Angelina Farino Ferrara said nothing.
"Do Tweedledee and Tweedledum actually work out with you?" asked Kurtz.
"They stay in the weight room where they can see me through the glass," said Angelina. "But I don't allow them to get close." She was silent for a minute. "I take it that you and I are going to discover an instant attraction, Kurtz."
"We'll see. At least we'll be able to talk at the health club."
"I want my two pieces of property back."
"Well, one of them you might not want to keep," said Kurtz. "I donated part of it to a Native American today."
"Shit," said Angelina. "But I still want it back."
"Sentimental value," said Kurtz.
"Yes. So are we going to discover an immediate attraction when we meet at the health club?"
"Who knows?" said Kurtz, although he had no plans to return to the Farino headquarters at the marina tomorrow. But if she didn't have him killed at the health club, he might need to spend more time with her if his Gonzaga plan was going to work.
"Assuming we do hit it off in this alternate universe, when the time comes are you going to ride to the penthouse with the Boys and me or will you be driving yourself?"
"Driving," said Kurtz.
"You're going to need a better car and a much nicer wardrobe."
"Tell them you're slumming," said Kurtz, and broke the connection.
Late that evening, Arlene drove Kurtz back to the Red Door Tavernhe had to pound on the alley door of the place to get the bartender to let him in so he could walk throughonly to find Brubaker and Myers gone from their surveillance and his Volvo scratched down the length of its driver's side. Evidently one or the other of the detectives had looked inside the bar, found Kurtz gone, and then vented his frustration in true professional form.
"To protect and serve," muttered Kurtz.
He drove out to Lockport carefully, checking for tails. No one was following him. These cops have the stick-to-it quality of an old Post-it Note was Kurtz's uncharitable thought.
Down the street and around the corner from Rachel's home, he used the electronic gear he'd brought and checked on the various bugs. Donnie was out of town, as promised. Rachel was home alone, and except for the sound of the TVshe was watching Parent Trap , the Hayley Mills versionand some humming to herself, and one call from her friend Melissa in which Rachel confirmed Rafferty's absence, there was nothing to hear. Kurtz took the humming as a good sign, shut down his equipment, dropped the electronic gear by the office, and drove back to the Royal Delaware Arms.
The plaster dust was undisturbed since that morning. The repairs to his door allowed him to get the police bar in place. Kurtz cooked a dinner of stir-fry on the hot plate and ate it with some cheap wine he'd bought on the way home. The apartment had no TV, but he owned an old grille-front FM radio that he tuned to Buffalo's best jazz/blues station and listened to that while he read a novel called Ada . The wind was cold and seemed to blow in through the plaster cracks and seep up through the floor. By 10:00 p.m., Kurtz was cold enough to check his locks and police bar, flip the big couch into a fold-out bed, brush his teeth, make sure his.40 S&W and Farino Ferrara's two.45s were in reach, and turn in for the night.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"Fuck you."
He and Angelina Farino Ferrara were pacing on parallel treadmills in the mirrored and teak-floored sixth-story main room of the Buffalo Athletic Club. Her bodyguards were in the adjoining weight room, clearly visible through the glass wall as they pressed heavy weights and admired each other's sweat-oiled muscles, but out of earshot. No one was exercising near Kurtz and Angelina.
"Did you bring my property?" she asked. Kurtz was wearing a bulky sweat suit, seriously out of fashion based on what the few other patrons were wearing, but Angelina's fashionable skintight leotard showed that she was not armed.
Kurtz shrugged and set the treadmill for a faster pace. Angelina set hers to match. "I want
those two items back." She was breathing and speaking easily, but she had broken a sweat.
"Noted." Kurtz glanced over at the bodyguards. "Are they any good?"
"The Boys? Marco's all right. Leo's a waste of Stevie's money."
"Is Leo the one with the cupid lips and con torso?"
"Right."
"Are these your main men?"
"The Boys? They're the only ones with me full time, but Stevie's brought in eight other new guys. They're all competent at what they do, but they don't hang out at the marina. Shouldn't you be asking about Gonzaga's protection rather than mine?"
"All right. What about Gonzaga's people? How many? Any good? And who else is usually in his compound? And how often does he come out of that compound?"
"These day's, he almost never comes out. And it's never predictable when he does." Angelina cranked up the speed and angle of her machine. Kurtz matched it. They had to speak a bit more loudly to hear one another over the whir. "Emilio keeps twenty-eight people on his payroll at that fortress," she said. "Nineteen of them are muscle. Pretty good, although they must be getting rusty just sitting there guarding his fat ass. The rest are cooks, maids, butlers, sometimes his business manager, technicians"