Mr. Murder

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        The Honda, with him all the way from Oklahoma, has outlived its usefulness. It must be abandoned here.
        He gets out of the car with the tire iron in his right hand.
        Gripping the tapered end, he holds it close to his leg to avoid calling attention to it.
        The storm is beginning to lose some of its force. The wind is abating.
        No lightning scores the sky.
        Although the rain is no less cold than it was earlier, he finds it refreshing rather than chilling.
        As he heads toward the mall-and the white Buick-he surveys the huge parking lot. As far as he can tell, no one is watching him.
        None of the bracketing vehicles along that aisle is in the process of leaving, no lights, no telltale plumes of exhaust fumes. The nearest moving car is three rows away.
        The shopper has found his keys, opened the trunk of the Buick, and stowed away the first of the two plastic bags. Bending to pick up the second bag, the stranger becomes aware that he is no longer alone, turns his head, looks back and up from his bent position in time to see the tire iron sweeping toward his face, on which an expression of alarm barely has time to form.
        The second blow is probably unnecessary. The first will have driven fragments of facial bones into the brain. He strikes again, anyway, at the inert and silent shopper.
        He throws the tire iron in the open trunk. It hits something with a dull clank.
        Move, move, confront, challenge, grapple, and prevail.
        Wasting no time looking around to determine if he is still unobserved, he plucks the man off the wet blacktop in the manner of a bodybuilder beginning a clean-and-jerk lift with a barbell. He drops the corpse into the trunk, and the car rocks with the impact of the dead weight.
        The night and rain provide what little cover he needs to wrestle the raincoat off the cadaver while it lies hidden in the open trunk. One of the dead eyes stares fixedly while the other rolls loosely in the socket, and the mouth is frozen in a broken-toothed howl of terror that was never made.
        When he pulls the coat on over his wet clothes, it is somewhat roomy and an inch long in the sleeves but adequate for the time being. It covers his bloodstained, torn, and food-smeared clothes, making him reasonably presentable, which is all that he cares about.
        It is still warm from the shopper's body heat.
        Later he will dispose of the cadaver, and tomorrow he will buy new clothes. Now he has much to do and precious little time in which to do it.
        He takes the dead man's wallet, which has a pleasingly thick sheaf of currency in it.
        He tosses the second shopping bag on top of the corpse, slams the trunk lid. The keys are dangling from the lock.
        In the Buick, fiddling with the heater controls, he drives away from the mall.
        Move, move, confront, challenge, grapple, and prevail.
        He starts looking for a service station, not because the Buick needs fuel but because he has to find a pay phone.
        He remembers the voices in the kitchen while he had twitched in agony midst the ruins of the stair railing. The imposter had been hustling Paige and the girls out of the house before they could come into the foyer and see their real father struggling to get off his back onto his hands and knees.
        '… take them across the street to Vic and Kathy's… " And seconds later, there had been a name more useful still,… over to the Delonos' place… " Although they are his neighbors, he can't remember Vic and Kathy Delorio or which house is theirs. That knowledge was stolen from him with the rest of his life. However, if they have a listed phone, he will be able to find them.
        A service station. A blue Pacific Bell sign.
        Even as he drives up beside the Plexiglas-walled phone booth, he can dimly see the thick directory secured by a chain.
        Leaving the Buick engine running, he sloshes through a puddle into the booth. He closes the door to turn on the overhead light, and flips frantically through the White Pages.
        Luck is with him. Victor W. Delorio. The only listing under that name.
        Mission Viejo. His own street. Bingo. He memorizes the address.
        He runs into the service station to buy candy bars. Twenty of them.
        Hershey's bars with almonds, 3 Musketeers, Mounds, Nestle's white chocolate Crunch. His