Flower Girl: A Burton Family Mystery (10 page)

Reddy dismissed two other messages on his e-mail as "garbage," deleted the spam, deleted the cache, and opened the item marked "A twofer." Chip's sense of humor got his attention. A twofer could only mean a double target. Even though this went against Reddy's rule #5-no partners, he was intrigued and read on.

“Sometimes a twofer assignment comes along," Reddy said. “The Glacier Montana case recently came in on michaela.com with Chip's evaluation. There are two assignments, one in Montana and the other in New York City. If Rule # 1 is met for both targets, that is, if they both deserve killing, then a second shooter is called for. Hmmm. I have two daughters who can shoot the eye out of a squirrel at 200 yards without a scope."

"That assumes that the squirrel deserves killing," Dalisay noted.

"Good point," Reddy replied.

"Okay, but squirrels or people, count me out of that part of the family business. I'm in the business of saving lives."

We took a short walk with the dogs then got back to work.

"Let's start with a look at the details Chip provided for the Montana case," Reddy said.

Chip's details on the first target read as follows
: (7/23/13) Target 1 (T1)
 is female, raven black hair, cool blue eyes, 29, 6' in stilettos which she always wears, striking, fashion model, all legs, constant companion a coal black standard poodle named Rex. They run together every Tuesday morning, starting at 6:15 am EST., walking to the central park- West 52nd Street entrance at the Natural History Museum. She stops and stretches on the stairs and railing at precisely 6:25am. Next, they run a circular route through the park, exactly 4 miles on Tuesdays- ending at the same park entrance, and walk back to a coffee house on the underground/first floor of the Armory Park Hotel on the corner of Avenue B and 54th Street. Her apartment is # 775 on the 7th floor. She varies her routine slightly on other days when she is modeling in Paris or Brussels or London or L.A. Photos attached.

Reddy opened the attachment and scrutinized the photo of the target in all black running gear, her long black locks tied in a pony-tail. She looked like a serious runner. Good exercise for a fashion model, good muscle tone and healthy skin, all a must for her kind of work. The poodle at her side was big and impressive. Satellite tracking photo with longitude and latitude of Central Park were attached. The other photos, a cosmetics commercial and another shot of her naked with a huge black snake coiled around her, were stunning but irrelevant as regards the hit set for her next Tuesday run.

(7/23/13) Target 2 (T2) is male, full head of short cropped grey hair, grey eyes, age 53, 5' 7", steel rimmed glasses, physically fit- once a college wrestler- now prefers mountain biking and hiking. Wears hiking boots with two inch lifts to compensate for his short stature when with T1. T2 is presently staying at Montana's Glacier National Park Lodge suite 14. Tuesdays schedule: 5am in lodge's fitness center, 15 minutes of stretching and warm ups. 5:20 am checks in with Park Rangers and heads for mountain trails on the east side of the park. Trek mountain bike. 5:25 am starts his 2 hour trail ride. He returns to same starting point. Likes to bike alone- calls it his thinking time. No fear of bears. Once in the heavily wooded area of tall pines, the trail runs west along a creek for 2 miles then turns north with an up-hill climb of 10 degrees for three miles to a small icy lake. There is a cabin near the end of this trail, maintained by the rangers and stocked with some survival gear, food and water, no electricity. The trail map is attached. Photos attached. Satellite tracking map and longitude and latitude of cabin attached.

The photos of T2 in full biking regalia showed a strong face and athletic build.

Chip included more from the client's own e-mail:

T1 and T2 are a couple, both are otherwise married, he has 3 children ages 20-27, she has no children and is facing a messy divorce. They are blackmailing my family. A member of my immediate family has a drug problem and is sexually over active and recently had an affair with a politically powerful man, T2. Yes, my family member is also a fashion model, "close friend" of T1. T1 is the brains of the two. T1 and T2 are reported to be partners both in the business of blackmail and in the sack, have been for years. Video provided if needed. I will provide a list of their clients as needed and if you take my case.

Chip's report continued:
Verifying reliability of this is not a problem as these two are very arrogant and deem themselves bullet-proof. They select their victims for their weaknesses and their high profiles which tells me that publicity can ruin them; all part of the blackmail. No police have ever been involved. In fact there are no official records of the activities of these two con-artists.

"So where did Chip get all these details?" I asked.

Reddy replied, "Good question. A family member sent us this entire package via secure e-mail at michaela.com. Then Chip did a thorough background check on all parties, both targets, and the family requesting our services."

Chip concluded his report with a note from the family saying that T2 is affiliated with Russo/Grey Oil and suggesting a sense of urgency and revenge: 

My family member has attempted suicide twice and is presently institutionalized. T1 is under contract to the Harmony Group Modeling agency of New York. The client says that T1 works for the same agency as my family member, their targeted victim. One more thing, I cannot support this, but I believe that these two have been the source of her drug addiction. She is only 27 years old with a very bleak future. Eliminating this threat may give her some hope.

"Wait a minute,” I said. "They are connected to the Greys, that seems a bit too coincidental.” Reddy shrugged.

Chip concluded his report by noting that by doing the assignments separately we did not risk an association as much. However, they were only separated for this week at their present Montana and New York locations, granting only short windows of opportunity.

"Okay, so much for the details of the case. Other than the twofer aspect, it is a perfect fit," Dalisay said, "almost as if the clients know more about our process than we do."

Now came our evaluation of the Twofer Case in terms of Reddy's Rule #1- never target someone who doesn't deserve it.

"Dalisay and Shannon!" Reddy said out loud, scratching his ear as he is wont to do when making a decision he was vexed over making. "Accept or reject this case. It's your call.”

As I watched Reddy scratch his ear, I thought to myself, Reddy has a tell. My slight hesitation gave Dalisay an opening, and she said, " Both targets meet Rule #1; however, I think Chip is suggesting that the case is too perfect, so I vote no deal.” I was startled by her eagerness to be involved in these cases; she seemed so indifferent to the sniper training up to this time, and being a professional healer, she wasn't about to shoot someone, whether they deserved it or not.

"I agree with Chip and Dalisay,” I replied.

I know how to take orders. I know that Reddy, the family patriarch, will make the final decision on this case; however, I couldn't resist saying with incredulity in my voice, "I don't believe this. You're actually going to take this case."

Then Reddy threw a curve at us, as befits an ex-minor league baseball player. He replied coolly, "Dalisay is correct, Chip says the information is almost too perfect. He thinks it's a trap, a classic CIA set-up to grab Michaela and me." I hadn't even calculated Michaela into the equation.

Dalisay asked, "Who's Michaela?" Reddy replied, "When we get back to Berkeley, I'll give you a tour of my basement  lab at Shannon's and introduce you to Michaela."

I noticed that he didn't call my place home.

Later, on a cloudy moonless night, as pitch black as any I have seen, Reddy said, "It's easy to get too wrapped up in Rule # 1: Don't target anyone who doesn't deserve it."

I said, "I get it. That Twofer couple deserved it; however, what about risk and reward?"

"Exactly!" Reddy said. "On the other hand, if we take this Montana case, at least I'll know where to find the client if things go wrong. And, while the CIA keeps an eye on me, I will be keeping an eye on them."

When Reddy says things like that I really get worried, because it illustrates the real dangers and risks of this business. "So we should decline the Montana case. No one can keep an eye on the CIA," I said.

"I agree," came the surprise reply, followed by a hearty laugh. "However, we'll need to practice some serious six direction skills until we find out if it's the CIA that is setting us up."

As our summer of skills and case selection training at Skeleton Lake came to an end, Dalisay and I started to put together a list of Reddy's Rules, sort of an SOP Manual.

"You had better hope Reddy never discovers that we have written down his rules," she whispered to me as Reddy headed for a walk around the lake with the dogs following him like he was the pied piper. ”My bet is that he has a pocketful of treats."

Knowing how good Reddy is at investigating, we rethought our decision and burned the two copies of Reddy's Rules in the cabin's pot bellied stove. Then we laced up our running shoes and took off at a run to join Reddy and the Bear family.

"Better safe than sorry," I said.

"Hell, we know his rules backwards and forwards. We don't need to write them down, just react to them when needed, and try not to forget Michaela when analyzing future cases."

At that moment I realized that like Reddy and I, she too had an eidetic memory. For me, all doubt that she is a Burton was erased.

 "It's as if Michaela's a member of the family," I managed to say with a straight face.

Reddy and the Bear clan were running along the south trail headed east into the glow of the morning sun. When we caught up with them, Dalisay asked, "Can we call them Guiding Principles instead of Reddy's Rules?"

I added, "GP's does sound more business-like."

"Call them what you wish, but follow them, especially when selecting clients," Reddy replied.

Later in our run, I asked Reddy, "How are we doing with the six directions?"

"East and west are pretty good, North and south need more practice, and I do believe you are both sufficiently paranoid about things coming up from behind and out of the ground. However, I once had a habu snake drop from the limb of a tree on my head in Okinawa. On another occasion, a habu dropped on our dog and bit him, damn near killed him. Very toxic poison." From that day forward I found myself wondering if Reddy might drop a snake on me at any time.

The first question Dalisay asked Reddy when the topic of clients next came up was, "Where do your Rules come from?" I was expecting him to say, from my life experiences.

"Where do you suppose I got my rule Number 1? I train with Hamish at the same martial arts dojang every June when I return to Cheju-do. The Silla monk Won Gwang teaches the directives as spiritual guidance to all his students of the martial arts." Reddy grinned and we got back to our GP lessons.

"Reddy's Rule Number 1 and the 5th directive are very similar," Dalisay said.

I agreed. "Directive #5: Never take a life without a just cause. You're right; it does have a ring of familiarity." However, Reddy taught us that rules are guidelines, not laws. They needed to be flexible and at times it was necessary to bend them.

By summer's end, I almost always rejected cases as too close to home, following Rule #4. I was beginning to wonder if there were sufficient clientele to meet Reddy's General Practices criteria and sustain our new family business. Twofers were way too risky. I thought back on the eleven kills I had estimated, based on Reddy's bank deposits total. At €300k a contract plus expenses, we neither wanted nor needed to do a volume business. But we still needed a mission statement.

Reddy and I were in synch. Our mission was assassinations, namely, targets that met the criteria established in Reddy's Rules. Okay, call it contract killing. However, Dalisay had a different mission, assisting young women who were the victims of abuse.

Later that night, after Dalisay headed into the cabin, Reddy and I sat on the dock dangling our feet in the cool lake water. "You're ready, Shannon, and we'll talk assignment when the opportunity arises." I damn near hugged him. Call it pride, but I was both scared and overjoyed and happy to be headed home all at the same time.

Back home in Berkeley I researched starting-up a family business. This led me to a lot of websites that provided only general information on capitalization and finances, taxes, health insurance for employees, location-location-location, and of course some were focused on the security industry, others on sporting goods retailers and gun stores, nothing really close to Burton's Family Business.

Then, I stumbled across an advertisement on the Internet for a seminar that caught my attention:

Professor Marshall Hunt, author of 'Start-up: A Family Business' will be presenting a two day seminar Friday and Saturday (from 8am-4pm) [3-4 April 2013] at the Seattle Resort & Conference Center. The seminar is limited to 50 participants so be sure to register early. Call 1-800-222-2345 or click on the registration button on this page and complete the application. All major credit cards accepted. Fee $300.00. A bank of rooms has been reserved at The Skydome Hotel- contact them directly or make your own accommodation arrangements. Click here for details of the program.