Broken Prey

minute to answer the knock. He was burly-gone-to-fat, hairy, still half asleep, dressed in jeans and a yellow smiley-face T-shirt, his gut pushing out in the gap between shirt and pants; he stood blinking in the porch light. “Hey, man. What are you doin’ here?”
    “Drop-in drug check, Charlie. Required by law,” the killer said. “I need a blood sample.”
    “Ah, shit. This time of night?” But Charlie stepped back so the killer could step inside with him. “I didn’t even know you could do that . . .”
    “Required by law—and I’ve got some questions to ask,” the killer said. There was steel in his voice now. Never let an inmate get on top of you, even after they stopped being inmates. “Take fifteen minutes. How’ve you been feeling?”
    “Not too bad—I hate the fuckin’ job, though. Get up at five o’clock, lift them fuckin’ cans all fuckin’ day. Hurts my fuckin’ back. Better’n that fuckin’ hospital, though.”
    The door opened into the tiny travel-trailer kitchen. The killer held up the kit and said, “Let’s get the blood test out of the way. Give me your left arm.”
    The syringe was already loaded, lying there in the case, along with the Ziploc bag, vinyl gloves, the scalpel, and the six-foot coil of nylon rope. He had an alcohol wipe in a single-sized paper pack; unnecessary, but it added a subtle hint of innocence. If you were going to murder somebody, why would you swab his arm with alcohol?
    So Charlie turned, and the killer ripped open the swab packet, wiped Charlie’s triceps, picked up the needle, and gave him the injection.
    “Feels more like it’s going in than coming out,” Charlie said over his shoulder.
    “ Mmm. You haven’t been messing with any drugs, have you, Charlie? Cocaine, meth, even grass—that wouldn’t be good.”
    “Honest to God, I don’t got money for fuckin’ cigarettes.”
    The killer pulled the needle out, dropped it in his kit, then pointed Charlie to the couch. “Why don’t you sit down, we’ll fill out this questionnaire, and then I can get out of your hair. Let you sleep,” he said.
    Charlie obediently plopped down on the couch. The killer took a slip of paper from his shirt pocket, looked at it, and then said, “Have you been dating?”
    Charlie goggled at him. “Dating? You gotta be fuckin’ kidding. Everybody in town knows what I was arrested for . . .” His eyes drooped, and he yawned, and he mumbled, “I couldn’t get a fuckin’ date . . . Jesus, I’m sleepy. Must’ve been the blood you took out.”
    Either that or the overload of phenobarbital that he’d just put in, the killer thought, amused. Enough to kill a horse. Charlie tried to get up, struggled, then fell back on the couch . . . “I don’t . . . I don’t . . .”
    He was out. The killer’s heart was beating a little faster now. He was insane, but not immune to fear; in fact, his whole life had been lived in fear. At this point, he could bullshit his way out, he thought. In five minutes, if he went ahead, he couldn’t. He leaned forward from the kitchen chair, examining Charlie’s slack face. Well . . .
    He had vinyl gloves and a scalpel in his medical kit, and a Ziploc bag. He pulled on the vinyl gloves, knelt next to Charlie’s body, turned his arm, and cut off Charlie’s little finger. Charlie twitched once, then went still again. The killer wrapped the bag around the stump of Charlie’s finger, watched until it contained an ounce or so of blood, dropped the finger inside, then got the rope.
    He murdered Charlie with the rope. The drug would have done it, in time, but he didn’t want to waste that time—didn’t want to be inside Charlie’s place any longer than he had to be. So he stood behind the other man, put the rope around Charlie’s neck, and pulled hard. Held it; held it; held it. In a minute or a little more, Charlie began to shake. That went on for a short time, less than a minute, the killer thought, and still he pulled on the rope. Held it.
    Sweaty work, killing somebody with a rope. Like hanging on to a rope tow up a ski slope. He was tough, but his arms were shaking by the time Charlie was dead. It took much longer than in the movies. As a psychotherapist, he thought, a medical professional, he should have known that; he giggled a little at the thought.
    When he was sure that Charlie was dead, he looked at the hand with the amputated finger. The flow of blood had stopped. He pulled the bag off