Ronaldo turned from the map and went to a nearby table where he snorted a big line of his product off an antique mirror before rubbing some on his gums. He prodded at his cheekbones, hoping to open his swollen sinus cavities. When that failed, he dipped his fingers in a glass of tequila, then put them to his nose and sniffed. He gagged a bit when the tequila, cocaine, and mucus mixture reached the back of his throat.
Miguel, his conscientious younger brother, stood by the fax machine as it received a transmission.
Ronaldo fidgeted as he spoke urgently from across the room. “That must be the junior high school marketing survey information I asked for. Bring it here now before someone else gets it!”
“Relax,” Miguel said. “It’s just something from our Interpol contact.” Miguel waited patiently as the machine slowly spun the document out to his waiting hand. The fax was a fourth-generation copy of the photograph of Bob wearing his exterminator cap. The second page was printed information which Miguel read. He began to laugh.
Ronaldo, who didn’t like to be left out of anything, was annoyed at his brother’s chortling. “What is so damn funny, little brother?”
“See for yourself,” Miguel said as he handed over the papers. “It seems Uncle Sam is a bit peeved that you have stopped making your payments. Your friends at the CIA have taken out another contract on you. This time they’ve got somebody who calls himself ‘The Exterminator.’”
Ronaldo got a laugh out of that too…until he saw the fax. His face went white. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! I see death in this man’s eyes.”
“Relax,” Miguel said as he gestured at the antique mirror. “You’re doing so much of that shit you’re getting paranoid.”
“Paranoid?” Ronaldo screamed suspiciously. “I am not paranoid!” Ronaldo pulled his gun and jammed it in Miguel’s face. “I am just being safe.”
Furious, Miguel grabbed the gun and stuck it back in his brother’s face. “You idiot! You keep puttin’ that shit up your nose and you’ll piss away everything we’ve worked for!”
The fury passed quickly and Miguel realized what he was doing. Disgusted at his own behavior, he threw the gun across the room. It skidded nicely on the expensive tile floor.
“Goddamit,” he muttered as he walked away from his troublesome older brother. “So what if some pendejo cowboy comes down here? He’ll never get past the front gate. What you need to worry about is getting yourself straight.”
Ronaldo was still pissed. And loaded. He killed the glass of tequila. “Don’t you ever touch me again, little brother! This is my organization and don’t you forget it!”
Chapter Twenty-nine
In the living room of Klaus’ lavish, airy villa, there were various photos of Klaus with various international public figures. Among the people with whom Klaus had posed was a younger George Bush, circa 1977. In the background of the photo, small colored tiles inlaid in the floor served as evidence that the photo was taken at CIA headquarters when George was in charge.
Next to that was one of Klaus with Nikolai Bulganin, Nikita Khrushchev, and Viktor M. Chebrikov, onetime head of the KGB. The eight-by-ten glossy appeared to have been taken at a performance of Giselle by the Bolshoi.
Outside on the large terrace overlooking the village and the azure Mediterranean, Klaus and his hungry friend Basil sat at a table. Basil was eating a baked chicken with his hands. Grease and rosemary clung to his fingers; he was a messy eater.
Klaus was on the phone, simultaneously consulting the sports page of a Greek newspaper. On the table were copies of Sports Illustrated, Sporting News, and other sports publications. A Baretta 8000 9-mm was also within reach. Klaus looked a bit irritated as he strained to hear over Basil’s noisy masticating.
“No,” Klaus yelled into the phone. “Maradona’s a has-been, give me Italy for, uh, ten thousand.” He listened for a moment before continuing. “No, I want longer odds. Yes, perfect. New Orleans in the Super Bowl. Good.” Klaus hung up.
Basil paused from his chicken long enough to hand Klaus a sheet of paper.
“This was in your fax machine,” Basil said. “I believe he is the one all the fuss is about.” Basil’s fingers left a greasy stain on the paper.
Klaus looked at the fax. It was the now internationally circulated photograph of Bob. Whoever had sent this to Klaus had also written in “The Exterminator, AKA Robert Dillon, NYC.”
“This is the famous Exterminator?” Klaus asked. “He looks like he is straight from a comic book.” Klaus paused a moment, looking first at the fax, then at Basil. “You know, I am really beginning to hate this business.” He crumpled the fax angrily.
“Klaus, please. You’ve never liked it.”
“Well, I like it even less now,” Klaus said as he turned an unfocused gaze toward the horizon.
“I am tired, Basil. Tired of the whole thing.”
“You’re not tired,” Basil said. “You’re annoyed that the CIA is paying an unknown a million dollars for a hit.”
Klaus quickly cooled. “They want him to kill Riviera? Fine. No one with a gram of intelligence would accept such a job. It is an impossible hit.”
“Not for Klaus,” Basil chided.
“I did not want it.”
“They did not offer it to you.”
“I think it is time for me to quit.”
Basil pondered this for a moment, then proceeded delicately. “And do what? You have an expensive hobby, Klaus. And if you do not honor the debts it creates, you will be, how shall I say, forcibly retired.”
“Perhaps that is what I want,” Klaus said glumly. “After all, they say every man must fall.”
Basil set the drumstick down and wiped his fingers. “Klaus, listen to me,” he said. “You are the best at what you do, but you must be willing to accept whatever jobs are offered if you wish to continue indulging your extravagant little diversion. If you insist on clinging to your lofty standards, this Exterminator may take everything away from you. You don’t want that, and I certainly don’t. You know how much I enjoy house-sitting for you.”
Klaus wasn’t worried about losing everything. His material possessions meant little to him and any feelings of self-worth were dwindling fast.
“Goddammit, who is this American son of a bitch?”
“Perhaps you should find out.” Basil stripped the drumstick of its remaining flesh.
Klaus picked the Beretta up off the table, looked at it. “Perhaps I should.”
Quick as a striking viper, Klaus pointed and fired at a scrubby tree in the backyard.
BAM! An olive dropped intact from its branch.
BAM! He plugged the olive before it hit the ground.
Chapter Thirty
Mr. Silverstein’s abandoned 16-story building occupied half a city block not far from the Empire State Building. The deserted structure had entrances on both Broadway and Sixth Avenue, though the lobby was built in such a way that you couldn’t see straight through from one sidewalk to the other.
Thanks to Broadway’s diagonal path through Manhattan this building was not one of the many bleak rectangles that marred the skyline. Instead, it was trapezoidal with two parallel sides on Thirty-First and Thirty-Second Streets. It was the sort of building where a Damon Runyon character might have gone in an attempt to shake Big Nig or Daffy Jack, assuming any of them ever wandered that far south of Times Square.
Such a character could duck into the building on the Broadway side and sneak out on Sixth. And just like that he’d be on his way to win some big money at Harry the Horse’s floating crap game or to smile a nice smile to a doll what’s got a nice smile of her own, and who’s not afraid of sharing it one bit.
At any rate, Bob entered what was now a deserted department store from the Sixth Avenue side, skirting the messy sidewalk construction which obscured the door on Broadway. H
e headed to the third floor, carrying his tool kit and several boxes marked “Assassins, Strain One.” There he dropped his load by one of the sales counters and continued to wander, sizing up his job. He lifted a discarded gift-wrap box and watched several earwigs scurry for cover. They reminded him of that old story and he unconsciously put a finger in one ear and scratched.
The place was ideal for testing Strain One of his hybrids. If the other buildings were this perfect, he would surely succeed. Nothing could stop him now, not even his own gross miscalculations, like the mistake with Strain Zero.
After the Maison Henri debacle, Bob had gone back to his notes to try to determine what had gone wrong with Strain Zero. After a lot of thought, he’d concluded that he’d failed to account for reproduction time. It was a simple numbers game. His killer bugs had to reproduce as fast or faster than the bugs they were after or they would simply loose the battle—for the same reason George Custer had lost to the Sioux and the Cheyenne.
However, Bob’s notes indicated Strain Zero had reproduced quickly in the comfort of the bugquariums. So, the question was, why had they failed to reproduce in the wilds of Maison Henri?
To answer that question, Bob would have had to return to the restaurant. Because of the “roach crouton” incident, however, Bob was considered exterminator non-grata by Henri. Consequently, Bob had bribed a sous chef to let him in after closing one night so he could inspect the premises and obtain samples of his hybrids. What Bob discovered was that the residual pesticides left from previous attempts to control roaches had rendered Strain Zero utterly sterile, barren, and impotent. They couldn’t get their teeny little John Thomases to stand up and salute even if they’d had ’em, which of course they didn’t.
Temporarily discouraged by the irony, Bob found himself still stuck in New York with the all-natural pest-control blues. But he had learned a lesson and made some important adjustments in the selection of pesticide-resistance traits in his cross-breedings.
He looked around the failed department store and ambled around a structural column, coming face-to-face with one of the orphaned mannequins, a naked male type.
Bob politely shook one of its hands, which came off. He introduced himself.
“How are ya? Bob Dillon, Bob’s Natural Pest Control. Maybe you’ve heard of me.” He pretended to listen to what the mannequin had to say. “Oh yeah? Not impressed, huh?” Bob pointed at the mannequin’s lack of genitalia. “Well, I wouldn’t be talking if I were you.”
A phone on one of the sales desks rang, so Bob excused himself and gave the poor naked fellow his hand back.
He grabbed the phone. “Hello?” He listened. “Yes, Mr. Silverstein, I found it, no problem.” He paused again. “Yes, sir, I’m about to install the first batch of bugs right now.” He listened for another moment. “Yes sir, next Thursday. I’ll meet you here then and we’ll see how they’re doing. Yes, sir, we should be able to tell by then. Terrific. Thanks again.”
Bob hung up, then went to work.
He took his drill and a container of putty from the toolbox, then grabbed one of the boxes marked “ASSASSINS, STRAIN ONE.” This was the Masked Hunter/Wheel Bug hybrid which had resulted in a robust savage; mulish in its tenacious pursuit of prey and comfortable operating within the dark confines of wall spaces. Bob had high expectations for this particular strain.
He set the putty on the floor next to the bugs as he drilled a hole two inches in diameter just above the baseboard of one wall. He set the drill aside, picked up his box of hybrids, and peered inside to give the bugs a pep talk.
“Okay, guys, this is your big chance to get into the pest-control Hall of Fame. Make your phylum proud.”
Bob jammed a length of clear plastic tubing into the perforated circle at the bottom of the bug box, like a straw into a boxed fruit juice. He put the other end of the tubing into the hole in the wall and watched with fatherly pride as his Assassin Bugs scurried into the wall space. After a minute, he tapped at the bottom of the container to make sure all the bugs were out, then he sealed the hole with the putty, nice and neat.
As Bob repeated this procedure again and again, he thought about what success would mean to him and his family. First, and foremost, it would bring them back together.
Secondly, they could leave New York, a longtime goal. Leave the bigotry, violence, intolerance. Leave the distrust. People in New York had made such a science of ignoring one another that they never made eye contact with people on the street. Bob and Mary also hated the practiced superiority of many New Yorkers. It seemed that when you lived in a place as filthy and overcrowded and violent as New York, you had to convince yourself that the place was an exciting cultural and intellectual mecca, and that you were a key player in the madness.
Bob and Mary didn’t want to raise Katy that way. They wanted to go somewhere you could pass others on the street, catch their eye, and say, “Hi. Good morning. How are you today?” Somewhere like Idaho, Oregon, or Iowa. Almost any state beginning with a vowel would be good, except maybe the “A” states. Alabama, Arkansas, Alaska. Bob had heard stories about huge flying cockroaches in the Deep South that repulsed him. And the mosquitoes of Alaskan summers were of mythic proportions. Arizona might be alright…
Finally, success would mean Bob could have a nice new truck of his own, one with a big fiberglass bug on the top. That’s when an exterminator knows he’s made it, when he’s at the wheel of a sleek new truck topped with a big…a big what?
Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure what type of bug one topped one’s truck with. Were there only a few big fiberglass bugs on the market? Or did you have them custom made?
Hmmm, what would it be? A massive Toad Bug (Gelastocoris oculatus) would be nice, or perhaps a Giant Stag Beetle (Lucanus elaphus).
Bob finally patched the last hole. There were two dozen more patch marks along the baseboards. Bob stood and proudly surveyed his work. As he scanned the room, his eye came to rest on a phone and he decided to make a call to see if he could answer a nagging question.
He flipped through the blue pages of a phone book where the city, county, and federal governments list their departments, bureaus, divisions, and agencies. He found the number he was looking for and dialed.
A voice came on the other line. “Hello? Who are you trying to reach?”
Bob hesitated, thinking he had the wrong number. “Is this the CIA?”
“I’m not allowed to say, sir. Who were you calling?”
Bob figured that was as close to a yes as he was going to get.
“Listen, I know this is going to sound weird, but my name’s Bob Dillon. A couple of guys recently came by my house and identified themselves as CIA and I think they were trying to hire me to kill someone, and I was just wondering if you could confirm that these guys really work there. I mean, I understand you can’t say if you’re the CIA, but, well, anyway, I think their names were Wolfe and Parker.”
“Sorry, sir,” said the voice at the other end, “I’m not allowed to divulge that information. And even if Agents Wolfe and Parker worked here, I’d have to deny it.”
“Well,” Bob said, “could you tell me if they don’t work there?”
“No sir,” the voice replied. “I can’t do that.”
“I see,” Bob said. “Is there an assassination department you could connect me to?”
“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t help you with that either.”
“Well, thanks, you’ve been a truckload of help.” Bob hung up. What the hell, he thought, at least he’d tried.
He started walking away, ready to get back to work on another floor of the building, then he stopped. He turned back and stared at the phone, thinking about Mary. Maybe he should reach out and touch her.
Chapter Thirty-one
“Okay, I love you too, Doodlebug. Can you put Mommy back on?”
M
ary came on the line.
“Hi. Uh, listen, sweetheart…” Bob reached into his pocket and pulled out Mary’s gold locket. “Why don’t you guys come on home?” he asked. “Yeah, I remember what you said, but when I saw you left the locket, I knew you hadn’t gone for good. So what I—” Bob paused as Mary interrupted to make a long-distance point.
But for every question Mary had, Bob had an answer. He explained that he got the Silverstein job and was calling from one of the buildings. Mary wasn’t impressed; she wanted to know if he’d been paid.
Bob explained that if he pulled this off, Silverstein would set him up in business and they would get a vested interest in the syndication and franchising of his idea. If it worked, they could get out of New York, move wherever they wanted, and when the time came, they could afford to send Katy to college.
“Isn’t that just as good as a check?” Bob asked hopefully.
Mary answered without a word. Click, dial tone, good-bye.
“Hello? Honey? Are you there?” Bob had his answer.
Chapter Thirty-two
Mary’s hand slid slowly off the receiver, already having second thoughts about hanging up on Bob.
“I miss Daddy,” Katy said, looking at her sadly from across the room. Although Katy had an impressive range of manipulative expressions, this was genuine emotion.
“I know, sweetie,” Mary said. “I miss him too.”
Katy looked away and skulked out the back door as if her mother had betrayed her. Mary opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She didn’t know what to say, so she watched Katy wander sadly through the backyard to the small patch of concrete that served as the barbecue area.
My god, Mary thought, what was going on? Was this how her marriage was going to end? Crashing and burning like so many late-night talk shows or poorly maintained traffic helicopters?
Or was it Mary’s fault because she wasn’t willing to support him while he pursued his dream? And what about Katy? What was all this doing to her?
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