Dan Simmons - Hardcase

Malcolm began shaking his head wildly again. "I don't know, Kurtz. I swear to Christ I don't know. Jesus, it's cold. Pull me in! Money! Cash. I'll take you to it, Kurtz!"

"How much did they pay you for taking me out?"

"Forty K!" screamed Malcolm. " Goddamn , it's cold. Pull me in, Kurtz. Swear to Christ… money's yours. All of it."

Kurtz leaned back, holding the terrible weight of the man and the rushing water. The clothesline creaked and stretched. Malcolm shot glances over his shoulder at the blue-white precipice at his heels. Downriver, impossibly far away, car headlights glowed on the arch of the Rainbow Bridge.

"Yaba," Kurtz shouted. "Why yaba?"

"Triad sends it," Malcolm screamed. "Sell on the side. I get ten percent. JesusChristAlmightyKurtz!"

"Ninety percent to the Farinos through the lawyer?" Kurtz shouted over the roar of water.

"Yeah. Please, my man. Jesus Christ! Please. I can't feel my legs. So fucking cold, man. I'll give you all the money…"

"And you give the Triad guns from the arsenal raid?" Kurtz called.

"What? Huh? Please, man…"

"The guns," Kurtz shouted again. "Triad sends you yaba. You send guns back to Vancouver?"

"Yeah, yeah… Jesusfuck!" Malcolm clawed at ice. The current flipped him over and drove him underwater. Kurtz pulled hard and Malcolm's bald head broke through the water again. His collar and chin were crusted with ice.

"How did you kill the accountant?" Kurtz yelled. "Buell Richardson?"

"Who?" Malcolm was screaming now, teeth chattering.

Kurtz let the rope slip three feet. Malcolm clawed at the steep icy shore. His face went under again, and he came up spluttering.

"Cutter! Slit his throat."

"Why?"

"Miles said do it."

"Why?"

"Richardson found the Farino money Miles was laundering—ohSHIIIT!" The current had tugged him another three feet toward the edge.

"Richardson wanted a cut?" Kurtz shouted.

Malcolm was too busy looking at the roaring edge of nothing behind him to answer. The big man's teeth were chattering wildly. He looked back at Kurtz. "Fuck it! You going to let me die anyway," he shouted.

Kurtz shrugged. The rope was cutting into his hands and wrist. "There's always the long shot I'll let you live. Tell me what you know about—"

Suddenly there was a short switchblade in Malcolm's hands. He began cutting through the rope.

"No!" Kurtz shouted. He began pulling.

Malcolm cut the rope, dropped the blade, and began swimming hard. He was a strong, powerful man filled with adrenaline, and for ten seconds or so, it seemed that he was making headway against the wild current—aiming for a point fifteen or twenty feet upriver from Kurtz where he might make a grab for the icy railing.

Then the river reasserted itself, and Malcolm was swept backward as if slapped by the invisible hand of God. He reached the blue-white rim and was swept back and over in an instant—shark-attack fast. It was as if the Falls had swallowed him. The last image Kurtz had of Malcolm was of the man trying to swim into the air, grinning insanely, the diamond stud in his front tooth gleaming in the blue-white glow.

And then there was no one there.

Kurtz pulled the loop of rope free from his bloodless hand and wrist and tossed the remaining length of clothesline into the river. He stood there for only a second longer, listening to the roar of water in the night.

"Should have gone with the long shot," he said softly and turned to leave.

Arlene woke at her usual time—shortly before the gray Buffalo night brightened into gray Buffalo dawn—and was halfway through her morning paper and cup of coffee before she looked out her kitchen window and noticed that her Buick was in the driveway.

She went outside in her bathrobe. The car was locked and the keys were in the mailbox. There was no sign of Joe.

Later, after parking her car and going in through the alley entrance to their basement office, she noticed the white envelope on her tidy desk. Three thousand dollars in cash. November's pay.

Joe came in the back door around noon. His hair had been stylishly razor-cut. He had shaved closely and smelled slightly of an outdoorsy cologne. He was wearing a gray Perry Ellis suit—double-breasted—a white shirt, a conservative green-and-gold patterned tie, and soft, highly polished new brown dress shoes. Joe had always liked the Prince of Wales combination of gray suit and brown shoes, Arlene knew.

"Someone die and leave you money?" she said.

Kurtz smiled. "You might say that."

"How did you get into town from my place this morning?"

"They have these things called taxicabs," said Kurtz.

"You don't see them much in Cheektowaga," said Arlene. "It's more a bus kind of town."

"There are a lot of things one doesn't see much of in Cheektowaga, but I drove to the office just now."

Arlene raised one penciled eyebrow. "Drove? You're driving your own vehicle now?"

"It's a beater," said Kurtz. "An 88 Volvo sedan from Cheaper Charlie's out in Amherst. But it runs."

Arlene had to smile. "I'll never understand your affection for Volvos."

"They're safe," said Kurtz.

"Unlike everything else in your life."

He made a face. "They're boring. And ubiquitous. No one ever paid attention to a Volvo that was following them. They're like Chinamen; they all look alike."

Arlene could not argue with that. She stayed silent while Kurtz carefully removed his jacket and trousers, hung them on hangers on the wall rack, loosened his tie, and lay down on the sprung sofa against the wall. "Wake me about three, would you?" he said. "I've got an important business meeting at four." Kurtz folded his hands on his chest and was snoring softly within a minute.

Arlene tapped the keys and opened file drawers softly, careful not to wake Joe, but he slept on. She knew that he would not need the wake-up call—he always awakened exactly when he wanted to—and, sure enough, a few minutes before 3:00, his eyes snapped open and he looked around with that instant comprehension upon awakening, which had always amazed and mystified Arlene.

He dressed quickly, adjusting the suit jacket just so, buttoning his collar button, and making sure that his tie was knotted perfectly and that his cuffs shot properly.

"You need a snap-brim fedora," said Arlene as Joe headed for the back door, his car keys in his hand. She did not ask him about the meeting, and he did not offer any information before he left. Arlene knew from experience that it might be something as mundane as a request for a bank loan or something else altogether—something that Joe might not return from. She never asked. He almost never told.

Arlene finished a few e-mails to clients and wondered if she should tell Joe that their sweetheart-search business looked as if it was going to show a profit of eight or ten thousand dollars by the end of the first month. She decided to wait.

It was almost 5:00, she was finished with the day's Web searches and notices, and she was about ready to call it a day when unusual movement on the small security monitor caught her eye.

A monster had come in the front door of the porn store. The man's face was half burned away, one eye was swollen shut under inflamed tissue, and only a few white clumps of hair remained on a skull that had been cracked and cooked. The man wore a raincoat open and even through the black-and-white monitor, Arlene could see that his chest was covered with makeshift bandages and raw burns.

The clerk, Tommy, went for the shotgun he kept on the lowest shelf behind the counter.

The monster grabbed Tommy by his ponytail, pulled his head back, and cut his throat from ear to ear with one vicious sweep of his arm.

There were only two customers in the store. One ran for the front door, trying to squeeze past the monster, but the burned man spun quickly and ripped the man from his pubic bone to his throat. The man went down in the entrance and collapsed against the glass counter.