The Exterminators

by Bill Fitzhugh

  Klaus turned back to the computer and said, “Rosa it is.”

  A moment later, Katy’s door slammed again.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Miguel DeJesus Riviera was surprised to hear that someone from the CIA was on his way up to see him. Miguel had lost touch with most of the guys at the Agency after the Iran-Contra thing blew up in their faces. But he still had fond memories of shipping large quantities of product through Ilopango Air Base in El Salvador where the CIA maintained their logistical support center for the Contras. That it was all done with the winking approval and string-pulling of folks in the White House basement just made the memories that much sweeter.

  Miguel smiled at the thought of how much money they had made selling all that coke to the gangs in South Central Los Angeles, and the nutty story that the whole thing was a CIA plot to introduce crack into poor black neighborhoods to bring about genocide when in fact it was just a clumsy attempt to get around the Boland amendments and the U.S. arms embargo against Iran. Ahh, the good old days, Miguel thought. Still, he wondered why the Agency would be paying a visit now. Perhaps they had another brilliant scheme up their covert sleeves.

  The door opened and a man carrying a laptop stepped into the room. He wore a dark suit and a darker expression. He took his time, gazing disparagingly at the decor as he crossed the floor toward Miguel and his antique Victorian writing table.

  “Come in, come in.” Miguel smiled and gestured grandly at the African chieftain’s chair. “Please, sit,” he said.

  Placing the laptop on the table, the man ignored the invitation. He looked at the ridiculous chieftain’s chair, put his hands into his pockets and said, “I’ll pass.” He’d been sitting on planes for the past eleven hours and wanted to stretch his legs. Not that the man was going to explain this. He just wanted to keep his host off balance, make him wonder why the CIA had sent this ill-mannered asshole in the first place. He roamed, looking at each piece of furniture as if he were a surly antiques appraiser, now and then issuing derisive snorts and shaking his head. He paused at the Spanish Colonial Revival bronze floor lamps and said, “Who’s your decorator? Helen Keller?”

  Miguel forced a smile. Obviously this wasn’t a friendly social visit. So, he wondered, what was it? “What can I do for you, Agent…?” He held his hands out asking for help.

  “Parker.”

  “Agent Parker.” Miguel gave a courtly nod despite being offended by the man’s demeanor. Still, he knew of no good reason for pissing off the CIA, so he asked again how he could be of help.

  “I’m doing some follow-up,” Parker said. “About your brother.”

  “Ronaldo? What about him?”

  “His unfortunate death,” Parker said.

  Miguel screwed up a mournful expression and said, “Yes, well, it was a shock and a tragedy, to be sure. But after so many years, I’ve managed to put it behind me.” Miguel crossed himself, saying, “May the blessed Virgin have mercy on his soul, but I prefer not to dwell on the past.”

  “That’s very touching,” Parker said. “But we’re going to dwell for just a moment, if you don’t mind.”

  Uh-oh, Miguel thought. Not good. Conjuring a smile and an appeasing tone he said, “Always happy to assist my friends from Washington.”

  “Good answer.” Parker pointed for Miguel to sit. And he did. “Now, you offered a nice little bounty for the head of his killer, am I right?”

  “Of course,” Miguel said, acting as if he had chosen to sit on his own. “It is bad business for a man in my position to let such things go unpunished. So, yes, I put money on the table and the call was answered.”

  Parker nodded. “You’re talking about that business in Queens, yes? The explosion? All that?”

  “That’s right.” Miguel was getting suspicious and worried about where this was going. “Why do you ask?”

  “And the bounty was collected?”

  “Of course,” Miguel said. “And, not to be too blunt, but I suspect you know by whom.”

  Agent Parker smirked. “If you’re going to tell me it was the man they call Klaus, I’ve got a bridge I’d like to sell you.”

  “Is that so?” He could feel his blood pressure rising.

  As Agent Parker pulled a laptop from the case, Miguel thought back to that night when Klaus showed up with the Exterminator’s baseball cap, crusty around the bullet hole where the blood had dried. Miguel said, “You can keep your bridge, my friend. I saw the proof. The Exterminator, his wife and his child, all killed before the house was blown up.”

  “Uh-huh,” Agent Parker said. “But what would you say if I were to tell you that Klaus and the Exterminator are alive and well and still accepting contracts?” Parker hit a few keys on the computer, launching a program.

  Miguel thought about it for a moment before he forced a smile. “I would say, eso es un cuento chino!”

  Parker paused as he translated. “A Chinese story?”

  “It is an idiom,” Miguel said. “A Chinese story is what you would call…a tall tale.”

  “Ah,” Parker said, glancing down at the computer, then back at Miguel. “I do enjoy the colorful use of language.”

  “Do you?” Emboldened by irritation, Miguel said, “Well, another colorful expression I might use would be to say that you are full of shit.”

  Parker chuckled. “I’ve always like that one myself,” he said. “But having just spent two days in a car with a Nikon D1H and a 300-millimeter lens with a 2X extender, I’m here to tell you that particular expression doesn’t apply in this particular situation.” He ducked his head slyly and said, “Would you like to see the slide show?” He hit ‘enter’ and spun the laptop around for Miguel. As the photos came up, Agent Parker narrated.

  “That’s the view from the front of their property,” he said, as he came around the table to stand next to Miguel’s chair. “A nice two-story Craftsman with a couple of acres.” The next photo appeared on the screen. “Now this is farther back on the property,” he said, pointing at the image of a large steel frame prefab building. “Turns out that’s a laboratory full of all sorts of DNA sequencing equipment and insects.” Parker looked at Miguel, shrugged, and said, “A guy needs a hobby, I guess.”

  “Yes,” Miguel said between clenched teeth. “I suppose he does.”

  “Now comes the fun part.” Agent Parker gestured at the screen. “That’s the daughter, Katy, getting off the school bus. Sure has grown up, hasn’t she?” Next photo. “And Mary, the wife, outside cutting flowers.” He turned to Miguel and, nodding, said, “She really does have a green thumb. Beds filled with trillium and red baneberry. It’s quite nice, if you go for that sort of thing,” Parker said.

  “I prefer tropicals,” Miguel said dryly.

  “Yeah, I noticed that on the way in,” Parker said. “And by the way, you have some big ass cockroaches out there, you might want to call Orkin.” Miguel stared at him blankly before Parker directed his eyes back to the laptop. “Now I’m sure you recognize our next guest.” The screen clicked automatically through a series of photos. Klaus coming out of the lab. Klaus talking to Mary holding a bunch of flowers. Klaus tousling Katy’s hair as she passed by after getting off the bus. Parker noticed Miguel’s silence and his sullen expression. He gave him a gentle elbow and said, “You still with me?”

  The Bolivian gave him a nasty look. He didn’t like where this was going.

  “Okay,” Parker said. “Here comes the money shot.” The next picture was a pickup truck with a crew cab pulling into the driveway—on the roof, a large fiberglass bug. The truck door opened. Parker said, “Wait for it.” Then Bob getting out, facing straight toward the camera, waving at the others. Agent Parker hit the pause button and said, “Now, who does that look like to you?”

  Miguel’s expression grew darker than Parker’s suit. He leaned in for a c
loser look at the Exterminator’s face, taunting him with a smile.

  Agent Parker took a couple of steps back. He figured Miguel was about to embark on the Machismo Express, throwing furniture, breaking windows, and vowing violent retribution. A real man’s tantrum, something in the neighborhood of Mel Gibson. And who could blame him, Parker thought. Being made the fool was no small shame in Miguel’s world. So a tantrum would be a good release. Then, after he’d smashed some things up and calmed down, they could discuss Parker’s proposal. But Miguel did none of these things. In fact he seemed chillingly calm and quiet. Perhaps he wasn’t convinced, Parker thought. So he said, “Now before you start talking about Photoshop and that kind of crap, let me assure you, this is all legit.”

  Miguel didn’t hear the last comment because of the ringing in his ears and the sudden, crushing headache that had rendered him virtually blind. The simultaneous dizziness he could handle, since he was already seated, but the increasing intracranial pressure had him thinking that his head would explode at any moment.

  Miguel knew he had no one to blame but himself. Having ignored his doctor’s advice for years, Miguel’s chronic, untreated high blood pressure had just been upgraded to an acute hypertensive episode, pushed over the cliff by the smiling face of Bob Dillon and all that it implied.

  Agent Parker grew concerned. He didn’t want his gravy train derailed. So he moved around the table to look at Miguel. He had developed a body tremor and a facial tic to boot. “Take it easy there, cowboy,” Parker said. “Nothing we can’t fix.” Looking closely at the whites of Miguel’s eyes, he saw blood vessels bursting like a tiny red skyrockets. “Whoa.” Parker turned, looking for the bar. “You want a drink?”

  Miguel either nodded yes or his tremor had changed directions.

  As Agent Parker went over and poured a glass of scotch he said, “I understand your reaction, Miguel. I mean, not only is the man you blamed for your brother’s death still alive after you paid all that money to his alleged killer, but it turns out the two of them were in cahoots all along. That’s gotta hurt.” He set the bottle on the table and handed the drink to Miguel who downed it at once.

  “And now? Hell, you look like a serious pussy who can’t even avenge his own brother’s death, and worse,” Parker continued, “you look like a dupe, conned out of ten million bucks.” He shook his head as he lowered himself into the African chieftan’s chair. “When word gets out—and you know it will—your reputation is going to suffer.”

  The drink seemed to help. Riviera grabbed the bottle and poured another. “I cannot afford that,” he said, followed by a second shot of whiskey.

  “No, I don’t think you can.”

  He poured a third. “I assume you have a plan of some sort?”

  Parker smiled. “What do you think?”

  “I think both of them must die.”

  “I think you’re right,” Parker said. “But it won’t be easy.” He paused, looked at his fingernails and said, “Or cheap.”

  “No, it never is.” Then, knowing that he couldn’t lower his price from the last time, Miguel said, “Ten million for each.”

  Agent Parker put his hands together and pointed them at Miguel. “As it turns out, that’s exactly what I was thinking. All I ask for is an exclusive on the contract. No competition.”

  Miguel downed another drink. “For how long?”

  “Six months?”

  “Two.”

  “Four.”

  “Done.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Paris, France

  For over twenty years Marcel Pétain had run the most successful boutique employment agency in Europe. Marcel’s company offered what he called specialized staffing and professional service solutions. However, unlike most employment agencies, Marcel’s job placements were never for permanent positions. These jobs, by definition, were temporary.

  Marcel had been putting assassins to work since 1979.

  He had established a sterling reputation by hiring only the best and by matching the needs of the employer with the skills of available service providers. Unfortunately the business took a serious downturn after the third quarter of 1998, when many of the world’s best killers were permanently and involuntarily retired while pursuing the same target in New York. Since then, the level of expertise available for hire had sunk to all-time lows. Sure, Marcel would say, there were a few good people still around, and there were some promising up-and-comers, but it was a simple supply-and-demand situation: it being a world where there were more people wanting to hire good killers than there were good killers to be hired.

  Or, as Marcel’s trusted and fashion-conscious assistant, Jean, dryly put it, “It’s so hard to find good help these days.”

  They were sitting around the office one afternoon watching television when Jean shook his delicate fist at the flat screen and shouted, “Avoir le timbre fêlé!” He turned to Marcel. “Yoyoter de la touffe!”

  Marcel was too engaged with his pastry to respond with anything more than a lazy nod.

  They were watching the induction ceremony of fashion designer Dominique Molymeux into the National Order of the Legion of Honor, rank of chevalier. Cultural protectionists that they are, this was the sort of thing that passed for good television en France. When the French minister of culture said, during his introduction, that Dominique’s “daring use of rayon made her terribly feared but totally respected,” Jean, who for years has been telling anyone who would listen that her work was thematically derivative and philosophically irrelevant, shook his fist and accused the man of having a cracked bell, which was roughly akin to being touched in the head. To underline his point, Jean had continued by saying the minister was yodeling from the rooftop.

  Which is when the phone rang, sparing the minister of culture from further insulting idioms. Since the majority of their employment opportunities came from foreign countries, Jean was pleased to see the international area code for La Paz, Bolivia on the caller I.D. He answered as he always did, “Specialized staffing and professional service solutions,” because, as it turns out, like air traffic control and maritime communications, English was the official international language of the trade. Jean listened for a moment, then, with a certain excitement in his voice, he said, “But of course!” He put his hand over the receiver and said, “It is for you.”

  Jean muted the television so Marcel could take the call while he could continue hurling psychic insults at the Minister of Culture. Marcel set his pastry down, wiped his mouth and, assuming that the French was close enough, said, “Allô?” For the next five minutes, he listened as the caller explained his situation. Now and then a word or phrase would catch Jean’s ear, diverting his attention from the cultural travesty that was unfolding at the Opéra Garnier, phrases like: “How ironic.” “It will be difficult.” “Twenty million?” “No problem.”

  After a few more minutes, Marcel said, “Consider it done.” Then he hung up, looked at Jean and said, in all seriousness, “We will need three.”

  “Three? We are lucky to find one these days. And you promised him three?”

  Marcel pushed himself up from the sofa which seemed to gasp for air as his massive buttocks arose. “These days we will promise anything for a fee. N’est-ce pas?”

  “Fine,” Jean said, tossing off an existential gesture. “What are the details?”

  As Marcel waddled over to his desk he said, “Two targets in the States. A job I would have thought perfectly suited to Chantalle.” Here he dipped his head and looked at Jean. “If she had not already failed at it.” He smiled slyly, waiting for his assistant to get the point.

  It took a moment but then Jean’s mouth dropped. “No.”

  “Oui!”

  Marcel stuffed another pastry into his mouth then smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Ha! I have one,” h
e said, raining flaky crumbs onto this desk. “I ran into Leon last week. He told me he had been taken off his latest project and was available.” Marcel peered into the pastry box. “Trés bien! We have our first.”

  Not to be outdone, Jean said, “What about the Pakistani? Fareed Ghulam Abbas? He has talent.”

  Marcel shook his head. “He also has a room at Abu Ghraib.”

  “Ah, how about Nicolas Olszewski?”

  “That old Polack’s in a wheelchair,” Marcel said uncharitably. “He is finished, I’m afraid.”

  “All right then, perhaps Azacca Volcy, the Haitian?”

  “He would be perfect,” Marcell said. “If only he were alive.”

  “He’s dead?”

  “His wife killed him.”

  “No.”

  “Caught him with another woman out in their garden. Knocked him out with a shovel. Castrated him with hedge shears. Bled to death.”

  Jean considered that for a moment, then said, “Perhaps we should hire her.”

  Marcel gave him a sideways glance. “I’d say she is too volatile.” He snapped his fingers. “Now, come. More names.” He reached into the box to select another treat.

  “How about Sergio Esparza?”

  Marcel shook his head. “I’m afraid this case is beyond his skill level.”

  Jean knew that Marcel would reject the next name that came to mind. But after several minutes of silence he said it anyway, “What about…the Mongoose?”

  Marcel was about to sink his teeth into a Savarin pastry cream when he stopped cold and deliberately set it down. “Please. You know he retired.”

  “It would be worth a try,” Jean said. “What is the worst he could say?”

  Marcel seemed astounded by what Jean was asking him to do. “You expect me to call the Mongoose and try to lure him back for one last big job? It hurts just to say the words. Do you have any idea how hackneyed that sounds?”