The address he wanted was in the center of the block. Fortunately, both houses on either side of it were dark and quiet.

  He didn't even slow down. He'd just wanted a view from the front. His destination was the alley behind the house.

  ▼▼▼

  After parking the car close to the garage, Reardon got out, taking the can with him. The gasoline sloshed across his hands and trousers. He cursed. He was neurotic about being neat and smelling good. He'd been one of those soldiers who'd spent hours shining his shoes.

  Fireflies blinked through the darkness; newly-mown grass smelled sweet on the air; a few houses away a big dog barked and ran the length of a clothesline, his collar clanking and catching him at the last. Reardon thought of being a POW. He knew what that chained-up dog was going through.

  The letter writer had provided a key designated for the back door.

  Reardon stood still in the crickety darkness, looking at the deep shadows the moonlight created.

  He looked left, right, up, down. He looked everywhere a person could possibly be. He saw no one. No one. But you never knew. Somewhere very near somebody could be watching everything you did. Everything.

  He tapped the .45 in his shoulder rig inside his Brooks Brothers summer-white jacket. In case anything went wrong, he always had this.

  He opened the screen door on the back porch. Lawn furniture cluttered the shadows. The fading scents of cigarettes and whiskey were on the air.

  Still carrying the can, he went to the interior door, tried the locked knob, and inserted the key.

  In less than thirty seconds, he was going up four steps to the kitchen.

  In the silver moonlight, the kitchen smelled of nutmeg and paprika and coffee. But no smell was as strong as the gasoline he carried.

  Once more, he stood without moving, listening.

  His heartbeat had increased. He did not kid himself, ever. Tough as he was, this was always a scary business. Anything could go wrong. Anything.

  The refrigerator motor thrummed. Out on the street a car passed by. The dog down the street started barking again.

  Reardon moved.

  He went through a large dining room. He could imagine a black maid serving fancy people thick slices of roast so rare they were not just pink but bloody. The talk would be of the stock market and politics and perhaps sports. After the war, in the days when he thought he might turn himself into a professional hero, he'd been invited to the homes of many rich people. And that was how they lived. He'd always felt sorry for the maids in these places, knowing how well they wanted to dump the food all over the stuffy people they had to serve.

  The living room had a huge fieldstone fireplace. All the built-in bookcases gave the place the feel of a den.

  Second floor, the center bedroom, the letter writer had instructed.

  Reardon started up the winding staircase.

  He was sweating now. He always sweated while he was on a job. More nerves.

  His six-two, two hundred and ten pound body punished the stairs. They whined and groaned.

  At the top of the stairs, he paused once more. Up here the dominant noise was the plumbing. This house had to be fifty, sixty years old and probably needed new pipes.

  He started down the hallway.

  He passed a room with its door closed. In this situation, closed doors scared the hell out of him.

  He set the gasoline can down and took out his .45. It wasn't an exotic weapon but he'd gotten used to it in the military and saw no reason to give it up now.

  He put his hand on the doorknob. Eased his head closer to the door. Listened.

  He threw the door open and dropped to one knee, in firing position.

  Spectral moonlight shone silver through gauzy curtains billowed on the breeze of an open window.

  A large brass bed and old-fashioned furnishings.

  Nothing whatsoever to worry about.

  He got up, lifted the gasoline can, and continued his way down the hall. He didn't put his .45 away. It felt comforting in his hand.

  He saw the center bedroom but he kept going. He went all the way to the end of the hall and checked the other rooms. None of the doors were closed so they were easy to inspect.

  Nothing.

  Nobody will be home except the young woman in bed.

  That's what the letter writer had promised. And that's what the letter writer had delivered.

  Gasoline can in one hand, .45 in the other, Reardon went back to the center bedroom.

  While the door wasn't shut, it was only partially open. Reardon put his foot out and gave it a little push.

  The door swung inward.

  Right away, he knew something was wrong.

  The strange thing was, he didn't know why it was wrong. But somehow the shadowy room sent him a queer message.

  He took two steps across the threshold.

  This was the smallest room on the second floor. And where the other rooms had been decorated conservatively, this one was done in pink wallpaper with huge illustrations of teddy bears frolicking in summer meadows. Beneath two open windows sat a small tricycle and against the right wall stood a bookcase filled with dolls of every kind imaginable. He found it curious that neither of these windows had screens on them.

  And then he knew why his instincts had warned him about this room.

  This was the room of a little girl Not a "young woman" as the letter had stated.

  A little girl.

  She lay sleeping in the single bed that lay along the east wall. A small blonde head in pigtails could be seen just above the edge of the cover.

  He set the can down and stood there stunned.

  Never before had he considered killing a child and now that he was confronted with the decision, he wasn't sure what to think.

  Who would want a young girl killed? And by a method so hideous?

  He slipped his .45 back into its rigging and then started toward the bed.

  He had to quell the impulse to simply cut and run. To go back home and sit by his mailbox and wait for the inevitable letter informing him that he was a chicken-shit sonofabitch and that he'd completely fucked up the job.

  His weight made the floor groan.

  The closer he got to the bed, the better he could hear the soft moist noise of her little-girl snoring.

  How old was she? Eight? Nine? Ten?

  Having no children of his own, he didn't know how to make such a guess.

  All he could do was move forward and—

  And then she turned over in bed and looked straight up at him.

  There in the shadows, she said, "Hi. You're Mr. Reardon, aren't you?"

  What the hell was going on here?

  His hand went back to his .45. He pulled it out and filled his hand with it.

  "Did I frighten you?" she said.

  He couldn't seem to find his voice. He cleared his throat several times and said, "No."

  "Actually, you look kind of funny, do you know that?"

  "Oh." He couldn't think of what else to say.

  "Yes. I mean, there you are this great big man holding a gun but you looked scared. It seems to me that I should be the one who looks scared. But that's the funny thing. I'm not scared at all."

  "You're not?"

  "No. I was expecting you."

  "You were?"

  "Sure," she said, as if Reardon weren't very bright.

  And then, before he could quite tell what she was doing, she threw back the covers and set her legs to the floor.

  She was a thin, pretty girl in buff blue pajamas. Her pigtails swung merrily from side to side whenever she moved in the slightest way.

  "Why don't I turn a light on?" she said, hopping off the bed and leaning over to the nightstand.

  The lamplight seemed to blind him temporarily. The shadows were sent scurrying. "There, isn't that better?" she said, sounding as if she were the adult and Reardon the child.

  All this left Reardon in the middle of the bedroom. The gasoline can at his feet. The gun in his hand.

  "Does that ever get heavy?" she said.

  "The gun?"

  "Umm-hmm."

  "Not really."

  "How come you carry it?"

  I've got to get back in control of this, he thought. Something is terribly wrong here.

  "Where are your parents?" he said.

  "Not here."

  "They leave you alone like this, this late at night?"

  "Sometimes. Besides, the night is my favorite time."

  "But you're only—"

  She shrugged. "Older than I look, probably."

  He glanced around the room. In the soft lampglow, the teddy bears looked even more jolly. He thought of his younger sister lone, a woman he seldom thought of, and saw even less. Growing up, she'd been crazy about teddy bears. Every spare cent she could find had gone toward teddy bears.

  And then he noticed the two windows without screens. Hell, that didn't make any sense. Anything could get in here.

  The girl nodded to a silver pitcher and two glasses on a hammered silver serving tray on her nightstand. "Are you thirsty, Mr. Reardon?"

  "How do you know my name?" "Oh, you'd be surprised what I know, Mr. Reardon. But you didn't answer my question about having a glass of water."

  "Uh, no thanks."

  "Well, I think I'll have one if you don't mind."

  "Go ahead."

  He still couldn't believe that conversation this adult and polished could come out of a frail little girl body.

  All this had aspects of some bad, unlikely marijuana dream.

  The water pitcher was full. She had to use two hands to fill her glass and even at that, she looked as if she might drop the whole pitcher.

  "You sure?" she said when her glass was full.

  "I'm sure."

  She set the pitcher down with a great deal of careful effort, picked up her glass and then went over and sat on the edge of her bed again.

  She took a big swallow of water and then went "ah" as if she'd enjoyed it greatly and then she looked up at him and said, "You still look frightened, Mr. Reardon."

  "I want to know how you know my name."

  "I was told your name."

  "By who?"

  She shrugged frail shoulders. "It really doesn't matter, Mr. Reardon."

  "It does to me."

  She nodded to the gasoline can. "I'll bet that's heavy. A lot heavier than your gun."

  "I guess so."

  Her eyes met Reardon's. "You must have a pretty good reason to bring a can of gasoline all the way up here."

  "I suppose."

  "And I'll bet I know what it is."

  Reardon said nothing.

  The girl said, her eyes still on his, "Do you think you can do it, Mr. Reardon?"

  "Do what?"

  "Oh, come on now, Mr. Reardon. You know why you came up here and so do I."

  "Who the hell are you?"

  She smiled. "I'm this innocent little girl who was having a nice night's sleep until you came tromping up the stairs with this gasoline can so you could set me on fire."

  "You little—"

  But Reardon stopped himself. Anger would be a sure sign of panic and he did not want to show any signs of weakness.

  "What's your name?" he said.

  She sighed, as if she were tired now of indulging him and his stupid questions. "If it really matters, Mr. Reardon, my name is Jenny."

  "Jenny what?"

  "Jenny O'Shea."

  All he could think of was some kind of insurance scam. He'd heard of something like this in Cleveland once. This heavy-duty businessman gets into a lot of debt trouble and the only way out is to insure his kid very heavily and then have a professional off the kid. Unfortunately, the professional made some mistakes and both he and the father ended up in the gas chamber.

  "I want you to tell me about your parents," Reardon said.

  "Why?"

  "Because I want to know."

  "I'm not afraid of you, Mr. Reardon. You can't bully me into anything I don't want to do. Or tell you."

  She took another sip of water.

  When she was finished drinking, she set the glass back on the nightstand and said, "Now will you answer my question?"

  "What question?"

  "If you can do it or not. Throw that gasoline all over me and set me on fire."

  "Why do you think I'd want to do that?"

  She gave him a knowing smile—one with even a hint of unlikely eroticism in it—and said, "We're wasting time, Mr. Reardon. Your time and my time."

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "It's probably my face."

  "Your face?"

  She laughed. "The well-scrubbed look. The freckles and everything. The daughter everybody wants to have. That's probably why you can't do it." She looked at him knowingly again. "You didn't know I was going to be this little kid, did you?"

  "No; no I didn't."

  "Well, unfortunately for both of us I am."

  And with that, she spun around on the edge of the bed and set herself flat on the bed.

  "Is this better?"

  "Better for what?" Reardon said.

  "Maybe I should say 'easier.' Is this easier for you if you don't see my face?"

  Reardon started to say something sputtering but she interrupted him.

  "I have to admit that if I saw my cute little face, I couldn't splash gasoline all over me, either."

  And then she reached down and scooped up the covers, pulling them right up to her chin.

  Then she rolled over on her side and faced away from Reardon.

  She now lay just as she had when Reardon had come into the room.

  "Why don't you turn the light out, Mr. Reardon?"

  "Why should I do that?"

  "Because that'll make it easier, too. In the darkness you probably won't be able to see anything except my blonde hair. And you can pretend that belongs to a much older woman. You know?"

  Reardon said nothing.

  The girl said, "This is getting pretty boring, Mr. Reardon."

  "What the hell's going on here?"

  Still keeping her back to him, she said, "Are you or are you not going to douse me with gasoline and set me on fire, Mr. Reardon?"

  "You sound like you want me to."

  "I want you to do what you want to do, Mr. Reardon. Set me on fire or leave. It doesn't matter to me."

  Reardon looked down at the gasoline can.

  She said, "If you don't set me on fire, Mr. Reardon, your reputation will suffer."

  "What?"

  "Sure. Hit men are very dependent on their reputations, I understand. I mean, think of how fierce you'll be if you set me on fire. That Reardon. He'll do absolutely anything. He even set a little girl on fire.' "

  "What the hell do you know about hit men?"

  "More than you realize, Mr. Reardon." She paused and then shook her head. He wished he could see her face. "Of course, on the other hand, setting me on fire may give you a reputation you don't want. People are funny about kids. Hurt a kid in even the slightest way and some people start thinking of you as a pervert. And most people just don't like working with perverts. You know?"

  Reardon looked once more at the can of gasoline.

  The girl said, "But if you don't set me on fire, your price is going to go down."

  "It is?"

  "Sure. Because people will know that you're not absolutely fearless.

  And if you're not absolutely fearless, then they'll pay you accordingly. Only absolutely fearless hit men get the absolute top dollar. I mean, that only makes sense to me. Doesn't it make sense to you, Mr. Reardon?"

  He leaned over.

  His fingers touched the handle of the gasoline can.

  What the little girl said made sense.

  If he didn't do this job, he would be diminished in the eyes of some potential employers.

  Some employers wanted a man who was absolutely capable of anything. Anything.

  His fingers started to tighten on the handle.

  "Just please hurry, Mr. Reardon. OK? My mother always says I have a low tolerance for boredom and she isn't kidding. This is really getting tedious. You're a hit man, Mr. Reardon. You're supposed to be decisive."

  His fingers gripped the handle tightly now. He raised the can until it rested against his hip.

  He put the .45 back in its rigging.

  He had no idea what was going on here. He just wanted to get it over with and get back on the plane and get the hell out of this city.

  "I'm proud of you, Mr. Reardon."

  He had been raising the can so he could unscrew the cap.

  "You're going to do it, aren't you?"

  Reardon said nothing.

  "You're going to slosh it all over me and toss a match on it and then get out of this town as fast as you can. Good for you, Mr. Reardon. Good for you."

  Could he actually do it? Could he?

  He thought of the money. One hundred thousand for this job. If he didn't do it, he'd have to return the money he'd already received. And he had major plans for that.

  He unscrewed the cap, dropped it in his pocket.

  "I'm ready, Mr. Reardon," the girl said. "I'm just lying here waiting."

  He approached the bed.

  Closer. Closer.

  The gasoline sloshed around inside the can.

  In only moments now.

  "I know you don't particularly want to do this, Mr. Reardon, but I sure admire your cool head for good business. I really do."

  Hell, the way this little bitch drove him crazy, he might just end up enjoying this.

  Higher, higher the can went.

  "Fire away," the girl said. "Fire away."

  And then he cocked his arm back, ready to splash gasoline all over her and the bed there in the darkness and—

  And that's when he realized abruptly why the two windows had no screens.

  How else were the bats going to get in?

  Six of them, sleek and black and furry, dove straight for his neck.

  The gasoline can went flying from his hands, slamming against the wall.

  And then the room, suddenly falling into unutterable darkness, reeked of gasoline.

  His last recollection, deep into the darkness, was of laughter.

  Somebody was laughing. But why?

  ▼▼▼

  Reardon was in the shadows when her limo pulled up to the curb. Janice Evans, the most sought-after movie star in the world right now.

 

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