He nodded, piled the sweater and slacks and stocking cap on the nearby kitchenette counter. “Shoes and socks, too,” I said.

He shrugged and started to unlace his black military- style boots.

“I don’t have to tell you not to try throwing a shoe at me or anything, do I? No, I didn’t think so.”

He put the boots on the counter, and sighed, as to say, “What now?”

“Back to the bedroom,” I said.

He started walking down the hallway. When we got to the end, he veered toward the master bedroom.

“No,” I said. “The other one.”

I wanted him to use the spare bedroom, because I had new sheets on the other bed, and the bed in here just had some old ragged ones I wouldn’t mind messing up. Also, there was a plastic liner.

“Get in,” I said, motioning to the bed.

He hesitated, showing confusion and, for the first time, worry.

“Don’t screw it up now,” I said. “You been fine up to here. Very professional. I respect that. So do as I say, and maybe you’ll be around tomorrow. Get in bed.”

Reluctantly, he climbed under the covers. There was more light in here, as the drapes were back and the light from the street a quarter-mile over was seeping in. I saw his face: young, rather blank, his features very ordinary but not unpleasant. His skin was extremely pale, the cold-reddened cheeks fading now.

“Pull the covers up around your neck,” I said. He did.

“Now what?” he said, speaking for the first time.

And the last.

The silenced nine-millimeter made its thudding sound and I went back out into the living room to get into the dead man’s clothes.

2

I sat on the floor in the spare bedroom with my back against the dresser and played dead. The second guy would be coming in sometime within the next five to ten minutes and, hopefully, would in the darkness assume the figure dressed in black, slumped on the bedroom floor, was his partner; and that the blood-spattered shape in the bed was me.