It was Ten o'clock in the evening, late September, with the moonlight flickering on an unseasonably cold, misty rain that had people sniveling about the rain being a prelude to an upcoming bitter and snowy winter. I was wearing my black fleece trench coat with a dark blue shirt, my proverbial dark brown Fedora, black pants, brown shoes, and black wool socks. I was neat and clean, but it didn't matter if I shaved or looked ordinary. Normally, I'd stop and have a cigarette under the streetlight before I climbed the steps of the brownstone, but tonight I didn't. I made sure I melted into the population so nobody saw me. I was everything a dedicated homicide detective ought to be, except I didn't live alone in some fourth floor rundown flat off Houston Street. And I never rehearsed putting my pistol in my mouth. I had a wife and two kids. We lived well off in a second story apartment on Second, and like the good family, they worried about me when I left to go on duty. However, tonight I wasn't doing my routine detective work; I was calling on ten grand in big bills from Mr. Otto Breezewell, the former CEO of the Hichell Ball Bearing Company. Before he retired, he made a fortune supplying parts for cargo planes during the war, mainly ball bearings in the wheels. Now, at 85, he's confined to a wheelchair and married to a 28-year-old dance hall girl named Maggie. He wants me there tonight to put a bullet in her head.