"I thought that if it was going to be like the old days, I'd better act as if it was the old days." She hefted the weapon. "The last few years, the only reason I've had to go out is my weekly mah-jongg at Bernice's and the twice-weekly evenings at the shooting range." She slid the Ruger back into the holstered box screwed to the underside of her desk drawer.
"They didn't let us practice much target shooting inside," said Kurtz. "You're probably a better shot than I am these days."
"I always was," said Arlene.
Hiding his relief at not having to give up the Kimber.45, Kurtz set the semiautomatic back in its concealed carry holster, removed the holster, and flopped back on the couch.
"Are you interested in how Sweetheart Search, Inc., is doing?" said Arlene. "It is your business, after all. And all the skip-trace sites and services you told me about are working out fine. We pay them, charge the sweetheart wannabe twenty percent more, and everyone's happy. Want to see it in action?"
"Yeah, sure," said Kurtz. "But right now I'm thinking about something I'm working on. You could use it to look up Malcolm Kibunte for me, though. Usual sourcescourt appearances, warrants, back taxes due, whatever. I know he won't have a real home address, but I'll take whatever you find."
Arlene tapped away at her computer keys for a while, checking that day's hits, processing encrypted credit-card orders for searches, transferring the money to the new account, filing data into her search engines, and then beginning the search for Malcolm Kibunte. Finally she said, "I know you never talk about your cases, but do you want to tell me about what's going on now? There's some scary stuff in here about your Mr. Kibunte."
When Kurtz did not reply, she glanced his way. Sprawled on the couch, the holstered.45 clutched to his chest like a teddy bear, he was beginning to snore.
CHAPTER 20
Kurtz came for the late set, nursed a beer, and enjoyed Pearl's interpretation of "Hell Hound on My Trail," "Sweet Home Chicago," "Come in My Kitchen," "Willow, Weep for Me," "Big-Legged Mamas Are Back in Style," and "Run the Voodoo Down," followed by Big Beau doing solo riffs on a series of Billy Strayhorn pieces: "Blood Count," "Lush Life," "Drawing-Room Blues," and "U.M.M.G."
Kurtz could not remember a time, even as a boy, when he had not loved jazz and blues. It was the closest thing to religion he knew. In jail, even when he'd been allowed access to a Discman or cassette player, which wasn't that much of the time, even a perfect recorded performance such as Miles Davis's remastered "Kind of Blue" had been no substitute for a live performance with its ebb and flow of tidal forces, like a well-played baseball game gone deep into extra innings, now all lethargy and distance, transformed in an instant into a blur of motion and purposefulness, and with its cocaine glow of unlimited, interlocked, immortal energy. Kurtz
loved jazz and the blues.
After the last set, Pearl, Beau, and the pianista white kid named Coe Piercecame over to join him for a drink before closing. Kurtz had known Beau and Pearl years ago. He wanted to buy them a drink, but he barely had enough money to pay for his beer. They chatted about old music, new jobs, and old timestactfully ignoring the past decade or so of Kurtz's absence, since even the piano kid seemed cued in on thatand eventually Blue Franklin's owner, Daddy Bruce Woles, a hearty, heavyset man so black that his skin glowed almost eggplant in the smoke-hazy spotlights, came over to join them. Kurtz had never seen Woles without the stub of a cigar in his mouth, and had never seen the cigar lighted.
"Joe, you got an admirer," said Daddy Bruce. He waved over more drinks for everyone, on the house.
Kurtz sipped his fresh beer and waited.
"Little runty guy in a grubby raincoat came in here three nights ago and again last night. Didn't pay any attention to the music. First time, Ruby was tending bar, and this dwarf lugs this big, like legal briefcase over and props it on the bar, asks about you. Ruby, she knows you're out, of course, and doesn't say anything. Says she never heard of you. The dwarf leaves. Ruby tells me. Last night, same dwarf in a dirty raincoat, same battered briefcase, only I'm at the bar. I never heard of you, either. I tried to get the dwarfs name, but he just left his beer and went out. Haven't seen him tonight. Friend of yours?"
Kurtz shrugged. "Does he look something like Danny DeVito?"
"Yeah," said Daddy Bruce. "Only not cute and cuddly like that, you know? Just turd-ugly all the way down."
"Someone told me that Sammy Levine's brother Manny's looking for me," said Kurtz. "Probably him."
"Oh, God," said Pearl. "Sammy Levine was a mean little dwarf, too."
"Used to use wood blocks on the pedals to drive that damn giant Pontiac he and Eddie Falco bombed around in," said Big Beau. Then, "Sorry, Joe, didn't mean to bring up sad times."
"That's okay," said Kurtz. "Anything sad, I got out of my system a long time ago."