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The Best Laid Plans
by John Mahon
Chapter One
I'm a very peaceful person really. And totally contrary to my nature to consider committing a violent act, yet here I was, seriously contemplating and planning a murder. In an almost dream state my mind captured pictures of me and murder, creating a scenario without any conscious volition.
I went to the cupboard and fetched a teabag. Matt Masters (that's me) could always think more clearly with a steaming cup of tea in hand, and my mind raced.
"If," I was thinking, "I can rid the world of a person who does not deserve to live — and get away with it — then why not do it?"
By the time I had taken a third sip the nub of a plan started to gestate. Thanks to a television documentary I had seen recently on the burgeoning success of bargain-priced first-rate cosmetic surgery being performed in India, the nub of the plan quickly evolved into a sure-fire, albeit bizarre, blueprint for a perfect murder, so I continued. I would have to fly round half the world to India and undergo the plastic surgery necessary to give me the aquiline profile and the jutting jaw I have always envied in movie stars. Now, at last, I had a compelling reason to fulfill that fantasy.
"And while I'm at it," I thought, "I'll have laser eye surgery done and be free of this damned myopia!" The mind was still racing.
I have always disliked my blond hair so now I included in the plan that, while recuperating from the operations, I would have it dyed brown, the color of my natural facial hair. I had once grown a slick mustache and beard, but I had to give it up when my father suggested I looked like "a damned fop!"
I'm usually pretty calm, yet I could feel the excitement building as I felt more and more committed. I laid out the scenario. For the plan to work I would have to acquire a new identity after the surgery and before returning from India. Of course a new passport, social security number and driver's license. Not easy in the USA. Can it be done in India? Well, Jimmy Buffet assures me that someone's cousin in Miami can do that sort of work, working out of a phone booth. Surely it could be done in Calcutta just as well. One important detail of the plan was to make a plaster mold of my face before having the surgeries. From the mold I can extrude a latex mask (I know how to do that) which I would wear the night I murdered Adolf Meistermann with the silencer-equipped pistol I had already obtained. I planned to arrange a visit with Adolf Meistermann and after shooting him between the eyes I would walk slowly past all the strategically placed surveillance cameras that graced the building's halls and lobby. It was important that each camera had a clear picture of me entering and exiting the penthouse. The building superintendent and the local police must have no difficulty identifying the killer of Adolf Meistermann as being Matt Masters, the victim's only son and heir. Then, of course, out of sight, the mask comes off and Matt Masters disappears.
I swallowed the last of the tea. Thinking some more, I realized how complex the plan was. I have heard, or maybe read, that every murder plan has at least twenty-five errors, and if you can discover fifteen of them you're way above average. But I really wanted to do it — to do away with the monster who had sent my dear mother to an early grave and brought nothing but misery to me and all the hundreds of workers in his employ. The justification was that I had no choice. If I did not rid the world of Adolf Meistermann I would have to rid it of me.
