"As if it wasn't."

"A profit of hundreds of millions of dollars is not the goal of the average lunatic."

"But you did like it, didn't you?"

Gaynor ignored this.

"Later, I came back for her. She was stiff by then. You were right, it was easy to arrange the body in the park so no one would know she'd been moved. Then I broke her beads and sent them flying everywhere."

Gaynor was smiling, and it was hardly an engaging smile. The man was enjoying his exposition. Of course, the downside of the perfect murder would be the lack of an appreciative audience.

"That was risky, even in the small hours of the morning," said Charles, hoping for the ring of appreciation in his own voice.

"I admit that part was exciting. But what were the odds of anyone watching at four in the morning? No one's very alert at that hour. I wore jeans and a baseball cap to pass as a maintenance man. I threw a bow-legged gait into the role. I was only carrying a large garbage bag. Nothing too sinister in that. Maintenance drones are invisible in that neighborhood. If it hadn't worked, if anyone had come forward with a description of a maintenance man with a garbage bag, it would never have come back on me. No motive. This was Henry's grandmother not mine."

"It never occurred to you that Henry would report his grandmother missing during the night?"

"The police won't take a missing-person report until forty-eight hours go by. I was hardly worried about Henry getting a posse together to beat the bushes for her. You've met him. I saw you in the park with him. It wasn't much of a risk. The worst thing that could have happened was that she'd be found somewhere else."

"Where did you kill your aunt?"

"I invited her to lunch and met her on a side street near the campus. She never mentioned the appointment to anyone. I had to volunteer the information to the police so they could verify my alibi for either side of the half-hour when I didn't have one. I told them she stood me up."

"I suppose that was quite understandable to them, since she was being murdered at that time. And Pearl Whitman? How did you get her into that East Village neighborhood?"

"I told her I was a broker with information to give the US Attorney's office about the cartel. She offered me a bribe. I told her she'd have to meet with me to work out the details. By public telephones, I led her from block to block, sort of eased her into the neighborhood by degrees."

"So, the fear of notoriety, prison and poverty overcame her fear of a bad neighborhood."

"Exactly. Samantha Siddon was only a little different. I had the impression she was looking forward to our meeting. I used a series of public phones to bring her to the theater by three different cabs. I had her walk the last few blocks and met her at the back of the building. I killed her behind a trash bin. That only took a few minutes. It took me longer to dress for the play rehearsal."

"How did you transport the body to Gramercy?"

"I usually go everywhere by cab. That day I hired a rental car for the occasion. I had to leave early, before Mallory's usual arrival time. I didn't want her to see the car."

The knife backed away another inch. He braced his arm on the arm of the chair. "But you still haven't delivered, Charles. You don't have anything that would stick, unless there's something else you've left out."

"Only this." Charles pushed the knife away and blinded Gaynor with Edith's unfurled shawl. He pulled the gun from the chair cushion and leveled it at Gaynor's head as the man ripped the shawl away from his face.

"Put down the knife. The police should be here any minute now. I expect they're on the way up in the elevator."

Gaynor smiled, and it was Charles's turn to play "What's going on here?" A child's game flashed through his brain.

Paper covers stone, scissors cut paper, stone breaks scissors.

A gun could not be outdone by a knife. So, why was Gaynor smiling?

"The police? No, I don't think so, Charles. You couldn't have known I would come – you only hoped I would. You're bluffing."

"I can't bluff. God knows I've tried. I just don't have the face for it."

The knife fell from Gaynor's hand and thudded to the carpet. "I believe you."

Well, that was more like it. Logic reigned.

Illogically, Gaynor lunged for the gun.

They were locked together, hands grappling for control of the weapon, limbs writhing, faces contorted. They were turning now, gun pointing to the ceiling, hands sweating and sliding over one another's flesh, legs kicking out, turning, turning into the dark hallway, knocking against the narrow walls and falling into the front room. They went to the floor and rolled, man over man, across the rug. The room was too dark to see the gun clearly. It was only a vague shape and cold metal, and the barrel was changing position, pointing lower. It was still in Charles's hands when it fired.

It was an explosion to crack the world. Charles reached for his side, his face all in agony. Gaynor rose to his feet, sole owner of the gun. He took a handkerchief from one pocket. A plastic bag from the same pocket fell to the floor.

"You couldn't have shot me, Charles. You're much too sane and civilized." He methodically wiped the gun's barrel and then its revolving chamber and handle. "It was predictable that you'd hesitate before you took a human life. That half-second has killed you." He bent down to retrieve the plastic bag from the floor and wrapped it around the handle of the gun. "And to answer your question honestly, yes I did love it. I do love it. I'm exhilarated."

Pain was giving way to shock as he watched Gaynor ease down on the back of his heels, well out of the stream of light from the open door which now shone on Charles's face. The better to see the fear? Was Gaynor waiting for that? Yes. No killing could be complete without it.

Charles could feel the blood on his hand. The barrel of the gun was pointing to his heart, and there was no doubt that death was coming. Fear was crowded out of his mind by the approach of death, its loud footfalls, its enormity. A moment stretched out for an eternity. He was at his mother's bedside again. She had not been frightened. She had heard it coming and succumbed to the wonder of it. She had died with an expression of amazement.

He smiled at Gaynor, and the man's face clouded up with anger. The gun barrel was pressed to Charles's heart.

Soon.

He heard the bell for the elevator. So Jack Coffey had come, but not in time. There was not the space of a second to call out. He heard the shot and felt the bone-shattering assault on his chest. His muscles jerked and then he lay motionless in the dark with only the light of the hall to show the outline of his body on the carpet. The higher orders of his beautiful brain were shutting down, memory was collapsing in on itself. The most primitive portion of his mind, where passion was seated, was the last repository of consciousness. The last thing in this world that his senses could reach was the voice of Henrietta Ramsharan, followed close by the sudden rush of Mallory's perfume.

Mallory shot out of Edith Candle's apartment and ran for the exit door which was closing on its slow hydraulic. She was murderous in the eyes and the grip of her gun. She stood on the stairwell landing.

Which way? Up or down?

The noise from below was faint. Breaking glass? She looked down through the winding metal stairs to the basement door which stood ajar. He could only be seconds through that door. But wait, something was off. Instinct kept her still. Breaking glass? The only window in the cellar was on the other side of the accordion partition where Max Candle's illusions were stored. Was Edith in the cellar? Had she opened that partition?