Bad Business

by Anthony Bruno

  “So what’re you saying here? Giordano’s crazy because the mob is gonna put a contract out on him? What is this supposed to be, news?”

  “You don’ know how Mafia work. Not American punks, real Mafia from Sicily. Somebody like Giordano betray the Mafia, they become like terrorist. Many people get hurt, innocent people, not just one man. You understand what I say?”

  Gibbons bared his teeth. “You’re not trying to scare me, are you, Ugo?”

  Salamandra’s eyes bulged. “You should be scared.” Only crazy man not scared. If somebody make the phone call and tell Mafia where they can find Giordano, it would be like the whisper from God. Maybe they joost kill him, leave everybody else alone. These men, they get mad—madonna, they don’ care, they joost kill and kill and kill. You don’ know. Sicilian people very bad sometimes.”

  “You’re Sicilian.”

  “Yes, but I am no Mafia. Besides, I am innocent. I already tell you that.” Buddha was smiling from ear to ear.

  The beeper went off again. Gibbons didn’t even take it out of his pocket.

  “They must want you bad, Meester Effa-B-I.”

  “Guess they do.” Mind your fucking business, you fat asshole.

  Salamandra bent over and spoke to the dog in Italian again, tugging on the poor mutt’s leash. “We see you later, Meester Effa-B-I. My dog must do her business.” He waved good-bye the way the Italians do, backwards, curling his fingers into his palm, and they crossed the street to a concrete park where a few Chinese mothers were out freezing with their babies. Salamandra led the dog to a patch of dirt over by the iron-pipe swing sets. He made a pushing motion with his hands, and the dog hunkered down and started to take a dump. The greaseballs stood by and watched as if it were interesting. Looming in the background were the Tombs, the high-rise lockup where Salamandra would’ve been spending his days if he hadn’t made bail.

  The skinny photographer had taken up a position behind an iron-bar fence on the far side of the park. He was catching some great shots of the dog. Ought to get him a fucking Pulitzer prize. Asshole.

  — 9 —

  Tozzi stood in front of the elevators with his hands in his pockets, looking up at the numbers over the stainless-steel doors. Gibbons was standing next to him, grumbling because he didn’t get lunch.

  Gibbons hit the “up” button again. “So what’d you do now, goombah? You make a scene with Ms. Halloran at the restaurant?”

  “Me? I didn’t do a thing. Actually, it was going pretty well after you left. Lorraine was miffed, but Lesley was okay. She’s all right. I may have been wrong about her.” The bell rang and the elevator doors opened.

  Gibbons grumbled again as they got in. “Well, you must’ve done something. Why else would Ivers be calling us in at one-thirty in the afternoon on Christmas Eve?”

  Tozzi pressed “4.” “Why do you assume it was me who did something wrong? What about you? What’re you, Saint Joseph in the manger?”

  Gibbons grumbled something under his breath. The bell dinged again, and the elevator opened on the fourth floor. “C’mon. Let’s go. They’re waiting for us.” They stepped out of the elevator. “Augustine’s office is this way, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, I think so.” Tozzi took off his coat as they walked. “Why are we meeting here, anyway? What’s wrong with the field office? If Ivers is gonna chew me out, I don’t want it to be in front of Augustine.”

  “See? You just admitted it. You did do something wrong.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “You just said you didn’t want Augustine to hear Ivers chewing you out. If you’re assuming that Ivers is gonna give you a tongue-lashing, then you must’ve done something to deserve it. Right?”

  Tozzi gave him a dirty look as they walked. What he was wondering was whether they were gonna be reprimanded for having lunch with Lesley Halloran. McCleery must’ve run back to Augustine from the restaurant and given him an earful. They didn’t discuss the case, so there was no reason to be reprimanded. But as McCleery said, it was the appearance of impropriety. It’s too bad. They were sort of getting along at lunch. He wondered if he’d have to wait until the trial was over before he could ask her out. If he decided he wanted to ask her out, that is.

  They turned a corner and walked together down another long, brightly lit corridor. The division heads were all up in this wing, the U.S. Attorney in the big suite at the end of the hall. The big man and all his top honchos. They all had nice offices in this wing, as Tozzi remembered, nice paint on the walls, not the usual government-issue colors, antique furniture, wall-to-wall carpeting. They came up to the dark-stained double doors of Augustine’s office. His name and title were painted on the door in gold leaf. THOMAS W. AUGUSTINE III, ASSISTANT UNITED STATES ATTORNEY FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK, NARCOTICS DIVISION. Tozzi turned the heavy brass handle and opened the door.

  One of Augustine’s assistants was sitting at the secretary’s desk. He was just a kid, a year or two out of law school at most, but he had that I’m-in-control, prep-school look. Actually he looked like an Augustine-in-training.

  “They’re waiting for you,” the assistant said, nodding to the double doors on the other side of his desk. “Go on in.” He talked like Augustine, too, polite but slightly disdainful.

  Tozzi went in first. It was all shadows and foreboding in Augustine’s office. It was a gray day to begin with, but for some reason the curtains were drawn. Augustine was sitting behind his big lacquered desk in an island of light from his brass desk lamp. Their boss, Special Agent in Charge Brant Ivers, had been sitting in the stuffed chair opposite Augustine. He stood up quickly and faced them as they came in. He looked hot and bothered, like a boil ready to burst.

  “Well, at last.” The boss was oozing.

  Augustine kept his chin down, his fingers linked on top of the blotter, staring up at them from under his eyebrows. No hello, no bullshit pleasantry, nothing. It was very uncharacteristic for him. Something was definitely up.

  The lines around Ivers’s mouth deepened. “Well? You have nothing to say for yourselves? This must be a first.”

  Gibbons’s nostrils flared. “How about seasons greetings? You like that?”

  Tozzi covered his mouth to hide the grin.

  Ivers’s finger suddenly shot out at him like a switchblade. “You’re already up to your eyeballs in shit, mister. Don’t make it any worse.”

  Tozzi looked at his partner. Gibbons shrugged. What the hell was going on here? And why was Augustine looking at him like that?

  Gibbons shrugged his coat off and hung it over his arm. “You wanted to see us. They said it was urgent. Now we’re here. So just tell us what’s going on.”

  “You don’t know why you’re here?” Ivers’s sarcasm was out of character too. Something was very wrong.

  “You haven’t heard it on the news?” Augustine asked. He was much calmer but very grave.

  Tozzi threw his coat down on the couch. “Heard what? Whatta we, playing games here? What’s on your mind? Just say it.”

  “Where have you been all day? Both of you.”

  “We were off this morning. It is Christmas Eve.”

  Ivers raised his voice. “No lip, Tozzi. Just account for your time.”

  Tozzi glared at him. “I spent most of the morning on the phone trying to find a priest who would do my uncle’s funeral service.”

  “That took all morning?”

  “Two, three hours. My uncle didn’t belong to a parish, so nobody wanted to do it. I finally found a wizard at some little parish up in Jersey City Heights who said he’d do it for a ‘suggested donation.’ Five hundred dollars! Five bills just to sprinkle some holy water, burn a little incense, and say a few prayers. It’s extortion is what it is.”

  Gibbons looked at him. “Five hundred bucks? You really gonna pay that?”

  Tozzi shrugged. “I’ve got no choice. Unless you wanna do it.”

  “Quiet! Then where were you?”

  “I me
t Gibbons for lunch here in the city. With my cousin Lorraine.” He stopped and considered not telling him, then remembered McCleery. “And Lesley Halloran.”

  Ivers was red and angry. “What about you, Gibbons? Where were you?”

  “I left the house around nine, came into the city, and went Christmas shopping at Macy’s.”

  “With your wife?”

  “We drove in together and she dropped me off on Thirty-fourth Street. She’s the one I was buying the present for.”

  “Was anyone else with you? Did you go see anyone during that time? Anyone who can vouch for your time?”

  “Hey, what the fuck is this, Ivers? If you’re accusing us of something, just say so.”

  Ivers looked over at Augustine before he spoke. Augustine nodded, and he proceeded. “I want you to know that I’ve been trying very hard to save your asses.” He glared at Tozzi. “Though I don’t know why the hell I should even bother.”

  Augustine sat back in his chair and stared up at them. “It’s been all over the news. We thought you might’ve heard.” He let out a long sigh. “There was a massacre at your uncle’s house this morning, Tozzi. Vincent Giordano was killed. So was Marty Bloom.”

  “Santiago and Cooney too.” Ivers was suddenly subdued.

  A chill ran up Tozzi’s spine. “Oh, Jesus.” His first thought was Santiago’s wife and the baby she was carrying.

  Gibbons was squinting, sitting on his rage. “How?”

  “Multiple gunshot wounds,” Ivers said. “Some kind of automatic weapon. Nine millimeter. Ballistics is working on it.”

  “Who?”

  Ivers gave him a testy look. “Someone sent by Salamandra would seem to be the obvious choice. Wouldn’t you say?”

  “So why are you busting our balls about where we’ve been all day? You think we did it?”

  Augustine handed Tozzi a copy of that day’s Tribune. “It starts on page four.”

  Tozzi took the paper, puzzled. It was too soon for the killings to make the papers. He turned to the page. The headline was circled in red. FIGARO LAWYERS DEMAND MISTRIAL. The byline was Mark Moscowitz, the black-leather rat from the courtroom.

  Tozzi scanned the article. Gibbons read over his shoulder. There was nothing unusual about the piece, just a rundown of what had happened yesterday in court. The article continued on page thirty-nine. Tozzi flipped through the paper and found the page. His eye went straight to the last paragraph, the parts underlined in red.

  . . . The government’s frustration with the snail’s pace of the trial was best summed up by FBI agent Michael Tozzi, one of dozens of government witnesses waiting to take the stand. Agent Tozzi said that if it were up to him he would “put a contract out on all eighteen defendants and their scumbag lawyers. Just rub them all out . . . I wouldn’t mind doing a few myself,” he added.

  The Figaro Connection trial is scheduled to resume on January 2.

  Tozzi threw down the paper. “So what the hell is this? You’re saying I slaughtered everybody at the house because this rat Moscowitz claims I said I wanted to. You really think I’m capable of killing another agent, two agents. Huh, Ivers? Is that what you think?”

  “Is that an accurate quote?” Ivers asked.

  “Yeah, I did say this, but it’s all out of context. It was just an offhand remark. It was obvious that I wasn’t serious.” He looked at Augustine. “I said it to you, for chrissake. You knew I was kidding.”

  Augustine just stared at him, no expression. The Assistant United States Attorney wasn’t going to commit himself.

  Tozzi was ready to explode. He wanted to hit someone, preferably Augustine. “Well, somebody say something, goddammit. Are you accusing me of murder or what?”

  “No, we’re not accusing you of murder,” Ivers said sternly. “But it’s the appearance of guilt that concerns us. You’ve been warned before about shooting your mouth off, Tozzi. Innumerable times. What you said in court was stupid and irresponsible.”

  “It’s worse than that.” Augustine rocked back and forth in his chair, his head pressed against the seatback. His body was so stiff and lifeless he looked like a paraplegic. “It’s much worse. It’s damaging, very damaging.”

  “How is it damaging?”

  “The defense attorneys have already filed new mistrial motions. They’ve demanded an immediate meeting with Judge Morgenroth. We’ll be meeting in his chambers in a half hour. They’re screaming bloody murder that they and their clients are in mortal danger, and they’re telling anyone who’ll listen, including the media. Now, thanks to your quote in the paper, they’re probably going to charge the government with conspiracy. They could very well get their mistrial.” Augustine kept rocking, ever so slightly, stiff as a corpse.

  Gibbons shook his head. “Morgenroth has more balls than that. He won’t cave in to a bunch of crybabies. Believe me, I’ve seen how he works. He will not shitcan a trial just because of a newspaper article.”

  Augustine’s eyes shot over toward Gibbons. “I beg to differ. The way to a mistrial is clear now. The defense lawyers could ask for a judicial review if he refuses them. Some of those attorneys are respected members of the bar, and many of them wield a fair amount of power. There’s also the matter of the universal fondness the legal community has for Marty Bloom. That’s a powerful factor. True, Morgenroth is tough, but he’s getting old. I happen to know that he plans to retire soon. No jurist wants to end his career on the sour note of an official reprimand.”

  Tozzi rubbed his face in frustration. “So what’re you saying? The whole thing’s lost?”

  Augustine shook his head. “I’m not about to let this case go down the drain that easily. I’ve worked too hard on it. We all have. And an awful lot of the taxpayers’ money has been spent on this thing.” His eyes pointed to Ivers. “Brant and I have reviewed our options. We believe there’s a way to salvage this.”

  Ivers leaned on the edge of the desk and took his cue. “You’ll have to be treated as any other suspect would in a murder investigation, Tozzi. No special privilege because you’re a federal agent. To avoid the appearance of a conspiracy, the FBI will stay out of the investigation entirely. A special investigator will be appointed to work with the police authorities in New Jersey.”

  Tozzi’s back was up. “A special investigator appointed by who?”

  “Us.” Augustine was sitting up straight now, back from the dead.

  “Who’s ‘us’?”

  “The U.S. Attorney’s office. I’ve discussed it with Bob.” Augustine nodded to his right, the direction of his boss’s office down the hall. “I’ll hold a press conference to announce the appointment. We’ll wait until the day after tomorrow to ensure maximum coverage, since the television stations seem to shun hard news on the holidays. We’ll show them that we’re on top of this and that the Bureau will have no hand in it.”

  “Hold on, hold on.” Tozzi clawed his tie loose. He was having a hard time breathing. There wasn’t enough air in the room. “This sounds like a lot of crap to me. It’s obvious that I’m innocent. Why do you have to stage a witch-hunt? For the press? Fuck ‘em.”

  Ivers tugged on the tails of his vest. “We’re not doing this for the press or the public. We’re doing it for the defense attorneys. We cannot give them the ammunition they need to get a mistrial. It may seem like crap to you, Tozzi, but it’s necessary for the survival of this trial.”

  “Also,” Augustine added, “keep in mind that legally our opinion of your guilt or innocence is beside the point. The murders took place in New Jersey, and the police over there will consider you a suspect until the evidence clears you. Most likely they’ll even consider you a suspect, Gibbons. After all, you both had access to the house.”

  “Although the back door was apparently broken in,” Ivers pointed out quickly, looking at Augustine. “That should weigh in their favor.”

  Augustine frowned and sighed. “It could’ve been deliberately broken to make it look like a forced entry. Presumably Cooney and Santia
go would have prevented an intruder from entering. I would guess that they’re working on the premise that the killer or killers were known to Cooney and Santiago and therefore admitted without a thorough body search. The back door was forced open after the crime was committed.”

  “So we’re both under investigation? Is that it?” Tozzi wanted to crack both their heads together, he was so mad.

  “No, not by us,” Augustine said. “Our investigation here will focus on you, Tozzi. Because of the quote.” He looked down at the newspaper on the floor and frowned. Headmaster Augustine. The prick.

  “So who’s this special investigator?” Tozzi asked. “I wanna meet him so we can get this over with as soon as possible.”

  Augustine leaned forward and buzzed his intercom, his eyes on Tozzi the whole time. “Has he arrived yet, Franklin?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Send him in.”

  Tozzi turned his head and watched the door. The polished brass handle flipped up and the door opened. Tozzi nearly shit his pants when he saw those sparkling, smiling eyes looking at him. Jimmy McCleery. Who else? Fuck.

  “Good afternoon, gentlemen.” McCleery tilted his head and looked around the room.

  “I think you’re all well acquainted,” Augustine said. “Jimmy, we’ve just briefed Tozzi and Gibbons on what’s going to happen.”

  “Good.” McCleery was staring at Gibbons, that little leprechaun grin playing over his lips. “And I trust you’ve explained to these boy-os about my independence in this investigation.”

  “Oh, yes. I’m glad you reminded me, Jimmy.” Augustine laid his forearms on the blotter and linked his fingers again. “The United States Attorney insisted that the special investigator be totally independent, answerable only to him. Therefore, Jimmy is empowered to follow this investigation anywhere it leads him.”

  Gibbons exploded. “Hey, who’s kidding who here? If this is all being done for ‘appearances,’ what the hell are you giving this fucking incompetent real teeth for? Jesus, Ivers, you know this guy’s history. McCleery with responsibility? With independence? With real power? You gotta be kidding.”