Bad Apple

by Anthony Bruno

  When he finally stopped to chew, he looked over the seat back at Tozzi. “Rice,” he said, pausing to swallow. “Best thing for you. It’s true.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Tozzi sipped his coffee, immediately on his guard and angry that he was.

  “That’s right. Chinese people are the healthiest people in the world, and rice is like eighty percent of their diet. It’s the best carbohydrate you can put in your body. And that’s what you need. Carbs.” He picked out a shrimp with his chopsticks and studied it while he chewed. “You wanna be healthy, eat like a peasant. People should live more like peasants. They’d be better off.” Bells popped the shrimp into his mouth.

  Tozzi couldn’t tell if Bells was busting his balls or what. Stanley wasn’t snickering behind his coffee cup, so maybe Bells really did believe this. But not for himself. Bells didn’t see himself as a peasant, that was for sure. He was more like the guy in the castle the peasants revolted against.

  Bells reached for his tea on the dash. “This is how I eat every day. Ask Stanley.”

  Stanley nodded, his mouth full of Danish.

  “I always eat a lot of rice, pasta, stuff like that. For energy. ’Cause you never know when you’re gonna need it. This is good advice for you, Mikey: Always keep your tanks full. Very important. The other thing is, I never eat unless I’m hungry. And it’s very rare that I’m hungry at regular mealtimes. I think you should use up what you’ve got, then fill up the tanks again. That’s how the body was meant to run. I really believe that.” Bells blew over the surface of his steaming tea, looking Tozzi in the eye.

  Tozzi was grinding his teeth. He hated this guy’s guts, and he hated the fact that the guy got to him like this. But he still wasn’t sure if Bells was trying to bust his balls with this health rap of his. Bells was about five-ten, five-eleven, average build, but he didn’t look particularly fit. Actually it was hard to tell how he was built since he always wore dark loose-fitting suits that hid his shape. The real odd thing about him was the way he moved. He wasn’t fast and he wasn’t slow, but he was always moving, always constant, like when he was walking that cat around the muffler shop. He never stopped. He even ate that way—not fast, not slow, but constant. Maybe it was the chopsticks that made Tozzi think of this, but he suddenly remembered an old tai chi master he’d seen a couple of years ago at a demonstration who moved the same way, with purpose but not deliberate. No intention. Tozzi wondered if Bells had ever had any martial arts training.

  Tozzi thought about his own training. In aikido, you react to an attack; you never initiate anything. But with that old tai chi master, it would be hard to tell what was an attack and what was just normal movement because you could never tell when he was moving away from his opponent and when he was moving toward him. It was all the same. Just like Bells. He never seemed menacing until it was too late. Tozzi couldn’t help wondering how he would handle him if it ever came down to a one-on-one confrontation.

  He gulped his coffee and frowned behind his cup. It was stupid to speculate about a showdown with Bells because it wasn’t going to happen. As soon as Tozzi could get away from these guys, he was going to call in to the field office and give Ivers their location so that a squad of agents could grab Bells. He wasn’t going to be anywhere near the takedown. If he was lucky, he’d be in his own bed when it happened, resting up for his black-belt test tonight.

  Bells put the fried rice carton on the dashboard and reached into the brown paper bag on the floor. He pulled out a cellophane packet with two fortune cookies inside, ripped it open, and handed one over the seat to Tozzi. “Here. You didn’t get anything to eat.”

  Tozzi took the fortune cookie warily. “Thanks.” He set his coffee down on the floor so he could break it open.

  “Wait, Mikey, before you open it—do you know how to read these things?”

  Tozzi crossed his brows. “Whatta’ya mean?”

  “You’re supposed to add ‘in bed’ to the end of your fortune. That’s how you find out what it really means. Go ’head. Try it.”

  Tozzi raised one eyebrow and looked at Freshy, who only shrugged and chewed, his mouth full. Tozzi broke open the cookie, uncurled the slip of paper, and read it out loud. “‘Your first love and last love is self-love.’”

  “In bed,” Bells added, raising his eyebrows.

  Stanley nearly spit out his coffee.

  “I don’t get it,” Freshy said.

  Stanley struggled to talk through his coughing. “Sounds like Mikey’s got a thing for his hand.”

  “In bed.” Bells sipped his tea, his eyebrows arched over the rim of the cup.

  “Oh.” Freshy shrugged. “I still don’t get it.”

  Tozzi did and he wasn’t amused.

  Bells cracked his cookie open and examined his fortune. “‘The current year will bring you great happiness.’ In bed.” He rocked his head from side to side as he considered his fortune, but he didn’t smile. “Hmmm . . . Not bad, I guess.” He left it on the console between the seats.

  “Here. You want mine.” Tozzi held out his slip of paper.

  Bells shook his head. “Keep it. Secondhand fortunes are like used rubbers. They only work for the first guy.”

  Tozzi stared down at Bells’s fortune. Great happiness in bed. With Gina maybe? He wondered if Bells was thinking about her right now; then he remembered her answering machine. “Gina, it’s me. Gimme a call.”

  Freshy wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, balled it up, and dropped it in his empty coffee cup. “So what’s the deal, Bells? You gonna take us home now or what?”

  Bells sipped his tea. “One more stop.” He looked over the seat at Tozzi. “You don’t mind, do you, Mikey?”

  “No. No problem.” As if he had a choice.

  “Good. ’Cause like I was telling you guys before, when I make a loan, I want everybody to go into it with their eyes open. That’s why I’m taking you around today, to open your eyes. Now, I’m not saying any of this will ever happen to you. As God is my witness, I hope to Christ with all my heart that you guys have success beyond your wildest dreams and your vig never becomes a problem for you. But you should still be aware of what can happen if success doesn’t come right up and bite you in the ass in the beginning. Just so you know what you’re getting into. Okay?”

  Freshy nodded and looked at Tozzi. “Yeah, sure. We understand. You just want us to know what could happen.”

  Tozzi nodded in agreement, looking at Freshy to make sure his stupid face didn’t give them away. Of course that Woody Allen, high-anxiety wince was his normal expression. Tozzi had no idea what kind of face would be abnormal for Freshy. He hoped Bells didn’t know either.

  “Okay. Let’s go see my friend Mr. Blake. C’mon.” Bells got out of the BMW and headed for one of the stores, Park Avenue Fine Jewelers. He walked alone while Stanley hung back and waited for Tozzi and Freshy to follow.

  Tozzi got out of the car and closed his door, staring at Bells’s walk. It was so weird the way he moved. Purpose without intention. Like that old tai chi master. Like a friggin’ ghost.

  By the time Tozzi walked through the door, the old guy behind the counter was looking at Bells as if he were seeing a ghost. Tozzi assumed this was Mr. Blake. The man must’ve been in his early seventies, but he was tall and fit, good-looking with a forceful jaw and a pretty respectable head of white hair. Mr. Blake wasn’t trembling, and his eyes weren’t popping out of his head—he seemed to have too much dignity for that—but he was frozen, staring at Bells as if he were the Grim Reaper.

  Tozzi could see that Bells had something in his hand, and he was startled when Bells suddenly unraveled a length of thin green string. His first thought was that Bells intended to strangle the guy with fishing tackle, but when Bells started to wrap the ends around his index fingers, he realized that this wasn’t fishing tackle. It was dental floss. Mint-flavored dental floss. Tozzi was only slightly relieved.

  Bells started to saw the floss through his bottom front teeth. “So?”


  Mr. Blake didn’t say a thing. He just stared at Bells, a condemned man ready for the firing squad. Stanley was leaning on the glass case closest to Mr. Blake, looking to Bells, waiting for the go-ahead. His tongue wasn’t hanging out, and he wasn’t slavering, but he definitely had that Tazmanian Devil look.

  Tozzi and Freshy stayed out of the way. Freshy’s head was bouncing, and he kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other, but nothing seemed to make him comfortable. Tozzi wasn’t very comfortable either. He glanced around the store, hoping the old guy had a cat.

  “So what’s it gonna be?” Bells sawed the floss between his eye teeth, staring at Mr. Blake, mocking the old guy with his eyes.

  “You know my situation, Bells.” Mr. Blake wasn’t cowering. Tozzi was impressed, but under the circumstances he didn’t think it was very smart. A little cowering might not be so bad right about now.

  Bells shook his head as he pulled the floss through his molars. “You’re wasting your money, Mr. Blake. She’s gonna die anyway.”

  The old man didn’t answer.

  “Whatta’ya want? Two sets of hospital bills? What’s that gonna prove?”

  Tozzi didn’t know what Bells was talking about.

  Stanley looked at Tozzi and Freshy and explained. “Mr. Blake’s daughter’s got the AIDS. Skin and bones, the poor thing, just barely hanging in there. He’s spending everything he’s got on her.” Stanley turned to the old man. “But he thinks just ’cause his daughter is dying, that gives him some kind of moral right to forget about his obligation to us.”

  Blake was glaring at Stanley. He was furious, but he wasn’t going to say anything. He had too much dignity to discuss his daughter with a bunch of hoods. Tozzi felt for the guy.

  Bells opened his mouth wide and did the molars way in the back. When he was finished, he unwound the floss from his fingers, leaned over the counter looking for the wastepaper basket, and got rid of it. Tozzi wondered if the labs in Washington could do a DNA analysis from the saliva on the floss. If they worked over Mr. Blake, the saliva on the floss could put Bells at the scene of the crime, and—

  But Tozzi wouldn’t let it come down to that. He couldn’t stand by and watch while Stanley beat the shit out of Mr. Blake. The guy was old; they might end up killing him. But if Tozzi got in the middle of this, Bells would definitely get suspicious. If Bells got real hinky, he might flee and escape the manhunt. But he’d probably want some payback from “Mikey-boy” the rat before he left.

  Tozzi tried to imagine what would happen if Bells and Stanley went after him as a tag team. He had a feeling his aikido skills might not be enough. No martial art that he knew of taught you how to defend yourself against a hail of bullets coming from across the room.

  Bells shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and lowered his chin. He nodded toward the glass case between him and Mr. Blake. “I could save myself a lot of trouble by just taking what you owe me in jewelry. Looks like you got enough to bring you up to date. But . . .” He gave the word some hang time. “But I don’t wanna do that.”

  Mr. Blake just stared at him, his chin sticking out like Burt Lancaster.

  “You know why I don’t wanna do that? Because I don’t like you. Plain as that. You got a shitty attitude, my friend. You think you’re special, just because your daughter slept with some fag who had AIDS. Well, that’s not my problem. This is business. Your personal life, I don’t give a shit. Business is business.”

  Tozzi had a feeling Bells had given this speech before. It flowed too easily. He noticed that while Bells was talking, Stanley had put on a pair of black leather driving gloves. Tight ones. To keep from splitting a knuckle when he started throwing punches.

  Stanley started to move around the counter, stalking Mr. Blake. The old guy still didn’t say anything, but the wet gleam of fear suddenly showed in his eyes.

  Tozzi wet his lips. He had to do something.

  Except he wasn’t carrying a weapon, he couldn’t depend on Freshy to help him out, and Bells just might go ballistic if he tried to interfere with “business.” He touched the beeper clipped to his belt. Gibbons hadn’t seen him getting into Bells’s car back in Bayonne. If he had, he and Dougherty would’ve followed them in the surveillance van, and they’d be hearing all this right now. They’d have plenty of backups with them, who’d barge in and save Mr. Blake. But Gibbons hadn’t seen him getting into the car, so no one was listening now. Shit.

  Stanley was behind the counter, closing in on his prey, and Bells was moving on the the balls of his feet, stepping in a box pattern with a look of glee on his face. Tozzi wondered if this was some kind of tribal dance he was doing. Or just something he did when he was enjoying himself.

  The Tazmanian Devil was smoothing the leather on the backs of his hands, moving in for the kill.

  Bells was doing his little witch-doctor dance. It could’ve been the fluorescent lights in there, but Tozzi swore the bastard’s eyes were glowing.

  Tozzi had to do something quick, but what? He was gonna have to reveal himself, say he was an FBI agent, and hope they’d back off. He was gonna have to blow his cover.

  Mr. Blake was backing around the counter, but there was no getting away from Stanley, and he knew it.

  Tozzi’s heart was thumping. Maybe there was another way. He looked at the floor, looked all around him, not knowing what the hell he thought he’d find that could help Mr. Blake now. Then something caught his eye. A purple sparkle in the glass case behind Bells.

  He walked over and quickly pointed to it, a silver bracelet with tiny dangling purple gems cut like tear drops. The silver was dark and antique-looking, and the settings were like little silver petunias. A chain of glittering little eggplants jammed into petunia horns. The color of the stones reminded him of the color of Gina’s glasses.

  “Stanley, excuse me,” Tozzi said. “Before you do anything, I’d just like to ask Mr. Blake something.” Tozzi was making this up as he went along. “Mr. Blake, how much for the bracelet with the purple stones? This one, right here.” Tozzi pointed through the glass.

  Bells stared down at the bracelet in the case. He looked a little baffled, but more amused. “Whatever it costs, it won’t be enough to begin to cover what he owes me.” He shifted his gaze to Mr. Blake. “Go ’head. Show Mikey what he wants to see.” He leaned over the counter then and whispered to the old man, “Hey, maybe you can make bundle off this guy, and everybody’ll end up happy. See, I’m a very fair person. I never believe in interfering with a man’s business. Especially a man who owes me money.”

  Mr. Blake kept his eye on Stanley as he moved around the counter to the bracelet with the purple stones. He unlocked the case and pulled it out, handing it to Tozzi. His hand was shaking. “They’re amethysts,” he said, but he seemed reluctant to name a price. Obviously he must’ve owed Bells a lot more than the bracelet was worth. Naming a ridiculous price to save his ass would be playing Bells’s game, and Mr. Blake had too much self-respect for that. But with the Tazmanian Devil hovering over his shoulder, he also knew he had run out of alternatives.

  “How much, Mr. Blake? Go ’head. Give him a price.” Bells was eating this up.

  Tozzi held the bracelet up to the light. “Hey, Freshy, you think she’d like this?”

  Bells’s head snapped around. “Who you talking about?”

  Freshy looked like he was gonna piss his pants. “I, ah, I . . .”

  Tozzi kept his eyes on the glittering stones. “She really loves purple. I think she’d like this. What do you think, Fresh?” Tozzi didn’t look at Bells, and he didn’t mention Gina’s name. It was a gamble, but Bells was too clever to be led by the nose. He had to fill in the blanks for himself.

  “So how much you want?” Tozzi asked Mr. Blake.

  The bracelet was suddenly snatched out of Tozzi’s hand. Bells held it up, tilting his head back to examine it. Then he furrowed his brow at Tozzi. “Forget it. It’s sold,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I want it,�
�� he said, and slipped it into his pants pocket.

  “But you just said—”

  “Tough shit. It’s mine.”

  Tozzi shrugged and turned to Mr. Blake. “You got another one like that? This girl would really love that bracelet.”

  The old man shook his head. “It’s handmade. One of a kind.”

  “Too bad, Mikey-boy.” Bells was grinning like a skull.

  Tozzi shrugged, then turned to Freshy. “Too bad. She would’ve liked it. If you decide you don’t want it, Bells, lemme know. I’ll buy it off you.”

  The skull’s grin dissolved. He didn’t answer. Bells went into another trance, staring into one of the glass cases, thinking hard. Suddenly he checked his watch, then waved Stanley out from behind the counter. The Tazmanian Devil looked very disappointed.

  Bells regained his composure. “Tell you what, Mr. Blake. This is what I’m gonna do for you.” He held up his index finger. “One week. That’s what I’m gonna give you because I’m a nice guy, and I got someplace to go right now. One week. Next Wednesday I’ll be back, and I want the money, up to date, everything you owe so far. If not, we’ll pick up right where we left off today.”

  Stanley was taking off his gloves, but he smiled when he heard that.

  Bells backstepped toward the door. “C’mon. Let’s go.” He seemed to be in a hurry all of a sudden.

  “What about the bracelet?” Mr. Blake asked.

  “You’re giving it to me. For my trouble.”

  “But—”

  “You want to argue about it?”

  Mr. Blake shut up.

  Bells was at the door, holding it open. “C’mon. Let’s go, I said.” He looked at his watch again.

  Freshy was paler than usual. “You gonna take us home now?”

  “Nope. Gotta make a stop in the city. C’mon now. Hurry up.”

  As they filed out of the store, Tozzi caught Bells staring at him. There was mischief in his eyes. Or malice. Tozzi wasn’t sure which.

  NINE

  12:02 P.M.

  “So where is she?” Bells hovered over the edge of the desk, polite but insistent.