Just as there is no absolute vacuum, there is no absolute abstraction. But one approaches a vacuum by removing atmosphere, and so, in the pretentious excuse offered by Judd, it seemed that by removing the common atmospheres of lust, hatred, greed, one could approach the perfect essence of crime.

Thus one might come down to an isolated killing impulse in humanity. To kill, as we put it in the headlines, for a thrill! I think the boys themselves believed this was what they had done.

At first their recital sounded much like an account of daydreams that all could recognize. They had been playing with the idea of the “perfect murder”. Is not the whole of detective-story literature built on this common fantasy? True, in such stories we always supply a conventional motive. We accept that a man may kill for a legacy or for jealousy or for revenge, though inwardly we may make the reservation – that’s foolish, the butler wouldn’t go so far. We accept that a dictator may unleash a war out of “economic needs” or “lust for power” but inwardly we keep saying, “Why? Why? Why?”

But Judd Steiner and Artie Straus were saying that they had killed the boy, a victim chosen at random, truly for the deed alone, for the fascinating experiment of committing a perfect crime.

Each related how the plan had begun, Artie vaguely saying “a few months ago”, but Judd, with his passion for precision, saying “the first time we thought of a thing like this was on the twenty-eighth of November” and telling us how on that night they had robbed the fraternity house in Ann Arbour, and how they had quarrelled on their weird drive homeward. Quarrelling lovers must break, or bind themselves into deeper intimacy, and so their pact was made to do some great and perfect crime together. That it should be a kidnapping came out in Artie’s thought – perhaps it had been waiting in him.

Then, the step of pure logic: for security, the victim must never be able to identify the kidnappers; therefore he must be killed at the earliest moment. Thus the killing was non-emotionally arrived at; it was incidental to the perfection of an idea.

How needlessly emotional people had always been about death! In the pursuit of an impersonal plan, it was nothing, as Judd was to insist; it was no more meaningful than impaling a beetle, than mounting a bird.

The truly intriguing element of the problem would follow: how to secure the ransom, without risk of contact? Though money was not the actual motivating force, still it was part of the set exercise. After the feat of a perfect murder came the feat of a perfect transfer of ransom. And so came the idea of a transfer in moving space – the train, the rented car, an abstract identity.

“And so you registered at the Morrison Hotel as James Singer?”

“Yes, Artie brought an old valise – we left it there.”

Instantly, McNamara was hurried over to the Morrison. The registration was found: James Singer. In the storeroom, the tagged, abandoned valise. For weight, a few books. So clever, so careless the perfect plan – books from the university library, one of them containing a library card made out to Artie Straus.

By such tangible items the whole nightmarish, incredible tale began to become real even while the recital continued, behind each door. The rented car – and putting up the side curtains so no one could see into the rear. And then the lunch with Willie Weiss, and then hunting the victim, and the boy coming into the car.

“And at that moment it was not too late to stop?”

Was it? You could think it was too late from the moment Judd first met Artie, from the moment when he was born so bright, born a boy though a girl was wanted. Or you could believe that even with an arm upraised, holding the taped chisel, it was not yet too late… How many murders are halted only as a thought in our minds? I could kill that sonofabitch! In how many tales do we have the moment of the pointed gun, the Go ahead and shoot, and instead, the dropping arm? When the first chosen victim, Dickie Weiss, had disappeared on 49th Street, it had seemed the end of their adventure. And yet the arm came to be raised.

“And in that moment you were still able to distinguish between right and wrong?”

“Right and wrong in the conventional sense, yes,” Judd answered.

And so the blow was struck and perhaps even directly afterwards it seemed not to have happened and that the deed could still be halted. And then came that strange burial, the vain attempt at effacement.

“Then it was our plan to pour acid on the face in order to oblitterate the identity, in case of the finding of the body.”

But in the actual deed, suddenly it had seemed necessary, essential to go on pouring. “And when we were doing it, we continued pouring it also on another part of the body-”

“Where?”

“The private parts.”

Then wasn’t it after all a sex crime? Something sickening, to be hastily covered up, and turned away from? But the questioners had to be relentless. In that closed room, Judd was asked, “What made you do that?”

“We believed – yes, we were under the impression that a person could also be identified by-” He stopped.

In that intensely charged confession room, with all the men staring at him – Horn, Czewicki, the stenographer, as though staring through his clothes, and with all the dirty meanings in their eyes – could there then have flashed through Judd’s mind some image from his childhood, seemingly disconnected, undressing somewhere, naked, and fellows, maybe even his brother, making crude jokes? For myself, I recall an incident as a boy, in a shower room – one of the kids closing his legs so that only the hair showed and jumping around yelling, “I’m a girl! A girl!” And the ribald laughter. Could some such image have pressed itself forward? Could it perhaps have given Judd a shadowy hint as to the meaning of that attempted obliteration?

Thus, there was the deed, poured out, relived in that night of confession. The body dissolvingly anointed over mouth and genitalia, then pulled into the mire, pulled blood-flecked through the swamp water and pressed into the dark tube.

Then hurriedly away, dragging the bloodied robe, up the night lane. Wait. To scoop the earth with the sharp chisel, and bury the belt buckle which never would burn. And farther on a piece, bury the shoes under a crust of earth. Then as far as the road, the city streets and lights. And stopping at a drugstore, Judd to phone home – the dutiful son, “I’ll be a little late” – and Artie calling a girl – “I got held up, babe, detained, puss, make it tomorrow.” Then to Judd’s house, and parking the Willys a few doors away while pulling out his Stutz to drive his aunt and uncle home, leaving Artie calmly playing a hand of casino with Judah Steiner, Sr. And then Judd back – “Good night, sir,” as Pater retires upstairs – then both into the Willys, the robe, the clothes still inside it. Then to Artie’s house, sneaking down to the basement, the clothes bundled into the furnace, but not the lap robe – “It’ll make a stench. We’ll stuff it behind a bush, get rid of it tomorrow. If anyone finds it, that’s virgin blood – boys will be boys, ha ha.” But wait – the blood in the car. Take the gardener’s watering pail, wash off the worst of it – “Can’t see, that’s good enough,” says Artie. “Park the damn Willys in front of some damn apartment house. Clear the stuff out of it.” Then drive Artie home. “Wait – get rid of the frigging tool!” And driving along Ellis Avenue, Artie flinging the taped chisel out upon the stupid world…

“Premeditated – why, they planned this thing for weeks, months,” Horn told us when he emerged into the hotel corridor. “I’ve got a hanging case, no question. I don’t care how many millions their families throw in to try to save their skins.” He was not vindictive, not bloodthirsty. He was a man who had carried out a most difficult task and could be satisfied that he had handled it well.