Pulling on latex gloves, the Dodger turned on the coffeemaker, rooted around in the cupboard until he found the coffeeStarbucksand made himself a cup. Sheor theywould smell the coffee brewing when they came in the door, but that didn't matter. They wouldn't have time to react. He tucked away the knife and laid the Beretta Elite II on the round wooden table as he drank his coffee. He'd rinse the cup well to get rid of any DNA when he was done.
The Dodger decided he'd wait thirty minutes. The neighbors couldn't see his van because of the trees and the size of the lot, but a neighbor driving by might see it and call the cops if he stayed here too long. He rose, found the sugar bowl in the cupboard, and stirred some into his coffee.
The phone rang.
The Dodger let the machine pick it up. He thought Randi's voice was sexy, sort of hoarse and sleepy in a sexy junkie way, as it filled the kitchen silence"Hi, this is Randi. It's Friday and I'll be gone for the weekend, but leave a message and I'll call you back on Sunday night or Monday. Thanks! " The last word was punched with girlish enthusiasm or a heroin-induced high.
Not very smart, Ms. Ginetta , thought the Dodger, telling every Tom, Dick and Harry who calls that you're out of town and your house is empty. Good way to get robbed, ma'am .
The caller hung up without leaving a message. It might be a neighbor calling to see what the pest control van was doing there while Randi was gone. But probably not.
The Dodger sighed, rinsed out the coffee cup and coffeemaker, set the sugar and everything else back the way it had beenputting the mug on its proper hookand then he let himself out the back door, locked it behind him, slipped off the latex gloves, hefted the clipboard, and whistled his way back to the van.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
He'd awakened in the office sore and disoriented, looked over the printouts of O'Toole's case notes for Goba to make sure they hadn't missed anything, left a note for Arlenewho usually came in late on Saturdayand headed back to the Harbor Inn to shower, shave, and change clothes. The headache still buzzed in his skull and if it had let up any, he couldn't notice the change. But his raccoon eyes had improved. If one didn't look carefully, Kurtz thought while he stood in front of the steamy mirror, the dark circles under his eyes only made him look like someone who hadn't slept in a few weeks. The whites of his eyes were pink rather than blood red now, and his vision had cleared.
Kurtz dressed in a denim workshirt and jeans, tugged on faded Red Wing boots and an old peacoat, and pulled a dark navy watchcap low enough over his hair to hide the scalp wound. The.38 went in a small holster on his belt on the left side.
Driving down to Lackawanna, he had to smile at the fact that he'd managed to avoid most of Lackawanna for years, but now he found himself heading that way almost every day.
Curly's was a few blocks east of the Basilica, where Ridge Road became Franklin Street for a few blocks, just west of the old steel bridge. The restaurantsurfaced
by brick on the first floor, siding abovehad been popular with locals for decades. There were already cars in the small parking lot, although it wasn't officially open for breakfast on Saturdays. On Saturdays, it was court to Baby Doc.
Baby Doclegally Norv Skrzypczykwas not officially mobbed up, but he ran most of the action in Lackawanna. His grandfather. Papa Doc, had taken a leave from medical school to help patch up striking steelworkers whose heads were being bashed in by Pinkerton operatives. Papa Doc had given up medicine in favor of smuggling guns in to the workers. By the end of the 1920s, Papa Doc's people were selling guns and liquor to civilians as well, keeping the Mafia from muscling in on their territory through the simple strategy of out-violencing them. By the time Papa Doc was gunned down in 1942, his sonDochad taken over the family business, negotiated a peace with the mobsters, and retained control of most illegal items moving in Lackawanna. Doc retired in 1992, turning the reins over to Baby Doc and taking an old man's job as a night watchman in various abandoned steel mills, where he kept his hand in by selling the occasional illegal gun. Joe Kurtz had used Doc as an information sourcebut not a snitchbefore Attica, and had bought weapons from him afterward. Kurtz had never met the son.
Now Kurtz left his holstered.38 under the driver's seat of the Pinto, made sure the car was locked, and went in, ignoring the CLOSED sign on the door.
Baby Doc sat in his regular semicircular booth at the right rear of the restaurant. The booth was raised slightly, unlike the other tables, and gave the sense of a modest throne. There were only half a dozen other men in the room, not counting Baby Doc's three bodyguards and the waiter behind the counter. Kurtz noticed that these bodyguards didn't use blow driers or wear mafia collars and suitsthe two big guys in the booth next to Baby Doc and the other one lounging at the counter could have been stevedores or millworkers except for their watchful eyes and the just-detectable bulges under their union wind-breakers.