by Dan Simmons
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 tittle 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 more 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?"
"Yeah," said Kurtz. After a minute's silence, he'd said, "You started this Big Bore thing last winter, lady. Look at this as a way to clean it up and save some money at the same time."
There was a brief additional silence on the line and then she'd said, "All right. When tonight? Where?"
Kurtz had told her.
"This isn't your style, Kurtz," she'd said then. "I always thought you took care of your own messes."
"Yeah," Kurtz had said tiredly. "I'm just a little busy right now."
"But no more favors like this," said Angelina Farino Ferrara.
Now Kurtz sat in his Pinto and watched the Lincoln Town Car drive away slowly. The huge Dodge Power Wagon was alone at the dark curb, its heavy brackets for a snowplow blade looking like mandibles, the rest of its hulk looking rusted and desolate and sort of sad so far out of its element here in the inner city.
Kurtz shook his head, wondered if he was getting soft, and drove back to the Harbor Inn to get some sleep. He and Arlene were going to go over the rest of the O'Toole computer stuff in the office at eight the next morning. He'd made another call on the way over to Blues Franklin and had an appointment set for ten A.M.
* * *
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
« ^ »
"So why'd you want to meet me here?" asked Detective Rigby King.
"I like the food here," said Kurtz. He glanced at his watch. It was just ten A.M.
They were in the small restaurant area—a long counter and a long, narrow dining area just across the aisle from the counter—set amidst the sprawling, indoor Broadway Market. The market was a tradition in Buffalo, and like most traditions in America, it had seen better days. Once a thriving indoor fresh meat, fruit, flowers, and tchotchke covered market in the old Polish and German section of town, Broadway Market was now surrounded by a black ghetto and really came alive only during Easter time, when the many Polish families who'd fled to Cheektowaga and other suburbs came in to buy their Easter hams. Today, half the market space was empty and there was a halfhearted attempt at some Halloween exhibits and festivities, but only a few black mothers with their costumed kids wandered the aisles.
Kurtz and Rigby sat along the mostly empty counter at the aisle-side restaurant. For some promotional reason, all the waitresses behind the long counter were wearing flannel pajamas. One of them had a sort of sleeping bonnet on. They didn't look all that happy, and Kurtz couldn't blame them.
Kurtz and Rigby were drinking coffee. Kurtz also had ordered a donut, although he nibbled without enthusiasm. Little kids in drugstore Star Wars and Spiderman costumes would glance at him, then look again, and then cringe against their mothers' legs. Kurtz was still wearing the Ray Charles glasses, but evidently the raccoon bruises were turning orange today and creeping out farther from beneath the glasses. He was wearing a black baseball cap to cover most of the small bandage he'd left in place.
"Do you remember coming here as a kid?" asked Kurtz, sipping his coffee and watching what little movement there was in the cavernous space. Many of the mothers seemed morose and sullen, their kids hyperactive.
"I remember stealing stuff here as a kid," said Rigby. "The old women would scream at me in Polish."
Kurtz nodded. He knew other kids from Father Baker's who'd come up here to grab and run. He never had.
"Joe," said Rigby, setting down her coffee mug, "you didn't ask to meet to ramble on about old times. Did you have something you wanted to talk about?"
"Do I have to have an agenda to have coffee with an old friend?"
Rigby snorted slightly. "Speaking of old friends and agendas—you know another ex-con named Big Bore Redhawk?"
Kurtz shrugged. "Not really. There was some guy in Attica with that absurd name, but I never had anything to do with him."
"He seems to want to have something to do with you," said Rigby.
Kurtz drank his coffee.
"Word on the street is that this Indian's been hunting for you, telling people in bars that he has a grudge to settle with you. Know anything about this, Joe?"
"No."
Rigby leaned closer. "We're hunting for him. Maybe the grudge he had with you g
ot itself worked out in that parking garage and Peg O'Toole. You think we should question him?"
"Sure," said Kurtz. "But the Indian I remember in Attica didn't look like the twenty-two caliber type. But that's no reason not to talk to him."
Rigby sat back. "Why'd you invite me here, Joe?"
"I'm remembering some of the details of the shooting."
Rigby looked skeptical but kept listening.
"There were two men," said Kurtz.
The detective folded her arms across her chest. She was wearing a blue oxford shirt today and a soft, camel-colored jacket with the usual jeans. Her gun was out of sight on her belt on the right. "Two men," she said at last. "You saw their faces?"
"No. Just shapes, silhouettes, about forty feet away. One guy did the shooting until I hit him. Then the other grabbed the twenty-two and started firing."
"How do you know it was a twenty-two?" asked Rigby.
Kurtz frowned. "That's what you and the surgeon told me. That's the slug they pulled out of O'Toole's brain and found next to my skull. What are you talking about, Rigby?"
"But you weren't close enough to make out the type of twenty-two?"
"No. Aren't you listening? But I could tell from the sound—phut, phut, phut."
"Silenced?"
"No. But softer than most twenty-twos would sound in an enclosed, echoing space like that. Sort of like they'd dumped some of the powder in each cartridge. It wouldn't make much difference in muzzle velocity, but it sure cuts down on the noise."
"Says who?" asked Rigby.
"Israel's Mossad for one," said Kurtz. "The assassins they sent out to get payback for the Munich Massacre used reduced loads in twenty-twos."
"You an expert on Mossad assassins now, Joe?"
"No," said Kurtz. He set the remaining half of the donut aside. "I saw it in some movie."