Honorable Assassin (8 page)

“You, uh, I never, uh, I… I never talk. I
never go after women and children. I never leave a witness. I never
work with the constables. I never leave fingerprints or let them
fingerprint me.”

“Not bad. You never call attention to
yourself. I’ll be asking you again so don’t forget. There is one
more lesson that does not constitute a rule, just a guideline. If
they don’t find a body they can’t be sure the victim has been
eliminated.”

“Yes, sir. I never…”

“Shut up and listen. I don’t know who this
man is. I have an address and it might be false. I have a name and
it is sure to be false. Men in this game change their names and if
you address them by a name they used for a specific purpose, it
could get you killed and you will never see it coming. Telephones
are very dangerous. You cannot see who you are talking to. You
don’t know who is listening. When you pick up a phone it pinpoints
your location. They can also be very useful but they must be used
with the greatest of caution.”

Terry looked at his uncle in a new light. He
knew, now, what it was that had bothered him all these years.
Ginger had always spoken too correctly for what he was, an old
farmer with a bad reputation. He had always known too much about
too many things. There had always been an air about him that
bespoke something more than his history justified. Now Terry knew
what it was. He was in the middle of a life-changing event. He was
about to taste something that he had wanted for years but never
really expected to happen.

“We need to rent a van. Preferably a work
truck type, not too many windows.”

“Will we rent that here?”

“Yes. The farther from the target the
better. Your best tool is going to be misdirection. I have been
remiss in your education. There are things you need to master,
things you need to understand, but there was no time and I could
not tell you why I was having you learn these things.” The rum was
making the man’s face florid and he looked uncomfortable in the
suit.

“There will be lots of time to learn, later.
I need to know where we are going next,” Terry said cautiously.

“We are going to a hotel and establish a
titular alibi. We also need to think of a good reason for being
here.”

“Fishing. We could say we were here to
fish.”

“It doesn’t hold water by itself but with a
little embellishment it may. Remember the first rule? Don’t leave
witnesses. Unless they have witnessed only what you want them to
see. Then you make sure they remember it the way you want them
to.”

“That’s why you went blond, why you didn’t
want him to see me.”

“That’s a given, but not all. I do not
believe that when I left that man’s house, he said to himself
‘something is fishy.’ If called to testify against me in a
courtroom, could he recognize me? I don’t know, probably. But if
asked for a description he will say I am a blond man. Remember,
always buy supplies at the larger stores. If you stop in an
apothecary and buy hair dye, whoever is behind the counter will
remember you.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“If the new owner of the boat were a danger,
we would be required to return to Orbost and eliminate him. Can you
do that?”

“I don’t know, Uncle, I wouldn’t be required
to eat him too, would I?” Terry said with a grin.

“This is no joke, boy. Would you be able to
walk up to that man who never did nothing to you and put one
between his eyes?”

“Yes, sir, I would. I mean I could.”

“Assassins have gotten a bad rap in Western
Culture. Nobody respected what they were capable of doing, or what
was required to perform the vital and necessary role they held. I
am too old for this; it’s a job for the young.”

“What does your…”

“Shut up and listen, boy. At your age you
know nothing of age, you haven’t stopped growing yet, but if you
don’t learn to shut up you will finish growing. Now, as I was
saying, the Japanese knew and understood what it took to be a quiet
and effective killer. They would not need to hide and scurry about
like mice in the dark. They would be addressed with respect. People
would say “Good day, Honorable Assassin.”

~~~

Chapter Four: Melbourne

“Jerry, I’m sorry about this. Terry and I
went to the coast to do some fishing and we’ve lost a ball joint on
the Holden. It won’t take more than a day or two. Do you think your
boys could take care of the animals for us? Yes, that’s right. The
Doberman is chained to the block we poured on the side of the
house. The feed is in the shed behind the house. Tell your boys to
be careful feeding him. No, the sheepdogs are all right but the
Doberman will probably try to take a chunk out of them if he gets a
chance and he’s sneaky. Tell them to fill a bowl and push it to him
with a stick. I’ll take care of them when I return. Yes, a couple
of days. If you could let them out on the way to school on Monday
and then let them back in at night, the dogs will take care of the
rest. Proper. Thank you again.

“Alibi, boy. Always have an alibi. Now,
we’re here to do some fishing so we need to rent a boat, but we
need to rent our own boat. We don’t need someone taking us to the
best fishing spots; we just need a boat.”

As it turned out they could rent a small
fishing boat for a week. It was just a 15-foot aluminum shore
cruiser, nothing to take out of sight of land.

The moving van was just as easy. Ginger
rented it under an assumed name; Horace Paylee. He had a driver’s
license under that name as well. Apparently he had possessed the
license for a very long time because the picture looked 25 years
younger than his present age. The picture also showed him with
blond hair.

The boat and the hotel room were rented in
Ginger’s real name. They were going to be here for a couple of
days. As far as anyone else was concerned, they would never visit
Melbourne. The last prop for the play was the ball joint. To
complete the subterfuge they bought a set of manual spring
compressors, a pickle fork and a small tub of grease, necessary
tools to replace a ball joint. The owner of the parts shop had to
order a ball joint from one of his sister stores. He swore it would
be there the next day.

At the end of Lagoon Road off Jacaranda
Drive in the town of Metung, Ginger found the perfect opportunity.
A series of lakes joined Metung with Lakes Entrance and nobody
lived at the end of Lagoon Road. The drop off was too sharp to
launch from and there was no evidence that there were many parties
held there. After scoping out the area, Ginger drove the rented van
back to a break in the trees a half a kilometer off and hid it as
best he could. Then they drove the Holden back to Lakes Entrance
and parked it at the dock.

Dock was a generous term for the rotten
pilings and rotted boards but that was not the point. The point was
they had rented a small fishing boat and gear. They bought some
live bait and took an extra can with gasoline. It was very late in
the day to be heading out and the proprietor pointed this out.
Ginger assured him that they were not going out to sea but up the
channel to the lakes. This assuaged the man’s fears. One couldn’t
get in much trouble in that direction.

The engine started easily and purred away
without a hiccup. It ran better than they would have expected and
took them the 12 miles to Lagoon Road’s dead-end without incident.
The drop off was too sharp to run a trailer down and there was a
locked gate at the end of the road preventing anyone from trying.
This did not even slow the pair down. A length of nylon rope and a
little elbow grease hauled the boat off the water and into the
trees. A length of chain served to fasten the bow to a tree. They
took some branches and leaves and covered it as best as could be
expected then went down the road to the van. The van was
unmolested. They started her up and went on their way. As far as
anyone was concerned they were fishing on the lakes.

They drove onto Jacaranda Drive and down
Broadlands Road. One of the last streets before the river was
Kookaburra Street and Terry started humming to himself. Ginger
heard him humming and joined him, singing the words on the second
time through.

“Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree

Merry, merry king of the bush is he

Laugh kookaburra, laugh kookaburra

Gay your life must be.”

Terry fell silent, withdrawing into himself
and remembering why they were here. After about an hour Ginger
started asking him questions. He asked him about the rules of
assassination and the reasons for them. He asked about why he had
done this and that and when it is appropriate and inappropriate to
use a disguise. He asked him when it was appropriate to make a
spectacle of one’s self and when it was best to hide. He presented
his nephew with a wide range of scenarios and queried him about the
best way to handle the situation. The lessons did more than pass
the time as the sun went down; they were important in calming
Terry’s nerves.

Ginger knew Terry was a good shot with
almost any weapon. He had attempted to instill in him the necessity
for walking quietly in the forest. He had told him about sneaking
up on a fox and that the best hunters were those who could sneak up
on a fox. He knew Terry was not that good, and considered it almost
impossible any way, but he had done what he thought appropriate for
the situation.

“Why do you suppose he never came for us,
Uncle?”

“I can’t say, boy.”

“Oh. When are you going to stop calling me
boy?”

“Soon.”

“What do we do if it is not him?”

“I can’t say, boy.”

“What do we do if it is?”

“We’ll know when we get there. I haven’t
done this sort of work in a long time and I won’t know what needs
to be done until I assess the situation. It may be that we have the
wrong man but the boat fit your description and it was called
Ellsinore
. Years back I had the resources and contacts to
discover and determine this sort of thing. I dropped those contacts
years ago and would not dare contact them now.”

“Why not?”

“As I said, the number of men doing this
sort of work is limited in this part of the world. If I were to
begin making noises, the word would reach the target. I could not
be sure that he is not working for the same people I used to do
work for.”

“Can I do it?”

“I don’t know, boy. Can you?”

“Yes.”

Before morning the two Kingstons were
sitting within sight of their destination, wearing coveralls. It
was a modest, well kept home with river access from the back. A new
Cadillac sat in the driveway, a very unusual sight in Australia.
Luxury cars were rare in themselves; American luxury cars were even
scarcer.

“This is a point where we make a decision,
boy. We can shoot this man from a distance, this side of the river.
We can set up on the other side of the Yarra and shoot him from
there when he comes out to the back, a much more difficult shot but
safer. Remember that this man is a professional. Professional
enough to kill your father, God rest his soul. He will not be
expecting us but he may well be expecting somebody. A man who does
this for a living can always expect there to be hard feelings on
somebody’s part.”

“Is that why he killed my father?”

“I can’t say, boy. That is the last option
we have and the reason I mentioned his possible vigilance. We can
go in the house, tie him to a chair and force him to tell us the
details of the operation and the reasons behind it.”

Terry’s young mind was still trying to grasp
all that had been thrown at him in the past two days. The facts
were like separate blades of grass and he was trying to pluck them
and bind them together like a bowerbird building his nest. “You
mean torture him?” he asked.

“Has he not tortured us?”

Bradley had not forgotten about Ginger
Kingston and his young charge. He had simply become complacent. His
contacts had pinpointed the farm and the fact that Ginger had
worked it for many years. His contact at Motor Vehicles had given
him the name and number and he had simply followed the information.
Yes, he was George Kingston’s brother, but there was no information
linking him to any of the actions attributed to George. Yes, he was
a witness, but he lived a very long way off and the likelihood of
their ever meeting was extremely remote. The police had ceased
looking for Bradley in connection with George and Marcia’s death
years before and Ginger had no history of working with or for the
police. It would not have been a difficult job but any damage they
could have caused had been done, and they were not pursuing it with
the police or the media so Bradley simply let sleeping dogs
lie.

There had been other jobs along the way. A
mayor, who would not stop needling a police captain to take care of
certain problems, was never found after he left for work one
morning. The police chief was no longer in charge and the problems
had only gotten worse. A contractor who refused to allow the union
into his business ended up falling into the dig for a foundation
and breaking his neck. A minister who was constantly up in arms
about prostitution was found drowned in his own baptismal pool.
Bradley became more and more subtle as he matured in his
profession.

He thought about George Kingston from time
to time. He had admired ‘The Viper’ and had wanted to learn more
about the techniques and style his victim had employed. The history
of his jobs was muddled and Bradley did not dare seek out anyone
who might have known him so he was confined to researching the
newspapers. It was a poor source of information and did nothing to
enlighten him. When internet access became the norm, Bradley threw
himself into that and found so much more than he could have
expected. A search for keyword ‘Viper’ brought up lots of stuff
about crocodile hunters and snake wranglers but it also brought up
a site devoted to ‘The Viper’ and the jobs attributed to him. Being
closer to the source than some of the people contributing to the
site, Bradley knew that some of the jobs were erroneously credited.
His pride swelled enormously when he saw that a job he had done
when he was considerably younger was attributed to ‘The Viper.’
George’s exploits had grown into the stuff of urban legend and his
fame had grown exponentially. People started inventing jobs that
had never been done and slapping the ‘Viper’ name on them. Bradley
itched to straighten them out but, as a professional, he could not
say the slightest thing.