"What makes you think that we can't deal with this?" Miles's voice was strained, but under control.
Kurtz turned his gaze back on the old man. "You used to," he said. "But who do you trust now?"
Farino's hand was shaking as he set his cup down in its saucer. "What is your proposal, Mr. Kurtz?"
"I investigate for you. I find Richardson. I bring him back to you if possible. I find out if the truck hijacking is linked with his disappearance."
"And your fees?" said Farino.
"Four hundred dollars a day plus my expenses."
Attorney Miles made a rude sound.
"I don't have too many expenses," continued Kurtz. "A thousand up front for a stake. A bonus if I drag your CPA back in good time."
"How large a bonus?" said Farino.
Kurtz drank the last of the coffee. It was black and rich. He stood up. "I'll leave that to you, Mr. Farino. Now I've got to get going. What do you say?"
Farino rubbed his liver-colored lower lip. "Write the check, Leonard."
"Sir, I don't think"
"Write the check, Leonard. A thousand dollars advance, you said, Mr. Kurtz?"
"In cash."
Miles counted out the money, all in crisp fifties, and put it in a white envelope.
"You realize, Mr. Kurtz," said the old man, his voice suddenly flat and cold, "that the penalties for failure in situations such as this are rarely restricted to simple loss of payment." Kurtz nodded.
The old man took a pen from the lawyer's briefcase and jotted on a blank business card. "Contact these numbers if you have information or questions," said Farino. "You are never to come back to this house. You are never again to call me or contact me directly in any way."
Kurtz took the card.
"David, Charles, and Carl will run you down the drive to your car," said Farino.
Kurtz looked Carl in the eye and smiled for the first time that morning. "Your bitches can follow me if they want," he said. "But I'll walk. And they'll stay at least ten paces behind me."
CHAPTER 4
and coffee, and took the cardboard carton to a picnic table near the fence overlooking the river. A few families, some business types and a couple of street people were also having lunch. Leaves fell silently from the big old maple tree. The traffic on the Peace Bridge hummed softly.
There hadn't been many things that you couldn't get in Attica. A Ted's Hot Dog had been one of them. Kurtz remembered Buffalo winter nights in the years before the Ted's on Sheridan had put on its inside dining room: midnight, ten below, three feet of snow, and thirty people lined up outside for dogs.
Finished, he drove north on the Scajaquada Expressway to the Youngman, east to Millersport Highway, and then northeast the fifteen miles or so to Lockport. It did not take him long to find the little house on Lilly Street. Kurtz parked across the street for a few minutes. The house was fairly common for Lockport: a basic white-brick house in a nice old neighborhood. Trees overarched the street; yellow leaves fell. Kurtz looked at the dormer windows on the second floor and wondered which one was her room.
He drove to the nearest middle school. He did not park there, but drove by slowly. Cops were edgy around public schools and wouldn't be especially generous with a recently paroled killer who hadn't even checked in with his P.O. yet.
It was just a building. Kurtz didn't know what he had expected. Middle-school kids didn't go outside for recess. He glanced at his watch and drove back to town, taking the 990 back to save some time.
Arlene led the way into the X-rated video store. The place was half a block from the bus station. Glass from countless broken crack bottles crunched underfoot. A used hypodermic syringe lay in the corner of the doorway vestibule. Most of the storefront window had been painted over, but the unpainted part above eye level was so filthy that no one could have seen into the store even if there had been no paint.
Inside it was every X-rated video store Kurtz had ever seen: a bored, acne-scarred man reading a racing form behind the counter, three or four furtive men pouring over the magazines and videos on the shelves, one junkie female in black leather eyeing the customers, and an assortment of dildos, vibrators, and other sex toys in the glass display case. The only difference was that a lot of the videos were now on DVD.
"Hey, Tommy," Arlene said to the man behind the counter.
"Hey, Arlene," said Tommy.
Kurtz looked around. "Nice," he said. "We doing our Christmas shopping early?"
Arlene led the way down a narrow hall past the peep-show booths, past a toilet with a hand-lettered sign reading DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT DOING IT IN HERE, ASSHOLES, through a bead curtain, through an unmarked door, and down a steep flight of stairs.
The basement was long and musty and smelled of rat droppings, but the place had been partitioned into two areas with a low railing separating them. Empty bookcases still lined three of the walls. There were long, nicked tables in the outer area and a metal desk in the far space.
"Exits?" said Kurtz.
"That's the good part," said Arlene.