Dean Abbott walked into the municipal park through the Third Street entrance at three-thirty in the afternoon, exactly as Pete Butler had directed him to do. Pete said the man he was meeting would be wearing a red windbreaker, gray sweatshirt, black jeans, and a blue baseball cap. They were to meet near the pavilion in the center of the park.
Dean, feeling very anxious, walked across the grass toward the pavilion. He saw a man sitting near the structure, wearing the clothes Pete had described. The man was big, even bigger than Pete. When Dean got closer, he saw that the man was very hard looking, had a swarthy complexion, and sported a big, bushy moustache. "He does look Italian," Dean thought. "Maybe Pete was telling the truth, maybe he really is a mobster."
The huge man looked at Dean without expression. "You Dean Abbott?" he asked. His voice was low, guttural and rough.
"Yes, I am," Dean replied. "And you're..."
The man made a waving gesture with his hand. "Don't matter who I am," he said. "You don't need to know and I don't need you to know. You got what Pete told you to bring?"
Dean reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and took out a thick envelope. "It's in here," he said.
"How much?" the man asked.
"Five thousand," Dean replied. "Pete said you wanted half of it before...before you do it."
The man nodded and a grim smile formed on his face. "Just checkin' to be sure you got it right," he said. He reached out his hand. "Gimme."
Dean handed the envelope to the man, who opened it and took quite a bit of time counting the money it held.
"Good, the whole five grand is in there, small used bills, too," the man said. "good job, Mr. Abbott. I like it when people are honest with me." His lips curved into another cruel smile. "Believe me, Mr. Abbot, it's good you did what I said. You really don't want to stiff me."
"Of course I don't," Dean said, experiencing feelings of fear for the first time. "I had no intention of stiffing you." Although he was scared, he felt good about what he was seeing, too. This man would do the job. Nora wasn't going to be troubling him much longer.
"How come you're hirin' me to do this?" the man asked. "How come you ain't usin' Pete, like you did for that buddy of yours?"
"Pete's an incompetent, he screwed up a job someone else hired him for," Dean replied. "I want my job done right."
"You mean the Norris broad?" the man asked. "I saw that in the paper. Pete didn't tell me he done that, but you're right, he did fuck up, didn't he? You set that job up, Mr. Abbott?"
"No, I didn't set it up," Dean replied, "all I did was put Ray Norris in contact with Pete. They made whatever deal was made. I had nothing to do with it."
"Yeah, sure you didn't. Ok, now tell me what you want me to do for you," the man said.
Dean was feeling a little exasperated. He thought Pete had told this guy what he wanted him to do. "I thought Pete told you," he said.
"I want to hear it from you, just to be sure Pete got it right," the man said.
"I want my wife to disappear," Dean said. He wasn't sure he liked this. He didn't want to be standing around here in the park, talking with this man, somebody might see him. He believed all he'd have to do was hand the man the money, but the guy kept insisting on carrying on a conversation.
"I take it you and your old lady ain't gettin' along," the man said.
"I can't see where that's any of your business," Dean retorted. "I'm hiring you to get rid of her. That's what I want you to do. Why I want you to do it doesn't matter, does it?"
"Divorce be a helluva lot less risky than havin' her killed," the man said.
Dean had just about had it. "I want her dead!" he snapped. "What the hell do you think I'm paying you for?"
The man smiled. "Like I said, Mr. Abbott," he said, "I just wanted to be sure exactly what it was you were paying me to do. Thank you for stating it so clearly."
Warning bells began clanging in Dean's head. The man's speech pattern had changed! All of a sudden, he was using much better language than he'd been using earlier. He looked around and saw police officers emerging from the bushes surrounding the Pavilion area and turned back to the man, who was holding something in his hand, something shiny.
"Dean Abbott, you're under arrest," the man said. "For solicitation of first degree murder. I need to advise you of your constitutional rights."
Nora Abbott was stunned when a detective stopped at her house that evening to advise her the police had arrested her husband for attempting to hire someone to kill her.
"Your husband has been charged with solicitation of capital murder, Mrs. Abbott. We wanted you to hear it from us before it makes the news," the detective, Martha Draper, told Nora.
"What's...what's going to happen to him now?" Nora asked.
"He's going to spend the night in jail for sure. He's due to be arraigned tomorrow morning. I can't tell you whether the judge will set bail or not," Martha said. "But given your husband's reputation in the community, and the fact that he'll probably have a good lawyer, I figure he'll get low bail, maybe even be released on PR."
"P...R...." Nora stammered.
"Sorry, I get used to cop talk and forget civilians don't understand," Sgt. Draper said. "I meant Personal Recognizance. That means he promises to be in court when he's supposed to be."
"Oh. Am...am I still in danger?" Nora asked. She still found it difficult to believe Dean actually wanted her dead. And wanted her dead so much he would actually hire someone to kill her. Why? In a few months their divorce would have gone through and he'd have been free.
