“Why?”
“If Nathan emptied out your accounts, that money went somewhere. And, while I have been out of the killing business for a while, the price of a hit probably hasn't grown that much in the intervening years. With the amounts you are talking about, you could pay to have a bunch of people killed.”
He found it easy to talk to her about what he had done. It wasn't something that he had ever done — with anyone, including himself. When he had walked away from assassination, he thought he had closed that door on his life forever. He would have been happy to live out his days dealing with coin dinks. His days spent on the range with a rifle and the targets dancing in the scope influenced by humidity and wind. Forever on the quest to find the perfect rifle, bullet and load.
All he wanted was to get back to that life. But now that he was involved in the hunt, the old, long forgotten thrill had come back. He knew it was intoxicating and could suck him back into the evilness. He would do only what was necessary to get his life back and nothing more. There had been too many bodies over the years and too many years filled with nightmares to get back into the killing game.
“Like how many?” she asked.
“They offered me a third of what I had been getting. Based on that and the money missing, whoever is pulling the strings could kill at least a hundred people.”
“Are we talking individual hits or like a mass murder?”
“I'm figuring singles. Multiple killings are another way of thinking and doing altogether.”
“How many hit men would it take to do this?”
He maneuvered around a car broken down on the side of the road. It was an early model Ford Escort, also known by people who had ever owned one as “Metal Roadkill.” The hood was up and no one was around.
Considering what she had asked, “I don't know. Any large organization would show up on someone's radar, somewhere. Heck, even getting into contact with the right people would be difficult.”
“How'd they get in touch with you?”
“Most recently, one on one. But that isn't practical for the numbers we are talking about. It might work if you are only dealing with a few extremely high-value, high-risk targets. But, with those kinds of targets, the best practice is to have as little contact with the assassin as possible. If something goes bad, the cops and feds will then be able to justify the lone-nut-job scenario.”
She seemed to consider this and then said, “You said most recently, how about when you did it however many years ago?”
“The US mail. When the job was completed, you received a wire transfer of funds to the bank account of your choice. It was done so anonymously that I'm not even sure of the name of the place I was working for. It might have been for the government as far as I know — and given my reading, it probably was. But, then again, they might have been subcontractors. Or another organization with a mandate to enact political change. Who the heck knows.”
Jackie was quiet for several minutes.
This was fine with Leo. He probably already said way too much. It was something completely outside his realm of experience to have someone to confide in. Even more unsettling was that the person he was talking to was female — and attractive.
The people that he dealt with on a regular basis were overwhelmingly male, and could only get a date if they paid good money for it. Yes, there were exceptions to the rule. Leo was probably worth almost a million dollars in hard, tangible assets — gold, silver, precious coins and outright cash. But he didn't care for a flashy lifestyle and lived as simply as he could. His true passion was shooting. Everything else in life was merely something to get him to that point. Yes, he did have an interest in coins, but how many 1912 S Mercury dimes in MS-65+ could anyone have? And who the hell would care, anyway? Yes, there were some coins that were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and he had even owned some of them, but did it matter to the coin? The coins themselves had seen history, some since man had started forming precious metals into easily tradeable forms. But they didn't speak to Leo any more — their stories, past and future, no longer had much interest to him. They were reduced to simple commodities, not the treasures that had transported him to different times and places. As Rob Gates once said, “At some point, it's just stuff.”
This change in his life may have been sad, but he didn't have time to mourn that passing — he was in the fight for his life.
Patrick Lackey held the key to his car in his hand, juggling a bag of groceries in his other, loaded with comfort food — a thick and juicy Porterhouse steak, a decent Chianti, a pre-made salad and some red potatoes. It had been a long and difficult day. But he felt a great satisfaction like he hadn't in a while and felt he deserved his well-earned treats.
He had a good idea where the assets of the company disappeared to. It had been tricky and complex to figure it out, and in that, he felt akin to Sherlock Holmes, who said, “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”
It had been like that. Not that Jackie would appreciate his efforts. Though she was a great deal better at acknowledging his skills than Nathan had ever been. That bastard's death hadn't been painful enough for him.
They had been roommates in college. He was an accounting geek and Nathan had been a computer geek. It would have been perfect except that Nathan had cut a wide swath through the female population of the small university, including a couple of his professors. He always had the gift of gab — being able to talk to almost anyone at any level, including women out of their panties.
He remembered numerous times when he had to sit in the hallway for hours, sometimes, waiting for Nathan to finish up 'entertaining' some coed or another. At least it was reasonably quiet; no one bothered him to help them with their homework — which is what would have happened if he had gone to the dormitory lounge.
They had gone their separate ways, thank God, after college. Nathan had gone off to start a computer software company and he had joined an accounting firm. It was decent work, but mind numbing — hundreds of hours for weeks on end. As the junior, he was expected to produce at inhuman levels. The money had also been pathetic — less than minimum wage at the number of hours expected. The only hope for salvation would be if one of the more senior partners croaked, and since they had all the time off they needed to work out in the gym, that wasn't very likely.
He was also expected to bring in new clients. Yes, the partners got all the money generated, but they promised that he would eventually have a chance to buy into the partnership — in say, ten or twenty years.
One night, he was trying to drown his sorrows at a neighborhood hangout. All he could afford, given his slave wage, student loans and the need to eat and put gas in his falling apart jalopy, was to dink cheap beer in this dive. He was approached by a stunning blonde, dressed in a low cut but classy dress. As Nathan would have commented, “She was stacked, racked and ready to go.”
She bought the next round of drinks and sat down to talk. Dorothy was her name and the smooth silkiness of her voice caused him to melt inside. He would have given everything to be able to pull a Nathan on her, but she didn't seem to be that sort of person.
The whole situation was refreshing. They got to talking and drinking, mostly he did the talking and drinking, while she nursed a glass of white wine.
As he finished talking about his mind-numbing job, she asked him if he wouldn't mind doing some work on the side for her boss. She added off the books and paid in cash. Not caring about the implications, at that point he would have sawed off his right arm with a rusty knife and eaten it in front of her if that's what it took, he agreed. She left with his phone number and other contact information. He about slid to the floor when she kissed him gently on the lips before making her exit.