Bad Blood

by Anthony Bruno

  “They’re like goddamn kids, those two,” Lorraine said instead. “Daredevils hell-bent on getting themselves killed. The trouble with them is that Gibbons won’t admit to himself how old he really is. He thinks he can keep up with Michael, and Michael does nothing to discourage him. Michael, on the other hand, feels he has to live up to the legend, Gibbons, the salty old dog of the Bureau. They feed off each other like that. They’re incredible.”

  Roxanne sighed and shook her head, the frost melting away. “Yes, they certainly are incredible.” She looked up at her bookcase and smirked. “You know, I’ve only known your cousin for a week. Seven days and one morning to be exact, and he’s got me acting like a silly idiot. I think about him all the time. It’s ridiculous. I haven’t felt this way about a man since high school. I didn’t think I’d ever feel that way again. So giddy, so . . . I mean, this simply is not adult behavior. After all, it’s only been a week . . . and a morning.”

  Lorraine sighed. “Sounds like you’re pretty much head over heels.”

  Roxanne just looked down at her blotter and shrugged.

  A loud drone from outside filled the silence. A small airplane, Lorraine guessed. She hugged the flaps of her lumberjack shirt. It was cold in Roxanne’s office. “I went to your apartment this morning, but you weren’t home. I looked you up in the phone book. I had to find you because I need a favor.”

  “What is it?”

  “I want you to give me that mobster’s address. That’s where they are. I want to talk some sense into Gibbons before he gets hurt again.”

  Roxanne started playing with the ring on her finger, a flat oval onyx in a beaded silver setting. “Well, I—”

  “I know you know where it is. Gibbons told me it was you who put them on to this D’Urso character in the first place.” Lorraine stared into her eyes. She was not going to be put off.

  Roxanne seemed startled by her determination. “Well, yes, it’s true that I told Mike about Mrs. D’Urso’s pirate baby-sitter business, and one of my nosybody ex-clients did tell me where she lived. I’ve driven by the house, just out of curiosity, so I could take you there. But . . . well, Mike and Gibbons won’t be very pleased to see us, will they? Interference from us . . . well, wouldn’t that be some kind of crime? Technically, I mean. Like obstruction of justice, or something like that.”

  Lorraine stared hard at her. “Is it that you’re so mad at Michael you don’t want to see him, or does he have you that snowed with the FBI bullshit? He’s got you thinking the same way Gibbons made me think all these years. You’re making room for the FBI. You can’t take the man without the Bureau. It’s a package deal, no substitutes. I think having to live with a conniving battle-ax of a mother-in-law would’ve been better than this.”

  Roxanne was twisting that ring around her finger, around and around. “But do you really think going to find them would be wise? I mean, will Gibbons really listen to you if you just show up like this? He’ll only be furious and more unreasonable, won’t he?”

  “I really don’t care what he thinks. I’m tired of accommodating his feelings, cajoling him, stroking him, always trying to persuade him to see it my way. I’m worried about me now for a change and that’s what I intend to tell him. If he really cares about me, he’ll come home and rest the way he’s supposed to. The doctor said he could do permanent neurological damage, maybe even paralysis, if he doesn’t take it easy. So if he gives me this shit about having a job to do, then that’s it. He can get himself shot for all I care because I don’t want him on his terms anymore.” She stuck her hands under her armpits. Her fingers were freezing. “So are you going to give me that address or not?”

  Roxanne stopped playing with her ring. “I suppose if I were ever in your position, I wouldn’t want to be put off. It could happen.” She looked up at her bookcase again and sighed. “All right. I’ll take you there.”

  “Just give me the directions. You don’t have to come.”

  “Yes I do. Otherwise it’ll be two against one.” Roxanne flashed a knowing grin.

  Lorraine shook her head and grinned back. Roxanne was all right. There was hope for her yet.

  “Come on,” Roxanne said, walking around the desk. “We’ll take my car.”

  Seeing the shine of Roxanne’s red hair as she stepped into the sunlight reminded Lorraine of that little girl with the red braids and the coolie hat. “Fine. We just have to make one quick stop first.”

  As she followed Roxanne out into the reception room, Lorraine snatched a Kleenex from the box on the desk and blew her nose. A united front. Two on two. Maybe she wouldn’t be put off this time.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  GIBBONS SHIFTED his butt and pressed his back into the passenger seat, then picked up the binoculars and scanned the property around D’Urso’s house again. It was almost ten-thirty and still quiet. He stuck his finger in the neck brace to get the damn thing off his Adam’s apple for a minute. The pain he felt yesterday had diminished considerably, but now he had a new pain. It felt like he had two bowling balls hanging off his shoulders and no matter what he did he couldn’t shrug them off. He wondered if Nurse Fay, the two-ton buttercup, felt this way all the time.

  “How’s the neck feel?” Tozzi asked.

  “Fine.” Gibbons shot a sour look at his partner. “Why do you keep asking me that?”

  “I have to,” Tozzi said, gazing down at the Daily News open on the steering wheel. “I promised Lorraine I’d take care of you.” Tozzi didn’t look up but he had this shit-eating grin on his face.

  “Fuck you, Tozzi.” He scanned the house with the binoculars again.

  “You’re quite welcome, Gib.”

  Gibbons put down the binoculars. “This is useless. There’s nothing to see here. Come on, let’s go. We’ll tell Ivers and let him do what he wants with it. At least it’ll get things moving.”

  Tozzi shook his head. “You said we could sit on it until the middle of next week. You promised.”

  “So what?”

  “You promised.”

  “I take it back then. Let’s go.”

  Tozzi shook his head again. “See? Lorraine is right about you. You don’t keep your promises.”

  “Eat shit.”

  “Why don’t you just take the goddamn painkillers and sit still for a while?”

  Gibbons didn’t answer. He’d brought the pills, just in case. But Tozzi was just assuming he had them. Prick.

  “If we don’t see anything by lunchtime, we’ll go. Okay?”

  “Don’t do me any fucking favors.”

  Tozzi went back to his newspaper, but Gibbons could feel him grinning, the bastard. Bad enough that he was letting Tozzi drive his car. He could drive it himself if he wanted to—he wasn’t an invalid. It was just looking left and right when he came up to an intersection that was a problem. Sometimes he’d forget about his neck and turn his head instead of turning his shoulders. That hurt like a bitch. That’s why he was letting Tozzi drive. Not because he couldn’t. It was just to give himself a break. That’s all. He lowered the binoculars and looked at Tozzi. He better realize that.

  After a minute, Tozzi noticed that he was being stared at. “What’re you looking at me like that for?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like Sister Theresa Ignatius, my fifth-grade teacher, that’s what.”

  Gibbons didn’t like being compared to a nun. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You got this real pissy look on your face. What am I, putting fingerprints on your steering wheel? What?”

  “Shut up and read your paper.”

  Tozzi looked down and flipped the page. “It’s okay. I know what’s bothering you.”

  “Oh, yeah? What?”

  “Lorraine.”

  “Fuck you.” He tried rotating his shoulders a little. The bowling balls had suddenly gotten heavier.

  “Yeah, all right, fuck me.” Tozzi snapped another page. “You been fighting with her all week, and now you want to
take it out on me. Well, that’s okay. Go ahead. I’ll be the punching bag. I understand.”

  Gibbons could feel his face turning to stone. He wanted to smash Tozzi over his big guinea nose with the binoculars. Bastard. Of course it was Lorraine who was bothering him. What the hell did he think? Tozzi’s too goddamn young, that’s his problem. He sleeps with anything that moves and thinks it’s love. In ten, fifteen years he’ll change his tune. That’s when he’ll wish he had a good woman, not some bimbo, someone you can talk to, someone you can stand to be with more than ten minutes. That’s his whole problem. He doesn’t know what loving a woman is all about. Not really. No use explaining it to him, though. The guy’s got a thick head. Always has to learn the hard way. Bastard.

  Gibbons let out a long sigh that ended with a rumbling growl deep in his throat. “Come on. D’Urso’s not here. We’re wasting our time. Let’s get out of here.”

  Tozzi kept looking at the paper and shook his head slowly. “Who was the one who always preached to me about being patient on a plant? About sitting tight and waiting it out until your ass went numb? About following proper procedure no matter how boring it got?”

  “The place is too quiet,” Gibbons overrode him. “If you weren’t so damned interested in the paper, you’d see that. Christ, we’ve been here since eight and all I’ve seen is one goddamn dog pissing on D’Urso’s lawn. I haven’t seen a single person in this neighborhood. Not even a fucking jogger. D’Urso’s not here, believe me.”

  Tozzi glanced down at the house over his paper. “I see a three-car garage, doors closed. How do you know D’Urso’s Mercedes isn’t in there?” Tozzi turned the page and went back to the paper. “Short Hills is a very rich community. Rich people don’t jog on the street. They go to health clubs. A rich guy doesn’t just go out for a stroll in the neighborhood. Rich people don’t hang out on the corner to shoot the breeze either. Rich people don’t like to be seen around their houses. Don’t ask me why—that’s just the way they are. Now as for the dog, I’m surprised he wasn’t shot on sight. Piss burns are murder on a lawn, especially from female dogs. Only thing you can do is cut out the whole section with a linoleum knife, replace it with a patch of sod, and hope it takes.”

  “Are you through, Tozzi?” Gibbons wanted to break his nose in the worst way, the wise-ass.

  “I’m just explaining why we have to sit here—”

  “Hold on. What’s this?” Gibbons lifted the binoculars and focused on the two figures walking up the road now, approaching D’Urso’s corner lot. Two women, both wearing jeans and hats. He fine-tuned the focus to get a better look at the hats. That’s what he thought they were, big straw coolie hats. Looking down from where they were parked high up on the hill, Gibbons couldn’t see their faces. The hats covered them completely.

  He handed the binoculars to Tozzi. “Couple of Jap broads coming up the road. From D’Urso’s wife’s baby-sitting crew, I’ll bet.”

  Tozzi lifted the binoculars and took a look. “They aren’t Japanese. Look at how they walk. That’s an American walk.”

  Gibbons laughed. “Who’re you bullshitting? American walk, my ass.”

  “And besides, those hats are Chinese, not Japanese.”

  “Oh, that’s right, I forgot. You’re the big expert on everything Japanese now that you’re taking karate lessons.”

  Tozzi looked at him through slit eyes. “Not karate. Aikido. I knew I should never have mentioned it to you.”

  Gibbons smiled like a crocodile. “Noooo. I’m glad you told me. I mean, who wouldn’t want to have Bruce Lee for a partner? God, I feel fucking safe as shit just sitting here next to you.”

  “I will never tell you anything again, Gibbons. I swear to God.”

  Gibbons pinched his nose and closed his eyes, trying to contain himself. He couldn’t stop laughing, though, imagining Tozzi in one of those cheapie kung-fu movies. Wham! Blam! Slap! Pow! He’d be perfect. All this laughing hurt his shoulders, but he didn’t care. He needed something to laugh about.

  Tozzi tried to ignore him. “Those are two nice ladies from the neighborhood out taking a walk.”

  “I thought you said rich people don’t take walks.” He couldn’t stop laughing.

  “You’re busting my balls, Gib.”

  “And what about the coolie hats, Toz? What do you make of them?” He could tell from the tight look on Tozzi’s face that he was getting under his skin. Good.

  “I don’t know, Gib. Let’s see. Maybe they just got back from a trip to China. Maybe they’re gardening hats. To keep the sun off their heads.”

  “It’s October, genius. The sun’s not that hot.”

  Tozzi ignored him and went back to the Daily News. Eventually Gibbons stopped snorting and chortling and went back to watching the house.

  Nagai drove. Hideo sat next to him up front, Toshio in the back. Ikki was in the van up ahead with the others. He followed the van as it turned off South Orange Avenue and headed up the hill into Short Hills. They hadn’t said a word since he’d given them their instructions that morning.

  “Hideo,” he suddenly said, breaking the silence, “what would you do if a man raped your woman?”

  “Kill him,” the young man said automatically.

  “Toshio?”

  “Rape his woman, then kill him.”

  “And what would Ikki do?”

  Toshio spoke up after a moment. “Rape the man and his woman. Then kill him.”

  They all laughed, but it was tense.

  Nagai couldn’t stop thinking about Reiko, wondering what D’Urso and the punk had done to her, wondering why she wouldn’t tell him last night. He imagined what she’d say if he pressed her for an answer. She’d scream, say it was his fault, say she told him they wanted to make her a whore. He tried not to think about it. There were more important things to worry about now. Anyway, if they had touched his woman, he’d have D’Urso’s. Whatever they’d done to Reiko, he’d take an eye for an eye. The Mafia aren’t the only ones with balls.

  He steered the Caddy around a sharp curve, staying close to the van. He wondered how stupid D’Urso would be. Would he back down once they took his wife or would he keep playing the big man, daring them to do something? What D’Urso didn’t know was that he was prepared to do anything he had to. Keeping Antonelli alive and Hamabuchi happy was all that mattered. If he had to kill the bastard and wipe out his whole family in the process, he’d do it. D’Urso would learn the hard way how the yakuza do business.

  The van took a left and started climbing a steep hill. Nagai followed, the old Caddy’s transmission clunking as it downshifted, the engine whining. D’Urso’s house was on the next street on the right at the end of the block.

  “You know what you have to do?” he asked the two kids.

  “Hai.”

  “Hai.”

  “Good.”

  He would have liked to have Mashiro here, but he felt confident with Moe, Larry, and Curly. They were good. D’Urso and Francione weren’t home, so there shouldn’t be any problems. If there were, Hideo, Toshio, and Ikki would handle it. No problem. They were good.

  As the van took the next corner, Nagai set his jaw and gripped the wheel tight, wondering what he’d say to Reiko when he saw her.

  “Goddamn,” Tozzi suddenly said.

  Gibbons rolled his eyes at him. “What?”

  “Wait a minute.” Tozzi had his finger on an item in the newspaper.

  “What is it?”

  Tozzi put the paper on the dash and pointed to the article. “Says here that the Dockworkers Local called a wildcat strike against Asian Automotive Importers yesterday.”

  “Asian Automotive Importers is the car lot where I found the air hose and Japanese Coke can.”

  “Yeah, I know. Listen to this: ‘A spokesman for Asian Automotive called the strike “unjustified and unexpected,” adding that his company will sue the union for loss of profits if they do not return to work immediately. A freighter containing new Toyota automobiles from Japan
has been docked at the company’s Port Newark facilities since early Friday morning, waiting to be unloaded. The Greater New York Toyota Dealers Association is urging Asian Automotive to settle with the union quickly to avoid loss of sales due to lack of inventory. A union spokesman predicted that the strike would be “a long one” if their grievances were not addressed,’ blah, blah, blah. The Antonelli family has been mixed up with those dock unions since the forties.”

  Gibbons nodded. “As I remember, about ten years ago one of Antonelli’s people was implicated in some scam to buy controlling shares in a Vegas casino with money siphoned from the Dockworkers’ pension fund. You think D’Urso’s got something to do with this?”

  “Sure, why not? Maybe he’s trying to pressure his buddy Nagai.”

  “How?”

  “That guy Takayuki? The one I talked to in the trailer behind the chicken shack? He told me about how they smuggle slaves in the trunks of new cars, how they take just enough food and water to last them until all the cars are unloaded and they can be let out after dark. He told me on his trip over they had to go hungry for a few days before they were unloaded. If there are people trapped in those Toyotas on that ship, they may be without food or water right now. It doesn’t take that long to die of dehydration, does it? They could be in danger of dying. Hundreds of them.”

  “And there’s no profit to be made on damaged goods. Who’s gonna pay for a dead slave?”

  Tozzi frowned. “You’re so eloquent, I can’t stand it.”

  “Hey, that’s Mafia hardball. If D’Urso wanted to get something out of this Nagai character, this would be the way he’d do it. Grab him by the nuts and squeeze till he gives.”

  Tozzi reached for the key in the ignition and started the engine. “We better find a phone and call this in. Get Ivers to alert the Coast Guard. Have them board the freighter and open some trunks—”