the fluid as widely as possible.
  In twenty minutes his tank was empty. He wound the hose around the reel and looked 
toward the far end of the lake. Holbrook had finished emptying his tank and was climbing 
out onto the concrete apron.
  They met at the gate. "Okay?" Rossner asked.
  "Perfect."
  By 5:10 they were back at the Land Rover. They got shovels from the back of the car and 
dug two shallow holes in the rich black earth. They buried the empty tanks, boots, 
holsters, and guns.
  For two hours Holbrook drove along a series of rugged dirt trails, crossed St. John 
River on a timber bridge, picked up a graveled lane, and finally connected with a paved 
road at half past eight.
  From there Rossner took the wheel. They didn't say more than a dozen words to each 
other.
  At twelve thirty Holbrook got out at the Starlite Motel on Route 15 where he had a 
room. He closed the car door without saying good-by, went inside, locked the motel door, 
and sat by the telephone.
  Rossner had the Rover's tank filled at a Sunoco station and picked up Interstate 95 
south to Waterville and past Augusta. From there he took the Maine Turnpike to Portland, 
where he stopped at a service area and parked near a row of telephone booths.
  The afternoon sun made mirrors of the restaurant windows and flashed off the parked 
cars. Shimmering waves of hot air rose from the pavement.
  He looked at his watch. 3:35.
  He leaned back and closed his eyes. He appeared to be nap
  ping, but every five minutes he glanced at his watch. At 3:55 he got out of the car and 
went to the last booth in the row.
  At four o'clock the phone rang.
  "Rossner."
  The voice at the other end of the line was cold and sharp:
  "I am the key, Mr. Rossner."
  "I am the lock," Rossner said dully.
  "How did it go?"
  "As scheduled."
  "You missed the three-thirty call."
  "Only by five minutes."
  The man at the other end hesitated. Then: "Leave the turnpike at the next exit Turn 
right on the state route. Put the Rover up to at least one hundred miles an hour. Two 
miles along, the road takes a sudden turn, hard to the right; it's banked by a fieldstone 
wall. Do not apply your brakes when you reach the curve. Do not turn with the road. Drive 
straight into that wall at a hundred miles an hour."
  Rossner stared through the glass wall of the booth. A young woman was crossing from the 
restaurant toward a little red sports car. She was wearing fight white shorts with dark 
stitching. She had nice legs.
  "Glenn?"
  "Yes, sir."
  "Do you understand me?"
  "Repeat what I've said."
  Rossner went through it, almost word for word.
  "Very good, Glenn. Now go do it."
  "Yes, sir."
  Rossner returned to the Land Rover and drove back onto the busy turnpike.
  Holbrook sat quietly, patiently in the unlighted motel room. He switched on the 
television set, but he didn't watch it. He got up once to use the bathroom and to get a 
drink of water, but that was the only break in his vigil.
  At 4:10 the telephone rang.
  He picked it up. "Holbrook."
  "I am the key, Mr. Holbrook."
  "I am the lock."
  The man on the other end of the line spoke for half a minute. "Now repeat what I've 
said."
  Holbrook repeated it.
  "Excellent. Now do it."
  He hung up, went into the bathroom, and began to draw a tub full of warm water.
  When he turned right onto the state route, Glenn Rossner pressed the accelerator all 
the way to the floor. The engine roared. The car's frame began to shimmy. Trees and 
houses and other cars flashed past, mere blurs of color. The steering wheel jumped and 
vibrated in his hands.
  For the first mile and a half, he didn't look away from the road for even a second. 
When he saw the curve ahead, he glanced at the speedometer and saw that he was doing 
slightly better than a hundred miles per hour.
  He whimpered, but he didn't hear himself. The only things he could hear were the 
tortured noises produced by the car. At the last moment he gritted his teeth and 
shuddered.
  The Land Rover hit the four-foot-high stone wall so hard that the engine was jammed 
back into Rossner's lap. The car plowed part of the way through the wall. Stones shot up 
and rained back down. The Rover tipped onto its crushed front end, rolled over on its 
roof, slid across the ruined wall, and burst into flames.
  Holbrook undressed and climbed into the tub. He settled down in the water and picked up 
the single-edge razor blade that lay on the porcelain rim. He held the blade by the blunt 
end, firmly between the thumb and first finger of his right hand, then slashed open the 
veins in his left wrist.
  He tried to cut his right wrist. His left hand could not hold the blade. It slipped 
from his fingers.
  He plucked it out of the darkening water, held it in his right hand once more, and cut 
across the bridge of his left foot.
  Then he leaned back and closed his eyes.
  Slowly, he drifted down a lightless tunnel of the mind, into ever deepening darkness, 
getting dizzy and weak, feeling surprisingly little pain. In thirty minutes he was 
comatose. In forty minutes he was dead.
   
   
   
  Sunday, August 7, 1977
  AFTER WORKING ALL WEEK on the midnight shift, Buddy Pellineri was unable to change his 
sleeping habits for the weekend. At four o'clock Sunday morning, he was in the kitchen of 
his tiny, two-room apartment. The radio, his most prized possession, was turned down low: 
music from an all-night Canadian station. He was sitting at the table, next to the 
window, staring fixedly at the shadows on the far side of the street. He had seen a cat 
running along the walk over there, and the hairs had stood up on the back of his neck.
  There were two things that Buddy Pellineri hated and feared more than all else in life: