Kurtz nodded and dropped the Ruger through the missing window into the driver's seat. He had no doubt that truck and gun would be gone by three A.M.

"Miz Ferrara said I should be getting an envelope," said Colin.

"Tell her I'll send the money to her this weekend," said Kurtz.

The bodyguard gave Kurtz a look but then shrugged. "Why ten A.M.?"

"What?" Kurtz's head was buzzing.

"Why ten A.M. exactly? For the Indian tomorrow."

"It's a sentimental thing," said Kurtz. He hopped down from the Power Wagon bed and began walking toward where his Pinto was parked in front of an abandoned drugstore with broken windows.

When he'd called Angelina on her private line after getting Daddy Brace's call, the female don had thought he was kidding.

"I'm not," Kurtz had said. "I'll still find this skag basher for you, and you keep your fifteen thousand dollars…"

"Ten thousand for finding him," Angelina said. "I already gave you five as an advance."

"Whatever. I send the advance back and you keep the rest in exchange for this little favor now."

"Little favor," repeated Angelina, her voice amused. "We do this… little thing for you now in exchange for your promise to do this other thing for us someday?"

"Yeah," said Kurtz. After a minute's silence, he'd said, "You started this Big Bore thing last winter, lady. Look at this as a way to clean it up and save some money at the same time."

There was a brief additional silence on the line and then she'd said, "All right. When tonight? Where?"

Kurtz had told her.

"This isn't your style, Kurtz," she'd said then. "I always thought you took care of your own messes."

"Yeah," Kurtz had said tiredly. "I'm just a little busy right now."

"But no more favors like this," said Angelina Farino Ferrara.

Now Kurtz sat in his Pinto and watched the Lincoln Town Car drive away slowly. The huge Dodge Power Wagon was alone at the dark curb, its heavy brackets for a snowplow blade looking like mandibles, the rest of its hulk looking rusted and desolate and sort of sad so far out of its element here in the inner city.

Kurtz shook his head, wondered if he was getting soft, and drove back to the Harbor Inn to get some sleep. He and Arlene were going to go over the rest of the O'Toole computer stuff in the office at eight the next morning. He'd made another call on the way over to Blues Franklin and had an appointment set for ten A.M.

"So why'd you want to meet me here?" asked Detective Rigby King.

"I like the food here," said Kurtz. He glanced at his watch. It was just ten A.M.

They were in the small restaurant area—a long counter and a long, narrow dining area just across the aisle from the counter—set amidst the sprawling, indoor Broadway Market. The market was a tradition in Buffalo, and like most traditions in America, it had seen better days. Once a thriving indoor fresh meat, fruit, flowers, and tchotchke covered market in the old Polish and German section of town, Broadway Market was now surrounded by a black ghetto and really came alive only during Easter time, when the many Polish families who'd fled to Cheektowaga and other suburbs came in to buy their Easter hams. Today, half the market space was empty and there was a halfhearted attempt at some Halloween exhibits and festivities, but only a few black mothers with their costumed kids wandered the aisles.

Kurtz and Rigby sat along the mostly empty counter at the aisle-side restaurant. For some promotional reason, all the waitresses behind the long counter were wearing flannel pajamas. One of them had a sort of sleeping bonnet on. They didn't look all that happy, and Kurtz couldn't blame them.

Kurtz and Rigby were drinking coffee. Kurtz also had ordered a donut, although he nibbled without enthusiasm. Little kids in drugstore Star Wars and Spiderman costumes would glance at him, then look again, and then cringe against their mothers' legs. Kurtz was still wearing the Ray Charles glasses, but evidently the raccoon bruises were turning orange today and creeping out farther from beneath the glasses. He was wearing a black baseball cap to cover most of the small bandage he'd left in place.

"Do you remember coming here as a kid?" asked Kurtz, sipping his coffee and watching what little movement there was in the cavernous space. Many of the mothers seemed morose and sullen, their kids hyperactive.

"I remember stealing stuff here as a kid," said Rigby. "The old women would scream at me in Polish."

Kurtz nodded. He knew other kids from Father Baker's who'd come up here to grab and run. He never had.

"Joe," said Rigby, setting down her coffee mug, "you didn't ask to meet to ramble on about old times. Did you have something you wanted to talk about?"

"Do I have to have an agenda to have coffee with an old friend?"

Rigby snorted slightly. "Speaking of old friends and agendas—you know another ex-con named Big Bore Redhawk?"

Kurtz shrugged. "Not really. There was some guy in Attica with that absurd name, but I never had anything to do with him."

"He seems to want to have something to do with you," said Rigby.

Kurtz drank his coffee.

"Word on the street is that this Indian's been hunting for you, telling people in bars that he has a grudge to settle with you. Know anything about this, Joe?"

"No."

Rigby leaned closer. "We're hunting for him. Maybe the grudge he had with you got itself worked out in that parking garage and Peg O'Toole. You think we should question him?"

"Sure," said Kurtz. "But the Indian I remember in Attica didn't look like the twenty-two caliber type. But that's no reason not to talk to him."

Rigby sat back. "Why'd you invite me here, Joe?"

"I'm remembering some of the details of the shooting."

Rigby looked skeptical but kept listening.

"There were two men," said Kurtz.

The detective folded her arms across her chest. She was wearing a blue oxford shirt today and a soft, camel-colored jacket with the usual jeans. Her gun was out of sight on her belt on the right. "Two men," she said at last. "You saw their faces?"

"No. Just shapes, silhouettes, about forty feet away. One guy did the shooting until I hit him. Then the other grabbed the twenty-two and started firing."

"How do you know it was a twenty-two?" asked Rigby.

Kurtz frowned. "That's what you and the surgeon told me. That's the slug they pulled out of O'Toole's brain and found next to my skull. What are you talking about, Rigby?"

"But you weren't close enough to make out the type of twenty-two?"

"No. Aren't you listening? But I could tell from the sound—phut, phut, phut."

"Silenced?"

"No. But softer than most twenty-twos would sound in an enclosed, echoing space like that. Sort of like they'd dumped some of the powder in each cartridge. It wouldn't make much difference in muzzle velocity, but it sure cuts down on the noise."

"Says who?" asked Rigby.

"Israel's Mossad for one," said Kurtz. "The assassins they sent out to get payback for the Munich Massacre used reduced loads in twenty-twos."

"You an expert on Mossad assassins now, Joe?"

"No," said Kurtz. He set the remaining half of the donut aside. "I saw it in some movie."

"Some movie," said Rigby and nibbed her cheek. "All right, tell me about the two men."

Kurtz shrugged. "Just like I said—two silhouettes. No details. The guy I hit was shorter than the guy who picked up the pistol and kept firing."

"You're sure you hit one of them?"

"Yeah."

"We didn't find any blood on the garage floor—except yours and O'Toole's."

Kurtz shrugged again. "My guess is that the second shooter crammed the wounded man in the backseat of their car and took off after I went down."