“Right,” Larson said, then, under his breath, “Or else she did.”

Minneapolis, Minnesota, streamed past outside the bus window as the passenger took a final opportunity to commit the face of his next victim to memory. He had to allow for added age, a change in hair color or style, weight loss or gain, so he focused on the green eyes, the soft curve of her chin and the placement of her ears, finding a tiny, hooked scar in the hairs of the eyebrow above her left eye. He put no currency in the name-Alice Frizen, Alice Dunbar-he thought instead of carving lines into her, shallow at first, deeper when necessary, the beauty of the rich, sanguine red against pale skin.

A hole in the knee of his worn blue jeans revealed the dark skin of his Latin heritage. His knee bounced with the vibrations of the city bus. The fabric moved, including the forest green sweatshirt he wore, but not the body within-every muscle flexed and taut, a cat ready to pounce. With the hood of the sweatshirt pulled up, the man’s face remained like a monk’s, in dark shadow, so that the curious little girl who studied him so intently from the row in front of him could make out no distinguishing features. Just two eyes peering out, impossibly dark brown to the point of appearing black at the center. Those eyes looked down and returned to the crossword puzzle in his lap.

3 across:

A knot, not to be undone.

The five-year-old girl smiled at him and waved with the tips of her fingers so her mother wouldn’t see. She clearly hoped for a smile, but she got nothing out of him.

Paolo ignored the girl, his attention on the puzzle and occasionally out the bus window, on the street numbers above or alongside the door of a passing building. He awaited a particular address. For all the rigidity of his muscles, he felt an internal calm. He followed instruction; he did as he was told. He felt eternally grateful for the opportunity he’d been given: a sense of family, a sense of belonging. Nothing, no one, would come close to stopping him.

Paolo had Philippe to thank for his training; he served him as a lieutenant serves his captain. It had crossed his mind more than once that his orders should have come directly from Ricardo, Philippe’s half brother, who now ran the Romero compound in his father’s “retirement.” Philippe did not sit on the council as Ricardo did, and was unlikely to have the authority to order this woman’s execution, but this was the woman responsible for putting Donny away, and so Paolo followed the orders. Philippe was tangled up in a family dispute, a power struggle to keep the family business in health care and insurance, while his worthless half brother was more of a street thug who favored cutting in on the Native American casinos and gaming. Paolo would follow Philippe to the grave, if asked. Ricardo was an arrogant, spoiled snot. If the bastard son, Philippe, was making a move for control of the Romero family, as it appeared, then Paolo would gladly assist the transition. Philippe carried a hard-on for his half brother’s wife, an extremely fine-looking Italian woman named Katrina. Paolo grew heady with the thought of his own increased importance following the success of this job.

He felt the twinges of an erection and knew he must be close.

He looked up and caught a street number off a delicatessen’s window. Yes. Nearly there.

GORDIAN

… he wrote into the small boxes.

He reached for the button to signal the driver: next stop.

Paolo scouted the back of the apartment building intent on finding an alternate point of entry. The crossword puzzle was now folded and tucked into a back pocket. He pulled down the sweatshirt’s hood, aware that he exposed his face by doing so, but wanting his ears in open air, his hearing in top form. He pursed his lips and inhaled through his nose, collecting the various odors of the back alley-cats, stale beer, human urine, decomposing trash, motor oil-wiggled the fingers of both hands like a butterfly drying its wings, and briefly closed his eyes, containing himself in darkness before opening them again and seeing everything around him as new.

He saw it. The adjacent office building held a fire escape on the alley side that led to the building’s roof. This office building physically connected to the apartment building, which had a similar fire escape, but one that used a weighted drop mechanism and was therefore impossible for Paolo to reach. It was an indirect route, but one that would serve his purpose.

Broad daylight, he thought. Who expects to die in the morning? Hollywood had conditioned the public into believing murder only happened at night. He had them to thank for the ease with which he could surprise his victims.

He climbed strongly, his light frame moved effortlessly by a taut, lean musculature. He made no hurry of it, counting again on the public’s conditioning. He climbed with confidence, a maintenance man perhaps, or a roofer making an inspection.

He crossed to the four-story apartment building, descended an exterior steel ladder, and worked his way down one level to the catwalk that fronted a string of eight large windows. Studying the top floor as he climbed down, he made it out to be two apartments, four windows each: kitchen, living room, and probably a pair of bedrooms.

From a distance no one would see the Tru-Feel surgical gloves. With his back turned to the alley it would be difficult, if not impossible, to make out the reflective sunglasses he now donned. They served the same purpose as the black box strung across eyes in photographs, effecting anonymity.

He had “ Alice ’s” face committed to memory. Her body as well-what the photo showed of it. He made a point of slipping past the windows swiftly-a blur, a shadow.

He had the recent heat wave to thank for four of the six windows being either ajar or fully open. Two contained fans that spun noisily, helping to conceal his actions.

Apartment 3D would occupy the three right-hand windows. The first of these was open four inches and looked in on an empty galley kitchen. Paolo heard a woman’s voice as well as synthesized New Age background music. Not a human voice, he discerned. Electronic. A CD or television. He hesitated just long enough to hear the instructions and realize it was yoga. “Tighten your abdomen, firm up the buttocks, and rock like a rocking horse…”

The next window was shut. Without exposing himself, he studied it from the side more closely: locked. But the third window-the bedroom-was also open.

He peered around the window frame, just far enough to see her. Facing away from him, and toward a television where an instructor went through the motions, “ Alice ” wore a black swimsuit or leotard that fit her lean frame tightly and was currently wedged up her buttocks and crotch as she rocked per instruction. She was damp with perspiration and some pubic hair escaped the edges. Paolo again felt the twinges of arousal.

He slipped the razor out from behind his belt buckle and sliced the nylon screen on the kitchen window.

A calculated risk. Nothing came without a price. If his diversion failed, things could get messy. Noisy. He might be forced to work incredibly fast. Nothing new in this world. The most promising situations often turned bad.

He reached through the slice in the screen and pushed a warm coffee mug off the counter. To his delight, it crashed to the tile floor.

His eye was to the second window by the time she came out of her pose, pulled her feet in front of her, and stood.

“Hello?” she called out.

She marched into the kitchen, pulling down on the backside of the leotard, her buttocks flexing nicely.