They got on the escalator and started to glide down. A giant banner was suspended from the ceiling, swaying gently over the moving stairs: THE WAR DOWN THE SHORE—NASHE PLAZA. Walker and Epps, twenty feet tall, glaring at each other. Tozzi leaned against the rail, put his foot up on the higher step, and caught a glimpse of Blondie and the greaser getting on up top. A bunch of giggly Chinese kids and a lot of retirees were between them. He glanced up as they passed under the giant boxers, followed them with his eyes. Fee-fi-fo-fum . . .
They stepped off the escalator on the ground floor and headed for the front doors, walking through the mall fast but not too fast, weaving through the strolling crowds, keeping track of each other, Gibbons lagging behind a little, jacket unbuttoned, ready to go for Excalibur if he had to. They passed a salt-water taffy shop. The warm, sugary smell reminded Tozzi of when he was a kid and he used to watch them make taffy on the boardwalk in Asbury Park. Ladies in white aprons and hairnets twisting these giant wads of taffy—like an elephant’s foot on one end, tapering down to a pencil point on the other—feeding it into a clacking machine that cut off pinkie-sized pieces and wrapped them in waxed paper. He glanced into the store’s window, but there was no one working a big wad inside. In the reflection off the glass he could see Blondie behind him, closer than he thought. He walked faster. Gibbons followed.
“I don’t like this,” Tozzi said, looking straight ahead.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t have a gun, that’s why.”
“I do.”
Tozzi rolled his eyes toward Gibbons. “And who’re you, Rambo? Forget it. The odds stink.”
“So what do you wanna do? Split up?”
“Yeah. They want me, not you. How about if I go down to the beach alone, see if they follow me? You know those columns in front of Convention Hall? Get there ahead of us. You can get the drop on them from up there, pick ’em off easy if they don’t want to surrender.”
Gibbons scowled at him. “Get the drop on them? What’re you, the Cisco Kid?”
“You got any better ideas?”
“Not really.”
“Then?”
“All right, go ahead. Do it.”
They pushed through the front doors simultaneously. Gibbons dodged in front of boardwalk strollers, getting lost in the crowd. Tozzi sprinted for the stairs that led down to the beach. As he ran down the wooden steps, he could see them coming, Blondie and the greaser, knocking people down left and right to get to him. Great.
Tozzi hit the sand and started running up the beach. His shoes sank into the dry sand, slowed him up, reminded him of yesterday, running back to the beach house, to Valerie. He couldn’t run fast enough. He glanced back over his shoulder. The greaser already had his gun out, holding it out in front of him as he ran. Good. Gibbons would have good cause to plug the stupid fuck without bothering too much with the formalities.
He looked up at the boardwalk as he ran. He could hear people up there yelling and screaming, probably the ones who saw the greaser waving the pistol. By now Blondie probably had his weapon out too. Tozzi glanced at the people up there, the crowd whizzing by. He hoped to hell Gibbons could run. Then he remembered the cheesesteak, the cholesterol. Fuck. Why the hell couldn’t he have had a salad instead? Why doesn’t Gibbons ever listen—
A spurt of sand appeared a few feet in front of him, then he heard the crack of the shot behind him. He glanced back at them. Blondie did have his gun out. Goddamn them. Tozzi scanned the beach for innocent bystanders. It was mostly deserted, except for a couple of sunbathers willing to brave the stiff spring winds. Someone up on the boardwalk actually stood a better chance of taking a stray bullet. Wonderful. Tozzi was panting, breathing through his mouth. His legs felt like lead, but he forced himself to keep pumping. His head was throbbing again, and he was beginning to wheeze. He was angry with himself for punking out so soon. He blinked back the grit in his eyes and ran, forcing himself to focus on what was up ahead. You better fucking be there, Gibbons.
That’s when he spotted them. In front of the columns. Kids. Girls in matching pink bathing suits and white sneakers—nine, ten years old. Skinny little girls with batons. And a woman in sweats, the instructor. Baton twirlers. Right in front of the columns. Of course.
“Get down!” he yelled. “Get down!” Wheezing for air. Head pounding.
Another shot hit the sand, the report following. Then two more shots, one right after the other.
“Get down!”
They just stood there, gawking at him. What the hell’s wrong with that woman? Make those kids get down flat, for chrissake. Stupid girls. Where’s Gibbons?
They were thirty feet in front of him, just standing there like a bunch of stupids, gawking at him, just like everybody else up there. Tozzi looked up, spotted Gibbons in front of one of the gray stone columns. He was shaking his head.
Yeah, right, genius. I know that! Can’t fucking shoot with a bunch of stupid little girls hanging around, can we? Goddamn idiot instructor. She ought to be shot.
Tozzi considered taking a sharp left and heading for the waves, but then changed his mind and ducked under the boardwalk. Dark and cool under there, herringbone pattern of light beaming through the planks overhead, thundering herds above, the gambling hordes pounding the boards. Easier on the legs under here, the sand not so dry. But these mossy black timbers—you had to dodge around them like a Porsche on a goddamn road test.
He stopped behind a timber to let his eyes adjust to the dim light so he could see where they were. He squinted out toward the bright sand on the beach, and—zing!—a bullet tore a chunk out of the timber just above his head. He dropped to his knees, covered up, scrambled to the next timber. He peered out at the rows of black uprights, whalebones seen from the inside. A dark silhouette breathing hard clung to one of them. Where was the other son of a bitch? Shit. Tozzi turned and ran—legs aching, head splitting—wondering where the other guy was, where the hell Gibbons was. It got darker, colder. What the hell was down here? Couldn’t see shit. He felt trapped all of a sudden—no weapon, no escape, couldn’t outrun them much longer—
But then he saw it, a light. A cheapskate twenty-five-watt bulb over some kind of entranceway, a stairway, it looked like. Concrete steps. He zigzagged toward the light bulb. He didn’t have much choice.
It was cold in the concrete stairway, but the cold didn’t help his pounding head. He leapt up the steps, three at a time, his chest about to explode. At the top of the stairs he could see there was a door, a warped wooden door, the laminate split and curling at the edges, a rusty padlock in the hasp. Shit. Tozzi didn’t stop, he just kept going, shoulder first, and crash! He bent over, gripping his shoulder. The pain was incredible. It felt like he’d been hit with an electrified ax. Then he heard their voices, remembered Blondie’s nasal whine from the parking lot that last time. Tozzi stood up and kicked the door, kept kicking it again and again, splintering wood until there was a crack right up the center. The torpedoes were at the bottom of the stairs, he could hear them. He rammed the ruined door with his back—once, twice—then fell through, losing his balance, shocked that the door had given up without more of a fight. He was on his back, on a concrete floor. He rolled over and got to his feet, ran on without thinking, clutching his shoulder, down a dark corridor, green-painted cinder-block walls, dim light bulbs on the ceiling in little red cages, a few closed doors on either side. The shoulder was hot with pain. He squeezed it as he ran up to a metal staircase at the end of the hall. There was another door at the top, but this one wasn’t locked. He could see a sliver of light beaming through, more than a sliver. Thank God for small favors. Tozzi pounded up the metal steps, struggling for breath, stumbled through, closed the door behind him. A brick wall was on his left, a curtain—plum-colored velvet—on the right. Folding chairs, a big standing fan, and a flock of music stands were blocking his way in front. He stopped and tried to listen for Blondie and the greaser over his own rough breathing, see if they were coming up
the metal stairs after him. But what he heard was coming from somewhere else. The other side of the curtain.
Tozzi dropped to his knees and looked under. It didn’t make any sense at first. Rowdy crowd of people in the audience, lot of cameras flashing, couple guys onstage with no shirts on, lot of other people crowding around them. Somebody yelling at somebody else, some black guy. Then he saw the scale and he knew what this was. It was the weigh-in for the fight, Walker and Epps stripped down to their trunks, getting weighed, last chance to scream at each other and make the news. Of course. He was backstage inside Convention Hall. Son of a bitch.
He shut his mouth and forced himself to breathe through his nose to get his wind back. He took off the Yankee cap, wiped his brow with his sleeve, put the hat back on, then bent over with his hands on his knees and took deep breaths. Then he heard them—felt them first—the vibration of feet pounding up the metal stairs on the other side of that door. Abbott and Costello.
Without thinking, Tozzi ducked under the curtain and stumbled out onstage into the bright lights. He froze for a second, squinting to see past the lights, but then realized that no one was paying any attention to him. There were a lot of people onstage, a lot of hubbub. “Pain” Walker was up on the scale, muttered and cussing like a soup-kitchen psychotic. Epps was off to the side, pointing at him and snickering. Tozzi moved toward the crowd gathered around the fighters, worried that Blondie and the greaseball might start shooting through the curtain.
He peered into the audience, looking past Walker’s well defined back, wondering if Gibbons was out there. Then it came back to him, what he was telling Gibbons before he’d spotted Immordino’s torpedoes in the food gallery. The only way they could nail Immordino and Nashe now was to shake things up, upset their plans, make them do the scrambling. It was the only way.
Dizziness suddenly overcame Tozzi and he had to stop for a moment and close his eyes. Charles Epps’s baritone laugh suddenly boomed through the PA system, and Tozzi’s splitting headache was back. He opened his eyes, blinked, and started shouldering through the crowd, determined to shake things up royally. Despite his head.
“Yo, Walker!” he shouted.
No one heard him. He pushed his way to the front, right up to the champ standing on the scale.
“Hey, Walker, you ugly mother, I’m talking to you!”
Cameras flashed. Walker looked down at him, scowling. He was ugly. Tozzi closed his eyes, dizzy again.
Somebody took Tozzi’s arm. “Come on, pal. Let’s go.”
Tozzi snapped his arm away. This was their only chance to make something happen. He wasn’t running on all cylinders, but he knew what he had to do.
“You’re a chump, Walker. That’s all you ever were, a chump. Never fought a decent fighter in your life. Charles is gonna show you. You watch. He’s gonna knock you right on your ass. You watch.”
Walker’s lip curled back. “Who da fuck’re you?”
Tozzi gave him the bird. “You suck. You’re finished. Why not just give Charles the belt now, save yourself the pain, ‘Pain’?”
Walker looked to his men. “Get him outta my face.” Two big black guys moved fast and pinned Tozzi’s arms back before he knew what was happening.
Shit. Couldn’t shake the dizziness. Tozzi bent his elbows, bent his knees, made himself heavy, unmovable, but this aikido technique wasn’t working. He couldn’t focus, and he’d lost the moment. They had him and they were dragging him offstage. Well, fuck it. It was now or never.
“What is this shit, man?” he shouted back at the champ. “Can’t fight your own battles, Walker? Need your homeboys to do your work for you? Hey, forget about Epps. You couldn’t even beat me up, chump.”
That’s when things started to happen—fast. Other guys crowded around him—big guys. Someone said something about getting this away from the TV cameras, but then Walker was right in front of him, bare chest, ugly face. He muttered something that ended in “motherfuckah,” then Tozzi felt it before he realized what had happened. It was like a spike driven between his eyes, the sunglasses digging into his flesh. He’d gotten it in the nose again. Walker had punched him, right in the face. Tozzi dropped down to a squat. They hauled him right back up, curled in a ball, holding him up as he tried to cover up and clutch his face. His head felt like it was going to explode. He couldn’t open his eyes. He was afraid to breathe. The goddamn nose again. Shit!
“’Pologize! ’Pologize! Talk!”
Tozzi could hear Walker’s voice, but the words didn’t register.
“Say it, man,” somebody else said. “Apologize to the champ. Say it or he hit you ’gain.”
Tozzi opened his eyes and it was like being underwater. Underwater with a shark staring him in the face.
Another voice: “Do ’gain, do ’gain. C’mon, do ’gain.”
They hauled him up, and Tozzi could see the shark coming through the water, the mean ugly face, the shining pecs, the fist cocked.
“No more,” he groaned and squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the next shot. “Le’ go—”
“Will you look at this, ladies and gentlemen?”
The booming voice of God from on high in the form of Charles Epps.
Walker forgot about Tozzi and lunged over him to get at Epps. “Shut up your fat mouth, ol’ man.”
Charles Epps was standing at the edge of the stage, the microphone in his hand, his big, mocking laugh thundering through the hall. The reverberating sound made Tozzi wince with pain.
“That man is right, Dwayne. You are a chump. Lookit you. Supposed to be the world champeen, and you need all your homeboys to hold the man down so you can mug him. Sheeeet. You can’t bring those boys in the ring when you fight me. You know that, don’t you? You are a dee-scrace to the title. I’m gonna have to take it away from you just to rescue its good name. Beating up a poor defenseless white man like that. You oughta be ashamed.” The booming laugh thundered. The great and powerful Oz.
Walker sputtered, looked at Epps, then looked at Tozzi, his face twitching. He wanted to say something to Epps but he wasn’t finished with the white man who’d sassed him. “Let ’im go, let ’im go. Do it! Now!”
They let go of Tozzi’s arms.
“C’mon now, motherfuckah. I be fair wit’ you. I want you to hit me. Gimme yo’ best shot. C’mon, mother.” Walker’s voice was low and calmer now. Much scarier.
Tozzi touched his nose and stared at Walker. Thinks he’s a clever bastard. He wants to make it look like he was attacked, so he can justify the mugging, after the fact. No way.
Walker moved in close and breathed in his face, his big fist balled against Tozzi’s gut. “C’mon, motherfuckah, I telling you now. Hit me or I put this roundhouse upside yo’ head, yo’ ear be coming out the other side. I telling you now.”
Tozzi looked him in the eye, amazed and grateful. Thanks for the tip, champ.
The great and powerful Epps: “What you doing over there, chump? Making love to that man?”
Walker’s teeth clenched, the eyes were wild. “I do it. I swear. Make yo’ brains mush.”
Tozzi stepped back, made some room, dying for Walker to do it. He smiled in the champ’s face. “Suck my dick, asshole.”
Walker’s face was like a comic-strip character on a wad of Silly Putty being pulled in two directions. He was breathing hard out his nose, pissed as shit. “I tol’ you!” he growled. Tozzi was ready.
Walker threw the roundhouse, true to his word, threw it hard. Tozzi slid in fast to beat the punch, caught the crook of Walker’s elbow with one hand, the side of his face with the other, and—wham!—threw the champ down flat on his back, hard.
Tozzi grinned. Tsuki kokyu nage. Too bad his sensei wasn’t here, he thought. Ought to be able to jump a rank for this.
“Whooooweeee!” Epps was impressed.
Cameras flashed. Pandemonium in the aisles, chaos onstage. The homeboys jumped Tozzi from behind.
“The chump is down for the count!” The great and powerful Ep
ps was howling. The reporters were howling.
Tozzi curled into a ball again, worried about his nose but happy with himself. Whooooweeeee, indeed. The press boys would have plenty to report now.
Tozzi covered up as the homeboys started to drag him offstage again. “You dead now, sucker. You dead now.” Tozzi tried to make himself heavy, but one of them had him by the collar and the satiny material of the Mets jacket slid easily on the polished wooden floor. He struggled to break free, grabbing at their clothes to haul himself up, but they kicked him with their knees and one caught him on the side of the head. He stopped struggling, suddenly dizzy again, sick to his stomach. Head spinning and pounding—a little guy with a jackhammer trying to break his way out of Tozzi’s skull, right through the middle of his forehead. Tozzi covered his face, but touching his nose was like putting ice water on a tooth with an exposed nerve. He was stiff with pain.
The noise of the crowd was fading. The space around him seemed smaller. They’d gotten him into the wings, out of the crowd’s sight. Oh, shit . . .
“Get ’im down the hall, down that way. We show him. He one dead fucker now.”
“Stop right where you are and release that man immediately. He’s under arrest.”
Tozzi opened one eye and peered up at the familiar voice. Gibbons waving his ID, jacket open so they could see his holster, pushing the homeboys out of the way. “Come on, get away. Move it. He’s mine.”
“Who you, man? You don’t look like nobody to me.”
Gibbons drew Excalibur, barrel pointed up. “Am I somebody now, asshole?”
The homeboys made room, lots of it, backed away grumbling, returning to the stage.
Gibbons took Tozzi’s arm, helped him up, breathed in his face. “I ought to arrest you for that stunt. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Tozzi blinked his eyes, tried to focus. “I’m making things happen.”
Gibbons started to lead him down the hall. “Yeah, that accomplished a whole lot. You’re a real piece of work, Tozzi.”
Bad Luck Page 23
