Hard Freeze

  This morning she was thinking about the ongoing discussions with the Gonzagas and did not even flick a see-you-later wave at the Boys when she followed the footpath west, away from the street, and jogged down through the underpass, careful as always not to slip on any ice there.

  A man with a pistol was waiting for her at the far end of the underpass. It was a serious-caliber semiauto and he had it aimed right at her chest. He held the gun in one hand, the way her father and uncles used to do before an entire generation was trained to carry handguns two-handed, as if they weighed thirty pounds.

  Angelina slid to a stop and raised her hands. She could always hope that it was just a robbery. If it was, she'd blow the motherfucker's head off as soon as he turned to go.

  "Good morning, Signorita Farino," said the man in the peacoat. "Or is it Signora Ferrara?"

  All right, she thought So much for the robbery hope. But if it was a hit, it was the slowest goddamned hit in Mafia memory. This guy could have popped her and been gone by now. He must know about the Boys waiting just a few hundred meters away. Angelina caught her breath and looked at the man's face.

  "Kurtz," she said. They'd never met, but she had studied the photograph Stevie had sent her to give to the Stooges.

  The man neither smiled nor nodded. Nor did he lower s aim. "I know you're carrying," he said. "Keep your hands there and nothing dramatic's going to happen. Yet."

  "You cannot imagine what a mistake you're making," Angelina Farino Ferrara said slowly and carefully.

  "What are you going to do?" said Kurtz. "Put a contract out on me?"

  Angelina had never met this man, but she knew enough about his history not to be coy with him. "That was Stevie's call," she said. "I was just the messenger."

  "Why the Stooges?" asked Kurtz.

  Angelina was surprised by the question, but only for a second. "Consider them an entrance exam," she said. She debated lowering her hands, looked at Kurtz's eyes, and kept them where they were.

  "An exam for what?" asked Kurtz.

  Keep talking, thought Angelina. Another two or three minutes and the Boys would come looking for her when she didn't appear on the return leg of the jog. Or will they? It's cold this morning. The Lincoln is warm. Perhaps four minutes. She kept herself from checking her big digital watch. "I thought you might be useful to us," she said. "Useful to me. Stevie ordered the contract, but I chose the idiots to see if you were any good."

  "Why does Little Skag want me dead?" asked Kurtz. Angelina realized that the man must be very strong, since the .40-caliber pistol he was aiming was not light but his extended arm never wavered for a second.

  "Stevie thinks you had something to do with my father and sister's deaths," she said.

  "No he doesn't." Kurtz's voice was absolutely flat.

  Knowing that if she argued witch him, she might gain more time—or might just get shot in the heart more quickly—she decided to tell the truth. "He thinks you're dangerous, Kurtz. You know too much." Such as the fact that he hired you to hire the Dane to kill Maria and Pop, she thought, but did not say aloud.

  "What's your angle?"

  "My arms are getting tired. Can I just—"

  "No," said Kurtz. The pistol's muzzle still did not waver.

  "I want some leverage when Stevie gets out," she said, amazed to hear herself telling this ex-con what she would tell no one else in the world. "I thought you would be useful to me."

  "How?"

  "By killing Emilio Gonzaga and his top people."

  "Why the hell would I do that?" asked Kurtz. His voice did not even sound curious to Angelina, just mildly bemused.

  She took a breath. Now it was all or nothing. She hadn't planned it this way. Actually, she'd planned to have Kurtz on his knees in a few weeks, his hands restraint-taped behind his back, and perhaps missing a few teeth when she got to this part. Now all she could do was go ahead and watch his face, his eyes, the muscles around his mouth, and his swallowing reflex—those parts of a person that could not not react.

  "Emilio Gonzaga ordered your little pal Samantha killed twelve years ago," she said.

  For a second, Angelina felt exactly like a duelist whose only pistol shot has misfired. Nothing about Joe Kurtz's hard face changed one iota—nothing. Looking into his eyes was like looking at some Hieronymus Bosch painting of a medieval executioner—if such a painting existed, which she knew it did not. For a wild instant, she considered throwing herself to the ground, rolling, and pulling the .45 Compact Witness from her belt, but the unwavering black muzzle aborted that thought.

  Another minute and the Boys will—She knew she did not have another minute. Angelina Farino Ferrara did not go in for self-delusion.

  "No," Kurtz said at last.

  "Yes," said Angelina. "I know you took care of Eddie Falco and Manny Levine twelve years ago, but they were on Gonzaga's leash at the time. He gave the word."

  "I would have known that."

  "No one knew that."

  "Falco and Levine were small-time drug pushers," said Kurtz. "They were too stupid to…" He stopped, as if thinking of something.

  "Yeah," said Angelina. "The little girl. The missing teenage girl—Elizabeth Connors—that your partner Samantha was hunting for. The high-school girl who later turned up dead. The trail led through Falco and Levine because the kidnapping was a Gonzaga gig; Connors owed him almost a quarter of a million dollars and the girl was leverage—just leverage—and those two idiots had been Elizabeth's friendly schoolyard pushers. After your partner stumbled across the connection, Emilio gave the word to Eddie and Manny to get rid of her and then he got rid of the kid. And then you got rid of Falco and Levine for him."

  Kurtz shook his head slightly, but his gaze never left Angelina. The gun was still aimed at her chest. Angelina knew that the .40-caliber slug would smash her heart to a pulp before blasting it out through her spine.

  "You were stupid, Kurtz," she said. "You even did time to help throw investigators off Gonzaga's track. It must amuse the shit out of him."

  "I would have heard," said Kurtz.

  "You didn't," said Angelina, knowing that time was up now—his and hers. It had to go one way or the other. "No one heard. But I can prove it. Give me a chance. Call me and we'll set up a meeting. I'll show you the proof and tell you how I can buy you indemnity from Stevie. And more important, how you can get to the Gonzagas."

  There was a long pause of silence, broken only by the wind blowing in from the lake. It was very cold. Angelina felt her legs threatening to quiver—from the cold, she hoped—and forced them not to. Finally, Joe Kurtz said, "Take that top off."

  She had to raise her eyebrows at that. "Not getting enough, Joe? Been hard to score since you screwed my sister?"

  Kurtz said nothing, but gestured with the muzzle of the pistol.

  Keeping her hands in sight, she tugged off the straps of the tiny headlamp and pulled the loose sweatshirt over her head, dropping it on the black pavement. She stood there only in her jogging bra, knowing that her nipples were more than visible as they pressed through the thin cotton. She hoped it distracted the hell out of Kurtz.

  It didn't. With his free hand, Kurtz pointed to the wall of the underpass. "Assume the position." When she spreadeagled against the wall with her hands on the cold concrete, he approached warily and kicked her feet farmer apart. He tugged her Compact Witness .45 out of its holster and ran his hands quickly, professionally, down her front and thighs, pulling the cell phone from her pocket. He smashed the phone and put the Compact Witness in his peacoat pocket.

  "I want that forty-five back," she said, speaking to the cold breath of the wall. "It has sentimental value. I shot my first husband in Sicily with it."

  For the first time, there came something that might have been a human sound—a dry chuckle?—from Kurtz. Or maybe he was just clearing his throat. He handed her a cell phone over her shoulder. "Keep this. If I want to talk to you, I'll call you."

  "Can I turn around?" said Angelina.


  "No."

  She heard him backing away and then there came the sound of a car starting. Angelina rushed to the opening of the tunnel in time to see an old Volvo disappearing along the footpath into the trees to the north.

  She had time to put on her sweatshirt, tug on her headlamp, and slip the cell phone under her shirt before Marco and Leo came panting down the path, pistols drawn.

  "What? What? Why'd you stop?" wheezed Leo while Marco swept the area with his pistol.

  I should fire these shitheads, thought Angelina. She said, "Charley horse."

  "We heard a car," panted Leo.

  "Yeah, me too," said Angelina. "Big help you two would've been if it had been an assassin."

  Leo blanched. Marco shot her a pissed look. Maybe I'll just fire Leo, she thought.

  "You want a ride back?" asked Leo. "Or you gonna keep running?"

  "With a charley horse?" said Angelina. "I'll be lucky to hobble to the car."

  * * *

  CHAPTER SIX

  « ^ »

  It was just getting light—predawn Buffalo grayness bleeding into even dimmer Buffalo morning gray—when Kurtz got back to his flophouse hotel, only to find that Detectives Brubaker and Myers had come to roust him.

  Kurtz had various telltales in his hotel to tell him if visitors were waiting, but these weren't called for this morning. The hotel was in a rough neighborhood and the local kids had already spray-painted Brubaker's unmarked Plymouth with the tag UNMRACKED CAR on the driver's side—spelling was not the local hoodlums' strong suit—and PIGMOBILE—they had not planned their spacing well—on the passenger side. Something about the sound of "pigmobi" amused Kurtz.

  The rest of the situation did not amuse him all that much. Brubaker and Myers rousted him about once every three weeks and, so far, they'd not caught him with a weapon, but when they did—and the law of averages suggested they would have to—he'd be back in prison within twenty-four hours. Paroled felons in New York State were exempt from the God-given, Constitution-guaranteed, and redneck-worshiped right of every American to carry as much firepower as he wanted.

  With his .40 S&W in one pocket and Angelina Farino Ferrara's cute but heavy little Compact Witness in the other, Kurtz went into the alley in back of his hotel and stashed both weapons behind some masonry he'd loosened himself two weeks earlier. The alley's resident winos and druggies were at the shelter or protecting their benches at this time of day, so Kurtz guessed that he might have a few hours before some scavenger would find his stash. If this roust took more than a few hours, he was screwed anyway and probably would not need the weapons.

  Kurtz's residence hotel, the Royal Delaware Arms, had been a fancy place about the time President McKinley had been shot in Buffalo two turns of the century ago. McKinley may have stayed here the night before he was shot as far as Kurtz knew. The hotel had been going downhill for the past ninety years and seemed to have reached a balance point somewhere between total decay and imminent collapse. The Royal Delaware Arms was ten stories tall and boasted a sixty-foot radio-transmission tower on its roof, pouring out microwave radiation day and night, lethal doses according to many of the hotel's more paranoid inhabitants. The tower was about the only thing on the premises that worked. Over the preceding decades, the hotel part of the building, the lower five floors, had gone from a workingman's hotel to flophouse to low-income housing center, and then back to residential flophouse. Most of the residents were on welfare, lithium, and/or Thorazine. Kurtz had convinced the manager to let him live on the eighth floor, even though the top three floors had been effectively abandoned since the 1970s. A loophole in the fire and building codes had not specifically prohibited the rooms from being rented or some idiot from renting one—living up there amidst the peeling wallpaper, exposed lathing, and dripping pipes—and that is exactly what Kurtz was doing. The room still had a door and a refrigerator and running water, and that was all Kurtz really needed. His room—two large, connected rooms, actually—was on the alley-side corner and served not by one but by two rusting fire escapes. The elevator doors above the fifth floor had been sealed off, so Kurtz had to walk the last three floors every time he came or went. That was a small trade-off for the security of knowing when anyone had visited him and for the warning he would get when someone tried to visit him. Both Petie, the manager and day man on the counter, and Gloria, the night man on the counter, were paid enough each month to be trustworthy about ringing Kurtz on his cell phone if anyone unknown to them headed toward the elevator or stairs.

  Now Kurtz let himself in the alley entrance in case Brubaker had left his sidekick Myers in the lobby—unlikely, since plainclothes cops were like snakes or nuns and always traveled in pairs. He took the back stairs up to the third floor from the abandoned kitchen in back and then walked up the smelly main staircase to the eighth floor. At the sixth-floor level, Kurtz could see the two sets of footprints in the plaster dust he'd left covering the center of the stairs. Brubaker, who had the larger feet—Kurtz had noticed before—had a hole in his sole. That sounded about right to Kurtz. The footprints led down the center of the dusty and dark corridor—Kurtz kept to the walls when he came and went—and ended at the open door to his room. The two detectives had kicked his door in, splintering the lock and knocking the door off the hinges. Kurtz braced himself, made his stomach muscles rigid, and walked into his home.

  Myers came out from behind the door and hit him in the belly with what felt like brass knuckles. Kurtz went down and tried to roll against the wall, but Brubaker had time to step in from the opposite side of the door and give Kurtz a kick to the head that landed on his shoulder as he tucked and rolled again.

  Myers kicked him in the back of his left leg, paralyzing the calf muscle, while Brubaker—the taller, uglier, smarter one of the pair—pulled his Glock-9mm and pressed it to the soft spot behind Kurtz's left ear. "Give us a reason," hissed Detective Brubaker. Kurtz did not move. He could not breathe yet, but he knew from experience that his stunned belly muscles and diaphragm would relax from the blow before he passed out from lack of oxygen.

  "Give me a fucking reason" shouted Brubaker, cocking the piece. It didn't need cocking of course, since it was a single-action, but it looked and sounded dramatic.

  "Hey, hey, Fred," said Myers, sounding sincerely alarmed.

  "Fuck hey, hey, Tommy," said Brubaker, spraying Kurtz's cheek with saliva. "This miserable fuck—" He slapped Kurtz hard on the neck with the cocked pistol and then kicked him in the small of the back.

  Kurtz grunted and did not move.

  "Pat him down," snapped Brubaker.

  With Brubaker's Glock against his temple now, Kurtz lay still while Myers frisked him roughly, ripping buttons off his peacoat as he pulled it open, turning his pockets inside out.

  "He's clean, Fred."

  "Fuck!" The muzzle quit pressing into the flesh next to Kurtz's left eye. "Sit up, asshole, hands behind your back, back against the wall."

  Kurtz did as he was told. Myers was lounging on the arm of the sprung sofa Kurtz had dragged up to serve as both furniture and bed. Brubaker was standing five feet away with the 9mm still aimed at Kurtz's head.

  "I ought to kill you right now, you miserable cock-sucker," Brubaker said conversationally. He patted the pocket of his cheap suit. "I've got a throwdown right here. Leave you here. The rats would have you three-fourths eaten before anyone fucking found you."

  They'd have all of me eaten before anyone found me up here, thought Kurtz. He did not share the opinion aloud.

  "Jimmy Hathaway's ghost would rest easy," said Brubaker, voice tense again, finger also tense on the trigger.

  "Fred, Fred," said Myers, playing the good cop. Or at least the semi-sane cop. The non-rogue killer cop.

  "Fuck it," said Brubaker, lowering the weapon. "You're not worth it, you piece of ratshit. Not when we'll get to do you legally soon enough. You're not worth the fucking paperwork this way." He stepped forward and kicked Kurtz in the belly.

  Kurtz s
agged against the wall and began the countdown to a point where he could breathe again.

  Brubaker walked out. Myers paused for a moment looking down at the gasping Kurtz. "You shouldn't have killed Hathaway," the fat man said softly. "Fred knows you did it and someday he's going to prove it. Then there won't be any warnings."

  Myers walked out too, and Kurtz listened to their footfalls and cursing about the elevator as they descended the echoing staircase. He made a mental note to sprinkle more plaster dust on the steps. He hoped they wouldn't tear his Volvo apart when they searched it.

  It could have been much worse. Brubaker and Hathaway had been friends, of sorts, and both were crooked cops, but Hathaway had been on the Farino pad and on the personal payroll of Maria Farino during her shortlived bid to take over her father's business. Hathaway had seen a chance to take out Kurtz and curry favor with Maria Farino, and it had almost worked for him. Almost. If Brubaker and Myers had been working directly for the Farinos or Gonzagas now, it could have been a short, bad morning for Joe Kurtz. At least now he knew for sure that the cops weren't totally in Ms. Angelina Farino Ferrara's pocket.

  When Kurtz could finally stand, he staggered a few steps, opened the window, and vomited out into the alley. No reason to get his bathroom all messy. He'd cleaned it just a week or two before.

  When he could breathe a little better and his stomach muscles had quit their spasms, Kurtz went to the refrigerator to get breakfast carrying the Miller Lite with him as he sprawled on the couch. He knew he had to get down to the alley to retrieve the two pistols, but he thought he'd rest a bit before doing that.

  Ten minutes later, he flipped open his phone and called Arlene at the office.