Gibbons stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket. “Let’s just hope Sal has something to say today. Maybe when his sister shows up to get him. Judge Newburry wasn’t all that keen on issuing the warrant for this. Had to bring out the dog and pony show, explain to him that Sal was checking outta here today because he thinks you’re dead, Toz, and this could be our last chance to get anything out of him. I finally convinced Newburry to give me the warrant, but he wasn’t happy about it. He thought I was stretching probable cause a little too far.”
“Frankly I agree with him,” Cummings said.
Gibbons rolled his eyes up at her. “Don’t complain. You’re getting to go undercover. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? Now you’ll be able to tell your grandchildren about it.”
She ignored him.
He didn’t give a shit. “You wanna go over it again? Just one more time? For me?”
“No. I know what I have to do. I go out on the ward and start checking the men for head lice.” She tried not to make a face. “When I get to Mr. Immordino’s table, I drop my comb, stoop down to pick it up, and place the electronic bug under the table.”
“Have you got the move down?”
She smirked at Gibbons, but demonstrated anyway to show him that she’d practiced, stooping down and steadying herself on the edge of the table, her thumb on top, her fingers on the bottom. She’d hold the bug between her index and middle fingers. It had an adhesive backing so it would stick wherever she put it.
“You got the bug?”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“It’s in my pocket.” Testy.
“Check.”
She jammed her hand in her skirt pocket. “It’s there.” She was determined not to lose her cool.
Gibbons nodded. “All right, but just remember to be natural when you’re out there. Don’t rush, but don’t drag your ass either. Remember, you’re a nurse. You’ve got work to do. You’re there to check heads and move on.”
Cummings inhaled sharply. She was dying to tell him off.
Gibbons pointed at her head. “Fix your wig. It’s crooked.”
Cummings bit her tongue and adjusted the wig. Tozzi could see that she was burning up inside. She turned and marched toward the door then, chin up, shoulders back. But before she went out, she paused and let her drop-dead gaze settle on Gibbons. She looked like she was about to say something, but then changed her mind and left, banging the door closed behind her.
Gibbons shook his head. “That woman wants to tell me to go fuck myself in the worst way, but she just can’t bring herself to do it. Never met such a tight-ass in my life. Ivers included.”
“Aren’t you being a little hard on her, Gib?”
“Nope.”
“C’mon. You started busting her balls the minute you laid eyes on her.”
“That’s a two-way street, Tozzi. She’s been busting mine, too. And she’s got help.”
“You mean Lorraine?”
Gibbons blew his nose again and nodded. “They’re a real pair, those two. It’s like a freakin’ girls’ school over at our place. It’s like they’re back at Barnard again. They stay up all night talking about all kinds of shit, stuff I don’t even want to understand. If I turn on the TV, they give me shit about what I watch. I pick up the newspaper, they wanna know why I don’t read the Times. When I won’t eat the health-food crap they make for dinner, I’m no good again. I’m telling you, Toz, I’m ready to move in with you.”
“You just like to complain.”
“Easy for you to say. You don’t have to live with them.”
“What’s the big deal? They enjoy each other’s company. Anyway, it’s not forever. Cummings goes back to Quantico in four or five weeks.”
“I could be dead by then.”
“Of what?”
“Left-wing pseudo-intellectual bullshit.”
“Get outta here.”
“Yeah, sure, Stacy doesn’t drink oolong tea with alfalfa honey and yammer on about Leonard and Virginia Woolf at seven o’clock in the morning—whoever the fuck they are. I’ll bet Stacy doesn’t drive you nuts, rattling the windows with opera records on the hi-fi either.”
“She does eat tofu.”
Gibbons wiped his nose. “Hey, if Cummings looked like Stacy, Christ, I’d eat tofu.”
“No you wouldn’t.”
Gibbons scrunched his mouth to one side and thought about it. “You’re probably right. I wouldn’t.” He blew his nose again.
“You taking anything for that?”
“What, the hay fever? Never. The pills make you dopey. It’s all the trees they got down this end of Jersey. Soon as we get back on the turnpike and hit the New Brunswick exit, my sinuses will start drying right up. By the time we get up around Linden, Elizabeth, the oil refineries and the airport and all that, I’ll be perfect.”
“You’re just a Jersey kind of guy, huh, Gib?”
Gibbons shook out his handkerchief, looking for a dry space. “I always wondered why they called this the Garden State. Now I know. Hey, look, there she is.”
Through the one-way mirror, Tozzi could see Cummings at the far end of the ward, talking to the guard on duty. She was explaining what she was doing there, telling the guard about the bogus lice problem and which doctor had sent her to check the patients. The guards hadn’t been told about this. Guards get chummy with certain patients, the ones that aren’t completely out of it, the ones who do favors for them. According to Cummings, it happens at all mental institutions. They didn’t want it getting around the ward that the new nurse with the funny wig was actually planting bugs, not looking for them.
They watched as Cummings moved into the room. She looked around and hesitated before she went up to one of the nuts sitting on a bench, staring out into space. Tozzi wished she were a little more bossy and matter-of-fact about it, a little more like a real nurse, determined to get the job done any way she had to. Cummings stood over the pale, unshaven man and picked around through his scalp with the comb. It was obvious that she didn’t like touching his greasy hair.
“Jesus, look at her.” Gibbons croaked into his handkerchief. “She’s gonna fuck this up. I know it.”
“Give her a chance. She’ll get into it.”
They watched her move around the room, going from one patient to the next. She picked all the docile ones first, the ones who lived in their own worlds. They didn’t give her any trouble, and it seemed to bolster her confidence. She was starting to act more like a nurse.
Gibbons sneezed again. “Shit!” He stood up. “I gotta go find some toilet paper or something. I’ll be right back.” He went out the door, wiping his nose with the limp handkerchief.
On the ward Cummings was moving on to the more active patients, following one of the nervous pacers, walking behind him to get a look at his scalp. He was a grizzly-looking, gray-haired guy in his late fifties. Tozzi winced as she went through his thick, matted hair. It looked like it hadn’t seen shampoo in some time. The guy kept pulling away from her, but she stayed with him. Suddenly he swung an elbow at her. Tozzi sat forward, worried that she’d been hit, but she seemed unfazed by the blow. Apparently it didn’t have much power behind it. The guy was just lashing out in annoyance. Cummings stayed with him and finished her check, then moved on. Tozzi nodded at the glass. She was doing all right.
She started checking a guy with no teeth who was leaning against the windowsill near Sal’s table. Sal was in his usual position, hunched over, staring at his hands. She’d have to check him next.
“Okay,” she said as she finished going through the toothless man’s hair.
The man wiggled his eyebrows up and down, and worked his gums. He scratched behind his ear like a dog with fleas as she turned away.
“You’re next,” she announced as she approached Immordino.
Sal turned his big head and looked up at her, like a hippo noticing that a bird had landed on his
back, neither annoyed nor particularly concerned. She took her comb and started picking through his scalp. He shook his head and jostled his shoulders. The hippo didn’t like being pecked at.
Cummings stepped back and put her fists on her hips. “Come on, now. This doesn’t hurt.” She went back into his scalp, and he shook his head violently to drive her away. She dropped the comb then.
Tozzi grinned. She was smart to wait for him to react like this. It looked like he had made her drop the comb. She was really doing all right.
Cummings stooped down to pick it up. It had landed under the table, which was perfect. If she had the bug ready between her fingers, she should have no problem sticking it up there. But just as she reached down for the comb, another hand reached for it, too, and got her hand instead.
“Hey, baby.”
It was that pain-in-the-ass guard, Charles Tate. What the hell was he doing here? He doesn’t work this shift.
The guard was hunkered down next to Cummings, and he wasn’t letting go of her hand. Her other hand was down at her side, closed tight. Charles was trying to take that one, too, but she wouldn’t unclench the fist or unbend her elbow. That was the hand with the bug. Shit.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I’ve got work to do here.” She stood up and he stood up with her. He had her by the wrist.
The free hand was balled into a fist against her hip. She was broadcasting that she was hiding something. Tozzi chewed on his upper lip, wondering if Sal had noticed. He couldn’t see Sal’s face because Cummings and the guard were in the way.
“Let go of my hand. Right now.” Her teeth were clenched, her nostrils were flaring, and she was way out of character. She sounded like Barnard now. The attitude was all wrong. She should’ve been cursing him out or belittling him, but not this. She was up on her high horse, and it was all wrong.
Charles was stroking her arm. “Why you so mean, sugar? All I want is for you to check my head, too.”
“Do you have head lice?”
“Don’ know. But my head sure itch.” Charles gyrated his hips, moving into hers. “Yeah, sugar, it sure itch for you.” He laughed, low and dirty. “Wanna check my head? Please?”
“Let go of me right now or—”
“Or what, sugar? What’s a sweet thing like you gonna do to me?” He went for her tit, grinding his palm into it.
When he mauled her breast, she automatically slapped his face with her free hand.
Tozzi’s heart jumped. She’d dropped the bug. He heard it hit the floor.
Jesus. Get outta there, Cummings. Just get outta there.
“Why you so mean to me, baby? Why you so mean?” He laughed and squeezed her tit hard. Tozzi could see from her face that he was hurting her.
Get the hell outta there.
But Charles wasn’t letting her go, and the other guard, the one who was supposed to be on duty in there, was nowhere to be seen. Tozzi stood up, ready to go out and rescue her, but his eye caught Sal sitting there, passively watching all this. Sal thought he was dead. That’s what they wanted him to think. Tozzi couldn’t run out and save Cummings, not with Sal there.
He glanced at the door. Where the fuck was Gibbons? He said he’d be right back.
“Stop!”
He turned back to the mirror. Cummings was struggling. Charles had his hips up against hers, pressing her against the table. Christ! It looked like he was gonna nail her right there.
Tozzi paced toward the door. Where the hell was Gibbons?
“I’m warning you, mister. Let go of me right this instant.” Her voice was strident. She was making things worse. Her high-and-mighty attitude was aggravating him. Tozzi could see it from the way he was gritting his teeth and squinting at her. He wanted to hurt her.
“I am warning you!”
“I’m real scared, sugar.” He nudged her back so that she was sitting on the table, her feet off the ground. “I’m all shriveled up to a little pea.”
Shit. The bastard was on top of her. He was gonna rape her.
Tozzi went for the door. To hell with Sal.
But just as he opened it, he heard Charles yell.
“Hey!”
Through the glass, Tozzi saw Charles with his hand over his eye, taking a knee in the nuts from Cummings. The way she was holding that comb it appeared that she’d either poked him in the eye or raked his face with it. He rolled off her and curled up on his side on top of the table, one hand on his face, the other on his groin. She stood up, squared her shoulders, and straightened her wig.
“Bitch!” Charles reached over to grab her and got her hand again.
Tozzi was ready to bolt, but Cummings thought fast, countergrabbing his wrist and pulling him off the table. He hit the floor right on his hip, yelping like a hound dog. “Shit!” His eyes were squeezed shut in pain.
Cummings glanced into the one-way mirror. She wasn’t sure what she should do now.
“Get outta there,” Tozzi breathed. “Come back!”
She was looking at the floor, looking for the bug.
Forget it! Just get out of there.
Charles was getting to his feet. Cummings hesitated only a moment before she turned and headed for the exit.
Tozzi was standing by the door when she came back in. “You all right?”
Cummings pulled the wig off, let out a long breath, and nodded. “I lost the bug, though. I blew it.”
“Don’t worry about it. You handled yourself very well out there. Forget about the bug.”
“But I didn’t plant it.” She plopped down into one of the folding chairs, looking around for Gibbons. “I blew it.”
“I’m telling you, don’t worry about it. Be thankful you didn’t get raped. You handled that jerk very well.”
She glared up at him. “You sound surprised. I got through Quantico, too, you know. I had the same basic training you had, so don’t patronize me.”
Tozzi held up his palm in apology. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply anything.”
The door opened and Gibbons came in, blowing his nose into a wad of toilet paper. “What happened?” He looked at Cummings. “You do it already?”
She shook her head and made a face. “I blew it. I dropped the bug.”
“What!”
“It wasn’t her fault, Gib. That guard, Charles Tate, showed up out of the blue and started coming on real strong to her. He had her on the table. It wasn’t her fault.”
Gibbons looked from Tozzi to Cummings and back again. “So where is it? Did you see where it went?”
Cummings motioned toward the one-way mirror. “It’s out there on the floor somewhere.”
Charles was hunched over in a chair near Sal, catching his breath. Sal hadn’t moved from his original position.
Tozzi nodded toward the tape recorder. “Turn it on. Maybe it rolled somewhere where they won’t see it. Maybe we can still pick up something.”
Tozzi turned down the volume on the wall speakers as Gibbons pulled out the headphone jack on the tape recorder so they could all hear through the main speaker on the unit. The hubbub of the ward came through the small machine. They were getting something.
They all furrowed their brows, listening closely, trying to figure out where the bug was. Then something came through very loud, a grating, scraping sound. It wasn’t static. They looked out at the ward through the glass, trying to figure out what the hell it was.
Loud crunching. The red light on the tape recorder sputtered, then went out. The sound went dead.
Cummings pointed at the glass. “Look at Immordino. His foot.”
Sal was twisting his shoe into the floor as if he were putting out a cigarette. He kept it up, grinding very slowly and deliberately for what seemed like a full minute. He lifted his head then and looked into the mirror. He stared right into it, right at them, as if he knew they were there watching him.
Tozzi shook his head. “Damn.”
Gibbons wiped his nos
e. “Crap.”
Cummings threw down the wig.
Gibbons looked at her. “You still think he’s crazy?”
She snatched up the wig from the floor and met his gaze. “I have no reason to believe otherwise. Crushing an electronic bug proves nothing.”
“Jesus! Do you hear this, Tozzi?”
But Tozzi wasn’t listening. He was standing in front of the glass, staring at Sal’s big dumb face, thinking about John and the blood all over Stacy’s seats, hearing the zipper.
His jaw was clenched tight.
Chapter 16
Sister Cil stood in the front parlor, scowling as she looked out the bay windows, glowering through the sheer curtains. She didn’t dare touch the curtains, much less part them. They’d take her picture if they saw her in the window, and she didn’t need that. She was going to be hearing from Archbishop Leahy’s office as it was—that, she could count on. She didn’t need having her picture taken. If those awful people out on the street managed to take her picture and the archbishop’s people saw it, it would only make matters worse.
She shook her head and followed her brother Sal with her eyes as he paced up and down the sidewalk out front, talking to his hands, shuffling his feet, throwing punches at the air, making those ridiculous boxing moves of his. If she had known it would be like this, she would never have checked her brother out of the hospital. There were at least a dozen men out there watching him. She assumed the two younger men wearing suits were from the FBI. The beefy fellow in the tight tweed sport jacket was probably from the state police. The others were dressed in jeans and light nylon jackets; they looked more common for a poor neighborhood like this, except that they were white, which meant they were probably police. Three of them had cameras, and one had a video camera. They were taking pictures of Sal as he paced and mumbled and acted like an idiot. It was disgraceful.
She’d asked her brother not to do this. She’d asked him not to come here at all. But he never listens to her. No matter what she says to him, Sal always does exactly what he wants. Now he was going to ruin the good name of the Mary Magdalene Home, connect it with all the unsavory things that were connected with him. Why in God’s name was he doing this? She’d asked him specifically not to go outside, not to draw any attention to this place. But did he listen?
5 Bad Moon Page 19
