Bob lowered the gun and handed it to Klaus, who considered eating a bullet himself and ending his own miserable life. But the thought passed quickly. For some reason he felt obliged to help Bob get through this mess alive.
“Alright, assassin boy,” Bob said, “what’s your brilliant plan?”
“It is simple. We buy you a five million dollar life insurance policy with a double indemnity clause. Then I kill you, notify the media, collect the ten million from Riviera, and Mary gets the insurance money.”
“Hey, I like that,” Bob said with morbid enthusiasm. “That’s good!”
“Thank you. I got the idea from a Barbara Stanwyck movie.” Klaus had no intention of going through with the plan, but at least he had taken the gun from Bob.
“Only one problem, smart guy. I don’t have a goddamn dime to my name. Where the hell am I going to get the money to pay for a five- million dollar insurance policy? I know you don’t have it, since we spent the last of your money on that gun.”
“Hmmmm, you are right. That does pose a problem. Well, we can think about it.”
A thought suddenly seized Bob. He jerked backwards like he had caught his dick in his zipper. “Holy shit! Wait a minute!”
“What? What is it?”
“Marcel,” Bob said, “the French guy.”
“What about him?” Klaus asked.
“He thinks I killed, uh, what’s his name? Huweiler, right? And Wolfe thinks I did the Bolivian guy, right?”
“Yes, but what is your point?”
“Well, my question to you, Mr. Professional Killer been-there-done-that-and-got-paid-plenty-for-it, is…where is my money?” Bob’s tone was accusatory.
“That is a good question,” Klaus admitted.
“Damn right it is! Somebody owes me some scratch! How much do I have coming to me? What do they do, send the payments to a numbered account in Switzerland? How’s this shit work?”
Klaus was disappointed. This was rather obvious. “It depends,” Klaus said. “Did you negotiate?”
“What negotiate?” Bob blurted. “I didn’t know what was going on!”
“I turned down 250 for the Huweiller job,” Klaus said. “And I believe Wolfe was willing to go as high as a million for Riviera, though, thanks to you, the job was never offered to me.”
“Judas H. Jones! That’s 1.25 million! So where the hell’s my money?”
“Well,” said Klaus, “if you do not make other arrangements, the payments are usually delivered in cash or certified check.”
“Pratt!” Bob blurted.
“Pardon me?”
“My landlord. He said he had a UPS package for me. That’s gotta be it.”
“Then you are a wealthy man and we can finally get out of here,” Klaus said.
“I’m not wealthy as long as Pratt has the money, am I?” Bob asked.
“Alright, we will get Mary and Katy, collect the packages, then get out of here. Where is this Pratt?”
“He lives across the street from me. Oh, man, this is fantastic!” Bob was musing on his bright and heavily taxed future when—KAPWINNGG!—a shot ricocheted near their heads. The acoustics of the massive space prevented Klaus from pinpointing the location of the shooter.
Bob and Klaus hit the floor. It was only then that Bob noticed the bullet had nicked him in the arm. A small drop of blood trickled from the wound.
“I’m hit!” Bob screamed.
Klaus looked at the scratched arm. “Relax, you won’t lose it.”
BAM! BAM! BAM! Flashes of light in the corner betrayed the gunman’s position. They saw a small shadowy figure moving irregularly in the distance.
Bob turned to Klaus. “The Dwarf?”
“It looks that way,” Klaus said. “I will circle over there and try to take him out. But remember, he is a cunning little bastard, so stay alert.”
Klaus fired a few rounds for cover, then dashed around some crates.
BAM! BAM! Then click… click… click… came from behind a nearby crate.
“I think he’s out of ammo,” Bob yelled to Klaus.
“I know he’s out of ammo,” Klaus replied calmly. “You can come out now.”
Bob emerged from behind the crate, one hand covering his wounded arm. He retraced Klaus’ steps and found him holding Walter, the wizened old security guard, by his collar. He squirmed like a 72-pound tuna.
“Hiya, Bruce,” Walter said.
“Hi, Walter.”
“Listen, I’m sorry I shot at ya. The ole eyesight’s not what it used to be. You okay?”
“I’m fine.” Bob turned to Klaus. “You can put him down.”
“Thanks, Bruce,” Walter said.
The situation under control, Klaus regained focus. “Alright, we have eliminated the two by the coffee shop, the Nigerian, and Ch’ing. Aside from any amateurs who may be involved, that leaves us with Reginald, Chantalle, and the Cowboy.” Klaus checked his watch. “We must get out of this city.”
“And the money,” Bob reminded him, “don’t forget the money.”
“Yes, you are right. The money too,” Klaus agreed.
As they headed out of the warehouse, Bob began thinking out loud. “You know, it’s a good thing none of the strains worked. If they had, I’d have to split the profits with Silverstein. Now I can finance myself. You know, I bet if I cross the Strain Two and Strain Four hybrids and get some more buildings—I can buy my own now, you know—I can make this work.”
As they approached the cab, Klaus put the gray cloud inside Bob’s silver lining. “Of course, on the other hand, you may be dead before sundown.”
“Well, yeah,” Bob said, “there is that.”
Speeding toward Aqueduct, Bob listened as Klaus and the cabdriver debated an obscure point of the 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Klaus considered the terms unnecessarily humiliating for the Russians while the driver felt the mere recognition of independence for the Balkan states and the Ukraine was not enough; the Russians needed to be thoroughly disgraced.
Before they reached unilateral agreement on the point, they reached the parking lot at Aqueduct, which, save a lonely sweeper doing rounds, was empty.
“Where are they?” Klaus asked.
Bob looked at his watch. “Well, we’re late. Mary does this to me sometimes. She’ll wait a couple of minutes but then she’s outta there, thinks it’s going to teach me a lesson about being considerate of other people’s time. Of course, with Mary it’s possible she didn’t even come here in the first place.”
“You mean she may have gone for that damn locket!” Klaus said. He blurted a sound of disgust and frustration. “This is just like a woman! Does she always do the opposite of what she is told?”
“Well, not always,” Bob said. “But she’s not known for letting things get in her way. She’s pretty headstrong. I think that’s where Katy gets it.”
“For God’s sake, she and Katy could get killed!” Klaus banged on the partition separating the front seat from the back. “Astoria! And step on it!”
As the cab screeched away from the track, the debate resumed on the Syrian Ba’ath Party’s treatment of the Kurdish minority.
Chapter Sixty-nine
Reginald’s sources had knocked him back an embarrassingly large sum in return for Bob’s address. If he ever discovered they’d gotten it from the phone book, he would certainly kill them.
He was in the Long Island City section of Queens, a neighborhood adjacent to Astoria. He was looking for a disguise, preferably something indigenous, before approaching Bob’s house. And moments ago, as he pulled into the Waldbaum parking lot, Reginald had seen exactly what he wanted.
Katy’s young friend Ann and her chubby mother, Lillian, were seated behind a table outside the store. They were peddling boxes of the baked
goods for which Girl Scouts were famous.
Ann looked hopefully at Reginald, the diminutive man who was approaching them hungrily. She had no idea he was wearing frilly pink panties under his trousers; all she knew was that she wanted to sell him some cookies.
Reginald eyed Ann from a distance. He wondered how was he would get what he needed. He didn’t want to have to hurt the little girl, much less kill her, but he would if it became necessary. Reginald then noticed Ann’s full-buttocked mother eyeing him lustily, and realized he could get exactly what he wanted.
“Good afternoon, ladies,” Reginald said in his best House of Commons accent. “Selling some tasty little biscuits, are we?”
Lillian, as it turned out, loved men with English accents. She furtively unbuttoned the top button on her blouse, revealing tantalizing bits of her soft, fleshy bosoms.
A subtle look of acknowledgment crossed Reginald’s face. He knew he was going to get what he needed.
As fate would have it, Lillian had come from a rather cold, unaffectionate family and her fondest memories of childhood were of the circus. She especially loved the “little people,” as they were called. They were so cuddly-looking, and cuddling is what Lillian wanted the most as a child.
It was on one of her many trips to the big top as a young girl that Lillian discovered something new and exciting. With a large sack of salty peanuts held between her legs, she watched as a bevy of tiny clowns performed some thrilling acrobatic stunts which caused her to tingle with delight. Reaching between her legs, she had put her hand into the bag and was groping for a peanut when she felt something she had never felt before. It was a feeling she wanted to have again and again, so every time she reached into the bag she pressed harder and soon her hand began to linger.
The tiny acrobatic performance became more frenzied and soon her hand remained in the bag as she pressed the course shells of the nuts hard against herself, squeezing her legs tightly around the salty bag of delight. Her eyes closed dreamily as she humped the fibrous goobers, unaware that soon she would be overcome with a new sensation.
Since that day, Lillian had been perfecting an intricate sexual fantasy involving a sack of peanuts, some sawdust, and a dwarfed adult who, oddly, sounded like John Cleese. And now, here she was—a single mother of 39 whose urges were not being satisfied—and she was face-to-face with an exceptionally short British man with a devilish glint in his eye.
“You’re a pretty one, aren’t you?” Reginald said as he patted Ann on the head. “And I see you share your good looks with your…older sister?” he said with a nod and a wink.
“That’s not my sister, that’s my mother,” Ann said delightedly.
Lillian leaned down and put her hands on the table so the Englishman could get an eyeful of her massive breasts.
“Do you see anything you like?” she asked.
“Oh my,” he said. “Yes, I think I shall have to buy all the mint cookies you have.”
“Yeah!” said Ann as Reginald handed over a crisp fifty.
“But how on earth shall I carry all this?” he asked. “I’m going to need a box or something, won’t I?”
The mother grabbed her purse. “Ann, honey, you stay here. I’m going to go home and get a box for the nice man.”
“Would you like it if I came along?” Reginald asked, feigning innocence.
“Well, yes. Would you? That would be awfully nice,” Lillian answered as if the thought had never crossed her mind.
The apartment was only two blocks away and they were there in minutes. Lillian bolted the door and led Reginald quickly into her bedroom, never saying a word, not needing to. She worked feverishly to undress as Reginald lay on the bed slowly removing his trousers and revealing first the pink panties he was wearing, then his turgid little organ whose proportion surprised the delighted circus goer.
Lillian opened the drawer of the bedside table and removed a large sack of salted peanuts, a baggie of sawdust, and a strap-on clown’s nose.
Reginald didn’t know what to make of that, but he didn’t care. He strapped on the nose and beckoned for her to join him. As if performing an ancient ritual, Lillian emptied the sawdust onto the bedspread and slid in next to Reginald, longing to have his glistening tumescence in her. After ten minutes the bag of nuts split open beneath the voluptuous clown-lover.
Lillian was left panting and sweating amid the smell of sawdust and wet, salted peanuts. And, as Reginald found his way to where Ann kept her clothes, Lillian drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Seventy
The cab stopped a few blocks from Bob’s house. Bob and Klaus bid their Kurdish friend adieu and walked quickly up the sidewalk. As they crept through the neighborhood Klaus tried to prepare Bob for some of the unpleasant possibilities.
The most likely scenario—if one of the assassins had already located Bob’s house and if Mary had been foolish enough to return for the locket—was that Mary and Katy would be used as hostages to get at Bob. Bob would, of course, surrender himself in exchange for their freedom, and then they would all be killed. That’s just how these things worked.
However, since it seemed unlikely any of the killers knew Klaus was with Bob, they at least had that advantage. They’d have to play everything by ear and hope for the best.
They looked for Klaus’ car.
“There it is!” Bob said.
They found Katy in the driver’s seat, pretending to drive, the radio blaring something by Hootie and the Blowfish.
“Katy!” Bob shouted over the din of Only Wanna Be with You.
“Where’s your mom?” he asked.
Katy turned the radio down. “Where have you two been?”
“Never mind that,” Bob said. “Where is she?”
“Where do you think? She went to the house.”
Bob did a slow burn.
“Hey, I tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn’t listen. You know Mom. Said she’d be back in five minutes.”
“When was that?” Klaus asked.
“Uh, ‘bout an hour ago.”
Klaus took the keys, went to the trunk, and removed a small canvas duffle bag. It appeared to be heavy.
“Bob, come with me,” said Klaus. “Katy, you stay here.”
“Okay, Klaus.” Katy turned the radio back up and pretended she was driving back to see the Pinto burning in the streets of lower Manhattan.
Bob and Klaus were soon crouching behind Dick Pratt’s old blue Cadillac with its rusting tail fins. Across the street the lights were on inside Bob’s house and they saw the silhouette of a tall guy with a ten-gallon hat pacing the living room floor.
“It’s the Cowboy,” Klaus said flatly.
Bob was enraged; he felt violated. “Just give me the gun. I’ll kill that redneck son of a bitch! If he’s done anything to Mary…”
“Relax. He won’t do anything to her until you’re dead,” Klaus said indelicately. “Just let me do my job and she should be fine.”
“Should be?” Bob asked.
“There are no guarantees.”
Klaus unzipped the canvas bag and removed an exquisitely crafted piece of killing machinery. It was the new fifty-magnum Desert Eagle, an elite weapon manufactured by Israel Military Industries, the same people who brought the world the Uzi.
Now the only thing Klaus needed was a ruse. Somehow he had to get face-to-face with the Cowboy.
Chapter Seventy-one
“It’s the best I can do in this neighborhood, lady,” the cabdriver said as he pulled up to the small market. He hoped the beautiful woman wouldn’t shoot him because it wasn’t a chocolate store.
Chantalle glared at the cabbie as she reached across the front seat and snatched the keys from the ignition. She got out of the cab and disappeared into the store.
She passed the rack with t
he beer nuts, the beef jerky, and the bright orange cheese-flavored crackers with peanut butter filling. She needed truffles and she needed them now.
She cruised up and down the aisles, her exquisite eyes scanning the shelves. She passed antiseptics and ointments, then lighter fluid, then an impressive array of paper products, pausing briefly to check the price on the light-day panty shields. The next aisle was dog food, kitty litter, and birdseed. Finally she charged the man behind the counter and demanded what she wanted.
“Truffles!”
The bewildered man thought for a moment and shook his head. He cringed when she yelled again. Finally he pointed tentatively at the rack of chips behind the madwoman. Chantalle turned to look, then, vexed, she screamed even more loudly, “I said truffles, you idiot! Not Ruffles!”
The man looked like a lost child as he shook his head and continued pointing at the potato chips with the ridges.
“Alright,” she said, calming, “Swiss bonbons?”
The head continued shaking.
“Austrian cream chocolate?”
Still shaking.
Chantalle paused. She knew others would be looking for the ten-million-dollar man. The clock was ticking and she knew there wasn’t time to return to the city in search of the perfect confection, so she scanned the candy rack, picked up a Kit Kat bar, and left in the mood to kill.
Chapter Seventy-two
Mary was on the sofa watching the television news, her hands bound and resting in her lap. She still hadn’t noticed the two UPS packages the Cowboy had brought from Pratt’s house even though they were sitting on the coffee table in front of her.
The local news was doing a story about some blond guy killed up in the West 140s. The Action News Team had learned that the victim was in fact, a known Swedish assassin who had wandered into Harlem and been killed. FBI and the CIA sources denied any knowledge of the man’s reasons for being in the city.
Suddenly, one of the beautiful news readers put his hand to his earpiece and turned to the camera with a look of sincere urgency they must teach at electronic journalism school. “Right now,” he intoned gravely, “we’re going up to Roger in the Eyewitness Action-Copter, who is covering a breaking and related story. Roger?”
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