As he approached, though, his initial euphoria turned to a swirling, sour feeling in his gut.

The place was falling apart. Ramshackle would have been too kind a word.

The six stately Corinthian columns that held the second and third floors separate from the first were peeling and cracked, iron rods showing through like sinew. Shutters, rotten and splintered, hung desultorily from their hinges, stirred feebly in the evening breeze.

Grabbing his briefcase, Buddy climbed the rickety, warped steps, avoiding beer cans, boards with nails in them and the occasional dead bird.

The front door appeared to be the only solid, serviceable thing about the house. Buddy rapped lightly on it, echoes thumping hollowly within the huge house.

Several minutes pa.s.sed before footsteps reverberated across the dark entry hall.

Buddy straightened his tie, ran a hand through his thinning hair, a finger across the front of his teeth.

Smiled.

The door moved slowly and anciently on its hinges. It was dimly lit inside, but it illuminated a face that was unexpectedly young and handsome.

"You must be Mr. Burnett. Come in, please," said the man, extending a hand. "I'm Carsten Moors."

Buddy enfolded the hand in his own, and was surprised by its lack of warmth. It was a big hand, with just a hint of calluses, a farmer's hand with a strong grip and prominent veins.

Moors was about six feet tall and solidly built, dressed in a simple pair of pressed khakis, a plain white shirtaaopen at the collaraaand a navy blazer. A crop of sun-blonde hair fell boyishly uncombed across his forehead.

"Nice to meet you, sir," said Buddy, stepping inside a house that, like its outside, had seen better days.

The marble floor was pitted and stained, cracked in places. Misshapen lumps cowered in the foyer, covered with yellowed, dusty sheets. Tatters of what looked like antebellum wallpaper hung from the chipped plaster walls.

"As you can see," Moors apologized, gesturing around him. "We still have quite a bit of work to do."

"Well," Buddy said, without missing a beat. "This old lady has a lot of promise."

"Well, we like to think so," said Moors, seeming to appreciate Buddy's comment. "We think it will make an excellent base of operations."

"So, then," said Buddy, wetting his lips. "You're thinking of expanding already?"

"Oh, most a.s.suredly, Mr. Burnett. Most a.s.suredly," he said, leading him into a s.p.a.cious sitting room off the main foyer.

"Please, call me Buddy."

"And feel free to call me Carsten. Would you care for a drink? A beer, perhaps?"

"A beer would set just fine, Carsten."

"Have a seat," Moors said, indicating a divan that squatted next to a delicate Louis XIV chair and a small table, all of which looked as if it had been arranged specifically for this visit.

Moors returned with the beer and a small china cup and saucer on a tray, which he set on the table between the divan and the chair.

"Ahh, ice cold," said Buddy after a draught. "Well, sir, I suppose we should get down to the reason I came here in the first place."

Buddy opened his briefcase, pulled out a smooth, glossy catalog, as thick as a small town's phonebook.

"Buddy," interrupted Moors. "You've got the sale."

Buddy blinked twice rapidly. "Excuse me?" he said, feeling a little dizzy.

Moors smiled. "I may give you unusual instructions from time to time. I expect you to make sure they are followed to the letter. I'm not interested in your opinion. And I will neither brook nor answer any questions. I hope this is clear without being impolite."

"No, sir. I understand completely," he lied.

"We will schedule appointments in advance. You will make no unscheduled visits, for any reason. Is this acceptable?"

"Yes, sir," croaked Buddy, wondering what his boss had gotten him into.

"Now, let me give you the good news," he said, producing a set of papers from the inside pocket of his jacket.

"I took the liberty of drawing up the contracts myself based on the pricelist I was sent. Why don't you see if everything meets your approval?"

Buddy accepted the papers, unfolded them on his lap, and read through them. The contract stipulated fifty-six of the company's top-line caskets with various modifications; Buddy had never sold one of these models ... even in the good old days. The total price of the contract was more than one million dollars. With his five percent commission, his share came to fifty thousand.

"I trust it's all in order."

"Yes, sir," Buddy whispered.

"Shall we sign the papers, then, and get you on your way? It's getting late," said Moors, pulling a pen from the same pocket that had held the contracts.

Moors signed, then Buddy did likewise, albeit with a shaky hand.

"Another beer and a handshake to conclude this business deal?" smiled Moors, capping and replacing his pen.

"That'd be great."

Moors walked from the room, and Buddy stood, stretching his limbs as his brain screamed at him.

You just made more tonight than you have in the last year!

A smile spread across Buddy's face as he imagined his next sales meeting.

Buddy bent to drop the papers into his briefcase, when he caught sight of the coffee cup Moors had emptied.

Dark maroon dregs clotted at the bottom, and a thin, pinkish film coated the rim.

For a reason unknown to him, Buddy put his nose to it, sniffed.

The rich, a.s.sertive aroma of coffee crept into his sinuses, but there was something underneath it.

Something metallic.

Moors came into the room with another beer, handed it to Buddy.

"Here's to a great partnership," said Buddy, raising his bottle to Moors and taking a long drink. "Bad water, huh?"

"Pardon me?"

Buddy jerked his finger back to the empty coffee cup on the table.

"Too much iron in the water. You should look into a softener."

"An interesting suggestion. I will do that, since I'm quite sure I get enough iron in my diet already," Moors smiled politely.

Back in his motel room, Buddy stripped down to his boxers, spread the contracts over the bed. The first several pages were standard, but the remaining six pages listed the modifications Moors wanted.

They ranged from having all of the caskets made of solid mahogany-unusual in this day of refrigerator-aluminum coffins-to having handles and locks inside the caskets.

Rather than upgrading their interiors, Moors wanted them stripped of all the plush satin pillows and upholstery and replaced with a quarter-inch thick lead pan secured to the bottom of the caskets' interiors.

Two weeks later, orders from Moors were, literally, pouring in. Even though the original order of caskets had not been finished, Moors ordered thirty-seven more the next week and an additional forty-five after that. Taken in total with his first order, Moors had ordered more than three million dollars worth of caskets.

And Moors showed no signs of slowing. During Buddy's last visit, Moors intimated that another, larger order was on the way for some interested European clients.

As Moors had warned, strange requests, too, began to come in, at least once an evening, phoned in by Moors himself, always at night. He demanded to have Buddy's home phone number, and Buddy was only too happy to oblige.

After all, Carsten Moors was making him rich.

There had been the odd request for the double coffin-able to hold two bodies.

And the one that had to be wired for a stereo system.

And the thirty-seven child sized caskets.

Aside from these strange instructions, what really puzzled Buddy was that Moors was ordering all of these caskets, even though there was absolutely no construction going on at the mansion; nothing that would turn the wreck into a working mortuary.

Moors always a.s.sured Buddy that some work was going on, but the fact was that the first order of fifty-six caskets would be ready for delivery in three weeks.

And Moors still had no place of business.

Buddy had offered to store the caskets for Moors until the mortuary got up and running.

"I've given you my instructions." Moors had told him, in a cold, controlled tone.

Buddy had never seen Moors angry, even though he'd asked other questions that had provoked irate responses from the man.

He began to worry that Moors might take the future business he always alluded to elsewhere.

Maybe, Buddy thought, it was time to do something for the client, something with a little flourish, a little panache.

Something that said Buddy J. Burnett and Hastings Casket Co. appreciated his business.

Buddy knew just the thing.

There was a moment in the parking lot of the Sears store when Buddy was afraid that the d.a.m.ned water softener was not going to fit in his car. But the salesperson wrestled the bulky box inside and tied the trunk shut around it.

He pulled onto the gravel road at around 8 p.m. The house was very quiet, and only a few dim yellow lights shone through the windows.

The box came out of the trunk far easier than it went in, and soon Buddy was hauling it step by step up to the front door.

When he'd made it up all of the steps, he paused to wipe his forehead with a handkerchief.

A flash of movement caught his eye from one of the ground-floor windows.

Squinting, he saw Moors inside dancing with a womanaaswirling across a large, bare room that opened just to the rear of the sitting room where he and Moors always conducted their business. He'd never seen this room, though, because Moors always kept the door closed.

The woman wore a light blue c.o.c.ktail dress and blue pumps with heels that were too high. Moors was dancing at an incredible pace, flinging the limp body of the woman around so fast they were both a blur.

But that was not what made Buddy's pulse race, his mouth go dry.

From some wound on the woman's body, blood jetted across the room in a dizzying arc, spraying the bare, white walls.

Then Moors, looking ecstatic, stopped, folded the woman's body in his arms, and rammed his face ungracefully into her neck so hard that Buddy swore he heard a crunch.

Two tracks of blood ran down the back of the woman's pale, delicate neck.

Pushing himself away from the window, Buddy fell against the porch railing.

With a crack like a broken bone, it gave way under his weight, and he fell to the ground with an impact that pushed the breath from him.

When he could think again, he found himself sitting in the darkness, clutching his chest and looking up at the porch.

Dear Lord. He killed her. Moors killed that woman.

Jumping up, he raced for the car, threw himself in without bothering to close the trunk.

As he started the car, he could swear that, in the upper floors, in the windows lit with smudgy yellow light, he saw the shapes of other people. Some of them moved within their rooms, some of them simply stared out the windows.

But some of them hunched over other shadow shapes, just as Moors had.

He managed to keep himself from throwing on the lights and squealing out of there-at least until he reached the front gate.

Once off the grounds of the mansion, he drove straight home. Back among familiar landscape, he relaxed, his heartbeat returning to something near normal.

Moors killed that woman, he thought. I saw him kill a woman.