Tozzi looked. “Yeah, that’s him.”
“The fat guy’s Varga,” Gibbons said. “I’ll put money on it.”
Tozzi looked at Gibbons, then looked back at the fat man. He was about to say something when he noticed another face in his line of vision. Feeney, the punk from the abandoned warehouse, was standing in the next aisle, and he was staring right at them. There was a white bandage plastered across his hairline. His hand was inside his jacket, and he was wearing a sneer that broadcast sweet revenge. Instinctively Tozzi glanced right and left. Kinney’s pallbearers were blocking the aisle.
Tozzi looked back at the pig-faced boy who was chuckling confidently now. He had them hemmed in. They were outnumbered. There was nothing they could do.
Gibbons spotted the pallbearers closing in on them. He looked at Tozzi and didn’t like the look in his eye. “There are innocent people here,” he warned.
“I don’t give a fuck,” Tozzi said.
“Not here!”
But out of the corner of his eye, Tozzi could see two of the pallbearers coming up fast behind Gibbons. One had his gun drawn, and he was trying to hide it behind his buddy, but Tozzi had already spotted the extended barrel of a silencer.
“Get down,” Tozzi yelled and went for his gun. “Everybody, get down,” he yelled. Then he saw the muzzle flash. A woman sitting at a blackjack table next to him screamed and fell off her stool. Tozzi saw a clear shot and fired at the pallbearers.
“Get ’em,” Feeney screamed as he leapt up on the nearest craps table, drew his gun, and pointed down at Tozzi.
Tozzi wheeled around and dropped to one knee. He saw Feeney’s gun and he fired twice. A chunk of Feeney’s head flew across the aisle. Blood splattered across a croupier’s white blouse. Feeney’s knees buckled and he collapsed on the felt, faceup.
Tozzi stood up, gripping the automatic in both hands, ready to take on the pallbearers from the other side, but the sight of Excalibur in Gibbons’s hand had apparently dissuaded them. They were nowhere to be seen now.
Gibbons was gritting his teeth. “You’re one fucking asshole, Tozzi!”
Tozzi didn’t answer. He looked back across the aisle. Varga and Collesano were gone. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
“Yeah? How?” Gibbons shot back.
Armed security guards were running toward them, guns held high, pushing their way through the crush of hysterical people fleeing for their lives.
Tozzi spotted a tray full of chips, thousands of dollars’ worth of casino chips. He grabbed it and heaved it in the direction of the security guards. The chips flew out over the tables and rained down on the crowd. Gamblers shouted, shoved, and dove for the freebies. More chips fell, pelting their backs as they scrambled on their hands and knees.
By the time the guards reached the source of the shooting, they found a dead man in a black suit sprawled in the aisle with a silenced automatic in his crumpled hand. A second corpse was laid out faceup on a craps table, sprinkled with chips. There was a hundred-dollar chip on the spot where Feeney’s other eye should have been. The other two guys were gone.
THIRTY-SIX
They were sitting at the dining-room table having cake and coffee. Jules was at one end, Varga at the other, Joanne in the middle facing the windows. There was a big bowl of fruit on the table between the coffee cake and the pot of coffee. Two big ugly dogs were asleep under the table. The men’s appetites apparently hadn’t been affected by the carnage at the casino. They all looked pretty content. It was a real homey scene.
Tozzi stood at the sliding glass patio door, looking in. He wondered why those dogs didn’t sense his presence. Useless mutts. He glanced along the length of the house. Gibbons was just turning the corner, heading for the side door at the kitchen. He looked back in and focused on Varga stirring sugar into his coffee. From where Tozzi stood he had a clear shot at the fat son-of-a-bitch.
He switched the Beretta to his left hand, wiped his palm on his pants, then took the gun back in his right.
He wished to hell Gibbons would hurry up. But of course that wasn’t his way of doing things. They even had to have a debate in the car as to whether this was really the house or not. Gibbons had never trusted his partner’s hunches, but Tozzi had more than just a gut feeling about this one. This was the house he caught Joanne staring at when he came down here with her, the one she said her friend lived in, the politician’s daughter. Thinking back, Tozzi figured she must have told him to drive by here on purpose that time so that she could check the house, see what cars were in the driveway. There were three cars in the drive right now. Her maroon Saab, a black Fleetwood Brougham, and a smoke-gray Mercedes. He guessed that the Caddy was her father’s, the Mercedes Varga’s. He looked at her through the glass. Jules was telling a story, gesturing with his hand as if it were a gun, and she was laughing. Tozzi wondered if that whole story about the Barbie doll was a crock too.
Suddenly Tozzi heard the crash of glass breaking and immediately saw their alarmed faces as they all turned toward the clamor of Gibbons breaking the corner pane of the kitchen door. Tozzi banged hard on the glass patio doors to get their attention before anyone made a move. They saw him right away and he made sure they saw the gun. Even the dogs looked stunned. Tozzi tried the door, expecting it to be locked. Surprisingly the heavy glass slid open easily.
One of the dogs finally started to growl. It was about time.
Jules jumped when the swinging door behind him flew open and Gibbons came in from the kitchen leading with Excalibur. “Hey, what the hell is this?” Jules sputtered.
“Watch out for the dogs,” Tozzi said to Gibbons. Both Blitz and Krieg were growling low, but neither one moved from under the table. Still, they were mean-looking mothers and Tozzi didn’t trust them.
“Rottweilers,” Gibbons said as if making a note for himself.
“You fucking stupids,” Jules shouted. “Get the hell out of my house.”
“You’re under arrest,” Gibbons shouted over him. “All of you.”
“For what?” Joanne asked coolly. She laced her fingers and stared imperiously at Tozzi. The Ice Queen.
“Computer fraud in your case,” Gibbons said. “And conspiracy, complicity in arson, and insurance fraud.”
The dogs growled a little louder now.
“Really?” Joanne said, arching her brows. “And how does that stack up against helping a renegade FBI agent? Isn’t that conspiracy too? And how about complicity in the murders he committed?”
Gibbons didn’t answer her. He was looking at Varga. “Same charges for you, Varga. Plus murder for the deaths of FBI special agents Joel Lando, Alex Blaney, and James Novick.”
Varga seemed to wake up then. His eyes brightened and a rubbery grin stretched across his hanging jaw. “Who’s Varga?” he said in a soft, high voice. “You’ve got the wrong guy.” The grin stretched wider.
Tozzi couldn’t hold it in any longer. “You said you hated him,” he shouted at Joanne. “You said he fucked your father over. But all along you were really in cahoots with him. I don’t get you.”
Joanne threw her head back and laughed softly. “Well, maybe you’re just not as smart as you think you are, Tozzi.”
Jules snickered into his hand.
“Oh, no? Well, just how dumb do you think I am?” The woman was evil. He could feel the muscles in his jaw twitching. “You said he used to beat you. What happened? Did you miss it?” He wanted to hurt her the way she’d hurt him.
“Business is business, Tozzi. What can I tell you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She just shrugged and smiled.
“What is it about this guy?” Tozzi said, pointing at Varga with his gun. “Somehow he gets people to do whatever he wants, doesn’t he? Maybe that business about him not being able to get it up was just a story. I mean, he must be some kind of stud for you to still be rolling over and spreading your legs for him every time he snaps his fingers.”
She glared at
him. “You know, people like you refuse to understand anything because you don’t want to live in the present. Don’t tell me about the past, that’s history.”
“Well, then tell me about the present. I’m listening.”
She shook her head, exasperated with him.
“Come on, tell me a good story.”
“You want a good story? I’ll tell you one—”
“Joanne,” her father warned sternly, “don’t say a thing.”
“No,” she protested vehemently, “he wants a story. I’ll give him a good one.” She looked Tozzi in the eye and shifted to her business manner. “About two years ago, Richie came back to me with an opportunity, and I took it. Simple as that. He had a sound plan, and the risk factor was very low since he’d already eliminated all the competition with his grand jury testimony. With the information I had access to at DataReach, I knew that bilking insurance companies would be incredibly easy. The profit potential was phenomenal. As part of our deal he promised to give my father his old job back, capo of Atlantic City. And as for me, I wanted a title as well as a share in the profits. In time Joanne Varga will be known as the first woman underboss in the history of La Cosa Nostra and, I might add, underboss of the single most powerful crime family this country has ever seen.” She laughed scornfully and looked at Gibbons. “Now go try to sell that fairy tale back at the field office.”
Her explanation had the same arrogant ring as Kinney’s reasoning for killing Lando, Blaney, and Novick. It wasn’t their fault. Nothing was anybody’s fault. It was just the fortuitous meeting of opportunity with circumstance. That’s all. Blame it on the moon.
Jules slapped the table and made the silverware jump, laughing like a jackass.
Varga sipped his coffee and tittered smugly behind his cup. The bastard didn’t seem very upset that his cover had been blown.
“More coffee?” Joanne asked him, reaching for the pot.
“Sure, why not,” he said.
She reached for the pot and refilled his cup, glancing up at Tozzi from under her dark lashes. “Business is business,” she repeated with a mocking laugh. After she filled Varga’s cup, she leaned across the table and kissed her husband on the lips. They lingered over that kiss, playing it for the balcony. The fat under Varga’s chin bobbled and shook. It reminded Tozzi of a giant slug devouring its prey.
He just couldn’t take any more of this shit. His hands were steady as he leveled his gun at Varga’s fat head and cocked the hammer. Then unexpectedly he heard the click of another hammer. Very close to his ear. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the blue metal barrel about two feet from his head. Excalibur.
“Forget it, Tozzi,” Gibbons said.
The dogs growled.
THIRTY-SEVEN
“Don’t do it,” Gibbons said, holding his gun on Tozzi. “You do it and I’ll have to take you in. You’re not the law. Let a jury decide what he deserves. Let me take Varga in, the right way.”
“But what about Lando, Blaney—?”
Without warning gunshots exploded. Gibbons felt the impact of the bullet and automatically recoiled before he actually felt the pain. “Shit,” he grunted, clutching his elbow with his gun hand.
Tozzi discharged his weapon at the source of the gunfire without hesitation. Joanne screamed and fell forward onto the table. The gun she’d fired bounced off the tabletop and hit the carpet. She was on the edge of the table, struggling with her head to get her balance as she clutched her bloody hip with both hands. “Help me,” she demanded, but neither her husband nor her father moved. Her struggling only made her slide on the polished table, and she toppled over on her back. She cursed and whimpered at the pain. Her ivory-colored blouse was stained with coffee, and sticky flecks of coffee cake clung to her hair and face. Her hands were covered with her own blood.
“Goddamn you!” she said. “Goddamn you!” she kept repeating, but Gibbons wasn’t sure if it was meant for Tozzi or Varga. He got the feeling the indignity of being helpless on the floor upset her more than the slug in her hip.
The dogs were quiet now. One sniffed tentatively at her hip.
“Oh, my God,” Jules whispered in shock. “Oh, baby . . .” He slid to his knees to go to his daughter, but Tozzi chased him back into his seat with the muzzle of his gun.
“Hands on the table where I can see them. Fingers spread, both of you.” Tozzi backed up a step and trained the gun from one to the other. “You okay?” he asked Gibbons.
“My elbow,” he said tersely, shaking out a handkerchief to make a tourniquet. “I’ll live.”
“Don’t count on it, Bert.”
Gibbons turned toward the new voice. Blitz and Krieg started growling again. Bill Kinney was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, the swinging door against his back. His tan suit was wrinkled and he needed a shave. There was a machine pistol in his right hand. The left was still bandaged around the curved metal splints. Gibbons noticed that his watch fob was wrapped around his bandaged hand, the antique gold watch dangling between his two good fingers. “No, I wouldn’t count on it at all, Bert.” He had that Mr. Hyde look again.
Gibbons exhaled slowly and swallowed hard.
“As they say in the movies, drop your guns, boys.”
In the face of an Uzi at close range, Gibbons and Tozzi knew better than to argue. They let their weapons fall. Tozzi’s gun clacked against the small .22 automatic Joanne had used. Varga must’ve slipped it to her under the table when they kissed. Gibbons raked the two guns far out of Joanne’s reach with his foot.
“I heard about the shootout at the Imperial,” Kinney said. He shook his head and smirked. “I came right over. Figured you’d need someone competent to clean up the mess, Richie.”
No one said a word. Gibbons’s eye fell on the serrated bread knife Joanne had used to cut the coffeecake. It was at the edge of the table just above Joanne. He looked at Kinney, who was also looking at the knife.
“Say, Richie. If you’d like I could take care of Mr. Gibbons and Mr. Tozzi for you. The same way I took care of Lando, Blaney, and Novick, I mean.”
Varga said nothing, but that smug grin had disappeared.
“You don’t have any of those Japanese knives, do you, Jules?” Kinney asked. “You know the ones they advertise on TV? The ones you can cut through a beer can with? They’d be good.”
Jules forced a laugh. “Hey, Kinney, watch where you point that goddamn thing, will ya?”
Kinney swung the gun around and pressed the short barrel into Jules’s cheek. “I’ll point it wherever I goddamn want,” he said through clenched teeth.
Jules looked imploringly to Varga, whose dead stare never left Kinney.
When he removed the gun from Collesano’s face, he tracked the room slowly with it, pointing from Jules to Gibbons to Tozzi to Joanne to Varga and back. He did this as he talked. “Remember what a hell of a time I had with the eyes, Richie? Very hard to get them out without making a mess. What you need is something like a grapefruit spoon, something curved with a long handle and a sharp serrated edge. That would be perfect. Yeah, the eyes are tricky.” Kinney nodded to himself. “Taking the heads off is no problem. All you really need is strong blade. The strength of the metal is really just as important as the sharpness of the edge, I think, because you’ve got to get through that neck bone.”
Joanne was looking very pale. “Make him stop, Richie,” she hissed, gulping for air.
“Yeah, what you need is good tempered steel,” Kinney said. “You know what I’m talking about, Richie. I mean, I could probably do it with a good pizza cutter if I had to. You must have a good pizza cutter here, Jules. I mean, you’re Italian, after all.”
Christ, Gibbons thought.
“What’re you looking at me like that for, Tozzi? You think you’re better than me? I’m Jack the Ripper, but you’re Robin Hood, right? No, no, no, no. That’s not the way it is.” He gestured vehemently with his claw hand. “Sure, we’re both killers, but I’m smart and you’re not. I was lookin
g out for my future; you were just out for vengeance. I had a plan; you just had a mission, some stupid cause.”
“I’ve got a clear conscience,” Tozzi said.
“That and a dollar will get you on the subway.” He weighed the Uzi nervously in his hand. “You know, the two of you really are something. So high and mighty, so righteous. Is that what they taught you when you went through training, Bert? I know when Tozzi and I went through Quantico it was the law that was important. The laws were written to be enforced. Agents don’t write the laws and it’s not up to them to interpret those laws. They just enforce them. That’s how they told it to us. Maybe in Hoover’s day they taught it differently. Things were looser then, from what I understand.”
“No. It was just easier to tell the good guys from the bad guys back then,” Gibbons said.
Kinney laughed. “I doubt it. Everybody’s a bad guy unless he’s paid not to be. Except you two aberrations.”
“But you had it both ways, right?” Gibbons wanted to keep him talking. “A good guy and a bad guy at the same time.”
“You could say that. But I prefer to think of myself as a smart guy. I’m one of the very few people in this world who knows how to use the intelligence I was born with. Just give me a year, and I’ll be running this whole operation.” His eyes widened as he looked at Varga. He was clutching the watch tightly. “Do I scare you, Richie?” His derisive laugh degenerated into a wet cough.
“So what do you say, Richie?” Kinney raised his voice, waving the Uzi. “You’re still the boss. I haven’t taken over yet. Tell me what you want me to do? Come on. Show some initiative. You want me to make cold cuts out of them, I’ll do it. Just say the word.”
Gibbons looked at Varga looking at Kinney. His stare was cold and unwavering, a weird combination of intense hate and disdain. Under the table he tapped one of the dogs on the flank with the side of his shoe. Then he said one word in a flat monotone: “Blitzkrieg.”
Bad Guys Page 27
