Dan Simmons - Hardcase

Kurtz ripped the mask off. Instead of lunging after the gun and turning his back on the stairway, he pulled the half-liter bottle of gasoline from his coat pocket and lit the short fuse with the cheap Bic lighter. Cutter was already pounding back up the steps.

The Molotov cocktail exploded against Cutter's chest, filling me enclosed stairway with flame and driving Kurtz back from the heat. The office door splintered and gave way. A firefighter's arm appeared, the hand releasing the bolt and turning the knob.

Cutter screamed and tumbled down the steps again, battering at the closed door, trying to get out, but men began climbing the steps again, slowly, inexorably. When the flaming human figure reached the top of the stairs, Kurtz tugged the heavy oxygen tank off his back, handed it to Cutter, and kicked him back down the stairs. Kurtz stepped aside a second before the explosion.

Kurtz picked up the.45, stuck it in his pocket, set his old.38 snub-nose into Doo-Rag's dead hand—it wouldn't pass a paraffin test, but fuck it—swung Malcolm up over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, and got to the doorway just as a real firefighter came into the smoke and confusion. Kurtz pulled the useless respirator back up over his face as more firefighters and cops rushed into the little room.

"Two men down!" Kurtz shouted, pointing to Doo-Rag's corpse and to the flaming rear stairway. The firefighters rushed toward the flame while the two cops knelt next to Doo-Rag.

Kurtz carried Malcolm through the smoky outer room, down the stairs against a tide of shouting firefighters coming up, through the poolroom, out the front door, and past the fire engines and gawking crowd. He avoided the ambulance and the clumps of Bloods being corralled by cops and went down the alley on the opposite side of the street. When he got to the Buick—its trunk already open and waiting—he dropped Malcolm in, took the man's Magnum, and frisked him quickly.

Kurtz slammed the trunk shut and looked around. The Seneca Social Club was in full blaze now, and all attention was focused on it. Kurtz found his.45 and tossed it onto the front seat and then threw the respirator, coat, boots, 357 Magnum, and coveralls into the bushes. Then he got into Arlene's car and drove the opposite way down the alley, coming out on the next boulevard and swinging north.

They had probably already discovered that Doo-Rag had been shot. They would eventually discover one of the responding firefighters tied up and unconscious in the shrubbery near the back alley. It had been Kurtz, of course, who had called 911 a few minutes before he lit the gas-doused rags running into the two cars' fuel tanks.

Kurtz noted that despite his dislike of German guns, polymer guns, and silencers, the H&K.45 had worked just fine. It had taken Kurtz just a few minutes after dealing with Hathaway to return to Doc's back room, shoot the lock off, and help himself to the weapons he knew were untraceable.

Kurtz had not gotten the idea for the diversion from The Iliad . But Pruno's suggestion of referring to books had reminded Kurtz of a trashy espionage paperback that had made the cellblock rounds at Attica. Something about Ernest Hemingway running around playing spy in Cuba during World War II. There had been a false-alarm fire ploy in that book. Kurtz wasn't proud. He'd steal from the classics some other day.

Wrapping a rag around the bloody but shallow cut on the back of his left wrist, Kurtz drove north.

Niagara Falls is most beautiful in the winter, at night, in a snowstorm. All of these criteria were met as Kurtz parked the Buick—on a side street a few hundred feet away from the American Falls parking lot—retrieved the twenty-five-foot length of clothesline and Malcolm from the trunk, and carried him through a forest of ice-limned trees and snowy fields.

After midnight—it was almost 2:00 a.m. — the powerful searchlights were turned off and both the American and Canadian Falls seemed to roar louder in the darkness. Mist from various cascades drifted across the American-side parks, garnered as ice on the waterfall side of the trees, and occasionally snapped off branches.

Goat Island divided the American Falls from the Canadian, and someone had long since run bridges out to this island and the smaller islands on the Niagara River. The tourist bridges were closed to traffic this night, but Kurtz knew his way through the trees to the bridge and walked out along it, staying near the concrete rail so that his footsteps in the snow would be less visible. At least the heavier snow now would hide his footprints in a few minutes.

Kurtz paused to rest several times. Malcolm was a big man, and nothing is as cumbersome as dead weight. The night was dark, except for reflected light from the low clouds, but the white ripples on the rapids and the blue-white glow at the edge of the American Falls just a hundred yards downstream were quite visible. Malcolm began to stir and moan, but the roar of water masked any noise. Kurtz slogged on, adjusting Malcolm on his shoulder as he got onto the icy walkways of Goat Island and turned toward the observation point near the brink of the smaller Luna Island. The small bridge here rose just a few feet above the raging waters, and Kurtz had to watch his step on the ice. Wooden barriers were set out to keep people away from this point in winter, but Kurtz went around these barriers, coming out from the trees onto the small, icy promontory that separated the broad sweep of the American Falls from the even wider curve of the Horseshoe or Canadian Falls.

Malcolm stirred as Kurtz dumped him at the end of the promontory—less than fifteen feet from the precipice of the Falls on both sides. Kurtz removed Malcolm's billfold. About $6,000 in cash. Kurtz took the money and tossed the wallet in the river. Kurtz was no thief, but he also had no doubt that Malcolm had been paid more than this up front to kill him, so he had little compunction about keeping the money. He tied the end of the clothesline around Malcolm's torso just under the big man's arms and made sure that the knots were firm, even if the rope was cheap. He ran a loop of rope around the icy railing to help act as a brake.

Malcolm began to struggle just as Kurtz manhandled him over the icy railing and dumped him into the Niagara River.

The water revived him and Malcolm began screaming and cursing at the top of his lungs. Kurtz let that go on for a short while—the roar of the Falls drowned out the screams—but, not wanting the man to freeze to death or go over the Falls before they talked, he finally said, "Shut up, Kibunte."

"Kurtz, fuckyouasshole, fuckyouKurtzyouhonky-mother-fuckergoddamn—HEY!!!"

Kurtz had released the rope for an instant, allowing ten more feet to play out, clothesline humming around the railing, stopping it only when Malcolm's feet were five feet from the roaring white foam at the edge of the Falls.

"You going to shut up except when I say talk?" shouted Kurtz.

Malcolm was looking over his shoulder at his legs being tossed out of the water by the violence of the Falls. He nodded wildly. Kurtz hauled him ten feet closer. The two men were only about eight feet apart now—Malcolm's long fingers clawed and grabbed at the icy shore, but slid back into the raging water each time—and they had to shout over the waterfall noise.

"Sorry, they only had cheap clothesline at the Texaco mini-mart," called Kurtz. "Don't know how long it will last. We'd better talk fast."

"Kurtz, goddamn, man. I'll pay money. I've got a couple of million. Money, Kurtz!"

Kurtz shook his head. "Don't need that right now, Kibunte. I'm just curious about who hired you."

"The fucking faggot lawyer. Miles! Miles hired me!"

Kurtz nodded. "But who was behind Miles? Who authorized it?"