"She jogs," said Kurtz.

"Uh-huh," said Rigby. "All night? In some sort of miniskirt and clingy, silk top thing?"

"Sounds like Kemper got lots of detail."

"Part of being a cop," said Rigby.

They rode in silence for a few minutes. Kurtz took the Aurora Expressway exit before 90 became a toll road and they followed the four-lane 400 out east toward East Aurora and Orchard Park.

"Well, aren't you going to ask whose blood and brains it was in her Town Car?" demanded Rigby. She refilled her plastic mug, poured sugar out of a McDonald's packet, and stirred it with her little finger.

"Whose blood and brains was it in her Town Car?" said Kurtz.

"You tell me," said Rigby.

He looked at her. The expressway was almost empty and the sunlight lit hillsides of autumn orange and yellow on either side. "What are you talking about?" he said.

"I just thought maybe you could tell me, Joe." Rigby smiled sweetly at him. "You want some coffee?"

"Sure."

"Maybe there's a fast food drive-thru place out by the East Aurora exit," she said, "but I don't remember one."

He'd gone downstairs and out the door into the rain the previous night with the.38 in his palm and his eye full of business. If this was some bullshit set-up from Angelina Farino Ferrara, then let it happen.

No ambush came. The woman was really upset, standing there in the rain with her not-so-tiny Compact Witness.45 in her hand while cars were parking and nosing along Chippewa Street and pedestrians ran for the trendy restaurants and coffeehouses and wine bars. So far, no one seemed to have noticed the weapon.

"Where'd they go? Where's the car?" said Angelina, almost gasping the words. It was the first time Kurtz had ever seen the woman at the edge of control.

"How the hell should I know?" said Kurtz. He touched her elbow, guiding her hand into her coat pocket so the Compact Witness was out of sight. "Are these guys reliable?"

She stared at him and it looked as if she was about to laugh, but her eyes were wild. "Is anyone in this fucking business reliable, Kurtz? I pay Figini and Sheffield enough, but that doesn't mean anything."

Not if Gonzaga or your brother Little Skag paid them more, thought Kurtz.

She was squinting at Kurtz and he could read her mind—What if Gonzaga paid Joe Kurtz more?

"If I wanted you dead, lady, I would have done it upstairs," he said.

She shook her head. Her hair was black and slick with rain. "I have to… we have to…" She seemed to be mentally running through her options and rejecting all of them.

"We need to get off the street," said Kurtz. Part of his mind was shouting—What is this we shit, Kemo Sabe?

He led her across the street and into the alley alongside his building. Neither would go ahead of the other, so they walked side by side, him carrying the.38 in his palm, her with her hand on the Compact Witness in her pocket. If a cat had jumped out at that moment, all three of them would have probably ended up shot full of lead.

The small parking area off the alley where Kurtz and Arlene had reserved spaces held only his Pinto. "Get in," said Kurtz. "I'll take you back to Marina Towers."

"No." She stared at him across the wet, rusted roof of the Pinto. "Not there. Let's look for the Lincoln."

"All right, get in."

They found it within ten minutes, parked in a dark lot near Hemingway's Café. The doors were unlocked and the keys were in the ignition. The overhead light didn't come on when they opened the doors. Both Kurtz and Angelina were wearing gloves. He'd brought his flashlight from the Pinto and now they leaned in from opposite sides as he played the beam over the bloody seats and carpets. Gray matter and tiny, hard white shards glistened in the folds of the dark upholstery.

"Jesus," whispered Angelina. "It looks like a massacre. Even the backseats are bloody."

"I think the shooter just opened the back door, stepped in, and shot both of them in the head," said Kurtz. "Then he dragged the bodies into the backseat, walked around, got behind the wheel, and drove off."

"On Chippewa Street?" whispered the female don. She was blinking rapidly. "It was busy there tonight."

"Yeah," said Kurtz. "So far, this guy's been hitting junkies and dealers. Either of your bodyguards fit that description?"

Angelina hesitated a second. "Not really," she said at last. "Well, Sheffield has been coordinating deliveries."

"Sheffield is Colin?" said Kurtz. "The fop I dealt with the night we said good-bye to Big Bore?"

"Yes."

Kurtz ran the flashlight around the interior a final time, let the beam move across the driver's seat where the blood had been smeared, let it dwell on a starred fracture on the blood-spattered windshield for a second, and then flicked off the light. Traffic passed on Pearl Street. They walked away from the Lincoln and paused on the sidewalk. Angelina pulled out her cell phone.

"What are you doing?" said Kurtz.

"Getting in touch with the guys I called, telling them to bring cleanup stuff."

Kurtz reached over and closed the phone. "Why not leave the Lincoln as it is for the cops?"

She wheeled on him. "Are you crazy? It's my car. It's registered to me. I'll have every cop in Western New York on my ass."

Kurtz shrugged. "Look, you and Gonzaga—if you believe Gonzaga—have been doing it the other way for weeks now. This killer whacks your people, you rush out with buckets and mops and clean up after him. You're sitting on twenty-four murders, if Gonzaga is to be believed. Maybe that's just what the killer and whoever's sending the killer wants you to do."

Angelina bit her lip but said nothing.

"I mean, you're so crazy to find him that you're both trying to hire me, for Christ's sake," continued Kurtz. "Why not let the Buffalo P.D. deal with this?"

"But the attention…" began Angelina.

"Is going to be intense," said Kurtz. "But you won't be a suspect. They're your people who were hit. Let the cops do their fingerprint and ballistics stuff and put out an A.P.B. on someone walking around with blood on the seat of their pants."

"The media will go apeshit," said Angelina. "It'll be national news about a gang war."

Kurtz shrugged again. "You keep wondering if Gonzaga is behind this. Maybe the attention will smoke him out. Or rule him out."

Angelina turned and looked at the Lincoln in the back of the lot. A Saab pulled off Pearl and parked only two spaces away from it. Three college-age kids got out, laughing, and walked to Hemingway's. When the Saab's headlight beams had moved across the Lincoln, both Kurtz and Angelina had seen the bullet-fractured windshield. It was only a matter of time before someone noticed the gore.

She hesitated another few seconds. Then she brushed strands of wet hair away from her forehead and said, "I think you're right. For once the cops could be some help. At the very least, we won't be playing the murderer's game."

They got back in the Pinto and Kurtz drove down Pearl and cut over to Main. "Where do you want to go if not back to your penthouse?" asked Kurtz.

"Your place."

"Back to the office? Why?"

"Not back to the office," said Angelina Farino Ferrara. "Your place. That Harbor Inn hovel that nobody's supposed to know about."

"That's nuts," said Kurtz, shaking his head. "When the cops call, you have to be home with someone there as an alibi so…" He turned his head and froze.

Angelina was holding the.45 caliber Compact Witness in her right hand, bracing it on her left forearm, the black circle of the muzzle steady on Kurtz's heart. "Your place," she said. "Not mine."

"A penny for your thoughts, Joe," said Rigby King.

"What?" The Rigby King he'd known didn't say things like A penny for your thoughts. Not unless she was being really sarcastic.