Honorable Assassin (3 page)

The inspection room seemed close and
exceedingly warm, even though the air conditioning kept it at a
comfortable level. Barlow and Cherry spoke alone for a while and
agreed to let the doctor ask the questions this morning.

“So, Terry, we’ll need to be letting you
off, soon enough. You seem to be quite healthy despite your
ordeal.”

“Have you found Mummy?”

“No, dear, I’m afraid we haven’t”

“Where am I to go then?”

“That will be determined by Doctor Curlew.
He works with Heath and Welfare.”

“I don’t like him. He’s mean.”

“Doctor Curlew can be brusque, but he has
your best interests at heart. Tell me, do you remember any more of
what happened?”

“I had another dream. Daddy was running and
yelling, then we were on the boat. The monster was chasing
him.”

“Was the monster swimming after you?”

“No, it had a boat. It was in one of those
little, fast ones and it was chasing us. I couldn’t move, I
couldn’t help. I didn’t see it, but I knew it was there.”

“Did the boat have a name?”

“Daddy’s boat was Ag-a-mem-non,” he said
carefully.

“Not your daddy’s boat, dear, the one that
was chasing you.”

“I didn’t see it, the name. It was sparkly.
Blue with sparkles.”

“Dark blue or light blue?”

“It was dark blue with twin Evinrude
engines.”

Inspector Barlow was not paying much
attention until this point but he began writing notes now. He found
it interesting that a child could remember the color of a dream and
the kind of engines it had. It was as if he had been listening to
an orchestra but only a few of the instruments were playing. The
composer had just added music for a new instrument. While he knew
dreams were unreliable bits of evidence, details of this kind were
not to be overlooked.

“Was there anything else, Terry?”

“No. Maybe I’ll remember more tomorrow.”

“I think you’re doing just fine. I shouldn’t
be surprised if you remember the whole affair tomorrow.”

“Ok.”

“Terry, when you visited your Uncle Ginger,
was he drinking a lot of beer?”

“No. He didn’t drink any brandy either.
Daddy says he drinks a lot but I never saw him drink anything but
water. He made me work every day and he doesn’t even have a telly,
just lots of chickens and sheep.”

“I’m sorry that you don’t like him, but he
may be your last living relative. If we can’t place you with him
you may need to go to the orphanage instead.”

“I’ve never seen the orphanage.”

“I don’t think you would like it. Thank God
they don’t have the old system. You’d be sent to the Fairbridge
Farm School in Molong instead of going to live with family. You
should be glad they shut that one down in the early seventies.”

“Uncle Ginger has the farm without the
school, so it doesn’t matter where I want to go. I have no choices
that I like.”

“Oh, dear, I’m so sorry.” Doctor Cherry
opened her arms and gave him a long hug. Terry was not
crying.

The representatives of the Health and
Welfare Department were skeptical as to the efficacy of placing a
child with Ginger Kingston. He had a record of drinking and
fighting in bars. They headed out to the farm to take stock of the
area.

When the social workers pulled in the
driveway they were surprised to find that Ginger was not only sober
but painting the house. He was on a 15-meter ladder, painting the
outside of the attic. He greeted them with a huge smile and asked
if they were there to help him paint.

His beard was trimmed and his hair had been
cut. His clothes were clean except for some paint spatter and his
demeanor was friendly and open. He invited the workers into the
house where everything was in relative order, though musty and old.
The furniture was threadbare but still serviceable, if no longer
comfortable. There were no animals in the home.

The two social workers asked Mr. Kingston a
few questions about Terry and whether he was willing to take over
his custody. Ginger replied in an affable and affirmative way
explaining that he had no children of his own and that his wife had
passed away from lymphoma 10 years earlier. He explained that Terry
was a likeable child and a good worker and he would be happy to
adopt him.

The older of the two workers explained that
he could not adopt the boy until it was confirmed that George and
Marcia were dead. Their bodies had never been found. It made no
difference to Ginger.

The government employees left quite
satisfied that the stories they had heard about Ginger Kingston
were either exaggerations or complete fabrications.

~~~

Chapter Two: Bradley and Cooter

“Sure, she’s a fine looking sheila, but you
can’t keep her chained up down there forever.” The speaker was tall
and well groomed. He had good teeth and was wearing contact lenses.
His suit was worth a week’s pay for some people, a month’s for
others.

“Why not? It’s got nobody looking for it.
Husband and son are dead. I say we just use it for what she’s
worth. You have the contacts; what do you say we make a snuff film
out of it? We can make quite a bit off that.” The other man was
shorter and needed a hair cut. Dressed in a tee-shirt and blue
jeans that looked like they could use a wash, he did not look like
a professional man. A scar ran down the left side of his face,
making his mouth droop on that side. Somebody had slashed him with
a broken bottle, blinded his left eye and scarred him horribly.

“Bloody cracker, what happens when they
trace it back to us? There’s a lot more here than just some woman.
She’s not a runaway teenager, that’s the Viper’s wife. What do you
think his friends will do if they find out we got his wife, let
alone what happens if they find out we killed him. They don’t know
now and I don’t want them to know.”

“Bollux, they’ll never know.”

“How can you be so sure? You’re getting
stupid now. If you remember, I wanted to take her out when we did
her man. It was you, thinking with the wrong head again, that put
us in this situation.”

“What situation? We got it secure. It’s
locked up tight. That sweet little round bottom is mine and I
intend to do whatever I want with it.”

“You’re a dripping idiot. We should have fed
her to the sharks and walked away clean.”

“The sharks can have that fish, but not ‘til
I’m done with it.” The man rubbed the scar on his face and
chuckled.

The tall man grimaced and looked out the
window at the fields of wheat. “Why do you live out here anyway?
There’s no company, no stores, no neighbors except the farmer that
owns the land, and I don’t suspect he drops by for a game of gin
rummy.”

“That’s it precisely. Nobody comes here.
They think I’m some crazy hermit. I cooked up a story about having
been left some money and wanting no part of people. So they leave
me alone and that’s just right by me.”

“I couldn’t live this way. Away from people
an’ all.”

“Oh, I’m not exactly away from people. I got
me a nice fresh one in the basement.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it.
Well, make sure you dispose of her proper when you’re done with
her.”

“Like I said the sharks can have that fish.”
The shorter man grabbed his crotch pointedly. “I’ll take care of
it. Eh, you ever find out why they wanted the Viper done in?”

“No, nobody’s talking. I think he must have
done the wrong guy or something. Maybe he turned on his contacts
and started talking to the bobbies.”

“I doubt it. This man was in the business
two or three years before I was. I heard of his jobs while I was
still in the Academy. That makes it about five years before you.
How long you been doing this?”

“About five.” The man picked at some
imaginary lint on his suit.

“Five years, don’t time fly? That means he
been at it maybe 10 years. I heard he was responsible for those
jobs the papers called the Porno Killer. You know, the lads that
were doing the flicks with little boys? I also heard he done a man
once in a provincial station. Leastways, that’s what they say.
Right in the station, in handcuffs, right in front of the Assistant
Commissioner. They didn’t even know the bugger was dead for an
hour.”

“That may be stretching the point. I will
admit to his being skilled, however.”

“Well, thanks for the delivery. I look
forward to working with you again some time, Bradley.”

The taller man cocked one eye at him and
said, “I have told you I would prefer we did not use our proper
names.”

“What? Afraid the field mice might hear?
Like I said, nobody comes out here and if they did they might just
find a home in the fields out there.”

“I do see your point. I just can’t do it.
Too dead out here. I need some excitement from time to time. The
kind you don’t need to tie up to keep around.”

“To each his own.”

“Ok, Cooter, I’ll be in touch if there is
anything that requires your special talents.”

“Have a safe trip, Brad-lee.”

Cooter waited on the porch as his associate
drove off. “Wankah. Thinks he can come around here in his fancy
suit and tell me what to do with my property? Day may come I’ll
have to do him. I might like tossing him off the back of that fancy
boat.” He turned and went into the house to cook some mutton and
mash.

Terry had never felt so isolated. Orange was
not a large town but it was large enough that he had some friends
and enemies. He knew every girl and boy in town; there was enough
diversity he could learn new things about them all the time. On
Ginger’s farm there was nobody but Ginger.

It took Rough and Ready, the two sheepdogs a
little while to get used to his presence. They were all business
and could take care of the sheep for days at a time, without
direction. They couldn’t open the gates and draw the water, but
when it came to protecting the flock and herding them back from the
pastures they were the best. They were no company, however.

After a week of being on the farm, Ginger
contacted Jerry Cuthbert, a neighbor who agreed to take his new
charge to school for a fee. The price was reasonable and Terry got
to ride with other children, though they were older than he.

Three other boys rode in the Land Rover and
either Ruth Cuthbert or Jerry drove them. Terry had little to say
to them since they had come from different backgrounds and were
different ages.

In school, the boys thought Terry was stupid
because he didn’t know the things they knew. He got in a lot of
fights but was alone against the others so he rarely won the
altercations. He did learn how to take advantage of getting an
opponent alone.

When he spoke to Ginger about the fights he
got very little sympathy. Ginger told him he would need to get
stronger and faster and meaner. Then he took Terry out to the
pasture and he taught him about the sheep and the dogs. He took
pains to impress on his nephew that there were many sheep and only
two dogs, but the dogs made the sheep do what the dogs wanted them
to do. Then he asked Terry why and would not let him leave the
pasture until he had arrived at an answer that satisfied him. This
was only the beginning of Ginger’s educational process.

Ginger was not an educated man but he was
intelligent. He recognized the problems with relocating a child to
the country and taught his charge many things. As time went by, he
warmed to the task of educating the child he had never fathered and
became quite a mentor. The relationship was by no means one-sided.
Terry had learned a lot from his parents and reciprocated when he
could. The child acted as a great motivator to the man and served
to keep him off the sauce and focus his attentions. The farm began
to prosper again. The sagging barns were shored up and painted.
Some of the old tractors were repaired and some were sold. The
interior and exterior of the house were painted and repaired. Terry
Kingston learned more that summer than he had in all his previous
years. There was much he did not enjoy, but he was never made to do
extraneous work and was always served with an explanation for his
tasks. He did not dig holes merely to fill them in again but he did
dig a lot of holes, and he moved rocks until he grew calluses on
his hands.

Terry learned how to split wood for the
fire. At eight years old he did not have the necessary size and
strength needed for the task but he attacked it with gusto. It
seemed his body always ached in the mornings and he went to bed
exhausted every night, but he was growing like a weed and being
well fed.

The neighbors were impressed by the
civilizing effect that having a boy about produced in Ginger
Kingston. It was not that there was anyone close enough to really
call a neighbor, but the population of Molong was in the hundreds
in 1987 so anyone within 20 kilometers was considered a
neighbor.

It was on Christmas recess, lasting the
entire month of January, that Ginger began to teach Terry about
guns and hunting. He started with safety lectures and made his
student recite his rules. He taught him how to disassemble and
clean pistols, rifles and shotguns. Then came the target
practice.

A .22 pistol was easy enough to handle.
Terry’s sharp blue eyes focused well on the target and he was soon
a fine shot with it. The first time he used a 12-gauge shotgun it
knocked him down. He could barely carry it as it was, and the
recoil was too much for him, so they switched to a .38 pistol.
Terry had found his favorite weapon in the Smith and Wesson
revolver.

Marcia Kingston had no way to mark the
passage of time except her monthly cycle, and as far as she could
tell, she had been a prisoner for three months. Her captor had no
name she knew except Master. It was the only name he allowed her to
use.

She had been chained in his basement for
about a month before she allowed herself to act at being “broken.”
Her hate for him never subsided, but she knew her only chance was
to play at submission. She was given no choice but to be
subservient, however she did not acquiesce willingly until a
sufficient amount of time had gone by. When she felt the time was
right, she began to pretend that she was his willing slave instead
of a captive. She began to fake orgasms and tell Cooter she loved
him. She began to beg to perform oral sex on him and pretended she
loved to have him come in her mouth. It took about two months of
this before he began to believe her act.