Joe Kurtz Omnibus

by Dan Simmons

  “Yes,” said Frears.

  “There’s a Pontiac following us,” said Angelina.

  Kurtz swiveled back and looked in the rearview mirror. “Where’d it come from?”

  “It was parked a couple of houses down from the place we picked these two up. It’s been moving fast in traffic to catch up.”

  “It could be coincidence,” said the violinist in back, looking out the rear window of the Lincoln.

  Kurtz and Angelina exchanged glances. Obviously neither of them believed in coincidences.

  “The car across the street from my house yesterday was a Pontiac,” Arlene said.

  Kurtz nodded and looked at Angelina. “Can we lose them?”

  “Tell me who we’re losing. I’m beginning to feel like the hired help today.”

  Kurtz thought of her black bag with the $200,000 next to Hansen’s bag of C-4 in the trunk. “You have to admit, the pay’s pretty good,” he said.

  Angelina shrugged. “Who’s behind us? Mr.—?” She tapped the titanium briefcase Kurtz was holding on his lap.

  “One or more of the detectives who are working for him,” said Kurtz.

  “You mean working for him or working for him?”

  “For him personally,” said Kurtz. “Can we lose them? I don’t think you want this guy visiting you.” He tapped the case.

  Angelina Farino Ferrara checked the mirror again. “He’s only one car behind. They probably made the license plate.”

  “Still…” said Kurtz.

  “Everyone buckle up,” said Angelina.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The light was red by Nichols School at the intersection of Colvin and Amherst where the street ended at the park. The Lincoln was second in line. Kurtz glanced back and could see the silhouette of only one head in the Pontiac two cars back.

  Without warning, Angelina swung the Lincoln around the old car ahead of them, almost hit a Honda turning left from Amherst, and accelerated through the red light—cutting off two other cars that had to brake wildly. She headed east on Amherst for a hundred yards and then swung south again on Nottingham Terrace along the edge of the park.

  “The car’s following,” called Arlene from the back seat.

  Angelina nodded. They were doing seventy miles per hour on the residential street. She braked hard and swung the big vehicle up a ramp onto the Scajaquada Expressway. A hundred yards back, almost lost in the snowfall, the Pontiac bounced and roared its way up the same ramp.

  Cutting more cars off as she made the exchange from the Scajaquada to 190, she accelerated to one hundred miles per hour as they roared south over snow and black ice along the elevated sections paralleling the river.

  For a minute, the Pontiac was lost in traffic, and Angelina braked hard enough to send the Lincoln into a slide. Going lock to lock with the steering wheel, tapping the brake and hitting the gas again to bring the rear end around, Angelina cut off a rusty Jetta and zoomed down another ramp, drove through a red light in front of an eighteen-wheeler to drive east on Porter and then swung around behind the old pumping-station building in La Salle Park.

  The street here—old AmVets Drive—had not been plowed for hours, and Angelina slowed as the black Lincoln kicked up rooster tails of snow. To their right, the Niagara River widened toward Lake Erie, but it was all ice, all snow, as featureless gray-white as the frozen fields in the empty park to their left. The back street connected to the maze of local loops and streets around the Erie Basin Marina and the Marina Towers. The Pontiac did not reappear.

  Hansen did not use the battering ram. He and Brubaker kicked in the side door of Gail DeMarco’s duplex and went up the stairs width their guns drawn.

  The tiny little apartment up there was empty. Photographs on the bedroom dresser showed the nurse Hansen had interviewed, Gail DeMarco, Kurtz’s secretary Arlene, and a man who was probably Arlene DeMarco’s dead husband. Hansen and Brubaker searched the rooms, but there was no sign that the secretary or Frears or Kurtz had been there.

  “Shit,” said Brubaker, holstering his weapon and ignoring the frown at the use of such language. Brubaker gave Hansen a shrewd, ferret look. “Captain, what the hell is going on?”

  Hansen stared at the detective.

  “You know what I mean, Captain. You couldn’t care less about this Kurtz, and now you’ve got Myers and me running all over town and back trying to find him and his secretary and this violinist. We’ve violated about three dozen department procedures. What’s going on?”

  “What do you mean, Fred?”

  “Don’t Fred me, Millworth.” Brubaker was showing his smoker’s teeth in a leer. “You say you’re going to cover my back in an Internal-Affairs investigation, but why? You’re the original straight-arrow, aren’t you? What the fuck is going on here?”

  Hansen lifted the Glock-9 and laid the muzzle against Detective Brubaker’s temple. Thumbing the hammer back for effect, Hansen said, “Are you listening?”

  Brubaker nodded very slightly.

  “How much did Little Skag Farino pay you to get Kurtz, Detective Brubaker?”

  “Five thousand in advance to arrest him and get him into the system. Another five when someone whacked him at County.”

  “And?” said Hansen.

  “Fifteen K promised if I killed him myself.”

  “How long have you been on the Farino payroll, Detective Brubaker?”

  “December. Just after Jimmy died.”

  Hansen leaned closer. “You sold your gold badge for five thousand dollars, Detective. This situation—with Frears, with Kurtz—is worth a hundred times that. To you, Myers, me.”

  Brubaker rolled his eyes toward Hansen. “Half a million dollars? Total?”

  “Apiece,” said Hansen.

  Brubaker licked his lips. “Drugs then? The Gonzagas?”

  Hansen denied nothing. “Are you going to help me, Detective? Or are you going to continue asking insulting questions?”

  “I’m going to help you, Captain.”

  Hansen lowered the Glock-9. “What about Tommy Myers?”

  “What about him…sir?”

  “Can he be trusted to do as he’s told?”

  Brubaker looked calculating. “Tommy’s not on anybody’s payroll except the department’s, Captain. But he does what I tell him to. He’ll keep his mouth shut.”

  Hansen saw the shrewd glint in Brubaker’s eyes and realized that the detective was already planning on how to eliminate Tommy Myers from the payoff once the work was done. Half of a million and a half dollars was seven hundred and fifty thousand for Detective Frederick Brubaker. Hansen didn’t care—there was no drug money, no money of any sort involved—as long as Brubaker did what he was told.

  Hansen’s phone rang.

  “I lost them on the downtown section of the Thruway,” said Myers. He sounded a little breathless. “But I got a make on the license plates. Byron Farino of Orchard Park.”

  Hansen had to smile. The old don was dead and the Orchard Park estate closed up, but evidently someone in the family business was still using the vehicle. A woman had been driving, Myers had said. The daughter back from Italy? Angelina?

  “Good,” said Hansen. “Where are you?”

  “Downtown, near the HSBC arena.”

  “Go over to the Marina Tower building and find a place to watch the garage exit.”

  “The Farino bitch’s penthouse?” said Myers. “Sorry, Captain. You think this Frears and the others are there?”

  “I think so. Just keep a good watch, Detective. I’ll be down to talk to you in a bit.” He disconnected and told the other detective what Myers had said.

  Brubaker was standing at the front window of the duplex, watching the snow pile up on the small rooftop terrace there. He seemed to have no hard feelings after having a 9mm pistol pressed against his head. “What next, Captain?”

  “I’m going to drop you at the main precinct garage to get another car. Take the battering ram with you. I want you to knoc
k in the door at Joe Kurtz’s office. Make sure that no one’s there and then join Myers at the stakeout at Marina Towers.”

  “Where will you be, sir?”

  Hansen holstered his Glock and adjusted his suit jacket. “I’ve got a meeting with the Boy Scouts.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-NINE

  According to the radio,” said Angelina, “the real storm’s going to hit this evening.”

  “Lake Effect,” said Arlene.

  John Wellington Frears looked up from the book he was perusing. “Lake Effect? What is that?”

  Like true Buffalonians, both Arlene and Angelina were eager to explain the meteorological wonder that was a cold arctic air mass sweeping across Lake Erie, depositing incredible amounts of snow on the Buffalo area, especially in the “snow belt” south of the city along the lake.

  Frears looked out the twelfth-story window at the blowing snow and blue-black clouds moving toward them across the frozen river and lake. “This isn’t the snow belt?”

  The penthouse was a pleasant enough place of refuge during the long winter day. Kurtz knew that it was literally the lull before the storm.

  A little before noon, Angelina brought the bodyguard Marco into the corner kitchen, where Kurtz stood with binoculars, looking down at the Pontiac and the old Chevy parked back-to-back along Marina Drive. Seeing Marco, Kurtz touched the pistol on his belt.

  “It’s all right,” said Angelina. “Marco and I have had several long talks and he’s in this with us.”

  Kurtz studied the big man. Marco had a good poker face, but there was no denying the intelligence behind those gray eyes. Obviously Angelina had appealed to the bodyguard’s loyalty and good nature—and then promised him shitloads of money when this dustup with the Gonzagas was over. With the $200,000 she’d taken from James B. Hansen’s safe that morning, she could afford a few payoffs.

  Kurtz nodded and went back to watching the watchers.

  James B. Hansen’s audience with the Boy Scouts and their troop leaders went well. Captain Millworth gave a short speech in the briefing room and then the scouts and their leaders came up to have their photographs taken with the homicide detective. There was a photographer there from the Buffalo News, but no reporter.

  Later, Hansen walked across the street to the courthouse for a private lunch with the Mayor and the Chief. The topic was the bad press the city and Department were getting because of the increased drug trade flowing through Buffalo to and from Canada and the resulting increase in murders, especially in the African-American community. The Mayor also had concerns about Buffalo being the first stop for Islamic terrorists carrying explosives in from Canada, although one glance exchanged between the Chief and Hansen communicated their skepticism about someone wanting to bomb Buffalo.

  All during these activities, Hansen was considering the complicated mess that had blotched out like an ink stain on felt over the past few days. If possible, he would like to continue in his Captain Millworth persona for another year or so, although the events of the past twenty-four hours made that very problematic. A lot of people would have to be buried, and soon, in order for him to maintain this identity.

  Well, thought Hansen, I’ve already buried a lot of people. A few more won’t matter.

  Hansen had always been excellent at multitasking, so he easily made comments and handled the occasional question from the Chief or Mayor while pondering strategies for the resolution of this Kurtz-Frears problem. It bothered him that he still could not get in touch with Dr. Howard Conway in Cleveland. Perhaps the old fairy had taken his muscled pretty-boy and gone on vacation.

  When Hansen’s cell phone first rang, he ignored it. But it rang again. And then again.

  “Excuse me, Chief, Mr. Mayor,” he said, “I have to take this.” He stepped into the small sitting room next to the courthouse dining room and answered the phone.

  “Honey, Robert, you’ve got to come home. Someone’s broken in and—”

  “Whoa, whoa, slow down, sugar. Where are you?” Donna should have been at the library until three.

  “They closed the library because of the storm, Robert. The schools are shutting down early as well. I picked Jason up during his usual lunch hour and we came home and…someone’s broken in, Robert! Shall I call the police? I mean, I did, you are, but you know what I mean—”

  “Calm down,” said Millworth. “What did they steal?”

  “Nothing, I think. I mean, Jason and I can’t find anything missing from the house. But they left the door to your basement office open, Robert. I peeked in… I’m sorry, but I thought they might still be in there…but the door was open and the door to a big safe is open in there, Robert. I didn’t go in, but they obviously did, the thieves, I mean. I didn’t know you had a safe down there, Robert. Robert? Robert?”

  Hansen had gone cold all over. Spots danced in front of his eyes for a minute. He sat down on the small couch in the sitting room. “Donna? Don’t call the police. I’m coming home. Stay upstairs. Don’t go in the office. You and Jason stay where you are.”

  “Robert, why do you think—”

  Hansen broke the connection and went in to tell the Chief and the Mayor that something important had come up.

  Marco showed them the marina pay phone where Little Skag would be calling for his weekly information update. Marco said that Leo usually did the talking. Kurtz, Angelina, and the bodyguard had left the apartment tower by its south door, out of sight of Brubaker and Myers, parked on the street to the north. Angelina told Marco to return to the penthouse, and Kurtz rigged the small cassette recorder and microphone wire the don’s daughter had supplied.

  The call came precisely at noon. Angelina answered it. With the additional earphone, Kurtz could eavesdrop on the conversation.

  “Angie…what the fuck are you doing there?”

  Angelina winced. She had always hated the nickname.

  “Stevie, I wanted to talk to you…privately.”

  “Where the fuck are Leo and Marco?”

  “Busy.”

  “Miserable incompetent motherfuckers. I’m going to fire their asses.”

  “Stevie, we need to talk about something.”

  “What?” To Kurtz’s ear, his former fellow convict sounded not only irritated but alarmed.

  “You’ve been hiring cops to whack people. Detective Brubaker, for instance. I know you’ve put him on the payroll that used to go to Hathaway.”

  Silence. Little Skag obviously didn’t know what his sister was up to, but he wasn’t about to encourage his own entrapment. Finally, “What the fuck are you talking about, Angie?”

  “I don’t care about Brubaker,” said Angelina, her breath fogging in the cold air, “but I’ve gone over the family notes and I see that Gonzaga’s got a captain of detectives on the arm. A guy named Millworth.”

  Silence.

  “Millworth’s not really Millworth,” said Angelina. “He’s a serial killer named James B. Hansen…and a bunch of other aliases. He’s a child-killer, Stevie. A rapist and a killer.”

  Kurtz heard Little Skag let out a breath. If this dealt with Gonzaga, it was not his sister trying to entrap him. “So?” said Little Skag.

  “So do you really want me doing this deal with Emilio when he has a child-killer on his payroll?”

  Little Skag laughed. It was an unpleasant laugh and every time Kurtz had heard it in Attica, it had been at someone else’s expense.

  “Do I give a flying fuck who Emilio hires?” said Little Skag. “If this cop is a killer like you say, it just means that the Gonzagas own him. They got him by the balls. Now put Leo on.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to do anything about someone who rapes kids,” said Angelina.

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “You know what it means, Stevie. You and that high-school Connors girl who disappeared twelve years ago. Emilio kidnapped her, but you were in on it—you raped her, didn’t you?”

  “What the fuck are you ta
lking about? Have you gone out of your mind? Who gives a shit about something that happened twelve years ago?”

  “I do, Stevie. I don’t want to do business with a man who pays a serial child-killer.”

  “Fuck what you want!” screamed Little Skag. “Who the fuck asked you what you want, you stupid cunt? Your job is to finish these dealings with Gonzaga so his people can get me the fuck out of here. Do you understand? If I want to fuck kindergarten kids up the ass, you’re going to shut the fuck up about it. You’re my sister, Angie, but that won’t stop me from—”

  The line hissed and crackled.

  “Stop you from what, Stevie?” Angelina said after a minute. “From having me whacked the way you did Maria?”

  The cold wind blew in off the lake during the next silence. Then Little Skag said, “You’re my sister, Angelina, but you’re a stupid bitch. You meddle in my business again…in Family business…and I’ll do worse than have you whacked. Understand me? I’m gonna get my lawyer to set up another call at noon tomorrow and you’d goddamn better have Leo and Marco there.”

  The line went dead.

  Kurtz disconnected the small microphone, rewound, and hit “Play” on the micro-cassette recorder long enough to hear the voices loud and clear. He clicked off the machine.

  “How the hell is that going to help with anything?” said Angelina.

  “We’ll see.”

  “Are you going to tell me your plan about how to get to Gonzaga now, Kurtz? It’s time, unless you want me to toss you and your friends out in the snow.”

  “All right,” said Kurtz. He told her the plan as they walked back to Marina Towers.

  “Jesus fuck,” whispered Angelina when he was finished. They were silent riding up in the elevator.

  Arlene was standing in the foyer. “Gail just called me,” she said to Kurtz. “They’re going to discharge Donald Rafferty from the hospital in about thirty minutes.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY

  Donna and Jason were waiting when James B. Hansen arrived home. He calmed them, spoke soothingly, told them to put the dog outside and that nothing important could have been stolen from his basement gun room, inspected the point of breaking and entering, and went downstairs to look in his room.