Honorable Assassin (9 page)

Bradley had been in the business longer than
most. He had been assassinating people for about 13 years and had
contacts in all the organizations in Melbourne and Sydney. If he
had wanted, he could have had Ginger and Terry eliminated at any
time. It may have been out of respect for George that he did not.
He wasn’t actually sure. By the beginning of 1996 Bradley had
amassed all the money he was ever going to need. He had not been
fingered or described since the Kingston case eight years earlier.
He had stopped taking simple, little jobs. His reputation commanded
a high rate of return and he even commanded a consulting fee. He
had never taken on an apprentice, though there was one young man
who had been so insistent that he had pretended to take the boy
under his wing and fed him to the crocodiles instead.

One of the things Bradley had learned from
his study of George Kingston was that stability deflects suspicion.
The authorities had never suspected George Kingston of anything. He
had a position and a means of income. He did not spend
extravagantly: his vehicles were not top of the line, his house was
enough for his family but no more than they needed, he dressed
professionally but not in silk, and he went to work in the morning.
Bradley truly admired his choice of professions. An insurance
agency allows the staff to take care of the business while the boss
is out doing other things. Bradley had emulated this theme by
starting up several convenience stores and petrol stations. The
staff took care of the business when he had prior commitments. The
business gave him the air of respectability and something to occupy
his time between his less socially acceptable assignments.

Any job Bradley accepted now was a matter of
choice. He would assassinate someone if he wanted to. Two years
earlier a member of the organized crime network had tried to extort
a job out of him, threatening to expose him to the authorities if
he did not comply. That man had been found at the bottom of a
ravine, in the charred remains of his own car with the bodies of
his wife and two children.

“Uncle, I want to know.”

“Boy, I need you to realize where we are and
what we are doing. You will address me as Horace, or better yet,
Mr. Paylee. If they take us, do not reveal even your name as long
as I am alive. I will arrange the solicitor and we will work from
there. If I am killed, deny all knowledge of my activities and tell
them that I wouldn’t tell you what we were doing here. Deny
everything and call Mr. Streng. He will get you out and provide
representation.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Paylee.”

“Now what is it you want to do?”

“I want to know why he killed my father and
mother. I want to know if it was a paid job and if so, who paid and
why.”

“I hope you understand what you are asking
me for. That turns this into a complicated procedure instead of a
simple killing.”

“Yes, sir, I understand that.”

“And what will you do with the information
you have, once you have it?”

“Then I intend to kill him as well.”

“The man that paid the job?”

“Yes, sir. Whoever made this happen will
pay.”

“I don’t think you understand the
ramifications of what you intend to do. The men who pay for other
men’s lives are protected well and avenged if they come to a
difficult end.”

“What are you saying?”

“In short, you are going after the sort of
tree that sprouts dozens of branches when you cut off the top. You
can prune the top, this bloke in this case, but if you wish to kill
the tree you need to go very deep and kill the roots. The roots are
protected by the branches. Do you see what I am saying?”

“I think so. You mean that to get to the man
who ordered it done I will need to get past all manner of
protection. I’ll need to kill all the killers first, before I can
get to the real objective.”

“That’s right. I would advocate a simple
head shot from a distance and leave it at that. We have our alibi
and no one will be the wiser. You will be vindicated and I can go
back to being a rancher and farmer. There is a lot to be said for a
quiet uneventful life.”

“How many men have you killed, Mr.
Paylee?”

“Only a few, but this is not about me. This
is about you. I know your father did not want this sort of thing
for you. He wanted you to go to university and study to become a
doctor or some such.”

“I’m sorry, but the time for that is passed.
If you don’t wish to assist me in this, I will do it alone.”

“Not bloody likely. I refuse to have your
blood on my hands. If you try this thing alone, you end up dead.
That is not a possibility. That is a certainty. I will not have you
go off half-cocked. We do this one and then set up the next one.
You’ve been waiting half your life but you have much to learn
before you can go any further.”

“The door opened. Our man is coming
out.”

“Keep your cool, boy. This man will know we
are here if he sees too much of this van. Get in the back so he
can’t see you.

Both of them were in the back watching with
scopes when the Bradley exited the house and got in the Cadillac.
There was no doubt that he noticed the van parked down the street;
he looked right at it for a second more than another man might
have.

“That’s him, isn’t it,” Ginger said.

“Should we follow him?”

“No, boy, to follow him would be to cement
his suspicions. He is a professional killer and like all
professionals he is paranoid. You remember asking me why we had no
television? I’ll tell you now, that a television will fill your
head with all sorts of false impressions about what a man can and
cannot do. If this man sees this van elsewhere, he will know we are
watching him. He has already marked us once. We will need to move
quickly, but we know nothing about what the man is doing and I no
longer have the contacts that allow research. We need to be in his
house when he returns and I am willing to bet he has an alarm
system we will need to bypass. I’ll take the torches, you grab the
toolbox and follow me.”

Dressed in grey coveralls, they could have
been plumbers or electricians, contractors of some kind. They both
had engineers’ caps covering their blond hair. Once they were
behind the building they opened the tool box and put on driving
gloves. The back of the house was out of view from the neighbors.
The alarm system was in place but it was the sort that activated
when the door opened, not when the glass broke. It would have been
deemed sufficient since there were bars set into the door. Your
average thief would have been stymied by this arrangement but a
well prepared man would not. It was a matter of minutes to cut
through the bars with the small oxy-acetylene torch, then they
broke the glass. Terry was inside immediately but Ginger waited a
while, to make sure none of the nosy neighbors were investigating,
and then he climbed inside as well.

The front door had a peephole instead of a
window so there was no way one could see inside until the door
opened. The only thing the invaders were concerned with now was
that one of the neighbors had heard the glass break and called the
constables. This did not happen.

The living room window had sheer curtains
that allowed the occupant to see out through them but did not allow
anyone to look in. Terry set himself up on the couch and watched
the road and the driveway while Ginger scouted the rest of the
house. He did not expect there to be any women in the house and he
was correct. Their target was a bachelor. After ensuring they were
alone, Ginger set up breakfast. They had both napped in the van and
were quite keyed up so they were not in danger of falling
asleep.

The Cadillac pulled in the driveway about
four hours later. The man got out and looked down the street at the
van. There was no doubt that he was suspicious now. After opening
the door and keying in the alarm code, he turned around with a
pistol in his hand. He wasn’t sure what had alerted him but he knew
something was wrong. He could smell it.

“I know you’re in here, step out with your
hands up or I’ll kill you right there,” he said.

Terry was terrified. He and Ginger had been
careful not to disturb the living room but Bradley had known
anyway. Between the living room and the kitchen was a counter, with
stools, that served as a dining room table. Terry stuck his hands
up, above the counter but did not reveal the rest of his body. He
was waiting.

“All right, you little wallaby, step out
where I can… Unggg.” The crackle of the stun gun cut his sentence
short but it also tightened his finger on the trigger. The shot
went wide but the report was loud. More than one such shot and the
neighbors would surely report it as gunfire.

The invaders wasted no time in binding their
victim’s hands, feet and mouth with duct tape. They would have
taped him to a chair but there was no appropriate kitchen chair to
use so they stood him against one of the pillars that connected the
kitchen counter with the ceiling and taped him to it.

“How did you know he would know?” Terry
asked.

“It’s a function of the business. While most
men would stand there thinking something is wrong but doing nothing
about it, this man suspected something and pulled his gun. He has
probably worked up more enemies than us and knew somebody would
come for him some day. Check the front; I’ll check the back. He
might have company.”

“I came pretty close to getting shot.”
Terry’s hands were still trembling.

“Actually, I was in more danger than you. I
expected him to take off his jacket and put it in the closet,
that’s why I was in there. I couldn’t see him when he turned
around. If he’d seen me coming out of that closet door, I’d have
caught that round. He would probably have shot you too.”

“So we got lucky?”

“Luckier than we deserved. It was a sloppy
setup and I didn’t even know it until it went down.”

“What’s next?”

“That’s up to you, boy. You have the man.
You wanted some answers. Get them.” Ginger lit a cigar and sat down
on the couch.

Terry was shaking worse, now. He was shaking
with rage and fear and anticipation. He walked into the kitchen and
picked the cutting torch out of the cabinet where it had been
stashed, but he was shaking too badly to light it. He sat down on
the couch, next to his uncle, trying to calm down.

“The first time is the hardest. The first
time you kill a man, the first time you torture a man, it gets
better as you get practice,” Ginger told him. “This man has killed
enough that he doesn’t have a conscience any more. He would kill
you as easily as slapping a mosquito. Go look in his eyes and see
if he still has a soul.”

Terry did not move. He had slaughtered
chickens and sheep but this was different. He was paralyzed by the
prospect. All the way here from the coast he had been anticipating
the moment, but now that it was here, he found himself unable to
act.

“Allow me to demonstrate. There is no need
for subtlety in this. The subtlety was all in the preliminaries,
the action itself is brutal and messy.” He stood from the couch
with the cigar in his teeth and walked across the living room. When
he reached the man taped to the post he punched him in the face.
“See, no subtlety, no planning, no remorse. This thing shot me and
your mother and your father and he would have shot you if he could
have. I believe he tried. So, do what you wanted to do all these
years.”

Terry rose, walked across the floor and
reached into the man’s back pocket, pulling out his wallet. Then he
went through the rest of his pockets finding his keys, a cigarette
lighter, a pack of cigarettes, a money clip with a wad of bills, a
pocket knife and a full clip for the man’s pistol. The money went
into Terry’s pocket. He shook out a cigarette and lit it clumsily
with the driving gloves still on.

Ginger said nothing to his nephew. He
returned to the couch and smoked his cigar quietly, savoring the
smoke and watching surreptitiously.

Terry smoked about half the cigarette and
then put it out on the bound man’s forehead. The man thrashed about
but could get nowhere. He was held securely.

When the tape was ripped off his face,
Bradley knew better than to raise a fuss. He already counted
himself among the dead unless he could pull off something
miraculous.

“Peter Dingham,” Terry said, holding open
the man’s wallet. “That’s not your name.”

“What is this all about? I’ve done nothing
to you. I’ve never seen you before in my life. Take the money, the
television, anything you want. Just take it and leave.” Bradley was
trying his best to sound convincing.

“Oh, you’re wrong there. You killed a man on
a boat, eight years ago. Some time later you shot my mother in
front of me. I have been seeing that in my dreams for years. You
murderer!” Terry punched him in the eye. “That was just the
preliminary. That was as easy as you’ll ever see from me. I want to
know why.”

“You’re insane. I’ve killed no one. I am a
businessman. I own petrol stations, for the love of God. I don’t
know you.”

“No, you wouldn’t recognize me, would you. I
was only eight years old when you chased me down the stairs in
Goulburn Hospital. You should have stayed. You should have made
sure I was dead. You should have killed us when we slept. You
didn’t and now your past has come back to haunt you.” Terry punched
him again.

“Look, lad, I never saw you in my life.
Please, I have money in a safe in the floor. You can take that as
well, just let me go. I won’t call the coppers, I promise.”

“LIAR!” Terry’s voice broke as he yelled and
he punched his captive again. “This pistol is a Glock 22, the same
.40 caliber pistol you shot my mother with.”

“This is coincidence. Please, let’s be
reasonable. I never even fired that gun.”