Kurtz stopped eating. Only Arlene noticed and she looked away after a second.

Pruno had come out of the bathroom showered, shaven, skin pink and scalded-looking, his fingernails still yellowed and cracked but no longer grimy, his thinning gray hair—which Kurtz had never seen except as a sort of nimbus floating around the old wino's head—slicked back. He was wearing a suit that might have been two decades out of style and no longer fit. Pruno's frail form was lost in it, but it also looked clean. How? wondered Kurtz. How could this old heroin addict keep a suit clean when he lived in a packing crate and in cubbies under the Thruway?

Pruno—or "Dr. Frederick," as Frears kept addressing him—looked older and frailer and more fragile without his protective crusts of grime and rags. But the old man sat very upright as he ate and drank and nodded his head to accept more food and addressed John Wellington Frears in measured tones. Frears had been his student at Princeton. One old man dying of cancer and his ancient teacher sitting there in his double-breasted, pinstripe suit—making conversation about Mozart as a prodigy and about the Palestinian situation and about global warming.

Kurtz shook his head. He'd not had any wine because he was so damned tired already and because he might have to keep his head clear for several hours more on this endless day, but enough was enough. This scene was not just unreal, it was surreal. He needed a drink.

Arlene followed him out to the kitchen.

"Doesn't your sister-in-law keep any booze in the house?" asked Kurtz.

"That top cupboard. Johnnie Walker Red."

"That'll do," said Kurtz. He poured himself three fingers' worth.

"What's the matter, Joe?"

"Nothing's the matter. Other than this serial-killer police captain after all of us, I mean. Everything's great."

"You're thinking about Rachel."

Kurtz shook his head and took a drink. The two old men in the dining room laughed at something.

"What are you going to do about that, Joe?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. You can't let her go back to Donald Rafferty."

Kurtz shrugged. He remembered tearing up the photograph of Frears's dead daughter—Crystal. He remembered leaving the torn bits of the photograph on the scarred table at Blues Franklin.

Arlene lit a cigarette and pulled down a small bowl for an ashtray. "Gail won't let me smoke in her house. She'll be furious when she gets home tomorrow."

Kurtz studied the amber liquid in his glass.

"What if the police don't arrest Rafferty, Joe?"

He shrugged again.

"Or if they do?" said Arlene. "Either way, Rachel is going to be at risk. A foster home? Samantha had no other family. Just her ex-husband. Unless he has family who can take care of her."

Kurtz poured another finger of scotch. Rafferty's only living family was an alcoholic bitch of a mother who lived in Las Vegas and a younger brother who was doing time in an Indiana state prison for armed robbery. He'd listened to the phone conversations.

"But if she goes into some sort of temporary foster home…" began Arlene.

"Look," said Kurtz, slamming the empty glass down on the counter, "what the hell do you want me to do about it?"

Arlene blinked. Joe Kurtz had never yelled at her in all their years of working together. She exhaled smoke and batted ashes into the dainty little ceramic bowl. "DNA," she said.

"What?"

"DNA testing would show paternity, Joe. You could—"

"Are you fucking nuts? An ex-con who served time for manslaughter? A former P.I. who will never get his license back? Somebody with at least three death sentences out on him?" Kurtz laughed. "Yeah, I don't see why the courts wouldn't place the kid with someone like that. Besides, I don't know for sure that I'm the—"

"Don't," said Arlene, her finger raised and pointed. "Don't say that. Don't even pretend to me that you think it."

Kurtz went out into the tiny living room, retrieved his peacoat and the S&W.40 from where he'd left them and went down the stairs and out of the house. It was dark out and it had begun to snow again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

"I was just about to call and report a stolen Porsche," said Angelina Farino Ferrara.

"That little electronic-card thing is handy," said Kurtz. "It lets you into both the parking garage and the elevator. Useful."

"I hope you put the Boxster back in the same slot. And there had better not be any scratches."

Kurtz ignored her and walked over to the center of the penthouse's living room. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling window on the east side, the lights of downtown Buffalo glowed through the falling snow. To the west was the darkness of the river and lake, with only a few distant ship lights blinking against blackness.

"We have to get rid of Leo," said Angelina.

"I know. Any problems with Marco?"

"Not a peep. He's handcuffed in the bathroom. Seems to be mildly amused by all this. Marco may be smarter than I thought."

"Maybe so. You have anyone on the floor below us?"

"Five people work there—no muscle, just bookkeeper types—but they went home at six. Marco and Leo were the only ones using the living quarters there."

"I thought Little Skag brought in new muscle from the east."

"He did. Eight other new guys besides Marco and Leo. But they're all out doing what they do—running what's left of Stevie's crews, handling the whores and gambling. Day-to-day stuff. They don't come by here that much."

"Who does?"

"Albert Bell is the lawyer who acts as liaison between Little Stevie and me. I usually see Mr. Bell on Saturdays."

"But Marco and Leo check in with Little Skag by phone every Wednesday?"

"Right. Stevie calls his lawyer. The call is forwarded. I don't know where the Boys take the call."

"Marco will tell us," said Kurtz. He felt very tired. "You ready to transport the frozen goods?"

"I'll go down and back the Town Car right up to the elevator."

"I'll need a big garment bag, sheet, something."

"Shower curtain," said Angelina. "Little blue fish on it. I took care of it."

Angelina drove. They took the Buffalo Skyway south along the lake. It was snowing very hard now, visibility was limited to the two cones of headlights filled with flurries, and the elevated highway was treacherous with black ice. Only the Lincoln Town Car's massive weight kept them moving as the rear-wheel drive slipped and then gripped for pavement. Kurtz had the clear image of them getting stuck and a friendly patrolman stopping to help them out, a need to look in the trunk for the chains or somesuch…

"We going far?" he asked.

"Not far. Near Hamburg."

"What's near Hamburg?"

"My father and older brother used to keep an ice-fishing shack just offshore in February. Sometimes they'd drag Little Stevie along, whining and pouting. I went a few times. If there's anything more stupid than sitting in a freezing shack staring at a hole in the ice, I don't what it might be. But some of the old capos still set up the shack even though there are no Farinos around to use it."

"I didn't know that people ice-fished on Lake Erie. Is the ice thick enough to walk on?"

"We're going to drive this car out onto it."

"But aren't there big ships still moving out there?"

"Yeah."

That was all Kurtz wanted to know about that subject. He concentrated on staying awake while the big car crept along through blowing snow. Once off the Skyway and moving along Highway 5 through little shoreline communities like Locksley Park and Mount Vernon, the black ice was less frequent but the snow was worse.

"Are you still with me on this, Kurtz?"

The woman's voice made him blink awake. "With you on what?"

"You know. Gonzaga."