Back on surveillance at the empty gas station, the Dodger e-mailed the Boss, described the situation at the Harbor Inn, and asked if he could knock off for the night. There was no need to tell the Boss about the two car thieves; they'd just be extra material for the Resurrection.
The Boss e-mailed back ordering the Dodger to phone on a secure line. It took the Dodger fifteen minutes to find a pay phone that was working. The Boss was curt, pulling rank, and told the Dodger to sleep in the bug van and to keep his eye on the Harbor Inn and to follow Kurtz whenever he left.
"What about the Farino woman?"
"Ignore her. Stay with Kurtz. Call me when he moves and I'll tell you what to do next."
So here he was, the Dodger, exhausted from sleeping in the front seat of the pest control truck, red-eyed from trying to keep watch between naps, still smelling of blood, with four rigor-mortised corpses under tarps in the back, driving south toward Neola, New York.
The Dodger had grown accustomed to taking orders from the Boss, but that was because the Boss had been giving him orders he enjoyed carrying out. He wasn't enjoying this playing-spy shit. If the Boss didn't call him off this joke of an assignment soon, he'd kill Kurtz and this new woman with him and add them to the Resurrection. It was better to apologize to the Boss later, the Dodger had learned decades ago, than to ask permission before doing something you really wanted to do.
And the Dodger really wanted to kill this man who'd kept him awake in the rainy ghetto all night.
But as they approached Neola, he dutifully used his cell phone to call the Boss.
"Sir, I'm not going into Neola with them for Chrissakes," he told him. "Either let me deal with this Kurtz now or let me go about my business."
"Go do what you have to do," said the Boss.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
on and sometimes with their windshield wipers flicking.
Kurtz pulled the Pinto to the side of the road on a cinder apron in front of an abandoned fruit stand and got out of the car.
"What is it, Joe?" said Rigby. "You want me to drive?"
Kurtz shook his head. He watched the traffic going south pass for several silent minutes. Finally, Rigby said, "What is it? You think we're being followed?"
"No," said Kurtz. The pest control truck had fallen back in the gloom and rain some miles ago, and must have turned off somewhere.
Rigby got out of the car and came around, lighting a cigarette. She offered one to Kurtz. He shook his head.
"That's right, you gave up smoking in Bangkok, didn't you? I always thought it was because of that girl's act at Pussies Galore ."
Kurtz said nothing. It wasn't raining, but the highway was wet and a passing truck sent up a hiss and spray. "What are you going to do about the little girl, Joe?"
He turned a blank stare on her. "What little girl?"
"Your little girl," said Rigby. "Yours and Samantha's. The fourteen-year-old who's living with your secretary's sister-in-law. What's your daughter's name? Rachel."
Kurtz stared a second and then took a step toward her. Rigby King's cop instincts reacted to the look in his eyes and her hand came up halfway toward the 9mm dock on her hip before she froze. She had to lean back over the Pinto's hood to avoid physical contact with Kurtz.
"Get in the car," he said. And turned away from her.
Fifteen miles before they reached the Pennsylvania line, Highway 16 passed under Interstate 86the Southern Tier Expressway they called it down hereand ran another seven miles into Neola. The town had absurdly wide streetsmore like some small place out west where land had been cheap at its settling than in a village in New York Stateand it was nestled amid high hills just north of the Allegheny River. Kurtz noticed the variations in spellingAllegany State Park was a few miles to the west of them, the town of Allegany was just down the road to the west, but the river that marked the southern boundary of Neola was the Allegheny. He didn't think it was worth investigating.
They drove the twelve-block length of Main Street, crossed the broad but shallow river, turned around before the road ran into the hills south into Pennsylvania, and drove back up the length of town again, making two detours to explore the side streets where Highway 305 ran into Highway 16 near the downtown. When he reached the north edge of town again, Kurtz made a U-turn through a gas station and said, "Notice anything?"
"Yeah," said Rigby, still watching Kurtz carefully as if he might get violent at any moment. "There was a Lexus and a Mercedes dealership along the main drag. Not bad for a town of what did the sign say?"
"Twenty-one thousand four hundred and twelve," said Kurtz.
"Yeah. And there's something else about the old downtown" She paused.
"No empty stores," said Kurtz. "No boarded-up buildings. No 'for lease' signs. No state employment and unemployment offices in empty buildings." The economy in Buffalo and around Western New York had been hurting long before the recent recession, and residents just got used to defunct businesses, empty buildings, and the omnipresent state unemployment outlets. Downtown Neola had looked prosperous and scrubbed.