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master.
    It was in the small border village of Douglaston, just on the line between Queens and Nassau, that Warren saw the woman. He’d been driving up and down the pretty little streets with their small, cookie-cutter homes all set neatly in straight, unwavering rows, each on its own tiny plot of well-tended lawn.
    She’d been standing with her back to the street, bending over, working out front in her garden. There was a car parked in the driveway, all shiny and new, a late-model Japanese make. It was something about the way the house sat there, neat, trim, and tidy, separated from its immediate neighbors by tall privet hedges on either side, that told him it was good. The address above the door was 112. Almost from the moment he’d seen that, something in him started to vibrate.
    It was roughly 11 A.M. , an hour he well knew; husbands were long gone and not expected back until after dark. It was late March and cloudy. Warm weather and much rain had brought an early thaw. The woman had dropped to her knees, cleaning out the debris of winter from a rose bed. It was far too early for anything to be up, save for an anxious crocus or a snowdrop or two. But she was out there all the same.
    He pulled up slowly to the front and stopped and watched her for a time. She never looked up when he reached over and lifted the latch of the little picket fence and walked in. The ground was still wet from the morning dew. His feet moving across the soft, spongy grass left the imprint of his shoes.
    For a time he stood there behind her, watching her edge and weed, her small trowel turning the barely unfrozen earth. Her back sloped forward and down to the ground, she gave the appearance of someone kneeling and praying there. When he cleared his throat, she turned and gasped, making a funny little hissing sound like air escaping from a tire.
    She looked up to see a slight, dark young man with a smiling, agreeable face. There was nothing particularly remarkable in his looks. The expression was thoughtful, and possibly a bit amused. The impression it gave was that of a slightly crooked smile, rather vague and fixed, as if its owner was accustomed to using his lips to hide some defect of his teeth.
    “Beg pardon. You s’pose I could use your phone? My car’s broke down.”
    He could see from the way she looked at him that she was looking for reasons to say no.
    “Where’s your car?” she asked, affecting sternness. “Out front there. The green one.”
    She looked out at the car for a while. Above the white picket fence she could see only a shiny bright green roof and just the top of the hood with a Mercedes emblem on it.
    She pondered awhile. “I tell you, my husband and I — we make it a practice never to let strangers in.”
    He laughed quietly. “Things being what they are nowadays, I can’t say I blame you.”
    She kept looking at him, up and down, but never directly in the eye. She was probably forty or so, a pleasant-looking lady who took good care of herself. She probably had children, all grown up and out of the house.
    “All I want to do is call a garage,” he explained sympathetically. “They’ll just come out and tow me in. I’d just be a minute.”
    There was something boyish and awkward and terribly appealing in the way he presented it. Even as she was saying okay, he could see she was regretting it. She laid her trowel down and stood up. “Okay — follow me. I’ll show you where it is.”
    It was cool and shady inside, the blinds all down and drawn against the sun, and the place smelled of morning coffee and bacon and cigarettes. Someone smoked a great deal in that house. He hated the smell of cigarettes. By that time he had slipped a pair of white rubber surgical gloves neatly over his hands.
    In the few moments it took to get from the front door to the kitchen, he’d already staked out the place. He’d seen the Sony Trinitron in the den, the Panasonic PV 5850 video deck on top of it, the KLH speakers high up