"The judge didn't say a fucking thing," snapped Rigby. "There were no custody hearings. Farouz just took him."

Kurtz sat down. "Look, you've got the law on your side, Rigby. The FBI will work the case if your asshole of an ex-husband crossed state lines. You're a good detective yourself and all the other departments will give you a hand…"

"He stole my baby from me nine years ago and took him to Iran," said Rigby. "I want Kevin back."

"Ah," said Kurtz. He rubbed his face. "I'd be the wrong person to help you. The last person who could." Kurtz laughed softly. "As you said, Rig, I'm a felon, an ex-con, a parolee. I can't walk across the damned Peace Bridge without ten types of permission I wouldn't get, much less get a passport and go to Iran. You'll just have to…"

"I can get the forged documents for you," said Rigby. "I have enough money set aside to get us to Iran."

"I wouldn't know how to find…" began Kurtz.

"You don't have to. I'll have located Farouz and Kevin before we leave."

Kurtz looked at her. "If you can find them, you don't need me…"

"I need you," said Rigby. She actually reached across and took his hand. "I'll find Farouz. I need you to kill the fucker for me."

Kurtz insisted on driving Rigby home. They had more to talk about, but Kurtz didn't want to discuss murder in a public place, even in the Blues Franklin, which undoubtedly had been the site for more than one murder being planned.

"Is it a deal, Joe?"

"You're drunk, Rigby."

"Maybe so, but tomorrow I'll be sober and you'll still need my help if you want to find out who shot you and… whatshername… the parole officer."

"O'Toole."

"Yeah, so is it a deal?"

"I'm not a hired gun."

Rigby barked a laugh that ended in a snort. She rubbed her nose.

"Hire the Dane if you're so hot to take a killer to Iran with you," said Kurtz.

"I can't afford the Dane. Word is that he asks a hundred thousand bucks a pop. Who the hell can afford that? Other than Little Skag and these other Mafia assholes like your girlfriend and the faggot, I mean."

"So you want to hire me because I come cheap."

"Yeah."

Kurtz turned up Delaware Avenue. Rigby had told him she lived in a townhouse up there toward Sheridan. "The problem," said Kurtz, "is that I'm not a killer."

"I know you're not, Joe," said Rigby, tone lower now. "But you can kill a man. I've seen you do it."

"Bangkok," said Kurtz. "Bangkok doesn't count."

"No," agreed Rigby, "Bangkok doesn't count. But I know you've killed men here as well. Hell, you went to jail for throwing a mook out a sixth-story window. And every black in the projects knows that you took that drug dealer, Malcolm Kibunte, out of the Seneca Street Social Club one night last winter and tossed him over the Falls."

It was Kurtz's turn to snort. He'd never thrown anyone over the Falls. Kibunte had been tied to a rope and dangled over the edge in the icy water while he was asked a few simple questions. The stupid shit had decided to slip out of the rope and swim for it instead of answering. No one can swim upstream at the brink of Niagara Fails in the dark, in winter, at night. It was unusual that the body was found by the Maid of the Mist the next morning—usually the Falls hold the bodies underneath the incredible weight of falling water for years or decades.

Kurtz said, "Nine years is a hell of a long time to wait to get your kid back. He won't remember you. He's probably sporting a mustache and got a harem of his own by now."

"Of course he won't remember me," said Rigby, not reacting with the fury Kurtz had expected. She just sounded tired. "And I haven't waited nine years. I followed them over there the month after Farouz kidnapped Kevin."

"What happened?"

"First, I couldn't get a visa from our own State Department Senator Moynihan—he was our senator then, not this dim-blonde cuckolded bitch we have now—"

"I don't think that a woman can be a cuckold," said Kurtz.

"Do you want to fucking hear this or not?" snapped Rigby. "Moynihan tried to help, but there was nothing he could do, not even get me a visa. So I went through Canada and flew to Iran and found out where Farouz was living with his family in Tehran and went to the police there and made my case—when I found out he'd been cheating on me, Eftakar just stole my one-year-old baby—and the cops called some mullah and I was kicked out of the country within twenty-four hours."

"Still…" began Kurtz.

"That was the first time," said Rigby.

"You tried again?"

"In nine years?" said the cop. She sounded sober. "Of course I've tried again. When I came back after the first attempt, I moved back to Buffalo, joined the B.P.D., and tried to get legal and political help. Nothing. Two years later, I took a short leave of absence and went back to Iran under a false name. That time I actually saw Farouz—confronted him in some sort of coffee and smoking club with his brothers and pals."

"They kick you out of the country again?"

"After three weeks in a Tehran jail this time."

"But you went back again?"

"The next time, I went in overland through Turkey and northern Iraq. It cost me ten thousand bucks to get smuggled through Turkey, another eight thousand to the fucking Kurds to get me across the border, and five grand to smugglers in Iran."

"Where'd you get money like that?" said Kurtz. What he was thinking was You're lucky they didn't rape and kill you. But she must have known that.

"This was the nineties," said Rigby. "I'd put everything I had into the stock market and did all right Then blew it all going back to Iran."

"But you didn't find Kevin?"

"This time I didn't get within four hundred kilometers of Tehran. Some religious-police fanatics had my smugglers arrested—and probably shot—and I got questioned for ten days in some provincial cop station before they just drove me to the Iraq border in a Land Cruiser and kicked me out again."

"Did they hurt you?" Kurtz was imagining burns from lighted cigarettes, jolts from car batteries.

"Never touched me," said Rigby. "I think the local chief of police liked Americans."

"So that was it?"

"Not by a long shot. In 1998 I hired a mercenary soldier named Tucker to go get Kevin. I didn't care if he killed Farouz, I just wanted Kevin back. Tucker told me that he used to be Special Forces and had been in Iran dozens of times—had been inserted into Tehran as part of the plan to get the hostages out as part of that fucked-up Jimmy Carter raid in April 1980…"

"Not the best thing to list on a resume," said Kurtz. He'd reached Sheridan Road and turned left according to Rigby's instructions, then right again into a maze of streets with townhouses and apartments built in the sixties. Rigby didn't live far from Peg O'Toole's apartment and he wanted to go there next.

"No," said Rigby. "As it turned out it wasn't a good recommendation for old Tucker."

"He didn't succeed."

"He disappeared," said Rigby King. "I got a cable from him in Cyprus, saying he was ready for 'the last stage of the operation, whatever the hell that meant, and then he disappeared. Two months later I got a package from Tehran—from Farouz, although there was no return address."

"Let me guess," said Kurtz. "Ears?"

"Eight fingers and a big toe," said Rigby. "I recognized the ring on one of the fingers, big ruby in a sort of class ring that Tucker seemed proud of."

"Why a big toe?" said Kurtz.

"Beats the shit out of me," said Rigby and laughed. She didn't really sound amused.

"So now you're ready to go back again, taking me with you."

"Not quite ready," said the cop. "Next summer maybe."