Hard as Nails

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The restaurant called Curly's was just a few blocks from the Basilica in Lackawanna. Kurtz was at Curly's by nine-thirty on Saturday morning, having slept a fitful nine hours and feeling more surly than ever.

He'd awakened in the office sore and disoriented, looked over the printouts of O'Toole's case notes for Goba to make sure they hadn't missed anything, left a note for Arlene—who usually came in late on Saturday—and headed back to the Harbor Inn to shower, shave, and change clothes. The headache still buzzed in his skull and if it had let up any, he couldn't notice the change. But his raccoon eyes had improved. If one didn't look carefully, Kurtz thought while he stood in front of the steamy mirror, the dark circles under his eyes only made him look like someone who hadn't slept in a few weeks. The whites of his eyes were pink rather than blood red now, and his vision had cleared.

Kurtz dressed in a denim workshirt and jeans, tugged on faded Red Wing boots and an old peacoat, and pulled a dark navy watchcap low enough over his hair to hide the scalp wound. The.38 went in a small holster on his belt on the left side.

Driving down to Lackawanna, he had to smile at the fact that he'd managed to avoid most of Lackawanna for years, but now he found himself heading that way almost every day.

Curly's was a few blocks east of the Basilica, where Ridge Road became Franklin Street for a few blocks, just west of the old steel bridge. The restaurant—surfaced by brick on the first floor, siding above—had been popular with locals for decades. There were already cars in the small parking lot, although it wasn't officially open for breakfast on Saturdays. On Saturdays, it was court to Baby Doc.

Baby Doc—legally Norv Skrzypczyk—was not officially mobbed up, but he ran most of the action in Lackawanna. His grandfather. Papa Doc, had taken a leave from medical school to help patch up striking steelworkers whose heads were being bashed in by Pinkerton operatives. Papa Doc had given up medicine in favor of smuggling guns in to the workers. By the end of the 1920s, Papa Doc's people were selling guns and liquor to civilians as well, keeping the Mafia from muscling in on their territory through the simple strategy of out-violencing them. By the time Papa Doc was gunned down in 1942, his son—Doc—had taken over the family business, negotiated a peace with the mobsters, and retained control of most illegal items moving in Lackawanna. Doc retired in 1992, turning the reins over to Baby Doc and taking an old man's job as a night watchman in various abandoned steel mills, where he kept his hand in by selling the occasional illegal gun. Joe Kurtz had used Doc as an information source—but not a snitch—before Attica, and had bought weapons from him afterward. Kurtz had never met the son.

Now Kurtz left his holstered.38 under the driver's seat of the Pinto, made sure the car was locked, and went in, ignoring the CLOSED sign on the door.

Baby Doc sat in his regular semicircular booth at the right rear of the restaurant. The booth was raised slightly, unlike the other tables, and gave the sense of a modest throne. There were only half a dozen other men in the room, not counting Baby Doc's three bodyguards and the waiter behind the counter. Kurtz noticed that these bodyguards didn't use blow driers or wear mafia collars and suits—the two big guys in the booth next to Baby Doc and the other one lounging at the counter could have been stevedores or millworkers except for their watchful eyes and the just-detectable bulges under their union wind-breakers.

There was an older man talking to Baby Doc in the rear booth, speaking earnestly, moving his scarred hands as he spoke. Baby Doc would nod in the intervals when the old man stopped talking. This is the first time Kurtz had seen Baby Doc in person and he was surprised how large he was; the older Doc had been a small man.

A waiter came over, poured coffee without being asked, and said, "You here to see the Man?"

"Yeah."

The waiter went back to the counter and whispered to the older bodyguard, who approached Baby Doc when the old man had finished his supplication, received some answer that had made him smile, and left the restaurant.

Baby Doc looked at Kurtz a minute and then raised a finger, beckoning Kurtz, and then gesturing to the two guards in the booth next to him.

The huge men intercepted Kurtz in the middle of the room. "Let's visit the restroom," said the one with scar tissue around his eyes.

Kurtz nodded and followed them to the back of Curly's. The men's restroom was big enough to hold all three of them, but one man stood watching out the door while the other gestured for Kurtz to remove his shirt and to lift his undershirt Then he gestured for Kurtz to drop his pants. Kurtz did all this without protest.

"Okay," said the ex-boxer and stepped out. Kurtz zipped and buttoned, up and went out to sit in the booth.

Baby Doc wore horn-rimmed glasses that looked incongruous on such a sharply chiseled face. He was in his late forties, and Kurtz saw that the man wasn't so much bald as he was hairless. His eyes were a startling cold blue. His neck, shoulders, and forearms were heavily muscled. There was a flag and army tattoo on Baby Doc's massive left forearm, and Kurtz remembered that Baby Doc had left Lackawanna and joined the army—over his father's objections—a few years before the first Gulf War and had flown some sort of attack helicopter during the liberation of Kuwait. Doc, his father, had been forced to hold off his own retirement for a few years until Baby Doc returned from the service with a chest covered with combat ribbons which—according to sources available to Kurtz—had been folded away in a trunk with the uniform and never taken out again. Rumor persisted that Baby Doc's chopper had destroyed more than a dozen Iraqi tanks on a single hot day.

"You're Joe Kurtz, aren't you?"

Kurtz nodded.

"I remember you sent flowers to my father's funeral last year," said Baby Doc. "Thank you for that."

Kurtz nodded again.

"I considered having you killed," said Baby Doc.

Kurtz didn't nod this time, but he looked the bigger man in the eye.

Baby Doc put down his fork, took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. When he set the glasses back on, he said tiredly, "My father was killed by a rogue homicide detective named Hathaway."

"Yes."

"My sources in the B.P.D. tell me that Hathaway had a hard-on for you and had tapped a call between you and my father. You were meeting him at the old steel mill, a year ago next week, to buy a piece. Hathaway killed my father before you got there."

"That's true," said Kurtz.

"Hathaway didn't have anything against Doc. He just wanted to wait for you in the mill without my father being in the way. If it hadn't been for you, the Old Man might still be alive."

"That's true, too," said Kurtz. He glanced at the two closest bodyguards. They were looking the other way but were close enough to hear everything. Kurtz knew he couldn't take them both even if they weren't armed—he'd seen the bigger man fight professionally years ago—so his only chance might be to crash through the window behind Baby Doc. But he'd never get around front to his car before they did. He'd have to head east through the backyards, into the railyards. Kurtz had known every tunnel and shack and switch tower in those yards when he was young, but he doubted if he could outrun or hide from these guys there now.

Baby Doc folded his hands. "But they found Hathaway there in the mill, too. Shot in the head."

"I've heard that," Kurtz said quietly.

"My people in the department tell me that the bullet went through his gold detective shield," said Baby Doc. "Like he held it up to stop his assailant from shooting. Maybe while shouting that he was a cop—the slug that went through the shield went into Hathaway's open mouth. Or maybe the stupid shit believed it'd really act like a shield and stop a slug."

Kurtz waited.

"But I guess it didn't work," said Baby Doc. He started eating his scrambled eggs again.

"I guess not," said Kurtz.

"So what do you want, Joe Kurtz?" He gestured for the waiter to bring Kurtz coffee, and the man at the counter hurried to comply, providing a fresh mug.

Kurtz didn't let out his breath, but he was tempted to. He said, "Yasein Goba."

"That crazy Yemeni who shot the parole officer Wednesday? Today's paper says they found him dead from a gunshot here in Lackawanna. They didn't say whether it was self-inflicted or not." He quit stabbing at his eggs to squint at Kurtz. "The paper said that an unnamed parolee was shot the same time as the female probation officer, but wasn't hurt as bad. You?"

"Yeah."

"That explains the blood that's drained down under your eyes. You're one lucky son of a bitch, Kurtz."

Kurtz had no comment on that. Somewhere outside a generator was chug-chugging and his headache throbbed along with it.

"What about Goba?" said Baby Doc.

"What can you tell me about him?"

"Nothing right now. These Yemenis stick pretty much to themselves. I have some people who can talk to them—them and the other Middle Easterners who've moved into neighborhoods here—but I never heard of this Goba until I read about it in the papers."

"Could you check with your people—see if they had any contact with this guy?"

"I could," said Baby Doc. "And I understand why you're interested in this Goba if he shot you. But it doesn't seem worth my effort to dig into this. All reports—including my people inside the B.P.D. — say that this little guy was mad at his parole officer, shot her, and then killed himself. You just got in the way, Kurtz."

Kurtz sipped his coffee. It wasn't bad. Evidently they brewed fresh for Saturday mornings when Baby Doc was holding court. "Goba didn't kill himself," he said. "He bled out from a wound he received at the Civic Center."

"Did you shoot him?" asked Baby Doc. "Or was it the P.O. who got him before she caught one in the head?"

Kurtz shrugged slightly. "Does it matter?" When Baby Doc said nothing, Kurtz said, "Goba was shooting a twenty-two-caliber target pistol. The serial number had been taken off by acid—not sloppy, the way so many punks do it, but neatly, carefully, the way Doc used to do it on his used stock."

"You think Doc might have sold this Goba the gun sometime last year before… you know?"

"No," said Kurtz. "Goba got out of jail after your father was killed. But it's possible that one of your people sold him the weapon in the last couple of months."

About a year and a half earlier, some local black gang members had knocked over an overflow National Guard arsenal near Erie, Pennsylvania, liberating quite a few exotic military weapons. The previous November, bad things had happened to the gang members and the FBI and ATF had recovered some of the proscribed M-16s and other stolen weapons. Some—not all. Word on the street had been that Baby Doc Skrzypczyk had ended up with the bulk of the arms shipment and had been reselling them for a fortune—especially to the Middle Easterners currently moving into Lackawanna in droves.

Baby Doc sipped coffee and looked past Kurtz. The other five civilians in the restaurant were still waiting for their time with him. "I won't ask how you know what Goba was shooting or how you know the serial number had been burned off. Maybe your eyes were real good in that parking garage Wednesday. You happen to notice the make and model?"

"Ruger Mark II Standard," said Kurtz. "Long barrel. I think Goba was shooting diminished loads."

"Why?"

Kurtz shrugged again. "Makes less noise that way."

"Was noise a factor in the parking garage?"

"It could have been."

Baby Doc smiled. "You know why the professional double-tap guys tend to use twenty-twos?"

"Common knowledge says that it's because the point twenty-two slugs rattle around in the skull, causing more damage," said Kurtz. "I never thought that explanation was too convincing."

"Nah, me either. Bigger caliber slugs do just fine in the skull. I heard from an old-timer once it was because the mustaches didn't want to lose their hearing. Most of those old button men were half-deaf anyway."

"Can you find out if some of your men sold Goba the gun?" asked Kurtz. "And see if they have any other information on him?"

Baby Doc glanced at his watch. The Rolex on his wrist was gold and massive, the only thing about him that seemed ostentatious. "Lot of guns in this town that have nothing to do with me," he said. "But if I check, what's in it for me?"

"Gratitude," said Kurtz. "I remember favors. Try to repay them."

Baby Doc's cold blue eyes stared into Kurtz's bloodshot eyes for a minute. "All right, I'll check and get back to you today. Where can I reach you?"

Kurtz handed him a card. He took out a pen and circled his cell phone number.

"What's this SweetheartSearch and WeddingBells stuff?" asked Baby Doc.

"My skip-trace business. We look up old high-school sweethearts for lonely people then help some of them get married using online resources."

Baby Doc laughed loudly. "You're not what I expected, Joe Kurtz."

Kurtz stood to go.

"Just a second," said the man in the booth. He lowered his voice so that even the bodyguards wouldn't hear. "When I saw you here, I thought you'd be asking me about the other thing."

"What other thing?"

"The junkies and skag dealers doing their disappearing act," said Baby Doc. He was watching Kurtz very carefully.

Kurtz shrugged again. "Don't know anything about it."

"Well, I thought since you were so tight with the Farinos and Gonzagas…" began Baby Doc and let his voice trail off until it was a question.

Kurtz shook his head.

"Well," said Baby Doc, "word on the street is that one of those guineas brought in a pro called the Dane to settle some old scores."

"Does word on the street say which one of the guineas brought him in?"

"Nope." Baby Doc sipped his coffee. His eyes were colder than blue steel. "It might pay to watch your ass, Joe Kurtz."

He called Arlene while he was driving north on the Skyway toward the downtown. "You get O'Toole's home address?"

"Yes," said Arlene and gave it to him.

Using the same pen he'd used to write on his business card for Baby Doc, Kurtz scribbled the address on the back of his hand. "Anything else?"

"I called the hospital and asked about Peg O'Toole's condition," said Arlene. He could hear her exhale smoke. "I'm not a family member, so they wouldn't give it to me. So I called Gail. She checked on the intensive-care unit's computer. O'Toole's taken a turn for the worse and is on life support."

Kurtz resisted telling her that he hadn't asked about the parole officer's condition. "I'll be there soon," he said and disconnected.

The phone rang almost immediately.

"I want to meet with you," said Angelina Farino Ferrara.

"I'm pretty busy today," said Kurtz.

"Where are you? Can you come over to the penthouse?"

Kurtz glanced to his left as he approached the downtown. Her tall marina apartment building was visible less than a mile away. She owned the top two floors—one for business, the top one for herself. "I'm on the road," said Kurtz. "I'll call you back later."

"Look, Kurtz, it's important we…"

He cut her off, dropped the phone in his peacoat pocket, and took the exit for downtown Buffalo.

He'd gone less man a mile up Delaware Avenue toward Chippewa Street when the red light began flashing in his mirror. An unmarked car pulled up behind him.

Shit, thought Kurtz. He hadn't been speeding. The holstered.38 was under his driver's seat. That parole violation would send him back to Attica where the long knives were waiting for him. Shit.

He pulled to the curb and watched in the mirror as Detective Kemper stayed behind the wheel of the unmarked car. Rigby King got out the passenger door and walked up to Kurtz's driver's side. She was wearing sunglasses. "License and registration, please."

"Fuck you," said Kurtz.

"Maybe later," said Rigby. "If you're a good boy."

She walked around the front of his car and got in the passenger side. Kemper drove off.

"Jesus Christ," Kurtz said to Rigby King, "you smell like Death."

"You say the sweetest things," said Rigby. "You always did know how to chat up a girl, Joe." She motioned him to drive north on Delaware.

"Am I under arrest?"

"Not yet," said Rigby King. She slipped handcuffs off her belt and held them up to catch the October light. "But the day is young. Drive."