The food was good and the waiters left them alone but were on hand. Ginger said nothing while they ate and ordered another rum drink after they were done.
“Terry, me boy, we are about to do something I have not done in many years. Your father was much better at it than I, much more subtle. He had a way of moving in and moving out so nobody noticed he was there. He could walk through a crowded room and have nobody see him. He was nondescript that way, even though he was tall.”
“Two meters is not that tall, I’m almost that now.”
“Boy, we are not having a discussion. I am going to tell you some things and you are going to keep your trap shut. There are things you do not know and you will never know if you don’t stop talking and start listening.”
Terry recognized the tone of voice. He was very curious but there would be no hurrying the explanation. It would come in time. He did hope the information came before Ginger got too drunk. There was no telling what might happen if he did.
“What you know of your father is only half of what he did. He was a calm and considered gentleman and a devoted family man.” Ginger took a large sip of his drink as if he needed it to continue. “He was also a world class assassin.”
Terry’s jaw dropped. He had never gotten the slightest inkling of this part of his father’s life. If George had survived, Terry might have suspected something after a while but he had never gotten a clue during his formative years. He was about to stammer some sort of protest but the look in Ginger’s eye silenced him.
“This is not something I suspect, boy, this is something I know. He and I did some work together years back. I am a better shot than he was but he was so subtle about it that he always made me look like an amateur. There are rules to this sort of an existence and he followed them scrupulously. Do you want to continue this conversation?”
Terry nodded his head, struck dumb by the revelation.
“I will continue but I have already warned you that if you open your mouth to any of your school chums, or the silly little sheilas you’ll be plucking, I will shoot you myself and bury you in the fields in four or five pieces. Am I making myself as clear as I can?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. This is not a joke or some sort of game. I will not do it willingly, and I will not enjoy it, but if you can’t keep your mouth shut, I will dismember you and fertilize the corn with your body. You never leave witnesses alive, that includes family, friends, lovers, and children, if they can’t keep their big mouths shut.” Ginger called for another drink and ordered Terry a cup of coffee.
“That is the first rule, boy, you never leave witnesses alive.”
“I understand, but why are you telling me this now?”
“I created a witness when I went to that man’s house and started asking questions about the dark blue boat he had in the back yard.”
“Is he the one…?”
“No, but he is now a witness. Tell me what he witnessed.”
“He saw a man in a suit, driving a Holden Monaro, who wanted to know about the boat in the back yard.”
“Wrong. He saw a blond man in a suit and hat, from Helping Hands. He may or may not have seen you, depending on how curious he got. He saw a confused claims examiner.”
The waiter brought the drinks and Ginger said nothing until he had left them alone again. Then he said, “Do you want to continue this conversation?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you had best be aware of all the rules involved. You never leave fingerprints. You never allow yourself to be fingerprinted. You never call attention to yourself. You never accept a woman or child as your primary target. You never agree to work with the police unless you can eliminate the entire station force and destroy all evidence. You never talk. The men who hire and distribute jobs in this part of the world are limited in number, but they are ruthless. I have been expecting the man who shot me in the hospital to appear at the farm for the past eight years. I do not know why he has not. It has been a mistake on his part, boy. He knew where we lived, there is no doubt about that. We did not know where he was until today and we still cannot be sure it is him. What are the rules?”
“You, uh, I never, uh, I… I never talk. I never go after women and children. I never leave a witness. I never work with the constables. I never leave fingerprints or let them fingerprint me.”
“Not bad. You never call attention to yourself. I’ll be asking you again so don’t forget. There is one more lesson that does not constitute a rule, just a guideline. If they don’t find a body they can’t be sure the victim has been eliminated.”
“Yes, sir. I never…”
“Shut up and listen. I don’t know who this man is. I have an address and it might be false. I have a name and it is sure to be false. Men in this game change their names and if you address them by a name they used for a specific purpose, it could get you killed and you will never see it coming. Telephones are very dangerous. You cannot see who you are talking to. You don’t know who is listening. When you pick up a phone it pinpoints your location. They can also be very useful but they must be used with the greatest of caution.”
Terry looked at his uncle in a new light. He knew, now, what it was that had bothered him all these years. Ginger had always spoken too correctly for what he was, an old farmer with a bad reputation. He had always known too much about too many things. There had always been an air about him that bespoke something more than his history justified. Now Terry knew what it was. He was in the middle of a life-changing event. He was about to taste something that he had wanted for years but never really expected to happen.
“We need to rent a van. Preferably a work truck type, not too many windows.”
“Will we rent that here?”
“Yes. The farther from the target the better. Your best tool is going to be misdirection. I have been remiss in your education. There are things you need to master, things you need to understand, but there was no time and I could not tell you why I was having you learn these things.” The rum was making the man’s face florid and he looked uncomfortable in the suit.
“There will be lots of time to learn, later. I need to know where we are going next,” Terry said cautiously.
“We are going to a hotel and establish a titular alibi. We also need to think of a good reason for being here.”
“Fishing. We could say we were here to fish.”
“It doesn’t hold water by itself but with a little embellishment it may. Remember the first rule? Don’t leave witnesses. Unless they have witnessed only what you want them to see. Then you make sure they remember it the way you want them to.”
“That’s why you went blond, why you didn’t want him to see me.”
“That’s a given, but not all. I do not believe that when I left that man’s house, he said to himself ‘something is fishy.’ If called to testify against me in a courtroom, could he recognize me? I don’t know, probably. But if asked for a description he will say I am a blond man. Remember, always buy supplies at the larger stores. If you stop in an apothecary and buy hair dye, whoever is behind the counter will remember you.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“If the new owner of the boat were a danger, we would be required to return to Orbost and eliminate him. Can you do that?”
“I don’t know, Uncle, I wouldn’t be required to eat him too, would I?” Terry said with a grin.
“This is no joke, boy. Would you be able to walk up to that man who never did nothing to you and put one between his eyes?”
“Yes, sir, I would. I mean I could.”
“Assassins have gotten a bad rap in Western Culture. Nobody respected what they were capable of doing, or what was required to perform the vital and necessary role they held. I am too old for this; it’s a job for the young.”
“What does your…”
“Shut up and listen, boy. At your age you know nothing of age, you haven’t stopped growing yet, but if you don’t learn to shut up you will f
inish growing. Now, as I was saying, the Japanese knew and understood what it took to be a quiet and effective killer. They would not need to hide and scurry about like mice in the dark. They would be addressed with respect. People would say “Good day, Honorable Assassin.”
~~~
Chapter Four: Melbourne
“Jerry, I’m sorry about this. Terry and I went to the coast to do some fishing and we’ve lost a ball joint on the Holden. It won’t take more than a day or two. Do you think your boys could take care of the animals for us? Yes, that’s right. The Doberman is chained to the block we poured on the side of the house. The feed is in the shed behind the house. Tell your boys to be careful feeding him. No, the sheepdogs are all right but the Doberman will probably try to take a chunk out of them if he gets a chance and he’s sneaky. Tell them to fill a bowl and push it to him with a stick. I’ll take care of them when I return. Yes, a couple of days. If you could let them out on the way to school on Monday and then let them back in at night, the dogs will take care of the rest. Proper. Thank you again.
“Alibi, boy. Always have an alibi. Now, we’re here to do some fishing so we need to rent a boat, but we need to rent our own boat. We don’t need someone taking us to the best fishing spots; we just need a boat.”
As it turned out they could rent a small fishing boat for a week. It was just a 15-foot aluminum shore cruiser, nothing to take out of sight of land.
The moving van was just as easy. Ginger rented it under an assumed name; Horace Paylee. He had a driver’s license under that name as well. Apparently he had possessed the license for a very long time because the picture looked 25 years younger than his present age. The picture also showed him with blond hair.
The boat and the hotel room were rented in Ginger’s real name. They were going to be here for a couple of days. As far as anyone else was concerned, they would never visit Melbourne. The last prop for the play was the ball joint. To complete the subterfuge they bought a set of manual spring compressors, a pickle fork and a small tub of grease, necessary tools to replace a ball joint. The owner of the parts shop had to order a ball joint from one of his sister stores. He swore it would be there the next day.
At the end of Lagoon Road off Jacaranda Drive in the town of Metung, Ginger found the perfect opportunity. A series of lakes joined Metung with Lakes Entrance and nobody lived at the end of Lagoon Road. The drop off was too sharp to launch from and there was no evidence that there were many parties held there. After scoping out the area, Ginger drove the rented van back to a break in the trees a half a kilometer off and hid it as best he could. Then they drove the Holden back to Lakes Entrance and parked it at the dock.
Dock was a generous term for the rotten pilings and rotted boards but that was not the point. The point was they had rented a small fishing boat and gear. They bought some live bait and took an extra can with gasoline. It was very late in the day to be heading out and the proprietor pointed this out. Ginger assured him that they were not going out to sea but up the channel to the lakes. This assuaged the man’s fears. One couldn’t get in much trouble in that direction.
The engine started easily and purred away without a hiccup. It ran better than they would have expected and took them the 12 miles to Lagoon Road’s dead-end without incident. The drop off was too sharp to run a trailer down and there was a locked gate at the end of the road preventing anyone from trying. This did not even slow the pair down. A length of nylon rope and a little elbow grease hauled the boat off the water and into the trees. A length of chain served to fasten the bow to a tree. They took some branches and leaves and covered it as best as could be expected then went down the road to the van. The van was unmolested. They started her up and went on their way. As far as anyone was concerned they were fishing on the lakes.
They drove onto Jacaranda Drive and down Broadlands Road. One of the last streets before the river was Kookaburra Street and Terry started humming to himself. Ginger heard him humming and joined him, singing the words on the second time through.
“Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree
Merry, merry king of the bush is he
Laugh kookaburra, laugh kookaburra
Gay your life must be.”
Terry fell silent, withdrawing into himself and remembering why they were here. After about an hour Ginger started asking him questions. He asked him about the rules of assassination and the reasons for them. He asked about why he had done this and that and when it is appropriate and inappropriate to use a disguise. He asked him when it was appropriate to make a spectacle of one’s self and when it was best to hide. He presented his nephew with a wide range of scenarios and queried him about the best way to handle the situation. The lessons did more than pass the time as the sun went down; they were important in calming Terry’s nerves.
Ginger knew Terry was a good shot with almost any weapon. He had attempted to instill in him the necessity for walking quietly in the forest. He had told him about sneaking up on a fox and that the best hunters were those who could sneak up on a fox. He knew Terry was not that good, and considered it almost impossible any way, but he had done what he thought appropriate for the situation.
“Why do you suppose he never came for us, Uncle?”
“I can’t say, boy.”
“Oh. When are you going to stop calling me boy?”
“Soon.”
“What do we do if it is not him?”
“I can’t say, boy.”
“What do we do if it is?”
“We’ll know when we get there. I haven’t done this sort of work in a long time and I won’t know what needs to be done until I assess the situation. It may be that we have the wrong man but the boat fit your description and it was called Ellsinore. Years back I had the resources and contacts to discover and determine this sort of thing. I dropped those contacts years ago and would not dare contact them now.”
“Why not?”
“As I said, the number of men doing this sort of work is limited in this part of the world. If I were to begin making noises, the word would reach the target. I could not be sure that he is not working for the same people I used to do work for.”
“Can I do it?”
“I don’t know, boy. Can you?”
“Yes.”
Before morning the two Kingstons were sitting within sight of their destination, wearing coveralls. It was a modest, well kept home with river access from the back. A new Cadillac sat in the driveway, a very unusual sight in Australia. Luxury cars were rare in themselves; American luxury cars were even scarcer.
“This is a point where we make a decision, boy. We can shoot this man from a distance, this side of the river. We can set up on the other side of the Yarra and shoot him from there when he comes out to the back, a much more difficult shot but safer. Remember that this man is a professional. Professional enough to kill your father, God rest his soul. He will not be expecting us but he may well be expecting somebody. A man who does this for a living can always expect there to be hard feelings on somebody’s part.”
“Is that why he killed my father?”
“I can’t say, boy. That is the last option we have and the reason I mentioned his possible vigilance. We can go in the house, tie him to a chair and force him to tell us the details of the operation and the reasons behind it.”
Terry’s young mind was still trying to grasp all that had been thrown at him in the past two days. The facts were like separate blades of grass and he was trying to pluck them and bind them together like a bowerbird building his nest. “You mean torture him?” he asked.
“Has he not tortured us?”
Bradley had not forgotten about Ginger Kingston and his young charge. He had simply become complacent. His contacts had pinpointed the farm and the fact that Ginger had worked it for many years. His contact at Motor Vehicles had given him the name and number and he had simply followed the information. Yes, he was George Kingston’s brother, but there was no information linking him to any of the acti
ons attributed to George. Yes, he was a witness, but he lived a very long way off and the likelihood of their ever meeting was extremely remote. The police had ceased looking for Bradley in connection with George and Marcia’s death years before and Ginger had no history of working with or for the police. It would not have been a difficult job but any damage they could have caused had been done, and they were not pursuing it with the police or the media so Bradley simply let sleeping dogs lie.
There had been other jobs along the way. A mayor, who would not stop needling a police captain to take care of certain problems, was never found after he left for work one morning. The police chief was no longer in charge and the problems had only gotten worse. A contractor who refused to allow the union into his business ended up falling into the dig for a foundation and breaking his neck. A minister who was constantly up in arms about prostitution was found drowned in his own baptismal pool. Bradley became more and more subtle as he matured in his profession.
He thought about George Kingston from time to time. He had admired ‘The Viper’ and had wanted to learn more about the techniques and style his victim had employed. The history of his jobs was muddled and Bradley did not dare seek out anyone who might have known him so he was confined to researching the newspapers. It was a poor source of information and did nothing to enlighten him. When internet access became the norm, Bradley threw himself into that and found so much more than he could have expected. A search for keyword ‘Viper’ brought up lots of stuff about crocodile hunters and snake wranglers but it also brought up a site devoted to ‘The Viper’ and the jobs attributed to him. Being closer to the source than some of the people contributing to the site, Bradley knew that some of the jobs were erroneously credited. His pride swelled enormously when he saw that a job he had done when he was considerably younger was attributed to ‘The Viper.’ George’s exploits had grown into the stuff of urban legend and his fame had grown exponentially. People started inventing jobs that had never been done and slapping the ‘Viper’ name on them. Bradley itched to straighten them out but, as a professional, he could not say the slightest thing.
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