Hard Freeze

  Kurtz pulled Arlene's Buick to the side of the road and lifted the Nikon with the 300-mm lens attached. The Gonzaga compound was set back a quarter of a mile from the road, recognizable only by distant tile roofs just visible above a high wall that ran completely around the complex. The long access road was private and monitored by video cameras. Kurtz could see razor wire along Ferry Road and more lines of fence between the outer perimeter and the actual wall. The entrance to the compound was gated; there was a Mediterranean-style guardhouse at the gate, and with the long lens, Kurtz could see the silhouettes of three men inside. One of the men was lifting a pair of binoculars.

  Kurtz put the Buick in gear and drove east, getting back on the highway and turning north toward Niagara Falls

  The helicopter tour usually cost $125 and included a swoop over Niagara Falls and the Whirlpool downriver.

  "I've seen the Falls and the Whirlpool," Kurtz told the pilot. "Today I want to see this property I'm considering on Grand Island."

  The pilot—an older, redheaded man who reminded Kurtz of the actor Ken Toby—said, "That would be charter. This is just tourist. Different rates. Plus the weather's pretty shitty with these snow squalls. FAA doesn't want us flying tourists if the visibility isn't great or if there's a real chance of icing."

  Kurtz handed him the two hundred dollars he had borrowed from Arlene.

  "Ready to go?" asked the pilot.

  Kurtz grabbed his camera bag and nodded.

  From a thousand feet up, the layout of the Gonzaga compound was pretty obvious. Kurtz shot two rolls of black-and-white film.

  Driving back to Buffalo, he called Angelina Farino Ferrara on the private line.

  "We need to talk privately," he said. "At length. In person."

  "How do we do that?" said the woman. "I've got two extra assholes these days."

  "Me too," said Kurtz without elaborating. "What do you do when you want to meet some guy to screw him?"

  There was a silence on the line. Eventually she said, "I presume this is relevant."

  Kurtz waited.

  "I bring them here," she said at last. "To the marina penthouse."

  "Where do you pick them up?"

  "A bar I go to or the health club," she said.

  "Which health club?"

  She named it.

  "Expensive," said Kurtz. "Use the phone I gave you to call and leave a guest pass for me tomorrow at one. Your goons haven't seen photos of me, have they?"

  "No one has except me," said Angelina.

  "You and the guys you hire to kill me."

  "Yes," she said.

  "When do your bodyguards report to Little Skag?" asked Kurtz.

  "I'm pretty sure it's Wednesday and Saturday if nothing really unusual happens," she said.

  "We have a few days then," said Kurtz. "Unless screwing a stranger would be considered unusual for you."

  Angelina Farino Ferrara said nothing.

  "Do Tweedledee and Tweedledum actually work out with you?" asked Kurtz.

  "They stay in the weight room where they can see me through the glass," said Angelina. "But I don't allow them to get close." She was silent for a minute. "I take it that you and I are going to discover an instant attraction, Kurtz."

  "We'll see. At least we'll be able to talk at the health club."

  "I want my two pieces of property back."

  "Well, one of them you might not want to keep," said Kurtz. "I donated part of it to a Native American today."

  "Shit," said Angelina. "But I still want it back."

  "Sentimental value," said Kurtz.

  "Yes. So are we going to discover an immediate attraction when we meet at the health club?"

  "Who knows?" said Kurtz, although he had no plans to return to the Farino headquarters at the marina tomorrow. But if she didn't have him killed at the health club, he might need to spend more time with her if his Gonzaga plan was going to work.

  "Assuming we do hit it off in this alternate universe, when the time comes are you going to ride to the penthouse with the Boys and me or will you be driving yourself?"

  "Driving," said Kurtz.

  "You're going to need a better car and a much nicer wardrobe."

  "Tell them you're slumming," said Kurtz, and broke the connection.

  Late that evening, Arlene drove Kurtz back to the Red Door Tavern—he had to pound on the alley door of the place to get the bartender to let him in so he could walk through—only to find Brubaker and Myers gone from their surveillance and his Volvo scratched down the length of its driver's side. Evidently one or the other of the detectives had looked inside the bar, found Kurtz gone, and then vented his frustration in true professional form.

  "To protect and serve," muttered Kurtz.

  He drove out to Lockport carefully, checking for tails. No one was following him. These cops have the stick-to-it quality of an old Post-it Note was Kurtz's uncharitable thought.

  Down the street and around the corner from Rachel's home, he used the electronic gear he'd brought and checked on the various bugs. Donnie was out of town, as promised. Rachel was home alone, and except for the sound of the TV—she was watching Parent Trap, the Hayley Mills version—and some humming to herself, and one call from her friend Melissa in which Rachel confirmed Rafferty's absence, there was nothing to hear. Kurtz took the humming as a good sign, shut down his equipment, dropped the electronic gear by the office, and drove back to the Royal Delaware Arms.

  The plaster dust was undisturbed since that morning. The repairs to his door allowed him to get the police bar in place. Kurtz cooked a dinner of stir-fry on the hot plate and ate it with some cheap wine he'd bought on the way home. The apartment had no TV, but he owned an old grille-front FM radio that he tuned to Buffalo's best jazz/blues station and listened to that while he read a novel called Ada. The wind was cold and seemed to blow in through the plaster cracks and seep up through the floor. By 10:00 p.m., Kurtz was cold enough to check his locks and police bar, flip the big couch into a fold-out bed, brush his teeth, make sure his .40 S&W and Farino Ferrara's two .45s were in reach, and turn in for the night.

  * * *

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  « ^ »

  "Come here often?" asked Kurtz.

  "Fuck you."

  He and Angelina Farino Ferrara were pacing on parallel treadmills in the mirrored and teak-floored sixth-story main room of the Buffalo Athletic Club. Her bodyguards were in the adjoining weight room, clearly visible through the glass wall as they pressed heavy weights and admired each other's sweat-oiled muscles, but out of earshot. No one was exercising near Kurtz and Angelina.

  "Did you bring my property?" she asked. Kurtz was wearing a bulky sweat suit, seriously out of fashion based on what the few other patrons were wearing, but Angelina's fashionable skintight leotard showed that she was not armed.

  Kurtz shrugged and set the treadmill for a faster pace. Angelina set hers to match. "I want those two items back." She was breathing and speaking easily, but she had broken a sweat.

  "Noted." Kurtz glanced over at the bodyguards. "Are they any good?"

  "The Boys? Marco's all right. Leo's a waste of Stevie's money."

  "Is Leo the one with the cupid lips and con torso?"

  "Right."

  "Are these your main men?"

  "The Boys? They're the only ones with me full time, but Stevie's brought in eight other new guys. They're all competent at what they do, but they don't hang out at the marina. Shouldn't you be asking about Gonzaga's protection rather than mine?"

  "All right. What about Gonzaga's people? How many? Any good? And who else is usually in his compound? And how often does he come out of that compound?"

  "These day's, he almost never comes out. And it's never predictable when he does." Angelina cranked up the speed and angle of her machine. Kurtz matched it. They had to speak a bit more loudly to hear one another over the whir. "Emilio keeps twenty-eight people on his payroll at that fortress," she said. "Nineteen of them are muscl
e. Pretty good, although they must be getting rusty just sitting there guarding his fat ass. The rest are cooks, maids, butlers, sometimes his business manager, technicians…"

  "How many with guns in the main house when you visit?"

  "I usually see eight. Two baby-sit the Boys in the outer foyer. Emilio usually has four bodyguards playing servant during the lunch. A couple of others roam the house."

  "And the rest of the guards?"

  "Two in the guardhouse at the gate. About four in the outbuilding security center, where they keep the video monitors. Three more always roaming the grounds with guard dogs. And two with radios driving the perimeter in Jeeps."

  "Other people there?"

  "Just the servants I mentioned and occasional visits from his lawyer and other people. They've never been there when I go for lunch. No other family there. His wife died nine years ago. Emilio has a thirty-year-old son, Toma, who lives in Florida. The kid was supposed to take over the business, but got disinherited six years ago and knows that he'll be whacked if he ever shows up in New York State again. He's a fag. Emilio doesn't like fags."

  "How do you know all this? I mean about the security setup."

  "Emilio took me on a tour the first time I visited."

  "Not very smart."

  "I think he wanted to impress me with his impregnability." Angelina set the treadmill to its fastest pace. She began running in earnest.

  Kurtz clicked in matching settings. For a few minutes they ran in silence.

  "What's your plan?" she asked at last.

  "Am I supposed to have a plan?"

  She gave him a look that seemed Sicilian in its intensity. "Yes, you're supposed to have a fucking plan."

  "I'm not an assassin," said Kurtz. "I hire out for other things."

  "But you are planning to kill Gonzaga."

  "Probably."

  "But you're not seriously planning to try to get to him in his compound."

  Kurtz concentrated on breathing and ran in silence.

  "How could you get to him there?" Angelina flicked sweat out of her left eye.

  "Hypothetically?" said Kurtz.

  "Whatever."

  "Have you noticed that roadwork being done about half a mile south of the compound?"

  "Yeah."

  "Those bulldozers and huge graders and haulers that are parked there half the time?"

  "Yeah."

  "If someone stole one of the biggest of those machines, he could drive over the guardhouse, smash his way into the main house, shoot all the guards there, and whack Gonzaga in the process."

  Angelina hit the stop button and trotted to a halt as the treadmill slowed. "Are you really that stupid?"

  Kurtz kept running.

  She raised the towel from her shoulders and mopped her face. "Do you know how to drive one of those big Caterpillar things?"

  "No."

  "Do you know how to start one?"

  "No."

  "Do you know anyone who does?"

  "Probably not."

  "You got this from a fucking Jackie Chan movie," Angelina said, and stepped off her treadmill.

  "I didn't know they had Jackie Chan movies in Sicily and Italy," said Kurtz, killing his machine.

  "They have Jackie Chan movies everywhere." She was toweling the bare skin where the leotard cut across her cleavage. "You're not going to tell me your plan, are you?"

  "No," said Kurtz. He looked over at the Boys, who had finished bench-pressing and were admiring each other as they curled dumbbells with each hand. "This has been real fun. And I can feel this attraction building to the point where you're going to invite me home soon. Shall we meet again tomorrow, same time, same place?"

  "Fuck you."

  On Sunday mornings, James B. Hansen attended early morning worship service with his wife Donna and stepson Jason, went out with them for a late breakfast at a favorite pancake house on Sheridan Drive, and stayed home in the afternoon while his wife took their son to her parents' place in Cheektowaga. It was his weekly time for private reflection and he rarely missed it.

  No one was allowed in the basement except Hansen. He was the only one who had the key to his private gun room. Donna had never seen the inside of the room, not even when it was being renovated when they had first moved in almost a year earlier, and Jason knew that any attempt to trespass in his stepfather's private gun room would incur serious physical punishment. "Spare the rod and spoil the child" was a Biblical injunction that was taken seriously in the home of Homicide Captain Robert G. Millworth.

  The gun room was guarded by a keypad working on a separate code from the rest of the house security system, a steel door, and a physical combination lock. The room itself was spartan, with a metal desk, a wall of bookshelves holding a law-enforcement officer's assortment of reference books, and a case behind locked, shatterproof Plexiglas doors in which Hansen's expensive gun collection hung under halogen lights. A large safe was built into the north wall.

  Hansen disarmed the third security system, entered the proper combination, and took his titanium case out from where it was nestled with stocks, bonds, and his collection of silver Krugerrands. Returning to his desk, he opened the case and reviewed the contents in the soft glow of the gun-case lights.

  The thirteen-year-old girl in Miami two weeks earlier—a Cuban whose name he'd never learned, picking her up at random in the neighborhood where little Elian Gonzalez had stayed a few years earlier—had been Number Twenty-eight. Hansen looked at the Polaroid photos he had taken of her while she was still alive—and later. He paused only briefly at the single photograph he had taken with himself in the frame with her—he always took only one such photo—and then went on to study the rest of his collection. In recent years, he noticed, the twelve- to fourteen-year-olds had developed earlier than the girls of his own childhood. Nutrition, the experts said, although James B. Hansen knew it to be the Devil's work, turning these children into sexual objects sooner than in previous decades and centuries in order to entice men.

  But there were no children in his collection of the twenty-eight Culled, Hansen knew, only demonettes who were not the Children of God, but the Spawn of the Enemy. This realization when Hansen was in his twenties—that God had given him this special ability, this second sight to differentiate the human girls from the young demons in human form—was what allowed him to carry out his ordained task.

  This last girl's eyes stared up toward the camera after strangulation with that same look of total surprise and terror—surprise at being found out and terror at knowing she had been chosen to be Culled, Hansen knew—as had the other twenty-seven.

  He always allowed himself precisely one hour to review the photographs. Showing the self-discipline that separated him from the mindless psychopaths that stalked the world, Hansen never took any souvenirs other than the Polaroid photos. Nor did he masturbate or otherwise attempt to relive the excitement of the actual Culling. This hour of reflection and review every Sunday was to remind him of the seriousness of his mission on earth, nothing more.

  At the end of the hour, Hansen locked away the titanium case, looked lovingly at his collection of firearms reflecting the halogen spotlights, and left his gun room, scrambling the combination and activating the special alarm system as he did so. It would be another two or three hours before Donna and Jason returned from her parents' place; Hansen planned to use the time reading his Bible.

  Donald Rafferty returned to his Lockport home on Sunday evening, obviously tired from his weekend trip with DeeDee, his Number Two girlfriend. Kurtz was parked down the street and monitoring the bugs in the Rafferty house.

  "Did that kid—whatshername, Melissa?—come over this weekend while I was gone?" Rafferty's voice sounded slurred and tired.

  "No, Dad."

  "You lying to me?"

  "No." Kurtz could hear the alarm in Rachel's voice.

  "What about boys?"

  "Boys?"

  "Which boys were here while I was gone, goddammit?"
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  Kurtz knew from his phone taps that Rachel really didn't talk to any boys, other than Clarence Kleigman, who was in orchestra with her. She would never invite a boy to the house.

  "Which boys did you have over here? Tell me the goddamn truth or I'll get the yardstick out."

  "No boys, Dad." Rachel's voice was quavering slightly. "Did you have a good business trip?"

  "Don't change the fucking subject." Rafferty was still quite drunk.

  A minute of ambient noise and hiss. From the crashing around in the kitchen, it sounded like Rafferty was hunting for one of his bottles.

  "I have homework to finish," Rachel said. Kurtz knew that she had finished all of her homework by Saturday night. "I'll be upstairs." From the bug in the hall, Kurtz could hear the sound of Rachel slipping the lock shut on her door as Rafferty stamped upstairs and began throwing his clothes around the bathroom.

  It was snowing hard. Kurtz let the snow blanket the windshield as he sat listening to random noises through his earphones.

  It had not been a promising week. Kurtz followed few rules in life, but not leaving enemies behind him came close to a rule for him, and this week he had left two people around who wished to do him harm—Big Bore Redhawk and the dying man, Johnny Norse. In each case it had simply been more trouble to deal with them than to let them live; Big Bore had more reasons to stay silent in the hospital than to rat Kurtz out, and Johnny Norse had no idea who Kurtz and Angelina were or what Kurtz's relationship to Emilio Gonzaga might be. Kurtz remembered Norse's almost obscene eagerness to hang onto the last dregs of life and felt secure that the dying man would not be contacting Gonzaga about the visit. But Kurtz's motto had always been "Why play the odds when you can fix the race?" In these cases, though, it would be riskier to deal with bodies than with odds.

  Still, it was a bad habit to leave loose ends behind him and Kurtz could not afford bad habits at the moment.