Bad Business Read online

“Hold on one minute, Jimmy—”

  McCleery wasn’t waiting, though. He spun Augustine around and pinned his arm behind him as he cuffed one wrist, then snatched the other one and finished the job. He gripped the chain and pulled up on it so that Augustine was forced to stoop over.

  Gibbons smiled like a crocodile. It was quite wonderful to see a shining eminence like Augustine manhandled so skillfully.

  “You’re making a big mistake,” Augustine threatened, twisting his head to look up at them, making all kinds of weird faces. But no one was listening.

  “Nice work, McCleery.”

  “Thank you for saying so, Cuthbert.”

  “Shall we go see what Tozzi’s doing?”

  “By all means. I can read Mr. Augustine his rights as we go. Come along now, Tom.” He jerked the chain and forced Augustine to walk.

  Gibbons picked up the Glock on the ground and followed. He figured McCleery was happy now. His brogue was back. He’d lost it for a while there in the car.

  As they approached Grand Street, Gibbons swore that the entire New York City Police Department was in Little Italy, cruisers parked every which way, cops taking down accident reports up and down Mulberry Street from motorists who were shouting and screaming and tearing their hair out. Another gang of uniforms were clustered over by the white van across from La Bell’ Isola Ristorante. He could just imagine what was going on over on Canal Street. The insurance adjusters were gonna have fun tonight.

  They headed for the van, pushing through the crowd of nosybodies that had gathered around to catch the action. Tozzi was giving his story to the ranking uniform. The dwarf was handcuffed and draped over the fender of a cruiser, moaning and groaning, drooling all over the hood. The rug was on the ground right where Tozzi had dropped it.

  “Hey, Toz, I brought you a present.” Gibbons held up the Glock for his partner to see. He jerked his head at Augustine in chains. “You can have him too.”

  When the cops saw who the prisoner was, they nearly shit their pants. “Mr. Augustine!” the sergeant gasped. It was like this fucking bastard was the goddamn Pope or something.

  “This is all a mistake. A big mistake.” Augustine’s face had deep creases, and his eyes were out of kilter. He kept repeating this mistake business like a goddamn parrot.

  Tozzi walked up to Augustine and looked down at him. “How’s it going, Tom?” He reached into Augustine’s coat pockets.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Augustine was on his high horse.

  “I’m looking for something, Tom.”

  “Stop that,” the sergeant ordered. “You’re not authorized.”

  Gibbons showed his I.D. “I’m authorized.” He looked at his partner. “Continue your search.”

  The sergeant made a face, but didn’t interfere.

  “I’ve already patted him down,” McCleery said. “We’ve got his guns.”

  “That’s not what I’m looking for.” Tozzi kept searching, hauling Augustine up straight by his lapels, pawing through all his pockets.

  Augustine was going nuts, making strange noises like he needed a lube job, his eyes going in and out of focus. He didn’t look like he was used to being touched. “This is illegal. Officer, I demand—”

  “Ah, here we go.” Tozzi found what he was looking for in the side pocket of Augustine’s suit coat. A patch of rug with an Oriental pattern, a ragged piece about four by four.

  “Excuse me,” Tozzi said to the cops gathered around as he went over to the van and started to unfold the rug. “Give me a hand here, Gib.”

  Together they unrolled the whole rug on the street. The crowd mumbled and chattered. In one corner of the rug, a square had been cut out. You could see the quilted gray plastic inner lining through the hole. There was a small piece of duct tape on the plastic. Tozzi got down on his knees with the swatch and made it fit like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle. “Son of a bitch. How about that,” he said, staring up at Augustine. “A perfect match.”

  “What’s that plastic thing inside?” the sergeant asked. He sounded very grim and gruff. Must be one of McCleery’s clan.

  “Let’s find out,” Tozzi said. He scratched at the piece of duct tape on the plastic lining and pulled it off. “Anybody got a knife?”

  McCleery had a penknife on his key chain. Tozzi flipped the blade open and inserted it in a slit already cut into the plastic. When he pulled it out, the blade was covered with white powder. The wind suddenly picked up and blew it into the rug.

  The sergeant was stern. “What’s that?”

  Tozzi looked up at him. “I’ll bet it ain’t Sweet’n Low.”

  “They planted that piece of rug on me,” Augustine pronounced indignantly. “This man is trying to frame me.”

  McCleery yanked his chain and bent him over again. “Let’s not be making it worse now, hmm?”

  “Officer, I demand that I be released. This is a sham. You have jurisdiction here. Do something.”

  The sergeant pressed his lips together, staring down at Augustine’s peculiar posture as he thought it over. He caught Gibbons’s eye, and Gibbons shrugged. “Forty kilos. Heroin. Take my word for it. If you don’t want the collar, we’ll take it.”

  The sergeant didn’t have to think about it any longer. “Roll up the rug,” he ordered his men. “Take the suspect down to Central Booking. We’ll straighten it out down there.”

  Two uniforms took Augustine’s arms and stood him up. Looney Lord Fauntleroy tried to struggle, but he was no match for the boys in blue.

  “Settle down now, Tom,” McCleery cooed in his ear. “I’ll be coming with you. They won’t be taking all the credit for this.” He turned to Gibbons and Tozzi. “You coming?”

  Gibbons shook his head. “Take him, he’s yours.”

  Tozzi shrugged. “Technically, I’m still suspended. I’d like to help you out, but . . .”

  “Well, I guess his head goes on my wall, then.”

  Augustine was still making a fuss. “You think this is very funny, McCleery? You’ll see how funny I can make it for you. For all of you. You don’t realize what I can do. You don’t—”

  He stopped suddenly, and his face turned scarlet. Augustine was staring over the heads of the crowd, staring across the street. Gibbons followed his gaze to the tenement. A poker-faced little old man and a formerly jolly fat man were standing together in the doorway, Zucchetti and Salamandra.

  “This is all your fault,” Augustine screamed over the crowd, his face twitching again. “You thought you knew everything, but you blew it. You wouldn’t listen. You and your stubborn, ignorant peasant mentality—that’s your whole problem. All of you. You ruined it for yourselves. It was so good, but you ruined it. You’re nothing but filthy peasants. You didn’t deserve me.”

  Augustine was still ranting as the cops dragged him away and shoved his head down into the back of a cruiser. Gibbons wondered why he was openly acknowledging his association with the Sicilians. Had he really snapped, or was he already building his insanity defense? You could never tell with Augustine. He was a clever bastard.

  A rookie cop muscled his way through the crowd, holding a roll of masking tape over his head. He handed it to another cop who knelt down and taped up the slits in the gray plastic so they wouldn’t lose any more evidence. The two of them rolled up the rug then and hoisted it on their shoulders, carrying it away. With all the noise and confusion around them, the departing rug made Grand Street look like your average day in a Turkish bazaar.

  Gibbons looked over at the tenement where Zucchetti and Salamandra grimly watched their eighty million sailing away. The fat man leaned over and whispered into the big boss’s ear. The old man jutted out his lower lip, shrugged, and shook his head. Then they both went back inside. Gibbons looked up at the building. Someone was pulling a shade down in one of the windows on the third floor. On the telephone pole right outside, a big candy cane swayed in the wind, the silver garland blowing and shimmering like crazy.

  — 25 —
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br />   “. . .It is cold and it is wild here in Times Square. We’re exactly sixteen minutes away from midnight, when the big red apple you see on your screen now will drop and usher in the New Year.”

  The camera switched back to Dick Clark standing on some rooftop over Times Square, holding a microphone and freezing his ass off.

  “I never liked that guy,” Gibbons said as Tozzi handed him a fresh beer.

  Tozzi sat down next to him on the couch. “Why’s that?”

  “I dunno. I just never liked him. I mean, what does he do that’s so wonderful? He’s a no-talent.”

  Tozzi sipped from a bottle of Rolling Rock. “He’s a producer. He discovers talent. That’s how he got so rich.”

  “So what? Being rich doesn’t make him worth watching on TV.”

  “So whattaya want me to do about it? Change the channel. You want Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians?”

  “Guy Lombardo is dead.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Tozzi was grinning at him behind his beer bottle, and Gibbons knew what he was thinking. Tozzi thought he was a dinosaur. He thought “old guys” like him were supposed to like Guy Lombardo and Lawrence Welk, that kind of crap. Well, the problem with guys Tozzi’s age, the “baby boomers,” was that they thought their generation was it. Anyone who came before them was from the horse-and-buggy era, and everybody who came after was just a footnote to them. Gibbons swigged his beer and decided he wasn’t even going to bother responding to this asshole. It was New Year’s Eve, and they were at Lesley Halloran’s house. He wasn’t going to get started with Tozzi now. It wasn’t the time or the place.

  Tozzi slumped down in his seat. He had the remote in his hand. “You ever see MTV, Gib?”

  “You looking for trouble tonight or what?”

  “No. I was just thinking I’d show you what’s going on in the rest of the world.”

  “I know a hell of a lot more than you ever will.”

  “C’mon, Gib. You don’t have to be so hostile. It’s New Year’s.”

  “Yeah, you’re a real wiseass now, but you weren’t so smart when you got yourself suspended.”

  “You sayin’ it was my fault I got suspended? I didn’t ask Augustine to frame me.”

  “No, but you left yourself wide open for it. You and your big mouth. You made yourself an easy target.”

  “Whattaya talking, easy target? If it wasn’t for me, Augustine’d still be out there, doing his little deals with the Zips. He’s not gonna get away with shit because of me. He’s gonna do time. Hard time.”

  “No thanks to you.”

  “Hey, listen. I’m the one who found the heroin. I kept it on ice so we could burn him with it.”

  Gibbons sat up and glared at his partner. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. You found the heroin? The hell you did. I figured out it was in the rug. I told you where it was.”

  “Yeah, but who stuck his neck out—?”

  “Are you two arguing again?”

  Lesley came out of the kitchen with Lorraine. They were bringing out a bottle of champagne and four tall flute glasses.

  “They’re constantly at each other,” Lorraine said in a tired voice. “It’s a wonder they haven’t killed each other by now.”

  Tozzi shook his head. “You don’t understand, Lorraine. You never have. This isn’t fighting. If we were fighting, you’d know it.”

  “Yeah, ’cause I’d win,” Gibbons said.

  “Bullshit, you would.”

  “Look, Toz, you’re just p.o.ed because I broke this case and saved your ass, and you just don’t want to admit it.”

  Tozzi sat up and leaned into Gibbons’s face. “Now you really are looking for a fight, Gib.”

  Lorraine plopped down on the couch between them. “You have to separate them when they get like this,” she said to Lesley. “They’re like kids.”

  Lesley laughed. It was the first easy laugh Gibbons had heard out of her since the incident on Grand Street. She’d been nervous and ill at ease all evening, sort of like Mary Tyler Moore, smiling too much, trying too hard to act natural. She’d been through a lot, and it wasn’t over. Patricia was having nightmares, getting up in the middle of the night, wandering around and crying, looking for her mother. Lesley took the kid to a shrink, but the doctor said they were lucky, her trauma actually could’ve been much worse. Nemo had conned her into taking some cold medicine for kids to calm her down after he kidnapped her. They found the bottle in the van. Patricia had slept through most of the ordeal. Gibbons wondered, though, how she’d react to the hunchback of Notre Dame if she ever happened to see the movie on The Late Show some night.

  Lesley poured out two glasses of champagne and handed one to Lorraine, then wiggled in next to Tozzi, wrapping her arm around his. Gibbons hadn’t particularly liked Lesley when he’d first met her, but she turned out to be all right. Like most people, her bitchiness was just a cover for her little insecurities. Actually she even looked better now. She was small, and Gibbons had never seen much in small women, but she was an exception, a fine-looking woman with smarts on top. Too good for Tozzi.

  He shifted his gaze to Lorraine’s profile as she watched Dick Clark on television. She was looking great tonight with those combs in her long dark hair. He’d never seen her in this slinky dress, even though she swore she’d had it for years when they were getting dressed this evening. She was showing a lot of leg, one knee over the other, bouncing her high heel under the coffee table. Yeah, she was looking good tonight. Not many women look this good at fifty-one. Not many look this good at twenty-nine. She couldn’t possibly be related to Tozzi. She was too classy. They must’ve found him in a garbage pail floating down the river.

  “You don’t really believe that, do you, Gib?” Tozzi leaned past Lorraine.

  “What?”

  “That you’re the one who made this case.”

  “Of course I believe it.”

  “Get outta here.”

  Lorraine elbowed her cousin back into the couch. “Will you two stop it? If you want to know what I think, I think you both screwed up because you didn’t get Zucchetti.”

  “Well,” Tozzi said, already on the defensive, “Zucchetti never touched the rug. We had nothing to connect him with it. He kept himself insulated from the actual drug operations. All the big bosses do that.”

  “Yes, but he’s the big fish. He’s the one you needed to get to stop the heroin pipeline. Right?”

  “You’re absolutely right, Lorraine, but the evidence just isn’t there to bring charges against him.”

  Lesley put her glass down on the coffee table. “I feel a little guilty saying this and I know I shouldn’t feel this way, but in my heart I don’t feel that badly toward Zucchetti. He did save Patricia.”

  “Yeah, that’s the funny thing about these old-time mob guys,” Tozzi said. “Unlike the current generation—the jerks like Nemo—the old-timers really are ‘men of honor.’ They have a set code of rules and they do seem to live by them.”

  “You’ve seen too many reruns of The Godfather, Tozzi. There’s nothing noble about these people. They’re slime, they’re bad guys, pure and simple.”

  “I disagree, Gib.”

  “Because you’re an idiot.”

  Tozzi waved him away. “You believe what you want to believe. Friggin’ hardhead.”

  “So what’ll happen with the Figaro Connection case now?” Lorraine cut in. “I know the judge declared a mistrial because of Augustine’s involvement with the Sicilians, but is that the end of it?”

  Gibbons shook his head, rolling it against the back of the couch. “They’re gonna retry it, but with a couple of new faces, Nemo and Augustine. And a new piece of evidence, the rug with the forty kilos in it.”

  “But there will be one face missing when they retry Figaro,” Lesley said. “Mine. I’ve informed Mr. Salamandra that he should seek other counsel.”

  Gibbons grinned. He was liking her even better.

  “How do you
think he’ll make out the second time around?” Tozzi asked.

  “He’s in a much worse position now because Augustine had the rug delivered to his address. On the other hand, he may be more inclined to plea-bargain this time. I suspect he’ll turn on Augustine for consideration in his own case. The U.S. Attorney’s office will certainly go for it. Augustine’s the one they really want to put on the gallows to show the public that they don’t go easy on their own. Salamandra’s just another fat mobster like all the others who show up in the papers every couple of months. People forget about guys like him very quickly. But Augustine’s a star, a fallen angel. He’s got to be punished. Unfortunately, Salamandra may walk away with a relatively light sentence if he testifies against Augustine. I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if he didn’t have to serve any time at all.”

  “Bastard.” Gibbons tipped the beer bottle against his lips.

  “What about Nemo?”

  “That piece of filth?” Lesley’s voice turned contemptuous at the mention of her daughter’s kidnapper. “I hear he’s been spouting like an open fire hydrant for the government prosecutors. He’s telling them everything they want to hear about Augustine: how Augustine admitted to him that he killed Giordano, Marty Bloom, and the two agents, how he introduced Augustine to Zucchetti and Salamandra on a farm somewhere in Sicily, how Augustine forced him to kidnap Patricia.” She stopped for a second. You could feel her blind anger. “Just like Salamandra, he may end up walking because he’s going to testify against Augustine. I heard that he even told them about some kind of ritual murder Augustine was involved with at that farm meeting. Supposedly the Sicilians wanted Augustine to prove himself, so they had him strangle an Italian magistrate they had kidnapped. The Italian authorities want to extradite Augustine and try him over there for that murder.” Lesley shivered with rage. “Nemo’s going to be portrayed as the poor victim of his addiction. The little bastard’s going to get away with it.”

  “No, he’s not,” Tozzi said. “Kidnapping is a federal rap, you know that. The Bureau is mounting a separate case against him. He may slide by on the drug charges, but he’ll do time for kidnapping Patricia. Don’t worry about it.”