"Good morning, Signorita Farino," said the man in the peacoat. "Or is it Signora Ferrara?"
All right , she thought So much for the robbery hope . But if it was a hit, it was the slowest goddamned hit in Mafia memory. This guy could have popped her and been gone by now. He must know about the Boys waiting just a few hundred meters away. Angelina caught her breath and looked at the man's face.
"Kurtz," she said. They'd never met, but she had studied the photograph Stevie had sent her to give to the Stooges.
The man neither smiled nor nodded. Nor did he lower s aim. "I know you're carrying," he said. "Keep your hands there and nothing dramatic's going to happen. Yet."
"You cannot imagine what a mistake you're making," Angelina Farino Ferrara said slowly and carefully.
"What are you going to do?" said Kurtz. "Put a contract out on me?"
Angelina had never met this man, but she knew enough about his history not to be coy with him. "That was Stevie's call," she said. "I was just the messenger."
"Why the Stooges?" asked Kurtz.
Angelina was surprised by the question, but only for a second.
"Consider them an entrance exam," she said. She debated lowering her hands, looked at Kurtz's eyes, and kept them where they were.
"An exam for what?" asked Kurtz.
Keep talking , thought Angelina. Another two or three minutes and the Boys would come looking for her when she didn't appear on the return leg of the jog. Or will they? It's cold this morning. The Lincoln is warm . Perhaps four minutes. She kept herself from checking her big digital watch. "I thought you might be useful to us," she said. "Useful to me. Stevie ordered the contract, but I chose the idiots to see if you were any good."
"Why does Little Skag want me dead?" asked Kurtz. Angelina realized that the man must be very strong, since the.40-caliber pistol he was aiming was not light but his extended arm never wavered for a second.
"Stevie thinks you had something to do with my father and sister's deaths," she said.
"No he doesn't." Kurtz's voice was absolutely flat.
Knowing that if she argued witch him, she might gain more timeor might just get shot in the heart more quicklyshe decided to tell the truth. "He thinks you're dangerous, Kurtz. You know too much." Such as the fact that he hired you to hire the Dane to kill Maria and Pop , she thought, but did not say aloud.
"What's your angle?"
"My arms are getting tired. Can I just"
"No," said Kurtz. The pistol's muzzle still did not waver.
"I want some leverage when Stevie gets out," she said, amazed to hear herself telling this ex-con what she would tell no one else in the world. "I thought you would be useful to me."
"How?"
"By killing Emilio Gonzaga and his top people."
"Why the hell would I do that?" asked Kurtz. His voice did not even sound curious to Angelina, just mildly bemused.
She took a breath. Now it was all or nothing. She hadn't planned it this way. Actually, she'd planned to have Kurtz on his knees in a few weeks, his hands restraint-taped behind his back, and perhaps missing a few teeth when she got to this part. Now all she could do was go ahead and watch his face, his eyes, the muscles around his mouth, and his swallowing reflexthose parts of a person that could not not react.
"Emilio Gonzaga ordered your little pal Samantha killed twelve years ago," she said.
For a second, Angelina felt exactly like a duelist whose only pistol shot has misfired. Nothing about Joe Kurtz's hard face changed one iotanothing. Looking into his eyes was like looking at some Hieronymus Bosch painting of a medieval executionerif such a painting existed, which she knew it did not. For a wild instant, she considered throwing herself to the ground, rolling, and pulling the.45 Compact Witness from her belt, but the unwavering black muzzle aborted that thought.
Another minute and the Boys will She knew she did not have another minute. Angelina Farino Ferrara did not go in for self-delusion.
"No," Kurtz said at last.
"Yes," said Angelina. "I know you took care of Eddie Falco and Manny Levine twelve years ago, but they were on Gonzaga's leash at the time. He gave the word."
"I would have known that."
"No one knew that."
"Falco and Levine were small-time drug pushers," said Kurtz. "They were too stupid to" He stopped, as if thinking of something.
"Yeah," said Angelina. "The little girl. The missing teenage girlElizabeth Connorsthat your partner Samantha was hunting for. The high-school girl who later turned up dead. The trail led through Falco and Levine because the kidnapping was a Gonzaga gig; Connors owed him almost a quarter of a million dollars and the girl was leveragejust leverageand those two idiots had been Elizabeth's friendly schoolyard pushers. After your partner stumbled across the connection, Emilio gave the word to Eddie and Manny to get rid of her and then he got rid of the kid. And then you got rid of Falco and Levine for him."
Kurtz shook his head slightly, but his gaze never left Angelina. The gun was still aimed at her chest. Angelina knew that the.40-caliber slug would smash her heart to a pulp before blasting it out through her spine.