the bed and left the bedspread to absorb the mess while he went back for the head.
Wesley turned the body over on its back. He spread the woman’s legs as far as they would go, quickly lashing each ankle to a leg of the matching teak bedposts with piano wire so they wouldn’t close during rigor mortis. Then he took the head and pressed it down on the bed, moving it backwards in its trail of fluid until it was squarely between the woman’s legs, staring straight ahead.
Wesley dug his right hand into the gaping neck and worked his fingers until they were completely smeared with blood. He walked to the off-white wall behind the woman’s body and wrote:
WEASELS ... THE WAGES OF DEATH IS SIN! this is the beginning ...
He went looking for the cat and found it under the rolltop desk in the den. Wesley pulled it out, careful at first so as not to be scratched, until he saw its claws had been removed, probably to protect the furniture. He stroked the animal to calm it down. And then pushed it into the den, closing the door behind him.
Wesley entered the Japanese-style bathroom and took a shower; first blazing hot, then icy cold. When he was completely clean and all the blood had gone down the drain, he left the water running as he dried himself with a towel from his attache case. Then he dressed, first putting the surgeon’s gloves into a plastic bag and returning them to his case.
Before he left, he used the black silk handkerchief to wipe every surface. The library had told him that twelve points were all that was necessary for a legally sufficient identification of a fingerprint. But Wesley knew his case would never reach a courtroom if there was any identification at all.
Everything went back into the attache case.
It was 10:26 when Wesley let himself out of the apartment, the handkerchief still in his hand as he turned the doorknob. The hallway was empty. He took the elevator downstairs, got off, and walked across the deserted lobby to the doorman.
The street was quiet. The sun was already boiling the concrete, but the people from that neighborhood went from their air-conditioned apartments to their air-conditioned cars to their air-conditioned offices or air-conditioned shops. Nobody walked; they even paid people to walk their animals for them.
The doorman smiled at Wesley’s approach. Wesley motioned him over.
“I have a package in my car for Mrs. Benton.”
“Just bring it around to the back entrance, sir. The super will— ”
“Mrs. Benton said she would like you to deliver this to her
“Certainly, sir. If you’ll just bring it inside here to me, I’ll—”
“It’s a little too big for that. Could I drive around to the service entrance and give it to you there?”
“Yes, sir, you could, but I don’t like to leave the door unattended.”
“Mrs. Benton said to give you this for your trouble,” Wesley said smoothly, handing the man a pair of twenty-dollar bills. “She understands how it is. Can you bring it right up after I give it to you?”
The doorman all but saluted. “I’ll just wait here a couple of minutes to give you time to get around back—I don’t want to be off my post too long.”
“Appreciate it.”
Wesley walked out the front door and climbed into the El Dorado. He drove off to the corner and turned right;
