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  D’Urso nodded. “The Fugukai.” He wanted to let the old man know he was still paying attention.

  “Right, the Fugukai. These’re kids who didn’t pass their college entrance exams. They feel hopeless, John. They don’t know where to turn. That’s when Hamabuchi’s people step in and sweet-talk them, show them that there’s still a chance for them, a chance to restore their honor, which is a big thing with these people. The Fugukai promise them a trip to America, the land of opportunity. If they agree to commit themselves to three years of on-the-job training—that’s just what they call it, too—then they can have room, board, and passage to America. These kids are so depressed, they agree to it like that.” The old man snapped his fingers, but D’Urso didn’t hear anything.

  D’Urso figured it was his turn to look smart. “And the beauty of it all is that we don’t have to honor their original deal with the Fugukai. They’re ours for as long as we want them. We can work these people for twenty, thirty, forty years. We pay off Hamabuchi in three, then after that we pocket roughly eighteen to twenty grand annually on each one. We’ve got twelve hundred in the country now, eighteen more on order . . .” D’Urso pulled out a pen and did some figuring on his napkin. “Three thousand slaves times eighteen grand a year is . . . fifty-four million a year for forty years. Not too bad.” So why don’t you let me have a better cut, you fucking old bastard you.

  Antonelli pressed his finger on top of a pignoli nut that had fallen off one of the cookies and put it in his mouth. D’Urso watched him chewing thoughtfully, staring out the window. It was just starting to rain. The old man was getting as inscrutable as the goddamn Japs.

  “They can’t all be cooperating. These kids aren’t dummies. You must be having problems with some of them. It can’t be running that smooth.”

  D’Urso’s stomach tightened again. He suddenly remembered that priest who always interrogated him in the Confession box when he was a kid, the one who wouldn’t take his word for anything, who always assumed he was hiding some big mortal sin.

  “Hamabuchi’s hitters take care of that end,” he said.

  “Are there enough yakuzas here to really control all these kids?” Antonelli seemed skeptical.

  “We’ve counted at least a hundred of them, but it’s hard to tell with these yakuza guys. Most of them don’t talk, and they just seem to show up whenever they’re needed. They’re weird that way.” He stopped and considered what he was going to say next. “I had hidden video cameras put in down at the docks and at a few of the factories just so we can keep tabs on the yaks.”

  Antonelli frowned. “I don’t like that, John. That’s not showing trust. Hamabuchi is an old friend of mine. We helped each other a lot after the war. He wouldn’t have his people spying on us.”

  The hell he wouldn’t.

  “No more spying on them. Get rid of the video crap.”

  D’Urso lowered his eyes and nodded. “Okay.” Yeah, just watch me.

  “Now back to my original question. Are Hamabuchi’s people keeping the kids in line?”

  “Definitely. It’s really only the ones doing the hard work in the factories that give us any trouble, and the yaks come down hard on them right away. No warnings. First time a kid starts complaining or drags his ass, they beat him silly. And then there’s Nagai’s right-hand man, Mashiro. I don’t know what it is with him, but all he has to do is show up and bing! the slaves snap to it. I’ve seen it. They’re terrified of him. Supposedly his specialty is tracking down runaways, and so far we’ve only had a few.” He decided not to tell the old man about the two Mashiro tracked down just yesterday. He wondered if Antonelli knew what his old pal Hamabuchi’s mandatory punishment for runaways was. An awful waste of good merchandise to his way of thinking.

  “Well, I’m happy to see that things are going well. Very good, John.” Antonelli had that tone of voice that implied the meeting was over and he should go.

  “One more thing, Mr. Antonelli.” He took a deep breath, hoping. “Have you reconsidered my idea for a high-class bordello in Atlantic City? I’ve got a line on a good place, close to the casinos. I was thinking about doing it up like a geisha house, you know? The girls could all wear kimonos. You know, a lot of these kids are very very nice looking, and we really shouldn’t be wasting them on baby-sitting and that kind of stuff. These girls really know what they’re doing, from what I hear. Most guys have never done it with an Oriental broad, and a lot of them are curious. I think we could clean up—”

  “No.”

  “But—”

  “I said no, and that’s it.” The old man slapped the tabletop and Vincent shifted in his seat, getting his feet on the floor in case he’d have to do something. “I told you before that it’s too risky, too high-profile. Besides, Hamabuchi keeps the pretty girls for his own house here in town.”

  “But, Mr. Antonelli, we could clean up with—”

  “You’re not stupid, John. Think. Cops go to whorehouses, too. What if one of the girls started talking to the wrong guy. What then?”

  “We’d control that—”

  “How? You gonna get in bed with them? Make sure they don’t talk?” The old man’s eyes were wild now.

  D’Urso’s hands were shaking under the table, he was so mad. He was biting the insides of his cheeks. Fuck you, old man. Fuck you. I’ve already got my whorehouse going. A month and a half we’ve been in business, you old fucking fart.

  “Do we understand each other now, John?” Antonelli leaned across the table and tilted his head like the kindly old grandfather. Who the hell did he think he was? Papa Geppetto?

  He glanced at Vincent. “Yes, Mr. Antonelli. I understand.”

  Vincent seemed to relax then.

  “Okay. Good. Keep up the good work.” Antonelli was dismissing him now.

  D’Urso stood up. The old man wasn’t looking at him. Vincent was.

  “Take it easy, John,” Vincent said. In other words, get going.

  D’Urso buttoned his double-breasted jacket and headed for the door, measuring his pace so it wouldn’t seem like he was rushing out. If he had a piece on him, he swore to God he’d do it right now. Luccarelli had done it, he kept thinking. He did it and he got away with it. That was twenty years ago, but still, he did it.

  The sky was gray and a cold rain was falling. He stepped briskly, sizing up his odds as he walked toward the car. How many capi were really that loyal to Antonelli? Besides Vincent, how many would really put up a fight? A lot, that’s how many. But still, Luccarelli did it to Joe Coconuts, and there weren’t that many guys who loved Luccarelli back then. They respected him after he did it. Kill the boss and you earn the position. That’s how you do it.

  He got into the black Mercedes 420 SEL and looked at his brother-in-law, Bobby Francione, sitting behind the wheel, feeding bullets into the clip of that little automatic he just gave him. “Whatta you, stupid? You playing with your dick or what? Put that fucking thing away before a cop comes by.”

  Bobby snapped his head up to get that strand of carefully crimped and moussed hair out of his eyes, the same stupid-looking strand he painstakingly worked on every morning to hang there like that. “Bad meeting, huh?”

  He couldn’t hold it in any longer. He threw a punch into the seatback so hard it made the whole car rock. Rain beaded on the windshield, throwing the world out of focus. “I run two car dealerships, a construction company, three nightclubs down the shore, and seven after-hours joints, and he treats me like a fucking nobody. I swear to Christ, Bobby, he’s forcing my hand. I’m gonna have to do it. It’s not right the way he treats me. He’s holding me back, Bobby. There’s no other way. He’s got to go.”

  Bobby stuck the gun in his pocket, checked his hair in the rearview mirror, and grinned that shitty little grin he picked up in prison. “I keep telling you you should do it, John.” He turned the key in the ignition and pulled the big car out into traffic.

  He stared at Bobby’s profile, his hands shaking, his heart pounding.
/>   Yeah . . . I should do it.

  FOUR

  TOZZI STARED OUT the back window of the empty apartment at the pile of construction rubble in the backyard. A mangy-looking dog with a long, matted coat was pissing on a broken piece of wall board. Scraps of aluminum ductwork sparkled in the bright October sun. Yellow leaves from the junk tree that was uprooting the rickety back fence were beginning to fall on the pile. Several backyards on both sides had similar junk piles, the remains of recent renovations. Refocusing, he saw his own reflection in the glass—dark, deep-set eyes in a square, sad-looking face. He wondered if they’d ever get around to cleaning up the junk.

  “What did you say the rent here was?” he asked, still staring out the window.

  “Eight-fifty. That doesn’t include heat or hot water,” Mrs. Carlson, the real estate agent, said. She had a big ass, Coke-bottle glasses, wore ruby-red lipstick, and had a bad habit of standing over his shoulder and wringing her hands. She looked like Charley Chan in drag.

  “Pretty steep,” he said. “Adams Street isn’t exactly the chicest part of Hoboken.”

  She smiled pleasantly around her buck teeth, ignoring his assessment. “Did I mention that Frank Sinatra once lived in this building? Actually it might’ve been this apartment. I’ll have to check.”

  Tozzi had seen seven apartments in Hoboken this week, and he’d been told that Sinatra lived in five of them. Old Blue Eyes really got around.

  “Hoboken is a very desirable community,” Mrs. Carlson started, launching into the same pitch Tozzi had already heard from every other real estate agent he’d talked to. “Everybody wants to live here. It’s a very easy commute to Manhattan, but there’s a very special feeling here. It’s almost like a European village, don’t you think? Nice little shops, bakeries, green grocers . . .”

  Tozzi wondered how many villages in Europe had mesquite grills, quarter-million-dollar studio condos, a rock club where Bruce Springsteen films his videos, and an arson rate several times the national average. Ah, Hoboken, all that and more.

  He walked back to the front of the apartment where sunlight was shining off the recently buffed wood floor. The place didn’t have the old-world feeling that some of the others he’d seen had. But marble mantels and coffin corners cost you, and he didn’t want to be rent poor, especially because he was still on probation. Ivers wouldn’t need a great big reason to shitcan him this time, not after his little renegade adventure. Of course, he couldn’t get into much trouble where he was now, relegated to a desk in the File Room, working for that dim bulb Hayes the librarian of all people, who was too shy or stupid or whatever to just come right out and say what he wanted done, which tended to make his days very long, boring guessing games.

  Take your time and get yourself settled, Ivers had told him. Get your head back on straight, he’d said with that bullshit fatherly smile of his. That could almost be funny if it weren’t so pathetic. It wasn’t that long ago that everything he owned in the world fit into one suitcase: a suit, a few shirts, jeans, a few pairs of underwear, some socks, a pair of loafers, a pair of high-tops, a 9mm automatic, a .38 Special, a .44, and three boxes of cartridges. That was it. A couple of Mafia torpedoes had taken care of the rest of his worldly belongings when they ransacked his dead aunt’s apartment, where he’d been hiding out. It depressed him whenever he thought about it. All in all, though, it was a lot better being back in the fold than out in the cold.

  Tozzi looked the place over. It was clean, new fixtures, white walls. He could fill it up, make it a home. Still, it was hard adjusting to the fact that just about everything he owned was brand new. Maybe that’s why he’d decided on Hoboken. It sort of reminded him of the neighborhood he grew up in, the Vailsburg section of Newark.

  “Our office has put together a little brochure that lists local shops, restaurants, services, schools, cultural events . . .” Mrs. Carlson opened her briefcase on the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room and rummaged through her papers. Tozzi ignored her. He was looking out the front window now at a tough-looking Hispanic teenager in a fringed, black leather jacket, sitting on the tenement stoop across the street, playing with a baby. He assumed she was the mother. The kid was just learning to walk, taking shaky steps on the cracked pavement, moving like Frankenstein in those gooney, white lace-up shoes, the kind people used to have bronzed when he was a kid. The baby was laughing, a big, drooly, toothless smile on his face. The girl was laughing, too. She snatched up the kid in her arms and gave it a big hug. Her face was pure joy. Tozzi smiled.

  “Here it is,” Mrs. Carlson said, pounding across the bare floors in her clunky heels to give Tozzi the brochure. “You may find this very helpful when—”

  Just then Tozzi’s beeper went off, which surprised the hell out of him. He was required to carry it, but he never expected anyone from the office to be calling him. Maybe it was a real crisis. Maybe Hayes ran out of the big paperclips.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “Is that phone hooked up?”

  “Well . . . I don’t know if the former tenant—but I don’t think—”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll reverse the charges.” Tozzi unhooked the receiver from the white wall phone in the kitchen. There was a dial tone.

  “By the way, Mr. Tozzi, I forgot to ask—what do you do for a living?”

  Tozzi looked at a blank wall for a second and considered a lie. “I’m with the FBI,” he said quickly, hoping she didn’t catch his hesitation. “Informational Services,” he added. “I’m in charge of data systems for the Manhattan field office.”

  “Oh . . . I see.”

  Instinctively he worried that she might have noticed the bulge under his left armpit. But there was no bulge. He wasn’t carrying a weapon these days. Ivers’s orders.

  He dialed the call-in number at the field office, reversing the charges, and identified himself to the operator who switched him to another line.

  “Tozzi.” The voice was vaguely sarcastic. It usually was.

  He was surprised to hear Gibbons on the other end of the line. He hadn’t seen much of his old partner in the past two months. It was no secret that Ivers was keeping them apart. “How’s it going, Gib? Sorry you came out of retirement yet?”

  “Sorry you came back?”

  “No.”

  “You’re gonna be. I’ve got some bad news for you.”

  Tozzi could hear the crocodile smile in his voice. He grinned in anticipation. “What?”

  “You’re going back into the field. With me.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “I had a talk with Ivers this morning. I fixed it all up. You’re off probation.”

  “Cut the sh—” Tozzi suddenly remembered that Mrs. Carlson was right behind him. “Explain yourself.”

  “There’s nothing to explain. We’re short on manpower right now, NYPD unexpectedly shuffled this homicide case over to us, and nobody around here wants to work with me.”

  Tozzi coughed up a laugh into the phone. “Now we get to the real reason.”

  “Hey, I told Ivers straight out. If you can’t get me a halfway decent partner, I’m going back into retirement. Give me Tozzi or else I’m gone, I said to him. Just like that. He caved right in. The asshole’s got no backbone.”

  In his thirty years with the Bureau, Gibbons had rarely had a partner who lasted more than three days with him, except for Tozzi who’d been his partner for six years, right up until Gibbons retired. Tozzi sighed. It was nice to be wanted.

  Tozzi glanced at Mrs. Carlson who was by the front windows, making believe she wasn’t listening. “I thought Ivers was dead set against putting me back in the field. What really changed his mind?”

  “Who knows? He’s a shitty judge of character, though, if you ask me. One, for listening to me, and two, for letting a wacko like you back on the streets. Just get your ass back down here by five. Ivers wants to have a little talk with you before he sends you back out.”

  “Oh, yeah? Is he packing my lunc
hbox, too?”

  “Yeah, with Twinkies. He may even give you a big kiss to send you on your way,” Gibbons said with a snarl. “In his office at five—comprende, goombah?”

  “I hear you.”

  “I’ll fill you in on the case when you get here. A real Sherlock Holmes deal. Just your kind of thing.”

  “Why don’t you give me a preview right now? I can’t stand the suspense.”

  “You’ve got no patience, Tozzi. That’s your whole problem. I bet you’re even a premature ejaculator.”

  “Nope. No problems in that department.” All I need is someone to do it with.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Well, are you gonna tell me about it or what?”

  Gibbons broadcast his annoyance with a long sigh into the phone. He seemed to be working harder these days at maintaining his image as a mean son of a bitch. God forbid anyone should think he was finally getting cooperative as he approached his golden years. Wouldn’t want it to get around that he was getting soft.

  “Okay, listen up, Tozzi. A VW Bug floated in with the tide and wound up in a Staten Island ferry berth in lower Manhattan yesterday, two stiffs inside. The bodies were nearly cut in half.”

  Tozzi’s first thought was a magician sawing a woman in half. Then he thought of the mess of blood and guts, and he stopped breathing for a moment.

  “The car had Jersey plates,” Gibbons continued, “which is how the police managed to unload this thing on us. I ran down the plates with Motor Vehicle, and just as I figured, the car was stolen. The owner reported it last Saturday night to the Kearny police, ten hours before the estimated time of death.”

  “Is the owner a suspect?”

  “No, his alibi checks out. He was at a chess club meeting in the Village that night. Witnesses confirm that he was there till at least ten-thirty. He got a ride home with a buddy of his from the club. His car, the VW, wasn’t in the driveway when he got there.”