Hard as Nails

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

"What do you want?" said Kurtz. "Your money?"

"That will do for a start," said Angelina. She moved into the office and watched as Kurtz locked the door behind her. Then she dropped her cashmere coat onto the old leather couch. She was wearing a tight, black dress cut low on top and high on the thighs, expensive leather boots, a single gold necklace, and some subtle gold bracelets. He'd never seen Angelina Farino Ferrara in clothes like that. Come to think of it, thought Kurtz, most of the time he'd seen her, she'd been in gym togs or jogging attire. Her dark hair was swept up and back on the sides, but secured so that it still hung free in back. It looked wet, but he couldn't tell if that was from walking through the rain or some mousse thing.

Kurtz picked an envelope off his desk and handed it to her. The entire five thousand dollars advance was in it. He'd use other money to manage his getaway on Tuesday if he had to run for it. He dropped into his swivel chair and looked up at her. The.38 was in its holster taped to the underside of his desk drawer, inches from his hand.

She took the envelope without comment or counting it, slipped it into the pocket of the coat she'd draped over the arm of the sofa, and walked to the window. The rain was pelting the glass now and the air through the open screen was chill, taking the edge off the heat and stuffiness caused by the servers and other machinery in the back room.

Still looking out at the neon-busy street, she said, "I need your advice, Joe."

"Joe?" said Kurtz. She'd never used anything but his last name. The idea of her needing his advice was also bullshit.

She turned, smiled, and sat on the edge of Arlene's desk, switching off the desk light there so that only Kurtz's low lamp and the glow of the two computers and video monitor illuminated her long legs, strong thighs, and shiny boots.

"We've known each other long enough to be on a first-name basis, haven't we, Joe? Remember the ice fishing shack?"

Kurtz did indeed remember the fishing shack out on the ice of Lake Erie the previous February. The body of the man he'd shot barely fit through the ice fishing hole because of the shower curtain and chains wrapped around it. Angelina had been the one to prod it through the round hole with her boot on the corpse's shoulder—less expensive and more practical boots that night than this. So what?

"Call me Angelina," she said now. She casually lifted her left foot and set it on Arlene's chair. There were a lot of shadows, but it seemed almost certain that Angelina Farino Ferrara was wearing no underpants above the high shadowed line of her stockings.

"Sure," said Kurtz. "You wearing a wire, Angelina?"

The female don laughed softly. "Me, wearing a wire? Get serious, Joe. Can't you tell I'm not?"

"Informants usually wear their wire microphones externally," said Kurtz, speaking softly but never breaking his unblinking stare with the woman.

She blinked first. The flush that rose to her high cheekbones was not unbecoming. She lowered her foot to the floor. "You shithead," she said.

Kurtz nodded. "What do you want?" His head hurt.

"I told you, I need your advice."

"I'm not your consiglieri."

"No, but you're the only intermediary I have right now with Toma Gonzaga."

"I'm not your intermediary either," said Kurtz.

"He and I both tried to hire you to find this junkie killer. What did Gonzaga offer you?"

Not to kill me on Tuesday, thought Kurtz. He said, "A hundred thousand dollars."

The angry flush left the woman's cheeks. "Holy fucking Christ," she whispered.

"Amen," said Kurtz.

"He can't be serious," she said. "Why would Gonzaga pay you that much?"

"I thought you two were on a first-name basis," said Kurtz. "Don't you mean! 'Toma? "

"Fuck you, Kurtz. Answer the question."

Kurtz shrugged. "His family's lost seventeen customers and middlemen. You've only lost five. Maybe it's worth a hundred grand to him to find the people doing this."

"Or maybe he has no intention of ever paying you," said Angelina.

"That's a possibility."

"And why you? It's not like you're Sam Fucking Spade." She looked around the office. "What is this bullshit company you set up? Wedding Bells?"

"Dot com," said Kurtz.

"Is it a front of some sort?"

"Nope." Was it? Is it who I am now? Kurtz's head hurt too much to answer epistemological questions like that at the moment.

Angelina stood, hitched her skirt down, and paced around the office. "I need help, Kurtz."

Demoted back to last names so soon, thought Kurtz. He waited.

She paused her pacing next to the couch. Kurtz let his hand slide forward a bit. If she had brought her Compact Witness.45, it would be in the pocket of her coat.

"You know people," Angelina said. "You know the scum of this city, its winos and addicts and street people and thugs."

"Thanks," said Kurtz. "Present company excluded, of course."

She looked at him and reached into the pocket of the draped coat.

Kurtz slid the.38 half out of its holster under the desk.

Angelina removed a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She lit her cigarette, set the pack and lighter back in the coat pocket, and paced to the window again. She didn't look out but stood exhaling smoke and staring at her own reflection in the glass.

"It's all right," said Kurtz. "You can smoke in here."

"Thank you," she said, voice dripping sarcasm, and tapped ashes into Arlene's ashtray.

"Actually, I'm surprised you smoke," said Kurtz, "what with all the running and jogging and such."

"I don't usually," she said, left hand cradling her right elbow as she stood staring at nothing. "Nasty habit I picked up in all those years in Europe. I just do it now when I'm especially stressed."

"What do you want?" Kurtz asked for the third time.

She turned. "I think maybe Toma Gonzaga and Little Skag are working together to squeeze me out. I need a free agent in my corner."

Kurtz had been called many things in his life, but never a free agent. "Gonzaga being behind this doesn't make any sense," said Kurtz. "He's lost seventeen people."

"Have you seen any of these corpses?" said Angelina.

Kurtz shook his head. "But you told me the killer is hauling off the bodies of your connections as well."

"But I know my dealers and customers were whacked," she said. "My people went to the addresses, saw the blood and brains, cleaned up after the killer."

"And you think Gonzaga is faking his casualty list just to take out your people?"

Angelina made an expressive, Italian movement with her hands and batted more ashes. "It would be a nice cover, wouldn't it? My family needs to get into the serious drug business, Kurtz, or the Gonzagas will have all the real drug money in Western New York wrapped up."

"Gambling and shakedowns and prostitution aren't enough anymore?" asked Kurtz. "What's the world coming to?"

She ignored him and sprawled in Arlene's chair. "Or maybe somebody is hitting Gonzaga's people," she said. "There's always been a phantom heroin ring we think is working out of Western Pennsylvania—from Pittsburgh up to the Southern Tier of our state. Some sort of independent group that goes way back—twenty, thirty years. They specialized in heroin and since our family wasn't into that, they never interfered enough with our business to justify a confrontation."

"The Gonzaga Family must have wanted to deal with them," said Kurtz. "Gonzagas have been peddling heroin here since World War II. I'm surprised old Emilio never dealt with these Pennsylvania people."

"The Gonzagas never identified the Pennsylvania people," said Angelina. "Old Emilio actually asked my father for help once in finding them, if you can believe that. But the Five Families don't know anything about this rogue operation either."

"This phantom skag gang isn't mobbed up?" said Kurtz. "No vowels at the ends of their names?"

She glared at him as if he'd insulted her proud ethnic heritage. Come to think of it, thought Kurtz, he had.

The anger-blush was back in her cheeks when Angelina said, "Can you tell me what you've found out about the murder of Gonzaga's people? Did they really happen?"

"I have no idea," Kurtz slid the.38 all the way back in the holster and rubbed his temples.

"What do you mean? You think Gonzaga may have staged them?"

"I mean I haven't spent five minutes looking into those murders," said Kurtz. "I have my own case to solve."

"You mean finding who shot the probation officer? O'Toole?"

"I mean finding who shot me," said Kurtz. He unzipped the leather portfolio on his desk, removed a file, and handed it across to her. "This might help you decide."

Angelina Farino Ferrara studied Gonzaga's list of seventeen names, addresses, messages left by the killer in each case, and details of cleanup, bulletholes, blood spatters, and other forensic garbage that Kurtz had glanced over and forgotten. She looked at the map on the wall with its pins—all barely visible in the dark there—and then back at the file. Then she looked at the big Ricoh copy machine next to the couch.

"Can I copy this stuff?"

"Sure," said Kurtz. "Ten cents a page."

"You dumb shit," said Angelina, moving quickly to warm up the machine and set out the file pages. "I would have paid you a thousand bucks a page. I've been asking Toma for these details for the last week, and he's been stonewalling. What do you think he's up to, Kurtz?"

His cell phone rang. He dug it out of his jacket pocket, realized it was the other cell phone ringing, and answered it.

"Toma Gonzaga here," said the familiar, slow voice. "What have you found out, Mr. Kurtz?"

"I thought I was supposed to call you," said Kurtz.

"I was worried that something might have happened to you," said the don. "It's two days to Halloween and you know how crazy the streets can get this time of year. What have you discovered so far? Does any of it lead to Ms. Ferrara?"

"Why don't you ask her?" said Kurtz. He handed the phone to the surprised Angelina and listened to her side of the conversation.

"No… I'm here collecting the advance I gave him since he seems to be working for you now… no, I don't… he hasn't… I don't think he's even looked into it… no, Toma, believe me, if I thought it was you, I would have acted already… How sweet, fuck you, too… No, I agree. We should meet… Yes, I can do that."

She clicked off, folded the phone, and tossed it back to Kurtz.

Tossing the original file back on his desk, she bundled up the copies, shut off the machine, and slipped into her coat.

"You said something about a thousand bucks a page?" said Kurtz.

"Too late, Kurtz." She went out the door and he heard her high heels tripping down the steps, then watched her on the closed-circuit video monitor as she let herself out the lower door. He leaned closer to the monitor to make sure that the outer door had clicked shut and was locked. It would be embarrassing to relax only to find Angelina's bodyguards kicking down his office door.

When his cell phone rang again, he seriously considered not answering it. Then he did.

"Kurtz," came Angelina's voice. "I think I'm in trouble."

"What happened?"

"Come to the window."

Shutting off his desk lamp and approaching the wide window from the side, Kurtz warily peered out. Angelina was standing on the curb where the Lincoln Town Car had been parked. The spot was empty, but a red Jeep Liberty with five college-age kids in it was trying to park there.

"What's going on?" said Kurtz on the phone.

"My bodyguards and the car are gone."

"I can see that."

"They don't answer their phones or my pages."

Kurtz walked back to his desk, pulled the.38 and holster from beneath the drawer, dumped the used duct tape in the wastebasket, went back to the window, and lifted his cell phone. "What are you going to do?"

"I called for help, but it'll be thirty minutes before they get here."

"What do you want me to do about it?"

"Open the door. Let me back in."

He thought about that. "No," he said, "I'll come down."