Dan Simmons - Hard Freeze

Kurtz took Walmore Road into the reservation and turned left onto the third gravel road. Big Bore's rusted-out trailer squatted in the deep snow just short of where Garlow Road ran along the reservoir. A clapped-out Dodge Powerwagon with a blade sat in the Indian's driveway and snow was heaped eight feet high on either side. Big Bore earned his drinking money from plowing the reservation's private roads during the winter. Kurtz pulled the Buick back behind one of these snowpiles so he could see the door to Redhawk's trailer. Snow was falling, stopping, then falling harder.

Twenty-five minutes later, all six-feet-five-inches of Big Bore came stumbling out the door wearing only jeans and a loose plaid shirt—he did not seem aware of Kurtz's car—climbed one of the higher drifts, and urinated toward the line of trees.

Kurtz drove the Buick up, slid to a stop, and got out quickly with the.40 Smith & Wesson in his hand. "Good morning, B.B."

Redhawk turned with mouth and fly agape. His bloodshot eyes flickered toward the trailer, and Kurtz guessed that the half-breed's gun was still inside. Big Bore had always been a shank man.

"Kurtz? Hey, man, fucking good to see you, man. You out on parole too?"

Kurtz smiled. "You drinking the advance on my hit, B.B.?"

Big Bore worked his face into a puzzled frown, glanced down, and zipped up his fly. "Huh?" he said. "What's the piece for? We were friends, man."

"Yeah," said Kurtz.

"Fuck, man," said Big Bore. "I don't know what you heard, but we can talk it out, man. Come on inside." He took a half step toward his trailer.

Kurtz raised the semiauto's aim slightly and shook his head.

Big Bore raised his hands and squinted. "You're a big man with that gun, aren't you, Kurtz?"

Kurtz said nothing.

"You put that fucking piece down and fight me like a fucking man, we'll see who's hot shit," slurred Big Bore.

"I beat you in a fair fight, you tell me who hired you?" said Kurtz.

The Indian jumped down from the drift, landing lightly for three hundred pounds of muscled fat, and raised his huge arms, flexing his fingers. "Whatever," he said, showing prison dentistry.

Kurtz thought about it, nodded, and tossed his pistol onto the hood of the Buick, out of reach. He turned back to Redhawk.

"Fucking moron," said Big Bore, pulling an eight-inch hunting knife from a scabbard under his shirt. "Easiest fucking ten grand I ever earned." He grinned more broadly and took two crouched steps forward, flicking the fingers of his huge left hand in an invitation. "Let's see what you got, Kurtz."

"I've got a forty-five," said Kurtz. He pulled Angelina's Compact Witness from his coat pocket and shot Big Bore in the left knee.

The hunting knife went flying over the drift, blood and cartilage doing a Jackson Pollock on the snow, and Big Bore went down heavily.

Kurtz retrieved his S&W and walked over to the moaning, cursing Indian.

"I'm going to fucking kill your fucking ass, Kurtz, you fucking…" began Big Bore, then trailed away into a groan.

Kurtz waited for the monologue to continue.

"And fucking call the cops and fucking send you away until I'm motherfucking ready to kill your fucking ass," gasped the big man, wanting to hold his shattered knee together but unwilling to touch the mess.

"No," said Kurtz. "Remember telling everyone in the exercise yard how you killed your first two wives and where they're buried?"

"Aww, fuck, man," moaned Big Bore.

"Yeah," said Kurtz. He went into the trailer and rummaged through the mess there a bit, finding $1,410 in small bills hidden under a hardcase holding a shiny new.45 Colt. Kurtz was no thief, but this was a down payment on his own death, so he took the money and went back to the Buick. Big Bore had begun the crawl to the trailer and was leaving an unpleasant trail in the snow.

Chief of Detectives Captain Robert Gaines Millworth, aka James B. Hansen, went into his office on Saturday morning at the main precinct station on Elmwood, just across from the courthouse. It was snowing.

The sergeant at the desk and a few duty officers were surprised to see Captain Millworth, since he had the rest of his weekend off for the last of his vacation. "Paperwork," said the captain, and went into his office.

Hansen called up the file on the ex-con that Brubaker and Myers were tailing. He'd run across Joe Kurtz's name before, but had never paid much attention to it. Rereading the previous arrest file and the man's thin dossier, Hansen realized that this lowlife Kurtz represented everything Hansen despised—a thug who had parlayed a short stint as a military policeman into a private detective's license in civilian life, had been tried for aggravated assault fifteen years earlier—dismissed on a technicality—and then plea-bargained out of a Murder Two charge into a Man One twelve years ago because of the laziness and sloppiness of the district attorney's office. The penultimate entry in the file was an interrogation by the late Detective James Hathaway the previous autumn, relating to an illegal weapons charge that was dropped when Kurtz's parole officer, Margaret O'Toole, had intervened to report to the watch commander that despite Hathaway's report, the perp had not been armed when arrested by the detective in her office. Hansen made a mental note to make life miserable for Miss O'Toole when he got the chance… and he would make sure that he got the chance.

There were several pages in the file speculating on Mr. Joe Kurtz's connections with the Farino crime family, specifically with his prison connections with Stephen "Little Skag" Farino in Attica, and the brief report of an interview with Kurtz the previous November after the gangland killings of Don Farino, Maria Farino, their lawyer, and several bodyguards. Kurtz had an alibi for the evening of the murders, and no forensic evidence had connected him to what the New York City TV stations and papers had called "The Buffalo Massacre."

Kurtz was perfect for a role that Hansen had in mind: a loner, no family or friends, an ex-con, a suspected cop-killer, probable mob connections, a history of violence. There would be no problem convincing a jury that Kurtz was also a thief, someone who would murder a visiting violinist just for his wallet. Of course it should never come before a jury. Send the right detectives to arrest this Kurtz—say, those clowns Brubaker and Myers—and the state would be saved the cost of an execution.

But there would have to be evidence—preferably DNA evidence at the scene of the crime.

Hansen shut off the computer, swiveled his chair, and looked out through the blinds at the gray heap that was the courthouse. As he often did when events seemed confusing, Hansen closed his eyes and gave a brief prayer to his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. James B. Hansen had been saved and born again in Christ at the age of eight—the one thing his miserable excuse for a mother had ever done for him was to connect him to the Evangelical Church of Repentance in Kearney. He never took that for granted. And although he knew that his special needs might be looked upon by others as an abomination in the eyes of the Lord, Hansen's own special relationship with Jesus reassured him that the Lord God Christ used James Hansen as His instrument, Culling only those souls whom Jesus Christ Almighty wished Culled. It was why Hansen prayed almost ceaselessly in the weeks leading up to his Special Visits. So far, he had been a true and faithful servant to the will of Jesus.

Finished with his prayer, the captain turned back to his desk and dialed a private number, choosing not to make a radio call.

"Brubaker here."

"This is Captain Millworth. Are you on the Kurtz surveillance now?"

"Yes, sir."

"Where is he?"