The bodyguard next to the don thumbed back the hammer on his gun. Toma Gonzaga shook his head, smiled slightly, and set his left hand lightly on the pistol. Eyes never leaving Kurtz, the glowering bodyguard lowered the hammer.
"You're trying to provoke me, Mr. Kurtz," said Gonzaga. "Although in the current circumstances, I have no idea why. I presume you heard that my father exiled me to Florida eight years ago when he found out I was a homosexual."
"I thought all you guys preferred the term 'gay' these days," said Kurtz.
"No, I prefer 'homosexual, or even 'queer, " said Gonzaga. "'Fag' will do in a pinch."
"Truth in advertising?"
"Something like that. Most of my homosexual acquaintances over the years have been anything but gay people, Mr. Kurtz. In the old meaning of the term, I mean."
Kurtz shrugged. There must be some subject that would interest him lessfootball, perhapsbut he'd be hard-pressed to find it.
Gonzaga's cell phone buzzed and the man answered it without speaking. While he was listening, Kurtz studied his face. His fatherEmiliohad been an outstandingly ugly man, looking like some mad scientist had transplanted the head of a carp onto the body of a bull. Toma, who looked to be in his early forties, had the same barrel chest and short legs, but he
was rather handsome in an older-Tony-Curtis sort of way. His lips were full and sensuous like his father's, but looked to be curled more from habits of laughter than the way his father's fat lips had curled with cruelty. Gonzaga's eyes were a light blue and his gray hair was cut short. He wore a stylish and expensive gray suit, with brown shoes so leathery soft that it looked as if you could fold them into your pocket after wearing them.
Gonzaga folded the phone instead and slipped it into his pocket. "You'll be relieved to know that Bernard has regained consciousness, more or less, although you may have broken two or three of his ribs."
"Bernard?" said Kurtz, putting the emphasis on the second syllable the way Gonzaga had. First 'Colin' and now 'Bernard , he thought. What's the underworld coming to? He'd seen them carry the huge bodyguard out of KG's and fold him into the backseat of the accompanying Lincoln.
"Yes," said Gonzaga. "If I were in Bernard's line of work, I'd change my name as well."
"Isn't Toma a girl's name?" said Kurtz. He wasn't sure why he was provoking a man who might already be planning to kill him. Maybe it was the headache.
"A nickname for Tomas."
Just before they reached the International Bridge, the driver swept them right onto the Scajaquada and the limo headed east toward the Kensington, followed by the Lincoln.
"Did you know my father, Mr. Kurtz?"
This is it , thought Kurtz.
"No."
"Did you ever meet him, Mr. Kurtz?"
"No."
Gonzaga brushed invisible lint off the sharp crease of his gray slacks. "When my father went back to New York for a meeting last winter and was murdered, most of his closest associates here disappeared. It's difficult to discover what really went on during my father's last days here."
Kurtz looked at the bodyguard aiming the Glock-nine at him. The cops had Glocks. Now all the hoods wanted them. They'd turned south on the Kensington and beaded back toward downtown. Whatever was going to happen, it wasn't going to happen in Toma Gonzaga's limo.
"Did you ever happen to meet a man named Mickey Kee?" asked Gonzaga.
"No."
"I wouldn't think so. Mr. Kee was my father's toughest associate. They found him dead at the old, abandoned Buffalo train station two days after the big blizzard you people had here in February. It was eighty-two degrees in Miami that week."
"Did you drag me in here at gunpoint to give me a weather report?" asked Kurtz.
Toma squinted at him and Kurtz realized that he was skating now on very thin ice indeed. This man may look like Tony Curtis , he thought, but his genes were all from the murderous Gonzaga line .
"I invited you here to make you an offer you won't want to refuse," said Gonzaga.
Did he really say that? thought Kurtz. These mafia idiots were tiresome enough without having them get self-referential and ironic on you. Kurtz put on an expression that was supposed to look both receptive and neutral.
"Angelina talked to you today about the problem with some people of hers in the drug supply and consumer side of things disappearing," said Toma Gonzaga.
Angelina? thought Kurtz. He wasn't surprised that the gay don knew that Angelina Farino Ferrara had offered him the jobGonzaga could have people following her, or maybe the two just talked after the offerbut Kurtz couldn't believe the two Buffalo dons were on a first-name basis. Angelina? And she had called him "Toma." Very hard to believeseven months earlier, Angelina Farino Ferrara was doing everything within her powerincluding the hiring of Joe Kurtzto get Toma Gonzaga's father whacked.
"Didn't she offer you the job of tracking down the killer?" pressed Gonzaga. "She and I had discussed the idea of her talking to you about this situation."