"Medical records and military records can be two of the hardest things to hack into," said Arlene. "I'm not sure I can get any of this."
"Do your best," said Kurtz. His cell phone rang. He turned to answer it.
Daddy Bruce's voice said, "You wanted to know when that Big Bore Indian came back to the Blues hunting for you again, Joe."
"Yeah."
"He's here."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Big Bore Redhawk had chosen his Tuscarora name with careeven though he wasn't a member of the Tuscarora tribe. Always a fan of huge firearms, Dickie-Bob had admired the Ruger Big Bore Redhawk.357 Magnum pistol more than any other heavy-caliber weapon he'd ever owned. He'd killed each of his first two wives with a Big Bore Redhawkhaving to toss each weapon away and knock over some liquor stores to earn enough money to replace it each timeand it was while trying to rob a liquor store (with a totally inadequate.22 Beretta) to replace that second beloved weapon, rusting in the Reservation soil not far from his second wife, that he was arrested and sent to Attica.
Big Bore's one legal request before being sent up was to change his name. The judge, amused, had allowed it.
Big Bore had known who Joe Kurtz was in the years they were both in Attica, but he'd stayed away from the smaller man. (Most men were smaller than Big Bore Redhawk.) Big Bore had considered Kurtz a crazy fuckany man who would kill that Black Muslim mofo Ali in a shower shiv fight and get away with it, fooling the guards but drawing a fifteen-thousand-dollar death price on his head from the D-Block Mosque was a crazy fuck. Big Bore didn't want any part of him. Big Bore hung out with his A.B. buds and let his lawyer work to get him out early based on the premise
that he, Big Bore Redhawk, was a victim of anti-Native American discrimination.
Then, last winter, Little Skag Farino, still serving time for murder in Attica, had sent word to Big Bore through Skag's sister, Angelina Whatsis Whosis, that he'd pay Big Bore ten thousand dollars for whacking Kurtz.
It had sounded good. Little Skag's sexy sister had paid him two thousand dollars in advance and Big Bore had done a week of serious drinking while making his plans. It shouldn't have been too hard to kill Kurtz, since Big Bore had his new Big Bore Redhawk.357, an eight-inch Bowie knife, and Kurtz didn't know he was coming for him.
But somehow Kurtz had found out, driven up to the Tuscarora Reservation just north of Buffalo in a fucking blizzard, surprised Big Bore and challenged him to a fair fight. Kurtz had even tossed his gun aside for the fight Big Bore had grinned, pulled his giant knife, and said something like, "Okay, let's see what you got, Kurtz." And Kurtz had said something like, "I've got a forty-five," and pulled a second pistol out from under his jacket and shot Big Bore in the knee.
It really hurt.
Because Kurtz had threatened to reveal the bit about where his two wives were buriedBig Bore had done a lot of bragging in stirthe Indian had told the cops he'd blown his own knee off while cleaning a friend's pistol. The cops hadn't been impressed with this story, but they also hadn't really given a damn about Big Bore's ruined knee, so they'd left it alone.
At first, Big Bore had considered leaving it alone as wellKurtz was a mean little fuckand the wounded man had planned to just move out west somewhere, Arizona or Nevada or Indiana or one of those states where real Indians livedand maybe he'd grow his own peyote and live in an air-conditioned tipi somewhere and sell tourists fake rugs or something.
But after several weeks in and out of the hospital while the medics kept futzing with what tittle cartilage and bone was left in his knee and upper leg, they gave Big Bore a prosthetic hingehe couldn't call it a kneeof plastic and steel and consigned him to four months of sheer hell called physical therapy. Every time Big Bore whined or cursed from the pain, which was a hundred times a day, he thought of Joe Kurtz. And what he was going to do to Joe Kurtz.
And then, just last month in September, two of Big Bore's good A.B. buds from Attica got out on parole, and together the three of them began looking for Kurtz. But his two Aryan Brotherhood palsMoses and Pharaohwere unreliable, shot up on skag half the time, and now Big Bore was looking for Kurtz on his own. He had his beloved double-action, seven and a half-inch barreled Big Bore Redhawk.357 Magnum. The huge pistol was made even larger by the addition of a big 2X Burris LER pistol scope hooked to the barrel scallops by scope rings.
The assembled weapon with scope was huge. Neither of his two ex-wives could have lifted the thing with one hand, nor could they have pulled the trigger, what with its 6.25-lb. trigger pull. Big Bore couldn't fit the scoped weapon in his custom-made Ruger shoulder holster, so he carried around a little gym bag with the scoped Redhawk and a hundred rounds of Buffalo Bore ammo.
He was carrying the bag when he went back to Blues Franklin this night to apologize to the old nigger who owned the placeDaddy Bruceand explain that he'd been drunk the last time he'd been in and that the A.B. types with him were no friends of hisand to ask, casually, if Daddy had seen Joe Kurtz recently. Daddy had accepted.