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"I wouldn't even think about it It was none of my business, so why should I think about it?"

"But you had to know, Richard"

I hadn't called hiet through his ar did, because he winced as if he'd taken a hard right to the heart

"I guess he killed theuess he killed a lot of people"

"What about you?"

"I never killed anyone," he said quickly

"You were an accessory to Leveque's uilty as if you'd used the knife yourself"

"I didn't even knoas going to kill him!"

He knew, just as he had knohat happened to the boys I let it pass "You kneas going to commit assault and robbery," I said "That h to make you fully culpable if the felony results in a death You'd be guilty of murder if Leveque had died of a heart attack As far as the law is concerned, you're guilty"

He took a couple of deep breaths Dully he said, "All right, I know that You could say the sairl he went back and killed, if he killed her I suppose I was guilty of rape She didn't resist, but I didn't exactly have her consent" He looked at oing to try to say that he hypnotized h it was like that, it really was, the way the two of theot me to do what they wanted"

"How did they do that, Richard?"

"They just-"

"How did they get you to kill your wife?"

"Oh, God," he said, and put his face in his hands

MAYBE they had planned it froenda all along

"You'd better take a shower," Olga would say "It's tio ho wife, your char wife- always said with a hint of irony, a touch of mockery You have spent an hour in the world of the brave, the bold, the reckless, the daring, she was telling him, and now you may return to the black-and-white humdrum world and the Barbie doll who shares it with you

"A shaive all your pohen your woman has more money than you do"

At first he'd been afraid that Stettner would want Aa, and would want a quid pro quo Thurman hadn't liked the idea He wanted to keep the two lives separate, and was relieved when the Stettners did not seem to want A of all four had not been a success, and, on the two subsequent occasions when both couples had drinks and dinner together, the conversation was stilted

It was Stettner who first suggested he increase his insurance coverage "You have a child co, you want to protect that child And you should have thehappened to her you'd have a nurse, you'd have a governess, you'd have expenses for years" And then, when the policies were in force: "You know, Richard, you're a man with a rich wife If she died you'd be a richdistinction, don't you think?"

The idea grew gradually, little by little

"I don't kno to explain this," he said "It wasn't real We would joke about it, ould think up impossibly farfetched ways to do it 'It's a shame microwave ovens are so small,' he said 'We could stuff Amanda in with an apple in herto think of now, but then it was funny because there was no reality to it, it was a haran to have a kind of reality

" 'We'll do it next Thursday,' Bergen would say, and we'd plan some ridiculous black-comedy scenario, and that would be the end of it And then when Thursday caot, today was the day ere supposed to kill little A

"When I ith Amanda, when they weren't around, I was a normal happily married uess I a would just disappear I don't kno I expected this to happen, whether they would get caught for sos they had done or whether they would just drop me or move out of the country or, I don't know Maybe I expected them to die And then the whole dark side of life that I was leading with them would vanish and Ah, I was lying in bed and she was asleep next toher I didn't want to have those thoughts but I couldn't get the her, all sorts of o into the other room and have a couple of drinks I wasn't afraid I would do anything, I was just upset by the thoughts