Dan Simmons - Hardcase

"Sorry."

"I know what you wanted , Joe, honey, but it's been years and years since I was in that place. Used to sing there for King Nathan when he owned the place. It was a little bar then—a real social club. The layout hasn't changed, but those gangbangers have changed everything else."

Kurtz shook his head. The thought of Pearl Wilson walking among those miserable Bloods made him slightly ill.

"Oh, they'd heard of me," said Pearl. "Treated me all right. Of course, that might have been because I had Lark and D. J. along." Lark and D. J., Kurtz knew, were Pearl's two huge bodyguards. "Gave me a tour and everything."

Kurtz had just driven by the place. No windows on the first floor. Barred windows on the second floor.

Alley in back. A yellow Mercedes SLK parked back there. Steel doors. Peepholes. The Bloods inside would have automatic weapons.

"They've turned it into a pool parlor," said Pearl. "A bar and some tables downstairs. A locked door behind the bar that opens to stairs to the second floor. More tables up there and some ratty furniture. Two rooms up there—the big front room with the four tables, and Malcolm Kibunte's office in back. Another heavy door to his office."

"Did you see this Malcolm Kibunte?" Kurtz asked.

Pearl shook her head. "They said he wasn't there. Didn't see that albino psychopath who hangs with him either."

"Cutter?" said Kurtz.

"Yes, that's his name. Rumor is that Cutter is a black-man albino. Otherwise, the Bloods wouldn't put up with him."

Kurtz smiled at that. "Any back way upstairs?" he said.

Pearl nodded. "Little hall to the back door. Three doors. First one is the back stairway. That door locks from the inside as well. Next two doors for 'Studs' and 'Mares. "

"Cute."

"That's what I said," said Pearl.

"What reason did you use to get in?"

"I said that I used to sing for King Nathan there, Joe, honey, and that I was feeling nostalgic about seeing the place again. The younger Blood didn't know what I was talking about, but one of the older men did, and escorted me through the place. Everything but Kibunte's office." She smiled slightly. "I don't think that you'll get in by saying the same thing, Joe, honey."

"No, I guess not," said Kurtz. "Many people there? Guns?"

Pearl nodded yes to both.

"Women?"

"A few of their 'bitches, " said Pearl. Her voice showed distaste at the last word. "Not many. Mostly younger bangers. Crackheads."

"You wouldn't happen to know where Malcolm lives?"

Pearl patted his knee. "No one does, Joe, honey. The man just comes into the community, sells crack and heroin and other drugs to the kids there, and the Bloods make him a demi-god. He drives a yellow Mercedes convertible, but somehow no one ever sees where it goes when Malcolm leaves."

Kurtz nodded, thinking about that.

"It's a bad place, Joe, honey," said Pearl. She took his fingers in her soft hand and squeezed. "I would feel much better if you'd promise me that you're not going to have anything to do with the Seneca Social Club."

Kurtz held her hand in both of his, but all he said was, "Thank you, Pearl." He stepped out of the sweet smells of the new Infiniti and walked through blowing snow to his borrowed Buick.

Doc didn't come on guard duty at the steel mill until 11:00 p.m., so Kurtz had some time to kill. He felt tired. The last few days and nights had begun to blend together in his mind.

Using some of the $500 in cash that Arlene had retrieved from the ATM—Kurtz had promised to pay her back by the end of the month—he filled the Buick's gas tank for her. He then went into the Texaco convenience store and bought a Bic cigarette lighter, twenty-five feet of clothesline, and four half-liter Cokes—the only drinks which came in glass bottles. Kurtz emptied the Coke and filled the bottles with gasoline, keeping out of sight of the attendant as he did so. He had gone into the restroom, removed his boxer shorts, and torn them into rags. Now he stuffed those rags into the mouths of the gasoline-filled bottles and carefully set the four bottles into the spare-tire niche in the Buick's trunk. He did not have a real plan yet, but he thought that these things might come in handy when and if he visited the Seneca Social Club.

It was definitely colder without underpants.

The snow was trying to become Buffalo's first November snowstorm, but little was sticking to the streets. Kurtz drove down to the Expressway overpass, parked on a side street, and climbed the concrete grade to Pruno's niche. The cold concrete cubicle was empty. Kurtz remembered another place where the old man used to hang out, so he drove to the main switching yard. It was on his way.

Here part of the highway was elevated over twenty rails, and in the slight shelter of the bridge rose a ramshackle city of packing crates, tin roofs, open fires, and a few lanterns. Diesel locomotives growled and clanked in the wide yards a quarter of a mile beyond the squatters' city. What little skyline Buffalo offered rose beyond the railyards. Kurtz walked down the concrete incline and went from shack to shack.

Pruno was playing chess with Soul Dad. Pruno's gaze was unfocused—he was very high on something—but it did not seem to hurt his game. Soul Dad gestured him in. Kurtz had to duck low to get under the two-by-four-girded construction-plastic threshold.

"Joseph," said Soul Dad extending his hand. "It is good to see you again." Kurtz shook the bald black man's strong hand. Soul Dad was about Pruno's age, but in much better physical shape—he was one of the few homeless whom Kurtz had met who was not an addict or a schizophrenic. Solid, bald, bearded, given to wearing cast-off tweed jackets with a sweater vest over two or three shirts during the winter, Soul Dad had a mellifluous voice, a scholar's wisdom, and—Kurtz had always thought—the saddest eyes on earth.

Pruno looked at him as if Kurtz were an alien life-form that had just teleported into their midst. "Joseph?" The scrawny man looked warmer in the insulated bomber jacket Kurtz had given him. Sophia Farino's gift to the homeless , thought Kurtz, and then smiled when he realized that it had been a gift to the homeless when she'd given it to him.

"Pull up a crate, Joseph," rumbled Soul Dad. "We were just approaching the endgame."

"I'll just watch for a while," said Kurtz.

"Nonsense," said Soul Dad. "This game will go on for another day or so. Would you like some coffee?"

As the older man hunkered over a battered hot-plate in the rear of the shack, Kurtz noticed how powerful Soul Dad's back and shoulders and upper arms were under his thin jacket. Kurtz had no idea where they pirated the electricity for the shack, but the hot-plate worked, and Soul Dad had a refurbished laptop computer in the corner near his sleeping bag. Some form of chaos-driven fractal imagery—almost certainly home-programmed—was acting as a screen saver, adding to the glow of the lantern light in the little space.

Soul Dad and Kurtz sipped coffee while Pruno rocked, closing his eyes occasionally, the better to appreciate some interior light show. Soul Dad asked polite questions about Kurtz's last eleven and a half years, and Kurtz tried to answer with some humor. There must have been some wit in his answers, since Soul Dad's deep laugh was loud enough to bring Pruno out of his reveries.

"Well, to what do we owe the pleasure of this nocturnal visit, Joseph?" Soul Dad asked at last.

Pruno answered for him. "Joseph is tilting against windmills… a windmill named Malcolm Kibunte, to be precise."

Soul Dad's thick eyebrows rose. "Malcolm Kibunte is no windmill," he said softly.

"More a murderous sonofabitch," said Kurtz.

Soul Dad nodded. "That and more."