Bad Blood

by Anthony Bruno

  “John?! John!!”

  He peered over the dash and put the accelerator to the floor, swerving down the aisle between two long lines of Corollas, passing that green sedan speeding down the next aisle in the opposite direction heading for the mess he didn’t want any part of.

  “John!!! John, come back!!!” Michele D’Urso screamed at the departing limo. “Fuck you, John! Do you hear me, John?! You’re a real cocksucker, John!!!”

  Shut the fuck up, Michelle.

  D’Urso wondered about that green sedan, who that was. He glanced at the side mirror on the passenger side and saw Nagai’s face, his hair blowing all over the place. What the—? He turned around. Nagai was holding onto the rear door handle, his feet stuck to the outside of the door, hanging out there like fucking Spiderman! Son of a bitch!

  D’Urso threw his arm over the seat as he drove, pointed his gun at the back window, and pulled the trigger.

  Click. Empty. Fuck!

  D’Urso spun the wheel right and left, swerving the limo and making it fishtail. But Nagai’s determined face was still in the mirror. “Goddamn you, Nagai! Goddamn!”

  D’Urso gripped the wheel and kept driving.

  TWENTY-NINE

  GIBBONS HIT THE brakes hard and pulled the LTD up to the right side of D’Urso’s black Mercedes, using it as a barrier between them and the guys in the van. He kept his eye on the Mercedes, Excalibur in hand, just in case someone was hiding inside it, while Tozzi got out and took up a position behind the rear fender of D’Urso’s car with the shotgun.

  “FBI,” Tozzi shouted at the group in the van. “Lay down your weapons.”

  Gibbons strained to see if Lorraine was still in there. He could see figures inside the dark box, but he couldn’t make her out. He recognized D’Urso’s wife and Tozzi’s girlfriend, though. Lorraine must be behind them. His throat was dry; he tried to swallow. Good that she was in back of them. Less chance of getting hit by stray fire, a distinct possibility with a 12-gauge shotgun in Tozzi’s hot little hands. Oh, Jesus.

  “Don’t shoot!” the bleach-head screeched. “We’re in here!”

  Someone started yelling in Japanese, then a single shot suddenly shattered the rear window of the Mercedes. It came from behind the old Caddy parked next to the van.

  Gibbons saw that look on Tozzi’s face, the tight jaw, the cuckoo eyes. Oh, shit. Here we go.

  “All right, asshole. Have it your way.” Tozzi leveled the shotgun and let loose a cannon blast that blew out the Caddy’s front passenger door window and made the body work look like a cheese grater. The blast reverberated over the lot. No return fire. That got their attention.

  “I’m going after the limo,” Gibbons yelled to Tozzi.

  “Forget the limo,” Tozzi yelled back, giving him that annoyed, don’t-go-straining-yourself-now look.

  Screw you, Tozzi. “Watch it with that thing,” he said, nodding at the shotgun. “Don’t shoot Lorraine.”

  “Yeah, don’t worry about it.”

  Another shot from behind the Caddy shattered more glass. Tozzi immediately answered in kind, putting more holes in the Caddy and rocking it on its springs. Gibbons hesitated, looking into the van. He adjusted the rearview mirror and focused on the limo swerving down the next aisle with some nut hanging out the window, it looked like. Shit. He slumped down behind the wheel, threw it in gear, and drove off, screeching around the end of the row of Toyotas, then picking up speed on the straight-away. He glanced over at his partner holding the shotgun. Tozzi better be careful with that goddamn thing. If Lorraine gets hurt, he’ll be one sorry asshole.

  The limo was up ahead in the distance. Suddenly Gibbons saw the limo’s white backup lights go on. The limo had run up to a dead end. It was a solid line of Toyotas on both sides right up to the fence. Gibbons smiled with his teeth. The limo was hemmed in.

  Suddenly he heard the shotgun behind him again, two rapid shots. His heart stopped. Lorraine! He turned his head quickly to see if she was all right, and sharp pains stabbed the base of his neck. Goddamn! Unconsciously he let up on the accelerator as the pain thrummed. Then his attention was brought back into focus by an incredible bashing sound. Up ahead the long sleek limo was ramming its tail end into the line of little cars on the right, burning rubber in forward and reverse, desperately trying to make a hole in the line. The Toys didn’t move that easily, though, and one pesky little devil decided to lock bumpers with the limo. The guy who’d been hanging out the window was on his belly on the hood now, hanging onto the windshield wipers for dear life.

  Gibbons hit the gas and rushed toward the limo. He braked hard, waited, then gunned it again to time his move just right. The limo revved, burned more rubber, and pushed the stubborn Toy on its tail back into the line. Gibbons quickly pulled up to the limo, nosing right up to the limo’s grillwork and kissing bumpers.

  “FBI,” he yelled out the window as he stomped on the parking brake.

  The limo revved and lurched forward, jolting the LTD and crunching both their headlights. Gibbons’s car rocked up and down violently, and the neck brace wasn’t enough to cushion this action. Gibbons grit his teeth against the pain as he stepped on the brake with both feet and locked his knees in position. From the anguished sounds of squealing metal, he assumed the bumpers were locked. It felt like he was trying to capture wild game, big wild game.

  Through the two windshields he could see John D’Urso behind the wheel, facing him. The Japanese guy on the hood was trying to steady himself on his knees. D’Urso’s legendary, perfectly styled steel-gray hair wasn’t so perfect now. His shiny silk tie was askew. Spider cracks in his windshield fractured the beefy face with the mean, frantic eyes. Steam and blue exhaust clouded the space between the windshields.

  Gibbons switched Excalibur to his left hand and pointed it out the window. He could taste hot antifreeze in the back of his throat. “You! Put your hands on your head,” he shouted. “D’Urso, shut off the engine and put your hands on the wheel where I can see them. You’re both under arrest!” But neither of them could possibly hear Gibbons over the deafening roar and piercing squeals of the limo’s overheated engine. He started shouting again, but it was no use. His neck was throbbing.

  “Give it up, D’Urso,” the Japanese guy yelled. He was holding a gun against the windshield.

  “Get out of my face, Nagai!”

  Nagai fired his weapon point blank through the glass. There was no way he could’ve missed.

  Then Gibbons saw it, through the cracked windshield. A hand, an arm, a gun coming over the backseat.

  “Get down!” he shouted as he ducked under his own dash. The explosion of three quick shots overrode the noise of the panicked limo. Another explosion followed a split-second later. Then one more. Gibbons waited until he heard the engine die down to a hissing idle. The limo stopped struggling, he could feel it in his brake pedal. When he looked up, he saw the windshield now shattered in an intricate crystalline pattern interrupted by four random exit holes. Nagai was sprawled out on the hood. He wasn’t moving. Blood gushed out of his mouth and nose and beaded up on the polished black metal. More blood oozed out of two small wounds in his chest. Gibbons looked at the holes in the windshield. There should’ve been five.

  Gibbons took his feet off the brake to see if the parking brake would hold the idling limo. The LTD jerked back. She wouldn’t hold.

  “Shut off the engine and throw out the gun,” he ordered. “FBI!”

  A moment later the limo stopped struggling. Gibbons cut his engine, and the sudden quiet felt like cotton batting around his head. Then he saw the hand again, coming out of the rear side window, placing the revolver on the roof. The hand slid the gun forward so that it skidded over the roof, slid down the windshield, tripped over the windshield-wiper gutter, and landed in Nagai’s crotch. It was a small gun, an automatic. Probably a .22.

  The back door of the limo opened then, banging against the silver Toyota next to it, and the hands emerged, draping themselves over the top of
the door. Old, bony, liver-spotted hands.

  Gibbons opened his door, bumping it on a battered candy-apple red Corolla. He kept his gun trained on that rear door as he climbed over the wreckage with great difficulty, doing his best to deny those nails in his neck. Hopping down off the interlocked bumpers, he ripped off the neck brace and threw it away. The clammy flesh around his neck suddenly felt cold. He pulled his chin in gently and lowered his head very delicately. The pain wasn’t so bad now. He walked toward that open door, careful to keep his body erect, more careful to keep the gun leveled at the dark-tinted window below those hands. When he peered over the top of the door, he found Carmine Antonelli sitting on the edge of the seat, his legs hanging out. Gibbons let out a long breath.

  “Stand up,” Gibbons said. The old man complied, a placid expression on his face as Gibbons frisked him, then started to read him his Miranda rights.

  “Don’t bother. I’ve heard it before,” Antonelli rasped in a tired voice.

  Gibbons finished the recitation anyway. He wished he had a pair of handcuffs on him, but then he took a good look at the feeble old guy. Couldn’t run off if he wanted to. Gibbons opened the driver’s door and peered into the front seat. Sunlight filtered through the blood-smeared windshield like a stained glass window. D’Urso’s body was slumped over on its side. The plush gray upholstery was soaked with blood from a chest wound. The back of his head was gone, too. Little pieces of his brain were stuck to everything.

  “You killed them both.”

  The old boss looked away and didn’t answer.

  “Why both of them?”

  Antonelli looked him in the eye. “Self-defense. Okay? The Jap boy was after John.” He nodded at D’Urso’s body. “I have to protect my people.”

  Gibbons straightened up and adjusted his head until the pain was bearable. “So why’d you kill your boy, too?”

  Antonelli spit on the ground. “He was a little bastard. He betrayed me.”

  Gibbons smirked. “Spare me the King Lear rap.”

  “You’re not so young yourself.”

  “Yeah, I know. Come on, let’s go.” He took him by the elbow, but Antonelli didn’t move. He was staring inside the limo.

  “I couldn’t let you guys have him. You’d just send him to jail. What’s that? That’s nothing. John dishonored the family. What he did demanded justice, our kind of justice.”

  “Yeah, right. Very noble of you. They ought to make a movie about your life. Come on, move.” Gibbons pulled him away from the car and gave him no choice but to walk. He walked very slowly, leaning on Gibbons’s arm.

  “I need a phone,” he croaked out through his wheezing. “Get me to a phone.”

  “You gonna call off the strike?”

  “None of your fucking business. Get me to a phone.”

  “Don’t worry about it. You’ll get your call.”

  Two more shotgun blasts echoed across the lot then. Gibbons tightened his grip on Antonelli’s elbow and strained to see what was going on by the silver-blue van. Goddamn that Tozzi. His Ithaca 37 Police Special held eight rounds, and Tozzi had extra shells in his pocket. A pump-action twelve gauge. Not the kind of gun Tozzi should have. He didn’t know what kind of gun Tozzi should have, the trigger-happy son of a bitch. The jerk never watched out for civilians. If anything happens to her, I’ll kill him. I’ll kill somebody.

  “Hey, easy with the arm,” the old boss complained. “You’re hurting me.”

  Gibbons ignored him. In the distance he could see guys hightailing it across the lot on foot. Tozzi must’ve finally scared them off with the cannon.

  “Slow down!” Antonelli rasped. “I can’t go so fast.”

  Gibbons resented having to walk at the old guy’s pace. Made him seem old. He wasn’t old. Just hurt a little. His neck was beginning to hurt real bad now.

  The shotgun went off again, making a couple of gulls flying overhead scream in fright. One of the doors of the van fell off its hinges and clattered to the pavement.

  “Goddamn you, Tozzi!” he yelled. “Watch it!”

  “What’sa matter?” the old man asked.

  “Shut up!”

  The pain was cutting into his shoulders as if there were an ax buried in each one. He couldn’t walk much faster than Antonelli now. For the first time in his life, he did feel old. Anxiety suddenly clutched his gut, anxiety, regret, and fear. An old man all alone without Lorraine. His legs wanted to move faster, but the pain weighed him down. He had to get to the van, though. He had to see her, had to make sure she was all right, had to make things right with her, apologize. He had to hold her. Lorraine.

  Gibbons’s throat was tight. He couldn’t swallow. Still, he tried to yell. “You hit her, Tozzi, and I’ll kill you! I swear to Christ I will!”

  “Wha’?”

  “Shut up and move!” They walked on, the old man shuffling at a snail’s pace.

  “Come on! Move, damn you!”

  But the old man couldn’t.

  “Hurry up!”

  He tried to hurry Antonelli along, but he couldn’t do it.

  “Come on, come on! Go!”

  Then Gibbons stopped and almost lost control of the tears he was holding back as he realized that it was him who was leaning on Antonelli. Like an old man.

  THIRTY

  TOZZI PEERED OVER the trunk of the Mercedes, the shotgun ready in his hands. The trashed Caddy looked like a dead shark. The van was comparatively untouched, the women still sitting back-to-back inside the shadows. He could hear water lapping the rocky shore of the bay. It was quiet now. Tozzi was suspicious.

  “They’re gone. Please come untie us.” It was Roxanne’s voice.

  She didn’t sound overly distressed, thank God. But then he wondered if one of the yaks might still be in the shadows in the back of the van with them, holding a gun on her, forcing her to tell him the coast was clear. That might be a little paranoid, though, considering the language barrier. Anyway, if there was a guy in there hiding behind their skirts, he’d just sit tight and wait. He’s already got the hostages. Why rush it and eliminate the element of surprise? He rubbed the sweaty stock of the shotgun. He wanted to go to her, see if she and Lorraine were all right, but he didn’t dare, not without a backup. Where the hell was Gibbons? He didn’t like being out here all alone.

  He scanned the area for movement behind any one of the dozens of cars in his line of vision. He stared at the three bodies sprawled out on the pavement on the other side of the Mercedes: some big guy half-under the car, the punk Francione, and another guy who was flat on his back with his legs on Francione’s chest. That one had to be Mashiro. The guy was actually dressed in feudal Japanese samurai armor. From where he stood he could see the glint of the sword lying on the ground next to the bodies. Unbelievable.

  A gull landed on the pavement next to the bodies and cocked his head to one side, then the other, considering the punk. The bird pecked at his shirtfront a few times, then flew off.

  Tozzi stood up slowly, braced for a shot from anywhere. He circled round the back end of the Mercedes, quickly crossed the open battle ground, and went directly to the back of the Cadillac for cover. He pointed the shotgun at the cab of the van. The driver’s door was open. He moved around slowly until he was sure that the cab was empty. He got down on his knees then and looked for feet under the van, figuring someone might be waiting on the other side. No feet. He relaxed a bit as he stood up with the shotgun cradled in one arm. The Caddy’s pointy fin was right in front of him. He couldn’t resist running his hand over it, recalling the Cadillac his father had when he was a kid. He put both hands back on the shotgun right away, though. There were too many hiding places around here. This was no time for nostalgia. He looked around the lot. And what the hell happened to Gibbons?

  Tozzi went over to the back of the van and squinted into the shadows.

  “Well, if it isn’t the Lone Ranger?” He recognized Roxanne’s sarcastic tone. She was sitting Indian-style, her hands tied behind her ba
ck, trying to spit stray pieces of hair out of the corner of her mouth.

  “Michael, where the hell have you been? Help us for God’s sake.” He recognized Lorraine’s scolding, same as when she used to baby-sit for him. She was sitting the same way, wincing as she struggled in vain to get free.

  “Who’re you? You a cop or what?” He even recognized Michelle D’Urso’s nervous-Nelly chirp. She made little faces every time she was jostled by Lorraine’s struggling.

  “Calm down, calm down,” he said wearily, stepping up into the van. With this much attitude, maybe he should leave them this way.

  “Come on, Mike. My wrists are killing me.”

  “Yes, mine too.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  Why didn’t they gag them, too? “Take it easy. I’m here.” He touched Roxanne’s cheek, then reached over and laid his hand on his cousin’s shoulder. “Everybody all right?”

  “No, we’re not all right!” Roxanne snapped back. “Get us out of these things.”

  Their wrists were bound behind their backs, arms interlocked to keep them together. The yaks had used those stupid plastic-strip handcuffs. Leave it to the Japs to go high-tech. Why couldn’t they just use rope like your average criminal element? Shit.

  He set down the shotgun and tried to undo Roxanne’s cuffs, but they were on too tight. Shit. “Anybody got a knife, a pair of scissors, something like that?”

  Michelle D’Urso rolled her eyes. “Are you for real?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Michael.”

  “This isn’t funny, Mike.”

  “Hang on, hang on.” He dug into his pants pockets for his key ring which had a nail clipper attached to it. He started working on Roxanne’s cuffs, chewing through that tough plastic with the clipper. It took some doing, but he eventually got through it.

  “Thank you,” she said, massaging her wrists, still with the attitude.

  “You’re welcome.” He didn’t like that look she was giving him, as if he’d done something wrong. He went to work on Lorraine’s cuffs.