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"Damn! What'd you use on them?" Alex nodded towards the workbench, the bloody hatchet. "Left my gun in the house," Alex said. "I know, don't say it." Harry didn't waste time remonstrating. "Carlisle," he said. "He's the only one of them could call in muscle from the cartel." "I figured as much," Alex said. "Frankie and Vinny ain't locals." "Nah. Little Rock at least, or Memphis. More likely New Orleans or even St. Louis. You've rattled some cages high up." "Any suggestions on how to deal with these?" "Let's see if we can ID them," Harry said. He knelt by the one with the split skull, checking the pockets. He extracted a wallet from the inside pocket of the jacket. "Aldo Carollo. May or may not be a real name. What's the other one got?" Alex had found the other thug's wallet and was examining the contents. "Dwayne Carter. Missouri driver's license. Matches the credit cards, so probably real." "Well, this Aldo might be connected," Harry said. "Name doesn't ring a bell, Missouri could be St. Louis or Kansas City. Cosa Nostra has a presence in both places. Carter could be hired help." "Likely anyone was keeping tabs on them?" "Probably not closely," Harry replied. "But you never know. Most likely, if they came out of KC or St. Louis, they were told to contact someone in Carlisle's operation. He's certainly on top of it, considering how serious it must be. But he may have Brewer handling it. He's his main bagman. But you can be sure he's waiting for a report. "How long before someone starts wondering what happened to them? "Depends. At least a few hours, but something like this could take a day or more, depending on how long it took them to find you, get you in a place to make the hit. Either way, we need to move fast. Let's get this cleaned up." "What do you have in mind?" "We're not going to the cops for sure," Harry replied. "Sure, you can make a case for self-defense, but the attention wouldn't be good. It's unlikely they knew the details, beyond where to find you. So they're not going to be looking here for a while at least. Let's get the blood cleaned up and the bodies gone. They're sure not gonna call the cops." "Got a plan for the bodies?" "Yeah, help me truss them up for transport. Got a couple of tarps, small cheap ones?" Within an hour the bodies were wrapped in two small tarps, tied tightly with rope. Harry backed his truck up to the rollup door and they placed the bodies in the back. "We can clean up later," Harry told him. "Let's get these gone, and we'll come back and finish." Harry drove toward the draw behind the shops, following a dirt trail into the river bottom. "Good thing it's dry," he said. "Jesse Owens owns this place, he's been cleaning up this area. Burning brush piles every few days." Several large piles of trees, pushed over and piled, a Cat D8 that had apparently been used for the task was parked nearby. Harry stopped and backed the truck up to the edge of a small pile. "OK, let's get'em out." he said. Alex helped him drag the bodies out and laid them on the ground. "OK, move the truck over there a ways," Harry said. "Let me get this situated." Alex drove the truck over to the road and watched as Harry fired up the Cat and spent the next hour or so pushing fallen trees onto a pile over the bodies. Returning to the truck he took a roll of orange flagging tape and went back to the pile of trees, tying several pieces of the tape onto some of the projecting tree limbs. "We could probably leave them as is," he told Alex, "but I'll call Jesse tomorrow and tell him that pile needs burned ASAP. He'll know that to do. Once it's done, even if anyone knows where to look there's nothing to find. And no way to tie it to us. Once the fire's out, he'll have his guys take the dozer and scatter what's left all over the place. "In any case no one's gonna come looking. Carlisle will wonder what happened to them, may have some explaining to do with his bosses. But not our problem. But you can bet he'll try again. We need to get some action going that will give him bigger things to worry about."
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