Hard as Nails

CHAPTER NINETEEN

"I got called to a crime scene at three A.M. and I've been there ever since," said Rigby. 'Two gay lovers killed each other in a pretty little house in Allentown a week ago—looks like a mutual suicide pact—and nobody found the bodies until last night. Let's go get a drink." She motioned him to keep driving north along Delaware.

"You're kidding," said Kurtz. "It's not even eleven A.M."

"I never kid about drinking," said the cop. "I'm off duty now."

"I don't know where…" began Kurtz.

"You know where, Joe."

Blues Franklin wasn't open, but Kurtz parked the Pinto behind the building and Rigby jumped out to knock on the back door. Daddy Brace's grown granddaughter, Ruby, opened the door and let them in.

Rigby led the way to Kurtz's favorite table at the back of the room. A white piano player named Coe Pierce was noodling on the dark stage and he flicked a salute to Kurtz while his left hand kept the rhythm going.

Daddy Brace came up from the basement in a plaid shirt and old chinos. "Rigby, don't you know what the hell time this establishement opens yet? And no offense, babe, but you smell like carrion."

Kurtz looked at the woman next to him. During the year he'd been coming to Blues Franklin again since he'd gotten out of Attica, he'd never thought about meeting Rigby King here. At least not after his first few times back at the jazz place. But then, he hadn't known that Rigby was within a thousand miles of Buffalo.

"I know what time it opens," Rigby said to Daddy Bruce. "And I know you've never refused to sell me a drink, even when I was seventeen."

The old black man sighed. "What'll you have?"

"Shot of tequila with a beer back," said Rigby. She looked at Kurtz. "Joe?"

"Coffee," said Kurtz. "You don't have any food back there, do you?"

"I may have me an old moldy biscuit I could slap a sausage or egg into if I had to."

"Both," said Kurtz.

Daddy Bruce started to leave, turned back, and said, "Ray Charles's glasses safe somewhere?"

Kurtz patted his jacket pocket.

When they were alone, Rigby said, "No drink? Coffee and sausage? You getting old, Joe?"

Kurtz resisted the impulse to remind her that she was a couple of years older than he was. "What do you want, Rigby?"

"I have an offer you'll be interested in," she said. "Maybe an offer you won't be able to refuse."

Kurtz didn't roll his eyes, but he was tempted. He thought, not for the first time, that the movie The Godfather had a lot to answer for. He didn't think Rigby's offer, whatever it was, would top Toma Gonzaga's «do-my-bidding-or-die» proposal. He focused his attention on Coe Pierce playing a piano-only version of "Autumn Leaves."

"What's the offer?" said Kurtz.

"Just a minute," she said. Big Daddy Bruce had brought her drinks and Kurtz's mug of black coffee. Rigby tossed back the gold tequila, drank some beer, and gestured for another shot.

Daddy sighed and went back behind the bar, returning in a minute to refill her tequila, fill an extra shot glass for her, and top off her glass of beer. He also set a plate brimming over with eggs over easy, patty sausages, toast, and hash browns in front of Kurtz. The old man laid down a napkin and silverware next to it. "Don't expect this service every Saturday," said Daddy. "I'm only doing this 'cause you always tip Ruby and drink the cheapest Scotch."

"Thanks," said Kurtz and laid into the food with a will. Suddenly, even with the continuing throb of the headache, he was starving.

Rigby tossed back the second shot glass of tequila, drank some beer, and said, "What the hell happened to you, Joe?"

"What do you mean?" he said around a mouthful of eggs. "I'm hungry is all."

"No, you dipshit I mean, what happened to you?"

Kurtz ate some hash browns and waited for her to go on. He had no doubt she would.

"I mean," continued Rigby, playing with her tequila glass, "you used to give a shit."

"I still give a shit," said Kurtz, chewing on his toast.

She ignored him. "You were always rough, inside and out, but you used to care about something other than saving your own ass. Even when you were a punk at Father Baker's, you used to get worked up when you thought something wasn't fair or when you saw someone treated like shit."

"Everyone was treated like shit at Father Baker's," said Kurtz. The eggs were good, done just the way he liked them.

She didn't even look at him as she tossed back the third tequila and called to Daddy for another one.

"No more, Rigby," called Daddy from the back room. "You're shitfaced already."

"The fuck I am," said the police detective. "One more or I'll bring the state license people down on your ass. Come on, Daddy—I've had a hard night."

"You look it and smell it," said Daddy Bruce, but he poured the final shot glass of tequila, policing up the empty beer mug and extra shot glass as he left.

"She's going to get you killed," said Rigby, enunciating every word with the care taken by someone who's drunk too much booze in too short a time.

"Who?" said Kurtz, although he knew who she meant.

"Little Angeleyes Fuckarino Ferwhoosis is who," said Rigby. "That Mafia bitch."

"You don't know what you're talking about," said Kurtz.

Rigby King snorted. It wasn't a feminine sound, but she didn't smell all that feminine at the moment. "You fucking her, Joe?"

Kurtz felt his jaw set with anger. Normally he'd say nothing to a question like that—or say something with his fists—but this was Rigby King and she was drunk and tired. "I've never touched her," he said, realizing as he spoke that he had touched Angelina, but only to frisk her a couple of times last winter.

Rigby snorted again, but not so explosively this time. She drank the last of the tequila. "Her sister Sophia was a cunt and so is this one," she said. "Word around the precinct house is that you've had both of them."

"Fuck word around the precinct house," said Kurtz. He finished his eggs and went at the last piece of toast.

"Yeah," said Rigby and the syllable sounded tired. "Word around the house this week is that Interpol says a certain Danish guy might be crossing into the States through Canada. Or maybe he already has."

Kurtz looked up. Had he missed something? Were there billboards up with this news? Had it been on the Channel 7 Action News or something? This assassin must have an advance team doing publicity for him.

"Got your attention, huh, Joe? Yeah, why do you think your pal Angelina would call for the Dane?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Kurtz. He sipped the last of his coffee. Big Daddy came by, refilled the coffee mug, set down another mug in front of Rigby, filled it with coffee, and went into the back room again.

"Why do you think, Joe?" repeated Rigby. She sounded suddenly sober.

He looked at her. His eyes gave up nothing.

"What if it isn't your female pal or her new friend Gonzaga who called for this particular European, Joe? Ever think of that?"

He was tempted to ask her what she was talking about, but didn't. Not yet.

"You have any enemies out there who want your scalp, Joe Kurtz? I mean, other than Big Bore Redhawk, of course." She sipped coffee, made a face, and put the mug down. "Funny about Big Bore, isn't it?"

"What do you mean?"

She looked surprised. "Oh, that's right, we haven't told you yet. The Pennsylvania Highway Patrol called us last night with the news that your Indian friend had been found in the woods behind a Howard Johnson's just off I-90 at the Erie exit. One bullet—nine millimeter—through his left temple. The Erie M.E. says that the shooting took place around ten A.M. yesterday. Ten A.M., Joe."

"What about it?"

"By great good coincidence, that's exactly when you had me meet you for that bullshit meeting at Broadway Market," said Rigby, her face flushing. Her brown eyes were angry.

"You saying that I used you for an alibi, Rigby?"

"I'm saying that you've always been mean, but you didn't used to be so fucking cute," snapped the cop. "I really hate cute felons. They really burn my tits."

"And lovely…" began Kurtz and stopped when he noted the look in her eyes and the hot coffee in her hand. "What were you going to say about the Danish guy?"

"I was going to ask who has the money and the motive to bring one of Europe's hired assassins into little old Western New York," said Rigby, her voice slurring only slightly from the booze and fatigue. "You want to answer that Joe?"

"I give up," said Kurtz.

"You should. You should." Rigby held the coffee mug as if for warmth, lowering her face over it and letting the steam touch her cheeks. "They say the Dane's assassinated more than a hundred prime targets, including that politician in Holland not long ago. Never been caught. Hell, never been identified."

"What's that got to do with me?" said Kurtz.

Rigby smiled at him. She had a beautiful smile, thought Kurtz, even when it was a mocking one. "Word at the precinct house has you at the Farino estate a year ago when the same Danish guy wasted sister Sophia, Papa Farino, their lawyer—whatever the fuck his name was—and half the old Farino bodyguards. Twenty goombahs protecting Old Man Farino, and the only ones still standing when it was over were the ones the Dane didn't want dead."

Kurtz said nothing. He had a sudden tactile memory of sitting very still, his palms on his thighs, while the tall man in the raincoat and Bavarian-style hat with the feather in it turned the muzzle of his semiautomatic pistol from one target in the room to another, killing each person with a single shot. Kurtz's name hadn't been on the list that day. It had been an oversight of sorts. Little Skag Farino, still in Attica, hadn't thought that Kurtz would be there when the assassin he'd hired came to deal with Little Skag's sister, father, and the others, and he'd been too cheap to pay for Kurtz on spec.

"Little Skag's still a player," whispered Rigby. "He survived the shanking in Attica after you and the Ferrara bitch leaked the word that Skag had raped a minor. Your pal Angelina had his lawyer whacked a few months ago, but Little Skag's still alive—wearing a colostomy bag these days, or so I hear—and safe in a federal country club where no one can get at him. But he has a new lawyer. And I think he has some unsettled business—with his little sister Angelina, the new, improved, gay Gonzaga, and some mook named Joe Kurtz."

"You're making this up as you go along," said Kurtz. "Bullshitting."

Rigby shrugged. "Can you take the chance to ignore me? Have you become that crazy a gambler, Joe?"

Kurtz rubbed the side of his head. The pain seemed to pulse through his skull, through his hand, and down his arm into his chest. "What do you want?"

"I said that I had an offer for you," she said. "My offer's this…" she sipped her coffee and took a breath. "Joe, you're fucking around trying to solve this O'Toole shooting. I know you know about Goba."

"Goba?" said Kurtz in the most innocent voice he could summon through the pain. Kemper hadn't given him the Yemeni's name over the phone last night.

"Fuck you, Joe." She drank her coffee but never took her luminous eyes off his face. "I don't know how you knew about Goba, but I think you were in his house yesterday before we were. I think you probably took some evidence with you. I think you're still acting under the delusion that you're a private detective, Joe Kurtz, ex-con, felon, parolee, and too-cute shithead."

"It was my shooting, too," Kurtz said softly.

"What?"

"You called it the O'Toole shooting," he said. "It was my shooting, too." He raised fingers to his torn scalp. The scab was tender. The wound felt hot and it pulsed under his fingertips.

Rigby shrugged. "She's on life support You're hanging out with Baby Doc and snarfing eggs. You want to hear my offer?"

"Sure." He conveyed his lack of enthusiasm through flat tone, but he wasn't happy to hear that they knew he'd met with Baby Doc. His parole could be revoked for just speaking to a known felon.

"You keep playing private cop," she said softly, glancing around to make sure that no one could hear. Ruby and Daddy were in the kitchen; Coe Pierce was noodling Miles Davis's little-known "Peace, Peace."

"If you insist on playing private cop," she repeated, "I'll give you the information you need to stay one step ahead of the Dane, solve your little shooting case, and maybe survive the Ferrara bitch's attentions."

"Why?" said Kurtz.

"I'll tell you later," said Rigby. "You agree now to help me on something later, and we have a deal. I'll risk my gold shield to feed you information."

Kurtz laughed softly. "Uh-huh. Sure. I sign a blank check to help you later on some unspecified crap and you risk your badge to help me now. This is bullshit, Rigby." He stood.

"It's the best deal you'll ever get, Joe." For a second, astoundingly, unbelievably, Rigby King looked as if she was going to cry. She looked away, mopped her nose with the back of her hand, and looked back at Kurtz. The only emotion visible in her eyes now was the anger he'd seen earlier.

"Tell me what I'd have to do," said Kurtz.

She looked up at him across the table. "I help you now," she said so softly that he had to lean forward to hear. "I help you stay alive now, and sometime… I don't know when, not soon… maybe next summer, maybe later, you help me find Farouz and Kevin Eftakar."

"Who the fuck are Farouz and Kevin Eftakar?" said Kurtz, still standing and leaning his weight on his arms.

"My ex-husband and my son," whispered Rigby.

"Your son?"

"My baby," said the cop. "He was one year old when Farouz stole him."

"Stole him?" said Kurtz. "You're talking about a custody case? If the judge said…"

"The judge didn't say a fucking thing," snapped Rigby. "There were no custody hearings. Farouz just took him."

Kurtz sat down. "Look, you've got the law on your side, Rigby. The FBI will work the case if your asshole of an ex-husband crossed state lines. You're a good detective yourself and all the other departments will give you a hand…"

"He stole my baby from me nine years ago and took him to Iran," said Rigby. "I want Kevin back."

"Ah," said Kurtz. He rubbed his face. "I'd be the wrong person to help you. The last person who could." Kurtz laughed softly. "As you said, Rig, I'm a felon, an ex-con, a parolee. I can't walk across the damned Peace Bridge without ten types of permission I wouldn't get, much less get a passport and go to Iran. You'll just have to…"

"I can get the forged documents for you," said Rigby. "I have enough money set aside to get us to Iran."

"I wouldn't know how to find…" began Kurtz.

"You don't have to. I'll have located Farouz and Kevin before we leave."

Kurtz looked at her. "If you can find them, you don't need me…"

"I need you," said Rigby. She actually reached across and took his hand. "I'll find Farouz. I need you to kill the fucker for me."