Pest Control

by Bill Fitzhugh

  Never one to be functionally fixated, Bob used the atomizers to store and dispense various insect pheromones in the course of his experiments. These rare chemical substances were quite expensive, and Bob found that the containers preserved them well. The bottles contained several cockroach secretions, a powerful defensive fluid obtained from the nasute caste of subterranean termites (Reticulitermes hesperus), and a sex attractant pheromone for ants which Bob periodically considered using in a nonspecific revenge plot against Dick Pratt.

  Bob returned the upset atomizer to the shelf and paused to look into the large jar next to it. Climbing about on the leaves and twigs in the jar were a dozen African Leaf Beetles (Polyclada bohemani). These innocuous-looking, medium-sized beetles were tan with a balanced pattern of black dots on their elytron.

  Like harvested pheromones, exotic insects did not come cheap. Purchased through an entomology mail-order catalogue (when Bob still had a full-time job), the beetles had cost ten dollars each. He had acquired them early on in his experiments because of something South African bushmen had discovered long ago, namely, when handled, these innocent-looking invertebrates secreted a remarkably powerful poison.

  Like a savy coupon-clipper, the bushmen (always on the lookout for an edge when it came to getting dinner on the table), used minute amounts of this compound to tip their hunting arrows. Thusly armed, a hungry bushman could drop a 300-pound gazelle with nothing more than a graze shot. Then it was gazelle-ka-bobs for a month.

  Bob initially hoped to cross-breed this awesome weapon into his assassin hybrids, but, alas, the species were genetically too different. Bob now kept the beetles around as conversation pieces, only occasionally considering them as part of his plot against Pratt.

  Bob returned to the warmth of the swivel chair and picked up the framed photo of himself with Mary and Katy that stood nearby. He considered calling and telling Mary about his progress, but lately her mother had taken to saying she was busy and couldn’t come to the phone.

  God, he missed her. Hugging her, just being with her. He didn’t just love Mary; he was crazy about her. She made him laugh and he longed to put his finger in her belly button and tickle her, even though she sometimes protested when he did.

  Maybe writing would be better than calling. Bob always felt he was better able to express himself on paper because he could choose his words more carefully. He picked up a notepad, wrote “Dear Mary,” then got stuck for his opening sentence. He chewed on his pencil for a minute before it came to him. He’d write a poem:

  A young man named Bob loved his Mary,

  On his sleeve his true love he did carry.

  But devotion to bugs,

  Led to getting no hugs,

  So he wrote her to say he was sarry.

  Okay, so it wasn’t a poem, it was a limerick, and not a very good one at that, so he tried again:

  Bob Dillon was an avid entomologist,

  But his lie made his wife entomolo-pissed.

  So she packed her suitcases,

  And made off like the races,

  And now he just wanted to apologist.

  That one was a real stinker, so he tried again:

  A buggy young man with a dream,

  Lost his wife because of his scheme.

  So he wrote her a poem,

  Saying please come home,

  I think we work best as a team.

  They were getting worse, he thought. Maybe he was trying too hard. It was getting late and he was tired. Bob leaned back in the creaky old chair, put his feet up, and soon he was sound asleep with the photo held close to his heart.

  Chapter Fifty-four

  On the flight from Athens, Klaus looked for something to distract him from his troubles. The in-flight movie was a thriller about an assassin which had received “two thumbs down”—not what Klaus wanted to watch while on his way to kill someone he liked.

  He ordered another martini and reflected on the irony that he, once the world’s best killer, could be so vulnerable. But being a good killer didn’t mean you were good at staying alive; they were different games and Klaus was expert only at the former. He gulped down the martini and ordered a third.

  Klaus despised his position but there was truth in what the Shadow Man had said; if Klaus wanted to continue living in the style to which he had become accustomed—in fact if he wanted to continue living at all—he had to kill Bob, and that went against every principle Klaus had.

  Wait. There was the answer.

  Killing Bob would violate Klaus’ most important rule. And that, it suddenly occurred to Klaus, just might be the ticket.

  If he killed someone who didn’t deserve to die, Klaus might be able to bring himself to suicide. His own death would be atonement for Bob’s and it would bring his own miserable existence to an end. He would leave the ten million dollars to Mary and Katy and then launch himself into eternity with a clear conscience.

  My God, he wondered, how had it come to this?

  Klaus ordered another martini and spent the rest of the flight wondering how he would kill Bob.

  Chapter Fifty-five

  After tipping the bellboy generously, the man of diminutive stature closed and bolted the door behind him. A lurid grin spread across his tiny face as he stripped to his Lilliputian altogether and began an eccentric and suggestive dance that might have been stolen from the dream sequences in Twin Peaks. The gnomish gyrations made for a most unpleasant sight. When the freakish dance moved onto the bed, his runty parts wiggled and fidgeted in an up-and-down motion that seemed gratifying to this Tom Thumb cum Twyla Tharp.

  He circled his suitcase several times in fastidious prance, a genuine excitement palpable in his nether region. His eyes rolled back in his head as orgasm approached unstoppably and suddenly he collapsed into a tiny pile and began massaging his rigid elfin part.

  Upon completion of this peculiar gambol, the naked height-impaired man rolled over and, breathing heavily, threw open his suitcase revealing several dollish dresses, three pairs of frilly pink panties, a sawed-off shotgun, and a snub-nose .38.

  This was no ordinary product of endocrine malfunction and dysfunctional family. This was a killer pygmy in a size one, a murdering titmouse, a dandiprat mercenary with a twelve-gauge.

  His name was Reginald. He was ranked in the top five. And he was there to kill Bob.

  Chapter Fifty-six

  Bob savored the smell of the steaming hash browns as they mixed with ketchup on the plates passing by. He was on the Lower East Side at the coffee shop where Mary used to work. A palace of white linoleum flecked with blue and green specks and marred with the short brown trails left by unattended cigarettes. Bob cupped his hands around the coffee mug as he talked to a waitress.

  “When did you talk to her?” he asked.

  “She called and asked me to send her last paycheck. That’s all she said, Bob.”

  “Did she say when she was coming back?” There was an urgent loneliness in his voice.

  “Bob, honey, I’m not sure she’s thinking about that, sorry. Listen, I gotta get back to work. You want some more coffee?”

  “Decaf.”

  Two flights up the partially covered exterior stairwell of a building across the street, Klaus watched through his binoculars. He would wait until Bob left the coffee shop and isolated himself. Klaus wanted no one else to get hurt.

  Bob stared absently out the window. He didn’t notice the man who stopped at his booth, but Klaus did. Klaus knew Mike Wolfe well. They had done business together more than once. But why was Wolfe there? Had Bob snowed him? Was he in fact the Exterminator? Klaus wondered if he was slipping.

  When Wolfe spoke, it startled Bob.

  “Hey, Zimmerman.”

  Bob spilled hot coffee into his lap. “Yow! Oouch! Yayaya!” Bob jumped up, startling Wolf
e, who held up his hands. “Whoa, big fella, it’s just me.”

  “Oh, Christ,” Bob said when he recognized the alleged federal employee.

  “I guess you’ve earned the right to be jumpy after Riviera’s little press conference. I hope that’s decaf you’re drinking. Mind if I sit?”

  “What do you want?” Bob asked, not in the mood for this. Wolfe eased into the seat opposite Bob. “You mind if I ask what you’re doing sitting by the window?”

  Bob looked at the window, then at Wolfe. “Could you repeat that? Maybe I didn’t understand the question.”

  “Ohhhh, wait a second,” Wolfe said as he held a finger to his nose before pointing at Bob. “I get it. If you’re so obvious, they can’t see you. That’s from The Art of Camouflage if I’m not mistaken. I should’ve known you read the classics.”

  “You don’t happen to speak any plain English, do you?”

  “Look, Bob,” Wolfe said, ignoring the question, “I got a favor to ask.”

  “Wait a second,” Bob said, “listen to me. I talked to Klaus. He explained everything.”

  “You talked to Klaus?” Wolfe was surprised.

  “Yeah, now I know…”

  “…about the ten million dollars on your head? I bet you do. What else did Klaus say? How’s he doing, anyway? I haven’t seen him since, well, I probably shouldn’t say when.”

  “The ten million…what?” Bob asked, not sure he had heard Wolfe correctly.

  “Ahhh. Just as I expected.” Bob’s denial confirmed that he knew exactly what was going on.

  “Good,” Wolfe said. “I just wanted to be sure. Oh, and do me a favor, would you? Try and keep the gunplay to a minimum if you can…Mr. Zimmerman.” Wolfe winked at Bob.

  “What are you talking about?” Bob asked. “Who is Zimmerman? And stop winking at me. It makes me nervous.”

  “C’mon…‘Bob.’” Wolfe winked again.

  “Is there something in your eye?”

  “Look,” Wolfe continued, “we figure that much money is going to bring out all the top mechanics.”

  “What is that,” Bob asked, “some sort of obscure warning about a Mr. Goodwrench convention?”

  Wolfe smiled. “Yeah, Mr. Goodwrench, that’s good. You are one cool customer, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  Bob thought the man might go away if he just humored him. “Listen, I’ll do what I can about the mechanics and the gunplay,” he said. “Time for you to go now. Thanks for dropping by. Hi to the wife.”

  Wolfe stood to leave. “Thanks, Bob. And good luck.”

  “Hey, I don’t need luck,” Bob said, “I’m Zimmerman, remember?”

  Wolfe turned and gave Bob a final wink before leaving.

  Across the street Klaus considered the possibilities. He wasn’t sure what to make of this meeting between his friend Bob, and his former CIA contact. Was Bob one of them? Had Wolfe tipped Bob on Klaus’ money problems and the fact that he had reentered the country? Was it possible Bob was the killer everyone said he was? Could he afford to wait to find out? Maybe he had better kill Bob now instead of waiting.

  Klaus opened the small suitcase at his side.

  As Bob stared out the greasy window of the coffee shop, Klaus assembled the Steyr AUG .223 with the laser sight.

  Bob was on the verge of making the biggest decision of his life. Would he lose his dream or would he dream alone? Which would be worse? Were those his only options?

  As Bob thought about choices and the pursuit of happiness, Klaus thought about trajectory and crosswinds, though at this distance, those were of minimal concern. His weapon assembled, Klaus focused the sight and lined up a shot in the center of Bob’s forehead.

  The choice was obvious. Forced to choose between his dream and his family, Bob would abandon his dream. Mary was right. He was past that time in his life when he could indulge in the pursuit of something so frivolous. Maybe he would get another chance someday, and if not, he had no one to blame but himself.

  The words from an old song popped into Bob’s head, “Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true, or is it something worse?” Who wrote that? Bob wondered. Oh yeah, Bruce Springsteen, the man once hailed as the new Bob Dylan.

  “I’m sorry to do this Bob, but it will be painless.” Klaus started to squeeze the trigger when a dark blob suddenly obscured his scope. A young man had stopped to check his hair in the window, directly in the line of fire.

  “Damn,” Klaus muttered.

  Bob stood and headed for the pay phone. He was going to call Mary, tell her what he had decided, and ask her to come home. He’d get a job at Orkin and see about a teaching position somewhere.

  When the self-centered pedestrian finally moved, Bob was no longer in Klaus’ sight. “Shit!” Klaus said. He wanted to get this over with and he was beginning to feel unusually frustrated.

  Bob dropped a quarter into the pay phone and dialed. He waited for an answer, half wanting to hang up and rethink his decision. Then a voice behind him said, “Entomolo-pissed?” Bob recognized not only the voice but also the word he had coined. He dropped the receiver and spun around.

  It was Mary and Katy, all smiles and just in time to save Bob’s dream. “Daddy!” Katy squealed as she leapt into his arms. Mary stood by, smiling at her nutty professor.

  From his perch, Klaus looked like some goofus at an amusement park shooting gallery scanning back and forth with his rifle looking for ducks to shoot. He finally found his prey near the pay phone with Katy hugging his neck. He then saw Mary, smiling broadly. Klaus recognized them from the photo Bob had showed him.

  Shit, maybe Bob really was just a guy whose wife left him after a little blowup. And if that were true, this touching scene had rapprochement written all over it.

  “I don’t need this,” Klaus said as his trigger finger went limp. “It’s a goddamn Hallmark card.”

  Katy finally let Mary have a turn. She and Bob regarded each other for a moment, then dove into a rib-bending hug.

  “Hi, honey,” Mary said. “Sorry I let you down.”

  “No. It was my fault,” Bob confessed. “I lied. I’m the one who should apologize.”

  “You’re right,” Mary said. “You did lie.”

  “Let it go, Mom,” Katy said.

  “You’re back, that’s all I care about. You know, it’s funny, I was just calling to tell you…”

  Another lie suddenly forced its way into Bob’s head. Why tell Mary he was ready to abandon his dream if she was already back? Telling the truth would only take away from the sacrifice Mary had made. It would be selfish for Bob to tell the truth just so he could play the martyr. Lying was the considerate thing to do.

  “I was just calling to tell you I got all the hybrids installed and now all I’ve got to do is check them. I’m positive one of them is going to work.” Bob paused for a moment before continuing. “God, I’m glad you’re back!”

  “Me too.” Mary hugged Bob. Katy put her arms around her parents and they drew her in.

  “Hey, Mom,” Katy said as she pulled away from their huddle, “show Dad what we got him.”

  “Oh, I nearly forgot,” Mary said. She unzipped her purse and removed a small jar with three airholes poked in the lid. In the bottom of the jar, four glistening examples of Cotalpa lanigerae, heavy and egg-shaped, clambered about.

  “Goldsmith Beetles!” Bob exclaimed. “They’re beautiful!”

  Bob was right. The metallic sheen of their bright yellow exoskeleton made these scarabs look like jewelry. The soft white woolly hair that brushed out from their undersides looked like the winter fur of the ermine that trimmed the coronation robes of kings. It lent the bugs a sense of royalty as their distinctive clubbed antennae fanned out to take in the odors of the coffee shop.

  Bob knew the Goldsmith Beetle from high s
chool lit class. As his teacher was sleepwalking through an uninspired reading of Poe’s “The Raven,” Bob flipped back a few pages in the literature textbook and found an engaging short story entitled “The Gold Bug,” which featured one of these very same insects in an important role.

  He was touched that Mary had made the effort to find them.

  “We got four of them,” Katy said. She pointed at two of the beetles which were sidling up to one another. “These two spend a lot of time together, so I named them John and Paul. The one tapping his tarsus is Ringo, so that makes the other one George.”

  “To replace the ones I stepped on,” Mary said by way of reminder.

  “You stepped on them?” Katy asked incredulously.

  “More like crushed under her boot heel,” Bob said to Katy. “But there’s no need to get into that.”

  “I can’t believe you stepped on them!” Katy said.

  “Why not?” Mary said a bit brusquely. “I mean, they’re just bugs for God’s sake!”

  “Well,” Bob said, “technically speaking, they’re not true bugs.”

  “See?” Katy said.

  Mary laughed. “Actually, I knew that. Katy explained about the sucking mouthparts. I just wanted to see if you were paying attention.”

  “C’mere,” Bob said as he extended his arms, “I’ll give you some attention.” He took Mary and Katy into his arms again. “I love you guys.”

  As Klaus watched the Dillon family reunion through his rifle scope, the scene dissolved in his mind’s eye into an image of a family of his own. A family that had never existed.

  For a moment Klaus imagined happier days, days spent playing with a little girl laughing on white sandy beaches and making love with a wife on warm Mediterranean nights. These were days and nights Klaus had never allowed himself and never could.

  With a blink, the scene of the Dillons returned. And Klaus knew he couldn’t kill Bob. He discarded all the double-talk and went with his gut; Bob was just a guy with a family and a dream. He didn’t deserve to die and Klaus wasn’t going to kill him, no matter what the personal cost.