Jack & Jill

that his hand was shaking badly.
    Behind his back, he gripped the short, powerful ballbat. Then he swung—real hard.
    Happy, happy. Joy, joy.

    III

    COULD THEY actually get away with murder
—especially a high-level, provocative murder like this? Jack was confident they could. It was easier than anyone knew to kill another human being, or several of them, and never get caught, never even be suspected. It happened all the time.
    Jill was scared and visibly tense, though. He couldn’t blame her. In “real life,” she was a Washington careerist, well-bred, bright, certainly not the typical murderous kook you read about. Not a very likely
Jill,
and therefore perfect for her part in the game of games. Almost as perfect as he was for his.
    “He’s drunk, completely out,” she whispered as they stood in the dark foyer of the apartment. “It helps that he’s such an absolutely repellent snake.”
    “You know what they say about our Dannyboy. He’s a very bad senator, but a much worse date.”
    A hint of a smile—a nervous smile—from her. “Bad joke, but I can vouch for that. Let’s go.
Jack.”
    Jill turned on her bare heels, and he followed close behind. He watched the slight bitch in her step. Bewitching in its way. He watched her slender figure retreat through a tiny sitting room that was dimly lit by the hallway lamp. This was the way to the flat’s bedroom, he knew.
    They walked silently through a small living room. An American flag proudly stood beside the stone fireplace. The sight of the flag turned his stomach. Color photographs on the wall of a sailing regatta somewhere, probably Cape Cod.
    “Izzit
you,
my dear?” a gruff, whiskey-soaked voice thundered from behind the living room walls.
    “Who else could it be?” Jill answered.
    Jack and Jill entered the bedroom together. “Surprise party,” Jack announced. He had a Beretta semiautomatic out. It was aimed at the senator’s head.
    His gun hand was steady, his head very clear now.
History in the making. No chance to go back now.
    Daniel Fitzpatrick bolted up in his bed, surprised and burning mad. “What the bloody hell? What the … who the frig are you? How the shit did you get in here?” he slurred his words. His face and neck were bright red.
    Jack couldn’t help it—he smiled in spite of everything that was going on. The senator looked like a beached whale, or perhaps an aging walrus, in his fancy bed.
    “I guess you could say I’m your despicable past, finally catching up to you, Senator,” he said. “Now shut up. Please. Let’s make this as easy as we possibly can.”
    He stared at Daniel Fitzpatrick and was reminded of something he’d read somewhere recently. Upon seeing the senator at a speaking engagement, a spectator had remarked,
“My God, he’s an old man now.”
Indeed he was. Fitzpatrick was a white-haired, jowly, graceless, sprawlingly fat, old white man.
    He was also the enemy.
    Jack opened the black duffel bag and handed Jill a pair of handcuffs. “One hand to each bedpost. Please and thank you.”
    “It will be my pleasure,” she said. There was a simple elegance in the way she spoke, acted, even the way she moved.
    “You’re in on this?” Fitzpatrick gasped as he looked around at the blond woman he’d picked up at the bar in La Colline. He seemed to be actually seeing her for the first time.
    Jill smiled. “No, no. I was attracted by your vast, bloated belly, your alcoholic breath.”
    Jack took out the camcorder and handed it over to Jill. She immediately aimed it at Senator Fitzpatrick, focused, and started to film. She was good with the camera.
    “What in God’s name are you doing?” Fitzpatrick asked. His washed-out blue eyes were wide with astonishment, and then with genuine fear. “What the hell do you want? What’s going on here? Dammit, I’m a United States senator.”
    Jill began with the shocked and surprised and
hurt
look on the senator’s face. She pulled out to a wider shot.
Oops, a little too wide.
Grabbed focus again.
    Jack smiled at the inappropriate outburst of bravado. How very
Fitzpatrick.
    Then,
voila!
It was as if the whiskey-dullness swirling in his brain suddenly stopped. Daniel Fitzpatrick finally understood. “I don’t want to die,” he whispered.
    Tears unexpectedly rolled from his eyes. It was strangely affecting. “Please don’t do this. You don’t have to hurt me,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be like this. Please, I beg you. Listen to me. Will you just