He stopped at a 7-Eleven in Washington Heights for coffee - three coffees, actually. Black, with four sugars in each. He drank most of one of the cups on his way to the counter.

The Indian cashier gave him a cheeky, suspicious look, and he laughed in the bearded wanker's face.

'Do you really think I'd steal a bloody seventy-five-cent cup of coffee? You pathetic jerkoff. You pitiful Fuck.'

He threw his money on the counter and left before he killed the clerk with his bare hands, which he could do easily enough.

From the 7-Eleven he drove into the Northeast part of Washington, a middle-class section called Eckington. He began to recognize the streets when he was west of Gallaudet University. Most of the structures were two-storied apartments, with vinyl siding, either red brick, or a hideous Easter-egg blue that always made him wince.

He stopped in front of one of the red-brick garden apartments on Uhland Terrace, near Second Street. This one had an attached garage. A previous tenant had adorned the brick facade with two white concrete cats.

'Hello, pussies.' Shafer said. He felt relieved to be here. He was 'cycling up'- that is, getting high, manic. He loved this feeling, couldn't get enough of it. It was time to play the game.

CHAPTER Five

A rusted and taped-up purple-and-blue taxi was parked inside the two-car garage. Shafer had been using it for about four months. The taxi gave him anonymity, made him almost invisible anywhere he chose to go in DC. He called it his 'nighI'mare machine'.