by Dan Simmons
Farino looked back at Kurtz, and there was something almost demonic in the old man's gaze. "No, Mr. Kurtz. I am paralyzed from the waist down and temporarily—how did you put it? Out of the loop. But I am nowhere near circling the drain. And I have no intention of staying out of the loop."
Kurtz nodded. "Maybe your daughter just doesn't want to wait around like Prince Charles for five or six decades and is ready to help the succession along a little bit. What's the fancy name for whacking the Old Man—patricide?"
"You are a crude man, Mr. Kurtz." Farino smiled again. "But there has been no discussion of whacking to this point. I hired you to find out what is going on with Richardson's disappearance and the truck hijackings."
Kurtz shook his head. "You hired me to be a target so you could find out who the shooter is so as to protect your own ass, Farino. Why did you kill Carl?"
"Pardon me?"
"You heard me. Sophia said Carl 'died of complications. Why did you put a hit on him?"
"Carl was a fool, Mr. Kurtz."
"No argument there, but why whack him? Why not just cut him loose?"
"He knew too much about the family."
"Bullshit," said Kurtz. "The average cub reporter at the Buffalo Evening News knows more about the workings of your mob family than dear, departed, dipshit Carl could've ever figured out. Why did you have him whacked?"
Farino was silent for several moments. Kurtz listened to the heavy engine idle. One of the bodyguards lit a cigarette, and the match flare was a small circle of diffused light in the black alley.
"I wanted to put her in touch with a certain… technician," Farino said at last.
"A hit man," said Kurtz. "Someone from outside the family."
"Yes."
"Someone outside the Mafia?"
Farino showed an expression of distaste, as if Kurtz had farted in his expensive limousine. "Someone from outside the organizational structure, yes."
Kurtz chuckled. "You sonofabitch. You wanted Sophia to spend time with this hit man just to see if she'd hire him to kill me. Ol' Carl died just so you'd have a reason for this operator and your little girl to chat."
Farino said nothing.
"Did she?" said Kurtz. "Hire him to kill me?"
"No."
"What's this technician's name?"
"Since he was not hired, his name is of no concern."
"It is to me," said Kurtz, and there was an undertone to his voice. "I want to know all the players." He touched the.38 in his belt.
Farino smiled, as if the idea of Kurtz's shooting him and getting away alive were amusing. Then the smile faded as the don considered the fact that Kurtz might do the former without worrying about the latter. "No one knows this man's name," he said.
Kurtz waited.
"He's known as the Dane," Farino said after another long silence.
"Holy shit," breathed Kurtz.
"You've heard of him?" Farino's smile was back.
"Who hasn't? The Kennedy mob connections in the seventies. Jimmy Hoffa. There are rumors that the Dane was behind that lovely underpass hit in Paris, where he used just the little car, no weapon."
"There are always rumors," agreed Farino. "Aren't you going to ask for a description of the Dane?"
It was Kurtz's turn to smile. "From what I hear, it wouldn't do a damn bit of good. This guy is supposed to be better at disguises than the Jackal at the height of his powers. The only good news is that if Sophia had hired him, I'd know it because I'd be dead already."
"Yes," said Farino. "So what is our next step, Mr. Kurtz?"
"Well, tonight's your truck delivery from the Vancouver source. If it's hit, we'll go from there. I'll make myself obvious in investigating it. If Kibunte is involved—whoever's involved—it makes sense for them to come after me next."
"Good luck, Mr. Kurtz."
Kurtz opened the door and the bodyguard held it for him. "Why wish me that?" Kurtz said to Farino. "Whether I have luck or not, you get the information you need. And if I'm dead, you keep the fifty thousand we agreed to."
"Quite true," said the don. "But I may have a future use for you, and the fifty thousand is a small amount to pay for peace of mind."
"I wouldn't know," said Kurtz and stepped out into the alley.
CHAPTER 22
Old mob guys who never quite became made men don't die, they just end up as truck drivers for the mob. Charlie Scruggs and Oliver Battaglia had both been low-level button men back during the Genovese era, but now, in their golden retirement years, were driving this goddamn truck all the way from Vancouver to Buffalo. Charlie was sixty-nine years old and stout and leathery, with a face full of burst blood vessels; he still wore his Teamsters cap everywhere and proudly told everyone of the week he spent as personal driver and bodyguard to Jimmy Hoffa. He had the constitution of a healthy pit bull. Oliver was tall, thin, saturnine, a chain-smoker, only sixty-two but sick much of the time, and—Charlie Scruggs now knew after eight of these damned Vancouver-Buffalo runs—an absolute pain in the ass.
The truck was no eighteen-wheeler, just a basic six-ton carryall: what Charlie had called a deuce-and-a-half back in Korea. Because it was a smaller truck, it could go on backroads and even on streets without much notice. Charlie did all the driving; Oliver rode shotgun—literally, since there was a sawed-off shotgun in the concealed compartment at the top rear of the cab—but Oliver was so slow that Charlie put his faith in the Colt.45 semiautomatic that he kept in a quick-draw holster under his seat.
In eighteen years of driving trucks for the Organization, neither Charlie nor Oliver had ever had to draw his weapons. That was the benefit of working for the Organization.
The drawback was that they had to take the goddamned long way to Buffalo. Not only driving two-thirds the way across Canada—a country Charlie hated with a passion—but not even taking the direct route down through Michigan, back into Canada at Detroit, and up along the north side of Lake Erie. The problem was Customs. More specifically, the problem was that the Canadian and American Customs guys on the arm for the Farino family worked only the night shift at the same time a certain Thursday of the month at the same place: the Queenston Toll Bridge at Lewiston, about six miles north of the Falls. They were getting close. After more than seventy-two hours on the road, Charlie was creeping the truck north out of the Canadian city of Niagara Falls, on the scenic road that ran along the river and gorge. Of course, it wasn't very scenic now—a little after 2:00 a.m. — and neither Charlie nor Oliver would have given a shit about the view in the daylight, but Charlie had orders to stay off the QEW that ran along the shore of Lake Ontario—too many eager Mounties—so he'd had to take Highway 20 down from Hamilton and then head north again from the Falls.
The truck was filled with stolen VCRs and DVD players. Even crammed full, the deuce-and-a-half couldn't hold all that many machines, so Charlie wondered where the profit was. He knew, of course, that the decks were being dumped after being used to copy pirate tapes and discs, but it was still a mystery why the Organization thought it was worth their while to ship a few score of the units all the way from Vancouver to a has-been family in Buffalo.
Ah, well, thought Charlie, ours is not to wonder why, ours is but to do and die.
A few miles below the big park at Canada's Queenston Heights, Charlie pulled the truck into an empty rest area. He shook Oliver awake. "Watch the truck. I gotta go take a piss."
Oliver grunted but rubbed his eyes. Charlie shook his head, went into the empty visitors' center perched right on the edge of the Niagara Gorge just north of the whirlpool, and took his piss. When he came out and crawled back up into the cab, Oliver was sleeping again with his bony chin on his bony chest.
"Goddamn you," said Charlie and shook the shotgun man.
Oliver went face forward into the metal dash. Blood trickled out of his left ear.
Charlie stared for a fatal minute and then went for his.45. Too late. Both doors were flung open and an array of grinning black faces and aimed pisto
l muzzles pointed his way.
"Hey, Charles, my man," said the tallest jig, who had a goddamned diamond in his front tooth and was waving a huge gun. "It's cool, my man. Forget the piece, Charles." The jig held up Charlie's pistol and then dropped it back in his jacket pocket. He pointed the huge revolver. "Just be cool a minute, and then you be on your way again."
Charlie Scruggs had had guns pointed at him before, and was still around to tell about it. He didn't like the fact that they knew his name, but Oliver may have told them that. He was not about to be intimidated by this pissant. "Nigger," he said, "you have no idea the shit you just stepped in. Do you know who this truck belongs to?"
Several of the blacks, especially the one near Oliver wearing a red do-rag, began glowering hate/kill looks, but the tall bald black just looked surprised. "Who it belong to, Charles?" he said, his eyes widening like Stepin Fetchit's.
"The Farino Family," said Charlie Scruggs.
The black's eyes got wider. "Oh, my goodness gracious, heavens to Betsy," he said in a fag voice. "Do you mean the Mafia Farino family?"
"I mean this truck and everything in it—including Oliver and me—are Organization property you coon sonofabitch," said Charlie. "You touch anything in it, and there won't be a shithole in Central America where you can hide your black ass."
The bald man nodded thoughtfully. "You probably right, Charles, my man. But I guess it be too late." He glanced mournfully at Oliver. "We done already touch Ollie there."
Charlie glanced at his dead companion and tried to phrase his next sentence carefully.
The jig did not give him the chance to speak. "Plus, Charlie, my man, you already use the N-word."
Malcolm shot Charlie Scruggs through the left eye.
"Hey!" screamed Doo-Rag from the opposite side, ducking low behind Oliver's body. "Tell me when you about to do that, motherfucker."
"Shut the fuck up," said Malcolm. "'Jectory be up. See Charles's brains on the roof there? You in no danger, nigger."
Doo-Rag glowered.
"Get the machines," said Malcolm.
Doo-Rag flashed a last look but went around behind the truck, cut the padlock with bolt cutters, and crawled in. A couple of minutes later he came around the driver's side carrying a stack of DVD players.
"You sure they the right ones?" said Malcolm.
"Yeah, I sure I'm sure," said Doo-Rag. He pointed to the decal with the serial number on top of each of the players.
Malcolm nodded and Cutter came around the front of the truck. The others made way for him. Cutter removed a small knife from his pocket, pulled open a screwdriver blade, and opened the back of the top DVD.
"You right for a change, Doo." Malcolm nodded again, Cutter took the DVD players, and everyone except for Doo-Rag and Malcolm headed for the Astro Van. "Start the engine," said Malcolm. "Set the block."
"Fuck that," said Doo-Rag. "All that blood and brains and shit. Top of the fucker's head gone, man. Dude could be HIV positive or something."
Malcolm grinned and set the barrel of his huge Smith & Wesson Model 686 Powerport.357 Magnum up alongside Doo-Rag's head. "Get the keys. Start the truck. Set the block."
Doo-Rag crawled in and did all those things. The engine roared as the wooden block was jammed against the accelerator.
"Now," said Malcolm, stepping back, "trick be to pop that brake off, put it in gear, and get the fuck off the running board before truck get there, my man." Malcolm pointed to the edge of the gorge less than fifty feet in front of the truck. There was a light fence there, but no guardrails. Some traffic passed on the road, but no cars pulled into the empty rest area.
Doo-Rag smirked, kicked the brake off, leaned delicately over Charlie's slumped, bleeding corpse, kicked in the clutch, and hit the gearshift lever.
The truck bounced over the concrete parking chock and tore up frozen turf as it roared for the fence.
Doo-Rag rode along for a minute, swinging on the running board, stepping off nonchalantly at the last possible second before the truck tore through the fence and plummeted out of sight, ripping trees and branches off the side of the cliff as it went.
Malcolm set the.357 back in its long shoulder holster under his topcoat and applauded. Doo-Rag ignored him and watched the truck fall.
It was a little over two hundred feet to the river below. This gave the truck time to do a half gainer,
Charlie's corpse flying out the open door in the dark, before the vehicle slammed, upside down, into the huge rocks right at the edge of the swirling water. Dozens of VCRs and DVD players went flying out over the river, each one making its own splash. One of them almost made it as far upriver as the whirlpool. Everyone in the van cheered at the noise that came up out of the deep gorge.
There was no explosion. No fire.
Charlie had been planning to gas up on the American side, where the fuel was cheaper.
CHAPTER 23
"I didn't really expect to see you again, Mr. Kurtz," said Peg O'Toole.
"The feeling was mutual," said Kurtz. He had left the office phone as his contact number, and Parole Officer Peg O'Toole had called saying that he was required to come in to finish his first appointment. Arlene had said that O'Toole had sounded a bit surprised that Kurtz had a real, live secretary.
"Shall we pick up where we left off?" said O'Toole. "We were discussing the fact that you needed a permanent address within the next week or so."
"Sure," said Kurtz, "but can I ask a question?"
The parole officer removed her tortoiseshell glasses and waited. Her eyes were green and cool.
"When they dragged me out of here," said Kurtz, "they wanted to pin a murder rap on me when they knew I wasn't involved. During the arraignment, the charge was changed to illegal possession of a firearm and violating parole. Now that's been dropped."
"What is your question, Mr. Kurtz?"
"I'd like to know what you had to do with the charge being dropped."
O'Toole tapped her lower lip with the stem of her glasses. "Why do you think I had something to do with the charges being dropped?"
"Because I think Hathaway… the homicide cop who dragged me out of here…"
"I know Detective Hathaway," said O'Toole. There was the slightest hint of revulsion in her tone.
"… I think he would have gone ahead with the illegal-carry parole-violation charge," finished Kurtz. "During the interrogation at the city jail, he showed me a throwdown he was ready to plant on me, and I know that he wants me in County for his own reasons."
"I don't know about any of that," O'Toole said curtly. "But I did check into your arraignment" — she hesitated a few seconds—"and I did let the district attorney know that I was present during your arrest and watched the detectives frisk you. You weren't armed when they arrested you."
"You told the D.A. that?" said Kurtz, amazed. When O'Toole said nothing more, he said, "What if Hathaway testified that I had an ankle holster or something?"
"I watched them frisk you," she said coolly. "There was no ankle holster."
Kurtz shook his head, truly surprised. He had never heard of a cop going out of his or her way to keep another cop from railroading someone.
"Can we get back to your interview?" she asked.
"Sure."
"Someone answered the phone number you gave me and identified herself as your secretary…"
"Arlene," said Kurtz.
"… but anyone can claim to be anyone on the phone," finished O'Toole. "I'd like to visit your business office. Did I say something amusing, Mr. Kurtz?"
"Not at all, Officer O'Toole." He gave her the address. "If you call ahead, Arlene will let you in the back way. It might be preferable to coming in the front."
"And why is that?" Her tone was suspicious.
Kurtz told her.
This time it was the P.O. who smiled. "I worked Vice for three years, Mr. Kurtz. I can probably take a transit through a porno shop."
Kurtz was surprised for the second time. He didn't know of many
parole officers who had been real cops.
"I saw you on the Channel Seven WKBW Eyewitness News yesterday evening," she said and waited.
Kurtz also waited.
"Is there any special reason," she said at last, "that you happened to be at the site where a truck had gone into the gorge the night before?"
"Just rubbernecking," said Kurtz. "I was driving along the expressway up there, saw the TV trucks, and pulled into the turnout to see what all the commotion was."
O'Toole made a note on her pad. "Were you on the American side or the Canadian side?" Her tone was casual.
Kurtz actually grinned. "If it had been the Canadian side, Parole Officer O'Toole, I would have been in violation of my parole, and you'd be sending me to County within the hour. No, I think you could tell from the angle that they were shooting video from the American side. I guess they couldn't get a clear shot from where the truck actually went over."
O'Toole made another note. "You seemed almost eager to be seen in the cutaway shots to the crowd," she said.
Kurtz shrugged. "Isn't everyone eager to get on TV?"
"I don't think you are, Mr. Kurtz. At least, not unless you had a specific reason to be seen there."
Kurtz looked blandly at her and thought, Christ, I'm glad Hathaway isn't as smart as she is.
She checked something else off her list. "All right, about your place of residence. Are you settled yet?"
"Not really," said Kurtz, "but I'm getting closer to finding a permanent place to live."
"What are your plans?"
"Eventually," said Kurtz, "I'd like one of those big houses on the bluffs up toward Youngstown, not far from Fort Niagara."
O'Toole glanced at her watch and waited.
"In the immediate future," said Kurtz, "I'm hoping to find an apartment."
"Week after next," said O'Toole, putting down her pen and removing her glasses to let him know that the interview was over. "That's when I'll make the official visit."
CHAPTER 24
The Alabama Beagle Boys—back when there were five of them, there were only four living now—came by their name via an unfortunate photograph picked up by the wire services in the mid-1990s when an Alabama Department of Corrections official, exhilarated by his popular press after bringing back chain gangs, issued horizontally striped prison uniforms to all state inmates. The photographer from the Dothan, Alabama, newspaper had gone out to one of the prison-striped chain gangs working along State Highway 84 not far from the Boll Weevil Monument and photographed five men pulled from the work detail apparently at random.