Career Opportunity Available
Art Montegue

The guy acted like Cliff hadn’t just shot him in the chest. He just kept coming. So Cliff shot him twice more. That got the guy’s attention; he fell over on his face.
Cliff was pale as a ghost. "I’ve told you before, Cliff," I said, "don’t be a cowboy. When you shoot someone, you walk up quietly and put one up behind his ear. None of that face-on ‘I’m here to kill you, you dirty rat’ stuff. You’re paid to kill people, not pretend you’re Edward G. Robinson. Will you never learn? Now get this lug in the car trunk."
"Why not save some effort and just leave him? If he disappears everyone’ll still know he was taken out," said Cliff.
"Cliff, Santos said make him disappear. Santos has paid a bonus to have him disappear. Would you tip a waiter who brought a rare steak when you’d asked for well done?" Cliff and I had been having these discussions for three months. I’d tried using reason but that didn’t seem to be tangible enough for Cliff. Lately I’d been trying little parallel examples that he might understand. They didn’t seem to be helping either.
We were nearly to the salt flats to dump the contract before Cliff regained enough composure to speak. "I need a piece with more oomph," he said.
"Like a shotgun?" I asked.
"Yeah, that’d do it. What’s the best gauge, ten?"
"Cliff, you’ve been in Santos’ house, right?"
"Sure. The boss. Lots of times. Classy as it can get."
You bet. And the people who built it for him, they were the best craftsmen money could buy, right?"
"Right," said Cliff, a little puzzlement creeping into his voice.
"Do you think he just picked some guys to build it who could only do cheap ticky-tacks in the suburbs?"
"No way! He hires the best. Just like us."
"My point exactly," I said. "Cliff, a shotgun is tacky. And shooting a guy straight on when you don’t have to is like the ticky-tackers using cheap concrete for the walls. Eventually one of the walls’ll fall on your head."
I parked the car and waited while Cliff chopped out a hole in the marshy weeds for the contract. I was too old for the heavy work; truth be known, too old for any of this any more. Even Santos had hinted as much, which is maybe why he liked my idea to take on a trainee.
Santos might have thought I was getting soft too. Age does that to a person, I’ve heard. He knew that for awhile I hadn’t been exactly happy in my work. The Colombians, Jamaican posses, other ethnic gangs, terrorists, serial killers, drive bys; the profession was no better than stoop labor these days. And the way prices were dropping, soon I’d be working at cost.
Santos found me Cliff. I hadn’t been in a position to find someone. Except if they were contracts I stayed right away from criminal types. The profession demanded a certain anonymity.
"I’ve been watching Cliff for awhile," Santos said. "He’s a good boy. Ambitious, but not too ambitious. Loyal, knows the rules, not big on conscience, nephew on my wife’s side. I’ve talked it over with him and he knows the score. Teach him to be like you; teach him to be the best."
I took Cliff’s training seriously. I felt some pride in passing along my knowledge. I’d never had a teacher; an aptitude, yes, but never anyone to help me through the tough patches with advice and guidance. Cliff seemed OK at first. Nothing special. That was a bit of a disappointment. He definitely liked the idea of being a professional, but he didn’t much like the idea he’d have to do some work to be one. If he devoted as much attention to learning the trade as he did trying to shoot angles and cut corners, he’d have probably earned a passing mark. But Santos had said Cliff knew the score; who was I to argue?
Naturally, Cliff was impatient to get to the down and dirty but I ensured he learned how to properly plan a contract. At least, I gave him opportunities to learn. That’s all a teacher can do.
I walked him through four contracts in a row. He tagged along and I explained the whys and wherefores of every step in the job. Then, on a few contracts I let him carry out some of the planning, get a taste you might say. I’d just point out options here, unnecessary risks there; that sort of thing. Of course, on these I’d do the contract piece itself, like the matador with his little sword.
Eventually Santos called me for a report card. I guess I knew he would; hoped he wouldn’t. But I had to be honest with him. I’d worked for him for a lot of years and knew him to be a man who did not suffer BS lightly. I cut right to the chase and gave him an assessment on the quick list -- physical fitness, weaponry, team participation, ability to meet deadlines, willingness to take direction, ability to discharge responsibilities, awareness of professional standards, professional ethics, all the usual things.
"Look," Santos said, when I’d finished, "we both know anybody can pop a guy. But I have a reputation and you have a reputation. How’m I gonna look if I don’t go first class? Or you, for that matter, you’re his teacher?"
I knew what he was getting at. I asked how the sister-in-law would take Cliff flunking out. "She’s not an issue," he replied, "she knows these things happen in the business and she knows there’s always good reason. She knows we’re not in a business that gives demerit marks and formal reprimands for personnel files.
"You know as well as me, with family you try to do the right thing, but hiring relatives is always dicey. I hoped Cliff would really apply himself. But I have to protect a lot of interests. You can understand that. Tell you what, I’m going to leave this with you. You’re the professional. You know our standards. Hell, you’ve set some of them. Give him his head on one contract; then no one can say we didn’t go all the way with him."
So, on one hand, Santos pushes it; on another he says any screw-ups are on my head. I guess that shows why he’s the boss. You had to admire the guy, the way he could pass the buck and still keep it in his pocket.
So here were Cliff and me, out in the salt flats with a lug.
Cliff was cursing when he got back in the car. He smelled like dead fish. Long dead fish. "I ruined my shoes, my suit is all mud, and something bit me, a leech or something."
"Probably was." What more could I say. I’d told him that if he used the salt flats remember to bring gumboots and coveralls. Saves a lot of mess. He’d had his head. He’d done his own planning for this contract. That included logistics. I felt a little sad, a little frustrated, maybe a little angry. I’d hoped for more from my protégé. Maybe adult education isn’t one of my fortes.
I let Cliff call the confirmation in to Santos on my cell phone. After all, this was his big moment. The call should have taken ten seconds -- a simple one-liner like, "The contract is fulfilled," or "The work has been completed." If Cliff had shown just that tad of common sense I may have had second thoughts about him.
"Hi, this is Cliff, Uncle Santos," he’d yammered. "Stan Patton asked me to call and tell you that as of now you have one less union boss to worry about. We’ve taken care of your problem. He was tough. It took three rounds to put him away and any one of them would have done a normal guy. He’s disappeared now though, just like you ordered. Its’ time for a little celebration, right?
"Hey, what do you mean? Hello! Hello!" Cliff looked over at me. "The connection’s broken. Weird. The only thing he said was ‘I don’t know you,’ then the line went dead."
"Cliff, the feds probably have a tap on his phone. He just said that for their benefit." Or mine, I thought, resigned, but fundamentally in agreement with Santos.
"Could be," agreed Cliff. He turned back to the phone. "I’ll redial just to make sure."
That was when I put one up behind his ear.
Santos, with his high-priced lawyers, could talk his way out of this mess when the feds came down on him, and after Cliff’s call they surely would. I’d be OK. Stan Patton isn’t my real name, of course. In this business you can never be too cautious. Professionalism, so important.
I went around to the trunk of the car and got out my gumboots and coveralls. Damn, I’m getting too old for this heavy work, but good help seems to be hard to find these days; probably a generational thing. 

Art Montague <mailto:montague_art@hotmail.com> is a Canadian who has published in the field of academic criminology. Presently he is shopping around a caustically comic crime thriller, "Donkey Serenade," featuring PI-in-training George Broonzer, consummate bumbler.