Bad Business

by Anthony Bruno

  Ivers looked at the floor.

  Augustine ignored the outburst. “Is there anything you’d like to say, Jimmy?”

  McCleery looked down and frowned, then slowly raised his head, grinning. “Well, I would like to make a small suggestion to my old boss Mr. Ivers, here.”

  Ivers perked up. “Yes?”

  “I suggest that Tozzi be suspended from active duty, pending the results of my investigation.”

  “Bullshit!” Tozzi was on his feet. “You can’t suspend me. You’ve got no evidence against me.”

  No one had to say anything. All eyes were on the rumpled pages of the Tribune on the floor.

  Gibbons broke the silence. “What about me, McCleery?” he yelled. “You want me suspended too?”

  McCleery shook his head and chuckled. “No, no, no. It’s a noble gesture, supporting your partner like that, Cuthbert, but you didn’t shoot your mouth off to the press. He did.”

  Tozzi was seeing red. He wanted to tear McCleery’s head off and make Augustine eat it, but he kept a cork on it and controlled himself. Things were bad enough.

  Ivers fussed with his tie. He looked uncomfortable with the whole situation. He glanced at Augustine as if he were asking for some leniency in this matter, but the writing was on the wall. The special investigator had spoken. McCleery wanted him suspended and that’s the way it was going to be. But from the look on Ivers’s face, he seemed to think McCleery was an asshole too. Either that or he just didn’t like taking orders from one of Augustine’s flunkies.

  “Let me have your gun and your I.D., Tozzi.” Ivers’s voice was low. “Let’s just hope this is over with quickly.”

  Tozzi was glaring at Augustine as he yanked off the belt-clip holster and handed his .357 to Ivers. He pulled out his I.D. and slapped it into the assistant director’s palm.

  McCleery grinned and nodded. He seemed quite pleased with himself, the ass-licking bastard.

  Augustine leaned into the intercom again. “Have those briefs arrived, Franklin?”

  “They’re right here, sir.”

  “Thank you.” Augustine stood up and tugged on his shirt cuffs. “I’m truly sorry for this turn of events, gentlemen, but they could have been avoided.” His eyes were suddenly piercing. He was looking at Tozzi. “You’ll have to excuse me now. Judge Morgenroth doesn’t like tardiness.” He moved around the desk and strode across the room. “Merry Christmas, gentlemen,” he said as he went through the door.

  Tozzi watched him stop to pick up a thick folder from his assistant’s desk as he passed through the outer office and disappeared into the hallway.

  Yeah . . . and to all a good night. Asshole.

  — 10 —

  Tozzi unlocked the door to his apartment in Hoboken and went right into the living room without turning on any lights. He looked out the front windows and scanned the row of tenements across the street. There were blinking Christmas lights in a lot of the windows, white pin lights, red lights, green lights, multicolor lights. On one of the stoops, someone had put out a three-foot-high Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, one of those hollow plastic things that have a light bulb burning inside. This one had a second bulb on the nose. The new “special investigator” was down there on the sidewalk in front of that stoop, staring up at Tozzi’s building, his breath coming out as steamy vapor tinged red by Rudolph’s nose. Fucking McCleery.

  It was almost silent in the apartment. Silent night. Tozzi could just barely hear music playing somewhere in the building. He listened. “Jingle Bell Rock.” He stood there in his coat in the dark, padded in Christmas Eve silence, watching the blinking lights below, straining to hear that far-off song competing with the sound of his own breathing.

  Damn.

  He reached for the string to let down the blinds, then suddenly stopped himself. He had nothing to hide. He never closed the blinds in this room before—why start now? That’s just the kind of thing McCleery would be looking for, suspicious behavior. Tozzi took off his coat and threw it on a chair. Christ, he’d been second-guessing every move he made ever since he left Augustine’s office and realized that McCleery was tailing him. Augustine’s little kiss-ass lapdog. Gibbons was right on the mark about him.

  Tozzi went into the bedroom and took off his jacket and tie. He picked up the remote control, switched on the TV, and started searching for something good. All he could find were Christmas cartoon specials and old Christmas movies he’d seen a million times before. He kept clicking the remote and found an old episode of Hill Street Blues, the one where Belker dresses up in a Santa Claus outfit. Tozzi clicked to the next station. He wasn’t in the mood for a cop show, especially one he’d seen before. He kept clicking, then suddenly stopped when something strange came on the screen. Fire. “The Little Drummer Boy” was playing, but there was a fire on the screen. It took him a moment to figure out that this was the yule log. He watched it for a minute.

  When he was a little kid, his mother used to leave this on on Christmas Eve. He always pissed and moaned because he wanted to watch something else, but she always insisted on having the yule log. She said it was peaceful. A wave of sadness washed over him and carried him away on a tide of nameless longing. He suddenly felt very bad and wished he hadn’t given his mother such a hard time about it. He’d always gotten to watch whatever he wanted every other night. All she wanted was one peaceful night a year. It wasn’t much to ask. He sighed deeply. Things were simpler then. People didn’t follow you home and watch your windows back then. Not that he knew of. He stared at the fire licking the logs. Pah-rum-pah-bum-bum . . .

  He went back into the living room and looked out the window again. McCleery was still there, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He must be cold standing out there. Good. Let him freeze.

  “We’re supposed to be on the same side, McCleery,” he murmured. “You forget that? Your boss too. Did he forget? Huh?”

  Tozzi watched McCleery’s vaporous breath trailing away in the cold air and wondered why Augustine was busting his balls this way. All right, what he’d said in court was out of line, and it was unfortunate that Moscowitz was around to hear it, but come on, no one—not even the defense lawyers—could seriously believe that he was the killer. He had no motive. Not really. They could say it was a vigilante killing, but who’s gonna believe that? How could he stand to kill Santiago and Cooney, his fellow agents, even if it was a vigilante killing? And who in his right mind was gonna believe that he was part of a government conspiracy? Come on. That’s the kind of crap you see in the movies. It wasn’t serious.

  Yeah, but Augustine is taking it seriously.

  Tozzi rubbed his forearms and pressed his elbows into his gut. He was freezing. His teeth started to chatter.

  Shit. This was bad. This was real bad. And what made it worse was that there was no one to blame except himself. When was he gonna learn to keep his mouth shut? When?

  He stared down at McCleery and thought of Augustine. What the hell did Augustine care what happened to him? All that bastard cares about is winning Figaro and running for mayor next fall. That’s all. Christ, he’s a lawyer, isn’t he? Goddamn lawyers. They’re all alike. Fucking bloodsuckers.

  Tozzi went into the kitchen, hit the wall switch, and opened the refrigerator. There wasn’t much in there. He grabbed the last bottle of Rolling Rock and twisted the cap as he looked for something to eat. He hunkered down and checked the drawers. He found a bag of carrots in with all the old onion skins he should’ve cleaned out a long time ago. He took out the carrots and tossed them on the counter, took a swig of beer, and opened the counter drawer where the carrot scraper lived. He rummaged around through big wooden spoons, spatulas, the carving knives he never used, but he couldn’t find the goddamn carrot scraper. Shit. He tilted his head back and took another swig. That’s when he spotted the tin on top of the refrigerator, the cookie tin Lorraine had brought the other day with her Christmas butter cookies.

  He forgot about the carrots and pulled down the tin, s
at down at the kitchen table, and pried off the lid. He found a plain one with a walnut stuck in the middle and tossed it into his mouth, chewed, and washed it down with beer. He found another one just like it and ate that one just as fast. He picked through the tin. The walnut ones seemed to be all gone, so he took a plain one with a sliver of maraschino cherry in the middle. It was just a little sliver, just for decoration. Not enough red dye to kill him. He threw it in his mouth, chewed a little, washed it down with another swig, but he hadn’t chewed enough because it got stuck in his throat and he started to cough. His eyes watered and he drank more beer to get it to go down.

  He stretched his legs out under the table, tucked his chin in, and took another sip, staring at the cookies, the bells with the red sprinkles, the trees with the green sprinkles. He remembered eating them the day Lorraine came over, the day she told him about Uncle Pete, the day Lesley Halloran showed up.

  She said she’d gotten his address from his cousin Sal in Newark.

  In fact, she did. He’d called Sal to check her story. But why did she go out of her way to get his address from Sal? To renew an old acquaintance. What acquaintance? She’d hated his guts back then.

  Tozzi sat up and stared into space. Logically if anyone was trying to frame him, it would be one of the wiseguys on trial, one of the Figaro defendants. Do the hit and make it look like an FBI agent did it. Screw a fed and get a mistrial. Of course.

  Lesley Halloran’s sudden burst of friendliness had seemed awfully suspicious when she’d shown up unannounced the other day. Now it was beginning to stink. Of all the Figaro defendants, logically who would be the one to order a major hit and a frame-up like this? Who else? Salamandra, the boss.

  And who was Salamandra’s lawyer?

  Little Lesley Halloran.

  The little bitch.

  He took another sip and let it trickle down his throat. He didn’t want to believe it, not after he’d changed his mind about her today at the restaurant, but it wasn’t impossible. Son of a bitch.

  Tozzi got up and ran back into the living room. McCleery was still standing out there, freezing his ass off with Rudolph. Stupid asshole.

  He ran back into the kitchen, shut off the lights, and looked out the back window. No one had fixed that hole in the chain-link fence, the place where the kids crawled through. There was an alley between the buildings on the other side. He could go through the basement, leave his car on the street, and take the PATH train into Manhattan. Gibbons was right. McCleery’s a fucking incompetent. He’ll stand there all night, watching the front door, keeping his eye on Tozzi’s car.

  He rushed back into the bedroom, grabbed his jacket, and shut off the yule log on TV. He’d confront her, threaten her if he had to. Tell her that lawyer-client privilege wouldn’t cover her ass if she was sitting on knowledge that could prevent a wrongful prosecution. Spread it on thick, bully her. He had to know for sure if she was dirty.

  As he put on his coat and reached in the pocket for his keys, he looked at the telephone books stacked on the counter by the phone in the kitchen. The Manhattan White Pages was the thickest book on the pile. 317 East Eleventh. He’d looked it up the other day, just out of curiosity. She was listed in the book. L. HALLORAN, 317 EAST 11TH ST.

  If she knew anything, anything at all that could help him, he’d get her to tell him. No matter how he had to do it, he’d make her tell him. But as he opened the door and locked it behind him, deep down he hoped that she didn’t know a thing. He hoped she had nothing to do with all this and that she’d be totally useless in vindicating him. He wanted to believe she was all right. He wanted to believe that maybe she thought he was all right after all these years. Most of all, he didn’t want to be disappointed by another woman. He didn’t want that at all.

  He pulled the key out of the lock and headed downstairs to the basement.

  “You know, you’ve got a hell of a lot of nerve coming here on Christmas Eve and accusing me like this, Michael. This is harassment.”

  The chain on the apartment door crossed her face. He could see through the opening that she had her robe on. It was pink but not very sexy.

  “Not in the hallway. Let me in. I have to talk to you.” He tried to sound bored on the verge of getting very annoyed, typical cop attitude. He was determined to get the truth out of her.

  She glared at him, sizing him up, then the door suddenly closed. He was about to pound on it when he heard the chain sliding off. The door swung open. She looked pissed as shit. Tozzi looked down and saw her feet. She was wearing fuzzy pink slippers—worn, grimy housewife slippers. He almost laughed. Hoity-toity Lesley Halloran with her fists jammed into the pockets of an old pink terry-cloth bathrobe, ratty pink slippers on her feet.

  “What’s so important, Michael? What do you want?”

  Tozzi stuck his hands in his pants pockets and tilted his head back. “What do you want? That’s what I want to know.”

  Her eyes were hot, and her chest was heaving. “When are you going to grow up, Michael? Why don’t you go home and make yourself some hot chocolate? And don’t forget the marshmallows.”

  He didn’t respond right away, just stared at her with no expression. He wanted to make her nervous. “All of a sudden you’ve been going out of your way to chase me down, counselor. Why?”

  “I have not been chasing you down.”

  “You went all the way out to Newark to sweet-talk my cousin Sal into giving you my address, then surprise, surprise you came over to my house one night, then you invited me to lunch—that’s not chasing me down? You never said two words to me before this. Why, after all these years, am I so interesting?”

  “Who ever said you were interesting?”

  Tozzi pressed his fist into his gut. “I’ve got this bad feeling right here in the pit of my stomach, and I don’t like it. You know why I got this feeling? Because somebody’s trying to frame me for murder, and I think that somebody is your client Mr. Salamandra. Two days ago you showed up at my place out of the blue. What were you, checking me out? Doing a little reconnaisance for the Zips?”

  She just stared at him in disbelief. Her chest was still heaving, though, which meant he was getting her rattled. Good. He had to scare her a little, see if he could read her face.

  “You’re a mental case, Michael. Do you know that? How could you even suggest such a thing? How do I know you didn’t—?”

  “Mommy?”

  They both turned at once. A little girl was standing in the hallway on the other side of the living room. Her blond hair was long and tousled, and she was rubbing her eyes with her fist. She was wearing a long, red-plaid flannel nightgown, clutching a little stuffed skunk to her chest. Tozzi glanced at Lesley and noticed that her face had changed. Her eyes were anxious. Was she always this alarmed when her daughter got up in the middle of the night?

  “Patricia, what are you doing up?” Lesley went over to her daughter and gave her a hug.

  The little girl stared at Tozzi with wide blue eyes. They were just like her mother’s. “Is that Santa Claus, Mommy?”

  “No, honey, that’s not Santa Claus.” Lesley wasn’t looking at him.

  “Did he come yet?”

  “No, not yet.”

  Tozzi smiled to reassure the kid that he was all right. Now he felt awful, waking the kid up on Christmas Eve like this. “I’m one of Santa’s helpers,” he said, catching Lesley’s eye. “I scout things out for Santa before he comes, check the chimneys to make sure they’re big enough.”

  Lesley threw him the dirtiest look he’d ever seen. “Come on, honey. Let’s get back in bed. You know what I said about Santa not coming if he knows you’re still awake.”

  Lesley led her daughter back down the hallway. Tozzi could hear the kid asking questions about who that man really was. Was he really Santa’s helper?

  After they were gone, Tozzi stepped into the room and checked the place out. A small Christmas tree stood in the corner, red balls and white lights, nice but not much character. Ther
e were no presents underneath it yet. She was probably waiting to bring out the presents, figuring the kid would be up a few times before she finally fell asleep. His mother always hid the presents until Christmas Eve. Even when he was older, he could never figure out where the hell she hid them. Their house wasn’t that big.

  Lesley’s furniture was all clean lines and practicality, natural wood and black lacquer, Workbench kind of stuff. Nothing gaudy or extravagant. He leaned on the back of the couch in the middle of the room and studied the oil paintings on the walls. They were all by the same artist, he guessed, because they all had a similar style, vague shapes surrounded by hazy colors coming out of the gloom, like extraterrestrials caught in your headlights on a foggy night. They could’ve been originals she’d picked up at a fancy-schmancy Soho gallery for fifty grand apiece, or they could’ve been motel art from a Holiday Inn weekend sale in Manhasset. He had no idea. Art was something he knew absolutely nothing about. Of course, collecting fine art might be something she’d do if she suddenly came into a lot of cash from a client rolling in drug money. It was exactly the kind of thing Lesley Halloran would do. Because it was classy.

  Tozzi got up and went toward one of the paintings. He didn’t care about the picture; he wanted to see the wall behind it, see if the paint had faded, see how long the painting had been there. He wanted to know if it was a recent purchase. But just as he was reaching out to move the frame over, Lesley came back. She emerged from the shadows in the hallway in her pink bathrobe like one of the shapes in these paintings. There was fear in her eyes. But there was something else with it. Fear mixed with determination. It was then that Tozzi noticed that her hands weren’t in her pockets anymore. She was holding a gun.

  He dropped his arm to his side. “What’re you gonna do with that?”

  “Whatever I have to,” she said. “I’m not taking any chances. What’re you really doing here, Michael? Have you come to kill me the way you killed Marty Bloom and the others?” Her hand was trembling. So were her lips. She was scared shitless, which meant she could start firing without much provocation.