Hard Freeze

CHAPTER TWENTY

James B. Hansen parked his Cadillac Escalade beyond the overpass and followed a trodden path through the snow down toward the railroad yards. It was Captain Millworth's lunch hour.

Calls to the university showed no Dr. Paul Frederick on the staff. The Buffalo area phone directories did not list a Paul Frederick. The precinct showed only one record of a Paul Frederick being detained—no photographs, no fingerprints, no rap sheet, just a detention 326-B form mentioning a vagrant named Pruno, aka the Prof, aka P. Frederick, being picked up during a sweep to interrogate homeless people after a murder of a vagrant some two summers ago. Hansen had talked to the uniformed officer who handled the downtown homeless beat and was told that this Pruno wandered the streets, almost never went to shelters, but had favorite niches under the overpass and a shack near the tracks.

Hansen had no trouble finding the shack. The path through the snow led to it, and there were no other structures here in what must be a hobo jungle in the summer. Why would this vagrant stay out here in weather like this? wondered Hansen. It had stopped snowing but the temperature had dropped to the single digits and a cold wind came in off the river and Lake Erie.

"Hello?" Hansen did not expect a response from the shack, and he didn't get one. Actually, he thought, «shack» was too fancy a title for this miserable heap of corrugated steel and plywood and cardboard. He took out the.38 that was going to become the property of Mr. Joe Kurtz after the murder of John Wellington Frears, stooped low, and went into the shack, expecting to find it empty.

It was not empty. An old wino in an overcoat stinking of urine sat close to a small burner. The floor was plastic-tarp material, the walls whistled cold wind through, and the wino was so high on crack or heroin that he hardly noticed Hansen's entrance. Keeping the gun aimed at the man's chest, Hansen worked to make out the wino's features in the dim light. Gray stubble, grime-rimmed wrinkles, reddened eyes, wisps of gray hair left on his mottled skull, a chapped-looking chicken neck disappearing into the oversized raincoat—he matched the description of Pruno aka the Prof aka one P. Frederick that the uniformed officer had given Hansen. But then, what wino didn't?

"Hey!" shouted Hansen to get the nodding addict's attention. "Hey, old man!"

The homeless man's red, watery eyes turned in the police captain's direction. The grubby fingers were in plain sight, red and white from the cold, and shaking. Hansen watched the internal struggle as the old addict reluctantly tried to focus his attention.

"You Paul Frederick?" shouted Hansen. "Pruno? Paul Frederick?"

The wino blinked repeatedly and then nodded dubiously. Hansen felt physically sick. Nothing repulsed him more than one of these useless derelicts.

"Mr. Frederick," said Hansen, "have you seen John Wellington Frears? Has Frears been in touch with you?" The thought of this old heroin addict being a friend of the urbane Frears, much less the idea of Frears visiting him in this shack, was absurd. But Hansen waited for an answer.

The wino licked his cracked lips and tried to concentrate. He was looking at the.38. Hansen lowered the muzzle slightly.

As if seeing his chance, the old man's right hand shot into his raincoat, reaching for something.

Without thinking, Hansen lifted his aim and fired twice, hitting the wino once in the chest and once in the neck. The old man flopped backward like an empty bundle of rags. For a minute he continued to breathe, the laborious rasp sounding high and cracked and obscene in the cold dark of the shack, but then the breathing stopped and Hansen lowered the hammer on the.38. Then he stuck his head out the door of the shack and took a quick look around—there was no one to hear the shot, and trains were crashing and roaring in the yards just out of sight—and Hansen crouched by the body. He needed to search the corpse, but he wasn't going to touch those filthy, lice-ridden rags.

Hansen found a stick the old man had used for lifting his cooking pot and stirring soup, and pushing open the filthy raincoat, Hansen saw that the wino's hands had been reaching not for a weapon, but for a stobby pencil. The dead fingers were just touching it. A small yellow pad—empty of writing—had also tumbled out of the wino's vest pocket.

"Damn," whispered Hansen, saying a fast prayer asking forgiveness for his use of the obscenity. He'd not planned on killing the old man, and the fact that he'd asked the patrolman about him might raise suspicions.

Not at all, thought Hansen. When Frears ends up dead, this will be just another killing connected to Joe Kurtz. We won't know why Kurtz killed both of them, but the.38 found in Kurtz's apartment will provide the connection. Hansen slid the revolver into his coat pocket. He had never kept a murder weapon with him after the act—it was amateurish—but in this case, he would have to, at least until he found and killed Frears. Then he could plant the weapon in Kurtz's hotel room… or on Kurtz's body if the perp tried to resist arrest, which James B. Hansen fully anticipated.

Sitting in the little room thirty feet from Emilio Gonzaga's dining room, feeling the stares from Mickey Kee, Marco, and the two Gonzaga bodyguards, Joe Kurtz felt himself beginning to prepare for what was to come.

He would be leaving a lot of loose ends behind—the thing with Frears and Hansen, for instance, but that wasn't Kurtz's business. Arlene would take care of Frears, perhaps try to get the Conway-connection information to the police. It wasn't Kurtz's problem. Then there was Donald Rafferty and Rachel—that was Kurtz's business—but there was nothing for Kurtz to do there. Right now, Kurtz's business was Emilio Gonzaga, Samantha's real killer, and Emilio Gonzaga was only thirty feet away, down a short hallway and through an unlocked door.

When it happened, it would have to happen fast. And soon. Kurtz guessed that Gonzaga and the Farino woman were on their main course now, the three bodyguard-servants in there, standing by the wall.

Mickey Kee was very vigilant, but—like all bodyguards—he was also bored. Familiarity bred laxness. Even the past twenty minutes, when Marco did nothing but read a racing form and Kurtz did nothing but sit with his eyes half-closed, had lowered Mickey Kee's guard. The other two bodyguards were chimps—sloppy—their attention had already wandered to the small TV set on a buffet near the wall. Some soap opera rattled away and both of the guards were fascinated with it. They probably watched every day.

Mickey Kee was obviously troubled by Kurtz's presence. Like all good bodyguards, he was suspicious of anything out of the ordinary. But Kee was also thirsty and kept crossing to the inlaid-mahogany bar near Kurtz—walking within three feet of Kurtz—to refill his glass of club soda. And while he held the glass in his left hand—Kurtz had noticed that he was right-handed—it still occupied too much of his attention. It was almost time for Kee to refill his glass.

When it happens, it will have to happen fast. Kurtz had also noticed that Kee carried his primary weapon, a 9mm Beretta, in a quick-draw shoulder holster. All the better for Kurtz, who would use his left forearm to slam into Kee's windpipe, his right hand pulling the Beretta and firing into the two armed bodyguards at a distance of only six feet.

It would have to happen fast, but there was no way to do this without warning Gonzaga and his goons inside. Kurtz would need more weapons, more bullets, so he'd have to take another ten seconds to retrieve the bodyguards' guns after he shot them. Marco would have to be neutralized, although if he fled, Kurtz was prepared to let him go. He would not be a factor.

Then another twenty seconds to get down the hall and go through the dining-room door, low, firing both weapons, the third one in his belt. Kurtz had only one target in that dining room, although he was prepared to kill everyone else there to get to that one target.

He thought he had a decent chance of getting into the dining room and getting to that target before it fled or called for reinforcements, but Kurtz didn't think he had much chance of surviving that exchange. The guards there would have gone for their guns at the first sound of gunfire. Still, they would be confused. Unlike expertly trained Secret Service operatives, they were cheap hoods, killers, and their first instinct would be self-preservation, not throwing themselves between Emilio Gonzaga and a fusillade of bullets.

Still, Kurtz would have to move fast, shoot fast. If he somehow survived the dining-room exchange, he would make sure that Gonzaga was dead—an extra bullet through the head should do that—and only then would Kurtz worry about getting out of the compound. His best bet would be the limo they'd arrived in, although even it couldn't crash that metal security gate out front. But Kurtz had studied the aerial photos, knew the service roads and back exits to the compound. There would be more than a dozen guards still loose on the grounds, TV monitors, the Jeep that patrolled the place, but they would be confused, reluctant to shoot at Gonzaga's personal limo, not ready for someone trying to break out of the compound. Kurtz might have a slim chance of survival, even if wounded.

No, I don't, he told himself. Emilio Gonzaga was one of the few made men in Western New York, head of his own sub-family. However unimportant Buffalo mob business might be, the real New York families weren't going to sit by and let a nobody kill one of their franchise boys without stepping in to reset the balance of pain in the universe. Even if Joe Kurtz killed everyone in the Gonzaga compound today and got away unscathed, the Mafia would find out who had done it and track him down if it took twenty years. Joe Kurtz was dead as soon as he raised a hand against Emilio Gonzaga.

C'est la vie, thought Kurtz and had to fight the impulse to smile. He didn't want to do anything right now that would make Mickey Kee pay more attention to him. Kurtz felt all other thought fade as he became an organ of watchfulness and preparation, an adrenaline engine with one purpose.

Mickey Kee sipped the last of his club soda. For a second, Kurtz was afraid that the man had drunk enough, but Kee was still thirsty. Vigilant, carrying the glass in his left hand—but not vigilant enough, Kurtz knew—Kee began crossing the room toward the bar again.

Kurtz had mentally rehearsed his next moves until they would require no further thought or preparation. Kee would be dead in five seconds, but it was necessary that Kurtz come away with the Beretta as the killer fell, Kurtz clicking the safety off even as he swung the pistol toward the startled bodyguards in front of their soap opera…

Mickey Kee came within range.

Joe Kurtz's cell phone rang.

Kee paused and stepped back, his hand moving toward his shoulder holster. Kurtz let out the breath he'd been holding, held up one finger to remind Kee that he was unarmed, and answered his phone. There was nothing else to do at the moment.

"Joe?" Arlene's voice was more alarmed than he had ever heard it.

"What is it?"

"It's Rachel."

"What?" Kurtz had to come back from wherever he had gone in his preparation—most of his mind and body were still involved in shooting the bodyguards, breaking into the dining room, bringing the bead of the Beretta's gunsight in line with Emilio Gonzaga's fat, fish face. "What?" he said again.

"It's Rachel. She's in the hospital. She's hurt bad."

"What are you talking about? How do you know—"

"Alan's sister, remember? Gail. She's a nurse at Erie County. She knows about Rachel. She knew Sam, remember? She called me just now. Gail just came on-shift. Rachel was admitted this morning, about nine a.m."

"Rafferty hit her?" said Kurtz. Mickey Kee and the others were watching him with interest. Marco licked his lips, obviously wondering if this new wrinkle would affect his chances for surviving the next hour.

"No. They were in a car crash on the Kensington. Donald Rafferty was drunk. Gail says that he's got a broken arm and a possible concussion, but he'll be okay. Rachel's in really bad shape."

"How bad?" Kurtz heard his own voice as if it were miles away.

"They don't know yet. Rachel's been in surgery all morning. Gail said they've removed her spleen and one kidney. They'll know more in the next hour or so."

Kurtz said nothing. A red film descended over his vision, and he heard a noise that sounded like an elevated train rushing by.

"Joe?"

"Yeah," he said. He realized that if he did not relax his hand, he was going to snap the little phone in half.

"There's more," said Arlene. "Something worse."

Kurtz waited.

"Rachel was conscious when they cut her out of the car. The paramedics were talking to her to keep her conscious. She told them that she'd run away the night before and that her stepfather had come after her and found her near the bus station, made her get in the car, and that she'd run away because he'd been drinking and tried to rape her."

Kurtz clicked off the connection, folded the phone, and set it carefully in his suit's chest pocket.

"Whatsamatter?" said Mickey Kee. "Lose a big bet or something, Mr. Howard from Raiford? Somebody named Rafferty slapping around one of your bitches?"

Ignoring Kee and the other bodyguards, shaking off their restraining hands, Kurtz stood and walked down the hall and went into the dining room to get Angelina Farino Ferrara so they could get the hell out of there.