He lifted his head and closed his eyes. Rain pelted his face. He drank, gulped with thirst, broke the spell, folded the knife and pocketed it.

He took one last look at the mutilated body sprawled on the stones of the roof. It was time to go. He was satisfied.

He limped toward the door.

About half the students of Wallen School on West End Avenue had not shown up for classes that morning. All the teachers had made their way, some coming from Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, places where they could afford the rent on teachers' salaries and still have something left over so they could eat.

Wallen, grades K through 12, had a strict policy and exclusive criteria for admission. If you could afford the tuition, which was twenty-seven thousand a year, you were in.

Wayne O'Shea, thirty-four, who the students called Brody behind his back because of his faint resemblance to the actor Adrien Brody, was one of those who made the daily pilgrimage from Brooklyn. He had been doing it for the past six years, long enough for his salary to climb up to a living wage. Wayne was gay, which was not a drawback at Wallen, where the faculty included two blacks, three Hispanics, one gay man, and a bearded Muslim who were proudly displayed for prospective parents.

First period, English Literature II, had gone as he had expected. Only seven students, the ones who lived within fifteen minutes of the school, sat in a gray state of dream unable to resist the sight of the torrent, easily able to resist D. H. Lawrence. Wayne couldn't blame them. He himself had gone from avid champion of Lawrence when he was in college to bored adult when Lady Chatterly's Lover came around on the reading list.