Wil made his way back to McKinney where he lived, taking numerous roundabout highways and toll roads, making sure he was not followed, before finally pulling into his garage. Oddly, Wil thought about random episodes of Breaking Bad as he made the 30-minute drive in over an hour.
But after he got out of his car, he thought of something from the show: GPS locators on cars. Wil did a thorough search of the exterior of his car for a device but found nothing; it occurred to Wil that if he was searching for the GPS device at his house, whoever was tracking the device would know where he lived, so this search was somewhat futile. However, he searched regardless but found no device.
It was nearly 10PM by the time Wil walked into his living room. His wife Bree sat on her customary side of the couch watching reruns of The Big Bang Theory while typing on her laptop. She looked up as Wil entered and gave him a smile of concern.
"Well," she said expectantly, "how'd it go? What happened?"
"Apparently I'm in," Wil replied.
"How do you know for sure?" Bree asked with a slight hint of skepticism in her voice.
Wil said nothing, but held up the manila envelope he had not yet opened. "Once I open this, there's no turning back," he said, trying not to sound nervous about the simple act of opening a manila envelope.
"Open the damn envelope," Bree said, trying to set Wil's mind at ease.
The envelope was the quintessential manila envelope, tied closed with red string looping around the fasteners on the flap and body of the envelope. Inside the envelope was another envelope, a white letter-sized envelope, a piece of paper, and an 8x10 photograph.
Bree picked up the white envelope and opened, it, assuming it was money. She was right. She pulled five crisp nonsequential bills out of the envelope and fanned them out. From all five bills, the face of former president Grover Cleveland stared up at her. She looked up at Wil in astonishment. Wil was reading the piece of paper atop the 8x10 photograph.
"Burn after reading," the letter began.
Wil grinned. One of his favorite movies was a film by this name.
"The below-listed situation" the letter continued, "is to be handled within 72 hours of the receipt of this assignment. Payment enclosed. Do not spend. Exchange these bills at Mason's Coin Gallery in Plano in the form of a private sale of merchandise."
Wil looked from reading this line in the letter to see Bree's hands, fanning-out five crisp $1,000 bills, all with the same year printed on them: 1928.
"Holy shit," Wil said reflexively. "Are those $1,000 bills?"
Bree looked up and gave Wil an ornery grin.
"Are they?" Wil said with an impatient smile.
"This is brilliant," Bree said. "This must be how he launders his payments and keeps them untraceable." She was looking down at the letter on the table, reading it upside-down. "This guy is good."
"Try not to sound so impressed," Wil said uncomfortably. "This letter refers to killing someone as handling a situation, and that should tell you enough about how evil this guy is."
"Well, still," Bree said, "these are thousand-dollar bills!"
Wil skimmed his vision to the bottom of the page. He wanted to know the name of the person they were going to make disappear.
They'd planned it all out. The two of them would show up and convince the potential victim that his/her life was in danger, Bree would identify herself as a Federal Marshal, and she would insert the person into Witness Protection. As they saw it, Bree and Wil were saving lives, not taking them.
Wil read the name of their target.
Wil read the name again.
Wil read the name a third time.
He looked up at Bree, then back at the picture. "Oh my god," Wil said in a muffled tone of voice.
"What's wrong?" Bree said, looking up from her close examination of the thousand-dollar bills."
"I know this name," Wil said.
"Who is it?" Bree asked, clearly intrigued.
Wil pulled the 8x10 picture from behind the letter, revealing a black-and-white surveillance photo of their target.
Wil knew this man as Iain McHugh.
The Professor knew this man as The Arsonist.
And it was now Wil's job to make him disappear.
YOU ARE READING
The Disappearist
General Fiction[Work-In-Progress] SYNOPSIS: As a subtle yet well-known contract killer, Wilson Giamatti makes a solid living making people disappear. With a flawless reputation among the people of his industry, he has a very unique niche among the underground comm...
