Prologue and Chapters 1 and 2 Summary

The novel opens in Salvador, Brazil with Geoffrey Shafer, the psychopathic killer better known as the Weasel, enjoying his six-bedroom villa on the beach. He has been up to his old tricks, hunting and killing prostitutes on the dark, narrow streets of the old city - and no one seems to care. At two in the morning he returns to his villa with a dark young beauty named Maria. He notices movement in the bushes. Suddenly three men attack him and beat him unconscious. After telling Maria she did a good job by bringing him to them, they shoot her dead.

When the Weasel comes to he is hanging upside down by his ankles from the ceiling of his own bedroom, which has mirrors everywhere. He is naked, bruised and bleeding, with his hands cuffed behind his...