Dan Simmons - Hard Freeze

"Joseph." The whisper seemed to come from the far corner, forty feet from Kurtz, but there were only shadows and a tumble of old benches there.

He half-raised the gun.

"Up here, Joseph."

Kurtz stepped farther out into the hall and peered up at the mezzanines in the darkness. A shadow beckoned.

Kurtz found the staircase and climbed, leaving a trail through fallen plaster. The old man was waiting for him by the railing on the second mezzanine. He was carrying what looked to be a lumpy garment bag.

"Rather interesting acoustics," said Pruno. The old man's stubbled face seemed even more pale than usual in the dim light. "They accidentally constructed a whispering gallery when they built this hall. All sounds uttered up here seem to converge in that corner down there."

"Yeah," said Kurtz. "What's up, Pruno? You interested in Frears?"

"John?" said the old heroin addict. "Well, of course I'm interested in that, since I put you two in contact, but I assumed that you did not decide to help him. It's been almost a week. To be truthful, Joseph, I'd almost forgotten."

"What is it, then?" said Kurtz. "And why here?" He gestured at the dark hall and the darker mezzanines. "This is a long way from your usual haunts."

Pruno nodded. "It seems that there is a literal dead man in my usual haunt."

"A dead man. Who?"

"You wouldn't know him, Joseph. A homeless contemporary of mine. I believe his name was Clark Povitch, a former accountant, but the other addicts and street persons have known him as Typee for the last fifteen years or so."

"What did he die of?"

"A bullet," said Pruno. "Or two bullets, I believe, although I am no forensic expert."

"Someone shot your friend in your shack?"

"Not my friend, precisely, but in this inclement weather, Typee sometimes availed himself of my hospitality—specifically of my Sterno heater—when I was elsewhere."

"Do you know who killed him?"

"I do have a clue. But it does not seem to make any sense, Joseph."

"Tell me."

"An acquaintance of mine, a lady named Mrs. Tuella Dean—I believe you would refer to her as a bag lady—was on a grate today, under some newspapers and inadvertently concealed, on the corner of Elmwood and Market when she heard a patrolman outside his parked squad car speaking on either his radio telephone or a cell phone. The patrolman was giving directions to my domicile and mentioned my name… names, actually… and actually gave a description of me to his interlocutor. According to Mrs. Dean, the patrolman's tone was almost obsequious, as if speaking to a superior. She happened to mention this to me when I saw her near the HSBC arena just before I returned home and discovered Typee's body."

Kurtz took in a long, cold breath of air. "Did this Mrs. Dean catch the other guy's name?"

"She did, actually. A Captain Millworth. I would presume that this would mean a captain of police."

Kurtz let out the breath.

"There would seem to be no connection," said Pruno, "as police captains are not known for murdering the homeless, but it would be too much of a coincidence to think the events are unrelated. Also, there is another mild coincidence here that worries me."

"What's that?"

"To a stranger," said Pruno, "to someone who knew me only from another person's description, Typee might look a little bit like me. Quite a lot like me, actually."

Kurtz reached out and took his old friend's sharp elbow through the overcoat and other rags. "Come on," he said softly, hearing his whisper repeated in the darkness below. "We're getting out of here."

Hansen could not get in touch with Dr. Howard Conway by phone and this bothered him. It bothered him a lot. He considered driving to Cleveland to check on Conway—make sure that the old fart hadn't died or finally run out on him—but there simply wasn't time. Too much was happening too fast, and too much had to happen even faster in the next twenty-four hours.

He canceled his meetings for the rest of the afternoon, called Donna to say that he'd be home soon, called Brubaker to make sure that he hadn't found Kurtz at his office or home, called Myers to make sure he was on surveillance at the secretary's house, and then he drove to a rotting industrial cold-storage facility near the Buffalo River. Behind an abandoned mill, a line of walk-in freezers—each with its own backup generator—had been rented to restaurateurs, meat wholesalers, and others needing overflow freezer storage. Hansen had kept a locker there since he'd driven a freezer truck up from Miami nine months ago.

Hansen unlocked the two expensive padlocks he kept on the unit and stepped into the frigid interior. Five halves of beef hung on hooks. Hansen had planned to use one of these during the July cookout he was going to throw at his Tonawanda home for his detectives and their wives, but it looked as if he would not be around Buffalo in July. Against the back wall were tall wire racks, and on these were four long, opaque plastic bags holding more frozen meat.

He unzipped the bag on the middle shelf. Mr. Gabriel Kendall, fifty years old, the same height, weight, and general build as James B. Hansen, stared up through a rim of frost covering his open eyes. The cadaver's lips were blue and pulled back, frozen into the position where Dr. Conway had X-rayed the teeth in Cleveland the previous summer. All four of the men's bodies stored here had a similar rictus. Kendall was the one Hansen had chosen for Captain Robert Gaines Millworth's suicide and the dental records should be on file, ready for the blanks to be filled in.

If he could get in touch with that miserable wretch Conway.

Satisfied that no one had been in the freezer or tampered with its contents, Hansen zipped the body bag shut, locked the freezer behind him, and drove back home in his Cadillac SUV. The sight of the hanging sides of beef had made him hungry. He used his cell phone to call Donna and tell her to set aside whatever else she had planned for dinner; they would grill steaks on the GrillAire Range tonight.

Arlene's sister-in-law Gail's home was the second floor of an old duplex on Colvin Avenue north of the park. Gail was divorced and was working a double shift at the Medical Center; Arlene had explained that Gail was sleeping at the hospital and wouldn't be home until late the following afternoon. Good thing , thought Kurtz as Arlene unlocked the door and led Pruno and him up the side stairway. Upstairs, Kurtz looked at the herd of refugees he was collecting—Frears hugging Pruno affectionately as if the old addict didn't smell like a urinal—Arlene with the.45 still in her sweater pocket. For all the years that he had used Pruno as a street source when he was a P.I., Arlene had never met the old wino, and now the two were busy with their introductions and conversation. Kurtz, a loner all his life, was beginning to feel like Noah, and he suspected that he might need a bigger ark if this refugee crap kept up.

The four of them sat in the tiny living room. Cooking smells came from the adjoining kitchen, and occasionally she would stand and go in to check on something and the conversation would pause until she returned.

"What is going on, Mr. Kurtz?" asked John Wellington Frears when they were all gathered around like a happy chipmunk family again.

Kurtz slipped his peacoat off—it was hot in the little apartment—and explained what he could about James B. Hansen being the esteemed Homicide Captain Robert Millworth.

"This dentist… Conway… admitted this to you?" asked Pruno.

"Not in so many words," said Kurtz. "But let's say that I confirmed it with him."

"I would guess that this Dr. Conway's life wouldn't be worth much right now," said Frears.

Kurtz had to agree with that.