So the Dodger had driven south across the narrow steel bridge onto the Island, past the mills and half-empty projects, had driven by the dark Harbor Inn, checking it out, and then parked a block and a half southeast of the place, walking back to keep vigil in the shadows of an abandoned gas station half a block from the old hotel. The man—the Boss had said his name was Kurtz, as if the Dodger gave the slightest shit—showed up in a rusted-out Pinto about an hour later. There was a woman with him—the Farino woman, the Dodger realized as he stared through the binoculars. She seemed to be holding a.45 semiauto on Kurtz.

The Dodger almost laughed out loud in the shadows. He kills the female don's two bodyguards and steals her car, and what does she do? It looks as if she hijacks the felon ex-private-eye she was visiting on Chippewa Street.

The two went in through the boarded-up front entrance of the abandoned hotel, and the Dodger watched lights come on on the second floor. Driving by twice, he'd cased the place—even noticed the subtle surveillance video cameras on the north and west sides—but he was sure that he could climb one of the rusting fire escapes or a drainpipe and get in one of the darkened windows without being heard or seen. He could even get up to the dark third story—probably empty was the Dodger's guess, this Kurtz seemed like the only resident of the old Harbor Inn—and he could climb down to the second floor where three lights now burned behind shades. Whatever the female don and Kurtz were up to in there—and the Dodger could imagine what it was—he could be on them and finished with them and hauling the bodies out to the Mazda before they had a chance to look up.

The Dodger had gone back down the dark, rainy street to the Mazda only to find one black teenager jimmying open the car door and another one using a crowbar on the trunk. The trunk popped up first, the boy stared at the two bodies in it, had time to say, "Motherfuck," and the Dodger shot him in the back of the head, not even bothering to use the silencer.

The second boy dropped his tool and ran like hell. Like a lot of these ghetto kids, he was fast. The Dodger—who had always liked to run—was faster. He caught up with the kid on an eyeless side street less than two blocks away.

The boy turned and flicked open a knife. "Jesus fuck man," the kid said, crouching and dodging, "your face…"

The Dodger supped the pistol in its holster, took the knife away from the kid with three moves, kicked his legs out from under him, and crushed the boy's larynx with his boot He left the body where it was, walked back to the Mazda—no one had responded to the shot—and loaded the first boy's body in the backseat. There was no more room in the trunk.

The Dodger drove the two blocks, found that the second boy was still breathing in a rattling, rasping, twitching sort of way, so he cut his throat with the knife the boy had dropped. He tossed that corpse in the back as well—all the blood would make the Mazda unsalvageable for future use, but the Boss paid for these vehicles and he could afford it—and he drove back to the parking lot near Marina Towers, where he dumped the four bodies in the back, of the pest control truck and drove it back to the Harbor Inn area.

The Dodger kept Handi Wipes in the truck, and he had to use eight of them to clean himself up. He had a change of clothes in the truck as well.

Back on surveillance at the empty gas station, the Dodger e-mailed the Boss, described the situation at the Harbor Inn, and asked if he could knock off for the night. There was no need to tell the Boss about the two car thieves; they'd just be extra material for the Resurrection.

The Boss e-mailed back ordering the Dodger to phone on a secure line. It took the Dodger fifteen minutes to find a pay phone that was working. The Boss was curt, pulling rank, and told the Dodger to sleep in the bug van and to keep his eye on the Harbor Inn and to follow Kurtz whenever he left.

"What about the Farino woman?"

"Ignore her. Stay with Kurtz. Call me when he moves and I'll tell you what to do next."

So here he was, the Dodger, exhausted from sleeping in the front seat of the pest control truck, red-eyed from trying to keep watch between naps, still smelling of blood, with four rigor-mortised corpses under tarps in the back, driving south toward Neola, New York.

The Dodger had grown accustomed to taking orders from the Boss, but that was because the Boss had been giving him orders he enjoyed carrying out. He wasn't enjoying this playing-spy shit. If the Boss didn't call him off this joke of an assignment soon, he'd kill Kurtz and this new woman with him and add them to the Resurrection. It was better to apologize to the Boss later, the Dodger had learned decades ago, than to ask permission before doing something you really wanted to do.

And the Dodger really wanted to kill this man who'd kept him awake in the rainy ghetto all night.

But as they approached Neola, he dutifully used his cell phone to call the Boss.

"Sir, I'm not going into Neola with them for Chrissakes," he told him. "Either let me deal with this Kurtz now or let me go about my business."

"Go do what you have to do," said the Boss.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Neola is about sixty miles south-southeast of Buffalo, but the narrow, two-lane road slowed them enough that they'd been driving almost an hour and a half before they saw signs saying they were close to the little city. The clouds had moved in now, the hills had gotten steeper and the valleys deeper, the October wind had come up stronger and the trees were mostly bare. The few cars that passed going the opposite direction did so with their headlights on and sometimes with their windshield wipers flicking.

Kurtz pulled the Pinto to the side of the road on a cinder apron in front of an abandoned fruit stand and got out of the car.

"What is it, Joe?" said Rigby. "You want me to drive?"

Kurtz shook his head. He watched the traffic going south pass for several silent minutes. Finally, Rigby said, "What is it? You think we're being followed?"

"No," said Kurtz. The pest control truck had fallen back in the gloom and rain some miles ago, and must have turned off somewhere.

Rigby got out of the car and came around, lighting a cigarette. She offered one to Kurtz. He shook his head.

"That's right, you gave up smoking in Bangkok, didn't you? I always thought it was because of that girl's act at Pussies Galore."

Kurtz said nothing. It wasn't raining, but the highway was wet and a passing truck sent up a hiss and spray. "What are you going to do about the little girl, Joe?"

He turned a blank stare on her. "What little girl?"

"Your little girl," said Rigby. "Yours and Samantha's. The fourteen-year-old who's living with your secretary's sister-in-law. What's your daughter's name? Rachel."

Kurtz stared a second and then took a step toward her. Rigby King's cop instincts reacted to the look in his eyes and her hand came up halfway toward the 9mm dock on her hip before she froze. She had to lean back over the Pinto's hood to avoid physical contact with Kurtz.

"Get in the car," he said. And turned away from her.

Fifteen miles before they reached the Pennsylvania line, Highway 16 passed under Interstate 86—the Southern Tier Expressway they called it down here—and ran another seven miles into Neola. The town had absurdly wide streets—more like some small place out west where land had been cheap at its settling than in a village in New York State—and it was nestled amid high hills just north of the Allegheny River. Kurtz noticed the variations in spelling—Allegany State Park was a few miles to the west of them, the town of Allegany was just down the road to the west, but the river that marked the southern boundary of Neola was the Allegheny. He didn't think it was worth investigating.