“Look for yourself,” Remo said. He pushed the sheet across the table. The man reached for it and Remo said, “Arnie’s dead.”
“Dead? How…”
“I pulled his plug,” Remo said. “Like this.” The husky blond saw Remo’s hand start to move, but he never saw it reach him, never saw the fingers flip out from the coiled fist, never felt them slap away at his throat, deftly removing his Adam’s apple and windpipe with no more effort than if Remo had been flicking a sandfly from his wrist.
He put the blond in the same closet where he’d put Arnie and sat waiting for the third orderly. These three were the organizers; the rest of the bettors were just having some macabre fun. They were content to lose if the patients lived. So far as Upstairs knew, none of them had anything to do with killing patients.
Arnie was the first. The second had been Billy according to his name tag. That left Jackie. The door opened and an orderly came in wearing the name tag of Jackie.
It was a woman.
Remo hadn’t suspected that. But “Jackie” could be male or female. He should have known that Upstairs would forget to tell him about a minor point like that.
It didn’t bother him. He had killed women before.
“Where’s Arnie and Billy?” she asked.
“Dead,” he said.
She was too busy looking into his eyes and smiling to hear him. She sat in the chair across from him. “When will they be back?”
She was pretty. Green eyes, auburn hair, good breasts, and a clean, well-washed smell.
“What are you doing with that sheet?” she asked, pointing to the paper in front of Remo.
“Arnie gave it to me,” Remo said. “What day do you have?”
“Eighteenth,” she said. “Tomorrow. Guess I’ll have to pull a plug,” she said with a smile. “What’d you say happened to Arnie and Billy?”
“Ask them yourself,” Remo said. Her eyes widened as he unplugged her windpipe. Her eyes really were a pretty green.
He dumped her into the coat closet with the two men, and stood back to savor his handiwork.
“That’s the lottery biz, sweethearts,” he said and slammed the door.
He waved to the peppermint striper on his way out, dumped his whites into a laundry bin, waved to the older nurse at the front desk and left the hospital.
The terminal cases could now terminate on their own. It made Remo feel good.
But not for long.
He had other assignments that night.
CHAPTER THREE
ELMO WIMPLER HAD BEEN frightened of becoming a burglar but he was more frightened of starving to death penniless, unknown, friendless.
He had waited until late night, and then had donned his black uniform. He turned out the lights over his front door, then stepped out into his yard.
He looked down at himself. He could barely see the outline of his feet and legs. He understood that he was slightly visible in silhouette because of the lights reflecting around the street. He would have to remember that he was most effective in pitch darkness.
He cut through backyards, behind houses, once passing only inches from a sleeping German Shepherd who did not stir as Wimpler walked by. With each step, Elmo felt the power growing in him.
He knew what house he would hit. It was in the Park Slope section only a few blocks from his home. He had often walked by the house, a big brick and stucco English Tudor design with a long, black Cadillac parked out front.
Elmo slipped around the back of the house and waited on the darkened porch, trying to calm his nerves and still the thumping of his heart. He might be invisible but his heart was making so much noise he could be heard a block away.
Finally, he tapped lightly on the doorbell and moved off to the side. A few moments later, a young black woman dressed in a maid’s uniform came to the door and looked out.
“Who’s there?” he could hear her ask through the glass.
He held his breath. Finally, she opened the storm door and stepped out on the porch, holding the door open behind her. He slipped through the door as he heard her mutter, “Damn fool kids.”
Inside, he moved quickly into a darkened corner and waited for the maid to come back inside. His heart was racing. Suddenly he was overcome by terror.
What if he was caught?
If the maid turned on a light, he would be as visible as if he had been dressed in neon.
In the future, he would have to plan his jobs more carefully.
But the maid walked by him without turning on a light. She went on and stepped into the living room.
“Who was that, Flo?” a man’s voice asked.
Wimpler moved quietly along the hall, as he heard the maid say, “Just some kids, Mr. Mason.”
“I hope they didn’t wake Mrs. Mason.”
As Wimpler reached the door, he peered in from the shadows. The man was getting up from the sofa. He was fortyish, well-fed, and prosperous looking. “I have to go out, Flora,” the man said. “Don’t wake Mrs. Mason.”
“Yes sir. You’ll be back soon?”
Mr. Mason put his hands around the maid’s rump and pulled her to him. He kissed her heavily on the mouth. “Soon enough,” he said. “Soon enough.”
Flora giggled as Mason walked toward a coat rack near the door. Wimpler slipped quickly upstairs. If they had jewels, they would probably be in the master bedroom.
Only one of the upstairs doors was closed. Waiting outside, Wimpler could hear the sound of soft breathing. He opened the door, stepped inside, and saw a figure on the bed. He caught his breath.
Mrs. Mason slept atop the covers, in the nude. She wasn’t as full-figured as Phyllis, his next door neighbor, but she would do. She was in her thirties and well-kept, with large breasts and long slim legs.
Wimpler found himself starting to get excited, imagining the things he could do to her while she slept. And if she awoke and saw no one in the room, she would probably think she had been dreaming.
Some dream.
Wimpler almost laughed.
But first things first. With an effort, he turned away from the woman and began searching the room. He found what he was looking for in a top drawer of the dresser. A jewelry box was filled with necklaces and bracelets and rings. He took them all and put them in a small, cloth bag he had brought with him. Then he secreted the bag under his invisible clothing.
He turned back to the sleeping, nude form of Mrs. Mason.
But fear overcame his lust. It was time to leave. He reached down and playfully stroked one of Mrs. Mason’s breasts. She smiled in her sleep. Then he whispered in her ear, “Your husband and your maid are making it, dear.”
The smile slid off her face and Wimpler went quickly to the door and went down the stairs.
When he finally got back to his own house, he heaved a sigh of relief. He removed his black night suit and dumped his take out on the bed.
The diamonds sparkled and shone and he let them wash through his fingers as he played with them on the bed. How much, he wondered. Ten thousand? Twenty?
He’d find out tomorrow, when he went to 47th Street in Manhattan to sell them.
As he got off the subway at 47th Street and Avenue of the Americas, he was surprised to realize his heart was pounding again.
What if someone called the police?
He took a deep breath and walked into the first wholesale jeweler he saw.
“May I help you?” a clerk asked. Was that suspicion in the man’s eyes, Wimpler wondered. He almost backed out, but then cleared his throat and said, “I want to… er… sell some jewelry. It was… my mother’s. She’s dead now.”
“May I see it?”
Wimpler dumped the contents of his cloth bag on the counter. He could feel the sweat running in rivulets under his arms.