"Does word on the street say which one of the guineas brought him in?"
"Nope." Baby Doc sipped his coffee. His eyes were colder than blue steel. "It might pay to watch your ass, Joe Kurtz."
He called Arlene while he was driving north on the Skyway toward the downtown. "You get O'Toole's home address?"
"Yes," said Arlene and gave it to him.
Using the same pen he'd used to write on his business card for Baby Doc, Kurtz scribbled the address on the back of his hand. "Anything else?"
"I called the hospital and asked about Peg O'Toole's condition," said Arlene. He could hear her exhale smoke. "I'm not a family member, so they wouldn't give it to me. So I called Gail. She checked on the intensive-care unit's computer. O'Toole's taken a turn for the worse and is on life support."
Kurtz resisted telling her that he hadn't asked about the parole officer's condition. "I'll be there soon," he said and disconnected.
The phone rang almost immediately.
"I want to meet with you," said Angelina Farino Ferrara.
"I'm pretty busy today," said Kurtz.
"Where are you? Can you come over to the penthouse?"
Kurtz glanced to his left as he approached the downtown. Her tall marina apartment building was visible less than a mile away. She owned the top two floorsone for business, the top one for herself. "I'm on the road," said Kurtz. "I'll call you back later."
"Look, Kurtz, it's important we"
He cut her off, dropped the phone in his peacoat pocket, and took the exit for downtown Buffalo.
He'd gone less man a mile up Delaware Avenue toward Chippewa Street when the red light began flashing in his mirror. An unmarked car pulled up behind him.
Shit , thought Kurtz. He hadn't been speeding.
The holstered.38 was under his driver's seat. That parole violation would send him back to Attica where the long knives were waiting for him. Shit .
He pulled to the curb and watched in the mirror as Detective Kemper stayed behind the wheel of the unmarked car. Rigby King got out the passenger door and walked up to Kurtz's driver's side. She was wearing sunglasses. "License and registration, please."
"Fuck you," said Kurtz.
"Maybe later," said Rigby. "If you're a good boy."
She walked around the front of his car and got in the passenger side. Kemper drove off.
"Jesus Christ," Kurtz said to Rigby King, "you smell like Death."
"You say the sweetest things," said Rigby. "You always did know how to chat up a girl, Joe." She motioned him to drive north on Delaware.
"Am I under arrest?"
"Not yet," said Rigby King. She slipped handcuffs off her belt and held them up to catch the October light. "But the day is young. Drive."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
"You're kidding," said Kurtz. "It's not even eleven A.M."
"I never kid about drinking," said the cop. "I'm off duty now."
"I don't know where" began Kurtz.
"You know where, Joe."
Blues Franklin wasn't open, but Kurtz parked the Pinto behind the building and Rigby jumped out to knock on the back door. Daddy Brace's grown granddaughter, Ruby, opened the door and let them in.
Rigby led the way to Kurtz's favorite table at the back of the room. A white piano player named Coe Pierce was noodling on the dark stage and he flicked a salute to Kurtz while his left hand kept the rhythm going.
Daddy Brace came up from the basement in a plaid shirt and old chinos. "Rigby, don't you know what the hell time this establishement opens yet? And no offense, babe, but you smell like carrion."
Kurtz looked at the woman next to him. During the year he'd been coming to Blues Franklin again since he'd gotten out of Attica, he'd never thought about meeting Rigby King here. At least not after his first few times back at the jazz place. But then, he hadn't known that Rigby was within a thousand miles of Buffalo.
"I know what time it opens," Rigby said to Daddy Bruce. "And I know you've never refused to sell me a drink, even when I was seventeen."
The old black man sighed. "What'll you have?"
"Shot of tequila with a beer back," said Rigby. She looked at Kurtz. "Joe?"
"Coffee," said Kurtz. "You don't have any food back there, do you?"
"I may have me an old moldy biscuit I could slap a sausage or egg into if I had to."
"Both," said Kurtz.
Daddy Bruce started to leave, turned back, and said, "Ray Charles's glasses safe somewhere?"
Kurtz patted his jacket pocket.
When they were alone, Rigby said, "No drink? Coffee and sausage? You getting old, Joe?"
Kurtz resisted the impulse to remind her that she was a couple of years older than he was. "What do you want, Rigby?"
"I have an offer you'll be interested in," she said. "Maybe an offer you won't be able to refuse."
Kurtz didn't roll his eyes, but he was tempted. He thought, not for the first time, that the movie The Godfather had a lot to answer for. He didn't think Rigby's offer, whatever it was, would top Toma Gonzaga's «do-my-bidding-or-die» proposal. He focused his attention on Coe Pierce playing a piano-only version of "Autumn Leaves."
"What's the offer?" said Kurtz.