Marcel read:
The Spined Assassin Bug (Sinea diadema). One of the most ruthless and cunning thugs in the insect world. Its glistening black exoskeleton is covered with eight rigid, needle-sharp spines, each of which has a bright yellow ring at its base. Originally a defensive mechanism, over time the Spined Assassin has evolved to use the spines as weapons, trapping prey against solid objects, then driving ahead like an unmanned bulldozer until its quarry is run through like a pin-cushion. The Spined Assassin feeds on the fluids of various large insects.
This cinched it for Marcel. The word “assassin” was right there on the page, yet it was couched in such a way that it could not implicate Bob as a killer for hire.
“Yes, this is brilliant,” Marcel said as he put the sheet of paper on the coffee table. “But let me ask you a question, now that we are on the same page, so to speak.”
“No, go ahead. Believe me, I understand. I imagine you’re going to need some things explained.”
“Yes, uh, exactly.” Marcel moved to the front edge of the sofa and leaned toward Bob. “After receiving your…inquiry, my associates and I wondered why we had not heard of you before.”
“Well, for the past few years I’ve worked exclusively for this company…”
Marcel understood. “Ahhh. The Company. Very good. That would explain it.” Marcel was thrilled to be getting someone with CIA training. “And you left the Company because…”
“We had a policy disagreement. So I’m on my own now.”
“Out in the cold, as they say.”
“Uh, I guess you could say that. So what can I do for you?”
Marcel handed Bob a folder. “Well, as you might imagine, we need something taken care of.”
Bob opened the folder, expecting to find blueprints or photographs of the building Marcel was hiring him to disinfest. Instead, he found a photograph and some biographical information on a man named Hans Huweiler. He also found the Polaroid of himself taken that beery night at Freddie’s. Something was wrong, Bob thought, but at the moment he couldn’t figure out what.
Marcel cleared his throat. “I must say, of all the inquiries we received, we were most amused by your, what would you call it, your handbill?”
“Oh, my flyer? You liked that, huh?”
“Quite.” Marcel chuckled nervously. “Natural Pest Control. That was, how would you say it? Quite inventive. We especially enjoyed the skull-and-crossbones. A nice touch.”
“Thanks, I designed it myself.” Bob nodded at the folder and the picture of Mr. Hans Huweiler. “Uh, what’s this? Is this the guy with the pest problem?”
“Uh, no. He is the problem,” Marcel said.
Bob thought he had missed something during the course of the conversation. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“Mr. Huweiler is your…uh, your pest.”
Bob hesitated before speaking. “The pest who needs to be exterminated?”
“C’est ca!” Marcel smiled.
Bob stared at Marcel as he tried to figure out what the hell was going on. He reviewed all the evidence: the Mercedes limo, a man with an extremely expensive suit, the oblique questions and comments, and the ad in the New York Times offering $50,000 for a weekend exterminator job.
It suddenly occurred to Bob that someone with a French accent was making a big mistake. And Bob was beginning to get a rough idea of what that mistake was. This man wanted someone dead. And he wanted Bob to make him that way.
Bob quickly closed the folder and thrust it back at Marcel, who interpreted the sudden, violent movement as one of aggression.
Bob was genuinely frightened.
Marcel was thoroughly terrified.
“Will you take the job?” Marcel asked nervously.
“What?! Uh, no, no thanks, I don’t think so,” Bob said nervously as he got up. Marcel stood also.
“The pay is 50,000 American,” Marcel offered, fearing for his own life.
Some papers slipped from the folder and fluttered toward the floor. Bob made an astoundingly quick move to catch them.
Marcel jumped back, hoping he was not going to be killed where he stood.
Bob had to nip this in the bud. “No, you don’t understand. I am not interested in this. This is not my line of work.”
Marcel was confused momentarily until he realized Bob was negotiating. “Ahhh. I see,” Marcel said. “Very well. I am authorized to go as high as one hundred thousand. But it must appear accidental.”
Bob moved abruptly toward the front hall. Marcel followed, assuming the negotiations were coming to a close.
“Look, if it can’t be killed with Malathion, Diazinon, or Combat, I don’t kill it.”
“I understand,” Marcel said with a wave of the hand. “Whatever method you choose is fine as long as it appears accidental.”
“No. Listen to what I’m saying, I just kill bugs,” Bob insisted. “I’m not interested in this. Do you understand?”
“Of course, bugs. And this is not the sort of thing we would ever ask you to do. Very good.” Marcel was getting the hang of it.
“No, you’re not listening to me. Come here.” Bob took Marcel by the arm and led him down the hallway to the Bug Room. Marcel’s eyes fixed immediately on the bookshelves where he saw copies of Organic Death and The Art of Poison. He also noticed Bob’s gleaming steel homemade bee smoker which he imagined was an efficient and deadly weapon rarely seen by nonprofessionals.
Marcel pulled away from Bob, convinced he had the right man for the job. He made his way back to the front door, then paused, offering the folder to Bob. “Will you need this?”
“No, really. I think you should leave now.” Bob opened the door.
Of course, Marcel thought, a photographic memory.
“I am not interested, alright? And I’m sorry if I caused you any inconvenience.”
“Yes, of course, at your convenience. That will be fine. But sooner is better than later if it fits your schedule.”
Bob urged Marcel out the door and shut it. Marcel quickly retreated to the Mercedes and slipped in the back.
“You are white as a ghost,” Jean whispered urgently as he looked out at Bob’s house. “Did he accept?”
Marcel nodded. “Yes, but he forced the higher price.”
“Are you sure about him?”
Marcel dabbed the sweat from his brow and looked at Jean with death in his eyes. “I am lucky to be alive.” He pulled Bob’s photo from the folder and looked at it. “He is even more dangerous than he looks.”
Chapter Eleven
The white Ferrari Testarossa exploded out of the St. Gotthard tunnel on its way to Chamonix. The man at the wheel of this beautiful, sleek machine had an appointment for some fun with someone who was not his wife’s age.
It was a good day for driving, and Mr. Hans Huweiler was howling along a winding road through the Swiss Alps at about 140 KPH, exceedingly fast, even by metric standards.
Between shifts, Hans drank from a bottle of Remy Martin while conducting Mozart’s “Eine kleine Nachtmusik” as it blasted from the expensive stereo.
As Hans was coaxing the cellos into a more emotive mood, the Testarossa squealed into a nasty and not particularly well engineered curve in the road, forcing him to drop his bottle and take the wheel with both hands momentarily.
Just before the apex of the curve, Hans reached down for the glugging decanter. A split second later, Hans and his Ferrari parted company with the road in a white blur and, in perfect time with Herr Mozart, cartwheeled beautifully down the side of the mountain, an awful waste of machinery and cognac.
Chapter Twelve
Marcel and Jean were in the Lear jet cruising through German airspace at 37,000 feet when the fax machine began to whir.
Jean, looking elegant
yet casual in a juniper-green Mongolian cashmere with polo collar, retrieved the copy of the newspaper article that was being transmitted to them.
The headline read: “Huweiler Dies In Alps Crash.” He handed it, with a smile, to Marcel.
After absorbing the details of the lead paragraph, Marcel put the article aside. “Tres bon.” He smiled as he pulled a pen from his coat pocket. “Our ‘pest problem’ is finis. Bring me the package.”
As Jean retrieved a large envelope from a compartment in the rear of the jet, Marcel wrote a note on the back of a calling card: “Merci, Messr. Exterminator.”
Jean handed the envelope to Marcel, who opened it, revealing $100,000 in American currency. Marcel put the calling card in the envelope, then sealed it. “See that our friend receives this.”
Chapter Thirteen
The cupboard was bare, save for a couple of packages of Top Ramen, a can of generic tomato sauce, and the rapidly diminishing box of Lucky Charms. Not wanting to deprive his family of a potential pseudo-spaghetti dinner, Bob opted for the cereal.
He turned the box upside down and shook out the last few morsels. A dead cockroach toppled into the half-full bowl of cereal.
Bob fished the roach out from among the clover-and moon-shaped marshmallows. It had probably died from an overdose of preservatives. Bob considered the reddish-brown bug. Abundant in the Paleozoic era, its species had not changed noticeably in 400 million years. Their fossil remains were so plentiful in one strata of geologic time that some referred to it as the Age of Cockroaches. Today there were about 55 known species in the United States, most of which lived outdoors. Only five species commonly lived indoors. And although Bob knew they weren’t the cleanest insects around, cockroaches had never bothered him, certainly not the way the Common Housefly (Musca domestica) did. After all, contrary to popular belief, cockroaches didn’t spread human diseases.
The housefly, on the other hand, mucked about on moist shit before landing on human food and regurgitating fecal matter, thereby transmitting typhoid, dysentery, diarrhea, pinworms, hookworms, and tapeworms. The housefly disgusted Bob.
One Saturday afternoon Mary watched in amazement as Bob, wearing heavy-duty rubber gloves, pursued a fly through the house for 45 minutes until finally smashing it against a wall.
But the occasional cockroach Bob could live with. He removed the brittle winged creature from his cereal and carried it by its antennae to the trash can.
In the fridge, the milk carton was almost empty, maybe six tablespoons left. Bob went to the sink and added some tap water. Point zero, zero, two percent milk, Bob thought. Less fat and no flavor. He poured the thin white liquid onto his cereal.
Bob sat, staring at his forlorn meal, trying for the moment not to let his situation get him down. He sighed.
As he brought the spoon to his mouth, Bob noticed his watch. “Oh shit!” he blurted, blowing a green clover marshmallow across the room in a thin mist of point zero, zero two percent milk. Bob had almost forgotten. He was scheduled to meet with the owner of Maison Henri, a French bistro on the Upper West Side currently enjoying a vogue and a bit of a roach problem.
Bob would be pitching his natural pest-control method to Henri, the big enchilada or, rather, the big crepe himself. If Henri bought the idea, it would give Bob the opportunity to test the first of his hybrids—“Strain Zero” as he called it—on a scale larger than his bugquariums.
Bob had started his numbering system with zero instead of one because, like “Ground Zero” of a nuclear blast and “Patient Zero” of the AIDS epidemic, “Strain Zero” sounded ominous and hinted at death and destruction, which is exactly what he was hoping for in his hybrid bugs.
Bob sloshed the bowl of cereal into the fridge so it wouldn’t go to waste. He dashed out the back door and headed for his car, a deteriorating Ford Pinto with the infamous rear-mounted gas tank. The car Bob really wanted was an AMC Hornet, but, pathetically, it was beyond his means and so he had settled for the aged and potentially explosive Ford.
He mounted the old Pinto, which backfired and sputtered to life. Then, as fast as he could make it go, Bob wheeled the tired machine out of the alley and onto the street, smoking down the road on his way to the appointment he almost forgot.
About three seconds later the doorbell rang.
Standing patiently on the thick green paint of the front stoop of Bob’s house at 2439 Thirtieth Street was a friendly UPS delivery guy holding the thick package of cash which Marcel had sent as payment for the Huweiler job.
As the UPS guy knocked vigorously, one of the house numbers, the nine, fell to the ground. He stooped to pick it up and a voice came from behind, “Hey, yo! You got something for that douche bag Dillon?”
The friendly UPS guy turned to find a nasty little man chewing on a small cheap cigar.
The UPS guy looked at the package. “Uh, Dillon, yeah, that’s right. Who’re you?” he asked politely.
“Yo, I’m his friggin’ landlord, pal. I’ll take it.”
Pratt snatched the friendly UPS guy’s Etch-A-Sketch-like clipboard and signed for the package.
“Landlord, huh?” the friendly UPS guy said as he handed Pratt the fallen house number. “Well, you oughta fix that. Gotta have house numbers, ya know, it’s the law.”
A look halfway between incredulity and indignity crossed Pratt’s face. “Yo, who’re you, the goddamn Housin’ Authority?” Pratt tossed the nine onto Bob’s welcome mat, then snatched the package and stormed off back to his house across the street.
Inside his front hall, Pratt tossed the package into the corner by a pair of dirty work boots, planning to hold it hostage until he got his $320 from Bob.
Chapter Fourteen
The Muzak eased a soothing version of Johnny Rivers’ “Secret Agent Man” into the New York City field office of the Central Intelligence Agency. In a corner office, two men in dark suits, one older, one younger—both the men and the suits—stood at a fax machine as it received a transmission.
Parker was a rookie agent. He was tall and his jet-black hair was thick with styling gel and plowed through with a wide-toothed comb which left furrows wide enough to plant anything but an idea. He smelled like a men’s fashion magazine stuffed with too many scented cologne ads; his fellow agents joked that a subscription card might drop from inside his coat at any minute.
After reading Will during his senior year in high school, Parker realized he wanted to be like G. Gordon Liddy when he grew up, so he went to Ohio State and earned an advanced degree in criminal justice, interning with the Agency during the summers. Upon graduation he applied for a job. He took (and rather enjoyed) the mandatory urinalysis drug screening test, and was accepted.
He liked it there, he fit in, he would go far.
As with all rookies, Parker was teamed with an older, more experienced partner—in this case, a man named Mike Wolfe. Wolfe had a head brimming with big, white, Peter Graves hair; it was his best feature and kept others from noticing how much his gut pooched out below. Wolfe was a Brylcreem man who preferred the bracing fragrance of Old Spice. Wolfe had never read Will, but he had once tried to out-drink Liddy. He found out the hard way he wasn’t in the same league and ended up in an emergency room with an acute case of alcoholic gastritis.
Wolfe was old school. He joined the intelligence community in 1945 when he was hired by the Office of Strategic Services. In 1947, when the OSS was succeeded by the CIA, the National Security Agency, and other bureaus, Wolfe went with the Agency.
He was nearing retirement, and not a moment too soon as far as he was concerned. Things had become far too complicated in the espionage business, unnecessarily so, in Wolfe’s mind. Things were simpler in the old days and Wolfe preferred them that way. He had no desire to learn the dozens of computer programs the younger agents were fluent with or how to interpret infrared satellite photography or any of
the new technology that was essential for the dangerous games they played.
Wolfe hated techno-spying. He was, as Edmund Fuller had put it, the leftover progressive of an earlier generation. He preferred simple phone bugs and intercepting cables, long-range telephoto lenses, and following hunches and gut instincts.
That the Cold War had ended when it did was still a sore spot for Wolfe. He had given up several dozen good rounds of golf during the summer of ‘91 to learn enough Russian to go on a mission there before his retirement. He had hoped to do this so he could claim, however speciously, that he had a hand in the downfall of what he—a lifelong Barry Goldwater supporter—considered the Evil Empire.
This, Wolfe thought, would be his denouement, the perfect end to a long and otherwise undistinguished career that would land him some sort of profitable post-retirement consulting position to supplement his modest federal pension. And perhaps, additionally, he would do like that guy Gene Hackman played in The French Connection had done…that New York cop, what was his name, Popeye Doyle?
He would write a book that would become a best-seller and Hollywood would come calling. He might even end up on the cover of People magazine. All of this, he hoped, would make up for the fact that he had not built up much of a nest egg. And, he figured, if all that failed, maybe he’d get a little something extra in his envelope come Christmas-time.
And though Wolfe did not like all the data-based espionage, he did like breaking in new agents. It gave him the opportunity to tell his yawning tales to a willing, or at least captive, audience and to denigrate the new ways of sleuthing.
“Goddam faxes, I hate these things,” Wolfe announced. “All this technology is worthless, gives you a false sense of security. How do you know what those satellite pictures are supposed to be? I mean, I want somebody to tell me what’s wrong with good old-fashioned sneaking onto missile sites to confirm information, that’s what I want to know.”
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