Bad Guys Page 15

  There was a lot of good stuff on display in the showroom, and Paulie got a real kick out of dousing it all. It was the same feeling he got as a kid when he squirted lighter fluid on ant hills and set them on fire. One time, when he was home alone, he torched his sister’s dollhouse. Just stood there and watched all the tiny furniture burn, room by room. The elegant dining room, the little rec room, the frilly bedrooms, the whole little place. It didn’t look like the house they lived in; it was a house for rich people. These were nice little things, lots of things, and they all burned real nice. When the whole house was engulfed in flames, little Paulie’s heart was pounding. In a panic he threw the dollhouse out the window, then ran outside and put out the fire with the garden hose. He put what was left of it in two paper bags and ditched them in somebody else’s garbage around the corner. When his sister got home later that afternoon, she got frantic. Where was her dollhouse? Paulie said he didn’t know. Maybe burglars took it, he said. That night in bed he thought hard about the little house on fire while he played with himself. It was the first time he ever beat off.

  After draining the last of the final jug onto a big total-sound speaker that was nearly as tall as he was, Paulie tossed the jug behind a counter, then reached into his pocket for the matches. He pulled out a little box of wooden Blue Tips, which he preferred to paper ones. Wooden matches had a little weight; you could fling them farther.

  Climbing the stairs to the second floor, Paulie couldn’t help rubbing his crotch. This part always got him excited.

  He scanned the big room, knowing exactly where he’d start and how he’d proceed, but before he struck his first match, he reached up and fiddled with the selector dial on the headset. His station was running a string of commercials, and he had to have music now. All the rock stations were playing heavy-metal shit at this time of night, either that or that little fag Phil Collins. But just as he was about to settle for a change of pace and go back to the classical station that was playing a Strauss waltz, he found the Ronettes doing “Be My Baby.” He pictured the three girls in those tight sequined cocktail dresses and their outrageous beehive hairdos. Yeah.

  Striking the first match, he gazed into the little flame and sang along with the backup.

  He flicked the match at the satin wall hanging that advertised Bose speakers. It caught with a phooop so loud it drowned out Ronnie for a second. Before long the whole wall was on fire, flames beating against the ceiling panels.

  He flicked another match at the opposite wall, and a flame ran down the length of the room and ignited the drapes at the front windows.

  He was dancing now.

  Paulie ran down to the cellar where he stood on the stairway and tossed match after match until the room looked like hell.

  He rubbed his crotch. He was dribbling.

  Back up on the first floor, he sidestepped around the perimeter of the showroom, tossing matches, singing. Fire danced in his eyes.

  Finally, at the back of the room, he stood before his creation like a conductor before his orchestra. It was beautiful.

  “What the—”

  The music suddenly stopped as the headphones were ripped off his head. He could hear the full force of the hiss and roar of the raging fire as the room spun and his back slammed against the wall. His feet were off the ground, and his twisted shirt was digging into his armpits.

  Tozzi stuck his face right into Paulie’s. He ground his fists into the little man’s chest, holding him up against the wall. He’d always wanted to pin someone up against a wall this way with his feet off the ground. Tortorella was light enough to do it.

  “Who’s the Hun?” Tozzi shouted at him. “What’s his name?”

  Tortorella struggled and kicked to get free.

  “I’ll ask you once more,” Tozzi yelled in his face. “You don’t answer me, I throw you in the fire and lock the door.”

  The whites of Tortorella’s eyes were showing as he glanced at the heavy steel door.

  Tozzi didn’t want to give Tortorella a chance to think about it, so he dragged him closer to the flames to show him that it wouldn’t take too much effort to heave him in.

  “You want to burn, you little fuck?” he yelled. “Then tell me. Who’s the Hun?”

  “Steve, Stevie,” Tortorella shouted back, still struggling.

  “Stevie what?”

  “I don’t know. I swear.” In the glare of the fire, Tortorella looked more like Jerry Mahoney than Knucklehead Smith.

  Tozzi swung him around like a sack of grain so that his legs dragged through burning cardboard. Smoke was overtaking the room, filling his lungs. He hoped he could hold out just a little longer than Tortorella could.

  “Stevie what?” he yelled, swinging Tortorella over the flames again.

  “Pagano,” the little man muttered, then repeated it louder twice more to placate the madman.

  “Where is he?” Tozzi yelled. “Where do I find him?”

  Suddenly an explosion rocked the floor and threw Tozzi off-balance. The wiry little man landed on his feet and quickly kicked Tozzi in the groin.

  Tozzi doubled over. Pagano, Tozzi repeated over and over to himself, holding himself together as the pain thrummed through his body. He scrambled to his feet, coughing. Steve Pagano. He couldn’t forget it.

  He saw Tortorella run out the back door and he stumbled out after him, breathing into the sleeve of his jacket. He couldn’t stop coughing.

  Outside the cool air hit him like a cold shower. He coughed and heaved uncontrollably. All his body wanted to do was get the smoke out of his lungs. He heard an engine starting and he saw the shiny black fenders of the Caddy moving in the dark.

  Then suddenly he heard tires screech and the whine of a transmission in reverse. Taillights were rushing toward him fast. Tortorella was going to run him down.

  Tozzi turned and made a running leap into the dumpster. He landed in a cushion of trash just as the tail of the Caddy bashed into steel. The impact jolted him. He heard it and felt it vibrating all around him.

  Tires screeched again. Tozzi stood up and saw the Caddy swing around the lot, heading for the driveway. He unholstered the 9mm automatic, leveled it against the edge of the dumpster, and squeezed off seven shots with quick deliberation.

  The big car whooshed by him, making for the street. He jumped out of the dumpster and ran down the drive in time to hear the sound of a flat tire slapping madly against pavement. Tortorella wouldn’t get far on that. At least it would slow him down for the cops. And the broken taillight pieces by the dented dumpster would place Tortorella at the scene of the crime. Good.

  Tozzi smiled like a werewolf, still catching his breath. Shooting out the tires, he thought with satisfaction. He’d always wanted to do that too.

  Then Tozzi heard the screams of approaching sirens and broke into a run for the Buick. He didn’t want to be around when the firemen and the cops showed up.

  EIGHTEEN

  Hayes the librarian sat behind his desk in the File Room looking through a card-catalogue drawer, checking something against what was on his computer terminal. Gibbons was sitting at a cubicle watching him. There was a sugar doughnut on a paper napkin and a cup of coffee on Hayes’s desk, and from time to time Hayes would break off a small piece of doughnut and eat it, leaning forward over his desk to keep powdered sugar off him and out of the keyboard. He was making that doughnut last the way little kids make things last, and it was aggravating the hell out of Gibbons. Why the hell didn’t he just eat the goddamn doughnut and be done with it?

  If the Manhattan field office was a village, Gibbons often thought, Hayes would be the village idiot. He looked like a pro linebacker stuffed into a Robert Hall suit, but he had a soft whispery voice and a vague, confused way about him. He’d started with the FBI as a special agent, believe it or not. His size was an asset, but he was never able to bring himself to use it as a means of intimidation. And, of course, once he opened his mouth, he didn’t seem very intimidating at all. His main problem as an
agent had been that he was too thorough. He did things the right way, which meant his methodology was impeccable but his results amounted to shit.

  Gibbons sat at the cubicle with a yellow legal pad in front of him, trying to figure out how to overwhelm Hayes and throw up a smoke screen for Ivers. He had no choice but to use the files now, and Ivers would get his weekly printout of who called up what on the computer. But if Gibbons called up a lot of stuff, all kinds of stuff, it might keep Ivers busy second-guessing him for a while.

  Gibbons put together a list of names and events he wanted files on. There were twenty-six items on the list and eighteen of them had clear links to Tozzi, either cases he’d worked on, people he’d investigated, or crimes he’d tried to break. Seven of the items had more tenuous connections with Tozzi. Ivers would have to do some research to figure out why Gibbons might be looking into these things. This, he hoped, would obscure the information he really wanted, information on Steve “the Hun” Pagano.

  Tozzi, that bastard, had wakened him from a deep sleep late last night and told him about his encounter with Paulie Tortorella and how he squeezed him for Pagano’s name. Tozzi was so excited and incoherent, Gibbons didn’t even bother to tell him that Phillip Giovinazzo gave him the same information. Tozzi said they needed to know more about Pagano and insisted that the FBI files were the only way. Gibbons didn’t think it was such a hot idea, but at three A.M. he wasn’t going to argue about it.

  Gibbons stared at Pagano’s name where he’d written it down on the list. Tozzi was probably right, going to the files was the only way—the only practical way. Gibbons had considered going back to Giovinazzo and leaning on him some more, but it was unlikely that he’d say anything crucial about a fellow gangster. Omertà and all that bullshit. Tozzi could go hit up on Bocchino the fence again, maybe pay visits on other small-timers to see what else he could find out about Pagano, but Gibbons didn’t like the idea. Tozzi was a hothead, and his antics could draw unwanted attention. He was lucky he didn’t get caught at that fire. Gibbons figured the less time Tozzi spent out on the streets the better. The files were the only practical way.

  Gibbons tore off the top sheet from the pad and turned over the book he’d brought from home. It was the book he’d been reading about the influence of the Teutonic tribes on the Roman Empire. This was going to be another long, boring day, more so than usual because he was going to have to pretend that he was reading through all these files. That’s why he’d brought his book. He planned to read about barbarians while he scrolled through the files to make it look like he was reading from the terminal at his cubicle.

  As he walked over to Hayes’s desk, he scanned the list. Pagano’s name was the eleventh item on his list. He figured he’d have to wait till at least eleven-thirty before he could safely get to Mr. Pagano.

  “I want whatever you’ve got on all these,” he said to Hayes, dropping the list on his desk.

  Hayes peered up, squinted with his usual confused look, then stared down at the list. This took a while.

  Gibbons looked at his half-eaten doughnut on the paper napkin. It looked like a rat had been nibbling on it. “You gonna eat that?” he said.

  “What?”

  “The doughnut. You gonna finish it?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  Hayes’s mere existence irritated Gibbons, and he hated having to spend more than a passing moment in the man’s presence. “Just asking,” he said.

  It took twenty seconds for Hayes to digest all that before he returned to the list. “Do you want them in this order?” he finally asked.

  “Yes.”

  “All right,” he said slowly as he swiveled in his tiny secretary’s chair to face his keyboard.

  Gibbons was reminded of that business about chaining a hundred chimps to a hundred typewriters for a hundred years and eventually one of them would type out Hamlet.

  “I’ll feed the files directly to your terminal,” Hayes said. “When you want the next file, you hit the ‘escape’ key, then type ‘n’ space ‘f’—for ‘new file’—and hit the ‘return’ key. Okay?”

  “Fine,” Gibbons said, turning back to his cubicle.

  “But give me a few minutes to get you on line,” Hayes called after him.

  “Sure. Take your time.” You usually do, you big baboon.

  Gibbons went back to his seat and picked up his book. He started reading, but his mind wasn’t on it. He was thinking about this whole stupid ruse, annoyed with himself for having to waste the day making it look like he was reading through all those files. The fact that he had to be so devious made him angry. Especially because he had to do it for Hayes’s benefit.

  He got up and went back to Hayes’s desk. “I forgot to ask you,” he said. “If I want to cross-reference these files, can I jump around or do I have to take the files in order?”

  Hayes nodded. At what, Gibbons hadn’t a clue. He left his command post trailing Gibbons’s list behind him and went to the Xerox machine. He was still nodding. When a copy of the list came out of the machine, he gave the original back to Gibbons. “Refer to your list,” he finally explained. “I’ll enter the files in this order. When you want the first one, enter ‘n space f space 1.’ For the second file, ‘n f 2,’ and so on. That way you can skip around.” The ape lumbered back to his desk, dragging his knuckles. “It’ll take me a little more time to get it set up for you this way. Just a little bit longer.”

  “No problem.” Gibbons looked down at the crumbly half-eaten doughnut. It was really bothering him.

  Well, this should save some time, he thought, scanning his list as he returned to his seat. His eye fell on Reverend Miner’s name. Reverend Miner and the Empire of God. First Church of the Unholy Survivalist, Tozzi used to call it. That and St. Rambo’s. The reverend had more guns and munitions stockpiled than the New York State National Guard. Tozzi was the one who found the warehouse up in Rhinebeck. Crazy son-of-a-bitch. He had no patience for long-range surveillance, and he seldom waited for backups. That time Tozzi walked right across a cow field in broad daylight with a Nikon around his neck, climbed the roof of the warehouse, broke in through a ceiling vent, and took the whole roll of Miner’s arsenal. Then when some farm-boy believer caught him coming out of there with his camera, Tozzi told him he was just taking pictures of the cows. The farm boy was holding a hatchet, making it very clear that he wanted the camera. Tozzi, the crazy bastard, dangles the Nikon in front of the guy’s face like a hypnotist’s pocketwatch, then hauls off and coldcocks him. What a fucking cowboy.

  The next item on the list was the Cartagena Connection, cocaine smugglers. Gibbons shook his head at the memory. These slimy Colombians were making a delivery at the East Hampton Airport on Long Island. Their cover was a helicopter shuttle service from Manhattan. Seven agents and a dozen local cops were undercover waiting for them to touch down and unload when some stupid rookie jumps the gun and starts yelling and waving his service revolver at the chopper. One of the Colombians was already out of the hull, but his buddy inside started yelling for him to get back in. The chopper was two feet off the ground, the engine revving, ready to take off again. The bullets were just about to start flying when out of the blue, Tozzi runs out onto the tarmac pushing a lawnmower. Nobody knows what the hell to make of this, not even the Colombians. All of a sudden Tozzi’s swinging this lawnmower like he’s gonna throw the hammer. Then he lets it fly, right into the chopper’s tail rotor. The noise was enough to scare the shit out of anyone, and it was only afterward that they found out the chopper could’ve flipped over and exploded. Tozzi was unimpressed with that information, as Gibbons remembered.

  Gibbons’s grin of nostalgia gradually faded. Tozzi had a long history of being reckless. It was unlikely that being out on his own made him any more cautious, and that worried Gibbons. Did Tozzi really believe he could knock off all the guys on his hit list, then safely make it out of the country to one of his relatives’? Tozzi wasn’t that stupid. At least he never used to be.
Gibbons decided he better find out more about what Tozzi was doing with his time. Particularly what he was doing with Varga’s wife. They had to be very careful now.

  Gibbons frowned. He knew he was thinking like an old lady. After all, who was going to catch them? He and Kinney were the only guys assigned to the case, and Kinney didn’t give a shit about finding Tozzi. Still, he was uneasy, and he knew why. Consulting Bureau files for the benefit of a felon is a felony itself. Before this he’d maintained a degree of skepticism about Tozzi’s crusade and in his mind he felt uncommitted, but by going into the files now he was actively working with Tozzi, and this time it really felt like he was doing something illegal.

  Hayes’s head suddenly popped up over the edge of his cubicle. “Okay, Gibbons, you’re on line. You can proceed.”

  Gibbons nodded absently. He called up the first file, thinking about Ivers’s monitoring system, wondering if the SAC could get lucky and figure out that the renegade had a confederate within the Bureau. He scrolled randomly, then called up another file, lingering over it for several minutes before he switched to a new one, deliberately avoiding the Pagano file. He looked around the side of the cubicle. Hayes was still nibbling on that goddamn doughnut. What the hell, he thought. We’re already in this far.

  He keyed in “n f 11” and waited for the printing to appear on the terminal. There was a pause, then a short message appeared. “No file under that title. Searching for cross-reference. Please wait.”

  Gibbons’s stomach sank. He pictured Ivers’s face suddenly appearing on the screen, telling him that the jig was up. Gibbons told himself that he was being paranoid. The computer was just doing its thing, for chrissake.