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Why don’t we kill somebody?” she suggested.

She was a blonde, of course, tall and willowy and wearing a sleek black cocktail dress cut high on the leg and low at the neckline.

“Been there,” Will told her. “Done that.”

Her eyes opened wide, a sharp blue in startling contrast to the black of the dress.

“The Gulf War,” he explained.

“Not the same thing at all,” she said, and plucked the olive from her martini and popped it into her mouth. “I’m talking about murder.”

“Murder, uh-huh,” Will said. “Who’d you have in mind?”

“How about the girl sitting across the bar there?”

“Ah, a random victim,” he said. “But how’s that any different from combat?”

“A specific random victim,” she said. “Shall we kill her or not?”

“Why?” he asked.

“Why not?” she said.

Will had known the woman for perhaps twenty minutes at most. In fact, he didn’t even know her name. Her suggestion that they kill someone had come in response to a standard pickup line he’d used to good effect many times before, to wit: “So what do we do for a little excitement tonight?”

To which the blonde had replied, “Why don’t we kill somebody?”

Hadn’t whispered the words, hadn’t even lowered her voice. Just smiled over the rim of her martini glass, and said in her normal speaking voice, “Why don’t we kill somebody?”

The specific random victim she had in mind was a plain- looking woman wearing a plain brown jacket over a brown silk blouse and a darker brown skirt. There was about her the look of a harried file clerk or lower-level secretary, the mousy brown hair, the unblinking eyes behind what one had to call spectacles rather than eyeglasses, the thin-lipped mouth and slight overbite. A totally unremarkable woman. Small wonder she was sitting alone nursing a glass of white wine.

“Let’s say we do actually kill her,” Will said. “What’ll we do for a little excitement afterward?”

The blonde smiled.

And crossed her legs.

“My name is Jessica,” she said.

She extended her hand.

He took it.

“I’m Will,” he said.

He assumed her palm was cold from the iced drink she’d been holding.

On this chilly December evening three days before Christmas, Will had no intention whatever of killing the mousy little file clerk at the end of the bar, or anyone else for that matter. He had killed his fair share of people a long time ago, thank you, all of them specific random victims in that they had been wearing the uniform of the Iraqi Army, which made them the enemy. That was as specific as you could get in wartime, he supposed. That was what made it okay to bulldoze them in their trenches. That was what made it okay to murder them, whatever fine distinction Jessica was now making between murder and combat.

Anyway, Will knew this was merely a game, a variation on the mating ritual that took place in every singles bar in Manhattan on any given night of the year. You came up with a clever approach, you got a response that indicated interest, and you took it from there. In fact, he wondered how many times, in how many bars before tonight, Jessica had used her “Why don’t we kill somebody?” line. The approach was admittedly an adventurous one, possibly even a dangerous one-suppose she flashed those splendid legs at someone who turned out to be Jack the Ripper? Suppose she picked up a guy who really believed it might be fun to kill that girl sitting alone at the other end of the bar? Hey, great idea, Jess, let’s do it! Which, in effect, was what he’d tacitly indicated, but of course she knew they were just playing a game here, didn’t she? She certainly had to realize they weren’t planning an actual murder here.

“Who’ll make the approach?” she asked.

“I suppose I should,” Will said.

“Please don’t use your ‘What’ll we do for a little excitement tonight?’ line.”

“Gee, I thought you liked that.”

“Yes, the first time I heard it. Five or six years ago.”

“I thought I was being entirely original.”

“Try to be more original with little Alice there, okay?”

“Is that what you think her name is?”

“What do you think it is?”

“Patricia.”

“Okay, I’ll be Patricia,” she said. “Let me hear it.”

“Excuse me, Miss,” Will said.

“Great start,” Jessica said.

“My friend and I happened to notice you sitting all alone here, and we thought you might care to join us.”

Jessica looked around as if trying to locate the friend he was telling Patricia about.

“Who do you mean?” she asked, all wide-eyed and wondering.

“The beautiful blonde sitting right there,” Will said. “Her name is Jessica.”

Jessica smiled.

“Beautiful blonde, huh?” she said.

“Gorgeous blonde,” he said.

“Sweet talker,” she said, and covered his hand with her own on the bar top. “So let’s say little Patty Cake decides to join us. Then what?”

“We ply her with compliments and alcohol.”

“And then what?”

“We take her to some dark alley and bludgeon her to death.”

“I have a small bottle of poison in my handbag,” Jessica said. “Wouldn’t that be better?”

Will narrowed his eyes like a gangster.