Fixed in purpose

Usage examples of benton.

He even managed to offend the loud, gregarious Max, who works in the Caf‚ Esplanade, where Benton on occasion buys root-beer and Cracker Jacks or a soft pretzel.

What Benton meant was that Cracker Jacks at the Caf‚ Esplanade are served in bags, not boxes, and cost a dollar instead of a quarter.

Gone are the days of Benton s childhood, when his sticky fingers dug through caramel-glazed popcorn and peanuts for treasure, such as a plastic whistle or BB game or, best of all, the magic decoding ring that little Benton wore on his index finger, pretending it empowered him to know what people thought, what they would do and which monster he would defeat on his next secret mission.

Profiling is fool's gold, and for Benton to come around to that conviction is akin to a priest deciding there is no God.

Max thinks Benton, whose name he does not know, is a wacko intellectual snob, probably a professor at Harvard or MIT, and a humorless one at that.

Max does not catch the occasional irony or dry-ice wit that Benton was known for when he was known, and he is known by virtually no one anymore.

Dark preoccupations and shadows from the past are what Benton feels and sees, no matter where he is or what he does.

Marino settles next to Benton on top of the picnic table, checking first for bird shit as he taps an unfiltered Lucky Strike from a soft pack and lights up after several sparked attempts with a disposable lighter low on fluid.

As Benton takes in every detail of Marino's appearance, he entertains the same worries from the past.

During his most venomous moods, usually late at night when he is alone and throwing back beers or shots of bourbon, he resents Benton Wesley, almost despises him for how much he has damaged the lives of everyone who matters.

So when Marino is alone and drunk and has worked himself into a rabid state, he swears out loud at Benton while crushing one beer can after another and hurling them across his small, slovenly living room.

Kay Scarpetta is an apparition between Marino and Benton as they walk.

She stumbles over Benton's dead body everywhere she goes, and all along-from day one-Marino has known that Benton's gruesome homicide was faked right down to the autopsy and lab reports, death certificate and the ashes Scarpetta scattered into the wind at Hilton Head Island, a seaside resort she and Benton loved.

They helped plan Benton's staged murder and disappearance, and that truth is a brain infection, a sickness they battle daily, while Benton lives his life as a nobody named Tom.

On the fifth landing, Benton unlocks the scratched gray metal door to apartment 56.