The Hitman’s Phone – Chapter II

II. The Job

There was some loudmouth in Wyoming of all places that had caught the attention of Tony’s newest employer. His recent employer had a billion-dollar multi-faceted company and one large chunk of it was a mining operation in Wyoming. The mine actually housed two sources of revenue. The mining was, in fact, legal and ironically above ground. It employed thousands of locals and was a main industry to the nearby town. The other source of revenue, however, eclipsed the earning potential of the mine. It employed hundreds of people but none of these particular employees ever filled in a W2 form. They were responsible for receiving special shipments from Mexico and rerouting them to various locations in the United States and even up to Canada. Shipments of drugs would come in by the truckload. They would go out in special compartments underneath the mined material in the train cars.

During their off time, the drug trafficking employees spent a lot of time and resources in town causing trouble. The mayor was tired of it and despite trying to clean the town up he couldn’t get rid of the riffraff. On the contrary, their numbers seemed to grow. It didn’t take a great skill of detective work to discover the mine was the common link. While he had no concrete proof, he knew enough that he began talking. A lot. His story was carried all over the world and into the ears of the main company’s CEO. Strictly speaking and officially off the record with no proof any such interaction took place, that CEO hired Tony to shut that small town do-gooder-mayor up. That was Tony’s specialty. Getting people to shut up permanently.

One man’s life was not worth a billion dollars. So, the CEO’s right-hand man was assigned to take care of it. The right-hand man knew Tony Birello from a previous professional transaction. He hired Tony to take care of the small-town mayor before anyone started believing him.

A job in Wyoming? Tony couldn’t ask for a better final gig. It was meant to be. How hard could it be to off someone in Wyoming? There were probably only two people in the whole town. Surely this would be one of his easiest jobs. It was kind of sad to end his twenty-year career on such a boring assignment, but he knew he knew he needed to take advantage of it.

He practiced what he would say to his wife Cheyenne before she got home from work. After looking up a “Things to do in Wyoming” website he came up with a plan to get her on board.

Step one: he had dinner waiting for her when she walked in the door. Alexa played her favorite song.

“What’s this?” she asked and he chose to ignore the skepticism in her voice. He was in full on woo mode, he couldn’t get distracted with any side arguments.

“I just missed you,” he said in the most sappy voice he could muster.

He could tell by the look on her face that she wasn’t totally convinced. That was her Army training that he usually appreciated.

“Okay,” he said realizing he couldn’t fool her. He had promised in their vows never to lie to her and with the exception of his vocation he had held to that promise so far.

“I think you and I deserve a honeymoon.”

“We had a honeymoon,” she said finally relaxing a bit.

“We had a weekend getaway. I’m talking about a real vacation.” He had wrapped his arms gently around her and started dancing.

She thought about it. “I could spend a week on a beach somewhere.”

“Or,” he said trying to regain control of the conversation, “how about we go out west.”

“West of what?” she asked putting her head on his shoulder.

“The American west.”

She stopped moving. “What?”

“How about we go to Yellowstone?”

“You want to go to Wyoming?” she asked and stepped back to look at him. “You know, Wyoming has a lot of outdoors.”

He nodded. “So?”

“You hate the outdoors.”

“I don’t hate the outdoors. I am former Navy, remember?”

“But you never want to go camping.”

“But you do and I want to go with you.” Which was partly true. He would go anywhere with her. He just left out the minor detail of having to kill someone while they were traveling.

She thought about it. He was pretty sure this was going to be a hard sell so he was getting ready to jump into tactic number two. But to his surprise, she smiled and wrapped her arounds him again even tighter. “This sounds perfect.”

She had accepted his plan rather easily. If it had been anyone else he would have questioned it. But he trusted Cheyenne completely.

After she left him to take a shower, he sat down to revise his list of supplies and go over his two meticulous plans that could now be merged together.