by Bill WENHAM
It was the cost of doing business, Torrance believed.
It was upon strict instructions from him, that Willoughby would convince Factor to plough the majority of the profits from the prototype back into the business.
When Willoughby sold the first franchise to Paul Thatcher and his consortium, it was the only one that was ever a legitimate contract. Because Paul and his people retained eighty five percent of the commission earnings from their investment, they also readily promoted the Garden World franchise concept.
The apparent demand for all the rest of the franchises and the future wait list were created from these first two parks. The first franchise was also the only one where neither the seller was eliminated nor the land sale funds returned to Torrance.
To Torrance, that was also the cost of doing business these days.
Long gone were the days of bursting into a bank with shotguns, and if you lived afterwards you might be rich. Smart people like Torrance weren’t concerned with nickel and dime operations. The big money took time and careful planning and he knew you had to speculate to accumulate
With the second Easy Green Garden World Park up and running, Torrance’s organization moved into high gear.
The supposed ‘waitlist’ for franchises was a complete sham. Certainly names were put on it but they would never see their names on a signed franchise agreement. This was because, after his long wait, Torrance was about to make his big money.
All subsequent Garden Worlds would be financed and controlled by Torrance himself. The title ‘franchisee’ was in name only and whoever was appointed by Torrance ran the park as a general manager reporting to him. Paul Thatcher’s Garden World was the only one that wasn’t.
The second ‘franchise’ was run by Colin and Wanda Fullerton, appointed by and paid substantial salaries by Torrance. Fullerton came from within Torrance’s organization and it was considered to a privilege and a bonus to be selected.
Like Thatcher’s, it was apparently funded by another consortium, and as was normal procedure, he would report to a board of directors. This was perfectly legal, except that the board of directors was in New York and Torrance was its chairman.
Fullerton was ordered never to discuss his New York relationship with Factor, Thatcher or even with his own wife. She was also an employee of Torrance’s and if she had any suspicion of how things were actually done, she would be smart enough to keep them to herself. Torrance’s people’s wives all knew the score if they didn’t toe the line.
For almost eight years everything was progressing very smoothly with Torrance controlling his new empire anonymously from behind a desk in New York City. He was becoming richer with every minute of every day that passed.
And then, in Saginaw, a woman’s dead body was found in a blazing car.
Torrance didn’t interfere and just watched from a distance as Factor’s drama unfolded. He was surprised a man apparently as level headed as Factor would suddenly go off the rails like that for no reason. He still did nothing, until Factor’s own wife’s body was found almost six month’s later.
Despite Factor’s problems, the prototype was still running smoothly and he felt he had no need to interfere. In any case, Willoughby was there to keep an eye on his interests for him.
And then Willoughby decided he wanted to take more than his fair share.
It wasn’t until he had dealt with the cheating Willoughby, and now Factor had been involved in three murders, that Torrance stepped in.
The first murder, which was of Patti Thatcher, the wife of a non-organization franchisee was one that didn’t concern Torrance at all.
The second murder, which was that of Factor’s own wife, angered Torrance immensely but he wasn’t ready to reveal why, so he still held off.
It was the third murder, that of Wanda Fullerton, the wife of one of his own appointed operators, that caused Torrance to intervene personally.
Fullerton, and his wife, just like everyone who worked for and were loyal to Torrance, were ‘family’ – and no one messed with Torrance’s ‘family’ and lived to talk about it.
He decided to take a trip to Saginaw, Michigan and he would take Willoughby’s replacement with him. He’d stayed silent far too long. He knew he should have tried to make amends years ago but now it was too late.
He was certain that Factor was no murderer and Torrance felt he owed it to Factor to put him completely in the picture now.
Vinnie Cardilli, who been angry at Willoughby’s disappearance, was furious at the news of his death. That wasn’t what he had planned at all. He’d been cheated out of his land and now out of his revenge as well.
Well, he thought bitterly, I still have one of them. I’ll make him pay enough for both of them. His thoughts and actions then switched back to vengeance against Dean Factor.
The man was made even angrier by the fact that, despite his best efforts so far to incriminate him, Factor had survived unscathed and without so much as a scratch or a slap on the wrist from the police.
But all that was about to change. It was time for Factor to be hurt and not just a little. He needed to be seriously damaged. Cardilli took out his cell phone and dialed a number.
The guy who answered the phone was an old acquaintance of Cardilli’s, a man named Enzo Santini, an ex boxer who now specialized in breaking bones for a living. They arranged to meet at Cardilli’s house.
Cardilli told Santini who his target was and how much he would be paid to inflict some really crippling damage to his target. As far as Cardilli was concerned, a severely crippled man could go to the electric chair just as easily as a healthy one.
“I want him hurt, hurt real bad, but don’t kill him, okay? I’ve got something else planned for later that will hurt him far more than you could ever hurt him,” Cardilli said.
Santini smirked and said, “I wouldn’t count on that if I was you, Vinnie.”
“But you’re not me, are you? So just do as I told you and report back to me when it’s done.” Cardilli growled.
“And that’s when you pay me, right?”
“Right. Now just go and do it – and do it soon.”
When Santini returned, he knew he wasn’t going to get paid and he wanted to explain why he hadn’t done what was asked of him. Instead of getting angry, Cardilli remained surprisingly calm. His ears had pricked up at Santini’s mention of the fake cyanide.
Santini was astounded when Cardilli handed him a couple of hundred bucks and told him to forget it. “You were a boxer, Enzo, and you should know if any one should, that you can’t win ‘em all, can you? So, listen, I’ll give you a call next week and we’ll crack open a coupla Buds together. How’s that?
“Fine, Vinnie, and thanks for understanding. I’m really shit scared of the kind of things like he did to me.” Santini said.
“All the more reason why we should figure out some other way to do that hurting together then, right, Enzo?”
Santini thanked Cardilli again and left.
Cardilli sat in his chair and smiled. Cyanide, he thought. How very convenient! Factor’s little joke was about to backfire on him and cause him some really serious grief.
Cardilli’s father, a natural born American citizen, had brought back several souvenirs of his time in World War II. He had been a member of the O.S.S, the Office of Strategic Services which would later become the C.I.A.
His father was long dead now but the souvenirs still remained. Cardilli’s father had laughed when he had shown his little collection to his young son.
“They’re not all lethal, Nico. But these two most certainly are,”
He picked up a German Luger pistol, checked that were no bullets in it and handed it to his boy. After a minute or two of the boy waving it around, he took it back and said, “That was one way of dying, my lad, to be shot by one of these. But there were other times, like when you were about to be horribly tortured, when you might want to take the easy way out.”
He paused and picked up an old flat tobac
co tin.
“Not the coward’s way out either, kid, because none of the people who had these in their possession were cowards. On the contrary, they were all bloody heroes, although they were never recognized as such.”
“Were you one of them, Dad?” the young boy asked.
His father nodded gravely. “I was, Nico, and thankfully I never needed one of these.”
“What are they?” Vinnie asked.
His father opened the box. It contained perhaps a dozen capsules. He took one out and held it between his thumb and forefinger.
“What are they?” his father repeated. “They are cyanide capsules, instant death, Nico. Sometimes, if a spy was captured, the German’s would try to pry one of these out of his mouth before he could bite down on it and activate it. I shouldn’t just say he either, because there were many extremely brave women too who gave up their lives rather than talk.”
He returned the capsule to the tin and put it and the Luger back into the larger tin box he usually kept under his bed.
When his Dad died, Nico now Vinnie, had put the box away in the attic. One day he might go on Antiques Road Show with its contents and make a few bucks. It was still up in the attic and he hadn’t even thought about again until Santini had mentioned cyanide.
The capsules may no longer be usable but an idea was already forming in Cardilli’s mind. As far as Santini was concerned, he also believed that he and Cardilli were still good friends, beer buddies. Oh, man, Cardilli grinned, just how stupid can that guy be.
A failure and especially a failure such as Santini’s, was something Cardilli couldn’t accept and consequently Santini would pay for his failure with his life.
The really great part of his new plan was that Santini’s death, when it occurred, would be blamed on Factor and this time Cardilli knew he would have witnesses and a murder weapon.
As far as Garden World was concerned, by the time he got to franchise #4, there wouldn’t be a soul in America, or anywhere else for that matter, regardless of the money to be made, who would even consider being a franchisee of Easy Green Garden World. Sign a franchise agreement and you automatically sign your own, or your wife’s, death warrant at the same time.
Not exactly a great incentive to invest your money, was it?
Cardilli’s own wife, Nellie, didn’t like all the killing but was far too frightened of her husband to object to it. Never a gentle man in the first place, he had become more obsessed and even more violent as each day passed.
She also knew that, wife or not, she would end up the same as the others if she didn’t do as he asked and toe the line. She wouldn’t dare to turn him in either because she was terrified of him and what he might do to her.
Just to reassure him of her loyalty, she told him repeatedly that she loved him. Cardilli just laughed. He knew exactly what he was and there’s just no accounting for some women and their weird bloody emotions, he thought.
Nellie would never understand his murderous need for revenge either. She could understand his anger and perhaps his need to defend his family name against cheats and liars but murdering innocent people! Nellie shuddered at the thought of how many more there would be before the police finally caught up with him.
She didn’t like cheating on Mr. Factor either, by advising her husband of his every move. It was obvious to her that every scrap of trouble Mr. Factor was finding himself in was all the work of her Vinnie and she was powerless to stop him.
As far as Cardilli was concerned, he never even gave a thought to what his wife might be thinking or feeling. He had more important things to concern himself with.
He’d lost Willoughby, the main culprit in the mix, but there were plenty of others just waiting in the wings to be featured in his deadly drama and to be front page news.
Cardilli wouldn’t be satisfied until his land and the huge Easy Green Garden World they’d built on it would be worth no more than the meager price they’d paid him for it,
No matter how much money they had, they couldn’t buy a cure for death or the fear of it, he thought with a grim smile. Man has always had two basis fears. Fear of the dark and fear of the unknown and death encompassed both of those fears very nicely.
Cardilli would be forced to recall that very same thought for himself later on. He would realize then there was yet another fear. It was not just death, because everyone died eventually, but how one could die was what caused the greatest terror.
He had no idea he would be faced with a personal situation more ghastly than anything he could have possibly dreamed of. But, of course, he wouldn’t be facing a dream at all – his would be a living and wide awake nightmare!
The reason Cardilli had no idea of what might be in store for him was because he had not yet met the organization, and consequently he carried on unwittingly with his murderous plans.
One thing all big money seemed to have in common, Cardilli thought, was the ownership of big houses and common to most big houses were big swimming pools.
Naturally, the owners of those big houses were far too busy making more big money to bother with maintaining those pools themselves. They hired pool maintenance companies to do it for them.
So it was with Dean Factor’s pool. Since Dellie Factor had died, although it was always kept sparkling clean, there was never anyone in Factor’s pool.
Vinnie Cardilli decided to change all that for him. When the body of Santini was discovered it would just add one more piece of variety to Factor’s mounting collection.
Chapter Eighteen
In order to put his new plan into action, Cardilli’s first task was to steal the pool serviceman’s van since the people in the area, neighbors, were used to seeing it at Factor’s house once a week.
Two things had to be timed perfectly, the theft of the van and the disposal of Santini, both of which needed to be accomplished before Factor got home from his office.
From his vantage point at another new building under construction on Factor’s street, Cardilli watched him leave the house. He had taken a briefcase with him which should indicate that he’d be away until at least lunchtime, or maybe longer.
Another plus to his plan was that, with Factor’s one car gone, his double garage should be completely empty.
Cardilli had called Santini at around 9 a. m. and had asked him to pick him up to go into town. His wife, Nellie, had already left for work by then.
As soon as Santini entered the house ahead of him to go into the living room, Cardilli knocked him unconscious with a wooden baseball bat.
When he awoke a few minutes later, he found himself sitting in one of Cardilli’s armchairs with a splitting headache.
“Holy Shit, Vinnie,” he said, “What the hell happened?”
“Gee, pal, I’m really sorry, but when I slammed the front door, that bloody old wooden clock on the wall over the living room doorway fell off. It hit you right on the head.”
Santini looked puzzled.
“What clock? I can’t see a clock.” Santini said.
Cardilli gave him a disgusted look.
“Of course you can’t see a clock, Enzo. The bloody thing broke when it hit that lump of rock you call a head and I’ve thrown it out. Bet you felt it though, didn’t you?”
Santini rubbed his head.
“Yeah, and man, that sure hurts,” he said.
“I bet it does, but just hang on a minute, I’ll get you a couple of Advil. That should help. I’m real sorry about this, Enzo. So sorry, in fact, that I’ll buy all the beer when we go out.” Cardilli said. “Be right back.”
He went into the kitchen and took his father’s tobacco box of lethal capsules out of a cupboard. He took two of them out just in case, because they were so old, one wouldn’t work.
His father had said they had to be bitten to activate them. Maybe he could get the dumb Enzo to nibble on them. In any case they didn’t have to work fast. They just had to work, period!
He ran a small glass of water from the tap. Then he took
the water and the capsules back into the living room and gave them to Santini.
“Well, I don’t know, Vinnie, I…” Santini said.
Cardilli looked exasperated. “For God’s sake, Enzo, take the bloody things. I don’t want to have to wait here all day for my beer while you sit around moaning and groaning just because you’ve got a bloody headache.
And you’re supposed to bite those things if you want them to work quicker. You may not want them to, but I sure do. I’ve been waiting all day for those beers.”
Santini bit into both capsules and reached for the water. He didn’t make it as his mouth dropped open and he fell sideways across the chair.
Okay, Cardilli thought to himself, that’s another major job out of the way.
He went out to his pickup and brought in a tarp. It was the same one he’d covered Dellie Factor with when he had taken her to the marina.
First he spread the tarp out on the living room floor and then dragged Santini’s heavy but limp body into the center of it. Next, he wrapped Santini up in it.
He didn’t even bother to check if Santini was dead. One way or another he soon would be anyway.
Cardilli drove the stolen pool maintenance van, which had been parked in back of the house, around to the front. Then he dragged Santini’s body out of the house and over to behind the van.
The beauty of living on a large lot was the there were no close neighbors to watch and wonder what he was up to. It wasn’t as big a lot as his old farm had been but it was big enough.
With a lot of sweating and cursing he managed to manhandle Santini’s heavy body inside the van. Next he lifted a large builder’s wheel barrow inside behind the body. He had gone out and had stolen the van and then the wheel barrow from another building site during the night while Nellie was asleep.
He had parked his pickup in the next street and then drove the van home. He had emptied the van of all its pool equipment by the side of the road. What he needed was an empty van for his purpose, not a loaded one
