Whitey checked his watch: not even six, still dark, just over twelve hours to go. He climbed down out of the pickup, pissed against somebody's tire, considered Roger's plan. For one thing, he didn't like the taxi part. He'd ridden taxis three or four times in his life and hadn't been comfortable, not with that meter ticking away. And, despite Roger's reassurance, why drag a witness into the picture, especially when he had the pickup? Funny, too, the pickup with REDEEMER now written on the side. Didn't people redeem things from pawnshops, things like paintings? Whitey tried to tie it together into some sort of joke, and almost did. All that thinking before he even finished his piss! His mind was sharp today, speeding as fast as it ever had, maybe faster. He had barely zipped up and returned to the cab before he had another thought, connected to the pawnshop idea-and Christ! to get this picture of how his own mind was working, making connections, redeemer and pawnshop-how amazing was that?

The pawnshop connection was this: How much was the garden painting worth? My garden, or oh my garden, or whatever the hell it was. Roger had never said anything about its value, just that it was part of a divorce dispute. But would anyone fight over something worthless? No. So the question was: How much? Whitey turned the key and goosed the engine a couple times, vroom-vroom. How much? A word almost came to mind, a word they used in war movies when some guy, usually the toughest, was sent ahead to check things out. The toughest guy, who just nodded and did whatever it took. Whitey put the pickup in gear and drove out of the mall parking lot.

He made a few stops along the way. First, a pizza place for breakfast: deep dish with everything and an extralarge Pepsi. Second, and by now he was almost in New Hampshire, a hardware store for his supplies: a flashlight, batteries, and something sharp. He was still searching for the right sort of sharp something when a clerk approached.

"What are you lookin'to cut?" asked the clerk.

Canvas. Painting canvas. But what was painting canvas, exactly? Whitey wasn't sure. "Like cardboard," he said. "Heavy-duty cardboard."

"Heavy-duty cardboard," said the clerk, moving toward a bin. "This here should do you."

"What is it?"

"Box cutter."

"Does it come any bigger?"

"There's this one."

"I'll take it. And I need the receipt."

Third, a stripper's bar for lunch. Whitey sat by himself at the back, had a beer, a Polish sausage, another beer. That Polish sausage was something, squirting in his mouth with all those spices. They didn't serve food like that inside. The reminder of what he'd missed out on pissed him off a little and he ordered another beer-just the one, since he was on the job-plus a shot of bar whiskey, even though he could now afford better.

The place was packed: smoke, noise, suits and ties, hairy hands stuffing money into garter belts. Red garter belts, because it was Christmas, and some of the girls wore Santa Claus hats as well, but that was all. He watched them jiggle around, rub themselves against brass poles, bend over. He got a hard-on, all right, but it didn't last. The problem-and he could figure it out easily the way his mind was working today-was he could see right through everything. It was all a fake: those huge, hard tits, the way their hands went down and almost started going to work on themselves, but not quite, how they opened those lipstick mouths as though feeling pleasure while their eyes flickered here and there. They were pros and what he wanted were amateurs-amateur housewives, like the women in Rey's video. He wanted to show one of those amateur housewives what he could do, to make her make those sounds for real. Women, amateur women, were helpless when they were making those sounds, and the dick was the tool that did it. Sue Savard should have given him the chance. There was a body, a real amateur body. Whitey got hard again recalling it, ordered another beer-and a shot. This really was the last; when the glasses were empty and the hard-on was gone, he paid his bill and went outside.

Snow falling, just as he'd told Roger it would, falling hard, cleaning everything up, whitening the world. He'd always liked snow, now wondered for the first time-what a day he was having, mentally, and it had barely begun!-whether it had anything to do with his name. They'd called him Whitey because of his hair, of course, not because he liked snow, but maybe he liked the snow so much because of the name; identified with it, he thought, remembering a word the prison shrink used all the time. And right after remembering that word, he remembered another: reconnoiter, what the toughest guy did in the war movies. He wiped his windshield clear with the sleeve of his leather jacket, got in the pickup, drove on. Time to reconnoiter.

Whitey came in sight of the Merrimack a couple hours ahead of schedule. That was one variation from the plan. No taxi was a second. And now came a third: Whitey didn't cross the river, over to the side with the gate, the lane through the sloping meadow, the jetty, those frozen-in dinghies. He had his reasons. What sense did that sixfifteen precisely shit make when it would be dark long before then-soon, in fact? And what had Roger said about a Brinks truck? Wouldn't be too smooth to run into that on the way in, would it? But the biggest reason was that Roger had stepped on his toe. No excuse for that, no forgiveness. He was a free man now, and much more, an administrative assistant, a professional. He had rights. And what he had in mind wouldn't be difficult. He knew his way around these woods. Whitey recalled that Roger had asked him about that at the gator farm, almost in those same words: Know your way around the woods up there? Probably figured Whitey for this job at that very moment; maybe Roger was a little smarter than he'd thought. But not in Whitey's league, especially not on a day like today. Following back roads on the east side of the river, Whitey sped north, fish-tailing around the curves. He knew the woods, and he was one hell of a driver.

Snow fell harder. The plows gave up on the back roads and the traffic dwindled to nothing, except for Whitey in his pickup. When the time came, he didn't even pull to the side to put on the chains, just stopped in the middle of the road and got them out of the truck bed. So quiet with the snow all around like cotton, he could hear his own pulse. He climbed back in the cab, switched on the radio, but couldn't find the metal station they'd picked up in Roger's car. The station had been playing Metallica, but not "Master of Puppets," his all-time favorite Metallica song. He felt like hearing it now: Master of puppets I'm pulling your strings, twisting your mind and smashing your dreams. Pure poetry, but Whitey couldn't find the station and kept going in silence.

He spotted the island from the top of a rise. It looked different from this side of the river, wilder because the cottage was almost hidden from sight by those big trees and everything whiter even than yesterday, snow coating not just the branches and the roof but the trunks themselves, and the sides of the cottage. Whitey found a lookout two or three hundred yards farther on, drove to the end of it, his chains crunching on the unpacked snow. From this angle, on the edge of a steep incline leading down to the river, he had a view of the upstream end of the island, and beyond it the long sloping meadow on the other side. He saw no sign of a Brinks truck, or anything else; nothing moved except the snow, angling down now as the wind began to rise. Whitey turned up the heat.

He watched the island, the unlit windows of the cottage, the smokeless air above the chimney. What were the details of the garden painting? Nothing to do with hockey, he recalled, but something about a girl in a miniskirt. Eating grapes, was that it? Sounded kind of interesting, just on its own, but the question, the big question, as Whitey saw it now, remained: How much?

Snow. Supposing, Whitey thought, you were a Brinks truck driver, and you knew snow was on the way. Wouldn't you try to beat the weather, make your delivery earlier, in the morning, say? Sure as shit you would. Meaning the painting was already there, and any tracks left on the lane through the meadow were wiped out, as was the lane itself. Whitey checked his watch: 4: 15, precisely. Precisely, you fucker. Roger would be waiting for him at the gate in a little more than two hours. Meanwhile snow was falling harder and harder, and now darkness was falling, too. Someone planning to cross the river would be smart to do it soon, while he could still see where he was going. There was no one around to see him in this storm, so the argument about waiting for darkness didn't stand up anymore. Brinks truck, cover of darkness-no longer factors. Was there another reason for him not to go now? Whitey couldn't think of one; at the same time, he could feel the key Roger had given him, an ordinary brass key, inside his pocket, waiting there against his thigh, pressing on his skin. Paintings could be worth millions. Millions: wouldn't that be something? A garage full of cars-Benz, Porsche, the biggest goddamn pickup on the market-plus any woman he wanted. He could advertise for them, for Christ's sake, and they'd come running with their tongues hanging out.

Whitey clipped the flashlight to his belt and opened the door. All these reasons, all this back-and-forth, all this thinking, but it came down to one thing: he couldn't wait to get inside. Back in action. Yes! He climbed out of the pickup, locked the door-no one around, but you never knew-and looked around for the easiest route down to the river, the easiest route down, but more important, the easiest route back up. Roger could sit by the gate on the other side all night if he wanted. Meanwhile, he'd be on his way to-to somewhere-with a milliondollar painting in his truck. The idea of it made Whitey laugh to himself a couple of times. He stopped laughing when he realized he'd almost forgotten the box cutter. Whitey unlocked the door and took it off the seat.

Whitey started down, slipping and sliding on the snowy bank in his cowboy boots, grabbing at branches for support with one hand, holding the box cutter in the other, but never in danger of falling. He did know his way around the woods, and he'd always had great balance, had been up on skates at the age of two. As he walked across the river, plodded, really, sinking to the knees with every step, snow getting inside his boots but not bothering him at all, he felt for the first time the full force of his freedom. He was a giant, could do anything-reach the island in a single bound, rip one of those trees right out of the earth, smash the cottage to bits with it. The song came to him again and he sang it as he went, the wind driving thick snowflakes right into his mouth. Master of puppets I'm pulling your strings, twisting your mind and smashing your dreams.

Whitey walked onto the island. Moving under the shelter of those big trees, he heard a sharp hooting high above, glanced up, saw an owl making shivering motions, shaking the snow off its feathers. It stopped shivering as he watched, stared down at him with yellow eyes.

Whitey stepped up to the porch through smooth, untrodden snow. He brushed more of it off the little round window set in the front door, put his face to the glass: a shadowy kitchen, everything gray except the half-full bottle of red wine on the table. No sound, no movement, no armed guards. Whitey took out the brass key, tried to put it into the lock. It wouldn't go. He had a horrible moment, even began to hear that panicky buzz. Had Roger lied to him? But why? And worse, was it some kind of setup? He glanced around, saw no one, just snow swirling through the trees. Then, probably because his mind was working so well today, he solved the problem just like that, solved the problem by sticking the key in his mouth. Whitey gave it a good lick, tried again. The warm wet key slid right in. He turned it, opened the door, went inside. A little avalanche tumbled in after him; he closed the door as well as he could, without actually bothering to bend down and get rid of all the snow now packed in against the riser.

Whitey looked around: a pine-smelling cottage, all polished and clean, the kind that belonged to rich people from the city. He picked up the bottle of wine. Chateau something: French. What had he had a shot of at Sue Savard's? Gin. He pulled the cork with his teeth, took a hit. He'd only drunk wine once or twice, so long ago he didn't remember the taste, just that he hadn't liked it. He didn't like it now. Maybe he'd get used to it. Rich people, the kind who owned million-dollar paintings, drank wine. He moved through the dining room, more quiet and careful than in the old days, around the corner to the living room, found the stairs. They rose up into darkness. Don't turn on any lights. You'll need a flash. Whitey unclipped his flashlight, switched it on, started up. Outside the owl hooted. The sound sent a jolt through Whitey, but not a sharp one, not sharp enough to set off the panicky buzz, although he did tighten his grip on the box cutter.

Upstairs are two bedrooms. Whitey shone his light into each, one made up, one not. That was where things got a little complicated. The painting was hidden in one of them, but which? Roger hadn't made that clear, as usual. Whitey went into the made-up bedroom, facing the side of the river with the jetty and the dinghies, now completely buried under the snow, and the sloping meadow, featureless in the failing light. From this spot, he'd easily see any headlights, Roger's, for example. He checked his watch, found he couldn't read it without the flash. Fourfifty-one. Plenty of time.

But which room? Fucking Roger. Whitey went into the one that wasn't made up because searching it would be easier. He saw a closet, a chest of drawers, a bed. He opened the closet. There was a shelf at the top. He reached up, ran his hand along it, found nothing but dust. Empty wire hangers hung on the rail. On the floor lay a single pair of shoes: women's shoes. Whitey picked them up, soft leather shoes, deep red in color. He shone his light inside one, read Fratelli Rossetti, Roma. He held it to his nose, sniffed deeply, smelled several smells he couldn't identify, and knew he wanted a woman, bad. An amateur housewife woman, yes, but of the special kind who would wear shoes like this. Once he had the painting, he could have a woman like that, more than one. A woman with Sue Savard's body, but-what was the word?-a classier face. To get a blow job from a woman with a classy face: wouldn't that be something?

Where was he? Right. Looking for the painting, the garden painting with the girl in the miniskirt, sucking on grapes. Not in the closet. He tried the chest of drawers, opening the bottom one first because he'd seen the technique used years before by burglars in an episode of MiamiVice; on the cell block, of course. There was nothing in the drawer but a magazine called Bellissima, with a beautiful woman on the cover.Whitey leafed through it and found nothing interesting; women, all right, but modeling clothes and makeup instead of fucking, sucking, and begging for it up the ass. Besides, the writing was in another language.

Whitey opened the next drawer, leaving the bottom one open as well. That was the point: you could work faster if you didn't have to take the time to close one drawer to get to the next one.On the other hand, leaving the drawers open meant that the break-in would be discovered by the first person who entered the house. Had Roger said anything about covering his traces? Whitey couldn't remember. But why not cover them? He closed the next drawer from the bottom, closed the bottom one, reopened the one above. There was nothing inside.

And nothing in any of the others. Whitey paused, drumming his fingers on the wood. Where would he hide the painting? Under the chest? Down on his hands and knees he peered under the chest and, while he was there, turned and swept the beam of his flash under the bed. Nada. He got up, raised the bare mattress, saw nothing but bare springs.Quiet and careful, but not fun, like all those other break-ins long ago, grabbing all those toasters and TVs. This was a drag, and pissed him off. His gaze fell on the mattress. Was it in there? He slashed at the mattress with the box cutter. It sliced through the covering with surprising ease, exposing the stuffing. Whitey tore it out by the fistful until he was sure the painting wasn't inside. No painting,but a big fucking mess. That answered the question of whether he should cover his tracks. No way was he about to pack all that shit inside by flashlight and do whatever else-he couldn't begin to even imagine the steps involved-he'd have to do to make everything look normal.

So, no painting, and it was 5:13. What next? He remembered the other bedroom.

Whitey crossed the hall and entered it. His light glinted on the window, a mirror, a vase full of dead flowers. Same kind of room as the other one, but all made up, meaning more work. Work made him thirsty, and maybe that wine hadn't been as bad as he'd first thought. Whitey went downstairs and downed the bottle.

Back in the made-up bedroom, feeling better, Whitey got busy. By now he had a system-systems were the sign of an administrative assistant, a professional man, an operative like him. He began with the closet. Two life jackets hung on the rail, and a terry-cloth robe. Whitey sniffed the robe and smelled something faint, faint but nice. Then he pointed the beam along the shelf, a high shelf, higher than the one in the other room. Something at the back caught his eye. A box, round and silvery. Jewelry? Whitey stuck the box cutter between his teeth and reached up for it. A slippery box: as he drew it toward the front of the shelf, it slipped from his grasp, started to fall. He grabbed at it, missed, and the box fell to the floor, bouncing off his head on the way down. The next thing Whitey knew there was powder all over the place and he was sneezing-perfumed powder on his jacket, up his nose, sticking to his face. He patted his hair, checked his hand under the light: sticky pink powder, now on his palm and fingers, too.

What the fuck? Whitey thought.He found the silvery box in a corner of the room, examined it under the light: Lancome, he read, and more writing in another language. He threw the box at the wall, hard. On the followthrough, the flash in his other hand shone up in his face and he saw himself in the mirror, the box cutter between his teeth and his hair, pink. He snatched the box cutter from his mouth, said, "What the fuck?" aloud.

Whitey went to the mirror, brushed at his hair, couldn't get rid of the powder, stinking faggot powder all over himself. He checked his watch-pink powder on it, too: 5:22. He had time. Time for what? Face it. There was no fucking painting. The storm had kept the Brinks truck away, would keep Roger away, too. Nothing left to do but haul his ass out of there, back across the river, back to the pickup. But first a shower. He wasn't going anywhere covered in pink.

Whitey went into the hall between the bedrooms, left into the bathroom, jabbed his beam here and there: toilet, sink with a toothbrush and toothpaste in a wall cup, towel on a hook, shower. He turned on the hot tap, not expecting hot, since the tank would be switched off for the winter. Whitey didn't care, since cold didn't bother him, but it was nice when hot started flowing anyway; if not hot, at least warm. He laid the box cutter and his watch on the rim of the sink, positioned the flashlight on the toilet tank so it pointed at the shower, then stripped off his clothes and stepped under the water.

"Ah." It felt good. Whitey realized he had a little alcohol hum going in his body, the way you sometimes realize that in showers. He wasn't drunk or hammered or anything, just humming. Master of puppets I'm pulling your strings, twisting your mind and smashing your dreams.

Shampoo, there on the little tile shelf. He held it to the light: Principessa, and more foreign writing. Christ, it was like he'd left the country or something, gone far away. He squeezed a big dollop on his palm, started scrubbing his hair. Scrub, scrub. He worked his way down, reached his dick, first just cleaning it, then thinking, what the hell, he had time, when the water went cold, just like that. Whitey turned off the tap and got out of the shower, the flash spotlighting his neglected dick, already down to semi-hard. He reached for the towel, hanging on the hook, and went still.

A footstep. He'd heard a footstep, downstairs. Whitey had a funny thought, a thought that scared him, awoke the panicky buzz: the last time Sue Savard had been in the shower and this time it was him. So what Whitey-thing was down below?

25.

The box cutter lay on the rim of the sink. In the spreading cone of light from the flash, Whitey could see the blade glinting there in easy reach, but could he pick the thing up cleanly, without first knocking it into the basin or on the floor, or making some other noise? He wrapped the towel around himself, extended his right hand toward the sink, saw how it shook; that had to be the booze, couldn't be fear-he was as tough as they come. Whitey took a few deep, silent breaths to sober up. He heard the wind outside-it had risen to a howl while he was in the shower-but he didn't hear another footstep. Maybe he'd imagined it, maybe it was nothing but the old roof beams creaking in the storm. Yeah, the beams for sure, or possibly- He heard another footstep, a footstep beyond any doubt, and snatched up the box cutter without making a sound, quick as a snake. The next moment, not even aware of having done it, Whitey had the flash in his other hand, switched off. Total darkness, black as black could be, his friend. He waited, motionless, listening for more footsteps, hearing none. An idea came to him: maybe the Brinks truck had turned up after all, not early, but late, because of the snow. Made more sense. If so, they would be coming up the stairs any second to hide the painting in one of the bedrooms. All he had to do was stay where he was, silent and still-and hope that the Brinks men just did their job and hit the road, hope that none of them had to take a piss. Then, with any luck, he could still grab the painting and get out before Roger arrived. This was going to work!

It was all in the timing. What time was it? Where was his watch? He'd just seen it. He remembered: on the rim of the sink-a digital watch he'd stolen on the cell block, but a cheap one without a glow button. That meant he would have to switch on the flash to read it. Too risky. Thank Christ his mind was working so well today. Whitey stepped back into the shower. He set the flashlight carefully down, freeing his hand to silently draw the curtain, one of those curtains that was not quite transparent, not quite opaque. The air in the shower stall quickly lost its warmth, but Whitey didn't care-he'd never minded the cold, was sweating anyway.

The sound of the storm rose higher. Listening only for footsteps, Whitey was slow to hear the change in tone, a low rumble that mixed in like a bass line. Then the wind slackened for a moment, and he heard the new component clearly, felt it through the icy tiles of the shower: something motorized down below, electrical-a generator. Of course there'd be a generator out here on an island in the middle of the- A thin strip of light shone through the crack under the bathroom door. Fucking Jesus. They'd turned on the lights, and darkness was his friend. Brinks guards carried guns, didn't they? How many could he take out, how fast? Some, for sure: he could do things when that buzz was buzzing in his brain, and it was buzzing. Everything depended on how many there were-if they opened the door at all. He almost wanted them to now, to pay for making him sweat like this.

Footsteps on the stairs, slow, very slow, but coming up. Whitey heard some good news in those footsteps: First, there was only one set of them, only one person, although that didn't mean there weren't others waiting downstairs. And second, that one person had a light tread, so probably wasn't very big, certainly not as big as Whitey. He kept his eyes on the glowing crack under the door.

The footsteps, light, almost soundless, as though the guard was wearing tennis shoes, reached the landing and paused. Whitey could almost feel the guard going over his instructions. The footsteps receded into the bedroom that wasn't made up, and Whitey remembered the way he'd left it, mattress stuffing all over the floor. Before he had time to figure out what could come of that, there was a faint click-light switch going on-and another pause, longer than the first. Whitey waited for a call downstairs for help, a voice talking into a cell phone, a police whistle, something, but nothing happened. No movement at all, meaning the guard wasn't hiding the painting. Then the footsteps returned to the landing, paused again, continued into the other bedroom, where Whitey had had the powder accident.

Another click, another pause. Whitey heard a sniffing sound. Then came a few of those light footsteps, followed by another pause, and then a soft grunt, almost too soft to hear. A grunt: the kind you make when you're reaching for something, or-or bending down, like maybe to slide something under a bed! Whitey had astonished himself. His mind had never been like this, not even close. All right, he thought, job done, split. Then my job: scoop up the painting,out the door,across the river,into a future full of money. Whitey pictured his getaway clearly, at fastforward speed.

But having hidden the painting, the guard didn't seem in a hurry to leave. Whitey heard the metallic clicking of wire hangers on the closet rail. Then came another one of those sniffing sounds. More footsteps. After that, a faint creaking, the kind bedsprings make. For fuck sake, Whitey thought, don't take a goddamn nap. But he knew he might do the same thing if he had a job like that. He was toying with the idea of silently slipping into the bedroom while the guard slept and whipping the painting right out from under him, when the bedsprings creaked again; another sniff, like the guy was smelling something-oh, Christ, that goddamn powder-and then more footsteps. Footsteps getting louder, coming closer. Don't you start with me, Whitey thought. Buzz buzz. Get out of my fucking life.

But that didn't happen. There was another pause. Whitey saw two black breaks in the lit crack under the bathroom door, breaks that would be made by two feet standing just outside. An armed guard on the other side of the door, and all Whitey had was a stupid little warehouse tool. His hand tightened around it.

Whitey heard another metallic sound: the doorknob turning. He retreated to the back of the shower; from there he couldn't see the crack under the door, hoped that meant the guard couldn't see him either. He heard the door open, heard the click of the switch, and the bathroom filled with light, blinding him. Even as it did, even as he blinked furiously and shaded his eyes, he remembered his clothes, all over the floor.

Sniff, sniff. Whitey, his eyes adjusting to the light, heard that sniffing, didn't move. A footstep, another, and another. Whitey clung to the box cutter: he wasn't going back to prison, no matter what. One more footstep, and then the guard was right in front of him, but turned toward the sink, his image blurred by the shower curtain. Not a big guard at all, holding something in his hand. A gun? No. More like-dead flowers, the dead flowers from the vase in the made-up bedroom.

No gun at all, as far as Whitey could see. In fact, the guard didn't seem to be wearing a uniform, but a long coat instead. The guard's other hand moved, picked up something from the sink-Whitey's watch. Slowly the guard's head came up, from the watch to the mirror over the sink. And in that mirror, through the translucent shower curtain but clear enough, Whitey got his first look at the face of the guard: not a guard, certainly not a Whitey-thing, not even a man. A woman. The relief was indescribable. He flung the curtain aside.

The woman spun around, dropping the watch, dropping the flowers, putting her hands to her mouth, making a lovely frightened little noise in her throat.

Whitey smiled. "Nothing to apologize about," he said, holding up his hand, the empty one. Totally in control, master of the situation. Master reminded him of masturbate-was there a connection between the two words?-and of what he'd been about to do before the water turned cold. No longer necessary. "Nothing at all," he said. "I know you've got a job to do."

She backed up as far as she could before the sink stopped her. "Job?" she said. Whitey liked her voice, an educated voice, classy. He saw that the woman was just that: classy. This was no pocket-change whore like that pockmarked hag in Florida. This woman had snow melting in her hair, soft skin, innocent eyes. She was pure, amateur, perfect. She was the one. The buzzing rose and rose inside him.

"The painting, and whatnot," Whitey explained, not sure his voice was at the right volume, with the buzzing so loud.

Painting-the word got her attention; he could see that in her eyes, and what eyes, unlike any female eyes that had ever looked at him. And she was looking at him, no doubt about it.

Looking right at him, so why pussyfoot? Why beat around the bush? Whitey almost laughed aloud at his own wit. Almost, but he had to be cool. Cool as he could be, he hit her with his best shot: "How about us two we go back into that bedroom and see what we can see?"

The woman's eyes, still on him, shifted a little, gazed down, came to the glass cutter in his hand. He had forgotten to hide it behind his back, and anyway it was a box cutter. Glass cutter was the last time, not that it- And then she was gone, just like that. Whitey had never seen a woman move so fast. He moved, too, out of the shower, out of the bathroom, onto the landing in time to see something he hardly believed, the woman leaping right from the top, taking the entire staircase in the air, hitting the ground floor with a loud squeak of her tennis shoes, her body contracting into a ball to absorb the force of the fall, staying on her feet. By that time, Whitey was halfway down himself, saw her darting off toward the living room, following the L to the dining room, kitchen, the door. He chased her, making storm-like howls of his own as he remembered his mother chasing him around the yard, her belt buckle whistling past his ear, beside himself with the tremendous charge of it all. But the woman-what a body she must have under that coat!-was fast, really fast, almost as fast as he was. He didn't catch her until she reached the door, forced to slow down to jerk it open. She actually had it halfway open, was on the point of disappearing into the storm on those quick feet, when Whitey sprang right over the kitchen table, flew across the room, and caught her a good one with his shoulder.

A real good one. The woman bounced off the door-jamb, back into the room, sprawled facedown on the floor. Whitey caught his breath, picked himself up, walked over to her. She was already up on her hands and knees. He bent over, got one hand in her hair-beautiful hair, so soft and clean, he'd never felt anything like it-raised her head, held the box cutter to her throat.

"This is going to be something else," he told her.

But then somehow she was rolling out of his grasp, leaving him with a handful of hair and a sharp pain, high up the inside of his leg: the bitch had tried to kick him in the balls. He tripped her up; she fell again, knocking the table over; he leaped on top of her-leaped right into the path of the wine bottle, already in her hand, arcing at his head. The bottle caught him right in the face, smashing against his nose, broken glass digging deep long tracks down his cheeks. He saw nothing but red, but at least she was under him; he could feel her wriggling. Whitey got hold of her somewhere, he didn't even know where, but it didn't last: wriggle, wriggle and she was out from under, rolling again, getting away. He slashed out blindly with the cutter, a last, desperate try, and felt the blade slice home, dig deep in flesh. At the same moment, he heard a loud pop-her Achilles, you lucky bastard-and a cry of pain. Lucky, lucky bastard, because she was down again, crawling toward the door, yes, but her running days were over. Whitey crawled after her, through a red haze, jabbing with the cutter. The woman swung round, still had a piece of the bottle, got him again, got him in the face again! He was fighting a fucking woman for his life. Whitey went crazy. Slash slash slash with the cutter. And some more.

Silence.

Not quite silence, Whitey realized after a while. There was a dripping sound, drip drip. He got to his knees, found the towel he'd been wearing, wiped blood from his eyes, picked shards of glass from his face, wiped more blood. The woman lay still, what was left of her. He wanted to kill her even though she was dead.

Time passed. Drip drip. Whitey gripped some piece of overturned furniture, pulled himself to his feet. He gazed around, reeled a little, made his slow way back around the L, through the dining room, living room, then even more slowly up the stairs. He went into the bathroom, sat on the toilet, put on clothes, took a breather, put on the rest of them. His watch was frozen at 5:33. He dropped it in the wastebasket.

Whitey went into the made-up bedroom, lowered himself to the floor, hands on the bed to support his weight. He checked under the bed: no painting. Garden, or whatever it was. No painting at all. He knelt there breathing for a while, then got up, went downstairs, back along the L, past the woman, out the door.

Still snowing. Whitey felt cold at once, much colder than he'd ever been. He walked as far as he could, two hundred feet or so, and sat down to rest with his back against one of those big trees.

While he rested, Whitey noticed that he'd left the lights on in the cottage. Was that smart? He tried to think-painting, divorce, Brinks truck, six-fifteen precisely-and got nowhere. Nothing added up. Didn't matter anyway: maybe he had the strength to get back across the river; he didn't have the strength to go back inside and close things down first. Where was that box cutter, by the way?

And other things. Whitey was trying so hard to think of other things he might have left behind that he almost didn't notice a flash of headlights on the east side of the river, where the pickup was. A flash in a snow-filled sky, and then gone: his imagination again? What was this imagination all of a sudden? Then the pain started: no imagining that.

Whitey thought about getting up, almost did once or twice. That woman: he didn't understand her at all, had never dreamed there could be a woman like that. She'd ruined him. Master of puppets I'm pulling your strings, twisting your mind and smashing your dreams. Whitey didn't sing the words aloud, just mouthed them. That was a good thing because sometime later a figure came out of the shadows behind the house.

A tall figure, certainly a man this time, almost as tall as Whitey. He carried something in his hand and bent low as he went by the dining-room windows so he wouldn't be seen from inside. A cunning kind of guy-Whitey could tell right away. The cunning guy crept around to the door. The porch light gleamed on what he had in his hand: an ax. The cunning guy slowly straightened, peeped quickly in through the round window. The next moment he whirled around and scanned the darkness. The porch light shone clear on his face: Roger. He was looking in Whitey's direction but would never see him, not through all that falling snow, not in that darkness. Darkness was Whitey's friend.

Raising the ax, Roger pushed the door open and went inside. Whitey forgot about his weakness and pain, stood up at once. He headed for home. High above, the owl hooted, or it might have been something new in the storm.

26.

Snow, handled by Roger's car with ease, but as he drove up the eastern side of the river-despite and because of what he'd told Whitey, Roger had no intention of crossing to the gate side until it was all over and time to call in the local constabulary-he began to think he'd had enough of northern winters, perhaps enough of America itself. Rome: mild in winter, homogeneous in culture, and how long would it take to learn the language? Two or three months? An expensive city, of course, but with the insurance settlement, plus whatever he retained from the sale of the house-and the market was improving at last-supplemented by his pension and Francie's, there would be enough to meet his modest needs. Roma aeterna, Roma invicta. Latin had been one of his strongest subjects; therefore, he could assume that the vocabulary was already in place. Call it six weeks to moderate fluency, two months at most.

A necessary result of the execution of his plan, of course, would be some sort of contact with Brenda. She would probably attend the funeral; indeed, it would be his obligation to inform her of it. No doubt she would feel some sort of misplaced responsibility, given the involvement of her cottage. A drama easily foreseen: hand-wringing, if onlys, et cetera. He would absolve her. Thus they would have roles to play with each other, right from the start, his infinitely sympathetic. Simpatico.

Roger came to the lookout he had chosen, a treeless ledge on a rise almost opposite Brenda's island, but on the east side of the river. It wasn't a question of distrusting Whitey, but more that concepts like trust couldn't fairly be applied to someone like him. Whitey responded to stimuli, a frog in a laboratory, and although Roger had done all that could be done to predetermine the stimuli Whitey was about to encounter, he could not, because of randomness, unpredictability, chaos theory, account for them all. Better, then, if the frog expects the scientist to approach from the left, to approach from the right.

Roger checked the time-5:40. On schedule, despite the snow, everything still according to plan. He used the singular for convenience, but to be accurate there were three plans: the plan as it was understood by Whitey, the plan as it would be executed by the participants, the master plan laid out in Roger's mind like lines of programming language or a sequence of DNA. DNA, that was it-and Whitey not a frog, but a gene of the most mutable type, capable of warping whole chromosomes, of growing into a monster. A monster under Roger's command: deployed in the unused bedroom, searching for a painting that wasn't there-although it existed, would be disposed of in the denouement, when Roger resigned from the tennis club and cleaned out his locker, perfect reason to be there with a plastic garbage bag. Funny-creative, really-this use he'd made of the painting, like Picasso making a bull from bicycle parts. But a minor detail. Major detail: the monster trapped as Francie and her oyster boy came up the stairs. Would it happen right then, Whitey making some little mistake that gave away his presence, leading to panic, his and theirs? Or would they get safely to their little nest, begin doing the things they did, with Francie crying out her petty pleasures, and Whitey listening and listening until he could hear no more, bear no more; he would want some, too, lots and lots.

And all the time, Roger would be waiting in the woodshed at the back, arriving not after Whitey but before; not waiting at the gate, as Whitey expected, but coming inside, to react with horror.

"Whitey, what have you done?"

And Whitey makes his stupid reply.

And Roger, saving the day, commands, "We've got to get this cleaned up. Come quick."

They run together, a team, to the woodshed, where the props stand ready.

"Hand me that mop, Whitey, in there." Prop one.

Whitey reaches down, baring his neck for the ax. Prop two.

Lines of programming language.

How quiet it would be after that, a tranquil interlude for arranging bodies, adjusting evidence, driving over the river bridge, around to the gate, parking his car beside the others, dialing 911, waiting to tell his story. A story slightly different from the one he'd first outlined, changes necessitated by the addition of the lover-horrible oleaginous word, quite appropriate in this case-to the dramatis personae. A story that now went like this: A Christmas Eve surprise party, Officer, for Ned's wife-she was so upset over that tennis match. The three of us were meeting here tonight to put up the decorations, with the idea of having everything ready when we brought her here on the twenty-fourth. A surprise, you see, to show how we all care, to cheer her up. But when I arrived, a little late, what with the snow and all, I found . . . [breaks down, composes self] And he saw me, Officer, and I-I panicked. I ran and ran. He chased me, caught me by the woodshed. We struggled, I remember falling, grabbing the ax; it's all a jumble after that.

All a jumble, but beautifully organized, planned like a mini-Creation: Roger even had a bag of red decorations in the car. Merry Christmas, Noel, Joy to the World. Prop three.

Roger pulled off the road, parked in the lookout-and saw another car parked nearby. A pickup truck, actually, but so covered by the blown snow, it was hard to tell. Abandoned, perhaps, possibly for the duration of the storm, possibly forever. Putting on his hat and gloves, zipping up his parka, taking the decorations and his twelve-inch, heavy-duty flashlight from L.L. Bean, Roger got out of the car, locked it, started down toward the river, hunched against the wind. In its perfect, triple-helix form, the plan wound so beautifully in his mind that he almost didn't notice, almost didn't process an obvious sight in the middle of the river: lights shining on Brenda's island.

Lights? Lights on the island? Hadn't he been clear about the flash? Should he have supplied Whitey with one? No. He wanted Whitey to buy it himself, wanted the receipts for everything-taxi, flash, weapon-found on Whitey's body: the master plan. Roger tore off a glove, read his watch: 5:49. Lights at 5:49? There were to be no lights at any time, and Whitey wasn't to be inside until 6:15. Six-fifteen precisely, with Francie and lover arriving at 6:30. It was a two-bladed plan, timing and psychology snipping together like scissors. Timing had been the easy part. So why lights? Why lights at 5:49?

Roger hurried across the river, or tried to, but the snow was deep and light, and he sank to his waterproof, insulated-to-minus-forty-degree boot tops with every step. By the time he reached the island-lights glowing in every window of the cottage-he was breathing heavily.

Roger's mind fired possible explanations at him: Francie and lover had arrived early, or one or the other; Whitey had arrived early, gone inside because of the storm, forgotten about the lights; someone else-repairman, tramp, Brenda!-was inside; a surge in the wires had activated some automatic timer. And other explanations waited like bullets in an ammunition belt, but by now he was at the woodshed, reaching in, grabbing the ax, moving swiftly toward the cottage.

Swiftly, but not without thought. Smarter than ever in a crisis, or potential crisis, as he corrected himself, Roger remembered to crouch low as he went by the windows, staying out of sight from within. He heard nothing from inside: no voices, no music, no movement. The electric surge-automatic timer explanation rose higher on the list. A simple matter to switch it off, restore darkness, hide as planned by the woodshed, continue as before, everything on schedule. He climbed onto the porch-and saw that the door wasn't quite closed.

Almost, but not quite: snow packed in against the riser. Therefore? Roger straightened out of his crouch, peered through the window. And saw disorder, all a jumble, all a scramble, red, red, red, but- The deed was done.

Deed done, deed done, deed done; there she was, laid out facedown beside the overturned table, in tennis shoes, one white, one red, and her hair a new color, red, red, red. From idea to reality, from conception to birth: his plan had borne fruit. But- No Whitey. No Whitey to close the circle with, to write the last line of code, to make it perfect.