“Mother,” Hood said, closing his eyes to dream and maybe to pray. The stone pressed on his chest. Andretti’s blood would be black on the carpet. He would do it tomorrow, just after the hall closed.

The night was dark and filled with visions, even in the suffocating motel room. Hood woke at one o’clock, and three, four and five. At six, he got up, weary but unable to sleep. He shaved, cleaned up, put on his best suit, feeling the stone weight around his neck, the small pistol in his pocket.

He walked to the train station, caught a ride across the river, walked to Central Park. Checked the zoo and the Metropolitan Museum. Cruised the van Goghs and the Degas, lingered with the Renoirs and Monets. He liked the outdoor lushness of the Impressionists. His own country, out along the Missouri in South Dakota, was all brown and tan for most of the year. But there were times, in the spring, when you’d find small mudflats overflowing with wildflowers, where side creeks ran down to the river. He could peer at the Monets and smell the hot prairie spice of the black-eyed Susans . . . .

It took forever for the time to come. When it did, he rode downtown on the subway, pinching out his emotions, one by one. Thinking back to his hours on Bear Butte, the arid, stoic beauty of the countryside. The distant scream of the Black Hills, raped by the whites who promoted each natural mystery with a chrome-yellow billboard.

By the time he reached the hall, he felt as close to stone as he ever had. A few minutes before five, he walked into the hall and took the stairs to the fifth floor.

Andretti’s welfare department took up twelve floors of the hall, but his personal office consisted of a suite of four rooms. Hood had calculated that six to eight people regularly worked in those rooms: Andretti and his secretary; a receptionist; three aides, one male and two female; and a couple of clerks on an irregular basis. The clerks and receptionist fled at five o’clock on the dot. He shouldn’t have more than five people to deal with.

On the fifth floor, Hood checked the hallway, then walked quickly down to the public rest room. He entered one of the stalls, sat down and opened his shirt. The obsidian knife hung from his neck on a deerhide thong, taken from the doe killed the year before. He pulled the thong over his neck and slipped the knife into his left jacket pocket. The gun was in his right.

Hood looked at his watch. Three minutes after five. He decided to wait a few more minutes and sat on the toilet, watching the second hand go ’round. The watch had cost twelve dollars, new. A Timex; his wife had bought it when it looked as if he might get a job with a state road crew. But the job had fallen through and all he had left was the Timex.

When the Timex said 5:07, Hood stood up, his soul now as hard as the knife. The hallway was empty. He walked quickly down to Andretti’s office, looking to his right as he passed the main hall. A woman was waiting for the elevator. She glanced at him, then away. Hood continued to Andretti’s office, paused with his hand on the knob, then pushed it open. The receptionist had gone, but he heard laughter from the other side of the panel behind her desk.

Putting his hand in his jacket pocket, on the gun, he stepped around the panel. Two of the aides, a man and a woman, were leaning on desks, talking. Through an open door, he could see Andretti, working in shirtsleeves behind a green goosenecked lamp. There was at least one more person in his office with him.

When he came around the panel, the woman didn’t notice him for a moment, but the man saw him and frowned slightly. Then the woman turned her head and said, “I’m sorry, we’re closed.”

Hood took his hand from his pocket, with the gun in it, and said, “Don’t say a word or make a sound. Just walk into Mr. Andretti’s office.”

“Oh, no,” said the woman. The man clenched his fists and slipped off the desk.

Hood pointed the gun at his head and said, “I don’t want to kill you, but I will. Now walk.” He had now moved out of Andretti’s line of sight. “Move,” he said.

They moved reluctantly, toward Andretti’s office. “If you do anything, if you touch a door, if you say anything, I will shoot you,” Hood said quietly as they approached Andretti’s office.

The man stepped inside, followed by the woman. Hood said, “Off to the side.” The man said, “Boss, we’ve got a problem.” Andretti looked up and said, “Oh, shit.”

A woman was slumped in a chair in front of Andretti’s desk, her face caught in a smile which seeped away when she saw Hood; Hood thought the word seeped, because of the slowness with which it left. As though she didn’t want to disturb him. As though she wanted to think it was a joke.

“Where’s the secretary?” Hood asked Andretti.

“She went home early,” Andretti said. “Listen, my friend . . .”

“Be quiet. We’ve got some business to do, but I have to arrange these people first. I don’t want them rushing me while we talk.”

“If you’ve got a problem . . .”

“I’ve got a problem, all right,” Hood interrupted. “It’s how to keep from shooting one of these people if they don’t do what I say. I want you to all lay down, facedown, on the rug against that wall.”

“How do we know you won’t shoot us?”

“Because I promise not to. I don’t want to hurt you. But I promise I will shoot you if you don’t get down on the floor.”

“Do it,” Andretti ordered.

The three backed away toward the wall, then sat down.

“Roll over, facedown,” Hood said. They flattened themselves out, one of the women craning her neck to see him. “Look at the rug, lady, okay?”

When they were staring at the rug, Hood moved slowly around Andretti’s desk. Andretti was a big man, and young; early thirties. No more than thirty-five.

“Let me explain what I’m about to do, Mr. Andretti,” Hood said as he moved. He and Bluebird and the others had thought this out, and decided that lying would be best. “I’m going to put some cuffs on you and then I’m going to make some phone calls downtown on behalf of my people. I’m going to put the cuffs on because I don’t want you causing trouble. If everybody cooperates, nobody gets hurt. Do you understand?”

“I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t understand what you want.”

“We’ll talk that out,” Hood said reassuringly. He was behind Andretti, and he reached out and touched him on the temple with the barrel of the pistol. “Put your hands behind your back, clasp them.”

When Andretti had done that, Hood said, “Now, look straight back. No, arch your back and tilt your head back. I want to show you this before I do it.”

“What?” Andretti asked, dropping his head straight back.

“This,” Hood said. He’d changed the gun for the knife, caught Andretti’s hair in his left hand and slashed him with the stone, cutting deeper, much deeper, much fiercer, than he had with the doe.

“Ahh,” he grunted as the blood spurted from Andretti’s neck. Andretti’s hands pounded on his desk and he began coughing, choking, looking for Hood. One of the women half sat, saw Andretti and screamed. Hood fired a single shot at her white face and she dropped down. He didn’t know whether he had hit her or not, but the man now rolled and the other woman began scrambling across the rug. Hood hollered “Stop” and fired a shot into the man’s back. The man arched and Hood was out the door, down the hallway and in the stairwell, running, the screams fading as doors closed.

Gun in pocket, knife in pocket, first landing down. He looked at his hands. Clean. Looked at his pants. Clean. Blood on his shirt, a spot on his jacket. He pulled the jacket shut, third landing down. Ground floor. Into the lobby. Guard at the desk, looking up. Past the guard, into the street. Down a block. Into the subway. The token. Wait. Wait. Wait for running feet, shouts, cops, but nothing but the damp smell of the subway and the clatter of an approaching train.