Hard Freeze

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Earlier that morning, Kurtz and Angelina Farino Ferrara sat in the front seat of her Lincoln and watched Captain Robert Millworth drive away from his home. It was 7:15 a.m.

"There was another car in the garage," said Angelina. "A BMW wagon."

Kurtz nodded and they waited. At 7:45, a woman, a teenage boy, and an Irish setter backed out in the station wagon. The woman beeped the garage door shut and drove off. "Wife, kid, and dog," said Angelina. "Any more in there?"

Kurtz shrugged.

"We'll find out," said Angelina. She drove the Town Car right up the long Millworth driveway and they both got out, Angelina carrying a heavy nylon bag. Kurtz stood back while she knocked several times. No answer.

"Around back," she said. He followed her through the side yard and across a snowy patio. The nearest neighbor was about a hundred yards away behind a privacy fence.

They paused by the sliding doors to the patio as Angelina crouched and studied something through the glass. "It's a SecureMax system," she said. "Expensive but not the best. Would you give me that glass cutter and the suction cup? Thanks."

Yesterday evening, in front of the fire over brandies, with Kurtz almost too tired to concentrate, she had told him her story… or at least the part of it that had made her laugh when he'd told her that he would need a B&E man.

Angelina Farino had always wanted to be a thief. Her father, Don Byron Farino, had worked to keep her sheltered from the facts of his life and would never have considered allowing her to take part in the family business. But Angelina did not want to be involved in every aspect of the business—not then. She just wanted to be the best thief in New York State.

Her brother David introduced her to some of the legendary old second-story men and in high school Angelina would visit them, bringing wine, just to hear their stories. David also introduced her to some of the rising young thugs in their father's organization, but she didn't care much for them; they bragged about using guns, violence, and frontal assaults. Angelina wanted to know about the smart men, the subtle men, the quiet men, the patient men. Angelina did not want to be another mobster; she wanted to be a cat burglar; she wanted to be The Cat; she wanted to be Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief.

She had put herself in harm's way with Emilio Gonzaga when she was in her early twenties because she thought that Gonzaga was going to introduce her to a safecracker she'd always wanted to meet. Instead, as she put it, Emilio introduced her to his dick.

Exiled to Sicily to have the baby, she had married a local mini-don, an idiot exactly her age but with half her IQ, "to keep up appearances." After appearances were kept up and after the baby died and after the young don had his unfortunate hunting accident—or accident cleaning his pistol, Angelina let them choose the story they wanted—she flew to Rome to meet the famous Count Pietro Adolfo Ferrara. Eighty-two years old and suffering the effects of two strokes, the count was still the most famous thief in Europe. Trained by his legendary thief of a father between the wars, active in the Italian resistance, and credited with stealing the communiques from Gestapo headquarters that led to the interdiction and assassination of Mussolini and his mistress, it was often said that the handsome, daring Count Ferrara had been the model for that Cary Grant character in To Catch a Thief.

Angelina had married the bedridden old man four days after they met. The next four years were, in her words, a training camp for becoming a world-class thief.

"What are you doing?" said Kurtz. He was moving from foot to foot on Hansen's patio. It was damned cold and his hair was wet with snow.

Angelina had cut a circular hole from the lower part of the patio door, had removed the glass carefully, and was reaching inside with a long instrument. She ignored Kurtz.

"Isn't that security system set for motion or messing with the glass?" asked Kurtz. "Haven't you tripped it already?"

"Would you shut up, please?" She reached in to clip on red and black wires and connected them to a module that connected with a Visor digital organizer. She studied the readout for a second, shut off the Visor, and unclipped the wires. "Okay," she said, standing and throwing her heavy black bag over her shoulder.

"Okay what?"

"Okay we open the door the usual way and have eight seconds to tap in the six-digit code on the keypad."

"And you know the code now?"

"Let's see." She studied the back door a minute, removed a short crowbar from her bag, broke the glass, and reached in to slip the chain lock and undo the main lock. It seemed to Kurtz that she had used the full eight seconds just to do that.

Angelina walked into the rear hallway, found the keypad on the wall, and tapped in the six-character alphanumeric code. An indicator on the security keypad went from red to green to amber. "Clear," she said.

Kurtz let out his breath. He pulled his pistol out from under his coat.

"You expecting someone else to be home?" said Angelina.

Kurtz shrugged.

"You going to tell me now whose house this is and how it relates to Gonzaga?"

"Not yet," said Kurtz. They went from room to room together, first the large downstairs, then all the bedrooms and guest rooms upstairs.

"Jesus," said Angelina as they came back downstairs. "This place is the definition of retro anal retentive. It's like we broke into Mike and Carol Brady's house."

"Who the hell are Mike and Carol Brady?"

Angelina paused at the top of the basement stairs. "You don't know the Brady Bunch?"

Kurtz gave her a blank look.

"Christ, Kurtz, you've been locked away longer than twelve years."

The basement had a laundry room, a bare rec room with a dusty Ping-Pong table, and a room locked away behind a steel door with a complicated security keypad.

"Wowzuh," said Angelina and whistled.

"Same code as upstairs?"

"No way. This is a serious piece of circuitry." She started pulling instruments and wires from her bag.

Kurtz glanced at his watch. "We don't have all day."

"Why not?" said Angelina. "You have things to see and people to do today?"

"Yeah."

"Well, don't get your jockey briefs in a bunch. In two minutes, we'll either be in or we'll have armed private-security people all over our ass here."

"Private security," said Kurtz. "This guy's alarms don't go to the cop house?"

"Get serious." She focused her attention on removing the keypad from the wall and connecting her wires to its wires without setting off the silent alarm.

Kurtz wandered back upstairs and looked out the front window. Their black Town Car was parked in plain sight, although the increasing snowfall made visibility more problematic. Kurtz was thankful that Hansen had bought a relatively isolated house with such a long driveway.

"Holy shit!" Angelina's voice sounded far away.

Kurtz trotted down the stairs and went through the open door. It was quite a private office—mahogany-paneled walls, a lighted gun case running from floor to ceiling, a heavy, expensive-looking wooden desk. On the wall above and behind that desk were photographs of James B. Hansen posing with various Buffalo worthies, plus a scad of certificates—Florida Police Academy diplomas, shooting awards, and commendations for Lieutenant and Captain Robert G. Millworth, Homicide Detective.

Angelina's eyes were narrow when she wheeled on Kurtz. "You had me break into a fucking cop's home?"

"No." He walked over to the large wall safe. "Can you get into this?"

She quit staring daggers at Kurtz and looked at the safe. "Maybe."

He looked at his watch again.

"If this were a small, round safe, we'd have to pry the fucker out of the wall and take it with us," said Angelina. "You just can't get any blast leverage on a round safe. But our boy went in for the heavier, more expensive type."

"So?"

"So anything with corners, I can get into." She set her bag down near the safe door and began removing timers, primers, thermite sticks, and wads of plastique.

"You're going to blow it?" Kurtz was wishing that he'd gone to check on Arlene, Frears, and Pruno before doing this errand.

"I'm going to burn our way into the lock mechanism and get at the tumblers that way," said Angelina. "Why don't you make yourself useful and go make us some coffee?" She worked for a few seconds and then looked up at Kurtz standing there. "I'm serious. I didn't get my full three cups this morning."

Kurtz went up to the kitchen, found the coffeemaker, and made the coffee. He found some cannoli in the refrigerator. By the time he started down the stairs with two mugs and a dish with the cannoli, there came a loud hiss, a muffled whump, and an acrid odor filled the air. The safe looked intact to Kurtz's eye, but then he saw a fissure around the combination lock. Angelina Farino Ferrara had attached a slim fiberoptic cable to the Visor organizer and was watching a monochrome display as she clicked the combination.

The heavy safe door swung open. She accepted the cup of coffee and drank deeply. "Blue Mountain roast. Good stuff. Cannoli's just okay."

Kurtz began removing things from the safe. A heavy nylon bag contained more than a dozen carefully wrapped cubes of what looked to be gray clay nestled in with foam-wrapped detonators, delicate-looking timers, and coils of primer cord.

"Military C-Four," said Angelina. "What the hell does your homicide captain want with C-Four in his home?"

"He likes to burn down and blow up his homes," said Kurtz. Shelves in the safe held more than $200,000 in cash and bearer's bonds, a bunch of certificates and policies, and a titanium case. Kurtz ignored the money and carried the case to the desk.

"Excuse me," Angelina said. "You forgetting something?"

"I'm not a thief."

"I am," she said and began transferring the money and bonds to her bag.

"Shit," said Kurtz. The locks on the case were also titanium and did not give when he went at them with the small crowbar.

"That little case may take longer to crack than the safe," said Angelina.

"Uh-uh," said Kurtz. He took out his.40-caliber Smith & Wesson and blew the locks off. The gap allowed the crowbar to get a grip and he popped the briefcase open.

Angelina finished loading the contents of the safe, lifted her heavy bag, and came over to the desk where Kurtz had laid out some of the photographs. "So what exactly are you… Holy Mother of God!"

Kurtz nodded.

"Who is this motherfucking pervert?" whispered Angelina.

Kurtz shrugged. "We'll never know his real name. But I was sure that he'd keep trophies. And he did."

It was Angelina's turn to look at her watch. "This is taking too long."

Kurtz nodded and hefted the bag of C-4 over his shoulder.

Angelina was sipping her coffee and heading for the door. She gestured. "Bring the other bag with the money and my burglar's stuff. Leave the cannoli."