This morning, Kurtz shivered a bit in the cold rain as he walked down the rusted tracks, slipped through the cut in the fence and rearranged the wire so that the hole was invisible, let himself in the back way, checked telltales he had left in the lobby hallway, and then jogged up the five flights of the front stairway.

He had made a nest for himself on the sixth floor. The room was small and windowless—all of the storage rooms had been set up between the outer hall and the atrium wall—but Kurtz had run an extension cord through the crumbling ceiling and rigged a trouble light. He'd set up a cot with a decent sleeping bag—borrowed from Arlene—and had his leaving-Attica gym bag, a flashlight, and a few books on the floor. He kept both weapons oiled and ready and wrapped in oil rags in the gym bag, along with a cheap sweatsuit he'd picked up for pajamas. This particular cubby actually had a bathroom—or at least a toilet added sometime in the 1920s when the place was still an icehouse with offices—and Kurtz sometimes hauled water down from the seventh floor. The plumbing worked, but there was no bam or shower.

It was a pain in the ass climbing the five flights of stairs day and night, but what Kurtz liked about the place was the acoustics—the hallways amplified sound so that footsteps could be heard two flights above, the elevator—which he had tried—could wake the dead, and the atrium was like a giant echo chamber. It would be very hard for someone new to the space to sneak up on anyone familiar with it.

Also, Kurtz had discovered, between the century and a half of use and the recent renovations, there were a multitude of nooks, crannies, niches, ladders, walled-off rooms, and other hiding places. He had spent time exploring these with a good flashlight. And—best of all—there was an old tunnel which ran from the basement several hundred yards east to another old warehouse.

Kurtz looked in the carton he thought of as his refrigerator. Two bottles of water and a few Oreos were left. He ate the Oreos and drank an entire bottle of water. He crawled into his sleeping bag and glanced at his watch: 6:52 a.m. He had planned to go into the office this morning to work with Arlene, but he could be a little late.

Kurtz clicked off the trouble light, curled up in the near-absolute darkness, waited a bit for his shivering to abate as the bag warmed up, and drifted off to sleep.

"Got him," said Malcolm Kibunte. He and Cutter were in an Astro Van parked almost two blocks away.

It had been a long night. When The courthouse cop on the arm informed Miles that someone had made bail for Kurtz, Malcolm let Doo-Rag know that the yard shank was off, gathered Cutter, his Tek-9, and some surveillance gear, stole a van, and staked out the jail. The revised plan was to take out Kurtz in a rock-and-roll drive-by the minute he got out of ricochet range of the city jail, killing him and whoever had made the bail for him. Then Malcolm saw who it was who had posted bail, and went to Plan Three.

They waited down the street from Sophia Farino's condo through the early-morning hours and were almost ready to bag it when Kurtz finally emerged and began strolling the opposite way. There were so few vehicles on the street that Malcolm had to let Kurtz disappear from sight and then drive in long loops to get ahead of him, always parked with other grimy vans and vehicles, always a good two blocks away. It was dark. Only the expensive military night scopes and goggles allowed Cutter and Malcolm to keep tabs on Kurtz.

For a while they thought they had run him to ground when Kurtz had clambered up under the expressway overpass, but just as Malcolm and Cutter were getting ready to go after him, Kurtz climbed down the embankment and was on the move again. For some reason, the fool had ditched his jacket. Cutter wanted to stop under the overpass and check on that, but Malcolm was too busy driving down toward the river and finding a place to park before Kurtz wandered into sight again. It was getting light. Surveillance would be impossible in half an hour or so: Kurtz would notice the same scabrous green van if it kept reappearing, even a couple of blocks away.

But luck was with them. From where they had parked in an old railroad salvage-yard, Malcolm watched through the night-vision scope, and Cutter lifted the huge binoculars as Kurtz went through his slice in the wire and let himself into the old icehouse building.

They waited another hour. Kurtz did not come out.

"I think we found his hidey-hole," said Malcolm. He rubbed his beard and lifted the Tek-9 onto his lap. Cutter grunted and clicked open his knife. "I don't know, C, my man," said Malcolm. "Big place in there. Probably dark. He know it, we don't."

The two sat in silence for another few minutes. Suddenly Malcolm grinned broadly. "You know what we need for this job, C?"

Cutter looked at him, his pale eyes empty.

"That's right," said Malcolm. "We gonna need extreme white trash, stupid enough not to know about the Death Mosque bounty, but still be willin' to go in there to kill Mr. Kurtz for next to nothing."

Cutter nodded.

"Correct," agreed Malcolm. "We know where Mr. Kurtz live. All we need to do now is bring in the Alabama Beagle Boys." Malcolm laughed heartily.

Cutter breathed through his mouth and turned to look at the old icehouse through the rain.

"Nice couch," said Kurtz as Arlene came down the back steps and into their basement office. He was half-asleep, sprawled on the sprang, faded floral sofa. "Is it from your house?"

"Nice of you to drop by and notice," said Arlene, hanging her coat on a spike driven into the wall. "Of course it's from the house. Alan slept through many an NFL game on it. I had Will and Bobby help me haul it down here. What is this on my desk?"

"A video monitor," said Kurtz.

"A TV?"

"Go ahead, turn it on."

Arlene flicked it on and looked at the picture for a minute. It was fuzzy and in black and white and cycled through four scenes: counter, stacks, booms, and hallway. "That's it? I get to watch the perverts in the porn shop upstairs?"

"That's it," agreed Kurtz. "The owners revamped the closed-circuit surveillance system upstairs, and I got Jimmy to run a line down here and sell us one of the old monitors."

"Sell it to us?" Arlene tapped the mouse to bring her computer screen to life. "How much did it cost?"

"Fifty bucks, wiring thrown in free. I told him I'd pay when I got the money this month… or next… or whenever."

"Just so I can watch the dirty old men buying their dirty old magazines and videos."

"You're welcome," said Kurtz. He swung himself off the sprung couch and walked over to his own desk at the rear of the long room. His desk was empty, except for some files and memos left there by Arlene.

"Do you really think we need the video security?" she asked. "Both doors stay locked and we're not exactly advertising that we're here."

Kurtz shrugged. "The outer door's pretty well jimmy-proof," he said. "But the door from the porn shop is just a door. And I seem to have a few people hunting for me." He poured coffee for both of them, even though Arlene had just come in from her lunch break, carried the mugs over, and sat on the edge of her desk. He gave her Pruno's description of Malcolm Kibunte, Cutter, and Doo-Rag, then remembered Sammy Levine's brother Manny and described him as well.

"You made an enemy out of Danny DeVito?" said Arlene.

"Sounds like it," said Kurtz. "Anyway, if you see anyone on the monitor who looks like any of these four guys upstairs, you leave by one of the other doors."

"Those descriptions apply to about half of the losers who patronize the shop upstairs," said Arlene.

"All right," said Kurtz. "Amend it to—if you see anyone trying to bust through the front door up there, you head out the back. If any of them look like one of the guys I described, move even faster."