Joe Kurtz Omnibus

by Dan Simmons

  “Monday’s Halloween,” said Kurtz, as if that explained anything.

  “So?”

  He considered telling her about Toma Gonzaga’s promise to murder him at midnight on Halloween if he hadn’t solved the don’s junkie-killer problem. He considered it for about five microseconds. “I have things to do on Halloween,” he said.

  “All right, early Monday morning,” said Arlene. She came over to the window and joined him in looking out at the rain. It was getting dark in earnest now. “Some people just don’t get a break, do they, Joe?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean this Aysha will wake up tomorrow morning thinking she’ll be meeting her fiancé in a new country that night, that she’ll be a wife and maybe a U.S. citizen, and that everything is working out for her. Instead, she’ll hear that her fiancé is dead and that she’s a stranger in a strange land.”

  “Yeah, well…” said Kurtz.

  “Are you going to tell her that you killed him? Goba?”

  Kurtz looked at his secretary. Her eyes were dry—she wasn’t going soppy on him—but her gaze was focused on something far away.

  “I don’t know,” Kurtz said irritably. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

  “Just that life sucks sometimes,” said Arlene. “I’m going home.” She stubbed out her cigarette, turned off her computer, tugged her purse out of a drawer, pulled on her coat, and left the office.

  Kurtz sat by the window a few minutes, watching the gray twilight and rain and almost wishing that he smoked. During his years in Attica, his non-habit had served him well—the cigarettes he was allowed all went toward barter and bribes. But on days like this, he wondered if smoking would soothe his nerves—or lessen his headache.

  His cell phone rang.

  “Kurtz? Where are you? What happened to our meeting?”

  It was Angelina Farino Ferrara.

  “I’m still traveling,” said Kurtz.

  “You lying sack of shit,” said the don’s daughter. “You’re in your office, looking out the window.”

  Kurtz looked across Chippewa. There was the ubiquitous black Lincoln Town Car, parked on the other side of the wet street. Kurtz hadn’t seen it arrive and park.

  “I’m coming up,” said Angelina. “I know you have a lock on that outside door, so don’t keep me waiting. Buzz me in.”

  “Come up alone,” said Kurtz. He looked at the video monitor next to Arlene’s desk. He had no illusions about the lock down there holding out her bodyguards if they really wanted to come up with her. There was a small window in the computer-server room at the back that opened to a seven-foot drop to a lower rooftop, then a ladder back there to not one but two alleys. Kurtz never wanted to be anywhere with just one way out.

  “I’ll be alone,” said Angelina and broke the connection.

  Kurt watched the woman cross Chippewa toward him in the rain.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-THREE

  The Dodger was frustrated by his morning’s failure to take care of the teacher out in Orchard Park, so he was pleased in the early afternoon when a wireless PDA/cell phone connection to the Boss gave him a new and more interesting task.

  He knew the target from earlier briefings. In one sense, it didn’t make any difference to the Dodger who the targets were or why they had become his targets—they were all means to the ends of the Resurrection to him. But in another sense, it made everything more interesting when the targets were more difficult. And this one should be more difficult.

  He knew the address. It was raining off and on when he drove the extermination van out to the Marina Towers address near the Harbor marina. There was a large public parking lot near the high rise and, as the Boss had promised, a new Mazda sedan was parked there, keys in the tailpipe. A bug van wasn’t the best vehicle in which to tail someone.

  The Dodger settled in the front seat of the Mazda, tuned some jazz on the radio, and watched the front of Marina Tower through small binoculars. He’d been well briefed on the current struggle over the heroin trade in Buffalo and knew that this apartment building was the headquarters for the Farino daughter; she owned the top two floors and kept the penthouse as her personal address while accountants and others worked and sometimes lived on the floor below. Her personal vehicles were kept in the basement garage and that could only be accessed by internal elevators, locked staircases, or through the underground ramp closed by a steel-mesh gate controlled by the residents’ magnetic-strip cards.

  The Dodger waited. The cold drizzle fell harder, which was good; passersby in the parking lot or on the nearby Marina Park Road couldn’t see him through the rain-mottled windshield. The Dodger turned off the radio to conserve the Mazda’s battery and he waited.

  Around four P.M., the garage mesh door went up and a black Lincoln slowly emerged. The Dodger watched as the Lincoln came around to the semicircular entrance drive of Marina Towers. The Lincoln’s driver got out and walked around the car and a second bodyguard stood watching the street as Angelina Farino Ferrara came out the front door, said something to the liveried doorman, and walked over to the Lincoln.

  She didn’t get in. She spoke briefly to the two men and then began jogging along the pedestrian path that led out along the shore where Lake Erie narrowed into the Niagara River. The Lincoln pulled around the entrance drive and followed slowly, heading north. The Dodger turned on his wipers and followed several hundred meters behind.

  He knew from his briefings that the Farino woman liked to jog early in the morning and again in the afternoon, although usually later than this. Maybe it was the coming storm or increasing drizzle that had brought her out early.

  The Dodger also recognized the two men in the Lincoln. The driver was Corso “the Hammer” Figini, serious muscle the female don had brought in from New Jersey the previous spring. The thinner, infinitely more handsome and WASPY-looking man riding shotgun today was Colin Sheffield, a well-dressed, thirties-something London criminal who’d specialized in high-class extortion, drug deals and security. Sheffield had worked for the second-most-powerful mob boss in England until the day he’d gotten a little too ambitious for his own good—not trying to whack his employer, the story went, just trying to corner some of the action for himself—and ended up leaving the country a few hours ahead of the hit team his own boss had sent.

  The Dodger’s earlier briefing hadn’t included how the Farino woman had ended up hiring Colin Sheffield, but that wasn’t all that important.

  The Lincoln was moving slowly, essentially keeping pace with the Farino woman’s jogging, and the Dodger had to pass it or look suspicious. Drivers were turning on their headlights now, and the view to the west and north was all dark gray clouds coming in with the October twilight. The Dodger didn’t turn his head as he passed the Lincoln and the running woman.

  He made a large loop, and returned to the parking lot where he’d started, parking next to the exterminator’s van. He didn’t think that a mob guy’s daughter was very smart keeping to a routine like that, and running along the river path every morning and evening. There were several places along the path where the bodyguards couldn’t see her if they stayed in their car—which they did—and the Dodger thought the jogging would be a good time and place to take her out.

  The briefing had said that Farino ran for forty-five minutes in her river path circuit, and sure enough, she and the Lincoln were back in front of Marina Towers forty-six minutes after they’d left The Dodger watched through his small binoculars as she spoke to Sheffield and Figini, leaning against the car and lifting her legs as she cooled down, and then went in the front door. The Lincoln idled at the curb. Figini, the driver, was reading a racing form.

  Fifteen minutes later, she came out and got in the back seat and the Lincoln pulled away.

  It was dark enough and raining hard enough now that the Dodger didn’t worry about being spotted as he followed the big, black car over to Elmwood and then north to Chippewa Street. He’d be just another pair of h
eadlights to them in Saturday traffic headed for the one lively spot in Buffalo.

  The Lincoln parked on Chippewa and the Dodger paused in a loading zone until he saw the Farino woman cross the street and go in a door. It wasn’t a club or a restaurant, so he took note of the address on the PDA, uplinked it through his cell phone, and waited. When a police car trolled by and paused near the loading zone, the Dodger drove around the block, returned, and found a space only three cars behind the idling Lincoln. The patrol car had gone.

  He was lucky. In another hour, there wouldn’t be public parking within five blocks.

  The two bodyguards were watching a lighted third-story window. Sure that he was still unnoticed by the bodyguards in the dark and rain behind them, the Dodger used his binoculars to watch the same window for a second. Angelina Farino Ferrara stepped in front of the window for a second, looking down toward her bodyguards. Then she turned and spoke to someone in the room. The Dodger had learned how to read lips when he was away, but the woman’s head was turned just enough that he couldn’t make out what she was saying. Then she stepped away, out of sight, and the lights went out in the office up there.

  His cell phone chimed softly and the Dodger put away the binoculars. The two men in the Lincoln Town car were just silhouettes now, the big driver reading and the other staring straight ahead, and the Dodger guessed that the woman’s coming to the window was a prearranged sign telling Figini and Sheffield to relax.

  Text appeared on the PDA screen—Address confirmed, Execute.

  The Dodger wiped the message, removed his 9mm Beretta, and carefully attached the thin suppressor. Then, after pulling on a cheap raincoat that was two sizes too large for him, he switched off the Mazda sedan’s overhead light, scooted past the shifter to the passenger side, and stepped out into the rain.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FOUR

  What do you want?” said Kurtz. “Your money?”

  “That will do for a start,” said Angelina. She moved into the office and watched as Kurtz locked the door behind her. Then she dropped her cashmere coat onto the old leather couch. She was wearing a tight, black dress cut low on top and high on the thighs, expensive leather boots, a single gold necklace, and some subtle gold bracelets. He’d never seen Angelina Farino Ferrara in clothes like that. Come to think of it, thought Kurtz, most of the time he’d seen her, she’d been in gym togs or jogging attire. Her dark hair was swept up and back on the sides, but secured so that it still hung free in back. It looked wet, but he couldn’t tell if that was from walking through the rain or some mousse thing.

  Kurtz picked an envelope off his desk and handed it to her. The entire five thousand dollars advance was in it. He’d use other money to manage his getaway on Tuesday if he had to run for it. He dropped into his swivel chair and looked up at her. The .38 was in its holster taped to the underside of his desk drawer, inches from his hand.

  She took the envelope without comment or counting it, slipped it into the pocket of the coat she’d draped over the arm of the sofa, and walked to the window. The rain was pelting the glass now and the air through the open screen was chill, taking the edge off the heat and stuffiness caused by the servers and other machinery in the back room.

  Still looking out at the neon-busy street, she said, “I need your advice, Joe.”

  “Joe?” said Kurtz. She’d never used anything but his last name. The idea of her needing his advice was also bullshit.

  She turned, smiled, and sat on the edge of Arlene’s desk, switching off the desk light there so that only Kurtz’s low lamp and the glow of the two computers and video monitor illuminated her long legs, strong thighs, and shiny boots.

  “We’ve known each other long enough to be on a first-name basis, haven’t we, Joe? Remember the ice fishing shack?”

  Kurtz did indeed remember the fishing shack out on the ice of Lake Erie the previous February. The body of the man he’d shot barely fit through the ice fishing hole because of the shower curtain and chains wrapped around it. Angelina had been the one to prod it through the round hole with her boot on the corpse’s shoulder—less expensive and more practical boots that night than this. So what?

  “Call me Angelina,” she said now. She casually lifted her left foot and set it on Arlene’s chair. There were a lot of shadows, but it seemed almost certain that Angelina Farino Ferrara was wearing no underpants above the high shadowed line of her stockings.

  “Sure,” said Kurtz. “You wearing a wire, Angelina?”

  The female don laughed softly. “Me, wearing a wire? Get serious, Joe. Can’t you tell I’m not?”

  “Informants usually wear their wire microphones externally,” said Kurtz, speaking softly but never breaking his unblinking stare with the woman.

  She blinked first. The flush that rose to her high cheekbones was not unbecoming. She lowered her foot to the floor. “You shithead,” she said.

  Kurtz nodded. “What do you want?” His head hurt.

  “I told you, I need your advice.”

  “I’m not your consiglieri.”

  “No, but you’re the only intermediary I have right now with Toma Gonzaga.”

  “I’m not your intermediary either,” said Kurtz.

  “He and I both tried to hire you to find this junkie killer. What did Gonzaga offer you?”

  Not to kill me on Tuesday, thought Kurtz. He said, “A hundred thousand dollars.”

  The angry flush left the woman’s cheeks. “Holy fucking Christ,” she whispered.

  “Amen,” said Kurtz.

  “He can’t be serious,” she said. “Why would Gonzaga pay you that much?”

  “I thought you two were on a first-name basis,” said Kurtz. “Don’t you mean! ‘Toma?’”

  “Fuck you, Kurtz. Answer the question.”

  Kurtz shrugged. “His family’s lost seventeen customers and middlemen. You’ve only lost five. Maybe it’s worth a hundred grand to him to find the people doing this.”

  “Or maybe he has no intention of ever paying you,” said Angelina.

  “That’s a possibility.”

  “And why you? It’s not like you’re Sam Fucking Spade.” She looked around the office. “What is this bullshit company you set up? Wedding Bells?”

  “Dot com,” said Kurtz.

  “Is it a front of some sort?”

  “Nope.” Was it? Is it who I am now? Kurtz’s head hurt too much to answer epistemological questions like that at the moment.

  Angelina stood, hitched her skirt down, and paced around the office. “I need help, Kurtz.”

  Demoted back to last names so soon, thought Kurtz. He waited.

  She paused her pacing next to the couch. Kurtz let his hand slide forward a bit. If she had brought her Compact Witness .45, it would be in the pocket of her coat.

  “You know people,” Angelina said. “You know the scum of this city, its winos and addicts and street people and thugs.”

  “Thanks,” said Kurtz. “Present company excluded, of course.”

  She looked at him and reached into the pocket of the draped coat.

  Kurtz slid the .38 half out of its holster under the desk.

  Angelina removed a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She lit her cigarette, set the pack and lighter back in the coat pocket, and paced to the window again. She didn’t look out but stood exhaling smoke and staring at her own reflection in the glass.

  “It’s all right,” said Kurtz. “You can smoke in here.”

  “Thank you,” she said, voice dripping sarcasm, and tapped ashes into Arlene’s ashtray.

  “Actually, I’m surprised you smoke,” said Kurtz, “what with all the running and jogging and such.”

  “I don’t usually,” she said, left hand cradling her right elbow as she stood staring at nothing. “Nasty habit I picked up in all those years in Europe. I just do it now when I’m especially stressed.”

  “What do you want?” Kurtz asked for the third time.

  She turned. “I think maybe Toma Gon
zaga and Little Skag are working together to squeeze me out. I need a free agent in my corner.”

  Kurtz had been called many things in his life, but never a free agent. “Gonzaga being behind this doesn’t make any sense,” said Kurtz. “He’s lost seventeen people.”

  “Have you seen any of these corpses?” said Angelina.

  Kurtz shook his head. “But you told me the killer is hauling off the bodies of your connections as well.”

  “But I know my dealers and customers were whacked,” she said. “My people went to the addresses, saw the blood and brains, cleaned up after the killer.”

  “And you think Gonzaga is faking his casualty list just to take out your people?”

  Angelina made an expressive, Italian movement with her hands and batted more ashes. “It would be a nice cover, wouldn’t it? My family needs to get into the serious drug business, Kurtz, or the Gonzagas will have all the real drug money in Western New York wrapped up.”

  “Gambling and shakedowns and prostitution aren’t enough anymore?” asked Kurtz. “What’s the world coming to?”

  She ignored him and sprawled in Arlene’s chair. “Or maybe somebody is hitting Gonzaga’s people,” she said. “There’s always been a phantom heroin ring we think is working out of Western Pennsylvania—from Pittsburgh up to the Southern Tier of our state. Some sort of independent group that goes way back—twenty, thirty years. They specialized in heroin and since our family wasn’t into that, they never interfered enough with our business to justify a confrontation.”

  “The Gonzaga Family must have wanted to deal with them,” said Kurtz. “Gonzagas have been peddling heroin here since World War II. I’m surprised old Emilio never dealt with these Pennsylvania people.”

  “The Gonzagas never identified the Pennsylvania people,” said Angelina. “Old Emilio actually asked my father for help once in finding them, if you can believe that. But the Five Families don’t know anything about this rogue operation either.”