The turtle-slow elevator stopped groaning then. The echo of the wooden gate banging open sounded up the empty shaft. It was a message from hell. The devil was on the run.
TWENTY
9:03 P.M.
Tozzi couldn’t believe he was so stupid.
“This way,” Gina said. The alley was dark, and she was hobbling because she’d lost her shoe and the ground was cold and uneven. It couldn’t have been easy running on the cobblestones with one bare foot, but she wasn’t complaining. She hadn’t even complained when they got halfway to his apartment on the other side of Hoboken and he realized that he didn’t have his keys. He never carried anything that could give away his real identity when he was undercover. The keys were stashed in the trunk of his car back at Freshy’s house in Bayonne. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t remembered that. Stupid.
They were heading back uptown to the Macy’s warehouse where they made the floats for the parade. It was Gina’s idea. She said they could hide out there. But Tozzi didn’t like the idea of going back uptown toward the Belfry. “C’mon. Let’s go straight to the police station,” he suggested.
“That’s farther than your apartment,” she gasped, pulling him along by the handcuffs. “The warehouse is closer. We’ll call the cops from there.” As she ran up the alley, she made these scared little eeep noises.
Five minutes later, they emerged from the alley onto Fourteenth Street, where several cars were waiting at the traffic light. Tozzi held her back as he scanned the faces in the front seats, looking for Bells, but Gina bolted across the intersection, terrified to be out in the open. There was an all-night gas station across the street on the corner, one of those modern ones with no garages, just an attendant’s booth. The whole corner was lit up like daytime with fluorescent lights.
Tozzi pointed to the rear of the station. There was a lone pay phone over by the air pumps. “Look. We can call from over there.”
“No! Where’re we gonna wait? Out here in the open? Bells will find us for sure. C’mon, the warehouse is just up this way.”
She had a point. Bells must’ve known by now that they’d escaped, and he knew they’d be on foot. Standing out under all these lights would be crazy. Tozzi gripped her hand and followed her back into the shadows of the side street. She started making the eeep noises again.
Back at the Belfry she’d really panicked when she’d heard the elevator coming up. She started to hyperventilate, and then she started eeep-ing, struggling to get some air into her lungs. He tried to calm her down, but she was frantic, terrified that Bells was going to get them. And after all that complaining that she wouldn’t fit through the chain loop, she suddenly managed to get out of it somehow. Must’ve ripped a piece of her butt off doing it. They rushed over to the kitchen and tried the door to the stairwell, but it was locked, and it was a three-story drop out the window. The elevator was almost there, so he grabbed Gina and made her get down behind one of the leather couches, pulling the plastic tarp over them. He figured he just might be able to take Bells by surprise that way. But he practically had to lie on top of Gina to keep her still, and even with his hand over her mouth, she was still eeep-ing too loud. The elevator stopped with a thunk. They lay there frozen, eyes wide, listening for Bells, Tozzi wondering what the hell he was going to do handcuffed to Gina. But he didn’t hear any footsteps getting off the elevator.
“Bells? You here? Bells?”
It was only Stanley, and he didn’t even get off the elevator, just called out and left when he didn’t get an answer.
After Stanley left, Tozzi and Gina went down the elevator, cut through the empty lot, squeezed through a broken fence, and found a pay phone on the street. He quickly called in to the field office and explained the situation to the night clerk. He said he’d take Gina to his apartment on the other side of Hoboken, and they’d wait there for someone to come for them. But he’d forgotten about the keys. Stupid.
“This way.” Gina pulled him off the side street down another alley. Up ahead there was a open bay on the right, light from inside pouring out onto the cobblestones. When they got to the bay, Tozzi had to shade his eyes against the unexpected onslaught of glitter and color. It was . . . incredible.
The warehouse was as big as an airplane hangar, and it was full of floats decorated with crepe paper and fabric, ribbons and paint in every color imaginable, floats with giant papier-mâché squirrels and life-size bears, parrots and giraffes, whales and skin divers, seals and penguins, dinosaurs and cavemen, pirates, crystal-blue elves and silver fairies, knights on armored chargers, cowboys and Indians, clowns and acrobats, robots, rabbits, walruses, extraterrestrials, silly dogs and cats, hula girls in front of a looming volcano, flowers as big as trees. It was more than the eye could take in.
“Can I help you?”
Tozzi blinked as an old geezer got off a stool just inside the bay and walked toward them very slowly. He was frowning at them, and he tried to sound threatening, but he must’ve been pushing ninety.
“I said, can I help you?”
Gina dug into her pants pocket and came up with a laminated Macy’s employee ID card. She held it out to the old man, who took it from her and tipped his head back so he could read it through the bottom half of his bifocals. She glanced at Tozzi. They were thinking the same thing: Hurry up!
“Okay,” the old man finally said, handing back the ID. He headed back to his stool without another word.
“C’mon,” Gina said. She led him through the rows of parked floats, all waiting to be towed off to Manhattan for the parade tomorrow. At another open bay way over on the other side of the warehouse, workmen were already hitching up floats to idling tractor trucks.
As they squeezed through the narrow aisles between the floats, Tozzi kept an eye out for Bells. He was half-convinced the guy really was supernatural. The bastard could show up anywhere.
“Up here,” Gina said when they emerged from the floats. She led him up a steel grid staircase against the wall to a posh lounge that overlooked the floor of the warehouse. Gina pulled him inside, locked the door behind them, and closed the maroon venetian blinds that covered the plate-glass windows, blocking out the colorful view. She pulled Tozzi over to the other side of the room, where a beige telephone was sitting on a cherry sideboard. She picked up the receiver, got an outside line, and handed it to him. “Here. Call.”
Tozzi reached over and punched out 911. It only rang once.
“Police,” the bored voice on the other end said.
“This is Special Agent Mike Tozzi, FBI. I want to talk to the commanding officer on duty. This is an emergency.”
“Hang on, sir.”
Tozzi looked at the closed venetian blinds as he waited. He didn’t like not being able to see out.
“This is Lieutenant Frankel. How can I help you, sir?”
“My name is Tozzi, FBI. I’m inside the Macy’s warehouse uptown. I’m unarmed and handcuffed to a civilian. We’re being pursued by an armed individual—”
The lieutenant interrupted. “Do you know this individual’s identity?”
“Yes. His name is Tony Bellavita, aka Tony Bells. White male, about five foot ten—”
“Oh, yes, I’m familiar with Mr. Bellavita. I’ll send some men up right away. Where in the warehouse are you?”
“A room that’s up a flight of metal stairs, dark red blinds over the picture windows. It overlooks the whole warehouse. I think there’s only one room like this.” He looked at Gina, and she nodded. “Yes, it’s the only one up high like that.”
“Is anyone hurt?”
“No.”
“Okay, sir. They’re on their way.”
“Thank you.”
The lieutenant hung up, and Tozzi reached over and replaced the receiver. “They’re sending a cruiser,” he said.
“Good.” Gina looked exhausted. She started for the couch that was next to a buffet table set up with a platter of fancy cookies wrapped in yellow cellophane, a dozen plastic liter bottle
s of soda, paper cups, and an ice bucket. But before she made it to the couch, Tozzi pulled her over to the window.
He didn’t like being cooped up in here. He parted the blinds and peered out as she dragged up a straight-back chair and collapsed into it next to him. He scanned the warehouse floor below, following the aisles between the floats. Then he looked all the way back to the open bay where the old geezer was posted, and his heart stopped. “Oh, shit!”
“What?” Gina got up and parted the blinds for herself. Right away she saw what Tozzi saw. “Oh, my God!”
Bells was standing in the open bay, scanning the rows of floats. The old man was off his stool, waving at Bells to stop, but Bells ignored him and walked right in.
Gina gripped his arm. “What’re we gonna do? He’s here!”
Tozzi stared out the window. He couldn’t believe this. How in the hell—?
But then he glanced at the cookies and soda on the table and remembered Gina’s secretary, the black girl back at Macy’s in Manhattan that morning. Bells had been looking for Gina, and the secretary told him that Gina would be taking all those kids over here to the warehouse in Hoboken. Bells must’ve figured that he and Gina might come here since it wasn’t far from the Belfry and Gina knew this place. Or else the son of a bitch really could read minds. Shit!
“C’mon.” Tozzi pulled Gina to the door. He shut the lights and parted the venetian blinds again. “We gotta get outta here.”
“Why? Why can’t we stay here? He doesn’t know we’re here.”
“Wanna bet?”
“How could he know?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
Tozzi tracked Bells as he strolled through the floats, looking underneath each one as he passed by. He waited until Bells disappeared from view behind the big volcano on the Hawaiian float. “C’mon, fast. Let’s go.” He opened the door and practically flew down the steps. Gina resisted, but a sharp yank on the handcuffs got her moving. There was no time for discussion.
They dashed from the staircase to the Wild West float, hunkering down behind the rear tires for cover. Tozzi’s heart was thumping. Gina’s eyes were wide behind her glasses. Her free hand was clamped over her mouth. She was eeep-ing again.
He whispered in her ear. “C’mon. Let’s go.”
Out under the stars, Tozzi turned over on his hip, rustling the noisy bed of shredded tan-colored crepe paper that was supposed to be sand. His back was getting stiff lying out here in the cold, surrounded by a bunch of goofy-looking candy-colored dinosaurs wearing bikinis and jams, getting glitter and dried glue in his eyes and up his nose, freezing his ass off. Tozzi glared up at a seven-foot orange papier-mâché Tyrannosaurus rex in a purple tank top and Ray Bans, standing on a surfboard. He glanced over at Gina next to him and knew they were both thinking the same thing: Did the cops get Bells yet? The police lieutenant Tozzi had talked to said he knew who Bells was, but they weren’t taking any chances. That’s why they were here lying low. Bells could still be out there, looking for them.
Their float was in line with all the other floats waiting for clearance to go through the tunnel. Every year on the night before Thanksgiving, one tube of the Lincoln Tunnel is closed off at midnight to bring the floats through. Tozzi lifted his head and saw that the line stretched from the toll plaza all the way back into Hoboken. Sight-seers lined the route just as if it were a regular daytime parade, and that made Tozzi uneasy. The crowd would be a good cover for Bells—if he was still out there. He looked at Gina sideways and thought about going up to the cab of the truck that was pulling this float and asking the driver for help, but she’d go nuts again if he did.
After they’d gotten out of the warehouse, she had a real panic attack. He’d thought she was gonna have a heart attack the way she was carrying on, crying and eeep-ing and flailing all over the place. She kept ranting that everybody was in cahoots with Bells, and they couldn’t trust anyone now. All she wanted to do was hide, hide from Bells. Tozzi had other ideas, but it’s hard to act independently with a struggling, kicking, hundred-and-whatever-pound nutcase handcuffed to your wrist. But the way he figured, as long as they were safe and she was quiet now, he’d wait until they got into Manhattan, then they’d go for help.
Gina was curled up on her side, her eyes glistening with the tears she wouldn’t let go of, just about in the fetal position, frowning at her bare foot. It must’ve been frozen. But the rest of her couldn’t have been. She was wearing the coat. He was pissed at her for being so goddamn difficult, but he couldn’t stay pissed because he felt bad for her, too.
Tozzi frowned up at the surfing dinosaur looming over his head. “We shouldn’t be just sitting here, you know. This is stupid.”
“No, it’s not,” she mumbled.
“Yes, it is. We should’ve gone back to my apartment. Even if we couldn’t have gotten in, we should’ve just waited there.”
“How do you know Bells doesn’t know where you live?”
“I was undercover. I told him I lived down the shore.”
She turned over and looked at him. “You don’t know Bells. He doesn’t miss a trick. He could’ve followed you home one night. He’d follow you for a whole month if he wasn’t sure about you. You don’t know how bad he can be.”
Tozzi hesitated before he asked. “And how do you know so much about him?”
She was quiet for a moment. “We used to go out.”
Now he was quiet.
“Oh, don’t give me the attitude, will ya? It was way back in high school.”
“Oh . . .” Tozzi wanted his coat back. Let her freeze. But instead of asking for it, he squeezed the surfing dinosaur’s black toenail and broke the papier-mâché crust. Way back in high school, huh?
“Hey, stop that.” She pulled his hand away from the dinosaur’s foot. “Don’t break him.”
Tozzi glared at her. He was dying to know, but he didn’t want to ask. He watched his breath on the cold air for a minute, mulling it over. Shit. He had to know. “You sleep with him?”
“Who? Bells?”
“Yes, Bells.”
“What do you care?”
“I’m curious.”
“It’s none of your goddamn business if I did or I didn’t.”
Tozzi stared up at the half moon. “You’re absolutely right. It is none of my business.” But he still wanted to know.
She got up on her elbow. “What do you think, I was a virgin before you? Is that it? You’re disappointed?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Then why do you want to know?”
“Forget about it. I don’t want to know.” Tozzi glared at the moon. He did want to know. And he was all set to be disappointed in her.
“You do want to know, or else you wouldn’t have asked. All right, I’ll tell you. I don’t care. It’s no big deal. Yes, I did go to bed with Bells. There.”
Tozzi shrugged. He wasn’t gonna ask. He wasn’t gonna ask.
“A long time ago,” she added. “When we were in high school.”
Tozzi was fuming inside. He wanted to know if it ended in high school. When was the last time? “Gina, it’s me. Gimme a call.”
“It wasn’t love or anything,” she went on. “It just sort of happened.”
Bullshit.
He coughed into his fist. “Why are you telling me all this? I don’t want to know about you and him.”
“I’m telling you because you do want to know. But this isn’t what you wanted to hear. You think I’m a slut now because I slept with him.”
“Did I say that?”
“No. But you’re thinking it.”
“How do you know what I’m thinking?”
“C’mon. Do you think you’re deep, or what?”
Tozzi wanted to rip the dinosaur’s foot off.
“He wasn’t a killer when we were in high school,” she said. “At least, I didn’t think he was. I mean, I didn’t even know he was a made man until this past summer. Don’t get me wrong. I knew he was no
angel, but I thought he was just small time, like my brother.”
Tozzi didn’t answer her.
She kept talking. “Of course, when your whole family is basically mob associated, who else are you gonna meet when you’re a kid? In my family, we were taught that Italians were the only people you could trust, and preferably Sicilians. My father wouldn’t even hire a plumber unless his last name ended in a vowel. You should’ve heard the screaming when I asked if I could go to the movies with Brian O’Boyle in seventh grade. It was like I’d told them I wanted to shave my head and become a Hare Krishna or something. I always tried to get away from all that bullshit, but it’s hard when you’ve got one of those clingy Italian families. When you don’t do what’s expected, they scream and cry and pout and tell you you’re gonna go to hell unless you straighten up and fly right.”
Tozzi could relate. He had the same kind of family. When he got married to the Episcopalian chandelier heiress from Rhode Island, his family acted like it was a funeral. His mother pouted the whole day, and his father kept complaining that there was no macaroni. What kind of wedding reception doesn’t have a little baked ziti, at least?
The jealousy that gripped Tozzi’s gut started to relax, and he turned to face her. Then he noticed the dull shine of the gold wedding band hanging around her neck, and his stomach tightened up again. “Can I ask you something?” He tried to keep the judgmental tone out of his voice.
“What?”
“That ring. Is that a wedding band or what?”
She got quiet. Behind her glasses, her eyes were liquid under the streetlights. Tozzi wasn’t sure if she was crying.
“Never mind,” he said. “It’s none of my business. I’m sorry. Forget about it.”
She let out a deep sigh. “It’s Margie’s.”
“Margie?”
“Yeah, Margie. Bells’s wife.”
Bad Apple Page 20
