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  FOUR KILLING BIRDS

  a Greatest Hit Mysteries short story

  by

  LESLIE LANGTRY

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  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © 2013 by Leslie Langtry

  Gemma Halliday Publishing

  http://www.gemmahallidaypublishing.com

  Previously published by Amazon Publishing

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

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  FOUR KILLING BIRDS

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  "And that's the story of the first Bombay!" I shut the book carefully to avoid startling my birds. The four cassowaries stared at me, blinking.

  "Missi, are you reading to those weird emus?" Mom popped up behind me, causing me to drop the book and startling the birds. They started running around in circles like they were on fire.

  "They're not emus, Mom. They're cassowaries." I bent to retrieve my cousin Gin's book. "Totally different thing."

  Mom frowned and looked at the birds. She thought them weird with their prehistoric looking casques—the bone like structures on top of their heads, and lizard necks and feet. I didn't want her to hurt their feelings by calling them 'weird.' I loved these animals. Sure, they resemble an ostrich in height, and a turkey in color with their bright blue necks and scarlet dangling wattles hanging from their throats, but they are completely unique otherwise. Kind of like me. Maybe that's why I liked them so much.

  I waved my large feathered friends away and motioned for Mom to sit down on a rustic, wood chair. I took the chair opposite her—the one that looks like a giant orange hand.

  "What's up, Mom?"

  Her eyes followed the cassowaries out. "You were reading them the Bombay Family Bedtime Stories book? Why?"

  I shrugged. Mom should've, by now, known not to ask me that question. Who knows why I read them those stories? Perhaps they could learn inside those little pea brains of theirs. Maybe I just liked Gin Bombay's book. I never questioned my own motives, mostly because I did what I wanted anyway.

  Maybe I should explain. My name is Mississippi Bombay, and I come from a family of assassins. Well, we used to be—for about four thousand years anyway. It was the family biz, but we all recently retired from assassination because it just got to be too much. My generation started having issues with the idea that our kids would grow up killing people for a living. Huh? I wonder why no one had that problem before? Anyway, after a year of my cousins squabbling with the Council, we all just decided to end the business.

  I was the family's inventor, and I live on the family island of Santa Muerta—still blowing up things, but for fun this time. We'd kept our secret tropical island headquarters after the shutdown because it's been in the family for centuries. And with it being off the coast of Western South America—it was still a popular vacation spot for the family. We'd kept the block of condos too so the Bombays would always have their own homes here. They didn't visit as often as I'd like, but it was there for them nonetheless.

  "Where's Lex? And the boys? Aren't they home for the holidays?" Mom asked, forgetting that I'd already told her the answers twice already. I needed to work on a cure for Alzheimer's, soon. Or maybe she was hitting my future potential glaucoma stash of marijuana plants again. Oh, I didn't have glaucoma—but it's always best to be prepared, right?

  "Lex was doing stunts for a film shoot in Germany, and the boys are on a college-sponsored ski trip in Switzerland—with, I suspect, some dangerous elements involved that I'm refusing to think about. I'm spending Christmas with you this year, remember?" I cringed as I added the 'remember' part. I'm sure she didn't like to be reminded of her recent issues with memory loss.

  As usual, Mom ignored me, instead handing me a strangely familiar manila envelope sealed with a blood-red wax stamp. The Bombay Crest. I haven't seen one of these since the Council disbanded the Bombay Family business of assassination.

  "What's this?" I took the envelope from her and turned it over, afraid to break the seal. Once you broke the seal, you as much as accepted the assignment. Old fears die hard. Technically, we didn't do this type of work anymore. The island of Santa Muerta was no longer Bombay Central HQ. I no longer invented strange ways to kill people because we no longer killed people.

  Well, I guess we could still kill people—there just wasn't an organization that made us do it anymore.

  "Mom," I repeated, "what the hell is this?"

  She waved her arm in the air absently. "There's one more assignment."

  I stared at her. She really was off her rocker. I pictured her sitting in her condo, alone, re-living the old days by stuffing blank sheets of paper into manila envelopes and closing them with the Bombay seal in red wax. And then I pictured myself inheriting her insanity and doing the same thing. I really, really needed to work on that dementia vaccine…

  "From who? There isn't a Bombay Council anymore." I said gently. "There are no more assignments. No more targets. We gave that all up, remember?" I was worried about Mom. We'd kept the staff at Santa Muerta—she would be cared for the rest of her days. I decided I'd need to talk to the staff, soon, about keeping an eye on her.

  "I know that, Missi! I'm not demented. Not yet." Mom laughed, and I felt a cool trickle of relief.

  "Well what's this then?" I asked, holding the envelope up. I had to admit, I was itching to open it just once, for old time's sake.

  "I already told you. One last assignment." She said it simply, her hands on her hips as if I were a child who didn't understand.

  I sighed and tore into the packet. The only way I was going to get answers was to open it in front of her. Imagine my surprise when I pulled out a full dossier complete with target info and the vic's pics. Huh.

  "This," Mom said, tapping the top of the file with a perfectly manicured index finger, "is the last loose end. This is the one we didn't finish." She looked at me and smiled. "You are going to finish it."

  "But who put all this together? The Council doesn't exist anymore." I flipped through the pages. "And there's some very recent intel in here." Some of the Bombays apparently couldn't let the work go. It wasn't anything new. My great-great grandmother died taking out her last assignment at the ripe old age of ninety-eight years old. She refused to retire. I
t happens.

  Mom waved me off breezily. "Oh, Carolina, Pete, Georgia, and I never felt right about disbanding the business leaving this one thing undone. This assignment has been on the radar for decades—it just never got pushed all the way through. We wanted to tie up this last loose end. That's all."

  The Bombay Council consisted of the elders in the family and their generation of siblings and cousins. My mom's generation had been in charge before we retired—handing down assignments to me and my cousins.

  I looked back down on the file. It was tempting. Terribly tempting. There wasn't a Bombay alive who hadn't wanted this one, plum assignment. But it never came up. Not in our parents' lifetime or ours. If I had to guess, I'd say it was a backburner gig that hadn't been completely pushed through. Kind of a "someday" assignment. We didn't have the full authority to act, so it waited. Now with the Bombays retired, I guess it was the last loose end. And here it was in simple black and white. It was the hit of the millennia, and it had come to me.

  I looked up to see Mom had gone. She kind of did that a lot. The cassowaries were back, looking from the book to me expectantly.

  "We're done for the day boys. Come on, let's get some food." I looked at the birds, who merely squawked. Hrothgar looked at me meaningfully. I took that to mean it was dinner time. I handed over a big container of kiwis, and without thanking me, the birds began happily swallowing the fruit whole. It looked like something out of a cartoon.

  * * *

  This was a special case, and was over the holidays too. I'd need help with this one. And I knew just who to call.

  My cousin, Gin Bombay, answered the phone immediately.

  "Missi! Happy Holidays!" Gin's eager voice was accompanied by the sound of loud Christmas music in the background. I imagined it was probably snowing in the Midwest where she lived. Here on Santa Muerta, it was hot, humid, and sunny. But then, being near the equator—it was always hot and sunny.

  "Same to you!" I wondered how to approach this. Would she be pissed that I was asking her to spend Christmas on assignment with me? I dove in.

  "I need your help on something."

  Gin's voice was bubbly. "Sure! Anything! What is it?"

  "I have an assignment." I said the words slowly, carefully, as if I still couldn't believe it myself. An assignment. Wow.

  She didn't say anything for a second. Then I heard her tell her husband Diego to shut off the music and take Romi to the kitchen. It got quiet on the other end.

  "What are you talking about? An assignment? We don't have assignments anymore!" She was keeping her voice low, and I detected shock mixed with a bit of anger in it.

  "I know," I replied. "I was surprised too. Apparently, this is the one job left unfinished, and they want me to do it. And I need your help."

  "Who's they?" Gin's voice grew louder. "There is no more they! We can't get assignments because there's no more Council!"

  "Calm down!" I ordered. "I'm just telling you what Mom told me when she gave me the envelope—you remember those? The sealed kind?"

  There was no response on the other end.

  "Look, I'm not crazy, and I'm not making this up." I took a breath. "There is one last job, and I need you to help me finish it. And we need to do it on Christmas Eve."

  Gin laughed bitterly, "Missi, you know I love and adore you. And yes, I kind of, sort of, maybe miss the past. But if you think for one moment that I'm coming out of retirement for one last hit—and on Christmas of all days—you're crazy!"

  I brushed off the "crazy" comment. I knew the rest of the family sometimes called me that. But Gin was angry, and I was cool with it. But I had to tell her who the target was.

  "Gin," I said slowly, weighing the words, "It's LEOPOLD."

  She didn't hesitate for a second. "I'm in."

  * * *

  I met Gin on the landing strip on the island. She'd chartered the family's private jet to bring her here. We're not stupid. We'd kept the plane and the pilot. Only these days they were used for family vacations and not for transporting assassins to hits. She was carrying a very wiggly and fat pug under her arm.

  "Hey Poppy!" I rubbed the dog's ears, and she squirmed violently until Gin sat her down at my feet.

  "I had to bring her. I couldn't find a place to take her on this short notice over the holidays," she explained before hugging me. "Just like old times, eh?"

  I grabbed her suitcase, and she followed me to the main building housing the family condos. With only me, Mom, and the staff living there year-round, it was nice to have another one occupied. "You sure you're okay with missing the holidays?"

  Gin shrugged. "This is special. Even Diego was impressed when I told him who we were going after. He's taking Romi to Australia to be with his family, and I decided to bring the dog here. It's fine."

  The thought of Romi made me happy. As Gin's only child, Romi's dad had died years ago. Gin's new husband, Diego, had really stepped up and was a true father to her. That was so cool.

  "Well guess what?" I said. "You can join them after. The gig takes place in Australia."

  She grinned wildly and took the suitcase and left for her rooms. Everybody in the family had their own condo here in the main building on Santa Muerta, that they could use whenever they wanted. We planned to meet at my place in half an hour. I walked there and Gin arrived ten minutes later.

  "So! The big kahuna!" Gin said as she poured us each a glass of wine in my kitchen. "I can't believe they kept this one around. If Liv knew, I'd have to fight her off from coming!" I nodded. Our cousin Liv was a total liberal and true bleeding heart. Going after these hardcore, ultra neoconservatives would've made her swoon.

  LEOPOLD was the last great target. A secret cabal of four elderly men who were insidiously evil, LEOPOLD was responsible for the worst of the worst. Formed in the 1950s, these four men were the masterminds behind such terrors as the assassination of peaceful world leaders, bank and Wall Street scandals, the biggest Ponzi scheme ever, foreclosing on widows and orphans, defrauding disabled military veterans, the creation of a major conservative news channel, corporate espionage…you name it, they did it.

  Gin held up one of the pages from the file. "It says here they were behind the assassination of the most revered saint on earth! I thought she died of old age?"

  I shook my head, "They killed her alright. They gave her a drug that shut down her organs. It was all hushed up."

  "Wow," Gin said softly. "Just…wow."

  Other people have gone to prison for those things. But LEOPOLD was the brains behind it all from corrupt business to war crimes. They were untouchable, and yet they pulled all the strings. Few knew their names, and few wanted to. These four old, rich white men wanted to remain anonymous and horrifically wealthy. They named their group LEOPOLD after Leopold II, the former King of Belgium—a greedy psychopath who slaughtered millions of the Congolese people for his own financial gain. Why name their group after such a despot? Reportedly, they "liked his style."

  Gin picked through the file, "Wow. Just…wow," she said softly. "I knew about some of this, but there's a lot more here than I ever imagined."

  I nodded. "Were you as surprised as I was that several top conservative TV personalities and the prime minister of Russia are robot cyborgs?"

  She shook her head, "No, I'd heard that before. And I knew that they were behind that computer program that makes hospitals charge $200 for an aspirin." She dropped the papers onto the coffee table and leaned back on the sofa.

  "What I didn't know was that they killed a sitting president over the creation of a national arts program. That was their reason? Who doesn't love the arts?"

  "That surprised me too. I always assumed it had to do with something else." Bombays knew who was on the grassy knoll that day. But LEOPOLD never came up as an assignment so there was nothing we could do. We had strict rules about jobs. You could only go after your assigned hit. Nothing more—no renegade or vigilante work.

  "So, Missi," Gin said, "I have to ask. Why
did you invite me to help you? I mean, anyone of us would've jumped at the chance to take out LEOPOLD. Why did you pick me?"

  I stood. "It's easier, I think, if I show you."

  * * *

  Out at the barn, Gin looked from the birds to me. "What are those things?"

  The four cassowaries looked at her, staring as if trying to place her.

  I pointed to the book, and then to Gin, "She wrote the book, guys!"

  The birds looked lovingly at their tattered copy of Bombay Bedtime Stories, then looked at Gin. Enlightenment bloomed in their eyes, and soon they surrounded her, nuzzling and gently pecking her.

  "Ack! Missi!" Gin shrieked. "Are they attacking me?"

  "No, they only do that when I say the code word. They love you!" I said. "I've been reading them your book every night. We're on our fifteenth time." I smiled to see my birds kind of coo-squawking at my cousin. They knew the name Gin Bombay—to them it meant love…in a weird giant birdy way.

  Poppy barked shrilly and jumped into the fray in an attempt to defend her master. The birds stepped back and looked in surprise at the fat little Pug who was chewing them out for crowding my cousin. Gin bent down to pet her defender, and the birds sized the dog up.

  "Get away from Poppy!" Gin screamed as the birds made for the pug.

  "It's okay!" I said, pulling her back. The birds started grooming the little dog. "They think she's your, well, now their baby. Males raise their young cassowaries." We watched as the four male birds started to herd Poppy into the middle of them all. Poppy allowed it. She'd changed her mind about these huge birds being dangerous and realized they were showing affection, which in her mind, she rightfully deserved.