"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.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

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?"

"December. Just after Jimmy died."

Hansen leaned closer. "You sold your gold badge for five thousand dollars, Detective. This situation—with Frears, with Kurtz—is worth a hundred times that. To you, Myers, me."

Brubaker rolled his eyes toward Hansen. "Half a million dollars? Total?"

"Apiece," said Hansen.

Brubaker licked his lips. "Drugs then? The Gonzagas?"

Hansen denied nothing. "Are you going to help me, Detective? Or are you going to continue asking insulting questions?"

"I'm going to help you, Captain."

Hansen lowered the Glock-9. "What about Tommy Myers?"

"What about him… sir?"

"Can he be trusted to do as he's told?"

Brubaker looked calculating. "Tommy's not on anybody's payroll except the department's, Captain. But he does what I tell him to. He'll keep his mouth shut."

Hansen saw the shrewd glint in Brubaker's eyes and realized that the detective was already planning on how to eliminate Tommy Myers from the payoff once the work was done. Half of a million and a half dollars was seven hundred and fifty thousand for Detective Frederick Brubaker. Hansen didn't care—there was no drug money, no money of any sort involved—as long as Brubaker did what he was told.

Hansen's phone rang.

"I lost them on the downtown section of the Thruway," said Myers. He sounded a little breathless. "But I got a make on the license plates. Byron Farino of Orchard Park."

Hansen had to smile. The old don was dead and the Orchard Park estate closed up, but evidently someone in the family business was still using the vehicle. A woman had been driving, Myers had said. The daughter back from Italy? Angelina?

"Good," said Hansen. "Where are you?"

"Downtown, near the HSBC arena."

"Go over to the Marina Tower building and find a place to watch the garage exit."

"The Farino bitch's penthouse?" said Myers. "Sorry, Captain. You think this Frears and the others are there?"

"I think so. Just keep a good watch, Detective. I'll be down to talk to you in a bit." He disconnected and told the other detective what Myers had said.

Brubaker was standing at the front window of the duplex, watching the snow pile up on the small rooftop terrace there. He seemed to have no hard feelings after having a 9mm pistol pressed against his head. "What next, Captain?"

"I'm going to drop you at the main precinct garage to get another car. Take the battering ram with you. I want you to knock in the door at Joe Kurtz's office. Make sure that no one's there and then join Myers at the stakeout at Marina Towers."

"Where will you be, sir?"

Hansen holstered his Glock and adjusted his suit jacket. "I've got a meeting with the Boy Scouts."