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* Title : #002 : DEATH CHECK *

* Series : The Destroyer *

* Author(s) : Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir *

* Location : Gillian Archives *

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CHAPTER ONE

It was a very fast killing.

Touch the needle to the left arm. Press your thumb in between the left bicep and the tricep to pump up the vein. Ah, there it is. Clear the air from the syringe. Then in. Full. Slowly push the plunger all the way.

Done.

Remove the needle and let him collapse back again beside the chess table where he had fallen moments before. His head cracked on the polished parquet floor, and the killer could not help wincing, even though a man with a splendid overdose of heroin needs no sympathy.

"You know, my dear," said the man with the needle. "Some people pay for this. I mean they actually pay to do this to themselves."

"You didn't have to do it that way. You could have given him to me first. I wanted him tonight."

She said this, staring directly at the killer's eyes, trying to get him to look at her instead of the man on the floor. She wore black mesh stockings, covered to the knees with deeply polished black boots. She wore lipstick the colour of dried blood. That was all. She held a whip in her left hand and when she stamped her feet, her naked breasts quivered.

"Will you listen to me?" she demanded.

"Shhh," said the man, his hand on the wrist of the person on the floor. "Ahh, yes. He must be in ecstasy. This might not be a bad way to go when you really think of it. Shhh."

There was silence. Then the man said, "A very fast and efficient job. He's dead."

"He's dead and what about me? Have you given any thought to me?"

"Yes, my dear. Put your clothes on." The man who had once been known as Dr. Hans Frichtmann busied himself pressing the now-empty hypodermic needle into the dead man's left arm in three other spots, barely missing the fatal entry hole. When the body was found, the holes would show that it had taken the victim four tries to find the vein. An amateur. That would help to explain the massive overdose. Not perfect, but it might do.