Free Until You Are Dead by John Lutz

stretched backward over the stereo console. Her neck had been broken.
    Bartamer removed her left shoe and examined the sole of the bare foot to make sure it wasn't marked with the tiny star he'd tattooed on Henrietta Two. He smiled and replaced the shoe.
    Henrietta Two had murdered. She was learned enough to know that her freedom depended on Bartamer not reporting her. And after he'd used her to help dispose of Henrietta One's body, she would be given treatment to remove her aggressive tendencies. To the outside world, she would be Henrietta One, and life would go on as before — only much more agreeably.
    After summoning Henrietta Two over the intercom, Bartamer mixed himself a drink and sat waiting on the sofa. Henrietta Two arrived almost immediately.
    But she wasn't alone.
    Melfore was with her. Melfore was grinning the same grin he'd displayed after assaulting the dean. And Henrietta Two was smiling a carnivorous smile. Neither of them bothered to glance at the remains of Henrietta One.
    "I'm afraid Henrietta Two and I have struck a bargain," Melfore said.
    Bartamer stood up from the sofa, feeling the cold weight of fear drop through him.
    "Melfore has a brilliant scientific career ahead of him," Henrietta Two said fervently.
    "I think I can guarantee that," a third voice said, and Bartamer Two stepped into the room.
    He was slightly taller than Bartamer One, slightly more muscular and virile. His face was not so weasely, though his eyes glittered like those of a wolverine. He was holding a revolver.
    "Imagine," Melfore was saying, "just try to imagine the future -"
    "Pull the trigger," Henrietta Two instructed, and Bartamer Two did.
    Bartamer One felt a powerful jolt. A fiery pain erupted in his chest and its heat began to spread. He was on the carpet. The room was whirling, fading.
    "Shoot him again," he heard Henrietta Two say calmly. "We ought to make doubly sure he's dead."
    "I'll second that," Melfore said.
    Bartamer Two made it unanimous.

Fair Shake
    Â 
    T hey were in the commissioner's office at headquarters. Snodman, B.S. in liberal arts, number one in his police academy class, ex-debating team captain and regional chess champion, adjusted his black horn-rimmed glasses with his little finger and peered down at the slip of paper the commissioner had handed him:
    Â 
    I know everything about my marks
    At least I know enough
    To catch them always unawares
    They're never up to Snuff
    Â 
    "Crude," Snodman said. "What does it mean, sir?"
    "I've seen them before," Commissioner Moriarty said. "They're the work of a man the underworld calls 'The Snuffer'."
    "A professional assassin, sir?" Snodman asked, looking at Moriarty through emotionless blue eyes. It had always intrigued Snodman, the fact that a man named Moriarty would be decreed by fate to be a police commissioner and look so like the fictitious Sherlock Holmes would have looked, with lean hawk nose, shrewd gray eyes, even smoking a pipe the stem of which was at least slightly curved.
    "Possibly the greatest hired killer the police have ever run up against," the commissioner said. "Rumor has it that he works for the syndicate no more than once a year and receives at least fifty thousand dollars a job. I personally know of six jobs he's definitely completed in various cities."
    Snodman, who smoked a pipe himself, placed the stem between his thin lips and reached for his tobacco pouch. "How can you be so sure they were all the work of this Snuffer, sir? Modus operandi?"
    The commissioner smiled. "It is his M.O. that he is proud of. It varies with every job. In Chicago, concerning the sports fixing racket, it was an exploding basketball; two years ago Hans Greiber, the passport forger, was found drowned in one of those little German cars filled with water; and surely you remember when Joe Besini, who was going to turn state's evidence against the syndicate, was found smothered by a hot pizza."
    "Gruesome," Snodman said.
    "Anchovies, too." Commissioner