Joe Kurtz Omnibus

by Dan Simmons

  Baby Doc folded his hands. “But they found Hathaway there in the mill, too. Shot in the head.”

  “I’ve heard that,” Kurtz said quietly.

  “My people in the department tell me that the bullet went through his gold detective shield,” said Baby Doc. “Like he held it up to stop his assailant from shooting. Maybe while shouting that he was a cop—the slug that went through the shield went into Hathaway’s open mouth. Or maybe the stupid shit believed it’d really act like a shield and stop a slug.”

  Kurtz waited.

  “But I guess it didn’t work,” said Baby Doc. He started eating his scrambled eggs again.

  “I guess not,” said Kurtz.

  “So what do you want, Joe Kurtz?” He gestured for the waiter to bring Kurtz coffee, and the man at the counter hurried to comply, providing a fresh mug.

  Kurtz didn’t let out his breath, but he was tempted to. He said, “Yasein Goba.”

  “That crazy Yemeni who shot the parole officer Wednesday? Today’s paper says they found him dead from a gunshot here in Lackawanna. They didn’t say whether it was self-inflicted or not.” He quit stabbing at his eggs to squint at Kurtz. “The paper said that an unnamed parolee was shot the same time as the female probation officer, but wasn’t hurt as bad. You?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That explains the blood that’s drained down under your eyes. You’re one lucky son of a bitch, Kurtz.”

  Kurtz had no comment on that. Somewhere outside a generator was chug-chugging and his headache throbbed along with it.

  “What about Goba?” said Baby Doc.

  “What can you tell me about him?”

  “Nothing right now. These Yemenis stick pretty much to themselves. I have some people who can talk to them—them and the other Middle Easterners who’ve moved into neighborhoods here—but I never heard of this Goba until I read about it in the papers.”

  “Could you check with your people—see if they had any contact with this guy?”

  “I could,” said Baby Doc. “And I understand why you’re interested in this Goba if he shot you. But it doesn’t seem worth my effort to dig into this. All reports—including my people inside the B.P.D.—say that this little guy was mad at his parole officer, shot her, and then killed himself. You just got in the way, Kurtz.”

  Kurtz sipped his coffee. It wasn’t bad. Evidently they brewed fresh for Saturday mornings when Baby Doc was holding court. “Goba didn’t kill himself,” he said. “He bled out from a wound he received at the Civic Center.”

  “Did you shoot him?” asked Baby Doc. “Or was it the P.O. who got him before she caught one in the head?”

  Kurtz shrugged slightly. “Does it matter?” When Baby Doc said nothing, Kurtz said, “Goba was shooting a twenty-two-caliber target pistol. The serial number had been taken off by acid—not sloppy, the way so many punks do it, but neatly, carefully, the way Doc used to do it on his used stock.”

  “You think Doc might have sold this Goba the gun sometime last year before…you know?”

  “No,” said Kurtz. “Goba got out of jail after your father was killed. But it’s possible that one of your people sold him the weapon in the last couple of months.”

  About a year and a half earlier, some local black gang members had knocked over an overflow National Guard arsenal near Erie, Pennsylvania, liberating quite a few exotic military weapons. The previous November, bad things had happened to the gang members and the FBI and ATF had recovered some of the proscribed M-16s and other stolen weapons. Some—not all. Word on the street had been that Baby Doc Skrzypczyk had ended up with the bulk of the arms shipment and had been reselling them for a fortune—especially to the Middle Easterners currently moving into Lackawanna in droves.

  Baby Doc sipped coffee and looked past Kurtz. The other five civilians in the restaurant were still waiting for their time with him. “I won’t ask how you know what Goba was shooting or how you know the serial number had been burned off. Maybe your eyes were real good in that parking garage Wednesday. You happen to notice the make and model?”

  “Ruger Mark II Standard,” said Kurtz. “Long barrel. I think Goba was shooting diminished loads.”

  “Why?”

  Kurtz shrugged again. “Makes less noise that way.”

  “Was noise a factor in the parking garage?”

  “It could have been.”

  Baby Doc smiled. “You know why the professional double-tap guys tend to use twenty-twos?”

  “Common knowledge says that it’s because the point twenty-two slugs rattle around in the skull, causing more damage,” said Kurtz. “I never thought that explanation was too convincing.”

  “Nah, me either. Bigger caliber slugs do just fine in the skull. I heard from an old-timer once it was because the mustaches didn’t want to lose their hearing. Most of those old button men were half-deaf anyway.”

  “Can you find out if some of your men sold Goba the gun?” asked Kurtz. “And see if they have any other information on him?”

  Baby Doc glanced at his watch. The Rolex on his wrist was gold and massive, the only thing about him that seemed ostentatious. “Lot of guns in this town that have nothing to do with me,” he said. “But if I check, what’s in it for me?”

  “Gratitude,” said Kurtz. “I remember favors. Try to repay them.”

  Baby Doc’s cold blue eyes stared into Kurtz’s bloodshot eyes for a minute. “All right, I’ll check and get back to you today. Where can I reach you?”

  Kurtz handed him a card. He took out a pen and circled his cell phone number.

  “What’s this SweetheartSearch and WeddingBells stuff?” asked Baby Doc.

  “My skip-trace business. We look up old high-school sweethearts for lonely people then help some of them get married using online resources.”

  Baby Doc laughed loudly. “You’re not what I expected, Joe Kurtz.”

  Kurtz stood to go.

  “Just a second,” said the man in the booth. He lowered his voice so that even the bodyguards wouldn’t hear. “When I saw you here, I thought you’d be asking me about the other thing.”

  “What other thing?”

  “The junkies and skag dealers doing their disappearing act,” said Baby Doc. He was watching Kurtz very carefully.

  Kurtz shrugged again. “Don’t know anything about it.”

  “Well, I thought since you were so tight with the Farinos and Gonzagas…” began Baby Doc and let his voice trail off until it was a question.

  Kurtz shook his head.

  “Well,” said Baby Doc, “word on the street is that one of those guineas brought in a pro called the Dane to settle some old scores.”

  “Does word on the street say which one of the guineas brought him in?”

  “Nope.” Baby Doc sipped his coffee. His eyes were colder than blue steel. “It might pay to watch your ass, Joe Kurtz.”

  He called Arlene while he was driving north on the Skyway toward the downtown. “You get O’Toole’s home address?”

  “Yes,” said Arlene and gave it to him.

  Using the same pen he’d used to write on his business card for Baby Doc, Kurtz scribbled the address on the back of his hand. “Anything else?”

  “I called the hospital and asked about Peg O’Toole’s condition,” said Arlene. He could hear her exhale smoke. “I’m not a family member, so they wouldn’t give it to me. So I called Gail. She checked on the intensive-care unit’s computer. O’Toole’s taken a turn for the worse and is on life support.”

  Kurtz resisted telling her that he hadn’t asked about the parole officer’s condition. “I’ll be there soon,” he said and disconnected.

  The phone rang almost immediately.

  “I want to meet with you,” said Angelina Farino Ferrara.

  “I’m pretty busy today,” said Kurtz.

  “Where are you? Can you come over to the penthouse?”

  Kurtz glanced to his left as he approached the downtown. Her tall marina apartment building was vi
sible less than a mile away. She owned the top two floors—one for business, the top one for herself. “I’m on the road,” said Kurtz. “I’ll call you back later.”

  “Look, Kurtz, it’s important we…”

  He cut her off, dropped the phone in his peacoat pocket, and took the exit for downtown Buffalo.

  He’d gone less man a mile up Delaware Avenue toward Chippewa Street when the red light began flashing in his mirror. An unmarked car pulled up behind him.

  Shit, thought Kurtz. He hadn’t been speeding. The holstered .38 was under his driver’s seat. That parole violation would send him back to Attica where the long knives were waiting for him. Shit.

  He pulled to the curb and watched in the mirror as Detective Kemper stayed behind the wheel of the unmarked car. Rigby King got out the passenger door and walked up to Kurtz’s driver’s side. She was wearing sunglasses. “License and registration, please.”

  “Fuck you,” said Kurtz.

  “Maybe later,” said Rigby. “If you’re a good boy.”

  She walked around the front of his car and got in the passenger side. Kemper drove off.

  “Jesus Christ,” Kurtz said to Rigby King, “you smell like Death.”

  “You say the sweetest things,” said Rigby. “You always did know how to chat up a girl, Joe.” She motioned him to drive north on Delaware.

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “Not yet,” said Rigby King. She slipped handcuffs off her belt and held them up to catch the October light. “But the day is young. Drive.”

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  I got called to a crime scene at three A.M. and I’ve been there ever since,” said Rigby. “Two gay lovers killed each other in a pretty little house in Allentown a week ago—looks like a mutual suicide pact—and nobody found the bodies until last night. Let’s go get a drink.” She motioned him to keep driving north along Delaware.

  “You’re kidding,” said Kurtz. “It’s not even eleven A.M.”

  “I never kid about drinking,” said the cop. “I’m off duty now.”

  “I don’t know where…” began Kurtz.

  “You know where, Joe.”

  Blues Franklin wasn’t open, but Kurtz parked the Pinto behind the building and Rigby jumped out to knock on the back door. Daddy Brace’s grown granddaughter, Ruby, opened the door and let them in.

  Rigby led the way to Kurtz’s favorite table at the back of the room. A white piano player named Coe Pierce was noodling on the dark stage and he flicked a salute to Kurtz while his left hand kept the rhythm going.

  Daddy Brace came up from the basement in a plaid shirt and old chinos. “Rigby, don’t you know what the hell time this establishment opens yet? And no offense, babe, but you smell like carrion.”

  Kurtz looked at the woman next to him. During the year he’d been coming to Blues Franklin again since he’d gotten out of Attica, he’d never thought about meeting Rigby King here. At least not after his first few times back at the jazz place. But then, he hadn’t known that Rigby was within a thousand miles of Buffalo.

  “I know what time it opens,” Rigby said to Daddy Bruce. “And I know you’ve never refused to sell me a drink, even when I was seventeen.”

  The old black man sighed. “What’ll you have?”

  “Shot of tequila with a beer back,” said Rigby. She looked at Kurtz. “Joe?”

  “Coffee,” said Kurtz. “You don’t have any food back there, do you?”

  “I may have me an old moldy biscuit I could slap a sausage or egg into if I had to.”

  “Both,” said Kurtz.

  Daddy Bruce started to leave, turned back, and said, “Ray Charles’s glasses safe somewhere?”

  Kurtz patted his jacket pocket.

  When they were alone, Rigby said, “No drink? Coffee and sausage? You getting old, Joe?”

  Kurtz resisted the impulse to remind her that she was a couple of years older than he was. “What do you want, Rigby?”

  “I have an offer you’ll be interested in,” she said. “Maybe an offer you won’t be able to refuse.”

  Kurtz didn’t roll his eyes, but he was tempted. He thought, not for the first time, that the movie The Godfather had a lot to answer for. He didn’t think Rigby’s offer, whatever it was, would top Toma Gonzaga’s “do-my-bidding-or-die” proposal. He focused his attention on Coe Pierce playing a piano-only version of “Autumn Leaves.”

  “What’s the offer?” said Kurtz.

  “Just a minute,” she said. Big Daddy Bruce had brought her drinks and Kurtz’s mug of black coffee. Rigby tossed back the gold tequila, drank some beer, and gestured for another shot.

  Daddy sighed and went back behind the bar, returning in a minute to refill her tequila, fill an extra shot glass for her, and top off her glass of beer. He also set a plate brimming over with eggs over easy, patty sausages, toast, and hash browns in front of Kurtz. The old man laid down a napkin and silverware next to it. “Don’t expect this service every Saturday,” said Daddy. “I’m only doing this ’cause you always tip Ruby and drink the cheapest Scotch.”

  “Thanks,” said Kurtz and laid into the food with a will. Suddenly, even with the continuing throb of the headache, he was starving.

  Rigby tossed back the second shot glass of tequila, drank some beer, and said, “What the hell happened to you, Joe?”

  “What do you mean?” he said around a mouthful of eggs. “I’m hungry is all.”

  “No, you dipshit I mean, what happened to you?”

  Kurtz ate some hash browns and waited for her to go on. He had no doubt she would.

  “I mean,” continued Rigby, playing with her tequila glass, “you used to give a shit.”

  “I still give a shit,” said Kurtz, chewing on his toast.

  She ignored him. “You were always rough, inside and out, but you used to care about something other than saving your own ass. Even when you were a punk at Father Baker’s, you used to get worked up when you thought something wasn’t fair or when you saw someone treated like shit.”

  “Everyone was treated like shit at Father Baker’s,” said Kurtz. The eggs were good, done just the way he liked them.

  She didn’t even look at him as she tossed back the third tequila and called to Daddy for another one.

  “No more, Rigby,” called Daddy from the back room. “You’re shitfaced already.”

  “The fuck I am,” said the police detective. “One more or I’ll bring the state license people down on your ass. Come on, Daddy—I’ve had a hard night.”

  “You look it and smell it,” said Daddy Bruce, but he poured the final shot glass of tequila, policing up the empty beer mug and extra shot glass as he left.

  “She’s going to get you killed,” said Rigby, enunciating every word with the care taken by someone who’s drunk too much booze in too short a time.

  “Who?” said Kurtz, although he knew who she meant.

  “Little Angeleyes Fuckarino Ferwhoosis is who,” said Rigby. “That Mafia bitch.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Kurtz.

  Rigby King snorted. It wasn’t a feminine sound, but she didn’t smell all that feminine at the moment. “You fucking her, Joe?”

  Kurtz felt his jaw set with anger. Normally he’d say nothing to a question like that—or say something with his fists—but this was Rigby King and she was drunk and tired. “I’ve never touched her,” he said, realizing as he spoke that he had touched Angelina, but only to frisk her a couple of times last winter.

  Rigby snorted again, but not so explosively this time. She drank the last of the tequila. “Her sister Sophia was a cunt and so is this one,” she said. “Word around the precinct house is that you’ve had both of them.”

  “Fuck word around the precinct house,” said Kurtz. He finished his eggs and went at the last piece of toast.

  “Yeah,” said Rigby and the syllable sounded tired. “Word around the house this week is that Interpol says a certain Danish guy might be
crossing into the States through Canada. Or maybe he already has.”

  Kurtz looked up. Had he missed something? Were there billboards up with this news? Had it been on the Channel 7 Action News or something? This assassin must have an advance team doing publicity for him.

  “Got your attention, huh, Joe? Yeah, why do you think your pal Angelina would call for the Dane?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Kurtz. He sipped the last of his coffee. Big Daddy came by, refilled the coffee mug, set down another mug in front of Rigby, filled it with coffee, and went into the back room again.

  “Why do you think, Joe?” repeated Rigby. She sounded suddenly sober.

  He looked at her. His eyes gave up nothing.

  “What if it isn’t your female pal or her new friend Gonzaga who called for this particular European, Joe? Ever think of that?”

  He was tempted to ask her what she was talking about, but didn’t. Not yet.

  “You have any enemies out there who want your scalp, Joe Kurtz? I mean, other than Big Bore Redhawk, of course.” She sipped coffee, made a face, and put the mug down. “Funny about Big Bore, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She looked surprised. “Oh, that’s right, we haven’t told you yet. The Pennsylvania Highway Patrol called us last night with the news that your Indian friend had been found in the woods behind a Howard Johnson’s just off I-90 at the Erie exit. One bullet—nine millimeter—through his left temple. The Erie M.E. says that the shooting took place around ten A.M. yesterday. Ten A.M., Joe.”

  “What about it?”

  “By great good coincidence, that’s exactly when you had me meet you for that bullshit meeting at Broadway Market,” said Rigby, her face flushing. Her brown eyes were angry.

  “You saying that I used you for an alibi, Rigby?”

  “I’m saying that you’ve always been mean, but you didn’t used to be so fucking cute,” snapped the cop. “I really hate cute felons. They really burn my tits.”