Arlene shook her head. "Some individual wedding planners do, but not the few on-line wedding-service companies. The pattern really shows up when you look at a huge mass of data."
"So how does your our Wedding Bells dot com cash in on this?" asked Kurtz.
Arlene pulled out other pages. "We continue using the Ergos tool to analyze this two-hundred-seventy- to three-hundred-day period and nail down exactly when each step of the operation takes place."
"What operation?" asked Kurtz. Arlene was beginning to talk like some bank robbers he'd known. "Isn't a wedding just a wedding? Rent a place, dress up, get it over with?"
Arlene rolled her eyes. Exhaling smoke, she brought her ashtray over to Kurtz's desk and flicked ashes into it. "See, here, at this point early on? Here's the bride's search for a dress. Every bride has to search for a dress. We offer links to designers, seamstresses, even knock-off designer dress suppliers."
"But Wedding Bells wouldn't be just a bunch of hyperlinks, would it?" asked Kurtz, frowning slightly.
Arlene shook her head and stubbed out her cigarette. "Not at all. The clients give us a profile at the beginning and we offer everything from full service down. We can handle
everythingabsolutely everything. From sending out invitations to tipping the minister. Or the clients can have us plan some of it and just have us connect them to the right people for other decision points along the wayeither way, we make money."
Arlene lit another cigarette and ruffled through the stack of papers. She pointed to a highlighted line on a 285-day chart. "See this point, Joe? Within the first month, they have to decide on locations for the wedding and the reception. We have the biggest database anywhere and provide links to restaurants, inns, picturesque parks, Hawaiian resorts, even churches. They give us their profile and we make suggestions, then connect them to the appropriate sites."
Kurtz had to grin. "And get a kickback from every one of those places except maybe the churches."
"Hah!" said Arlene. "Weddings are important revenue sources for churches and synagogues. They want in Wedding Bells dot com, they give us a piece of the action. No negotiation there."
Kurtz nodded and looked at the rest of the spreadsheets. "Wedding consultants referred. Honeymoon locations recommended and discounts offered. Limos lined up. Even airline tickets reserved for relatives and the wedding couple. Flowers. Catering. You provide local sources and Web links to everything, and everyone pays Wedding Bells dot com. Nice." He closed the folder and handed it back to her. "When do you need the seed money?"
"This is Thursday," said Arlene. "Monday would be nice."
"All right Thirty-five thousand on Monday." He grabbed his peacoat from the coatrack and slipped a semiauto pistol in his belt The weapon was the relatively small and light.40 SW99a licensed Smith & Wesson version of the Walther P99 double-action service pistol. Kurtz had ten rounds in the magazine and a second magazine in his coat pocket Considering the fact that the SW99 fired formidable.40 S&W loads rather than the more common 9mms, Kurtz trusted that twenty cartridges would do the trick.
"Will you be back in the office before the weekend?" asked Arlene as Kurtz opened the rear door.
"Probably not."
"Anywhere I can reach you?"
"You can try Pruno's e-mail in the next hour or so," said Kurtz. "After that, probably not. I'll give you a call here at the office before the weekend."
"Oh, you can call here Saturday or Sunday, too," said Arlene. "I'll be here."
But Kurtz was out the door and gone and the sarcasm was wasted.
CHAPTER THREE
But this winter had been a bitch. By January first, more snow had fallen than in the previous two winters combined, and by February, even stoic Buffalo had to shut down some schools and businesses when snow and consistently low temperatures kept blowing in off Lake Erie almost daily.
Kurtz had no idea how Pruno and some of the other winos who refused to stay in shelters more than a few of the worst nights managed to survive such winters.
But surviving the winter was Pruno's problem. Surviving the next few days and weeks was Kurtz's problem.
Pruno's "winter residence" was the packing-crate hovel he and Soul Dad had cobbled together under the highway overpass near the rail yards. In the summer, Kurtz knew, fifty or sixty of the homeless congregated here in a sort of Bonus Army Village that was not totally without appeal. But most of the fair-weather bums had long since headed for shelters or Southern citiesSoul Dad favored Denver, for reasons known only to himself. Now only Pruno's shack remained, and snow had almost covered it.
Kurtz slid down the steep hill from the road above and postholed his way through the drifts to the shack. There was no real doora section of corrugated, rusted tin slid into place across the opening of the nailed-together cratesso Kurtz knocked on the metal panel and waited. The freezing wind from Lake Erie cut right through the wool of his peacoat. After two or three more knocks, Kurtz heard a racking cough from the interior and took it as his permission to enter.