Hard as Nails

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

In the morning, Kurtz dropped Angelina Farino Ferrara near her Marina Towers and headed toward the expressway to drive to Neola, New York, in search of Major O'Toole's fabled Cloud Nine amusement park. He was sure that Detective Rigby King would be busy today despite her theoretical day off, but every call from his cell phone to hers received only a busy signal. At first he was going to ignore it and drive on to Neola alone, but the thought of standing up an armed Rigby King made him go out of his way to swing by her townhouse. At least he could tell her later that he'd tried.

She was waiting for him at the curb, still talking on her phone. She folded it away when he pulled up and opened the Pinto's battered door to slip into the passenger seat.

"You're coming?" said Kurtz.

"Why so surprised?" said Rigby. She was wearing a tan corduroy blazer, pink Oxford shirt, jeans, and very white running shoes today. Her holster and 9mm were secure on her right hip, only visible if you knew to look. She was carrying a Thermos.

Kurtz shrugged. "Homicide cops, you know," he said. "I thought you might be working after all."

Rigby raised her heavy eyebrows. "Oh, you mean you thought maybe I'd be called in to investigate the murder of your girlfriend, Ms. Purina Ferrari?"

Kurtz gave her nothing but a blank look. He got the Pinto in gear and heading back toward the expressway.

"Not curious, Joe?" said Rigby. She unscrewed the Thermos and poured herself some steaming coffee, taking care not to spill it as the Pinto bounced over expansion joints.

"About what? Are you saying that Farino Ferrara was murdered?"

"We were pretty sure of it," said Rigby, sipping carefully and cradling the plastic Thermos cup in both hands as Kurtz headed up the ramp onto the Youngman Expressway. "Last night we got an anonymous call about an abandoned Lincoln Town Car that the caller said looked like it was filled with blood and gore—which, it turned out, it was—and when the uniformed officers arrived at Hemingway's—you know that café don't you, Joe? It's only a few blocks from your office isn't it? — they found a locked Town Car registered to your Ms. Farino Ferrara. It was filled with blood and brains, all right, but no bodies. The cops tried to contact the Farino woman at her penthouse out near the lake, but some goombah answering there said she was gone and no one knew where she was."

Kurtz had followed the 290 Youngman around to where it merged into 90 South near the airport. The Pinto rattled and wheezed but managed to keep up with the lighter Sunday morning traffic. It had rained much of the night and the morning was chilly, but the clouds were breaking up now and he could see blue sky to the south. Rigby's coffee smelled good. Kurtz wished he'd had time to grab some this morning. Maybe he'd go through a drive-thru on their way out past East Aurora.

"So is she dead?" said Kurtz at last.

Rigby looked at him. "It looked that way until about thirty minutes ago. We left a black and white at Marina Towers—her lawyer wouldn't let us up in the penthouse and we hadn't found a judge to issue paper yet—and Kemper called me a minute ago to tell me that the Farino woman just walked in. No car, just walked in from that asphalt path that runs along the marina opposite Chinaman's Lighthouse."

"She jogs," said Kurtz.

"Uh-huh," said Rigby. "All night? In some sort of miniskirt and clingy, silk top thing?"

"Sounds like Kemper got lots of detail."

"Part of being a cop," said Rigby.

They rode in silence for a few minutes. Kurtz took the Aurora Expressway exit before 90 became a toll road and they followed the four-lane 400 out east toward East Aurora and Orchard Park.

"Well, aren't you going to ask whose blood and brains it was in her Town Car?" demanded Rigby. She refilled her plastic mug, poured sugar out of a McDonald's packet, and stirred it with her little finger.

"Whose blood and brains was it in her Town Car?" said Kurtz.

"You tell me," said Rigby.

He looked at her. The expressway was almost empty and the sunlight lit hillsides of autumn orange and yellow on either side. "What are you talking about?" he said.

"I just thought maybe you could tell me, Joe." Rigby smiled sweetly at him. "You want some coffee?"

"Sure."

"Maybe there's a fast food drive-thru place out by the East Aurora exit," she said, "but I don't remember one."

He'd gone downstairs and out the door into the rain the previous night with the.38 in his palm and his eye full of business. If this was some bullshit set-up from Angelina Farino Ferrara, then let it happen.

No ambush came. The woman was really upset, standing there in the rain with her not-so-tiny Compact Witness.45 in her hand while cars were parking and nosing along Chippewa Street and pedestrians ran for the trendy restaurants and coffeehouses and wine bars. So far, no one seemed to have noticed the weapon.

"Where'd they go? Where's the car?" said Angelina, almost gasping the words. It was the first time Kurtz had ever seen the woman at the edge of control.

"How the hell should I know?" said Kurtz. He touched her elbow, guiding her hand into her coat pocket so the Compact Witness was out of sight. "Are these guys reliable?"

She stared at him and it looked as if she was about to laugh, but her eyes were wild. "Is anyone in this fucking business reliable, Kurtz? I pay Figini and Sheffield enough, but that doesn't mean anything."

Not if Gonzaga or your brother Little Skag paid them more, thought Kurtz.

She was squinting at Kurtz and he could read her mind—What if Gonzaga paid Joe Kurtz more?

"If I wanted you dead, lady, I would have done it upstairs," he said.

She shook her head. Her hair was black and slick with rain. "I have to… we have to…" She seemed to be mentally running through her options and rejecting all of them.

"We need to get off the street," said Kurtz. Part of his mind was shouting—What is this we shit, Kemo Sabe?

He led her across the street and into the alley alongside his building. Neither would go ahead of the other, so they walked side by side, him carrying the.38 in his palm, her with her hand on the Compact Witness in her pocket. If a cat had jumped out at that moment, all three of them would have probably ended up shot full of lead.

The small parking area off the alley where Kurtz and Arlene had reserved spaces held only his Pinto. "Get in," said Kurtz. "I'll take you back to Marina Towers."

"No." She stared at him across the wet, rusted roof of the Pinto. "Not there. Let's look for the Lincoln."

"All right, get in."

They found it within ten minutes, parked in a dark lot near Hemingway's Café. The doors were unlocked and the keys were in the ignition. The overhead light didn't come on when they opened the doors. Both Kurtz and Angelina were wearing gloves. He'd brought his flashlight from the Pinto and now they leaned in from opposite sides as he played the beam over the bloody seats and carpets. Gray matter and tiny, hard white shards glistened in the folds of the dark upholstery.

"Jesus," whispered Angelina. "It looks like a massacre. Even the backseats are bloody."

"I think the shooter just opened the back door, stepped in, and shot both of them in the head," said Kurtz. "Then he dragged the bodies into the backseat, walked around, got behind the wheel, and drove off."

"On Chippewa Street?" whispered the female don. She was blinking rapidly. "It was busy there tonight."

"Yeah," said Kurtz. "So far, this guy's been hitting junkies and dealers. Either of your bodyguards fit that description?"

Angelina hesitated a second. "Not really," she said at last. "Well, Sheffield has been coordinating deliveries."

"Sheffield is Colin?" said Kurtz. "The fop I dealt with the night we said good-bye to Big Bore?"

"Yes."

Kurtz ran the flashlight around the interior a final time, let the beam move across the driver's seat where the blood had been smeared, let it dwell on a starred fracture on the blood-spattered windshield for a second, and then flicked off the light. Traffic passed on Pearl Street. They walked away from the Lincoln and paused on the sidewalk. Angelina pulled out her cell phone.

"What are you doing?" said Kurtz.

"Getting in touch with the guys I called, telling them to bring cleanup stuff."

Kurtz reached over and closed the phone. "Why not leave the Lincoln as it is for the cops?"

She wheeled on him. "Are you crazy? It's my car. It's registered to me. I'll have every cop in Western New York on my ass."

Kurtz shrugged. "Look, you and Gonzaga—if you believe Gonzaga—have been doing it the other way for weeks now. This killer whacks your people, you rush out with buckets and mops and clean up after him. You're sitting on twenty-four murders, if Gonzaga is to be believed. Maybe that's just what the killer and whoever's sending the killer wants you to do."

Angelina bit her lip but said nothing.

"I mean, you're so crazy to find him that you're both trying to hire me, for Christ's sake," continued Kurtz. "Why not let the Buffalo P.D. deal with this?"

"But the attention…" began Angelina.

"Is going to be intense," said Kurtz. "But you won't be a suspect. They're your people who were hit. Let the cops do their fingerprint and ballistics stuff and put out an A.P.B. on someone walking around with blood on the seat of their pants."

"The media will go apeshit," said Angelina. "It'll be national news about a gang war."

Kurtz shrugged again. "You keep wondering if Gonzaga is behind this. Maybe the attention will smoke him out. Or rule him out."

Angelina turned and looked at the Lincoln in the back of the lot. A Saab pulled off Pearl and parked only two spaces away from it. Three college-age kids got out, laughing, and walked to Hemingway's. When the Saab's headlight beams had moved across the Lincoln, both Kurtz and Angelina had seen the bullet-fractured windshield. It was only a matter of time before someone noticed the gore.

She hesitated another few seconds. Then she brushed strands of wet hair away from her forehead and said, "I think you're right. For once the cops could be some help. At the very least, we won't be playing the murderer's game."

They got back in the Pinto and Kurtz drove down Pearl and cut over to Main. "Where do you want to go if not back to your penthouse?" asked Kurtz.

"Your place."

"Back to the office? Why?"

"Not back to the office," said Angelina Farino Ferrara. "Your place. That Harbor Inn hovel that nobody's supposed to know about."

"That's nuts," said Kurtz, shaking his head. "When the cops call, you have to be home with someone there as an alibi so…" He turned his head and froze.

Angelina was holding the.45 caliber Compact Witness in her right hand, bracing it on her left forearm, the black circle of the muzzle steady on Kurtz's heart. "Your place," she said. "Not mine."

"A penny for your thoughts, Joe," said Rigby King.

"What?" The Rigby King he'd known didn't say things like A penny for your thoughts. Not unless she was being really sarcastic.

"You've been driving for twenty minutes without saying a word," said Rigby. "And you didn't stop in East Aurora for coffee. You want some from the Thermos? It's still hot."

"No thanks," said Kurtz. He thought. What are you up to, woman?

"I didn't mean what I said yesterday," said the cop.

"What's that?"

"About you… you know… going to Iran with me and killing my ex-husband."

Does she think I'm wearing a wire?

"I'd like the son of a bitch dead," continued Rigby, "but all I really want is my son back."

"Uh-huh," said Kurtz. She's not going to give me any department information. This ride with her is for nothing.

They rode in silence again for a few minutes. The sunlight ignited the color in the hills, where about half the trees still showed bright foliage. The grass was still green, the woods very thick. The four-lane highway had ended not far past East Aurora, and now they were headed south on Highway 16, a winding old two-lane road that slowed for such ten-house towns as Holland and Yorkshire and Lime Lake. The hills on either side were getting steeper and clouds covered the southern horizon. A constant wind was blowing from the west, and Kurtz had to concentrate on keeping the Pinto from wandering.

"Do you remember the night in the choir loft?" said Rigby. She wasn't looking at him, but was staring out her window at the passing, empty fruit stands and dilapidated old farms with their broad yards and big satellite dishes.

Kurtz said nothing.

"You were the only boy at Father Baker's who didn't tease me about my big tits when I was seventeen," continued Rigby, still looking away. "So that night I brought the flashlights and walked through the Catacombs over from the Girl's Hall—it was almost two blocks away, you remember? — I knew it was you I was coming to find in the Boy's Hall."

Shadows of clouds were moving across the hills and valley now. Leaves skittered across the road. There was little traffic except for a pest control truck that had been behind them for quite a while.

"You weren't sure you wanted to follow me into the Catacombs," continued Rigby. "You were tough as nails, even when you were… what?… fifteen that year? But you were nervous that night. They would have beat the hell out of you if you'd been found AWOL from bunk check again."

"Fourteen," said Kurtz.

"Jesus, that makes me even more of a pedophile. But you were a big fourteen." She turned and smiled at that, but Kurtz kept his eyes on the road. It was more shadow than sunlight ahead.

"You liked the Catacombs," said Rigby. "You wanted to keep exploring them, even with the rats and everything. I just wanted to get up into the Basilica. Remember that sort of secret passage in the wall and the narrow, winding staircase that went right up into the sacristy?"

Kurtz nodded and wondered what she was up to with this story.

"We found those other stairs and I took your hand and kept leading you up that other winding staircase, up past the organ loft where Father Majda was practicing on the organ for Saturday's High Mass. Remember how dark it was? It must have been about ten o'clock at night and there was only the light of the votive candles down below, and Father Majda's little lamp above the keyboard as we tiptoed past his loft and kept climbing—I don't know why we were so frightened of being heard, he was playing Toccata in Fugue in D-minor and wouldn't have heard us if we'd fired a gun at him."

Kurtz remembered the smells—the heavy incense and the oiled wood scent of the pews and the scent of young Rigby's clean sweat and skin as she pushed him down on the hard pew in the upper choir loft, knelt straddling him, unbuttoned her white blouse, and pulled it off. She'd worn a simple white bra and he'd watched with as much technical interest as teenaged lust as she reached behind her and easily undid the hooks and eyes. He remembered thinking I have to learn how to do that without looking.

"Do you know what the odds were against us having a simultaneous orgasm like that on our first try, Joe?"

Kurtz didn't think she really wanted an answer to that, so he concentrated on driving.

"I think that was my first and last time," Rigby said softly.

Kurtz looked over at her.

"For a simultaneous orgasm, I mean," she said hurriedly. "Not for a fuck. I've had a few of those since. Though none in a choir loft since that night."

Kurtz sighed. The pest control truck was falling farther behind, although Kurtz was driving under the speed limit. It was cloudy enough now that cars coming the other way had their headlights on.

"Want some music?" said Rigby.

"Sure."

She turned the radio on. Scratchy jazz matched the buffeting wind and low-hurrying clouds. She poured the last of the Thermos coffee into the red mug and handed him the mug.

Kurtz looked at her, nodded, and sipped.