Dan Simmons - Hard Freeze

The call came precisely at noon. Angelina answered it. With the additional earphone, Kurtz could eavesdrop on the conversation.

"Angie… what the fuck are you doing there?"

Angelina winced. She had always hated the nickname.

"Stevie, I wanted to talk to you… privately."

"Where the fuck are Leo and Marco?"

"Busy."

"Miserable incompetent motherfuckers. I'm going to fire their asses."

"Stevie, we need to talk about something."

"What?" To Kurtz's ear, his former fellow convict sounded not only irritated but alarmed.

"You've been hiring cops to whack people. Detective Brubaker, for instance. I know you've put him on the payroll that used to go to Hathaway."

Silence. Little Skag obviously didn't know what his sister was up to, but he wasn't about to encourage his own entrapment. Finally, "What the fuck are you talking about, Angie?"

"I don't care about Brubaker," said Angelina, her breath fogging in the cold air, "but I've gone over the family notes and I see that Gonzaga's got a captain of detectives on the arm. A guy named Millworth."

Silence.

"Millworth's not really Millworth," said Angelina. "He's a serial killer named James B. Hansen… and a bunch of other aliases. He's a child-killer, Stevie. A rapist and a killer."

Kurtz heard Little Skag let out a breath. If this dealt with Gonzaga, it was not his sister trying to entrap him. "So?" said Little Skag.

"So do you really want me doing this deal with Emilio when he has a child-killer on his payroll?"

Little Skag laughed. It was an unpleasant laugh and every time Kurtz had heard it in Attica, it had been at someone else's expense.

"Do I give a flying fuck who Emilio hires?" said Little Skag. "If this cop is a killer like you say, it just means that the Gonzagas own him. They got him by the balls. Now put Leo on."

"I wouldn't expect you to do anything about someone who rapes kids," said Angelina.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"You know what it means, Stevie. You and that high-school Connors girl who disappeared twelve years ago. Emilio kidnapped her, but you were in on it—you raped her, didn't you?"

"What the fuck are you talking about? Have you gone out of your mind? Who gives a shit about something that happened twelve years ago?"

"I do, Stevie. I don't want to do business with a man who pays a serial child-killer."

" Fuck what you want!" screamed Little Skag. "Who the fuck asked you what you want, you stupid cunt? Your job is to finish these dealings with Gonzaga so his people can get me the fuck out of here. Do you understand? If I want to fuck kindergarten kids up the ass, you're going to shut the fuck up about it. You're my sister, Angie, but that won't stop me from—"

The line hissed and crackled.

"Stop you from what, Stevie?" Angelina said after a minute. "From having me whacked the way you did Maria?"

The cold wind blew in off the lake during the next silence. Then Little Skag said, "You're my sister, Angelina, but you're a stupid bitch. You meddle in my business again… in Family business… and I'll do worse than have you whacked. Understand me? I'm gonna get my lawyer to set up another call at noon tomorrow and you'd goddamn better have Leo and Marco there."

The line went dead.

Kurtz disconnected the small microphone, rewound, and hit «Play» on the micro-cassette recorder long enough to hear the voices loud and clear. He clicked off the machine.

"How the hell is that going to help with anything?" said Angelina.

"We'll see."

"Are you going to tell me your plan about how to get to Gonzaga now, Kurtz? It's time, unless you want me to toss you and your friends out in the snow."

"All right," said Kurtz. He told her the plan as they walked back to Marina Towers.

"Jesus fuck," whispered Angelina when he was finished. They were silent riding up in the elevator.

Arlene was standing in the foyer. "Gail just called me," she said to Kurtz. "They're going to discharge Donald Rafferty from the hospital in about thirty minutes."

Donna and Jason were waiting when James B. Hansen arrived home. He calmed them, spoke soothingly, told them to put the dog outside and that nothing important could have been stolen from his basement gun room, inspected the point of breaking and entering, and went downstairs to look in his room.

They had stolen everything important. Hansen saw black dots dancing in his vision and had to sit down at his desk or faint. His photographs. The $200,000 in cash. They had even stolen his C-4 explosive. Why would thieves take that?

He had more money hidden away, of course—$150,000 tucked away with the cadavers in the rental freezer unit. Another $300,000 in various banks under different names in various cities. But this was not a small setback. Hansen would love to believe that this robbery was just a coincidence, but there was no chance of that. He would have to find out if Joe Kurtz was a skilled thief—whoever had bypassed those two expensive alarm systems and blown the safe knew his business—but it had to be someone working for or with John Wellington Frears. All of the recent events suggested a conspiracy afoot to destroy James B. Hansen. The theft of the souvenir photos left Hansen no choice as to his next actions. And Hansen despised being left without choices.

He looked up to find Donna and Jason peering into his basement sanctum sanctorum.

"Wow, I didn't know you had so many guns," said Jason, staring at the display case. "Why didn't they steal your guns?"

"Let's go upstairs," said Hansen.

He led them up to the second floor.

"Nothing was stolen or disturbed very much up here as far as I can tell," said Donna. "I'm glad Dickson was at the vet's…"

Hansen nodded and led them into the guest bedroom with its two twin beds. He gestured for his wife and stepson to sit on one of the beds. Hansen was still wearing his topcoat and now he reached into the pocket. "I'm sorry this happened," he said, his voice smooth, reassuring, controlled. "But it's nothing to be alarmed about. I know who did it."

"You do?" said Jason, who never seemed to quite trust his stepfather's pronouncements. "Who? Why?"

"A felon named Joe Kurtz," said Hansen with a smile. "We're arresting him today. In fact, we've already found the weapon he's used in similar robberies." Hansen brought out the.38 that he had reloaded.

"How did you get his gun?" asked Jason. The boy did not sound convinced.

"Robert," said Donna in her bovine way, "is there anything wrong?"

"Not a thing, dear," said Hansen and fired from the hip, hitting Donna between the eyes. She flopped backward on the bed and lay still. Hansen swiveled the muzzle toward Jason.

The boy did not wait to be shot. He was off the bed in a single leap, reacting faster than Hansen would have ever guessed the boy could move. He hit his stepfather in a full body check—an against-the-boards hockey crash—before Hansen could aim or pull the trigger again. They both went backward off the bed, Jason struggling to get his hands on the weapon, Hansen fighting to keep it away from the tall boy. Jason's reach was actually longer than Hansen's, but he was sixty pounds lighter. Hansen used his body mass to shove the boy off him and against the dresser. Then both of them were on their feet, still struggling for the weapon, Jason sobbing and cursing at the same time, Hansen fighting hard but smiling now, smiling without knowing it, amused by this sudden and unexpected opposition. Who would have expected this surly teenage slacker to put up such a fight?

Jason still had Hansen's right wrist in a death grip, but the boy freed his right arm, made a fist, and tried to slug his stepfather in the best Hollywood tradition. A mistake. Hansen kneed the teenager in the balls and backhanded him in the face with his left hand.