He loaded his camera and attached a flashbulb strip. He greased the connecting doorjamb. He framed angles for some face shots.

Ten minutes crawled by. Pete listened for next-door sounds. There, Gail’s signal-”Damn, where’s my key?” a beat too loud.

Pete pressed up to the wall. He heard Lonely Walt pitch some boo-hoo: my wife and kids don’t know a man has certain needs. Gail said, Why’d you have seven kids then? Walt said, It keeps my wife at home, where a woman belongs.

Their voices faded out bed-bound. Shoes went thunk. Gail kicked a high-heeled pump at the wall-her three-minutes-to-blastoff signal.

Pete laughed-thirty-dollar-a-night rooms with goddamn wafer-thin walls.

Zippers snagged. Bedsprings creaked. Seconds tick-tick-ticked. Walter P. Kinnard started groaning-Pete clocked him saddled in at 2:44.

He waited for 3:00 even. He eeeeased the door open-that doorjamb grease lubed out every little scriiich.

There: Gail and Walter P. Kinnard fucking.

In the missionary style, with their heads close together- courtroom adultery evidence. Walt was loving it. Gail was feigning ecstasy and picking at a hangnail.

Pete got closeup close and let fly.

One, two, three-flashbulb blips Tommy-gun fast. The whole goddamn room went glare bright

Kinnard shrieked and pulled out dishrag limp. Gail tumbled off the bed and ran for the bathroom.

Sexy buck-naked Walt 5’9”, 210, pudgy.

Pete dropped his camera and picked him up by the neck. Pete laid his pitch out nice and slow.

“Your wife wants a divorce. She wants eight hundred a month, the house, the ‘56 Buick and orthodontic treatments for your son Timmy. You give her everything she wants, or I’ll find you and kill you.”

Kinnard popped spit bubbles. Pete admired his color: half shock-blue, half cardiac-red.

Steam whooshed out the bathroom door-Gail’s standard postfuck shower always went down quick.