12
to spray the clothing. He sprayed the shoes black and put them back into the dark closet. As the paint dried, the shoes disappeared.
He began to get excited at the prospect of playing the invisible man. He ran to the kitchen, again tripping over the cat. This time he did not apologize. From a plastic wrap and an old baseball cap, he fashioned a face screen with a thin slit he could see through. He took it back to the bedroom and sprayed the whole aparatus black.
He put on the costume, then drew the blinds and old drapes in the room. He stepped in front of the full length mirror on the back of his bedroom door in the dark room and there he was.
Or wasn't.
He was invisible.
He felt a thrill like he'd never felt before, not even when he was watching Phyllis' bottom as she gardened next door. He felt fantastic.
And scared.
13
CHAPTER TWO
His name was Remo and he feared nothing.
All men's fears were based on one thing alone— breathed into her ear. "Show me around later?"
the fear of dying. It was what terrified an embez- His hand touched her back and did something to
zler; afraid he might be found out, and afraid he
would have to take his own life. It explained the ter- cushion.
ror of a child in the dark, or a grown-up hearing the sound of rats inside a wall. Every fear translated
into the fear of dying. "Sure- Sure-"
And Remo no longer had that fear. He no longer
worried about being killed, but only about whom he e later'
would kill and when.
He was an assassin, and knowing that he had power over life and death for others had given him a kind of peace he had never known before.
He felt that peace as he slipped into the hospital, strolled with a casual wave past a guard's desk, and
nodded to a middle-aged nurse, who took one look This was number one-
at the slim, thick-wristed, dark-eyed man and
wished that he belonged to her. nose rebelled at the smdl and his brain at the
Remo whistled peacefully as he rode in the eleva-
tor up to the intensive care unit on the third floor burned beans- Then he sat across from the other or'
and found a linen closet. Inside, a simple change of ^; , „„ , , ,
clothes made him an orderly. You the man? he asked.
He loaded his arms up with a pile of towels, walked into the intensive care ward and said to the young peppermint striper there, "How's it going to-
Remo asked. 14
night?" "What pool?"
The young woman took one look into his intense, dark eyes and felt the same shiver the nurse downstairs had felt.
"Quiet as a mouse," she said. "You're new here, aren't you?"
"Yup," he said. He leaned over her desk and, as he checked the list of patient names in the ward,
her that made her squirm on the orange plastic seat
Sure," she said, and then in case he had misunderstood her statement or its intensity, said again,
Swell," he said, removing his hand. "Meet you
Still carrying his towels, he found the orderlies' lounge down the hall. Inside was a tall, dark-haired man, drinking coffee and studying a typewritten sheet. When Remo entered, he hurriedly put the sheet away, but Remo had already recognized it: it was the patient list from intensive care.
Remo poured himself some unwanted coffee. His
thought of drinking a mud created from boiling
"Huh?" the dark-haired man said, his eyes nearly watering behind his wire-rimmed glasses.
'You know what I mean. You running the pool?"
15
"C'mon, pal," Remo said, "I've got to get back on duty. Who's on the list? Mrs. Grayson? What days you got left?"
The thin man blinked several times behind his liJce a squared.off stack of hay
glasses, then said slowly, "Twenty-first and twenty-
fifth-" "Gone," Remo said. He looked up from the list.
"Hell," Remo said. "She'll go before that but give me the twenty-first."