"You thinking, Kurtz, or just having a Senior Moment?"
"Tell me what I'm supposed to investigate and I'll tell you if I'm in."
The woman folded her arms and watched the basketball game for a minute. One of the younger men playing caught her eye and whistled. The bodyguards glowered. Angelina grinned at the kid with the basketball. She turned back to Kurtz.
"Someone's been killing some of our people. Five, to be exact."
"Someone you don't know."
"Yeah."
"You want me to find out who's doing it?"
"Yeah."
"And whack him?"
Angelina Farino Ferrara rolled her eyes. "No, Kurtz, I have people for that. Just identify him beyond any reasonable doubt and give us the name. Five thousand more if you come up with a current location as well."
"Can't your people find him as well as whack him?"
"They're specialists," said Angelina.
Kurtz nodded. "These people close to you getting hit? Button men, that sort of thing?"
"No. Contacts. Connections. Customers. I'll explain later."
Kurtz thought about it. The wad of cash in his pocket was getting close to the last money he had. But what were the ethics of finding someone so these mobsters could kill them? He certainly had an ethical dilemma on his hands.
"Fifteen thousand guaranteed, half now, and I'll find him and locate him," he said. So much for wrestling with ethics.
"A third now," said Angelina Farino Ferraro. She turned around, blocking the view from the basketball court with her body, and slipped him five-g's already bundled into a tight roll.
Kurtz loved being predictable. "I could tell you right now who's doing it," he said.
Angelina stepped back and looked at him. Her eyes were very brown.
"The new Gonzaga," said Kurtz. "Emilio's boy up from Florida."
"No," said Angelina. "It's not Toma."
Kurtz raised his eyebrows at her use of the dead don's son's first
name. She'd never been fond of the Gonzagas. Kurtz's well-honed private investigator instincts told him that that might have had something to do with old Emilio raping her and crippling her father years before.
"All right," he said, "I'll start looking into it as soon as I get my own little matter settled. You going to give me the details about the hits?"
"I'll send Colin around to your office on Chippewa this afternoon with the notes." She nodded toward the taller of the two bodyguards.
"Colin?" Kurtz raised his eyebrows again and decided he wouldn't do that anymore. It hurt. "All right My turn. Who shot me?"
"I don't know who shot you," said Angelina, "but I know who's been looking for you the last few days."
Kurtz had been out of town delivering Sweetheart-Search-dot-com letters most of that time. "Who?"
"Toma Gonzaga."
Kurtz felt the air cool around him. "Why?"
"I don't know for sure," said the woman. "But he's had a dozen of his new guys lookingsome hanging around that dump you live in by the Cheerios factory. Others staking out your office on Chippewa. A couple hanging around Blues Franklin."
"All right," said Kurtz. "It's not much, but thanks."
Angelina zipped up her sweatshirt. "There's another thing, Kurtz."
"Yeah?"
"There's a rumor just a street rumor so far that Toma's sent for the Dane."
Through the pounding in his skull, Kurtz felt a slight lurch of nausea. The Dane was a legendary assassin from Europe who rarely came to Buffalo on business. Kurtz had seen him in action the last time he'd been herethe day that Don Byron Farino and his daughter, Sophia, and several others, had been shot in the presumed safety of the Farino compound.
"Well" began Kurtz. He couldn't think of anything else to say. He knew, and he presumed that Angelina Farino Ferrara knew, that even if Toma Gonzaga wanted Joe Kurtz dead for some reason, he wouldn't have to bring in the Dane for that It was far more likely that Gonzaga would hire someone of the Dane's caliber and expense to eliminate his one real rival in Western New YorkAngelina Farino Ferrara. "Well," he said again, "I'll look into it when I figure out who did this to me."
The acting female don of the Farino family nodded, zipped her sweatshirt up the rest of the way, and began jogging, first across the grass with its blowing yellow leaves, then onto the winding inner park road toward the rear of the zoo. The two bodyguards ran to their parked Lincoln Town Car and hurried to catch up.
Kurtz shifted the old man's fedora slightly trying to get the pressure off the bandages and his split skull. It didn't work. He looked around for a park bench, but luckily there was none in sighthe probably would have curled up in a fetal position on it and gone to sleep if there'd been one there.
The basketball players were letting new guys come into the game while the sweaty players leaving the court traded high-fives and clever insults. Kurtz brought his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and called for a cab.
CHAPTER FIVE
Their P.I. business here thirteen years ago had consisted of just him, his partner Samantha Fielding, and Arlene as their secretary. The street had been run-down but recovering thena lot of local coffeeshops, used bookstores, one gunshopwhich was handy for Kurtzand no fewer than four tattoo parlors. In the seventies, when Kurtz was growing up, Chippewa Street had been all X-rated bookstores, prostitutes and drug dealers. Kurtz had spent a lot of time there then.