Hard Freeze

"Let's go," repeated Kurtz.

They walked through the dark and icy parking lot. "My Jaguar's parked on the other side," said Angelina. "In the VIP lot near—"

"We're not taking your car," said Kurtz.

"When Marco and Leo find me gone—with my car still there—they're going to go so totally apeshit that—"

"Shut up," said Kurtz.

Kurtz had the woman drive his Volvo. He sat with his back to the passenger door and the pistol propped on his left forearm. They were taking back streets through the snowy night, driving slowly because he had told her that if she drove over forty miles per hour, he would kill her. Kurtz had been in the driver's seat when someone was holding a gun on him, and he'd discovered that getting the car up to eighty-five or ninety miles per hour was a serious disincentive to the shooter.

"Tell me about Gonzaga and this guy," he said.

Angelina glanced at him. The yellow light from the sodium-vapor anticrime lamps was painting both their faces dead yellow. "You were in love with her, weren't you, Kurtz? Your partner. The woman Emilio ordered murdered. I'd thought it was just a Maltese Falcon sort of thing… you know, you can't let your partner get killed. That sort of macho shit."

"Tell me about Gonzaga and the guy we're going to see," said Kurtz.

"Gonzaga's man who brought the order down to the two punks you wasted—Falco and Levine—is named Joh

"Tell me about Joh

Angelina Farino Ferrara took a breath. She did not look nervous to Kurtz. He had considered settling this whole thing back in the darkened parking lot. But he needed information and right now she was the only conduit.

"Norse was Emilio Gonzaga's favorite button man back in the late eighties and early nineties," Angelina said. "A real Dapper Dan type. Always wore Armani. Thought he was Richard Gere. Ladies' man. Man's man. Swung both ways. Now he's dying of AIDS. He's dead, really, he just doesn't know it yet—"

"For your sake," said Kurtz, "he'd better not be dead."

Angelina shook her head. "He's in this hospice in Williamsville." She glanced at Kurtz in the yellow light. "Look, we can avoid the shitstorm that'll blow in if I'm out of the Boys' sight any longer. Let me go back to the game. I'll make up some bullshit story about where I was. Check out Norse on your own. He'll confirm what I told you about Gonzaga ordering the hit."

Kurtz smiled ever so slightly. "It sounds like a good plan," he said. "Except for the part where I go off to some address you give me and find ten of your boys—or Gonzaga's—waiting there. No, I think we'll do this together. Tonight Now."

"What's to insure that you don't kill me anyway?" asked Angelina. "After I bring you to Norse. Even if he tells the truth?"

Kurtz's silence answered that question.

The hospice was in a tasteful, Georgian-style building at the end of a cul-de-sac in the expensive part of Williamsville. It might have been a private home had it not been for the «Exit» signs at the doors, the white-clothed aides pushing wheelchairs in the halls, and the receptionist behind the tiger-maple desk in the foyer. Kurtz wondered for a bemused second or so whether this was a home for aged and dying button men, whether the mob ran a chain of these places across the country—Wiseguy Manors. He suspected not The receptionist told them quietly that visiting hours were over, but when Angelina said that they had come to see Mr. Norse, the receptionist was obviously surprised.

"No one has come to see Mr. Norse while he has been under our care," she said. "Are you family?"

"Gonzaga family," Kurtz said, but the woman showed no reaction. So much for the mob-franchise theory.

"Well…" The woman hesitated. "You are aware that Mr. Norse is very near the end?"

"That's why we've come," said Angelina Farino Ferrara.

The receptionist nodded and summoned a woman in white to take them to Mr. Norse.

The dying thing in the bed was no Dapper Dan. The remnants of Joh

Pruno had given Kurtz a reading list before he left for prison, and the first book Kurtz had read was Madame Bovary. He was reminded now of how Emma Bovary's corpse had looked after the arsenic had killed her.

Norse stirred in his bed and turned unblinking eyes in their direction. Kurtz stepped closer to the bed.

"Who are you?" whispered Norse. There was a pathetic eagerness in that whisper. "Did Emilio send you?"

"Sort of," said Kurtz. "Do you remember Emilio Gonzaga having you pass down an order twelve years ago to kill a woman named Samantha Fielding?"

Norse frowned up at Kurtz and reached for the call button on a beige wire. Kurtz moved the button out of the man's trembling grasp. "Samantha Fielding," repeated Kurtz. "A private investigator. It was during the Elizabeth Co

"Who the fuck are you?" whispered Joh

"Wrong answer," said Kurtz. He leaned over with both arms extended as if to hug Norse, but instead, he closed his thumbs over the two oxygen lines and squeezed them shut.

Norse began gasping and rasping. Angelina closed the door and set her back against it.

Kurtz released the hoses. "Samantha Fielding?"

Joh

"Samantha Fielding?" repeated Kurtz. "About twelve years ago."

The corpse in the bed nodded wildly. "The Co

Kurtz waited.

"Some… cunt… of a P.I… found the co

Kurtz reached for the oxygen hose.

"Jesus… fuck… all right Emilio put the word out I… delivered it… to the drug dealers… Falco and… Levine. You got what you want asshole?"

"Yes," said Kurtz. He took the.40 S&W semiautomatic from his belt, thumbed back the hammer, and set the muzzle in Joh

Kurtz removed the muzzle and lowered the hammer. There was a bottle of medical disinfectant on the expensive nightstand, and Kurtz sprayed the barrel of the S&W with it before wiping it with the hem of Norse's hospital gown and sliding it back in his belt. He nodded at the woman and they left.