Dan Simmons: Hard as Nails

Kurtz's new home, the Harbor Inn, was an abandoned, triangular three-story old bar and bargeman's hotel standing alone amidst weed-filled fields south of downtown Buffalo. To get to it, you had to cross the Buffalo River on a one-lane metal bridge between abandoned grain elevators. The bridge rose vertically as a single unit for barge traffic—almost nonexistent now—and a sign on the superstructure informed snowplows: "Raise Plow Before Crossing." Once onto what locals called "the Island," although it wasn't technically an island, the air smelled of burned Cheerios because the only remaining operating structure amidst the abandoned warehouses and silos was the big General Mills plant between the river and Lake Erie. The main entrance to the Harbor Inn—still boarded over but boarded now with a lock and hinge—was at the apex of the building's triangle where Ohio and Chicago Streets came together. There was a ten-foot-tall metal lighthouse hanging out over that entrance, its blue and white paint and the Harbor Inn logo beneath it so rust-flaked that it looked like someone had machine-gunned it. A fading wooden sign on the boarded door read—FOR LEASE, ELICOTT DEVELOPMENT COMPANY and gave a 716 phone number. Beneath that sign was older, even more faded lettering announcing

CHICKEN WINGS

CHILI

SANDWICHES

DAILY SPECIALS

Kurtz got the extra key from its hiding place, unpadlocked the front door, pulled the board out of his way, stepped in, and locked it all behind him. Only a few glimmers of sunlight came over and under the boards into this triangular main space—the old lobby and restaurant of the inn. Dust, plaster, and broken boards were scattered everywhere except on the path he'd cleared. The air smelled of mold and rot.

To the left of the hallway behind this space was the narrow staircase leading upstairs. Kurtz checked some small telltales and went up, walking slowly and grabbing the railing when the pain in his head made him dizzy.

He'd fixed up three rooms and one bathroom on the second floor, although there were hidey holes and escape routes out of all nine rooms up here. He'd replaced the windows and cleaned up the big triangular room in front—not as his bedroom, that was a smaller room next to it, but as an exercise room, fitted out with a speed bag, heavy bag, a treadmill he'd scavenged from the junk heap behind the Buffalo Athletic Club and repaired, a padded bench, and various weights. Kurtz had never fallen into the bodybuilding fetish so endemic in Attica during his eleven and a half years there—he'd found that strength was fine, but speed and the ability to react fast were more important—but during the last six months he'd been doing a lot of physical therapy. Two of the windows in here looked out on Chicago and Ohio Streets and the abandoned grain silos and factory complex to the west; the center window looked right into the pockmarked lighthouse sign.

His bedroom was nothing special—a mattress, an old wardrobe that now held his suits and clothes—and wooden blinds over the window. The third room had brick and board bookcases against two walls, shelves filled with paperbacks, a faded red carpet, a single floor lamp that Arlene had planned to throw away, and—amazingly—an Eames chair and ottoman that some idiot out in Williamsville had put out for junk pickup. It looked like some eighty-pound cat had gone at the black leather upholstery with its claws, but Kurtz had fixed that with electrical tape.

Kurtz went to the end of the dark hall, stripped out of the old man's clothes, and took a fast but very hot shower, making sure to keep the spray off his bandages.

After drying off, Kurtz took out his razor, squeezed lather into his palm, and looked at the mirror for the first time.

"Jesus Christ," he said disgustedly.

The face looking back at him was unshaven and not quite human. The bandages looked bloody again and he could see the shaved patch around them. Blood had drained beneath the skin of his temple and forehead down under his eyes until he had a bright purple raccoon mask. The eyes themselves were almost as bright a red as the soaked-through bandages and he had scrapes and road rash on his left cheek and chin where he must have done a face-plant onto the concrete garage floor. His left eye didn't look right—as if it weren't dilating properly.

"Christ," he muttered again. He wouldn't be delivering any love letters for SweetheartSearch-dot-com again anytime soon.

Shaved and showered now, somehow feeling lousier and more exhausted for it, he dressed in clean jeans, a black t-shirt, new running shoes, and a leather A-2 jacket he'd once given to his old wino-addict informant and acquaintance, Pruno, but which Pruno had given back, saying that it wasn't really his style. The jacket was still in pristine condition, obviously never worn by the homeless man.

Kurtz gingerly pulled on the fedora and went into the unfurnished bedroom that adjoined his own. The plaster hadn't been repaired here and part of the ceiling was falling down. Kurtz reached above the woodwork of the adjoining door, clicked open a panel covered with the same mildewed wallpaper as the rest of the wall, and pulled a.38 S&W from the metal box set in the hole there. The gun was wrapped in a clean rag and smelled of oil. There was a wad of cash in the metal box and Kurtz counted out five hundred dollars from it and set the rest back, pulling the weapon free of the oily rag.

Kurtz checked that all six chambers were loaded, spun the cylinder, tucked the revolver in his waistband, grabbed a handful of cartridges from the box, stuck them in his jacket pocket, and put away the metal container and oily rag, carefully clicking the panel back into place.

He walked back to the triangular front room on the second floor and looked in all directions. It was still a beautiful blue-sky autumn day; Ohio and Chicago Streets were empty of traffic. Nothing but weeds stood in the hundreds of yards of fields between him and the abandoned silos and mills to the southwest.

Kurtz flipped on a video monitor that was part of a surveillance system he and Arlene had used in their former office in the basement of an X-rated-video store. The two cameras mounted at the rear of the Harbor Inn building showed the overgrown yards and streets and cracked sidewalks there empty.

Kurtz grabbed his spare cell phone from a shelf by the speed bag and punched in a private number. He talked briefly, said "Fifteen minutes," broke the connection, and then redialed for a cab.

The public basketball courts in Delaware Park showcased some of the finest athletic talent in Western New York, and even though this was a Thursday morning, a school day, the courts were busy with black men and boys playing impressive basketball.

Kurtz saw Angelina Farino Ferrara as soon as he stepped out of the cab. She was wearing a tailored sweatsuit, but not so tailored that he could make out the.45 Compact Witness that he guessed she still carried in a quick-release holster under her sweatshirt. The woman looked fit enough to be on the courts herself—but she was too short and too white, even with her dark hair and olive complexion, to be invited by those playing there now.

Kurtz immediately picked out her bodyguards and could have even if they hadn't been the only other white guys in this part of the park. One of the men was ten yards to her left, studiously studying squirrel activity, and the other was strolling fifteen yards to her right, almost to the courts. Her bodyguards from the previous winter had been lumpish and proletarian, from Jersey, but these two were as thin, well-dressed, and blow-dried as California male models. One of them started crossing toward Kurtz as if to intercept and frisk him, but Angelina Farino Ferrara waved the man off.