In Too Deep Read Online Free PDF Page B

weren’t too complicated, nothing I hadn’t heard a dozen times before. Basically, she just wanted her husband out of the picture. She had gotten my number from a friend of a friend, and that’s usually how it works. Most of my work is corporate-sponsored, and I try to steer clear of domestic jobs, but occasionally I’ll make an exception, when the money is too good to refuse.
    Jake Malone had money to burn. Officially, he had made his fortune in transport, but most people knew that there was mud beneath the surface, whispers of drugs and Mob affiliations. These days he was clean right down to his toes and, as a respected pillar of the community, involved in all kinds of charity work and a voice of note in the Republican party. He had also expanded his empire to magnate pro-portions. The picture I held in my hand showed a man in his late sixties, bloated by the excesses of living. Not exactly the Prince Charming that every schoolgirl dreams of marrying.
    But high finance could be a powerful aphrodisiac. Susan Malone wore her wealth well, yet there was something there that told me she hadn’t always been accustomed to such surroundings. Not that I held any of it against her. Quite the contrary, in fact. She used what she had, made the best of it.
    We talked money. I named a figure and she shrugged absently, as if it were nothing. I insisted on cash, half up front, and told her not to expect a receipt. Keep the paperwork for the pen pushers.
    â€˜Half,’ she said, and held out a large brown envelope. ‘Count it if you like. ’ The distance in her voice fit perfectly with the rest of the picture.
    â€˜That’s all right,’ I said, smiling, ‘I can trust you, I’m sure.’ My reputation was beyond reproach; few would have been foolish enough to try anything as cheap as short-changing me. I never needed to count the cash, and I had never once, in all the years that I have been doing this work, encountered a single problem in collecting the balance.
    â€˜When will you … go to work?’ she asked, choosing her words carefully. A lot of people are like that. She stood close enough for me to breathe the delicate lily-of-the-valley scent of her perfumed skin, but I had a rule: no mixing business with pleasure. There’d be time for such things later; maybe we could even come to some arrangement in lieu of the balance.
    â€˜It’s best that you don’t know,’ I said. ‘There’s a lot more involved than just pulling the plug. It could be weeks, maybe even a couple of months. You won’t hear from me for a while, even after it’s all over. But I’ll call when the time is right.’
    She nodded, and that was that.
    The people who tend to find themselves on my list are invariably the sort best put out to dry. The Mob pays most of my bills; gangsters keep themselves generally well protected, but I can build a plan to fit any situation. Sometimes, I can do my work from a mile away, peering through a sniper’s scope and just cutting loose, but even if I’m being paid to send an added message and I have to get my hands dirty, I rarely have to break a sweat. The police will take a look, but they won’t go digging, because Mob hits are part of the daily merry-go-round.
    Domestic jobs are more difficult, because of the level of trust that I have to extend, a concept quite foreign to my nature. In an ‘accident’, the grieving spouse is naturally first in the firing line. Most people think they can handle the heat, but they’ll start spilling at the first upward click of the thermostat. And this is where attention to detail comes in. It is imperative that the police don’t query the death as anything other than accidental. Hence my hefty price-tag.
    Jake Malone was six foot of bloated girth, with the thunderous ego that men who measure their wealth in the hundreds of millions wear like a sidearm. Sixties isn’t ancient,