Mr. Murder

resistance.
        He is concerned about drawing the unwanted attention of other motel guests. But a minimum of noise is also important because quiet murder is more personal, more intimate, more deeply satisfying.
        So quietly does she succumb that he is reminded of nature films in which certain spiders and mantises kill their mates subsequent to a first and final act of intercourse, always without a sound from either assailant or victim. Heather's death is marked by a cold and solemn ritual equal to the stylized savagery of those insects.
        Minutes later, after showering and dressing, he crosses the highway from the motel to the Blue Life Lounge and gets in his rental car.
        He has business to conduct. He was not sent to Kansas City to murder a whore named Heather. She was merely a diversion. Other victims await him, and now he is sufficiently relaxed and focused to deal with them.
        In Marty's office, by the party-colored light of the stained-glass lamp, Paige stood beside the desk, staring at the small tape recorder, listening to her husband chant two unsettling words in a voice that ranged from a melancholy whisper to a low snarl of rage.
        After less than two minutes, she couldn't tolerate it any longer.
        His voice was simultaneously familiar and strange, which made it far worse than if she'd been unable to recognize it at all.
        She switched off the recorder.
        Realizing she was still holding the glass of red wine in her right hand, she took too large a swallow. It was a good California cabernet that merited leisurely sipping, but suddenly she was more interested in its effect than its taste.
        Standing across the desk from her, Marty said, "There's at least five more minutes of the same thing. Seven minutes in all. After it happened, before you and the girls came home, I did some research."
        He gestured toward the bookshelves that lined one wall. "In my medical references."
        Paige did not want to hear what he was going to tell her. The possibility of serious illness was unthinkable. If anything happened to Marty, the world would be a far darker and less interesting place.
        She was not sure that she could deal with the loss of him. She realized her attitude was peculiar, considering that she was a child psychologist who, in her private practice and during the hours she donated to child-welfare groups, had counseled dozens of children about how to conquer grief and go on after the death of a loved one.
        Coming around the desk toward her, his own wine glass already empty, Marty said, "A fugue can be symptomatic of several things.
        Early-stage Alzheimer's disease, for instance, but I believe we can rule that out. If I've got Alzheimer's at thirty-three, I'd probably be the youngest case on record by about a decade."
        He put his glass on the desk and went to the window to stare out at the night between the slats of the plantation shutters.
        Paige was struck by how vulnerable he suddenly appeared. Six feet tall, a hundred and eighty pounds, with his easy-going manner and limitless enthusiasm for life, Marty had always before struck her as being more solid and permanent than anything in the world, oceans and mountains included. Now he seemed as fragile as a pane of glass.
        With his back toward her, still studying the night, he said, "Or it might have been an indication of a small stroke."
        "No."
        "Though according to the references I checked, the most likely cause is a brain tumor."
        She raised her glass. It was empty. She could not remember having finished the wine. A little fugue of her own.
        She set the glass on the desk. Beside the hateful cassette recorder.
        Then she went to Marty and put a hand on his shoulder.
        When he turned to her, she kissed him lightly, quickly. She laid her head against his chest and hugged him, and he put his arms around her.
        Because of Marty, she had learned that hugs were as essential to a healthy life as were food, water, sleep.
        Earlier, when she had caught him systematically checking window locks, she'd insisted, with only a scowl and a single word-"Well?"- insisted on hearing about his one bad moment in an otherwise fine day.
        She looked up and met his eyes at last, still embracing him, and said,
        "It might be nothing."
        "It's something."
        "But I mean,