Hard as Nails

CHAPTER EIGHT

"You're a hard man to track down, Mr. Kurtz."

The limousine, followed by the Lincoln filled with the other bodyguards, had headed west and was within sight of the lake and river now, moving north along the expressway. They had Kurtz in the jump seat near the liquor cabinet, opposite Toma Gonzaga and one of his smarter-looking bodyguards. The bodyguard held Kurtz's.38 loosely in his left hand and kept his own semiauto braced on his knee and aimed at Kurtz's heart A second bodyguard sat along the upholstered bench to Kurtz's right, his arms folded.

When Kurtz said nothing, Gonzaga said, "And odd to find you in a place like Knob Gobbler's."

Kurtz shrugged. "I heard that you were hunting for me. I figured I'd find you there."

The bodyguard next to the don thumbed back the hammer on his gun. Toma Gonzaga shook his head, smiled slightly, and set his left hand lightly on the pistol. Eyes never leaving Kurtz, the glowering bodyguard lowered the hammer.

"You're trying to provoke me, Mr. Kurtz," said Gonzaga. "Although in the current circumstances, I have no idea why. I presume you heard that my father exiled me to Florida eight years ago when he found out I was a homosexual."

"I thought all you guys preferred the term 'gay' these days," said Kurtz.

"No, I prefer 'homosexual, or even 'queer, " said Gonzaga. "'Fag' will do in a pinch."

"Truth in advertising?"

"Something like that. Most of my homosexual acquaintances over the years have been anything but gay people, Mr. Kurtz. In the old meaning of the term, I mean."

Kurtz shrugged. There must be some subject that would interest him less—football, perhaps—but he'd be hard-pressed to find it.

Gonzaga's cell phone buzzed and the man answered it without speaking. While he was listening, Kurtz studied his face. His father—Emilio—had been an outstandingly ugly man, looking like some mad scientist had transplanted the head of a carp onto the body of a bull. Toma, who looked to be in his early forties, had the same barrel chest and short legs, but he was rather handsome in an older-Tony-Curtis sort of way. His lips were full and sensuous like his father's, but looked to be curled more from habits of laughter than the way his father's fat lips had curled with cruelty. Gonzaga's eyes were a light blue and his gray hair was cut short. He wore a stylish and expensive gray suit, with brown shoes so leathery soft that it looked as if you could fold them into your pocket after wearing them.

Gonzaga folded the phone instead and slipped it into his pocket. "You'll be relieved to know that Bernard has regained consciousness, more or less, although you may have broken two or three of his ribs."

"Bernard?" said Kurtz, putting the emphasis on the second syllable the way Gonzaga had. First 'Colin' and now 'Bernard, he thought. What's the underworld coming to? He'd seen them carry the huge bodyguard out of KG's and fold him into the backseat of the accompanying Lincoln.

"Yes," said Gonzaga. "If I were in Bernard's line of work, I'd change my name as well."

"Isn't Toma a girl's name?" said Kurtz. He wasn't sure why he was provoking a man who might already be planning to kill him. Maybe it was the headache.

"A nickname for Tomas."

Just before they reached the International Bridge, the driver swept them right onto the Scajaquada and the limo headed east toward the Kensington, followed by the Lincoln.

"Did you know my father, Mr. Kurtz?"

This is it, thought Kurtz.

"No."

"Did you ever meet him, Mr. Kurtz?"

"No."

Gonzaga brushed invisible lint off the sharp crease of his gray slacks. "When my father went back to New York for a meeting last winter and was murdered, most of his closest associates here disappeared. It's difficult to discover what really went on during my father's last days here."

Kurtz looked at the bodyguard aiming the Glock-nine at him. The cops had Glocks. Now all the hoods wanted them. They'd turned south on the Kensington and beaded back toward downtown. Whatever was going to happen, it wasn't going to happen in Toma Gonzaga's limo.

"Did you ever happen to meet a man named Mickey Kee?" asked Gonzaga.

"No."

"I wouldn't think so. Mr. Kee was my father's toughest… associate. They found him dead at the old, abandoned Buffalo train station two days after the big blizzard you people had here in February. It was eighty-two degrees in Miami that week."

"Did you drag me in here at gunpoint to give me a weather report?" asked Kurtz.

Toma squinted at him and Kurtz realized that he was skating now on very thin ice indeed. This man may look like Tony Curtis, he thought, but his genes were all from the murderous Gonzaga line.

"I invited you here to make you an offer you won't want to refuse," said Gonzaga.

Did he really say that? thought Kurtz. These mafia idiots were tiresome enough without having them get self-referential and ironic on you. Kurtz put on an expression that was supposed to look both receptive and neutral.

"Angelina talked to you today about the problem with some people of hers in the drug supply and consumer side of things disappearing," said Toma Gonzaga.

Angelina? thought Kurtz. He wasn't surprised that the gay don knew that Angelina Farino Ferrara had offered him the job—Gonzaga could have people following her, or maybe the two just talked after the offer—but Kurtz couldn't believe the two Buffalo dons were on a first-name basis. Angelina? And she had called him "Toma." Very hard to believe—seven months earlier, Angelina Farino Ferrara was doing everything within her power—including the hiring of Joe Kurtz—to get Toma Gonzaga's father whacked.

"Didn't she offer you the job of tracking down the killer?" pressed Gonzaga. "She and I had discussed the idea of her talking to you about this situation."

Kurtz blinked. The concussion was making him fuzz out. "She didn't say anything about drugs," he said, trying to stay noncommittal.

"She told you that the Farino group has lost five people to some crazy person killing them?" said Toma Gonzaga, raising the inflection on the last word just enough to suggest a question.

"She said something about that," said Kurtz. "She didn't give me any details." Yet. He wondered if her blowdried bodyguard had dropped off the information with Arlene yet. And you'd be my first suspect if I take this job, thought Kurtz, staring Gonzaga in the eye.

"Well, we've lost seventeen people in the last three weeks," said the don.

Kurtz blinked at this. Even blinking hurt. "Seventeen of your people killed in three weeks?" he said skeptically.

"Not my people," said Gonzaga. "And the people Angelina lost aren't really her people. Not employees. Not directly."

Kurtz didn't understand any of this, so he waited.

"They're the street dealers and users we associate with to move the heavy drugs," said Gonzaga. "Heroin, to be precise."

Kurtz was surprised to hear that the Farinos were moving skag now. It had been the one source of profit that the old don, Byron Farino, had forbidden for his family. His oldest son, David, had wrapped his Ferrari around a tree and killed himself while on coke, and the don had shut down what little drug trade the Farinos had cornered. It had always been Emilio Gonzaga who'd controlled serious drugs in Western New York.

"I've been out of town the last few days," said Kurtz, not believing any of this, "but I would have heard on the national news about twenty-two drug-related murders."

"The cops and press haven't heard about any of them."

"How can that be?" said Kurtz.

"Because the nut-job who whacks them calls us—mostly me, but Angelina twice—to tell us where the murders have taken place. We've been cleaning up after this guy for almost a month."

"I don't get it," said Kurtz. "Why would you help him hide the murders? You're telling me that you didn't kill them."

"Of course we didn't kill them, you idiot," snarled Gonzaga. "They're our customers and street-level dealers."

"Which is why you're doing clean-up," said Kurtz. "So the other heroin addicts still able to drive or hold a job don't get wind of this and run down to Cleveland or somewhere to score."

"Yes. The fact that all our street middlemen and dealers are getting murdered wouldn't make these junkies drop their habit—they can't—but it might put them off buying from us. Especially when this psychopath leaves signs behind saying things like 'Score from Gonzaga and die. "

"He calls you?" mused Kurtz.

"Yes, but we can't tell much about him through that. Voice is all distorted through one of those phone clip-on devices. Probably a white man—he doesn't say 'axe' instead of 'ask' or any of that, or use 'motherfucker' or 'you know' every third word—but we can't identify the voice, or even his age."

"Have you tried tracing…"

"Of course we've tried tracing his calls. I had the Buffalo P.D. do it for me—the Family's still got men and women on the arm down there—but this psycho has some way of routing calls through the phone system. My people never get to the pay phone in time."

"Then you go… what do you do with the bodies of his victims?" asked Kurtz. He tried not to laugh. "I guess you have your favorite out of the way places for such things. Whole Forest Lawns out there in the woods."

Gonzaga was not amused. "There aren't any bodies."

"What?"

"You heard me. We go and mop up the blood and brains and we plaster over the bullet holes when we have to, but this killer doesn't leave any bodies. He takes them with him."

Kurtz thought about that a minute. It made his head hurt worse. He rubbed his temples. "I already have a client who hired me related to this mess," said Kurtz. "I can't take a second one."

"You're talking like a P.I.," said Gonzaga. "You're not an investigator anymore, Mr. Kurtz. I'm just offering you a private deal, one civilian to another."

The limo came down off the expressway and rolled into the downtown again.

"Angelina's going to pay you ten g's for finding this guy…"

"Fifteen," said Kurtz. He didn't usually volunteer information, but his head hurt and he was tired of this conversation. He closed his eyes for a second.

"All right," said Gonzaga. "My offer's better. Today's Thursday. Next Monday's Halloween. You tell us who this asshole is by midnight next Monday, I'll pay you one hundred thousand dollars and I'll let you live."

Kurtz opened his eyes. It took only one look into Toma Gonzaga's eyes to know that the gay don was completely serious. Kurtz realized that whether this man knew that he had been involved in the events that led to Gonzaga's father's death or not, didn't matter. History meant nothing now. Kurtz had just heard his death sentence.

Unless he found the man who was murdering heroin users and dealers.

"One thing," said Gonzaga, smiling slightly as if remembering some amusing detail. "I should tell you that this psychopath hasn't just been whacking the dealers and users—he goes to their homes and shoots their entire families. Kids. Mothers-in-law. Visiting aunts."

"Twenty-two murdered and missing people," said Kurtz.

"Murdered people, bodies missing, but the people aren't really missed," said Toma Gonzaga. "These are all junkies or dealers. Heroin addicts and their families. No one's been reported missing yet."

"But they will be soon," said Kurtz. "You can't keep the lid on twenty-two murdered people."

"Of course," said Gonzaga. "Bobby." He nodded toward the bodyguard on the side bench.

Bobby handed Kurtz a slim leather portfolio.

"Here's what we know, the names of those who've been murdered, dates, addresses, everything we have," said Gonzaga.

"I don't want this job," said Kurtz. "This crap has nothing to do with me." He tried to hand the portfolio back, but the bodyguard folded his arms.

"It has a lot to do with you now," said Gonzaga. "Or it will at midnight on Monday—that's Halloween, I believe—especially if you don't find this man."

Kurtz said nothing.

Gonzaga handed him a cell phone. "This is how you get in touch with us. Hit the only stored number. Somebody'll answer night or day and I'll call you back within twenty minutes."

Kurtz slipped the phone in his pocket and pointed toward the bodyguard who was holding his.38. The bodyguard looked to Gonzaga, who nodded. The man dumped the cartridges out onto his palm and handed the empty weapon to Kurtz.

"Can we drop you somewhere?" asked Toma Gonzaga.

Kurtz peered out through the tinted windows. They were near the Hyatt and the Convention Center, within a block of the office building where Brian Kennedy had his security company's Buffalo headquarters.

"Here," said Kurtz.

When he was standing on the curb by the open door, Toma Gonzaga said, "One more thing, Mr. Kurtz."

Kurtz waited. The cold air felt good after the stuffy interior of the limousine, filled with the bodyguards' cologne.

"There's word that Angelina has hired a professional killer called the Dane," said Gonzaga. "And paid him one million dollars in advance to settle old scores."

Cute, thought Kurtz. Angelina Farino Ferrara had warned him that Gonzaga was bringing in the Dane. Gonzaga warned him that she had. But why would either one of them warn me?

He said, "What's that got to do with me?"

"You might want to work extra hard to earn the hundred thousand dollars I mentioned," said Gonzaga. "Especially since all indications are that you're one of the old scores she wants to settle."