Bad Luck Page 18

  She closed her eyes, still grinning. “I’ll make a deal with you. Give me another half hour and I’ll be your love slave for the rest of the day, okay?”

  “And what am I supposed to do for a half hour?”

  “I dunno, go make coffee, watch cartoons. Go take your walk. You figure it out.” She turned over and shrugged the covers up.

  He stood up on the floor, scrunched his mouth to one side, and thought about trying out the Jacuzzi in the bathroom. He wandered over to the triangular picture window and looked out at the ocean. The sun was bright and the fog was burning off the beach. The water was calm, slate-blue right below him, silvery in the distance. A couple of hundred yards offshore there was a fishing boat, just one, all by itself, bobbing on the waves. To hell with the Jacuzzi, he was too antsy to wait for it to heat up. Makes too much noise anyway, all that burbling. She wants to sleep. “I’m gonna go take a walk,” he said.

  Valerie didn’t move. She’d already fallen back to sleep.

  There he was. Sal could see him. Standing in front of that big triangle window with nothing on but a hat. Fucking Tomasso. Mokowski said he’d get him here. Sal stood under the overhang in the back of the fishing boat and fiddled with the focus on the binoculars to get a better look at him. The hat was pulled down low over the asshole’s eyes, like he was some kind of tough guy. Bullshit.

  Tomasso moved away from the window then. Sal set down the binoculars and leaned against the galley door so the captain up there in the driver’s seat couldn’t see. He took the gun out of the gym bag he’d brought and stuck it in his pants, then pulled the baggy gray sweatshirt over it and left the plaid wool shirt unbuttoned.

  Sal came out from under the overhang, shading his eyes as he yelled up to the bridge. “Yo, Captain. I want you to take her in as far as you can. Over near that big gray monstrosity, the one with the triangle windows. See it?”

  The captain squinted over toward Nashe’s place, looked at it for a while, then scratched his head. Sal figured the guy was about his age, close-cropped red hair, wavy on top, light eyebrows and lashes, wrinkles and freckles. The kind of guy always named Brian or Kevin, something like that. Kind of guy Sal couldn’t relate to at all. Sal waited for the guy to say something but he didn’t, just scratched his head and squinted at the house.

  “Something wrong with that, Captain?” Better not be anything wrong with that. I’m paying you enough.

  The guy laid his hands on the rail. Rough, red hands, like lobster claws. “Wellll,” he said, dragging it out, “I’ll take her in as far as I can and drop anchor for you. Pretty calm today. You shouldn’t get too wet.” He was saying one thing, but his tone was saying something else.

  “What’s wrong? You sound like something’s wrong?”

  “Wellll . . . I’ll tell you. Can’t park in there too long. Coast Guard choppers patrol the whole shore, looking for drug smugglers and whatnot. Not s’posed to go in that close to a swimming beach. Chopper comes by, he’ll chase my tail back out to sea just like that.”

  “Yeah, so what’re you saying here? You’re not gonna do it? We had a deal.”

  The captain kept squinting at the house. “Nooo . . . I’ll do it. I’m just saying whatever you gotta do over there, make it quick. Else I might not be there when you come out. Don’t stick around for no birthday cake or nothing.”

  “Yeah, fine.” Sal had told him he was doing this as a birthday surprise for a good friend of his. A kind of a beach assault.

  The captain went back to the wheel and turned the boat around. Sal sat in the fishing chair and started pulling on the black rubber hip waders he’d bought last night at a Herman’s in some mall in Toms River, the kind of waders that go right up under your armpits. They were new and they didn’t go on easy. Reminded him of his grandmother getting into her girdle. The ones that came in those cardboard tubes and smelled to high heaven. These hip waders stunk of new rubber but nothing like that sharp, powdery smell he remembered from his grandma’s new girdles.

  Thinking of his grandmother reminded him of Cil because she was always talking about her. Two of a kind, both religious nuts. Only problem with religion was that people like her make such a fucking religion out of it. Yeah, but Cil was a nun, for chrissake—she was supposed to be a religious nut.

  Sal got the waders on up to his thighs, then stood up to pull them up the rest of the way. Fucking Tomasso, the supposed bodyguard. Mokowski thought there was something wrong with him too. Said he wouldn’t be surprised if the guy was a fed. Sal wasn’t surprised. He figured the Bureau was on his case again. Putting the bug in Cil’s crucifix was their kind of thing. But the way Sal figured it, if the FBI knew anything at all, it wasn’t from that bug. No, it had to be from Tomasso. Mokowski said it wouldn’t have been that hard for him to get into Nashe’s office. He probably found some papers on the land under the Plaza. That had to be it. If they tried to make a case against him, one of those bullshit RICO charges, Tomasso—or whatever his real name was—would be the one who’d have to testify in court.

  So it was simple: Tomasso had to go. Nip it in the bud before they get down to business with the warrants and the subpoenas and all that shit. Tomasso’s still around working undercover, so the investigation’s still underway—meaning he hasn’t sat down with the legal guys yet. Without him, they can’t build a case against anybody. Best to nip it in the bud right now. Tomasso dies and that’ll be the end of it.

  Sal pulled the straps over his shoulders and nudged the gun around under all the layers until it was comfortable. He pictured Tomasso’s face—cocky bastard in that Dick Tracy hat. He knew there was something wrong about the guy the minute he saw him. Little bastard. Tomasso thinks he’s hot shit, fucking Sydney. We’ll see. That’s why Sal didn’t want to let anybody else take care of this. He wanted to do it himself, to see how cocky the bastard’s face would be this time. You fuck with me, you get fucked.

  Sal looked out over the water at the big modern gray house, the boat’s engine rumbling low under his feet. He nudged the gun again, put his hand on it. He took a big breath, smelled the salt air. This was good. He was taking care of business. He was a little anxious, what with the fight and all, but right now he felt good.

  Tozzi picked up a piece of driftwood and flung it into the waves. A bunch of gulls screamed and swooped down around it, thinking it was something to eat. Old Barney, the lighthouse over in Barnegat Light, was in front of him, two miles at least in the distance. He considered walking to it, just for something to do. Valerie wanted to sleep. They’d been up late last night and—If she wanted to sleep, let her sleep.

  Tozzi trudged through the sand in his bare feet. The wet sand down by the water was cold, so he moved up to the dry sand, but that was harder to walk in. It was a trade-off. So was this undercover, he thought. He loses Valerie probably, but at least he gets out before Sal Immordino blows his head off. That’s a fair trade-off. Except he wasn’t very satisfied with it.

  He wanted everything. He wanted to nail Nashe and Immordino for whatever they were doing. He wanted Sydney to get hers, the manipulating little witch. He wanted his efforts on this assignment to be a resounding success so that Ivers would stop treating him like the problem child. He wanted Valerie.

  He glanced over his shoulder at the big gray beach house, the triangular picture windows on the third floor. Nobody gets everything. He stopped and stared up at those windows where she was sleeping. He thought about going back, waking her up, having his last few hours with her. Like the condemned man’s last meal.

  Then he turned around and headed for Old Barney. Let her sleep, he thought. She’s really tired. She won’t disappear at sundown. This isn’t the end of the world.

  A real brain, this Tomasso. Leaves the sliding glass doors unlocked. Regular people do stuff like that. Feds are supposed to be smarter, more security-minded.

  Sal stepped inside and scanned the big room. Enormous. Sunken living room with a free-standing fireplace at one end, sofas and easy chairs e
verywhere, long black lacquer table and chairs in the dining area, floor-to-ceiling windows with those big vertical blinds all around. And lavender wall-to-wall carpeting. Sydney’s touch. This was kind of the way he imagined the Playboy mansion, the kind of place where Hef used to have those wild parties. Just like that TV show he used to have. Hef in his bathrobe, the bunnies with the incredible tits all around him. This was that kind of room. All except for the lavender carpet. Hef would go for red.

  Sal slowly slid the glass panel closed except for a few inches. The sound of the ocean was muffled and suddenly he heard music, faint and far away. He stood there, listening. It was coming from upstairs. Bebop sax, Charlie Parker, it sounded like. He slid the straps off his shoulders and reached down into the layers of clothing for the 9mm. He finally got it out and released the safety. Leading with the gun, he slowly followed the sound of the sax to the blond wood staircase on the other side of the room. The rubber feet of the waders on the plush lavender carpeting didn’t make a sound. Sal liked that.

  Tozzi stared out at the ocean, trying to spot a shark fin or a whale’s tail, waiting with hope and dread and terrible anticipation the same way he’d done when he was a kid, thinking that if he wished hard enough, the Creature from Twenty Thousand Leagues would suddenly come crashing out of the water, whipping his ugly head back, screaming and roaring and royally pissed off, ready to start ravaging the land. Tozzi kept looking, but he didn’t see anything.

  She must be special, he thought. Even Gibbons likes her.

  He dug his toes into the dry, warm sand and thought about some of the disastrous relationships he’d had with women in the past. His ex-wife, the chandelier heiress from Rhode Island. The Mafia princess in sheep’s clothing. The half-English redhead who ran the nanny agency. The NYPD detective from the Sex Crimes Unit. The married woman . . . These were just the featured players; there were minor characters, going all the way back to high school, more than he wanted to think about. None of them had been like Valerie, though. Not even close.

  The wind blowing off the ocean whistled in his ears. If he suddenly disappeared, then called her in a month or so, out of the blue, what was she gonna think? That he’s an asshole, that’s what. He could just hear the sarcastic remarks. An FBI agent? Yeah, sure, she’d say. It would be better if he told her today, before he disappeared. At least there’d be a chance for them to pick up where they’d left off. Only one problem with that: Telling her his real identity while the undercover was still under way would be a direct violation of Bureau rules, the kind of infraction Ivers could use to hang his ass up for good.

  He wiggled his toes and moved his feet, probing for warmer sand. He looked out at the waves. The ocean was still blank, no monsters. Fuck the rules. She was worth the risk. Anyway, she wouldn’t tell if he asked her not to, she’s a stand-up chick. That’s why she’s so great. That’s why she’s worth it.

  Tozzi stared at the ocean, the wind blowing around his head. He was gonna do it. He was gonna tell her. Valerie was too good to lose. He turned his back on Old Barney and started back toward the house.

  Leave it to fucking Beaver. Da-dump, da-da-da, da-da, da-da . . . all night long. Even though Charlie Parker was getting louder as he climbed the stairs to the third floor, Sal couldn’t get that stupid Beaver song out of his head. It was what Sydney sang that whole night when she brought him here. She’s coming, for chrissake, but she’s still singing the damn song. What a fucking wack. She must’ve taken Tomasso here too. Same bedroom and everything, the one with the lavender Jacuzzi in the bathroom. Probably sang him the Leave It to Beaver song too. Crazy bitch.

  Sal’s rubber feet squeaked on the hardwood floor in the hallway, but the stereo was blasting in there, so he didn’t think anyone could hear. He peered into the bedroom through the doorway. Sheets messed up on the bed. Tomasso’s suit hanging on a chair. Bra and panties on the floor. Hey, maybe Sydney was in the Jacuzzi with him. He could shoot ’em both. Nice idea, but he knew that Sydney had been in New York all week on her lavender tug. Tomasso must’ve brought some bimbo up here to keep him company while he hid out. Too bad. She’d have to go too.

  He racked the slide on the automatic and entered the room, walking softly across the rug that looked like someone had spilled a gallon of paint on it. He stopped short when the song on the stereo suddenly ended. Just the sound of bubbling water from the Jacuzzi. He waited for the next song to start up and make some noise. He leveled the gun at the doorway to the bathroom, just in case someone walked out. The music started up again. Sal knew this one. He had the record. “Nights in Tunisia.”

  He stepped closer to the doorway and peered in. The bebop horns reverberated olf the lavender tile walls. Water bubbled and whooshed. He couldn’t make out a body under the foamy water. All he could see was the top of that fucking gray hat on Tomasso’s head propped against the side of the lavender Jacuzzi. Stupid asshole. Wears the damn hat in the Jacuzzi. For what? To impress the girl? Sal glanced back into the bedroom. Where was the girl? He shrugged. Who cares? Long as Tomasso gets it.

  He aimed the gun down at the Dick Tracy hat. “Hey, Tomasso.” He had to repeat it louder to be heard over the music. “Tomasso! Wake up!”

  The head turned, and suddenly he saw the face under the hat. Shit. It wasn’t Tomasso. It was that blonde, from the other night at Tomasso’s apartment. Shit.

  “What the hell’re you—” Then she spotted the gun. Her eyes jumped back and forth between the gun and his face.

  Sal shouted, “Turn around!”

  But she didn’t turn around. She just kept staring at the gun, frozen. Then she stared up at him, and he could tell from her eyes that she recognized him, that she remembered him. And then he remembered that Tomasso had introduced them, told her his name was Clyde, Clyde Immordino. “Turn around, I said!”

  She didn’t do it, though, and that’s when the gun sort of went off by itself because he didn’t think about it. He just did it because he knew it had to be done, and the shot sounded like a goddamn cannon with all the tile in the room. The girl jerked forward, went under face first, and now she was coming back up, her bare back rising like an island of white skin in a boiling sea. He spotted the entry wound right away, between her neck and shoulder, close to the spine. Two more cannon shots, without thinking. Her body twitched, twisted as it went under a little, then came back up, floating, in slow motion. It was the part with trumpet solo. “Nights in Tunisia.” Dizzy Gillespie with his bent horn.

  Tomasso. Where the fuck was he? Sal spun around, went back into the bedroom, gun ready, expecting Tomasso to come bounding into the room. But he didn’t. Where the fuck—

  Then he heard it, another horn, not Dizzy Gillespie, a horn outside, like a fog horn—blap! blap! blap! Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. He looked out the triangle window opposite the foot of the bed. Blap! blap! blap! Hurry up. He saw the boat. Then he saw the helicopter. About two, three hundred yards up the beach, coming this way. Coast Guard helicopter. Coming to chase the boat away from the beach. Or stop it for drug smuggling. Shit. Where the fuck is Tomasso, that little chickenshit?

  Sal ran out of the bedroom, his rubber feet squeaking on the hardwood floor, rushing down the stairs, wishing Tomasso would show his fucking face so he could blow it off. He couldn’t hear Dizzy Gillespie or Charlie Parker or anything else now. Just the horn on the boat outside. Blap! blap! blap! Hurry up!

  The beach house was still a football field away when the chopper came up from behind and roared over Tozzi’s head. He shaded his eyes and followed it as he walked in the soft sand, watched it stop and hover over a small fishing boat. The boat was in pretty close to the beach. Tozzi wondered if it was in trouble.

  He looked at the house and realized that the boat and the helicopter were right by the house. Gonna wake Valerie up, he thought. Then he spotted this guy in hip waders running into the waves, a big guy, galloping like a horse through the water, heading out to the boat. Another guy in the boat helped the big guy with the hip waders ge
t in. Tozzi could hear the loudspeaker on the chopper, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying to the guys in the boat. Coast Guard probably giving them hell for being so close to the beach. Valerie must be staring out the window, wondering what the hell—

  Galloping like a horse, a big guy . . . Tozzi’s heart started to pound. Fucking Immordino. Val! He started to run, feeling the dread like sludge in his stomach. Val! His legs dug into the sand, but it sucked at the soles of his feet and slowed him down. He wanted to be there—now—but he couldn’t run fast enough, and he started to blame himself before he even knew anything was wrong. Val!

  He kept trying to run, but the sand didn’t want him to. He moved down to the wet sand and picked up speed, but by the time he reached the house, the chopper was gone and the boat was way out there. He ran in through the sliding glass door, wide open, not the way he’d left it.

  “Val!”

  He ran up the stairs, turning on the landing, more stairs, second floor, more stairs, another landing, taking the stairs two, three at a time, third floor, pounding barefoot on the wood floor. The jazz sax, the bubbling water.

  “Val, answer me!”

  Rushing into the bathroom, he slipped on the wet floor and banged his knee on the tile. It hurt like a bastard. He squeezed his eyes closed and clutched it, pressed it to his chest. But then he opened his eyes and he saw her. He didn’t feel the pain anymore. She was half out of the water, flat on her belly, like a beached dolphin in one of those dolphin shows. Thin lines of blood squiggling down her wet back, trickling over her ribs. Val!

  He crawled over to her, felt her wet hair, probed for a pulse in her neck, put his ear to her back at the same time and heard the faint, shallow breathing.

  He jumped up and slid again, scrambled for the phone in the bedroom. He punched out 911, looking into the bathroom, wanting to go to her. One ring, two rings. Come on, come on. Hurry it up, goddamn you.

  “Long Beach Island emergency services.” A woman’s voice. Too goddamn calm.