“The apartment really is su-pah,” Roxanne suddenly gushed to Tozzi. “I saw some wonderful Laura Ashley prints that would go nicely with the Persian rug. And don’t you think that scrubbed pine cupboard we saw at Dillingham’s would be perfect for the dining area? Over there?”
Halbasian twitched his pointy mouse nose and raised an eyebrow. He smelled fine English cheddar. He was going for the bait again. Tozzi covered his mouth with his fingers and grinned.
“And the portrait of grandfather over the mantel? With the two tufted leather armchairs on either side.” She turned to Halbasian and started gushing directly at him. “You’ll have to come for tea once we’ve set up. A proper English tea by the fire. I bake the yummiest scones, Mr. Halbasian.”
The grubby little mouse relaxed his face. He was thinking of Alistair Cooke with the roaring fire behind him. The scones did it. She was right. A real sucker for the Brit pedigree baloney.
He glanced at Tozzi quickly, then settled his gaze on her. His expression was liquid, like someone who’d just taken a terrific crap. “What can I say, Mrs. Tozzi? You’re perfect. I’ll have the leases sent to Mrs. Carlton’s office by Monday.”
“Su-pah!”
“Wonderful!” Mrs. Carlson said with unconcealed relief.
“I know you’ll like it here,” Halbasian said. He shook Roxanne’s hand, then reluctantly offered to shake Tozzi’s.
Tozzi smiled and pumped his hand. “Just one thing, Mr. Halbasian. That junk in the backyard—when will it be cleaned up?” He wasn’t letting go of young Halbasian’s hand. He couldn’t help himself.
“Soon.”
“How soon?”
“Very soon.”
“I hope so.” Tozzi finally let go. Halbasian wasn’t about to wince in front of them, but his fingers did look a bit red.
They were playing the “Tarantella” now, which was a blessing because it had no words. When the skinny guitar player sang, he ended all his phrases by sliding around the note before settling on it, sort of like a warped Dean Martin record. His guitar was also a little out of tune, and he paid absolutely no attention to the rhythm machine clicking out a fast samba beat. His partner, the accordion player, looked just like Dom DeLuise. He was the better musician, but he was too damn loud. Tozzi’s cousin Sal took accordion lessons when they were kids. When Sal was twelve, they bought him an amp. Lady of Spain, I adore you for the whole neighborhood. Amplified accordions should’ve been included in the Geneva Convention.
Across the table, Roxanne picked the meat out of a mussel and discarded the shell in the empty plate between them. “Halbasian’s going to change his mind. He doesn’t like you.”
Tozzi glanced at the plastic grapes and the Chianti bottles hanging on the wall. The bottles were vibrating dangerously, thanks to the accordian. “Yeah, I know Halbasian hates me, but he loves you.” He took another mussel from the big bowl. He really wanted to dunk a piece of bread in the sauce, but he was afraid she’d think he was a pig. “As soon as he heard your accent, I knew we were in.”
“Is that the only reason why you asked me to do this? Because I’m British?”
“No. I’m not that calculating.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet.”
“Anyway, you’re not completely British.”
She stopped chewing and stared at him. “You really are a sleuth, aren’t you? How did you know?”
“Your accent isn’t always so strong. It slacks off when you’re off guard. Your choice of words gives you away, too. For instance, most of the time you say things are ‘great,’ but with Mighty Mouse everything was “ ‘supah.’ ” Tozzi reached for a piece of bread and thought about dunking again, then put it down on the side of his plate.
“Well, now that the jig’s up, I guess I have to fess up.” She speared another mussel, chewed, and swallowed before she continued. “I was born in America—right here in Jersey, in fact, in Trenton. My father’s British. He was working at a research lab in Princeton back then.”
“So where did you get the accent?”
“We moved back to England when I was four. He got bored with what he was doing here so he decided to go home and teach. We lived in London until I was twelve.”
“Then what?”
“Oddly enough, we moved back to Princeton. Dad received a lifetime fellowship from the Foundation for Advanced Scholarship.”
“Isn’t that the place where people get paid just to sit around and think?”
She grinned. “That’s one way of putting it.” She tore off a piece of bread and dunked it in the sauce. Tozzi smiled. She was okay.
Tozzi dunked his bread then and was careful not to get any sauce on his shirt. “Now, as long as I’m playing Sherlock Holmes,” he said, wiping his mouth with his napkin, “I’d say your mother wasn’t English. You’re too good-looking to be one hundred percent Brit.”
“Heavens!” she said with heavy irony. “You mean my gypsy blood is that evident?”
“Gypsy?”
“Russian gypsy. From the Ukraine.”
Tozzi chewed another piece of bread and nodded. Gypsy blood . . . He felt a little guilty thinking what he was thinking, but he couldn’t help it.
The duo suddenly got much louder as they finished the “Tarantella” with a dramatic crescendo, the accordion making the silverware rattle. The Chianti bottles were trembling. Tozzi felt like he was at an Italian wedding.
“What is this, an Italian wedding?” she said over the noise.
Tozzi shrugged. She really was all right.
“We’re gonna take a break right now,” the guitar player said with his mouth right on the mike, “but we’ll be back in a little while to do a whole set dedicated to Mr. Sinatra. Okay?”
A few people applauded. An old guy sitting behind a golden-fried mountain of calamari banged his knife against his water glass.
“I can’t wait,” she said, rolling her eyes to the ceiling.
Too bad. Tozzi actually liked Sinatra, but these two guys might change that. “I apologize for the lounge act. It’s the food I come here for.”
She sipped her wine. “No need to apologize. I know how it is. The tackier the restaurant, the better the food. I know a few places in Trenton just like this.”
The tough-looking waiter came by then to take their plates and leave their salads. He looked like he could’ve been related to the accordian player. “Everything okay?” he asked.
Tozzi nodded. “Fine.”
“You got any requests for the band? After the Sinatra set, that is.”
“Do they know ‘When the Moon Hits Your Eye Like a Big Pizza Pie’?” Roxanne asked.
“Why su’.” The waiter smiled like a bulldog. Apparently he thought she was okay, too. He picked up their bowl of mussel shells and left.
“That one they should do well,” she said with a conspirator’s twinkle in her eye.
Tozzi sipped his wine and remembered the real name for that song, “That’s Amore.” He decided not to go looking for signs and symbols, not yet. “So, Roxanne, now that you’ve been good enough to be my wife for the interview, I’d like to return the favor and help you with your Japanese nanny problem, if I can.”
She sighed deeply and dropped her cheek on her fist. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t last another quarter the way things are going.”
“Tell me about it.”
“There’s not much to tell. I’m being undercut. I don’t know exactly what the Japs are charging, but it has to be less than we are because they’re stealing all the business.”
“Where do they come from?”
She shrugged. “I’d like to know. There are only a handful of nanny schools in this country, and I represent all of them.”
“You mean the Eastlake Academy doesn’t really train nannies. You’re the agent for these schools.”
“Exactly. Calling my business an academy is a bit of bullshit, but it’s the kind of cachet you need to bring in customers. People like Mr. Halbasian would be impressed by
something called the Eastlake Academy.” She turned up the Brit accent as she said this, then laughed, but it was forced. “My guess is that the Japanese girls are all illegal aliens.”
“Could be. But are they free agents cashing in on a good thing, or is there some kind of organization behind them?”
“Oh, no, they have an agency . . . of sorts. One of my ditzier ex-clients had to tell me all about them when she called to cancel the nanny I got for her. The woman blithered on about a Mrs. D’Urso from Short Hills and how she’d supplied her with a wonderful little Japanese girl who does absolutely everything for her—short of satisfying her poor husband, I suppose. From what I understood, this Mrs. D’Urso is running a real backroom operation out of her home—no advertising, no listing in the Yellow Pages, all word of mouth. Doesn’t pay her taxes either, I’ll bet. She’s the one who apparently started this whole Japanese fad, and from what I’ve heard, she’s marvelous at convincing these snotty nouveau-riche ladies that they simply must have one of her girls. These ladies have been my bread and butter, but this year I’ve been losing them in droves.”
Tozzi speared a forkful of arugula and thought about telling her, then decided he better not. He could be wrong. But if his hunch was right, her competition was tougher than she ever imagined. He knew of a D’Urso who lived in Short Hills, John D’Urso, the most aggressive capo in the Antonelli family. But if this Mrs. D’Urso was John D’Urso’s wife, what the hell would she be doing running a nanny service of all things? He wondered if her nannies were all Japanese. He wondered if the girl who was killed in the Death Bug had been one of her girls. There was a lot to wonder about.
“I take it from your silence that my problem is pretty hopeless,” she said.
He shook his head. “No . . . not necessarily. Could you get me this Mrs. D’Urso’s address? I can pass it on to Immigration and Naturalization. They may be interested in checking these girls for green cards.”
“I’m sure I can get it for you. I’ll chat up that ex-client of mine. She has a very big mouth.” Roxanne looked happier already. Tozzi felt a little light-headed. He really wanted to help her.
He ate some more arugula and gave her an encouraging smile, but he had no intention of alerting Immigration and Naturalization. They love to pull those infamous raids of theirs, which might be good for them, but not for him. His concern was a double murder, and they’d most likely fuck things up for him. They could have theirs later.
The duo returned to their instruments then. Tozzi hoped the guitar player would tune his guitar, but it didn’t look like he was going to. He just adjusted the strap on his shoulder, grinning into the mike, as his partner cranked up the rhythm machine and picked a beat.
Suddenly the accordion swept through the room like a tornado with the intro to “Strangers in the Night.” The Chianti bottles rattled. The skinny guitar player started to sing. Tozzi looked into her eyes. She gazed back into his. Her eyes were like melting chocolates. Her lips parted moistly. Their fingers entwined across the table. Then they both started laughing uncontrollably. It was all so cornball. He loved it. She was great.
“Let me ask you something, Roxanne.”
“Ask me something.” She looked sly and giddy.
“Would you be interested in coming over to the apartment as soon as I move in, just to make some decorating suggestions?”
She gazed at him over the rim of her wineglass. “To work on the ‘ambience’?” She really did have laughing eyes.
“No, seriously. I’d just like to get a woman’s opinion on what I should do with the place.” He couldn’t keep a straight face either.
“My, aren’t we cheeky.”
And horny, too.
The accordion swelled. The bottles chimed. She was terrific. Tozzi felt great.
FOURTEEN
TOZZI FELT STUPID. He felt sore and stupid. His hands were blistered, his back hurt, and he couldn’t keep his attention focused on Neil Chaney as he demonstrated aikido techniques, which made him feel even more stupid each time he had to pair off with one of the people in the class to practice. It didn’t help that Neil referred to each technique by its Japanese name, which just confused Tozzi. And it didn’t help that he was constantly being corrected by the others in the class. He knew they meant well, but he wasn’t in the mood to be told that he stood the wrong way, sat the wrong way, stretched the wrong way, fell down the wrong way, attacked the wrong way, and even punched the wrong way. He’d been in how many fistfights in his life?—too many to count—and now he had to be told by an eighteen-year-old girl that he didn’t punch the right way? Rationally he knew she was right, that they had a certain way of doing things in aikido, that he was a beginner and that he just had to learn. But he wasn’t feeling very rational right now, and everything was pissing him off.
He wished to God he had some of Gibbons’s patience. Gibbons knew how to work an investigation, how to let the facts gestate, how to go over the same territory again and again until he found what was hidden there. Tozzi was like a kid. He needed instant gratification. You get a lead, you follow it, you uncover the crucial evidence, bang! you solve the case—bing-bing-bing, just like that. Rationally he knew that wasn’t the way it went in the real world. But being rational was never one of his strong suits. He preferred swinging down on a rope, causing confusion, making things happen. Or at least that’s the way he liked to think of himself.
Neil Sensei, as everyone called him once they were on the mats, was demonstrating a technique with one of the other black belts, a big-boned, pasty-faced guy. The black belt was aiming some pretty vicious-looking punches at Neil Sensei’s midsection. Neil Sensei would step out of the way, gently grab the big guy’s wrist, cover his hand with his own, point the guy’s fingers at the floor, and force him to fall flat on his back. Simple.
Ha! Tozzi knew better. Things were never that simple in aikido. Not only did you have to get the move right, including the footwork, you had to keep the four basic principles of aikido in mind while you did it. A sign on the wall reminded you in case you forgot: Keep one point, Relax completely, Keep weight underside, Extend ki. Tozzi had learned that evening that one point was somewhere below your belly button, and being aware of it was supposed to keep you strong and balanced and do something for your energy flow. Keeping weight underside vaguely made sense to him in terms of balance—better to be bottom-heavy than top-heavy. Relaxing completely was a nice idea, but somehow Tozzi had a hard time relaxing when he knew someone was about to punch him in the gut. (Neil Sensei kept telling him his tension stemmed from the fact that he wasn’t keeping his one point, which he thought he was, sort of. It was a vicious circle.) And as for ki, well, the best explanation he’d gotten so far was from some spaced-out grad student from Stevens Tech who told him that it was “sorta like projecting this spirit, this feeling, this aura that’s kinda like your phazer set a little higher than just stun.”
Right. Beam me up, Scottie.
How the hell were you supposed to keep all this in mind and get the moves down right to learn the damn technique? And how the hell could you learn anything sitting on your knees all the time in seiza? Everyone else in the class could sit like this indefinitely, even look comfortable doing it. But he had to keep shifting his weight so he could tolerate the pain, forcing himself not to think about the spasms he knew were just waiting to grip his thighs and ankles. Damn.
He’d hoped this class would help him work off some tension, not add to it. The pain in his legs and the feeling of hopeless ineptitude wasn’t what he needed right now, having spent the whole day at John D’Urso’s house, cultivating his fucking endless flower beds and picking every last stray leaf out from under the goddamn shrubs. It was Roxanne’s fault. She’d worked too fast and gotten D’Urso’s address for him early that morning. He’d hoped to spend the day with her, maybe take a drive somewhere, but duty called. Dammit. He really wanted to see her. Instead, Tozzi went right over to D’Urso’s and arrived just in time to see the gardener’s
truck pulling out of the driveway of D’Urso’s big pseudo-French chateau. The gardener’s name was painted on the doors of the truck: NICK PARISI, LANDSCAPE CONTRACTOR. That gave him the idea. He was already dressed pretty sloppy in jeans, a sweatshirt, and a jeans jacket, so he ran over to Freeman’s Nursery in Milburn and picked up a three-prong cultivating hook and a flat-edged spade, then went back to Short Hills and parked around the corner from D’Urso’s. He pulled the tools out of the trunk and walked back to the D’Urso house.
He went straight to the backyard, which was surrounded by an eight-foot, black iron-bar fence. It felt like he was in the lion’s cage at the circus. There was a wooden swing set with a built-in tree house on the lawn behind the kidney-shaped pool. The swing set made him feel a little better. Wiseguys probably won’t shoot if their kids are around. Posing as one of the gardener’s helpers should be pretty safe, though, he figured. Just as long as Nick doesn’t come back.
He started working on the beds, pulling weeds, digging up fresh soil and smoothing it out with the hook, then cutting a nice neat edge all around with the spade. He kept glancing back at the house, hoping to see something suspicious—like a bunch of Japanese girls running around the place—something he could take to Ivers so he would authorize a formal electronic surveillance. Good ole Ivers and his goddamn daily reports. Tozzi’d love to have a real report ready for him first thing Monday morning, something worthwhile, something he could shove up Ivers’s ass. Tozzi was grinning meanly to himself when the glass patio doors suddenly slid open and this young guy in a purple sweater and baggy, pleated, gray plaid pants came out.
“Hey! What’re you doing over there?” He kept his head cocked to one side—to keep that faggy-looking piece of hair out of his eyes, Tozzi figured. He definitely had the wiseguy attitude even if he didn’t have the look. One of D’Urso’s crew no doubt.
“I said what are you doing?” The guy enunciated every syllable. He probably assumed Tozzi was an immigrant.
“I’m doing the beds,” Tozzi said.
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