Hardcase jk-1

by Dan Simmons

  "Yeah, yeah," interrupted Kurtz, "I know all about your little treaties and arrangements and quotas. Who gives a shit? Skag rocked the boat, trying to get more heroin on the streets and money in his pocket, and you let him be sent up for it. But someone using the family contacts opened those floodgates again just a few months ago. Little Skag thinks it's an end run around you, Don Farino."

  "He's crazy!" shouted Miles and got to his feet again.

  Kurtz looked at the lawyer. "Malcolm Kibunte's gangbangers knocked over the Dunkirk military arsenal last August…"

  "What has that got to do with anything?" Sophia snapped.

  "… and Miles… and whoever's sponsoring Miles… has been trading the weapons for yaba and China White and advanced methamphetamine recipes with Vancouver…"

  "Vancouver?" Don Farino repeated, his tone sincerely puzzled. "Who's in Vancouver?"

  "The Triads," said Kurtz. "Malcolm was shipping the guns overland. The drugs came in through the Niagara border checkpoints along with the electronic hand-me-downs from the Vancouver families. Malcolm and his boys knocked over some of the other truck shipments from Florida and New York just to hide what they were really doing. They were just using your family contacts to get the heroin and yaba here, then dumping the junk on the street market, creating a new generation of addicts."

  There was a silence. Finally Don Farino stared hard at Leonard Miles. "You traded weapons for drugs with our deadliest enemies?"

  "It's a lie." Miles's tone was no longer frightened.

  "William." Don Farino, addressed one of the guards. "Charles." To the other man.

  The two bodyguards stepped forward and pulled long-barreled.38 revolvers from their shoulder holsters.

  "Take Mr. Miles outside and make him talk." The old man sounded very tired. "Then take him somewhere and kill him."

  William and Charles stood there, but they did not aim their guns at Leonard Miles. One of the muzzles was pointed at Don Farino and the other at Kurtz.

  Leonard Miles had now dropped all of his act of fear and desperation. He showed a particularly nasty grin as he stood between the two guards. "More than one hundred and twenty million dollars," he said in conversational tones. "Right under your nose, old man. Do you think I wouldn't use some of it to buy off everyone on your family payroll?"

  Don Farino's head jerked up. Sophia seemed to be meditating. Kurtz sat very still, his palms flat on his thighs.

  "William, Charles," said Miles. "Kill the old man and that bastard Kurtz. Here. Now."

  Four gunshots roared and the room filled with the stink of cordite and blood.

  CHAPTER 37

  "Please state the nature of your emergency," said the bored 911 voice.

  "There's a madman killing people," said Arlene. She gave the porn shop's address and hung up.

  The burned monster was battering the locked door. While the rear door was reinforced by metal, this inner door was just wood. It began to splinter and tear from the hinges as Arlene watched on the small TV monitor.

  Arlene grabbed her purse and prepared to run. Which way? Out the back door and she could probably get the Buick unlocked and started before the burned man caught her. Probably.

  Through the hidden door into the old parking garage. He wouldn't find the hidden door. Unless he knew about it. Then she would be wandering through an empty parking garage with this creature behind her.

  The door shook on its hinges. The cheap lock rattled and gave.

  He might be after Joe, thought Arlene. Which means he might come back.

  She had only a few seconds before the madman would be in the basement with her. Arlene grabbed her umbrella from beneath the wall rack and smashed both overhead lightbulbs. Now, with the computer monitor off, the only light came from the small lamp at her desk and the flickering black-and-white security monitor.

  Arlene ran back to the desk, switched off the lamp, pushed back her chair, and crouched on one knee. The security monitor showed a static-lashed image of the burned and bandaged monster kicking the door off its hinges.

  Arlene turned the monitor off. The long room was suddenly a cave, in near absolute darkness.

  Oh God, oh God, I should have put the thing on first. Arlene fumbled in the lower right drawer. She found the heavy goggles, but the straps were too complicated to fit in the dark.

  The madman was lurching down the steps. She could hear him—heavy breathing, gasping—she could smell him—but she could not see him.

  Arlene held the night-vision goggles up to her face and fumbled the switch on. Luckily, she had played a bit with the strange thing during her free time. The motor inside the apparatus hummed slightly—and suddenly she could see the basement glowing in green tire. The madman swung his head in her direction. In this greenish goggle light, his burns and swollen face and hands and sopping bandages were even more terrible He held a long knife in his right hand. The blade seemed to flicker like a beacon in the amplified night-vision goggles.

  The creature was sniffing the air as if searching for her. He began lurching in her direction.

  Arlene slid her right hand under the desk drawer, found the hammerless.32 Magnum Ruger revolver there, and lifted the weapon. The goggles slipped in her trembling left hand. Suddenly she was blind.

  The burned man ran into the low partition running down the middle of the room. He kicked it to splinters and came on.

  My perfume. He smells my perfume.

  The creature was ten feet away when Arlene squeezed the Ruger's trigger.

  Nothing.

  Oh, dear God. I forgot to load it!

  The burned man crashed into the far side of Arlene's desk. He swung the knife in a wild arc, hitting the computer monitor and sweeping it and stacks of files off the desk with a crash.

  Arlene dropped the night-vision goggles and held the useless Ruger up with both hands. Saliva splattered her as the monster began crawling over the desk. It was screaming obscenities. She could hear him, but not see him.

  No, I loaded it. The safety! Once a week a mah-jongg at Bernice's and twice a week to the shooting range since Alan had died. Arlene clicked off the safety with her forefinger, found the trigger guard, found the trigger, and fired upward into darkness, toward the heat and stench less than a foot above her. She kept firing until the hammer clicked on empty chambers.

  CHAPTER 38

  The Dane stepped out of the darkness of the draped alcove. The bodyguards, William and Charles, were both down from the double taps. William was still, but Charles was still twitching. Leonard Miles stood in the middle of the emptiness where the two armed men had been. The lawyer was blinking.

  The Dane walked over, looked at the twitching Charles, and fired another bullet into the fallen man's head.

  Leonard Miles flinched. The Dane pointed one gloved finger at Miles's empty chair. "Sit, please."

  Miles sat.

  Kurtz was sitting exactly as he had been—feet flat on the floor, palms down on his thighs. Don Farino was holding his chest, but smiling. Sophia Farino had pulled her legs up onto the chair and folded them under her as if a mouse were in the room.

  The Dane was wearing a tan-checked wool topcoat, a Bavarian-style hat, dark-rimmed glasses, but no mustache. He walked around and stood behind and to one side of Don Farino. The semiautomatic 9mm Beretta was not precisely aimed at anyone, but the muzzle pointed in the general direction of Leonard Miles. "Thank you, my friend," said Don Farino. The Dane nodded.

  The don turned his heavy gaze on Miles. "Is my daughter involved in this? Was she the one who gave you the orders?"

  Miles's lips were white and trembling. Kurtz saw the yellow silk upholstery on the seat of the upright chair darken as the lawyer urinated in his trousers.

  "Speak!" exploded Don Farino. The bark was so loud and fierce that even Kurtz jumped a bit.

  "She made me do it, Don Farino," babbled Miles. "She threatened me, threatened to kill me, threatened to kill my lover. She—" He fell into silence the instant that Don Fa
rino made an impatient gesture with his fingers.

  The don looked at his daughter. "You traded weapons to the Triads, brought these new drugs into the community?"

  Sophia looked at him calmly. "Answer me you miserable putana!" screamed the don. His face was mottled red and white. Sophia said nothing.

  "I swear to you, Don Farino," Miles babbled, "I didn't want to be involved with this. Sophia was the one who dropped the dime on Stephen. She was the one who ordered Richardson killed. She was—"

  Don Farino's gaze never moved from his daughter. "You are the one who turned Stephen in?"

  "Sure," Sophia said. "Stevie's a fag and a junkie, Papa. He would have dragged the family down with him."

  Don Farino gripped the arms of his wheelchair until his fingers went white. "Sophia… you would have had everything. You would have been my heir."

  Sophia threw her head back and laughed easily. "Had everything, Papa? What is everything? The family is a joke. Its power gone. Its people spread to the wind. I would have had nothing. I was only a woman. But I want to be don."

  Don Farino shook his head sadly.

  Leonard Miles took the moment to jump to his feet and run for the door, leaping over the body of William as he ran.

  Without raising the Beretta, the Dane shot Miles in the back of the head.

  Don Farino had not even looked up. Without raising his head, he said, "You know the price for such betrayal, Sophia."

  "I went to Wellesley, Papa," she said. Her legs were still pulled up under her like a little girl's. "I read Machiavelli. If you try to kill the prince, do not miss."

  Don Farino sighed heavily. The Dane looked to the old man for instructions. Don Farino nodded.

  The Dane lifted the Beretta, swung it slightly, and blew the back of Don Farino's head off.

  The old man pitched forward out of the wheelchair. What remained of his face banged into the glass coffee table. Then his body slid sideways onto the carpet.

  Sophia looked away with an expression of mild distaste.

  Kurtz did not move. The Dane was aiming the Beretta at him now. Kurtz knew that it was a Model 8000 with ten rounds in the magazine. Three were left. The Dane kept a good, professional distance between them. Kurtz, could try to rush him, of course, but the Dane could put all three slugs into him before Kurtz could get off the couch.

  "Joe, Joe, Joe," said Sophia. "Why did you have to go and fuck everything up?"

  Kurtz had no answer to that.

  CHAPTER 39

  The basement office was overflowing with police and paramedics. Half a dozen of the police were plainclothes detectives and one of them was a woman with auburn hair. She pulled Arlene aside as the others stood around Cutter's body and talked.

  "Mrs. Demarco? I'm Officer O'Toole. I'm Joseph Kurtz's parole officer."

  "I thought you were… homicide," said Arlene. She was still shaking, even though one of the paramedics had draped a thermal blanket over her after they had checked her out.

  Peg O'Toole shook her head. "They just called me because someone knew I'm Mr. Kurtz's P.O. If he was involved with this in any way—"

  "He wasn't," Arlene said quickly. "Joe wasn't here. He doesn't even know about this."

  Officer O'Toole nodded. "Still, if he was involved, it would go better for him if you and he told us up front."

  Arlene had to steady her hand to drink from the Styrofoam cup of water one of the homicide detectives had given her. "No," she said firmly. "Joe wasn't here. Joe had nothing to do with this. I looked on the monitor and saw this… this person… come in and stab Tommy. Then the man went for the two customers. Then he came down here."

  "How did he know there was a basement, Mrs. Demarco?"

  "How should I know?" Arlene said. She met the parole officer's gaze.

  "Does the name James Walter Heron mean anything to you?"

  Arlene shook her head. "Is that… his name?"

  "Yes," said Officer O'Toole. "Although everyone in town knew him as 'Cutter. Does that ring a bell?"

  Arlene shook her head again.

  "And you've never seen him before?"

  Arlene put the cup of water down. "I've told about six of the police officers that. I don't know the man. If I've seen him on the street or somewhere… well, I don't know him, but how could anyone recognize him with all those terrible burns?"

  O'Toole folded her arms. "Do you have any idea where he received those burns?"

  Arlene shook her head and looked away.

  "I'm sorry, Mrs. Demarco. You do understand that one of those tests the officers performed will tell us if you actually fired the gun."

  Arlene looked at her hand and then at the parole officer. "Good," she said. "Then you'll know that Joe wasn't involved."

  "Do you have any idea where we can find Mr. Kurtz?" said Officer O'Toole. "Since this is also his office, we'll have some questions for him."

  "No. He said that he had a meeting this afternoon, but I don't know where or with whom."

  "But you'll tell him to call us as soon as he checks in with you?"

  Arlene nodded.

  One of the plainclothes detectives walked over with the night-vision goggles in a plastic bag. "Mrs. Demarco? Could you answer another question, please?"

  Arlene waited.

  "You say that the assailant was wearing these when he came into the basement?"

  "No." Arlene took a breath. "I didn't say that. I told the other officers that the… the man… took those out of his raincoat pocket and held them up to his eyes."

  "Before or after he knocked the lightbulbs out with that umbrella?" asked the officer.

  Arlene managed a smile. "There was no other light, Officer. I couldn't very well have seen him take those goggle things out of his pocket if he'd done so after he smashed the lights, could I?"

  "No, I guess not," said the detective. "But if it was so pitch-dark, how is it that you could see the assailant to fire at him?"

  "I couldn't see him," Arlene said truthfully. "But I could smell him and hear him… and feel him as he towered over me." She began shaking again, and Officer O'Toole touched her arm.

  The homicide detective handed the night-vision goggles back to an assistant and stood there rubbing his chin.

  "I'm sure he wasn't wearing them when I saw him upstairs on the security monitor," Arlene said.

  "Yeah," said the male cop. "We've looked at the tape." He looked at Officer O'Toole. "It's part of the Dunkirk arsenal inventory. They just raided a place out by SUNY where Kibunte had a hundred other weapons stored. The Bloods were dipping into them in this war they're having with the white-supremacist assholes. If we hadn't been tipped about this warehouse before the Bloods got there in force, Buffalo would have looked like Beirut on a bad day."

  O'Toole nodded, obviously ill at ease speaking in front of Arlene.

  "Are you ready to go down to the station with us, Mrs. Demarco?" said the male cop.

  Arlene bit her lip. "Am I under arrest?"

  The male cop chuckled. "For stopping a piece of shit like this Cutter after he killed at least three people this afternoon? I'll be surprised if the mayor doesn't give you a medal—" He stopped when O'Toole caught his eye. "No, Mrs. Demarco," he said formally, "you're not under arrest at this time. There'll be an investigation, of course; and you'll have to answer a lot of questions tonight and make yourself available to the investigating officers in the coming days, but I'd bet you'd be home by" — he looked at his watch—"oh, eleven at the latest."

  "Good," said Arlene. "I want to watch the local news. Maybe they'll explain what happened here."

  CHAPTER 40

  The Dane held the Beretta steady, its muzzle zeroed on Kurtz's chest and never wavering for an instant. Sophia sucked at her thumbnail and seemed to pout. "Joe," she said, "do you have any idea where you are right now?"

  Kurtz looked around him. "It looks like the last scene of fucking Hamlet," he said.

  The Dane's mouth twitched ever so slightly in what might have
been a smile.

  Sophia dropped her hand from her mouth. "Don't tell me that you've seen Hamlet, Joe."

  "I see all of Mel Gibson's movies," said Kurtz.

  Sophia sighed. "Where you are, Joe, is about half a minute away from being dead."

  Kurtz had no comment on that.

  "And there's no reason that this had to be the way things went," she continued. "Why didn't you just let me keep fucking you and leave the rest of this mess alone?"

  Kurtz considered not commenting on that either, but finally he said, "Your dad hired me. I had a job to do."

  Sophia glanced at her father's corpse and shook her head again. "Some job. Some outcome." She looked at the Dane. "Well, Nils, as I told you on our way to the airport, I hoped it wouldn't come to this—but it has."

  Kurtz moved his gaze to the Dane. The man had never relaxed his attention—or the Beretta's aim—for a microsecond. "Nils?" said Kurtz.

  "It amuses her to call me that," said the Dane.

  "She must be paying you a lot," Kurtz said.

  The Dane nodded almost imperceptibly.

  Kurtz looked back at Sophia. "One question before the party ends," he said. "Did you hire the homicide cop—Hathaway—to kill me?"

  "Sure," Sophia said. She reached into her handbag. Kurtz expected her to pull out a pistol and his stomach tensed, but she raised only a small cassette tape. "Hathaway even brought me the tape of you calling the gun salesperson… what was his name? Doc. Hathaway thought I might use it to blackmail you or get your parole revoked, but we decided that a more permanent solution would be better."

  "Makes sense," said Kurtz.

  "I'm getting bored, Joe," Sophia said. "Your conversation was never very interesting, and today it's deadly dull. Also, we have to call the police and report this terrible attack by the late Mr. Kurtz at least before rigor mortis sets in. May I have the Beretta, Nils? I want to take care of this detail myself."