He liked sitting in the old easy chair here by the stove, with the window on his right. From it he could see the barn and the road, and against the sky, several tall hills. The mountains that were normally visible were obscured by clouds this morning.
Really, when you thought about it, it was a shame that life doesn’t go on forever. To sit here and watch the winters, to spend the summer evenings on the porch listening to the meadowlarks and crickets, to step out in the morning with a rifle under your arm and walk off up the trail looking for deer and elk as the sky was shot with fire by the rising sun, he had done that all his life and it was very pleasant.
Very pleasant.
But this other hunt would be a real challenge, in a way that hunting deer and elk and bear had long ceased to be. And he would have to pay his dues. He had learned that in life. This might well be the last morning he was ever going to sit here feeding logs into the stove and watching the snow come down. So he let his eyes travel across the juniper and pines and took it all in, one more time.
About ten or so he saw the car coming up the road. The snow was beginning to stick. He pulled on his coat and went out onto the porch.
“Hey,” Tassone said as he climbed out from behind the wheel.
“Come on in.”
“Got some stuff here in the trunk. Help me with it.”
There was a suitcase and two army duffel bags. They left the suitcase and carried the duffel bags inside. The bags were green, with U.S. ARMY stenciled on them, and they sported padlocks.
Inside, with the door closed, Tassone shivered involuntarily. “Getting cold out there.”
“Winter’s here.”
Tassone tossed Charon a key ring and went to stand with his backside toward the stove.
Charon used the key on the padlocks of the duffel bags. Each was full of money, bundles of twenties and fifties.
“Five million in each bag,” Tassone said. “Count it if you want.”
Henry Charon felt deep into each bag, ensuring it was full of money. “No need for that, I think.”
“It’s a lot of money.”
“You want the job?”
“No, thanks. I want to keep on living. My life’s worth more than that.”
“I hope to keep on living too.”
Tassone nodded and looked around the room, taking it all in. Charon replaced the padlocks and put the duffel bags in the bedroom. When he came back Tassone had his coat off and was in the easy chair.
“I got coffee if you want it.”
“Yeah. I’ll take a cup. Black.”
They both got a cup of coffee and sat listening to the wind. The snow continued to fall.
“What you gonna do? Afterward, I mean.”
Henry Charon thought a moment. “Live here, I hope. I like it here.”
“Lonely, I bet.”
Henry Charon shrugged. He had never thought so.
They drank their coffee in silence. After a bit Charon added a log to the stove.
“What do you think about the other names on the list?”
“I’ll do what I can. I told you that.”
“A million each. I’ll wait two or three months, then come up here with the money. If you aren’t here, you want me to leave it?”
“Yeah,” said Henry Charon, thinking about it. “Yeah. That would be good. I’ll get here sometime.” He hoped. “Leave the money under the porch. It’s dry there. It’ll be okay.”
“There’s going to be a couple other hit teams in Washington while you’re there.”
“You never told me that before.”
“Didn’t know before. I’m telling you now. You can back out if you want.”
“I don’t want out. But that does change things, of course.”
“I know.”
Change things! Henry Charon stared out the window at the snow. My God! They’ll be searching every nook and cranny. Still, if he could evade long enough, one of the teams might get caught. This might be the red herring he had been thinking about.
“Well,” Tassone said, draining his cup and setting it on the windowsill. “I don’t want to get snowed in here. Got a flight from Albuquerque this evening. I’d better get going.” He stood and put on his coat.
“Be careful going down. The road will be slick in places.”
“Yeah. It was starting to get that way coming up.”
“Keep to the high side and take it easy.”
Charon followed Tassone out on the porch and stood watching him as he walked for the car. Then he put his right hand under his sweatshirt behind his back and drew the automatic from his belt. He leveled it, holding it with both hands.
As Tassone reached for the car door Charon shot him, once.
The big slug sent Tassone sprawling in the mud.
With the pistol ready, Charon went down the three steps and walked over to the man on the ground.
Tassone was looking up at him, bewilderment on his face. “Why?” Then all his muscles relaxed and he stopped breathing.
Charon put the muzzle of the pistol against the man’s forehead and felt for a pulse in his neck. He felt a flutter, then it ceased. The bullet had hit him under the left shoulder blade and exited from the front of his chest.
The assassin carefully lowered the hammer of the weapon and replaced it between his belt and the small of his back. Then he went back inside to get his coat and hat and gloves.
Why? Because Tassone was the only link between whoever was paying the freight and Henry Charon. With him gone, the evidentiary link could never be completed. He had to die, the fool. And he had been a fool. The FBI would inevitably pick up the trail of the Stinger missiles and the guns. And that trail would lead to Tassone, who was now a dead end. Why, indeed!
He had shot Tassone in the front yard because he didn’t want any blood or bullet holes in the house. The rain and snow would take care of any blood outside.
Charon fished Tassone’s wallet from a pocket and took it inside to the kitchen table. There was very little there. A little over three hundred dollars in bills, some credit cards and a Texas driver’s license for Anthony Tassone. Nothing else.
He carefully fed the credit cards and driver’s license into the stove. Even the money. The wallet he put into his pocket.
Outside he pulled the pickup around and placed the body in the bed. He got the suitcase from the trunk and inspected the car carefully. As he suspected, it was a rental from one of the agencies at the Albuquerque airport. He would drive it down there himself tomorrow and park it at the rental car return and drop the paperwork and keys in the express return slot. At that moment Tassone would cease to exist. Then Charon would board the plane to Washington.
There was a candy wrapper on the floor of the car, and Charon pocketed that too.
The contents of the suitcase were as innocuous as the wallet. Several changes of clothing, toilet articles, and a paperback novel by Judith Krantz. He put everything back and tossed it into the bed of the truck.
It took him twenty minutes to travel the five miles up the mountainside to the old mine. He had the pickup in four-wheel drive, but still he took it slow and easy. The higher he climbed on the mountain the worse the snow was and the poorer the road. Tomorrow he might not even have been able to get the truck up here.
Visibility was poor at the mine, less than a hundred yards. The delapideted, weather-beaten boards and timbers that formed a shack around the shaft were half rotted, about to fall down. The mine had been abandoned in the late fifties. Henry Charon walked up on the hill, then around the mountain, then back down the road. Fifteen minutes later, satisfied that no one was around, he pulled the corpse out of the pickup and dragged it across to the mine shaft and dropped it in. The suitcase followed.