Kurtz resisted telling her that he hadn't asked about the parole officer's condition. "I'll be there soon," he said and disconnected.

The phone rang almost immediately.

"I want to meet with you," said Angelina Farino Ferrara.

"I'm pretty busy today," said Kurtz.

"Where are you? Can you come over to the penthouse?"

Kurtz glanced to his left as he approached the downtown. Her tall marina apartment building was visible less than a mile away. She owned the top two floors—one for business, the top one for herself. "I'm on the road," said Kurtz. "I'll call you back later."

"Look, Kurtz, it's important we…"

He cut her off, dropped the phone in his peacoat pocket, and took the exit for downtown Buffalo.

He'd gone less man a mile up Delaware Avenue toward Chippewa Street when the red light began flashing in his mirror. An unmarked car pulled up behind him.

Shit, thought Kurtz. He hadn't been speeding. The holstered.38 was under his driver's seat. That parole violation would send him back to Attica where the long knives were waiting for him. Shit.

He pulled to the curb and watched in the mirror as Detective Kemper stayed behind the wheel of the unmarked car. Rigby King got out the passenger door and walked up to Kurtz's driver's side. She was wearing sunglasses. "License and registration, please."

"Fuck you," said Kurtz.

"Maybe later," said Rigby. "If you're a good boy."

She walked around the front of his car and got in the passenger side. Kemper drove off.

"Jesus Christ," Kurtz said to Rigby King, "you smell like Death."

"You say the sweetest things," said Rigby. "You always did know how to chat up a girl, Joe." She motioned him to drive north on Delaware.

"Am I under arrest?"

"Not yet," said Rigby King. She slipped handcuffs off her belt and held them up to catch the October light. "But the day is young. Drive."

CHAPTER NINETEEN

"I got called to a crime scene at three A.M. and I've been there ever since," said Rigby. 'Two gay lovers killed each other in a pretty little house in Allentown a week ago—looks like a mutual suicide pact—and nobody found the bodies until last night. Let's go get a drink." She motioned him to keep driving north along Delaware.

"You're kidding," said Kurtz. "It's not even eleven A.M."

"I never kid about drinking," said the cop. "I'm off duty now."

"I don't know where…" began Kurtz.

"You know where, Joe."

Blues Franklin wasn't open, but Kurtz parked the Pinto behind the building and Rigby jumped out to knock on the back door. Daddy Brace's grown granddaughter, Ruby, opened the door and let them in.

Rigby led the way to Kurtz's favorite table at the back of the room. A white piano player named Coe Pierce was noodling on the dark stage and he flicked a salute to Kurtz while his left hand kept the rhythm going.

Daddy Brace came up from the basement in a plaid shirt and old chinos. "Rigby, don't you know what the hell time this establishement opens yet? And no offense, babe, but you smell like carrion."

Kurtz looked at the woman next to him. During the year he'd been coming to Blues Franklin again since he'd gotten out of Attica, he'd never thought about meeting Rigby King here. At least not after his first few times back at the jazz place. But then, he hadn't known that Rigby was within a thousand miles of Buffalo.

"I know what time it opens," Rigby said to Daddy Bruce. "And I know you've never refused to sell me a drink, even when I was seventeen."

The old black man sighed. "What'll you have?"

"Shot of tequila with a beer back," said Rigby. She looked at Kurtz. "Joe?"

"Coffee," said Kurtz. "You don't have any food back there, do you?"

"I may have me an old moldy biscuit I could slap a sausage or egg into if I had to."

"Both," said Kurtz.

Daddy Bruce started to leave, turned back, and said, "Ray Charles's glasses safe somewhere?"

Kurtz patted his jacket pocket.

When they were alone, Rigby said, "No drink? Coffee and sausage? You getting old, Joe?"

Kurtz resisted the impulse to remind her that she was a couple of years older than he was. "What do you want, Rigby?"

"I have an offer you'll be interested in," she said. "Maybe an offer you won't be able to refuse."

Kurtz didn't roll his eyes, but he was tempted. He thought, not for the first time, that the movie The Godfather had a lot to answer for. He didn't think Rigby's offer, whatever it was, would top Toma Gonzaga's «do-my-bidding-or-die» proposal. He focused his attention on Coe Pierce playing a piano-only version of "Autumn Leaves."

"What's the offer?" said Kurtz.

"Just a minute," she said. Big Daddy Bruce had brought her drinks and Kurtz's mug of black coffee. Rigby tossed back the gold tequila, drank some beer, and gestured for another shot.

Daddy sighed and went back behind the bar, returning in a minute to refill her tequila, fill an extra shot glass for her, and top off her glass of beer. He also set a plate brimming over with eggs over easy, patty sausages, toast, and hash browns in front of Kurtz. The old man laid down a napkin and silverware next to it. "Don't expect this service every Saturday," said Daddy. "I'm only doing this 'cause you always tip Ruby and drink the cheapest Scotch."

"Thanks," said Kurtz and laid into the food with a will. Suddenly, even with the continuing throb of the headache, he was starving.

Rigby tossed back the second shot glass of tequila, drank some beer, and said, "What the hell happened to you, Joe?"

"What do you mean?" he said around a mouthful of eggs. "I'm hungry is all."

"No, you dipshit I mean, what happened to you?"

Kurtz ate some hash browns and waited for her to go on. He had no doubt she would.

"I mean," continued Rigby, playing with her tequila glass, "you used to give a shit."

"I still give a shit," said Kurtz, chewing on his toast.

She ignored him. "You were always rough, inside and out, but you used to care about something other than saving your own ass. Even when you were a punk at Father Baker's, you used to get worked up when you thought something wasn't fair or when you saw someone treated like shit."

"Everyone was treated like shit at Father Baker's," said Kurtz. The eggs were good, done just the way he liked them.

She didn't even look at him as she tossed back the third tequila and called to Daddy for another one.

"No more, Rigby," called Daddy from the back room. "You're shitfaced already."

"The fuck I am," said the police detective. "One more or I'll bring the state license people down on your ass. Come on, Daddy—I've had a hard night."

"You look it and smell it," said Daddy Bruce, but he poured the final shot glass of tequila, policing up the empty beer mug and extra shot glass as he left.

"She's going to get you killed," said Rigby, enunciating every word with the care taken by someone who's drunk too much booze in too short a time.

"Who?" said Kurtz, although he knew who she meant.

"Little Angeleyes Fuckarino Ferwhoosis is who," said Rigby. "That Mafia bitch."

"You don't know what you're talking about," said Kurtz.

Rigby King snorted. It wasn't a feminine sound, but she didn't smell all that feminine at the moment. "You fucking her, Joe?"

Kurtz felt his jaw set with anger. Normally he'd say nothing to a question like that—or say something with his fists—but this was Rigby King and she was drunk and tired. "I've never touched her," he said, realizing as he spoke that he had touched Angelina, but only to frisk her a couple of times last winter.

Rigby snorted again, but not so explosively this time. She drank the last of the tequila. "Her sister Sophia was a cunt and so is this one," she said. "Word around the precinct house is that you've had both of them."