Dan Simmons - Hard Freeze

"We'll be there in ten minutes," Kurtz said to Arlene. "Less."

Hansen had just left the Medical Center when his private cell phone rang.

"We just got to the DeMarco place on Colvin," came Brubaker's voice. "A black Lincoln Town Car just pulled into the driveway—either the DeMarco drive or the one belonging to the duplex next door, we can't tell from down the block. Wait a minute, it's pulling out again… the Lincoln's coming by us… I see a woman driving, not Kurtz's secretary. There was someone in the passenger seat, but Myers and me couldn't see because of the reflection and I can't see in the back because of the goddamned tinted windows… sorry for the language, Captain. You want us to stake out the duplex or follow the Lincoln?"

"Did you see anyone get into the car from the DeMarco house?"

"No, sir. But we can't see that side door from where we're parked. Someone might have had time to jump in. But the Lincoln wasn't in the driveway for more than ten seconds. It was more like a car turning around than anything else."

"Is the Country Squire station wagon in the driveway?"

"Yeah. I can see it."

"Did you get the tag numbers on the Lincoln?"

There was a short silence that sounded to Hansen like Brubaker sulking at being asked if they'd carried out such an elementary bit of detective work. Hansen wouldn't have been surprised if they'd neglected to get the tag numbers.

"Yeah," Brubaker said at last. He read the numbers. "There's no parking on the street here, Captain. We pulled into a driveway a couple of houses down. You want us to go after the Lincoln? We can catch up to it if we hurry."

"Brubaker," said Hansen, "tell Myers to follow the Lincoln. Tell him to run a DMV check while he's tailing it. You stay there and keep watch on the house. Try to be inconspicuous."

"How do I look inconspicuous while I'm standing out on the sidewalk in the snow?" said Brubaker.

"Shut up and tell Myers to catch that Lincoln," said Hansen. "I'll be at the duplex in five minutes." He broke the connection.

"Where's Pruno?" said Kurtz, turned in the passenger seat to look at the two in the rear. When they had swept into the driveway, only Arlene and John Wellington Frears had run to the Lincoln and jumped in.

"He left early this morning," said Arlene. "About dawn. All dressed up in his pinstripe suit. He said something about hiding in plain sight. I think he's going to check into a hotel or something until all this blows over."

"Pruno in a hotel?" said Kurtz. It was hard to picture. "Did he have any money?"

"Yes," said Frears.

"There's a Pontiac following us," said Angelina.

Kurtz swiveled back and looked in the rearview mirror. "Where'd it come from?"

"It was parked a couple of houses down from the place we picked these two up. It's been moving fast in traffic to catch up."

"It could be coincidence," said the violinist in back, looking out the rear window of the Lincoln.

Kurtz and Angelina exchanged glances. Obviously neither of them believed in coincidences.

"The car across the street from my house yesterday was a Pontiac," Arlene said.

Kurtz nodded and looked at Angelina. "Can we lose them?"

"Tell me who we're losing. I'm beginning to feel like the hired help today."

Kurtz thought of her black bag with the $200,000 next to Hansen's bag of C-4 in the trunk. "You have to admit, the pay's pretty good," he said.

Angelina shrugged. "Who's behind us? Mr. — ?" She tapped the titanium briefcase Kurtz was holding on his lap.

"One or more of the detectives who are working for him," said Kurtz.

"You mean working for him or working for him? "

"For him personally," said Kurtz. "Can we lose them? I don't think you want this guy visiting you." He tapped the case.

Angelina Farino Ferrara checked the mirror again.

"He's only one car behind. They probably made the license plate."

"Still…" said Kurtz.

"Everyone buckle up," said Angelina.

The light was red by Nichols School at the intersection of Colvin and Amherst where the street ended at the park. The Lincoln was second in line. Kurtz glanced back and could see the silhouette of only one head in the Pontiac two cars back.

Without warning, Angelina swung the Lincoln around the old car ahead of them, almost hit a Honda turning left from Amherst, and accelerated through the red light—cutting off two other cars that had to brake wildly. She headed east on Amherst for a hundred yards and then swung south again on Nottingham Terrace along the edge of the park.

"The car's following," called Arlene from the back seat.

Angelina nodded. They were doing seventy miles per hour on the residential street. She braked hard and swung the big vehicle up a ramp onto the Scajaquada Expressway. A hundred yards back, almost lost in the snowfall, the Pontiac bounced and roared its way up the same ramp.

Cutting more cars off as she made the exchange from the Scajaquada to 190, she accelerated to one hundred miles per hour as they roared south over snow and black ice along the elevated sections paralleling the river.

For a minute, the Pontiac was lost in traffic, and Angelina braked hard enough to send the Lincoln into a slide. Going lock to lock with the steering wheel, tapping the brake and hitting the gas again to bring the rear end around, Angelina cut off a rusty Jetta and zoomed down another ramp, drove through a red light in front of an eighteen-wheeler to drive east on Porter and then swung around behind the old pumping-station building in La Salle Park.

The street here—old AmVets Drive—had not been plowed for hours, and Angelina slowed as the black Lincoln kicked up rooster tails of snow. To their right, the Niagara River widened toward Lake Erie, but it was all ice, all snow, as featureless gray-white as the frozen fields in the empty park to their left. The back street connected to the maze of local loops and streets around the Erie Basin Marina and the Marina Towers. The Pontiac did not reappear.

Hansen did not use the battering ram. He and Brubaker kicked in the side door of Gail DeMarco's duplex and went up the stairs width their guns drawn.

The tiny little apartment up there was empty. Photographs on the bedroom dresser showed the nurse Hansen had interviewed, Gail DeMarco, Kurtz's secretary Arlene, and a man who was probably Arlene DeMarco's dead husband. Hansen and Brubaker searched the rooms, but there was no sign that the secretary or Frears or Kurtz had been there.

"Shit," said Brubaker, holstering his weapon and ignoring the frown at the use of such language. Brubaker gave Hansen a shrewd, ferret look. "Captain, what the hell is going on?"

Hansen stared at the detective.

"You know what I mean, Captain. You couldn't care less about this Kurtz, and now you've got Myers and me running all over town and back trying to find him and his secretary and this violinist. We've violated about three dozen department procedures. What's going on?"

"What do you mean, Fred?"

"Don't Fred me, Millworth." Brubaker was showing his smoker's teeth in a leer. "You say you're going to cover my back in an Internal-Affairs investigation, but why? You're the original straight-arrow, aren't you? What the fuck is going on here?"

Hansen lifted the Glock-9 and laid the muzzle against Detective Brubaker's temple. Thumbing the hammer back for effect, Hansen said, "Are you listening?"

Brubaker nodded very slightly.

"How much did Little Skag Farino pay you to get Kurtz, Detective Brubaker?"

"Five thousand in advance to arrest him and get him into the system. Another five when someone whacked him at County."

"And?" said Hansen.

"Fifteen K promised if I killed him myself."

"How long have you been on the Farino payroll, Detective Brubaker?"