Dan Simmons - Hardcase

Kurtz looked in the carton he thought of as his refrigerator. Two bottles of water and a few Oreos were left. He ate the Oreos and drank an entire bottle of water. He crawled into his sleeping bag and glanced at his watch: 6:52 a.m. He had planned to go into the office this morning to work with Arlene, but he could be a little late.

Kurtz clicked off the trouble light, curled up in the near-absolute darkness, waited a bit for his shivering to abate as the bag warmed up, and drifted off to sleep.

"Got him," said Malcolm Kibunte. He and Cutter were in an Astro Van parked almost two blocks away.

It had been a long night. When The courthouse cop on the arm informed Miles that someone had made bail for Kurtz, Malcolm let Doo-Rag know that the yard shank was off, gathered Cutter, his Tek-9, and some surveillance gear, stole a van, and staked out the jail. The revised plan was to take out Kurtz in a rock-and-roll drive-by the minute he got out of ricochet range of the city jail, killing him and whoever had made the bail for him. Then Malcolm saw who it was who had posted bail, and went to Plan Three.

They waited down the street from Sophia Farino's condo through the early-morning hours and were almost ready to bag it when Kurtz finally emerged and began strolling the opposite way. There were so few vehicles on the street that Malcolm had to let Kurtz disappear from sight and then drive in long loops to get ahead of him, always parked with other grimy vans and vehicles, always a good two blocks away. It was dark. Only the expensive military night scopes and goggles allowed Cutter and Malcolm to keep tabs on Kurtz.

For a while they thought they had run him to ground when Kurtz had clambered up under the expressway overpass, but just as Malcolm and Cutter were getting ready to go after him, Kurtz climbed down the embankment and was on the move again. For some reason, the fool had ditched his jacket. Cutter wanted to stop under the overpass and check on that, but Malcolm was too busy driving down toward the river and finding a place to park before Kurtz wandered into sight again. It was getting light. Surveillance would be impossible in half an hour or so: Kurtz would notice the same scabrous green van if it kept reappearing, even a couple of blocks away.

But luck was with them. From where they had parked in an old railroad salvage-yard, Malcolm watched through the night-vision scope, and Cutter lifted the huge binoculars as Kurtz went through his slice in the wire and let himself into the old icehouse building.

They waited another hour. Kurtz did not come out.

"I think we found his hidey-hole," said Malcolm. He rubbed his beard and lifted the Tek-9 onto his lap. Cutter grunted and clicked open his knife. "I don't know, C, my man," said Malcolm. "Big place in there. Probably dark. He know it, we don't."

The two sat in silence for another few minutes. Suddenly Malcolm grinned broadly. "You know what we need for this job, C?"

Cutter looked at him, his pale eyes empty.

"That's right," said Malcolm. "We gonna need extreme white trash, stupid enough not to know about the Death Mosque bounty, but still be willin' to go in there to kill Mr. Kurtz for next to nothing."

Cutter nodded.

"Correct," agreed Malcolm. "We know where Mr. Kurtz live. All we need to do now is bring in the Alabama Beagle Boys." Malcolm laughed heartily.

Cutter breathed through his mouth and turned to look at the old icehouse through the rain.

"Nice couch," said Kurtz as Arlene came down the back steps and into their basement office. He was half-asleep, sprawled on the sprang, faded floral sofa. "Is it from your house?"

"Nice of you to drop by and notice," said Arlene, hanging her coat on a spike driven into the wall. "Of course it's from the house. Alan slept through many an NFL game on it. I had Will and Bobby help me haul it down here. What is this on my desk?"

"A video monitor," said Kurtz.

"A TV?"

"Go ahead, turn it on."

Arlene flicked it on and looked at the picture for a minute. It was fuzzy and in black and white and cycled through four scenes: counter, stacks, booms, and hallway. "That's it? I get to watch the perverts in the porn shop upstairs?"

"That's it," agreed Kurtz. "The owners revamped the closed-circuit surveillance system upstairs, and I got Jimmy to run a line down here and sell us one of the old monitors."

" Sell it to us?" Arlene tapped the mouse to bring her computer screen to life. "How much did it cost?"

"Fifty bucks, wiring thrown in free. I told him I'd pay when I got the money this month… or next… or whenever."

"Just so I can watch the dirty old men buying their dirty old magazines and videos."

"You're welcome," said Kurtz. He swung himself off the sprung couch and walked over to his own desk at the rear of the long room. His desk was empty, except for some files and memos left there by Arlene.

"Do you really think we need the video security?" she asked. "Both doors stay locked and we're not exactly advertising that we're here."

Kurtz shrugged. "The outer door's pretty well jimmy-proof," he said. "But the door from the porn shop is just a door. And I seem to have a few people hunting for me." He poured coffee for both of them, even though Arlene had just come in from her lunch break, carried the mugs over, and sat on the edge of her desk. He gave her Pruno's description of Malcolm Kibunte, Cutter, and Doo-Rag, then remembered Sammy Levine's brother Manny and described him as well.

"You made an enemy out of Danny DeVito?" said Arlene.

"Sounds like it," said Kurtz. "Anyway, if you see anyone on the monitor who looks like any of these four guys upstairs, you leave by one of the other doors."

"Those descriptions apply to about half of the losers who patronize the shop upstairs," said Arlene.

"All right," said Kurtz. "Amend it to—if you see anyone trying to bust through the front door up there, you head out the back. If any of them look like one of the guys I described, move even faster."

Arlene nodded. "Any other gifts for me?"

Kurtz pulled the Kimber Custom.45 ACP from the holster at the small of his back. He set it on her desk. "Couldn't afford a Doberman," he said.

Arlene shook her head and reached under her desk, pulling out a hammerless, short-barreled.32 Magnum Ruger revolver.

"Hey," said Kurtz, "an old friend!"

"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 sources—court 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."