The Delilah Complex by MJ Rose Page A

Avenue.
    Fisher turned the key in the ignition and pulled out of the parking space. The one easy thing about tailing someone in Manhattan was the traffic. Even at night, there were always a few cars on the street.
    Even so, Betsy noticed the sedan trailing her.

Sixteen

    T he man was stretched out and tethered to the gurney with leather straps, but they were no longer buckled. He couldn’t get up and walk away anymore. His eyes were shut. His cheeks were hollow. His skin was ashen. It was a color that was without color. One doesn’t realize how many shades of yellow, peach and pink make up flesh tones until one has seen a body drained of all those colors.
    Timothy Wheaton’s skin was exposed to the air-conditioning and yet he didn’t shiver or shake. He did not look like he was sleeping. A sleeping man has his head bent to one side. Or his fingers curled up under his chin. Or one of his feet twitches. This man looked dead.
    It was midnight. Wheaton had been there for exactly four days. That was long enough. It was time to get to work.
    The light exploded, illuminating the previously darkened room.
    If a man was just sleeping, he might have sensed the brightness and opened his eyes, but Timothy Wheaton didn’t, not even when the camera’s flash went off for the second time.
    The photographer smiled. After all these years of using a camera only for reference, it was satisfying to use it now creatively.
    The process had been easier with this second man than with the first. The third would go even more smoothly. If there was a third. That was not yet decided.
    It was a long walk to the darkroom, where one wall was covered with cork and more than a dozen shots of Phil Maur were pinned up in neat, even rows. Several of them had been sent to the
New York Times
. Others were too private to show to anyone. Every step had been documented: setting the stage, trapping the man, restraining him, preparing him and then rendering him helpless.
    As each new, still-wet shot of Timothy Wheaton came out of the developer bath, it was added to the wall.
    Both Philip and Timothy had been easy to seduce. Flattery and interest got them to settle down in the big comfortable chair, sip a glass of amber-colored liquor and talk about their sexploits. Neither of them had guessed that, along with the Scotch, they were ingesting liquid Thorazine.
    They ignored the first relaxing effects of the drug because they were drinking and weren’t surprised to feel a slight buzz. But by the time their eyelids became heavy, they had trouble lifting their hands and standing up. Once the drug completely kicked in, they were harmless.
    The photographer had no trouble undressing them. In fact, Philip Maur had helped undress himself, thinking he was having a drunken adventure. He’d even been able to sprout an erection. That had been interesting: sex with a half-dead man who was helpless but hard.
    But Timothy Wheaton had been impotent from the drugs.
    Examining the bulletin board, the photographer wondered which of the new shots should be sent to the paper. That front-page placement of Phil Maur’s photograph had been gratifying, even though there wasn’t a photo credit. Obviously, nothing could be done about that. It was too bad the paper hadn’t used those long shots of the beautiful naked body depleted of all its energy and vigor, but had instead used the simple shot of the man’s feet. His numbered feet. Red numbers from the middle of the ball of the foot to the heel. A 1 on the right foot. A 1 on the left.
    Now there would be a new photo in the
Times
with a 2 on the right foot. And a 2 on the left.
    Everyone would assume there was going to be a 3 to follow.
    Everyone.
    Fear of being next had to be a powerful inhibitor, didn’t it? They had to be thinking that if two of them had been killed, any one of them might be next, right? The photographer was counting on it.

Seventeen

    W ednesday was rainy. A strong wind ripped the turning leaves from the