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Community Service

Bob Strother

    P. J. Holland sat across from the bank president. Over his shoulder, she had a decent view of the modest downtown. A few unassuming high-rises—if you call fifteen stories high— stood silhouetted against a lowering gray sky. The bank president was himself gray: neatly trimmed gray hair and moustache, gray pin-striped suit, his tie a darker shade of charcoal, knotted snugly under a spread collar.
     “You’re not exactly what I expected,” the man said.
    P. J. smiled sweetly. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”
    The man was quiet for a moment, reaching across the broad expanse of his desk and making a minute adjustment to his mahogany-mounted name plate: Lionel J. Bowman, III, etched in gold, san-serif letters.
    “I had you thoroughly checked out,” he said. “You come very highly recommended.”
    She nodded, said nothing.
    “You understand the nature of the job.” It was a statement, not a question. Here was a man used to power, confident in his place within the community, sure of himself.
    “In essence,” P. J. replied.
    Bowman leaned back in his chair and tented his fingers beneath his chin. “This is a decent town, Ms. Holland, or at least it used to be. Economically thriving, it’s the kind of place you’d want to raise kids, build a business, and establish deep roots in the community. All that changed, however, over the past few years because of three men—men whose greed and despicable morals have thoroughly corrupted this town, including, unfortunately, the local police.”
    He paused for a moment.
    For effect, P. J. thought. Probably did it during board and shareholder meetings, too.
    Bowman continued. “Drugs, prostitution, gambling, who knows what else. It has to be stopped, and stopped cold. If I were a younger man, I’d be tempted to take things into my own hands. But age and success also corrupt. You get comfortable, secure in your future, hesitant to risk it all on rash impulses.”
    P. J. nodded again. “And that’s where I come in.”
    “Exactly,” Bowman said. “According to my sources, you have the reputation of being able to ... shall we say ... clean up a town.” He gave her a quick salesman’s grin. “I’m prepared to pay you ten thousand dollars per man, half now, half after you finish the job. Is that acceptable?”
    She nodded.
    “Then it’s settled?”
    “It’s settled.”
    Bowman slid a banded stack of hundreds and a file folder across the desk. “Carlucci, Conner, and Romanoff—everything you’ll need is in here.”
    P. J. picked up the file and stood. “You want them to appear accidental?”
    “Absolutely not,” Bowman said. “I want to send a clear message. We will not stand for organized crime in this town.”

.....


     P. J. drove her rental car back to the Holiday Inn—an environment she was comfortable and familiar with: attractive without being flamboyant, reasonable and efficient, the way she might describe herself, if anyone asked.
    A quick read through the files confirmed what she’d expected.. These guys were hardly organized crime. They were small-time criminal practitioners who’d never make it in a big city. But they had chosen their location well—the town’s population hovering somewhere around 50,000. The three men knew their limitations, operated within them, and turned a considerable profit. The action was divided up amicably and efficiently—Carlucci had the prostitutes, Conner the gambling, and Romanoff the drugs. Each man apparently felt confident, safe, and secure in his position.
    Carlucci was easy. He kept a mistress on the other side of town and saw her regularly every Tuesday night. P. J. waited in the shadows until he came out, walked up behind him, and popped a silenced 9 mm round through the back of his skull.
    One down, two to go.
    Conner took a little longer. He was a foreign film buff, and she had to stake him out for a couple of days before he decided to indulge his passion. She waited a few minutes before following him into the theater lobby, an old art deco place with arched doorways and lots of smoky, gilt-edged mirrors. Inside the theater, red velvet gold-fringed curtains framed the screen where some obscure, subtitled drama was in progress. The seats were sparsely populated. Conner sat by himself near the back, absorbed in the movie and munching from a bag of popcorn. P. J. moved quietly down the row and took a seat behind him. A few minutes later, she exited the building, leaving her second victim bleeding into his popcorn, a wooden-handled ice pick protruding from his right ear.
    Romanoff was trickier, but only slightly more so. In P. J.’s experience, Russians were inherently paranoid, and the third man was no different. He had a driver who was most likely also a bodyguard, but since hearing the news of Carlucci and Conner’s slayings, he’d added another man to his entourage. Romanoff’s office was on the second floor of an older, three-story complex near the commercial district.
    Over the period of a few days, P. J. determined Romanoff’s evening routine. He tended to stay late, almost always the last person leaving the building, between seven and seven-thirty. His driver left first, walked to a parking garage in the middle of the block, then drove back and picked his boss and the second man up at the front door. Romanoff waited in the foyer area until the car—a boxy, older-model Mercedes—pulled to the curb outside, and then he and the second bodyguard made their exit.

    P. J. entered the building shortly before six o’clock. The foyer was small, unattended, with a directory on one wall listing the tenants. There was no elevator, just two opposing rows of stairs leading to the upper floors. Between the stairwells, a carpeted hallway led to a rear door exiting onto an alley, and another marked Furnace/HVAC. Both were accessible.
    After leaving the building, P. J. ordered coffee at a diner across the street and waited. At six forty-five, she reentered the foyer and took her position in the utilities room. At seven-ten, she observed the driver’s exit. Less than a minute later, he was followed by the Russian—stocky and wearing an expensive camel-colored topcoat, bald pate gleaming in the scant light of the overhead fixture. He and the second man stood with their backs to her, framed in the doorway.
    The carpeting easily masked her footsteps. She stopped eight feet away and said, “Mr. Romanoff?”
    He turned, surprised, and almost smiled until he saw the silenced semiautomatic. She took out the bodyguard first who was reaching inside his jacket for a weapon then pumped three rounds through Romanoff’s camel hair coat, paused long enough to check for a pulse, and left by the rear door.

.....


     Lionel J. Bowman, III was all smiles.
    The scene outside his window hadn’t changed, but the town had, P. J. guessed, and the banker seemed almost giddy with relief. She slipped the remaining half of her payment into her shoulder bag
    He was looking at her like a proud father. “Ms. Holland, you’re simply amazing.”
    “Not really,” she said, “just thorough.”
    “The media coverage was certainly gruesome, but excellent for our purposes. Our message was sent and, I feel sure, received. There’s no place for the criminal element here in our town.”
    He stood, came around the desk, and took both her hands in his. “I imagine this isn’t something you hear very often in your line of work, but you have performed a valuable service for our community. I can’t thank you enough.”
    P. J. extracted her hands, returned his smile, and said, “No thanks necessary, Mr. Bowman. I’m paid very well for my services.”

    Later that same evening a telephone rang in a large northern city. “Hello.”
    “It’s me,” P.J. said. “I’m finished here. Three up, three down, the machinery’s in place—even the cops. All it needs is someone to run it.”
    “That’s excellent,” the man said. “We’ll be down in a day or two.”
    P. J. chuckled. “C’mon in, the water’s fine.”



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