Hard Freeze

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

"Are you a member of the immediate family?" asked the nurse.

"I'm Donald Rafferty's brother," said Kurtz. He'd met Arlene's sister-in-law Gail and knew that she was a surgical nurse on the ninth floor, but he didn't want her to see him here.

The reception nurse grunted and glanced at one of the computer screens at her station. "Mr. Rafferty's in six-twenty-three. He was treated for a mild concussion and a broken wrist and is sleeping right now. The doctor who treated him, Dr. Singh, will be available in about twenty minutes if you want to talk to him."

"What about the girl?" said Kurtz.

"Girl?"

"Rachel… Rafferty. She was in the car with Donald. I understand she suffered more serious injuries."

The nurse frowned and tapped the keys again. "Yes. She's out of surgery."

"Can I see her?"

"Oh, no… the surgery went on for almost five hours. The girl will be in the ICU recovery for several hours."

"But the surgery went all right? She'll be all right?"

"You'd have to speak to the doctor."

"Dr. Singh?"

"No, no." The nurse frowned more deeply, her important time at the desk obviously being eaten up here on inconsequentials, and tapped more keys. "Dr. Fremont and Dr. Wiley were the primary surgeons."

"Two surgeons?"

"I just said that."

"Can I talk to them?"

The nurse rolled her eyes and played with the keyboard again. "Dr. Fremont has left the hospital and Dr. Wiley will be in surgery until after five o'clock."

"Where's the ICU?"

"You won't be allowed in there, Mr… ah… Rafferty."

Kurtz leaned over close enough that the nurse had to turn away from the computer screen and look into his eyes. "Where is it?"

She told him.

Kurtz, Angelina, and Marco had left the Gonzaga compound in a hurry, Angelina explaining to an obviously irritated Emilio that something important had come up for her and that they would reschedule the luncheon. Arnie and Mickey Kee had driven the silent trio back to Marina Towers in the armored limo. They had taken the elevator straight to the penthouse before talking.

"What the hell is going on, Kurtz?" Angelina was pale with anger and fighting a backwash of adrenaline.

"I need a car."

"I'll take you back to the health club where you parked your—"

Kurtz shook his head. "I need a car now."

Angelina hesitated for a second. Acquiescing to Kurtz now would change their relationship—whatever that was at the moment—forever. She looked at his face and then reached into her purse and tossed him a set of keys. "My silver Porsche Boxster, parked closest to the elevator in the garage."

Kurtz nodded and turned toward the elevator.

"What about him?" Angelina had brought out her.45 Compact Witness and was aiming it at Marco.

"He's not stupid," said Kurtz. "You can still use him. Offer him handcuffs in the John the way you offered Leo."

Angelina looked at Marco. "Sure. Why not?" said the big bodyguard. "Beats the alternative."

"All right," said Angelina. "What about…" She flicked her head toward the big walk-in freezer in the utility room off the kitchen.

"Tonight," said Kurtz. "I'll be back."

"This is not good," said Angelina, but Kurtz had already stepped into the elevator and closed the door.

Kurtz stepped out of the elevator and saw immediately how the Intensive Care Unit was set up with a nurses' station at the locus of a circle of single rooms with clear glass walls. The three nurses at the central station watched their own readouts but could look into any of the rooms and see the patients and their computer screens. An older nurse with a kind face looked up as Kurtz approached. "Can I help you, sir?"

"I'm Bob Rafferty, Rachel Rafferty's uncle. The nurse downstairs said she was in recovery here."

The nurse nodded and pointed toward one of the glass-walled rooms. Kurtz could see only Rachel's auburn hair, so much like Sam's. The rest was blankets, tubes, monitors, and a ventilating unit.

"I'm afraid you won't be able to visit her for a few days," said the nurse. "After such extensive surgery, the doctors are very concerned about infection and—"

"But she came out of surgery all right? She's going to live?"

The kind-faced nurse took a breath. "You really should talk to Dr. Fremont or Dr. Wiley."

"I was told they'd be unavailable all day."

"Yes. Well…" She looked at Kurtz. "Rachel had a very close thing this morning, Mr. Rafferty. Very close. But Dr. Wiley told me that the prognosis is good. We've given her eight units of blood—"

"Is that a lot?"

The woman nodded. "Essentially, we've replaced all the blood in her system, Mr. Rafferty. The Flight for Life helicopter saved her life."

"And they removed her spleen and a kidney?"

"Yes. Her left kidney. The damage was too extensive."

"That means that even if she recovers from this, she'll always be at risk, right?"

"It makes future illnesses or accidents more problematic, yes. And there will be a long recovery period. But your niece should be able to lead a normal life." She looked at where Kurtz was gripping the edge of the counter and lifted one hand as if she was going to touch him. She pulled back her hand. "Dr. Singh should be free very soon if you want to talk to him about your brother's injuries—"

"No," said Kurtz.

He took the elevator to the sixth floor and started down the corridor to Room 623. Kurtz had removed the.40 S&W in the elevator and now carried it in his right palm, letting the long sleeve of his open raincoat hang down over that hand. He paused three doors away from Rafferty's room.

A woman cop in plainclothes, probably a rape-contact officer, and a bored uniformed cop were sitting on folding chairs just outside the room. Kurtz stood there a minute, but when the woman plainclothes cop looked up at him, he stepped into the closest room. An ancient man lay asleep or in a coma on the only occupied bed. The old guy's eyes had sunken into his head in the way that Kurtz had seen in week-old corpses. Kurtz put his Smith & Wesson back in his belt holster and stood by the old man's bed for a minute. The geezer's gnarled hand was liver-spotted and bruised from IV punctures. The fingers were curled and the nails were long and yellow. Kurtz touched the hand once before going out the door and taking the elevator down to the parking garage.

The Boxster was a beautiful sports car, but it handled like shit on snow and ice. He had just headed south on the Kensington toward the downtown and Marina Towers when his cell phone rang again.

"Have you seen Rachel, Joe? How is she?"

Kurtz told Arlene what the nurse had said.

"And what about Donald Rafferty?"

"He's not going to survive the accident," said Kurtz.

Arlene was silent a minute. "I was heading down to the hospital, Mr. Frears said that he'd be all right here, but Mrs. Campbell, one of my older neighbors, called me and said that a suspicious-looking man in a gray Ford was parked in front of her house, half a block down the street."

"Shit," said Kurtz.

"Mrs. Campbell called the police."

"And?"

"And I was watching through the blinds. The squad car stopped, one of the uniformed officers got out, the man in the parked car showed him something, and the squad car left in a hurry."

"It's probably either Brubaker or Myers, one of the two homicide detectives who've been tailing me," said Kurtz. "But it could be Hansen… Captain Millworth. I don't know how he could've made the connection with Frears, but…"

"I used Alan's binoculars. It's a fat man, almost bald. Not very tall. Brown suit."

"That's Myers," said Kurtz. He pulled the Boxster off at the East Ferry exit and did a fast loop, getting back on the Expressway headed out toward Cheektowaga. "Arlene, we don't know that Brubaker and Myers aren't working directly for Hansen. Stay put. I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

"And do what, Joe? Why don't I take Mr. Frears and leave here for Gail's house?"

"Can you get out without being seen?"

"Sure. Through the carport and across the alley to the Dzwrjskys'. Mona will loan me her ex-husband's station wagon. Gail's at work, but I know where the extra key is. We'll leave Detective Myers sitting down the street all day."

Kurtz slowed the Boxster to below seventy. "I don't know…"

"Joe, there's something else. I checked our business e-mail from here and there's a message to you that was copied to my e-mail address. It was dated at one p.m., and it's signed just 'P. "

Pruno, thought Kurtz. Likely checking up on whether he'd met with Frears. "It's probably not important," said Kurtz.

"The message says that it's urgent, Joe. Let me read it to you— Joseph, absolutely imperative that you meet me as soon as possible at that place where the thing occurred on midsummer night's eve. This is urgent. P. "

"Oh, man," said Kurtz. "All right. Call me as soon as you get to Gail's place." He folded the phone away, took a high-speed exit onto Delavan Avenue, drove east a block, and accelerated south on Fillmore.

The main Buffalo train station was a dignified and imposing structure in its time; now, after being abandoned for a decade, it was a sad mess. The sprawling structure was dominated by a twenty-story tower built along the lines of one of the brooding, stepped-back skyscrapers in Fritz Lang's movie Metropolis. On the twelfth-story level of each corner of the tower, oversized clocks had stopped at different times. Some shards of glass remained in the hundreds of broken windows, which made the battered facade look all the more dismal. Besides the two main entrances on the tower building, four large, awninged and arched doorways that looked like entrances to blimp hangars had been situated along the five-story main structure to allow the thousands of passengers to enter and leave the huge complex without undue jostling.

There were no crowds jostling today. Even the hilly driveway to the expanse of the abandoned parking lot was drifted over with snow. Kurtz parked the Porsche Boxster on a side street and walked past the boulders placed in the drive to keep cars out of the lot. Trespassers and winos and kids intent on breaking the last of the windows had left a myriad of old and new footprints in the snow on the lot, so there was no way for Kurtz to tell who had passed here when. He followed some tracks across to the hurricane fence around the station itself and found a three-foot height of wire cut just under one of the yellow Keep out. No Trespassing signs. He passed under the massive overhang with its NEW YORK & BUFFALO RAILROAD legend just visible in the rusting metal and dimming light. The huge doors were firmly sealed with sheet metal and plywood, but the corner of one of the window coverings had been jimmied loose, and Kurtz squeezed his way in there.

It was much colder inside than out. And darker. The tall, high windows that had once sent down shafts of sunlight onto soldiers traveling off to World War II and onto the weeping families left behind were all dark and boarded up now. A few frightened pigeons took flight in the great, dim space as Kurtz crunched his way across the littered tile.

The old waiting areas and the ramps to the train platforms were empty. Kurtz climbed a short staircase to the tower building that had once housed the railroad offices, pried open a plywood barrier, and walked slowly through narrow corridors into the main hall. Rats scurried. Pigeons fluttered.

Kurtz slid his pistol out, racked a round into the chamber, and carried the gun by his side as he moved into the wide, dark space.

"Joseph." The whisper seemed to come from the far corner, forty feet from Kurtz, but there were only shadows and a tumble of old benches there.

He half-raised the gun.

"Up here, Joseph."

Kurtz stepped farther out into the hall and peered up at the mezzanines in the darkness. A shadow beckoned.

Kurtz found the staircase and climbed, leaving a trail through fallen plaster. The old man was waiting for him by the railing on the second mezzanine. He was carrying what looked to be a lumpy garment bag.

"Rather interesting acoustics," said Pruno. The old man's stubbled face seemed even more pale than usual in the dim light. "They accidentally constructed a whispering gallery when they built this hall. All sounds uttered up here seem to converge in that corner down there."

"Yeah," said Kurtz. "What's up, Pruno? You interested in Frears?"

"John?" said the old heroin addict. "Well, of course I'm interested in that, since I put you two in contact, but I assumed that you did not decide to help him. It's been almost a week. To be truthful, Joseph, I'd almost forgotten."

"What is it, then?" said Kurtz. "And why here?" He gestured at the dark hall and the darker mezzanines. "This is a long way from your usual haunts."

Pruno nodded. "It seems that there is a literal dead man in my usual haunt."

"A dead man. Who?"

"You wouldn't know him, Joseph. A homeless contemporary of mine. I believe his name was Clark Povitch, a former accountant, but the other addicts and street persons have known him as Typee for the last fifteen years or so."

"What did he die of?"

"A bullet," said Pruno. "Or two bullets, I believe, although I am no forensic expert."

"Someone shot your friend in your shack?"

"Not my friend, precisely, but in this inclement weather, Typee sometimes availed himself of my hospitality—specifically of my Sterno heater—when I was elsewhere."

"Do you know who killed him?"

"I do have a clue. But it does not seem to make any sense, Joseph."

"Tell me."

"An acquaintance of mine, a lady named Mrs. Tuella Dean—I believe you would refer to her as a bag lady—was on a grate today, under some newspapers and inadvertently concealed, on the corner of Elmwood and Market when she heard a patrolman outside his parked squad car speaking on either his radio telephone or a cell phone. The patrolman was giving directions to my domicile and mentioned my name… names, actually… and actually gave a description of me to his interlocutor. According to Mrs. Dean, the patrolman's tone was almost obsequious, as if speaking to a superior. She happened to mention this to me when I saw her near the HSBC arena just before I returned home and discovered Typee's body."

Kurtz took in a long, cold breath of air. "Did this Mrs. Dean catch the other guy's name?"

"She did, actually. A Captain Millworth. I would presume that this would mean a captain of police."

Kurtz let out the breath.

"There would seem to be no connection," said Pruno, "as police captains are not known for murdering the homeless, but it would be too much of a coincidence to think the events are unrelated. Also, there is another mild coincidence here that worries me."

"What's that?"

"To a stranger," said Pruno, "to someone who knew me only from another person's description, Typee might look a little bit like me. Quite a lot like me, actually."

Kurtz reached out and took his old friend's sharp elbow through the overcoat and other rags. "Come on," he said softly, hearing his whisper repeated in the darkness below. "We're getting out of here."