Bad Business

by Anthony Bruno

  “Stop!”

  But the little bastard didn’t listen. Why should he?

  If I had my gun, he’d listen.

  Tozzi stood up and stumbled forward to go after him, but his head started to spin and his legs were wobbly. He caught himself on the door frame, straining to see straight. The little bastard was getting away. Again Tozzi yelled for him to stop, not because he thought it would do any good, but because he felt he had to do something, that maybe someone would hear and tackle the guy as he ran off. Woozy, he stepped out into the cold air and reached for the wrought-iron railing. Putting his weight on it, he started to go down the steps, but he stumbled again and started to fall. He caught himself on the railing, his legs tangled up underneath him.

  Shit. The bastard was gone by now. Shit!

  Dizzy, his head throbbing, he hauled himself back inside. He could see a little better now because his eyes had been tearing so much. He got himself to the bathroom and stuck his head under the bathtub faucet, dousing his face with water. He felt a cold draft from the wide-open window. Must be where the bastard had come in. He must’ve been quiet. Lorraine probably didn’t hear him.

  Lorraine!

  Tozzi rushed out of the bathroom, leaving the water running.

  “Lorraine!”

  He saw her legs on the floor through the kitchen doorway. He ran to her. She was on her back, her hands bound together under her, a towel tied over her mouth. The towel was wet; so was her hair. She was squinting and blinking. Then he noticed the Clorox jug on the floor beside her.

  Jesus Christ.

  He fell to his knees and pulled the gag down around her neck, then jumped back up and grabbed the teapot on the stove, filled it at the sink, and dumped water on her face. The metal lid hit the floor and rolled into the refrigerator. He raced back to get more water.

  “Michael, stop.” She coughed and turned her face to the side. “Untie me.”

  He dropped the teapot in the sink and went to untie the cord around her wrists. “Lorraine! Your eyes! Can you see anything? C’mon, we’re going to the hospital.”

  She coughed and shook her head. “I’m okay, I’m okay.”

  “But, but—How could you be?”

  They were both staring at the Clorox jug.

  “Leave it to Uncle Pete,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  Her wrists free, she picked up the white plastic jug and sniffed the spout. She held it out to him. “Smell.”

  Tozzi sniffed, made a face, and recoiled from the jug.

  “You remember that awful white wine he used to make in the bathtub.”

  Tozzi nodded, his eyes tearing again.

  “Leave it to Uncle Pete to put it in bleach bottles.” She seemed more upset with Uncle Pete’s disorder than with the bastard who’d tried to blind her.

  “Who was that guy? Did you get a look at him?”

  Lorraine got to her feet, nodding her head. “Short, dark, and ugly. He looked like Rumpelstiltskin.” She turned on the water at the sink, cupped her hands, and splashed her face.

  Tozzi tapped the jug on the floor with his foot. “I didn’t see anything at all. He threw something in my eyes.” He rubbed the back of his head and happened to notice the box of salt down the hall. It was over on its side on the rug.

  The rug.

  He suddenly remembered what Gibbons had called about. He’d thought Gibbons was crazy when he said it, but now . . . He opened a counter drawer, pulled out a steak knife, and headed down the hallway.

  In the parlor, he flipped over a corner of the rug and jabbed the knife into the canvas backing. He sawed two incisions and made a right-angle flap, then peeling back the flap, he saw gray plastic, quilted in squares. Each one was about two, three inches square. He tried to dig the point of the knife into one of the squares, but the plastic was surprisingly tough and it took some doing to pierce it. When he finally broke through and pulled the blade back out again, there was a residue of white powder on the tip.

  Lorraine was standing over his shoulder. “What is it, Michael?”

  “Wanna guess?” He touched the tip of his pinkie to the end of the knife and rubbed his gums. The reaction was almost instantaneous. Better than novocaine. “Heroin,” he said. “Uncut, I’d say. That’s what Gibbons had called about. He had a hunch about this rug. It was a good hunch.”

  “What’re you going to do?”

  “Call the field office and turn it in, of course.”

  “Is that really a good idea, Michael? I mean, they’re investigating you for the murders. How will it look if you show up with heroin?”

  He thought about it for a moment. She had a point. It would look pretty incriminating. At least that’s the way McCleery and Augustine would see it. “Maybe I should hang on to it for a while? Since I’m out here on my own now, it could come in handy. As a bargaining chip maybe.”

  “But you can’t do that. Can you?”

  He looked up at her. “Who’s gonna know? Unless you tell on me.”

  “Of course I won’t tell on you, but hanging on to this stuff is very risky. Look at what just happened. Don’t you assume that man was here to get the rug?”

  “Probably. One of Salamandra’s people, no doubt.”

  “If you keep it, they’ll just come after it again. They’ll kill you for it.”

  “Not if I hide it well enough.”

  “It’s too dangerous, Michael. Maybe you should turn it in. I’ll vouch for you. I’ll tell them about the man who broke in. They’ll believe me.”

  “Listen, Lorraine, as far as you’re concerned, you don’t know anything. Not a thing.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”

  Not really, but she doesn’t need to know that.

  He stood up and cleared off the broken pieces of the lamp so he could roll up the rug. “Lorraine, I need some tape to patch the hole. I think there’s some duct tape in one of the kitchen drawers. Get it for me, would you?”

  She came back with the tape and he patched the flap he’d made, then laid the rug flat so he could roll it up.

  Just then the cop who was supposed to be guarding the crime scene walked in. “Why’s this door open?” he asked grimly.

  “Airing the place out,” Lorraine said, not missing a beat. “Is that all right?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  She shrugged. “Then close it.”

  “Where’d you go?” Tozzi asked.

  “Someone reported a B and E around the corner. False alarm.” He shut the door and locked it, then climbed the staircase and went back to his post.

  Tozzi and Lorraine went back into the kitchen.

  “Michael,” she whispered, “I don’t like this.”

  “You don’t know anything, Lorraine. Just forget about it.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Talk to Gibbons. See what he thinks. But not over the phone.”

  She gripped his hand and looked into his face. “Please, Michael. Do me one favor.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t tell Gibbons anything about what happened here. About that man tying me up and trying to blind me.”

  Tozzi shrugged. “If you don’t want me to.”

  “Don’t tell him anything. Please. He’ll be insane.”

  Tozzi nodded. “You’re probably right.” He picked up the Clorox bottle and put it in the sink. There were puddles of wine on the old green linoleum. He looked down the hallway at the edge of the rug peeking out of the front parlor, wondering how the hell it got here.

  He rubbed the back of his head where he’d been hit with the lamp.

  And where in the hell am I gonna put it?

  — 14 —

  “Excuse me. I’ll be right with you,” Ivers said.

  Gibbons nodded and took a seat on the other side of Ivers’s desk. He didn’t want to be here. He started bouncing his knee as he watched Ivers’s secretary, the scared little rabbit with the incur
able flaking-mascara problem, dutifully standing over the assistant director in charge as he signed the stack of letters she’d just brought in.

  The pink message slip in his side pocket was burning a hole in there. Tozzi had called while he was away from his desk and left a message. All it said was “You were right.” Gibbons assumed that Tozzi had checked that rug and found dope in it. But what did he do with it? Gibbons was about to go out to lunch and call his partner from a pay phone to get the details, but Ivers’s secretary called as he was going out the door and said the boss wanted to see him right away. He wondered if Ivers knew about the rug. That cop posted at the house must’ve seen Tozzi fiddling with it. Maybe he informed McCleery, and McCleery told Augustine, and Augustine called Ivers. It was possible. But were they gonna make things worse for Tozzi because he found the dope? Was Ivers gonna be clever and play dumb, wait to see if he said anything about the rug, then spring it on him that he knows all about it? Gibbons was gonna have to be careful.

  Ivers handed the letters back to his secretary, who took them and promptly left his office without lifting her eyes. The boss linked his fingers on top of the desk and looked at Gibbons over his half-glasses. He waited for the door to close before he spoke. “Something has been bothering me, Gibbons. That’s why I called you in here.”

  Gibbons was already suspicious of Ivers’s fireside-chat tone. It sounded like a setup.

  “I just want you to know,” he continued, “that in my heart I believe that Tozzi is innocent. I want you to know that.”

  Gibbons narrowed his eyes. Who the hell was he kidding? This had to be a setup. When a known asshole isn’t being an asshole, something’s got to be up.

  “Why do you look so surprised, Gibbons?”

  “Well, I . . . I mean, after the meeting at Tom Augustine’s office, I just assumed—”

  “Assumed what? That I was on the bandwagon to hang Tozzi?”

  Gibbons was bouncing his knee. He stopped and crossed his legs. “Well, Christ, you did suspend him.”

  “I had no choice. He’s under criminal investigation. That’s policy.”

  “But you don’t think he’s the killer?”

  Ivers took off his glasses and shook his head. “He had no motive.”

  No? How about a rug full of heroin? How’s that for a motive?

  “What about the quote in the paper?” Gibbons asked. “Tozzi did say that he thought all the Figaro defendants and their lawyers should eat some lead. Aren’t the investigators saying that showed intention?”

  “You go find me a cop or a fed who doesn’t hate mob defendants and criminal lawyers. I share those feelings. That’s not a motive for murder.”

  Gibbons was suspicious. Ivers had never been so reasonable, certainly not when it concerned Tozzi. “So if you don’t think Tozzi’s guilty, why don’t you throw your weight around and intervene for him?”

  “I’ve been trying to, but the U.S. Attorney’s office is stone-walling me. They won’t even discuss the issue with me. They keep saying that because Tozzi is a special agent, the Bureau can’t have any part in this.”

  Ivers looked genuinely disgruntled. Gibbons wanted to believe the asshole was being sincere, but taking for the underdog had never been part of Ivers’s repertoire in the past.

  Gibbons glanced out the window behind Ivers. It was a panoramic view of Federal Plaza and Foley Square beyond. “But why are they making such a big stink about it? It’s obvious that it was a mob hit to silence Giordano. No one really believes that Tozzi did it.”

  Ivers took off his glasses. “That’s not really the point anymore. The remaining defense attorneys are screaming bloody murder, saying that both they and their clients are in mortal danger. They want their mistrial, and they’ve got a good chance of getting it unless a suspect is caught soon. Unfortunately, Tozzi happens to be the most convenient suspect at hand.”

  “In other words, the U.S. Attorney’s office is ready to throw Tozzi into the volcano to save the trial.”

  Ivers looked at him grimly. His answer was in his face.

  “What the hell’s their problem over there? The U.S. Attorney’s been a real mad dog about Figaro from the very beginning.”

  “It’s not the U.S. Attorney who’s the mad dog. It’s Tom Augustine.”

  “Augustine?”

  Ivers nodded. “Augustine was the one who kept pushing to bring this thing to trial when everyone was advising him to wait just a little longer. The DEA literally begged him to wait until they had a chance to confiscate that big heroin shipment we’d all heard about. Forty kilos. It would’ve sealed the case, but Augustine wouldn’t wait. He gave us a lot of mumbo-jumbo about the high risk of defendants fleeing the country if they waited any longer. He made it sound like the practical thing to do at the time, but in hindsight, it was a real snow job. And now in his quiet, persistent way, he’s the one holding the noose out for Tozzi. Tom used to be a real team player, but in the last year or so . . .”

  Ivers swiveled his chair to the side and gazed out the window. Gibbons followed his glance. Across Federal Plaza, tucked behind the federal courthouse, you could just make out the striated cement walls on the upper stories of the building where Augustine’s office was located. Augustine could be at his desk right now, looking over at them the same way. Gibbons could hear Tozzi’s voice in his head, carping about Augustine at Uncle Pete’s house after the funeral. He’d said he wouldn’t be surprised if Augustine was trying to frame him to get some free publicity in his run for city hall. He was half serious when he’d said it. But suppose they did try Tozzi for the murders, suppose they charged him with conspiracy and interference with an ongoing trial as well and were able to drag the case into federal court. Augustine could try it himself. Coming right on the heels of a victory in the Figaro case, Augustine would look very good. People in this city are scared shitless about crime. Augustine could be swept into office on a law-and-order tidal wave. It could happen.

  Ivers swiveled around in his chair and put his glasses back on. “I did call you in here for another reason.” He picked up a sheaf of stapled papers from his desk and perused them for a second. “We got a fax from the Rome office this morning. Emilio Zucchetti boarded a plane for New York late last night.”

  “I’ll bet he’s not coming to see the sights.” Gibbons pictured the wizened old Sicilian boss in Bermuda shorts with a pair of cheap sunglasses perched on his big banana nose, wearing a silly sun hat with an I LOVE NY button stuck in it.

  “We assume he’s coming here to confer with Salamandra. Fortunately, his plane was delayed. One of his sons waited with him at the airport. Our people over there were able to eavesdrop on some of their conversation.” Ivers flipped a page over. “It’s clear from what the son said that the Sicilians are not pleased with what’s going on in New York. It’s obvious that he’s referring to the trial. Zucchetti says that he trusted the ‘Americani’ Salamandra brought to him at the farm, but he adds that they’ve disappointed him. He repeated that twice, that they have all disappointed him. The son says that it’s unfortunate that things have gotten to the point where the capo di capi has to go straighten things out personally. The son also refers to ‘nostro patrono’ several times, our patron saint. The surveillance agent included a note that this phrase was not spoken with any kind of reverence. The tone was bitter and sarcastic.”

  Gibbons sat forward. “I was just listening to a tape where Salamandra talks about a patron saint. But it’s not clear what he’s talking about.”

  “Hmmm.” Ivers scrunched his mouth over to one side of his face and flipped over another page. “After the son talks about the patron saint, he says, ‘Never trust a lawyer, Papa.’” Ivers looked up from the page. “Is the patron saint a lawyer? Could they be talking about Marty Bloom?”

  Gibbons shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “The son then asks his father if the Americans should get a taste of justice, Sicilian-style. He’s snickering when he says this.”

&nbs
p; “And what does Zucchetti say to that?”

  “There’s a pause, then the old man says, ‘The best lawyer is the lawyer who does not talk.’” Ivers looked up at Gibbons. “That’s all they got. Zucchetti and his son went off to get an espresso then. Our men couldn’t set up fast enough to get any more. Can you make anything out of any of this?”

  Gibbons crossed his leg again and grabbed his shoe as he stared out the window. Never trust a lawyer, Papa. . . . The best lawyer is the lawyer who does not talk. . . . Our patron saint. . . . Disappointed. . . .

  Gibbons focused on the upper stories of the U.S. Attorney’s building and considered Tozzi’s suspicions about Augustine. Were they suspicions or instincts?

  “I said, can you make anything out of this?”

  Gibbons puckered his lips and exhaled deeply. “I’m not sure yet.” He stood up and wandered to the door like a sleepwalker, his eye never leaving Augustine’s office across the plaza. His hand was in his pocket on the pink message slip. You were right.

  “Where are you going?” Ivers asked.

  “I gotta go check on something. I’ll get back to you on this.” He left without closing the door behind him.

  The tiny office reeked of cigarette smoke. The only color in the room other than black, white, or gray came from the green characters on the computer screen. Gibbons stood in the doorway and stared at the big rat slumped down in front of his computer terminal, shirt buttons straining over his gut. A cigarette dangled under his pointy snout as he clawed at the keyboard, squinting one eye against the rising smoke. The phosphorescent green tinted his yellowish pallor. It was an improvement.

  Gibbons pulled out his I.D. and held it up for the rat to see as he knocked on the open door. “Mr. Moscowitz.”

  “Fuck off.”

  Gibbons bared his teeth. “Moscowitz.”

  The big rat raised his voice, but he didn’t look up. “I said get the fuck outta here. I’m busy.”

  “So am I.” Gibbons waited for a response, but the rat was ignoring him.