There was an older man talking to Baby Doc in the rear booth, speaking earnestly, moving his scarred hands as he spoke. Baby Doc would nod in the intervals when the old man stopped talking. This is the first time Kurtz had seen Baby Doc in person and he was surprised how large he was; the older Doc had been a small man.
A waiter came over, poured coffee without being asked, and said, "You here to see the Man?"
"Yeah."
The waiter went back to the counter and whispered to the older bodyguard, who approached Baby Doc when the old man had finished his supplication, received some answer that had made him smile, and left the restaurant.
Baby Doc looked at Kurtz a minute and then raised a finger, beckoning Kurtz, and then gesturing to the two guards in the booth next to him.
The huge men intercepted Kurtz in the middle of the room. "Let's visit the restroom," said the one with scar tissue around his eyes.
Kurtz nodded and followed them to the back of Curly's. The men's restroom was big enough to hold all three of them, but one man stood watching out the door while the other gestured for Kurtz to remove his shirt and to lift his undershirt Then he gestured for Kurtz to drop his pants. Kurtz did all this without protest.
"Okay," said the ex-boxer and stepped out. Kurtz zipped and buttoned, up and went out to sit in the booth.
Baby Doc wore horn-rimmed glasses that looked incongruous on such a sharply chiseled face. He was in his late forties, and Kurtz saw that the man wasn't so much bald as he was hairless. His eyes were a startling cold blue. His neck, shoulders, and forearms were heavily muscled. There was a flag and army tattoo on Baby Doc's massive left forearm, and Kurtz remembered that Baby Doc had left Lackawanna and joined the armyover his father's objectionsa few years before the first Gulf War and had flown some sort of attack helicopter during the liberation of Kuwait. Doc, his father, had been forced to hold off his own retirement for a few years until Baby Doc returned from the service with a chest covered with combat ribbons whichaccording to sources available to Kurtzhad been folded away in a trunk with the uniform and never taken out again. Rumor persisted that Baby Doc's chopper had destroyed more than a dozen Iraqi tanks on a single hot day.
"You're Joe Kurtz, aren't you?"
Kurtz nodded.
"I remember you sent flowers to my father's funeral last year," said Baby Doc. "Thank you for that."
Kurtz nodded again.
"I considered having you killed," said Baby Doc.
Kurtz didn't nod this time, but he looked the bigger man in the eye.
Baby Doc put down his fork, took
off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. When he set the glasses back on, he said tiredly, "My father was killed by a rogue homicide detective named Hathaway."
"Yes."
"My sources in the B.P.D. tell me that Hathaway had a hard-on for you and had tapped a call between you and my father. You were meeting him at the old steel mill, a year ago next week, to buy a piece. Hathaway killed my father before you got there."
"That's true," said Kurtz.
"Hathaway didn't have anything against Doc. He just wanted to wait for you in the mill without my father being in the way. If it hadn't been for you, the Old Man might still be alive."
"That's true, too," said Kurtz. He glanced at the two closest bodyguards. They were looking the other way but were close enough to hear everything. Kurtz knew he couldn't take them both even if they weren't armedhe'd seen the bigger man fight professionally years agoso his only chance might be to crash through the window behind Baby Doc. But he'd never get around front to his car before they did. He'd have to head east through the backyards, into the railyards. Kurtz had known every tunnel and shack and switch tower in those yards when he was young, but he doubted if he could outrun or hide from these guys there now.
Baby Doc folded his hands. "But they found Hathaway there in the mill, too. Shot in the head."
"I've heard that," Kurtz said quietly.
"My people in the department tell me that the bullet went through his gold detective shield," said Baby Doc. "Like he held it up to stop his assailant from shooting. Maybe while shouting that he was a copthe slug that went through the shield went into Hathaway's open mouth. Or maybe the stupid shit believed it'd really act like a shield and stop a slug."
Kurtz waited.
"But I guess it didn't work," said Baby Doc. He started eating his scrambled eggs again.
"I guess not," said Kurtz.
"So what do you want, Joe Kurtz?" He gestured for the waiter to bring Kurtz coffee, and the man at the counter hurried to comply, providing a fresh mug.
Kurtz didn't let out his breath, but he was tempted to. He said, "Yasein Goba."
"That crazy Yemeni who shot the parole officer Wednesday? Today's paper says they found him dead from a gunshot here in Lackawanna. They didn't say whether it was self-inflicted or not." He quit stabbing at his eggs to squint at Kurtz. "The paper said that an unnamed parolee was shot the same time as the female probation officer, but wasn't hurt as bad. You?"