Mr. Murder

had passed so many solitary hours in the concoction and solution of so many mysteries, where he had put uncounted characters through enormous travail and challenged them to find their way out of mortal danger. The room was so familiar, the overflowing bookshelves, a dozen original paintings that had been featured on the dust jackets of his novels, the couch that he had bought in anticipation of lazy plotting sessions but on which he had never had the time or inclination to lie, the computer with its oversize monitor.
        But that familiarity was not comforting any more, because now it was tainted by the strangeness of what had happened minutes ago.
        He blotted his damp palms on his jeans.
        Having briefly lifted from him, dread settled again in the manner of Poe's mysterious raven perching above a chamber door.
        Waking from the trance, perceiving danger, he had expected to find the threat outside in the street or in the form of a burglar roaming through the rooms below. But it was worse than that. The threat was not external. Somehow, the wrongness was within him.
        The night is deep and free of turbulence.
        Below, the clotted clouds are silver with reflected moonlight, and for a while the shadow of the plane undulates across that vaporous sea.
        The killer's flight from Boston arrives on time in Kansas City, Missouri. He goes directly to the baggage-claim area.
        Thanksgiving holiday travelers will not head home until tomorrow, so the airport is quiet. His two pieces of luggage-one of which contains a Heckler & Koch P7 pistol, detachable silencer, and expanded magazines loaded with 9mm ammunition-are first and second to drop onto the carrousel.
        At the rental-agency counter he discovers that his reservation has not been misplaced or misrecorded, as often happens. He will receive the large Ford sedan that he requested, instead of being stuck with a subcompact.
        The credit card in the name of John Larrington is accepted by the clerk and by the American Express verifying machine with no problem, although his name is not John Larrington.
        When he receives the car, it runs well and smells clean. The heater actually works.
        Everything seems to be going his way.
        Within a few miles of the airport he checks into a pleasant if anonymous four-story motor hotel, where the red-haired clerk at the reception counter tells him that he may have a complimentary breakfast-pastries, juice, and coffee delivered in the morning simply by requesting it. His Visa card in the name of Thomas E. Jukovic is accepted, although Thomas E. Jukovic is not his name.
        His room has burnt-orange carpet and striped blue wallpaper.
        However, the mattress is firm, and the towels are fluffy.
        The suitcase containing the automatic pistol and ammunition remains locked in the trunk of the car, where it will offer no temptation to snooping motel employees.
        After sitting in a chair by the window for a while, staring at Kansas City by starlight, he goes down to the coffee shop to have dinner. He is six feet tall, weighs a hundred and eighty pounds, but eats as heartily as a much larger man. A bowl of vegetable soup with garlic toast. Two cheeseburgers, french fries. A slice of apple pie with vanilla ice cream. Half a dozen cups of coffee.
        He always has a big appetite. Often he is ravenous, at times his hunger seems almost insatiable.
        While he eats, the waitress stops by twice to ask if the food is prepared well and if he needs anything else. She is not merely attentive but flirting with him.
        Although he is reasonably attractive, his looks don't rival those of any movie star. Yet women flirt with him more frequently than with other men who are handsomer and better dressed than he. Consisting of Rockport walking shoes, khaki slacks, a dark-green crew-neck sweater, no jewelry, and an inexpensive wristwatch, his wardrobe is unremarkable, unmemorable. Which is the idea. The waitress has no reason to mistake him for a man of means. Yet here she is again, smiling coquettishly.
        Once, in a Miami cocktail lounge where he had picked her up, a blonde with whiskey-colored eyes had assured him that an intriguing aura surrounded him. A compelling magnetism arose, she said, from his preference for silence and from the stony expression that usually occupied his face. "You are," she'd insisted playfully, "the epitome