Bad Business

by Anthony Bruno

  Lorraine’s stare was fixed on McCleery’s gun, her hand flat on her heaving chest. “I don’t get it. Why? What’s he done?”

  McCleery was sheepish with her. “I’m truly sorry, Lorraine. But I’m only carrying out the wishes of the court.”

  Gibbons rolled his eyes and smirked. “Jawohl. Just following orders.”

  McCleery glared at him. “Do you have to be reminded, Cuthbert, that anything you say can and will be held against you? Now, if you’d be so kind as to turn around and put your hands behind your back. Now.”

  Gibbons glared back at him and turned slowly. As McCleery started to bend his arms back, he winced and sucked in a short breath.

  “What’s the problem, Cuthbert? You’re not gonna start sobbing on me now, are you?”

  Gibbons shook his head and rotated his shoulder slowly. “Bursitis. It’s been acting up again.”

  “Must be awful getting old.”

  Lorraine intervened. “Do you have to handcuff him, Jimmy? Is it really necessary?”

  “It’s procedure, Lorraine. He doesn’t have a choice,” Gibbons said, still wincing. “Go ’head, put ’em on, McCleery. I’ll live.”

  “Jimmy, please.” Lorraine was in anguish.

  “All right, all right. How about if I cuff you in front? Can you take that, Cuthbert?”

  “Don’t do me any favors. Just do your job.”

  Lorraine seemed to be on the verge of tears.

  McCleery sighed, annoyed with him. He snapped one cuff on Gibbons’s wrist. “Turn around, you old goat.” He grabbed the material of Gibbons’s jacket to spin him around, then did the other wrist so that his hands were bound in front of him. “Is that comfortable enough for you?”

  “Yeah, it’s great. All I need now is a piña colada.”

  “You’re a real wiseass, Cuthbert. I want you to know I’m only doing this for Lorraine. I couldn’t care less about you.”

  “How fucking kind of you.”

  McCleery frowned and turned to Lorraine. “May I use your phone? I have to call in.”

  She looked at her husband. Gibbons closed his eyes and nodded. “I guess . . .” she said.

  “Thank you.” McCleery unhooked the receiver, punched out a number, and stretched the cord out into the hallway for privacy.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Lorraine whispered to Gibbons.

  “I’m not sure. Whatever it is, it’s bullshit.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Don’t bother calling Tozzi. Too late for that. I just hope he got out of the house before McCleery’s goon squad caught up with him.”

  She looked pained and puzzled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’ll explain later.”

  McCleery came back into the kitchen and hung up the phone. He was smiling that big bullshit smile of his. “You’re in luck, Cuthbert.”

  “Oh?”

  “Before I take you over to Central Booking, I have to swing by Little Italy and do a little surveillance job. Nothing major—we won’t even have to get out of the car. But it’ll be your last chance to taste the good side of the law before you’re booked, Cuthbert. Something to remember.”

  “I’m touched.”

  “Lorraine, once again I apologize to you. I’m sorry it had to happen like this.”

  Gibbons let out a loud sigh. “C’mon, c’mon, McCleery, let’s go. Your wild Irish pity is making me sick to my stomach.”

  “You’re a saint, Lorraine. I don’t know how you’ve put up with him this long.”

  Lorraine wasn’t even listening to him. She was looking at Gibbons, her brows slanted back.

  “Don’t worry,” Gibbons said softly. “This is nothing. Believe me.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  She threw her arms around him. “I love you.”

  Oh, Christ. Don’t get sappy on me now.

  “Yeah . . . me too,” he muttered into her hair.

  “We have to go now.” McCleery tugged on Gibbons’s elbow.

  Reluctantly, Lorraine let go, and the absence of her touch made Gibbons feel cold and lonely. He suddenly felt guilty for not saying in so many words that he loved her too.

  McCleery marched him out the front door, and they walked down the marble steps of the old apartment building in silence. When they turned the landing and started down the next flight of stairs, Gibbons noticed that McCleery had that bullshit grin plastered across his mug again. “What’s so funny?” he grumbled.

  “I was just thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “Your poor wife all alone in the world when her husband and her dear cousin are sent up the river for the rest of their natural lives.”

  “Keep wishing.”

  “I’ll have to drop by and say hello now and then. You know, we Irish are very good at cheering those in grief. I think Lorraine may come to like my cheering nature. If you know what I mean.” His eyes were twinkling.

  Gibbons stopped dead in the middle of the stairs and glared up at him. If only looks could kill.

  “Were you about to say something, Cuthbert?”

  Gibbons held his tongue, though his gut was roasting.

  Never in a million fucking years, shamus. Even if you were the last limp dick on earth, she wouldn’t.

  Gibbons continued walking down in silence. As they turned the next landing, he glanced up the stairwell toward his apartment.

  She fucking better not.

  — 22 —

  From inside the car, he could see snow flurries swirling in circles over a manhole cover in the middle of Grand Street. Tiny flakes danced across the tinted windshield as heat from the paper coffee cup on the dashboard made a blotch of steam on the glass. Augustine reached for the cup and took another sip as he scanned the cold, gray street outside, casually staring at the dull white van with the rusted door panels parked across from La Bell’ Isola Ristorante. Traffic was still light. There were a few unhappy pedestrians walking against the wind with shoulders hunched under their coats, but not many. He put the cup back on the dash and checked his watch again. Almost ten of eight. A truck rumbled by, and the wind suddenly whipped up and howled. The flurries became frantic. Inside, it was calm and warm. Augustine felt insulated, protected. It was a feeling he’d always liked.

  From where he sat, Augustine could see Jimmy McCleery’s silver Pontiac, parked down the block at a fire hydrant. He’d just arrived a few minutes ago. Obviously McCleery had gotten the message that something was about to go down here this morning. Augustine grinned, thinking how clever it was to phone in an “anonymous tip” early this morning when there was no one in the office with enough brains to question it. He’d called from a pay phone just to be sure, but there was no way it could ever be traced back to him. Augustine grinned behind his coffee cup, wondering if he was simply that smart, or if the rest of the world was really that dumb.

  He watched Gibbons in the front seat with McCleery. Augustine couldn’t see a camera anywhere in evidence, but he wasn’t worried about that. McCleery was a loyal tool from a long line of Irish cops who liked to bitch and gripe, but who ultimately always did what they were told. They were good worker bees, people like McCleery. If you allowed them to cultivate their little romantic self-images so that they believed they were far more clever than they actually were, they performed admirably. Augustine had no doubt that McCleery had his camera with him and that there was a fresh roll of film in it, the long-range lens affixed and polished, ready for the job. That’s the way people like McCleery were, born to serve.

  Gibbons, however, was another story. There was nothing worse than a failed WASP, and like others he’d met, Gibbons seemed to revel in his gruff, low-life existence. There had to be more than a few in the Gibbons clan who were sorely disappointed in him, especially if he was related to the Gibbonses of Pittsburgh. This man lived like the ethnics, for God’s sake, and yet there was one significant difference between him and men like McCleery and Tozzi.
Gibbons wasn’t doing the immigrant climb, striving for the better life, the respect, the wealth, the position, and so on. No, Gibbons was a Yankee, just like him. He didn’t care about scratching his way to the top. Apparently position meant nothing to him. He couldn’t be bribed, bought, enticed, or seduced, because unlike the immigrant children he had no foolish dreams. He simply was what he was—stubborn, stiff-backed, and uncompromising, with the strict moral code of a Puritan and the X-ray perception of an outsider, an awful combination. Gibbons was beyond wants and dreams. He was beyond temptation and corruption. And that made him very dangerous.

  A car slowly came up from behind and double-parked next to Augustine’s car. It was a Mercedes too. The driver—a man with a dark moustache—looked at Augustine and motioned with his hands, asking if he was going to leave the space. Augustine shook his head and the man smiled, shrugged, and moved on. He watched the man cruise farther up the block, where he found a space closer to Salamandra’s restaurant. Augustine noticed that this man’s Mercedes was one of the new models with the sleek Bauhaus-like design. His was only a 420, three years old. When the man got out of his car, Augustine saw that he was wearing baggy white pants and a white T-shirt under his leather jacket. The man looked like a pizza maker. A pizza maker driving a brand-new, top-of-the-line Mercedes. Augustine’s face hardened. Good God, what this country has come to.

  Another rickety old panel truck that looked like it had been through a war clattered toward him from the other direction. There was Chinese writing on the side, and the back was open. It was jam-packed with wood-slat boxes and open peach baskets full of that peculiar produce they sell out on the sidewalks up and down Mott Street in Chinatown. Augustine followed the truck with his eyes, frowning.

  After the truck turned the corner, he shifted his gaze back to Salamandra’s restaurant. A car with New Jersey plates was double-parked in front, a nondescript metallic blue sedan. It was directly across from the disheveled white van. Augustine strained to make out the faces behind the car’s windshield. The driver was Tozzi—he was sure of that—but who was that with him? He’d warned Tozzi not to bring anyone. Damn him!

  But then the person leaned toward Tozzi and moved out of the glare. Augustine was able to make out her face, the short blond hair. Lesley Halloran. Augustine coughed up a laugh. How stupid. Well, too bad for her. He’d thought she had some smarts, but she’d just have to go down with him. They can be prison pen pals. Very romantic.

  Augustine unconsciously worked his thumb into his cheekbone as he reconsidered the situation, pausing to analyze this new wrinkle in his plans. Would Halloran’s presence adversely affect the desired outcome? It shouldn’t really. McCleery will get photos of Tozzi delivering the rug to a known Zip hangout, which will prove conclusively his involvement with the Sicilians. Judge Morgenroth’s hands will be tied when the pictures are presented to him. A government conspiracy orchestrated by a greedy FBI agent will be made evident, and the judge will have to declare a mistrial. Salamandra will get his heroin, and he and his people will be off the hook until their case is retried, by which time these people can either choose to flee or face charges that Augustine will personally convolute to a point where the typical lower-class jury will be so confounded as to vote for acquittal rather than wrestle with the difficult issues at hand.

  Lesley Halloran’s participation here might actually be a boon, now that he thought about it. She and her paramour will obviously claim that they were not delivering drugs for resale but in fact making a ransom payment in exchange for young Patricia. The U.S. Attorney’s office can counter that this matter of Patricia’s kidnapping is a pure fabrication intended to mask the true nature of the transaction. With Ms. Halloran a criminal defendant, any testimony she gives concerning the alleged kidnapping will hardly be credible. Only the child herself will be able to testify as to her abduction in the wee hours by an ugly little dwarf. It will sound like a fairy tale when the child takes the stand, a frightening nightmare, which is exactly what the prosecution will contend. And of course, children are so easy to destroy on the stand.

  Augustine smiled with great satisfaction. This would work out better than he’d anticipated. It was worth more than fourteen million dollars, but he wouldn’t dicker with the Sicilians now. Fourteen million will be more than sufficient to get him into office.

  He tilted his head back against the headrest. Thank God he’d taken the initiative here and arranged the kidnapping himself. Salamandra didn’t think he was working hard enough for them. He only wished he could see Salamandra’s face when he produced the rug. That would prove conclusively that he was worth every penny of his price. He stared at Tozzi’s tacky domestic sedan through lizard eyes and savored the sound of the titles: The Honorable Mayor of New York City, Thomas W. Augustine III . . . Mayor Augustine . . . His Honor.

  Augustine reached down for the car phone on the console and punched out the number. It rang four times before someone picked up.

  “Pronto.”

  It was one of the flunkies. Augustine imagined that it was the pizza maker who’d arrived in the new Mercedes.

  “Let me speak with your boss.”

  “Who?” The oaf was pretending to be puzzled.

  “Mr. Salamandra,” he said testily.

  “Who?”

  “Tell him it’s his patron saint.”

  Silence. “Hold on.”

  Augustine held the phone to his ear as he watched Tozzi getting out of his car. He was dressed in jeans and a leather bomber jacket. Good. Without a suit and tie, he would look even more culpable in the photos. He moved around to the trunk, looking all around, waiting to be approached.

  Be patient, Tozzi. Just a little longer.

  “Hello. Who is this?” Salamandra sounded annoyed.

  “Did I wake you? You sound upset.”

  “Who is this?”

  “The patron saint of lawyers.” Augustine let it roll off his tongue with the same sarcasm Salamandra exuded whenever he’d used that nasty euphemism in the past.

  “I don’t know who you are. Good-bye.”

  “Don’t hang up.” The Sicilian was afraid of a wiretap, but there was no need. Augustine knew there were no current writs authorizing wiretaps on the apartment over La Bell’ Isola. “Don’t hang up on me. I have your rug.”

  Silence—the typical Italian suspicion combined with unspoken hostility.

  “I said I have the rug. Do you want it or not?”

  Silence.

  “Now listen to me. I know you don’t trust me. You think I’ve failed you, but you’re wrong. I’m going to do everything I originally promised and more. I was never supposed to have anything to do with the supply end of this deal, but here I’ve recovered your merchandise for you. I’m also going to secure the mistrial if you’ll just cooperate.”

  Silence.

  Augustine’s face was flushed. He felt that he was talking too much, doing too much explaining. He rubbed his cheekbone as a dull throb started under his eye. He shouldn’t have to explain anything to this immigrant thug. After all, who was the prize here? Who was the linchpin? He should just be telling Salamandra what to do. This is his initiative, dammit.

  “I want you to pick one of your expendable flunkies. There’s a blue car double-parked in front of the restaurant at this very minute. Mike Tozzi is waiting outside that car. He has the rug. Send your flunky down to get it.”

  “You crazy.” There was venom in Salamandra’s gravelly voice.

  “No, I’m not crazy. Far from it. I’ve got Tozzi by the balls, so he’s no threat to you. Just send someone down to get the rug from him, someone you can spare to lose.”

  “What you mean ’spendable flunky? Nobody in my family is ’spendable. I care for my people.”

  “You’re being a fool, Ugo. There are forty kilos down there waiting to be picked up. Go get it, why don’t you?”

  Silence.

  “Is trap,” Salamandra finally said. “You double-cross me. Police down there, under
the cover. They wait for somebody to come out and take rug.”

  Augustine’s face was hot. The man was an insufferable dolt. “No, Ugo, there’s no trap. There are no police down there. Just one man who works for me, and he won’t bother anyone. He’s by himself. He’s part of my plan.”

  “What plan? We make plan. You no make plan.” Salamandra was furious.

  “Listen to me. I’m trying to save your ass and your business. Me. If you’re too proud and stupid to accept the fact that someone else can accomplish your work for you, then to hell with you.”

  “Stupid? You say I am the stupid one? You bring the rug here to this place, to my address, and I am stupid? You are stupid.”

  “I assure you there is no danger if you cooperate and act quickly.” Augustine’s teeth were clenched. “Send a man out to pick up the rug. You stay hidden inside. You can concoct an alibi later if need be. The man you send out will be indicted, but I’ll let his case get plea-bargained down as far as possible. Worst-case scenario, he’ll do six months to a year. I’m sure you have plenty of loyal followers who’d do that for you gladly.”

  Silence. Then a sudden eruption. “And what about Tozzi? He is FBI. He is trouble.”

  “No trouble at all.” Augustine tilted his head back, blinked and grinned. He’d been waiting for this. “Look out the window, Ugo. Are you looking?”

  “Yes, I look.”

  “Do you see the old white van parked across the street? The one with all the rust?”

  “Yes.”

  “You probably can’t see him from where you are, but Nemo is behind the wheel.”

  “Nemo!”

  Augustine was pleased to hear Salamandra so upset that one of his soldiers was working with him. It proved to him that his power over his clan wasn’t as absolute as he thought.

  “Can you see anyone else in the van? Can you see the passenger seat from where you are?”

  “Yes . . .” Salamandra was dubious but grim.

  “What do you see?”

  “I see the small head, blond hair. Una ragazza, a little girl. Down on the floor, with tape on the mouth.”