Page 122 of Two Kinds of Stranger

While he waited for the call to be answered, he had an idea. An insurance policy. Something that would protect Grace.

If he failed to kill Novak tonight, it would be better for Grace if he died trying.

48

Bruno

Bruno Mont sat on a busted leather chair in a portable cabin that he used as his site office, flicking through the channels on his TV remote. The cabin was surrounded by seven hundred tons of scrap metal, mostly cars and refrigerators, and a single magnetic crane and a car crusher, which while technically were not scrap could certainly qualify under anyone else’s definition of the word.

As junkyards go, Mont’s Scrap Metal was one of the worst.

They didn’t need a junkyard dog to guard the place at night.

Bruno provided all the security that was required, largely through reputation. He’d taken over the family business from his father five years ago after his dad passed on. The first weeks on site, Bruno experienced the same problem that had plagued his father–thieves climbing the fence at night to steal the stockpile of catalytic converters. The cat converters are rich in rare metals, and sell for between five hundred and a thousand dollars each. After ten of them went missing one night, Bruno bought a TV and a cot bed and stayed in the junkyard overnight.

He caught a thief red-handed. A kid, maybe eighteen years old, part of a gang who stole cat converters from parked cars and junkyards. The rest of his crew knew he’d been caught, and they waited round the corner for the sirens.

But the cops never came.

All they heard was the grinding of the crusher, and the screams beneath it. And they never saw the kid again.

Now, all that Bruno needed to do was put on the light in the site cabin, and nobody would ever dare climb his fence again.

He sat in his chair, found the local news. First, he watched the coverage from the Parker case, and then the Cross murder. There wasn’t much reported about his friend. Bruno didn’t really have friends. Not in the real sense. But he’d found a companion of sorts in Cross, a single individual who he could be around without having to hide his true nature. And that was important. Cross appreciated Bruno’s skills and his desires. Even fed off them.

His cell phone rang.

Too late to be a customer.

He answered, ‘Mont’s.’

‘I have a disposal job for you,’ said the voice. Male, unfamiliar.

‘We’re closed,’ said Bruno.

‘I’m interested in a particular kind of disposal.’

Bruno leaned forward, opened his desk drawer, took out one of half a dozen burner phones. He called out the number written on the back of the phone with a silver sharpie, then hung up and turned the burner on.

The call came through right away.

‘Who is this?’ asked Bruno.

‘Best if we don’t use names. I got a referral, couple of years ago, from an old friend of yours, Arthur Cross. I was sorry to hear he passed.’

‘Arthur was murdered.’

‘Shit, sorry. I didn’t know.’

‘I guess you could say Arthur had it coming.’

‘Are you still working?’

‘I’m working. What do you need?’

‘Two targets. Both are ex-law enforcement. I don’t need them to disappear – I just want them dead.’

‘That’ll cost you.’