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“You get me so hot, Rita.”

Her bunched fingers stroked his chest, moving in a little circle. “If I could get him hot,” she said, “so hot his heart would burst, I’d do it.”

“You hate him that much.”

“He’s ruining my life, Jimmy. He’s draining me, he’s sucking the life out of me. You know what he’s done.”

“And you can’t just leave him.”

“He told me what I’d get if I ever tried. Didn’t I tell you?”

“You really think...”

“ ‘Acid in your face, Rita. Not in the eyes, because I’ll want you to be able to see what you look like. Acid all over your tits, too, and between your legs, so nobody will ever want you, not even with a bag over your head.’ ”

“What a bastard.”

“George is worse than that. He’s a monster.”

“I mean, to say a thing like that.”

“And it’s not just talk, either. He’d do it. He’d enjoy doing it.”

He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “He deserves to die.”

“Tonight, Jimmy.”

“Tonight?”

“Baby, I can’t wait for it to be over. And we have to do it before he finds out about you and me. I think he’s starting to suspect something, and if he ever finds out for sure...”

“That wouldn’t be good.”

“It would be the end of everything. Acid for me, and God knows what for you. We can’t afford to wait.”

“I know.”

“He’ll be home tonight. I’ll make sure he drinks a lot of wine with dinner. There’s a baseball game on television and he’ll want to watch it. He always watches, and he never stays awake past the third inning. He settles into his La-Z-Boy and puts his feet up, and he’s out in no time at all.”

Her hand moved idly as she went over the plan, working its way down his chest, down over his stomach, stroking, petting, eliciting a response.

“He’ll be in the den,” she was saying. “You remember where that is. On the first floor, the second window on the right-hand side. He’ll have the alarm set, but I’ll fix it so it’s limited to the doors. There’s a way to do that, in case you want to have a window open for ventilation. And I’ll have the window in the den open a couple of inches. Even if there’s a draft and he gets up and closes it, it won’t be locked. You’ll be able to open it without setting off the alarm. Jimmy? Is something the matter?”

He took hold of her wrist. “Just that you’re setting off my alarm,” he said.

“Don’t you like what I’m doing?”

“I love it, but—”

“You’ll come in through the window,” she went on. “He’ll be asleep in his chair. There’s all this crap on the walls, swords and daggers, a ceremonial war club from some South Sea Island tribe. Stab him with a dagger or beat his head in with the club.”

“It’ll look spur-of-the-moment,” he said. “Burglar breaks in, panics when the guy wakes up, then grabs whatever’s closest and — Christ!”

“I just grabbed whatever was closest,” she said innocently. “Jimmy, I can’t help it. It gets me all excited thinking about it.” Her lips brushed him. “We may have to stay away from each other for a while,” she said, “while I do the Grieving Widow number.” Her breath was warm on his flesh. “So I’ve got an idea, Jimmy. Suppose we have our victory celebration now?”

“A splendid dinner,” George said, pushing back from the table. He was a large and physically imposing man, twenty years her senior. “But you didn’t eat much, my dear.”

“No appetite,” she said.

“For food.”

“Well...”

“I guess it’s almost time,” he said, “for me to adjourn to the library for brandy and cigars. Except it’s a den, not a library, and brandy gives me heartburn, and I don’t smoke cigars. But you know what I mean.”

“Time for you to watch the ballgame. Who’s playing?”

“The Cubs and the Astros.”

“And is it an important game?”

“There’s no such thing as an important game,” he said. “Grown men trying to hit a ball with a stick. How important could that possibly be?”

“But you’ll watch it.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Another cup of coffee first?”

“Another cup? Hmmm. Well, it is exceptionally good coffee. And I guess there’s time.”

This is crazy, he thought.

There was her house, and there, in the second window on the right-hand side, was the flickering glow of a television screen. The garage door was closed, and there were no cars parked in the driveway, or at the curb. Nobody walking around on the street.

Crazy...

He drove halfway around the block, found a parking place out of the reach of the streetlights. He left the car unlocked and circled the block on foot, his heartbeat quickening as he neared her house.

Anyone who saw him would see a man of medium height and build dressed in dark clothes. And he’d burn the clothes when this was over. He’d assume there were bloodstains, or some other sort of physical evidence, and he’d leave nothing to chance.

Impossible to believe he was actually going to do this. Going to kill a man, a man he’d never met. And would never meet, because with any luck at all he’d strike the fatal blow while the man slept.

Not a man, not really. A monster. Acid on that beautiful face, those perfect breasts...

A monster.

Was it murder when Beowulf slew Grendel? When St. George struck down the dragon? That was heroism, not homicide. It was what you had to do if you wanted to win the heart of the fair maiden.

Or he could go home right now and forget about her. There were plenty of women out there, and most of them never asked you to kill anybody. How hard would it be to find somebody else?

Not like her, though. Never anybody like her. Never had been, and he somehow knew there never would be.

Never an afternoon like the one he’d just spent. Never. Drained him, emptied him out — and, even so, just remembering it was getting him stirred up again.

He was at the window now. It was open a few inches, as she’d said it would be, and through it he could hear the voices of the baseball announcers, the crack of the bat, the subdued roar of the crowd. The mindless prattle of the commercial. “Bud.” “Wei.” “Ser.”

He strained to hear more. Movement from the man. The husband.

The monster.

He got up on his toes, hooked his hands under the bottom edge of the window. He was standing in a bed of shrubbery, and it struck him that he was leaving footprints. Have to get rid of the shoes, too, he thought, along with the rest of his clothes.

Unless he gave it up and went home right now.

But how much better he’d feel if he went home in triumph, with the monster slain and the maiden won!

Besides, he realized, he wanted to do it. Wanted to thrust with the dagger, to flail away with the war club. God help him, he couldn’t wait.

He took a full breath and eased the window all the way open.

She hadn’t been able to eat. Now, upstairs in the bedroom she shared with her husband, she found herself unable to sit still. Her pulse was rapid, her mouth dry, her palms damp.

Any minute now...

She stripped to her skin, let her clothes lie where they fell. She sat up in bed and gazed down at her naked body, as if with a lover’s eyes. And touched herself, as if with a lover’s hands.

Remembering: