by Dan Simmons
As if reading Kurtz’s mind, Arlene stubbed out her cigarette and said, “Read that last file before you go any further with the O’Toole brothers.”
“The file marked ‘Cloud Nine’?”
“Yeah.”
Kurtz dropped the other stuff offscreen and opened ‘Cloud Nine.’ It was a puff article from The Neola Sentinel, dated August 10, 1974, about the wonderful amusement park being opened in the mountains above Neola. It was expected that this new, state-of-the-art amusement park would attract patrons from all over Western New York, Northern Pennsylvania, and North-Central Ohio. The park included a one-third-scale train that would hold up to sixty youngsters and which would follow tracks almost a mile and a half across and around the mountaintop. The park also boasted a huge Ferris wheel, a roller coaster “second only to the Comet at Canada’s Crystal Beach,” bumper cars, and a host of other amusements.
The park had been built “as a gift to the youth of Neola” by Major Michael Francis O’Toole, president of South-East Asia Trading Company of Neola, New York.
“Ahah,” said Kurtz.
Arlene stopped her typing. “I haven’t heard you say ‘ahah’ since the old days, Joe.”
“It’s a specialized term known only to professional private investigators,” said Kurtz.
Arlene smiled.
“Only this time, you’re the investigator. I didn’t do a damned thing to dig up this information. It’s all you and that computer.”
Arlene shrugged. “Have you read the file labeled Neola H.S. yet?”
“Not yet,” said Kurtz. He opened it.
Dateline The Neola Sentinel, The Buffalo News, and The New York Times, October 27, 1977. A high-school senior, Sean Michael O’Toole, 18, entered Neola High School armed with a .30-.06 rifle yesterday and shot two of his classmates, a gym teacher, and the assistant principal, before being wrestled to the ground by four members of the Neola football team. All four of the shooting victims were pronounced dead at the scene. It stated that Sean Michael O’Toole is the son of prominent Neola businessman and owner of the Cloud Nine amusement park, Major Michael O’Toole and the late Eleanor Rains O’Toole. No motive for the shooting has been given.
Wow, pre-Columbine,” said Kurtz.
“Do you remember when that happened?” asked Arlene.
“I was just a kid,” said Kurtz. Although it would have been the kind of news item he’d have taken an interest in even then.
“You were already in Father Baker’s then,” Arlene reminded him. The court sent kids to Father Baker’s Orphanage.
Kurtz shrugged. The last thing in that file was the January 27, 1978, court hearing for the Major’s kid. Sean O’Toole had been judged by a battery of psychiatrists to be competent to stand trial. He was remanded to a psychiatric institution for the criminally insane in Rochester, New York, for further testing and “continuing evaluation and therapy in secure surroundings.” Kurtz knew about the Rochester nuthouse—it was a dungeon for some of New York State’s craziest killers.
“Did you read the last bit of the Cloud Nine file?” asked Arlene.
“Not yet.”
“It’s just a Neola Sentinel clipping from May of nineteen seventy-eight,” said Arlene, “announcing that the Cloud Nine Amusement Park, already beset by financial difficulties and low attendance, was closing its gates forever.”
“So much for the youth of Neola,” said Kurtz.
“Evidently.”
“But if her uncle was running this business and park in Neola, why wouldn’t Peg O’Toole know about it?” Kurtz mused aloud. “Why would she show me those photos of the abandoned park—assuming it’s Cloud Nine—and not know it’s her uncle’s old place?”
Arlene shrugged. “Maybe she knew the photos weren’t from her uncle’s abandoned park. Or maybe she didn’t even know that Cloud Nine existed. Her father, Big John, didn’t move to Buffalo and start his cop job here until nineteen eighty-two. Maybe the Major and his cop brother were estranged. I didn’t see the Major and his wheelchair in the photos from Big John’s funeral four years ago. You’d think the uncle would be right there next to Ms. O’Toole since Peg’s mother was dead.”
“Still…” said Kurtz.
“Remember you telling me that one of the overturned bumper cars in the photo you saw yesterday had the number nine on it?”
“Cloud Nine,” said Kurtz. “It’s all there. It just doesn’t make sense. I’ll be right back.”
Kurtz got up quickly, hurried to the tiny bathroom back by the purring computer server room, knelt next to the toilet, and vomited several times. When he was done, he rinsed his mouth out and washed his face. His hands were shaking violently. Evidently, the concussion didn’t want him to eat yet.
When he came back into the main room, Arlene said, “You okay, Joe?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you need any other searches related to this?”
“Yeah,” said Kurtz. “I want to find out what happened to this kid, the shooter. Did he stay caged up in Rochester? Is he out now? And I need some details of the Major’s specific history in Vietnam—not just his medals, but names, locations, who he worked with, what he was doing when.”
“Medical records and military records can be two of the hardest things to hack into,” said Arlene. “I’m not sure I can get any of this.”
“Do your best,” said Kurtz. His cell phone rang. He turned to answer it.
Daddy Bruce’s voice said, “You wanted to know when that Big Bore Indian came back to the Blues hunting for you again, Joe.”
“Yeah.”
“He’s here.”
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Big Bore Redhawk was a born-again Indian. That is, he’d been born Dickie-Bob Tingsley and hadn’t really paid attention to the little bit of Native American ancestry his mother had told him he had until he was arrested for fencing jewelry at age twenty-six and discovered—through a sarcastic comment made by the judge at his hearing—that he could have been selling jewelry legally without being taxed because of his reputed Indian blood.
Big Bore Redhawk had chosen his Tuscarora name with care—even though he wasn’t a member of the Tuscarora tribe. Always a fan of huge firearms, Dickie-Bob had admired the Ruger Big Bore Redhawk .357 Magnum pistol more than any other heavy-caliber weapon he’d ever owned. He’d killed each of his first two wives with a Big Bore Redhawk—having to toss each weapon away and knock over some liquor stores to earn enough money to replace it each time—and it was while trying to rob a liquor store (with a totally inadequate .22 Beretta) to replace that second beloved weapon, rusting in the Reservation soil not far from his second wife, that he was arrested and sent to Attica.
Big Bore’s one legal request before being sent up was to change his name. The judge, amused, had allowed it.
Big Bore had known who Joe Kurtz was in the years they were both in Attica, but he’d stayed away from the smaller man. (Most men were smaller than Big Bore Redhawk.) Big Bore had considered Kurtz a crazy fuck—any man who would kill that Black Muslim mofo Ali in a shower shiv fight and get away with it, fooling the guards but drawing a fifteen-thousand-dollar death price on his head from the D-Block Mosque was a crazy fuck. Big Bore didn’t want any part of him. Big Bore hung out with his A.B. buds and let his lawyer work to get him out early based on the premise that he, Big Bore Redhawk, was a victim of anti-Native American discrimination.
Then, last winter, Little Skag Farino, still serving time for murder in Attica, had sent word to Big Bore through Skag’s sister, Angelina Whatsis Whosis, that he’d pay Big Bore ten thousand dollars for whacking Kurtz.
It had sounded good. Little Skag’s sexy sister had paid him two thousand dollars in advance and Big Bore had done a week of serious drinking while making his plans. It shouldn’t have been too hard to kill Kurtz, since Big Bore had his new Big Bore Redhawk .357, an eight-inch Bowie knife, and Kurtz didn’t know he was coming for him.
But somehow Kurtz had found out, driven
up to the Tuscarora Reservation just north of Buffalo in a fucking blizzard, surprised Big Bore and challenged him to a fair fight. Kurtz had even tossed his gun aside for the fight Big Bore had grinned, pulled his giant knife, and said something like, “Okay, let’s see what you got, Kurtz.” And Kurtz had said something like, “I’ve got a forty-five,” and pulled a second pistol out from under his jacket and shot Big Bore in the knee.
It really hurt.
Because Kurtz had threatened to reveal the bit about where his two wives were buried—Big Bore had done a lot of bragging in stir—the Indian had told the cops he’d blown his own knee off while cleaning a friend’s pistol. The cops hadn’t been impressed with this story, but they also hadn’t really given a damn about Big Bore’s ruined knee, so they’d left it alone.
At first, Big Bore had considered leaving it alone as well—Kurtz was a mean little fuck—and the wounded man had planned to just move out west somewhere, Arizona or Nevada or Indiana or one of those states where real Indians lived—and maybe he’d grow his own peyote and live in an air-conditioned tipi somewhere and sell tourists fake rugs or something.
But after several weeks in and out of the hospital while the medics kept futzing with what little cartilage and bone was left in his knee and upper leg, they gave Big Bore a prosthetic hinge—he couldn’t call it a knee—of plastic and steel and consigned him to four months of sheer hell called physical therapy. Every time Big Bore whined or cursed from the pain, which was a hundred times a day, he thought of Joe Kurtz. And what he was going to do to Joe Kurtz.
And then, just last month in September, two of Big Bore’s good A.B. buds from Attica got out on parole, and together the three of them began looking for Kurtz. But his two Aryan Brotherhood pals—Moses and Pharaoh—were unreliable, shot up on skag half the time, and now Big Bore was looking for Kurtz on his own. He had his beloved double-action, seven and a half-inch barreled Big Bore Redhawk .357 Magnum. The huge pistol was made even larger by the addition of a big 2X Burris LER pistol scope hooked to the barrel scallops by scope rings.
The assembled weapon with scope was huge. Neither of his two ex-wives could have lifted the thing with one hand, nor could they have pulled the trigger, what with its 6.25-lb. trigger pull. Big Bore couldn’t fit the scoped weapon in his custom-made Ruger shoulder holster, so he carried around a little gym bag with the scoped Redhawk and a hundred rounds of Buffalo Bore ammo.
He was carrying the bag when he went back to Blues Franklin this night to apologize to the old nigger who owned the place—Daddy Bruce—and explain that he’d been drunk the last time he’d been in and that the A.B. types with him were no friends of his—and to ask, casually, if Daddy had seen Joe Kurtz recently. Daddy had accepted Big Bore’s apology, bought him a drink, and said that if Joe Kurtz didn’t show by eleven P.M., he wasn’t coming.
Big Bore waited alertly until eleven-thirty and had three more drinks while he waited. Some group was playing music, jazz probably, although all music sounded the same to Big Bore. He sorted through various plans but then decided on the simplest one—when Kurtz came through the door, Big Bore would lift the .357 Magnum, blow a hole in Kurtz wide enough to drop Daddy Brace’s little granddaughter through, and then Big Bore would hop in his Dodge Power Wagon and drive straight out to Arizona or wherever, maybe stop in Ohio to visit his cousin Tami.
Quarter to midnight and Big Bore realized that Kurtz wasn’t coming. Just as he was leaving Blues Franklin, Big Bore got the uneasy feeling that he was being set up. What was to keep Daddy Bruce from calling Kurtz. Maybe Kurtz was paying the nigger to be on the lookout.
Franklin Street was dark, everything shut down but the blues club and the coffeehouse three doors down. Big Bore slipped the huge double-action out of the gym bag and carried it muzzle down, pressed against his leg, the massive hammer thumbed back. He moved from shadow to shadow, watching out of the corners of his eyes like they’d taught him in the army before they kicked him out.
No one on the street. No one in the alley. A single other car—a dark and silent Lincoln—was parked half a block up from where his ancient Dodge Power Wagon pickup truck sat high on oversized wheels just across the street. Had he locked it?
Big Bore slipped a flashlight out of the gym bag and shifted the bag under his left arm. Then he moved forward quickly, stabbing the flashlight beam ahead of him toward the cab, the Ruger half-raised.
Both doors were locked. The high cab was empty. Big Bore set the bag down, fished around for his keys, opened the driver’s side door, flashed the beam around once more to be sure, looked over his shoulder to check that no one was getting out of the Lincoln, looked up and down the street, and then jumped into the cab, tossing the bag on the seat to his right and laying the huge scoped pistol on top of it.
He felt the breeze on his neck a second before the muzzle of a gun pressed against the back of his head. Some sonofabitch took the window out of the back of the cab and was hiding in the truck bed.
“Keep your hands on the top of the wheel, Big Bore,” whispered Joe Kurtz. “Don’t turn around.”
“Joe, I been wanting to talk to you…” began the Indian.
“Shut up.” Keeping the cocked .38’s muzzle deep in the flab at the back of Big Bore’s neck, Kurtz reached in, grabbed the Ruger, and dropped it into the bed of the truck.
“Joe, you gotta understand…”
“I understand that the next word you say will be your last,” hissed Kurtz in Big Bore’s ear. “One bullet for each additional word from here on in.”
Big Bore managed to keep quiet His left leg began shaking, but then he remembered. I got the knife on my belt under the vest and he knew that Kurtz would want to talk, want to threaten him, and that’s when Big Bore’d gut him like a fish. He almost smiled.
“Listen,” whispered Kurtz. “Start the engine but then put your right hand back on the top of the wheel next to the left one. That’s good. Steer with both hands up there.”
“I gotta shift…” began Big Bore and then winced, shut his eyes, and waited for the bullet Kurtz pressed the muzzle so deep into his neck that it felt like a bullet coming up into his skull.
“No shifting,” said Kurtz. “This thing’s in second gear, it’ll start in second gear—keep it there. Both hands on the wheel. That car in front of you is going to start up and pull out now. Follow it, but not too close. Get within twenty feet of its bumper and I’ll blow your head off. Fall more than fifty feet behind it and I’ll blow your head off. Go over thirty miles an hour and I’ll blow your head off. Nod if all this is clear.”
Big Bore nodded.
The Lincoln Town Car ahead of them started up, turned on its headlights, and pulled away from the curb, heading slowly south on Franklin Street.
“Turn left here,” said Kurtz. The truck followed the Lincoln as it turned east.
Maybe someone’ll see Kurtz in the truck bed behind me reachin’ in, thought Big Bore, but the stab of hope faded quickly. It was too dark. The sides of the Power Wagon were too high. Kurtz had the old tarp pulled up over him. The Lincoln was moving slowly, crossing Main into the black ghetto where there were fewer and fewer streetlights.
“You just couldn’t leave it alone, could you, Big Bore?” said Kurtz.
The Indian opened his mouth to say something, anything, then remembered Kurtz’s threat.
“You can answer this,” said Kurtz. “Do you know anything about the parking garage?”
“Parking garage?” repeated Big Bore.
Kurtz could tell from the tone of the man’s quavering voice that Big Bore Redhawk had nothing to do with yesterday’s shooting.
The Lincoln pulled up in front of an abandoned line of shops in the darkest section of the old black neighborhoods.
“Stop ten feet behind it, put it in neutral, and set the brake,” whispered Kurtz. “Do anything else and I kill you here.”
Big Bore considered going for the knife then, but the circle of the muzzle pressed into the back of his head was m
ore persuasive than his desperation.
Three men got out of the Lincoln and walked back to the Dodge wagon. Two of them aimed guns at Big Bore, ordered him to step out of the cab, frisked him, took his giant knife, and led him to the Lincoln, where they had him lie down in the trunk. The Town Car’s trunk was very well insulated and Big Bore’s sobs and entreaties were cut off as soon as the lid came down.
“I understand this is supposed to happen tomorrow, way the hell down by Erie, at ten A.M. exactly,” said Colin, Angelina Farino Ferrara’s personal bodyguard.
“Yeah,” said Kurtz. He held the huge, scoped Ruger up in his gloved hand. “You have any use for this?”
“Are you kidding?” said Colin. “That thing’s almost as big as my dick. I like smaller weapons.” He hoisted the little .32 he was holding.
Kurtz nodded and dropped the Ruger through the missing window into the driver’s seat. He had no doubt that truck and gun would be gone by three A.M.
“Miz Ferrara said I should be getting an envelope,” said Colin.
“Tell her I’ll send the money to her this weekend,” said Kurtz.
The bodyguard gave Kurtz a look but then shrugged. “Why ten A.M.?”
“What?” Kurtz’s head was buzzing.
“Why ten A.M. exactly? For the Indian tomorrow.”
“It’s a sentimental thing,” said Kurtz. He hopped down from the Power Wagon bed and began walking toward where his Pinto was parked in front of an abandoned drugstore with broken windows.
When he’d called Angelina on her private line after getting Daddy Brace’s call, the female don had thought he was kidding.
“I’m not,” Kurtz had said. “I’ll still find this skag basher for you, and you keep your fifteen thousand dollars…”
“Ten thousand for finding him,” Angelina said. “I already gave you five as an advance.”
“Whatever. I send the advance back and you keep the rest in exchange for this little favor now.”
“Little favor,” repeated Angelina, her voice amused. “We do this…little thing for you now in exchange for your promise to do this other thing for us someday?”