Bad Luck Page 3

  “The ravioli, Mamma. It still stinks.”

  “That’s all?”

  “What do you want from me? I’ll let you know if it gets better.”

  “Be sure you do.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  They hung up.

  Ivers picked up the recorder and fast-forwarded the tape. “The next call-in is essentially the same.” Ivers hit the Play button and set the recorder back down on the desk.

  Two rings. “Yeah?”

  “Mamma, Mamma, this is your Mikey-boy.”

  “Where the hell have you—?”

  “Listen. The ravioli is getting better. Very tasty, but so far I’ve only gotten a taste, if you know what I mean.”

  “Explain.”

  Tozzi lowered his voice, “Our friend had a meeting this morning with a couple of meatballs . . . two brothers.”

  “Who?”

  “Sal and Joseph Immordino.”

  “What was discussed?”

  “I dunno. Nashe made me wait outside.”

  “Any guesses?”

  “Not yet, Mamma.”

  Gibbons didn’t like the tone of Tozzi’s voice, and from the sound of it, neither did his contact. It was too smartass.

  “I want to hear from you by the weekend, sonny-boy. Pappa is very concerned about you.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

  “That’s a direct order from Pap—”

  Tozzi hung up on him.

  Ivers shut off the recorder and leaned back in his chair. “That was two weeks ago. He called in twice more since then with nothing new to report.” Ivers rebuttoned his jacket. “Same attitude.”

  “So what’s your suspicion?”

  Ivers raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “It’s not unheard of for a man undercover to forget who he is and choose to become his alias.”

  Gibbons shook his head. “Not Tozzi.”

  “Russell Nashe’s world is very seductive. Money, fancy cars, available women, high-stakes gambling. Everything is always the best with Nashe. It’s a tempting life-style. Hard to resist when you’re right in the middle of it, I imagine.” Ivers was doing more than just speculating.

  “Tozzi gets into that glitzy, wiseguy crap. It’s in his guinea blood. But he’d never turn. I know him. He was my partner.”

  “People change.”

  “Some do.” Gibbons considered the possibility. Tozzi did have an overactive imagination, and the last time Gibbons talked to him he hadn’t been very happy with life. The usual I-ain’t-got-no-woman blues. It’s possible that the excitement of living as someone else had gotten to Tozzi, but with Tozzi anything was possible. Tozzi’s crazy. Still, Gibbons wasn’t going to say anything to Ivers. “What about the Immordino brothers?” he asked, to change the subject. “What do we have on them?”

  Ivers swiveled around in his chair and picked up a file lying next to his computer. He opened the folder on his desk and referred to it as he spoke. “Salvatore ‘Clyde’ Immordino, age forty-two, a capo in the Mistretta crime family, alleged acting boss of the family in Sabatini Mistretta’s absence. Mistretta is currently serving time at Lewisburg for tax evasion.”

  Gibbons covered his mouth with his finger and nodded, imagining that big lummox Immordino. He remembered Sal from his boxing days in the early seventies. It was around the time he’d bought the suit, come to think of it. Hard puncher but no style at all, no moves. People went to his fights just to see him, though. He was a big guy—not just tall, BIG. A freaking monster. He’d gotten the nickname Clyde from a sportswriter with the Daily News who compared him to a Clydesdale. The writer was being kind.

  Ivers put on his half glasses and scanned the file. “In 1985 Immordino was tried with three other Mistretta family members on a variety of racketeering and murder charges, but his lawyer pleaded mental incompetence and got him separated from the trial. Their claim was that Immordino had suffered permanent brain damage in his boxing career and that he was incapable of knowingly committing any crime. The defense produced a very convincing witness”—Ivers had his finger on the page—“a Dr. Stephen Goode who was treating Immordino at Our Lady of Mercy Hospital in Reading, Pennsylvania. The doctor made it all very clinical and referred to Immordino’s condition as ‘Pugilistic Brain syndrome.’ He compared Immordino’s symptoms to Muhammad Ali’s, which apparently gained a lot of sympathy for the defense. The doctor had a very smooth bedside manner on the witness stand, and the jury bought his testimony. To this day Immordino reinforces that diagnosis by appearing to be a harmless, punch-drunk ex-palooka, though we have no doubts that this is an act. From time to time he reinforces this charade by doing things like walking around town without his shoes, talking to his hands, singing at the top of his lungs, crying . . . that sort of thing.

  “His older brother Joseph, age forty-seven, is his constant companion. Joseph Immordino apparently acts as his brother’s mouthpiece in most instances. Before 1985 Joseph Immordino had no known history with the Mistretta family and to this date has no criminal record. Prior to 1985 he was the sole proprietor of Immordino’s Quality Meats, a butcher shop in Sea Girt, New Jersey.”

  Gibbons nodded. He knew about Joseph Immordino too. A momo, a hanger-on. A prop in Sal’s act.

  “Under Sal’s leadership the Mistretta family has been unusually quiet. Some sources say that his palooka act is a hindrance. People supposedly don’t like dealing with him through Joseph. According to other sources, though, that isn’t the problem at all, since those people he does deal with know that there’s nothing wrong with him mentally, and that Joseph is only there for show. Most sources do agree that although Sabatini Mistretta gave Immordino the position of acting boss, he put him on a very short leash.” Ivers looked over his glasses. “We know from past investigations that Mistretta does not like to delegate power.”

  Gibbons snorted a laugh. “That’s putting it nicely. Didn’t he break his wife’s arm once because she signed his name to a check to pay an overdue water bill when he was out of town?”

  Ivers peered over his glasses again. “I never heard about that. You mean he wouldn’t let his wife have her own checking account?”

  “Are you kidding? This guy’s from the old country. She’s lucky he let her in the house.”

  Ivers shook his head and closed the folder. “Well, be that as it may, whatever Sal Immordino and Russell Nashe discussed in their meeting, we can probably assume it was old business. Immordino doesn’t seem to be empowered to make any initiatives for the family.”

  Gibbons shrugged. “Who knows? Immordino’s no slouch. When he was running his own crew, before Mistretta was put away, it seemed like he was running everything over in Jersey City. I wouldn’t rule out anything with him. You want me to do some checking on his recent interests?” Please. Anything to get out of this office and back on the street. A few all-night plants would be so nice, give me a break from Lorraine and her curtain catalogs and her goddamn back issues of Bride magazine. Come on. Be a guy.

  “No.”

  Shit. Asshole.

  “Bert, I want you to go down to Atlantic City and check up on Tozzi. Get as close as you can without compromising his cover and find out if he’s okay.”

  “Right.” I take it back. You’re not an asshole. Not this time. “Anything else?”

  “Just get yourself there and in place by noon on Monday. If Tozzi has flipped, I want to know as soon as possible.”

  Gibbons was already up, backing toward the door. “Anything else?” Come on, come on, let’s go.

  “Yes.” Ivers took off his glasses and set them down. “One more thing.”

  Now what?

  “I want you to give my best to Lorraine.”

  “Yeah, sure. I will.” Gibbons reached for the doorknob, waiting for him to say something else, but instead Ivers swiveled to his computer and punched something up.

  Gibbons paused and stared at him. What does he mean, give his best to Lorraine? That’s my job. Who the hell wants your goddamn b
est? Asshole.

  Gibbons kept staring at Ivers as he opened the door and left.

  nd this will be, without a doubt, the biggest fight in the history of professional boxing. The biggest purse, the biggest crowd, the biggest worldwide television audience . . .”

  Tozzi was bored. He pushed the sunglasses up his nose and stifled a yawn as he watched Russell Nashe’s back. Nashe was at the mike, blowing his own horn again. So what else was new?

  He snuck a glance at his watch. He’d been standing there behind the rostrum for the past half hour, a row of backs sitting at the long tables on each side, facing a restless mob of reporters and cameramen, lights shining in his face, trying his absolute best to tune Nashe out. Thank God for the back of Sydney Nashe’s head. It was much more interesting. Tozzi wondered how she got her hair that way, a long pageboy that just touched her shoulders and rested so nicely on her collarbone, not a hair out of place. And that white-blond color—it was hard not to stare at her. He could make out the contours of her back through the sheer lavender silk blouse, the delicate bones, the slight, little twisting movements she made with her body as she sat there. He could picture her small turned-up breasts. Irish-nose tits. Tozzi suppressed a grin. She didn’t like it when he’d called them that. He stuck his hand in his pants pocket, fingered the foil condom pack, and sighed. Unbelievable.

  Tozzi still couldn’t get over the fact that a woman like Sydney had actually pursued a guy like him. For him, Sydney was like a hot little sports car, a lipstick-red convertible—the kind of car you look at and imagine yourself driving, even though you know it’s totally impractical, too rich for your blood, out of the question for a guy like you. But then you look inside at the genuine leather upholstery and you see a note with your name on it taped to the wood-grain steering wheel that says, “Come on. Take a spin. I want you to.” Very hard to resist. How often does the average guy get a ride like this? Unbelievable. Tozzi ran his finger round and round over the foil-wrapped condom in his pocket, staring at her hair, getting off on the whole incredible situation.

  “Hey, Tomasso! Stop checking out the boss’s wife. That’s not what you’re paid for.”

  Tozzi looked straight ahead. He knew the voice all too well—friggin’ Lenny. “I gotta look at her to protect her,” he said in a loud whisper.

  Just then Sydney looked over her shoulder, smoothed the pageboy away from her profile, and stared at him for a long second. Green eyes, green like Sucrets. Plum-colored nails on that white-blond hair. She lowered her lashes then and turned back.

  Oh, man . . .

  “See? Now you’re in trouble.” Lenny Mokowski, the head bodyguard, had Tozzi by the elbow now. A retired cop from The Bronx, Lenny was a tough little bastard, built like a bowling ball, with arms like Popeye. Tozzi could usually smell him coming from the hair oil he used to build up the Ronald Reagan pompadour in his two-tone gray hair. “Just do your effin’ job and stay out of trouble, Tomasso,” Lenny said under his breath. Lenny never used the f word. He was proud to tell you that he was a good Catholic.

  Tozzi took his hand out of his pocket. “I’m doing my job.”

  “Don’t give me any lip,” Lenny spat in his ear. “Just listen to me now. This is a news conference, you understand that? So there may be a little action up here. People are gonna yell at each other, start making threats. The fighters may even try to take a poke at each other maybe. But that’s all for the cameras, you understand? So don’t overreact. This is all part of this fight thing here. It’s just publicity. It’s just a big act.” Lenny pointed with his pompadour at the champ, Dwayne “Pain” Walker, who was sitting on one side of the podium, and the challenger, Charles Epps, who was sitting on the other. “Don’t get nervous, okay? These two guys know what they’re doing.”

  Tozzi nodded at the champ. “Even him?”

  “Yeah, yeah, even him. So don’t make a move unless Mr. or Mrs. Nashe are directly threatened. You got it?”

  “I got it, Lenny. Don’t worry, be happy.”

  Lenny gave him the Popeye squint as he rolled off to Frank, the other bodyguard on duty, who was standing on the other side of the stage behind the Epps camp. As Nashe kept going on and on about himself, Tozzi studied the challenger. Charles Epps was a big, fleshy, light-skinned guy with an expensive, confident attitude that seemed to take up two seats. Sort of a black Babe Ruth. With his shaved head and his elbow resting casually on the back of the next chair, he surveyed the scene like a sultan. He was an old man—by boxing standards—thirty-nine years old, and this fight marked his third comeback. But boxers never stay retired. They keep coming back, hoping for miracles, begging for humiliation.

  Couldn’t blame Epps for coming back this time though. Eight and a half million balloons, guaranteed, just to get into the ring with Walker is nothing to sneeze at. Hey, so what’s a little brain damage? Epps had fought all the top heavyweights back in the seventies—Ali, Holmes, Norton, Frazier, Foreman—and here he was again. Unbelievable. No one thought Epps had a prayer, but there was something about him, something about the way he sat there that made Tozzi believe the guy might still have something. Everything he did—the way he wiped his face with the palm of his big hand, the way he rotated his shiny head like a gun turret to scan the crowd, the way that sly grin stretched across his face and just kept on going—seemed deliberately slow and ominous. The man looked like a Tyrannosaurus rex waking up for a meal.

  Tozzi looked over at Walker on the other side of the podium. He looked like the kind of guy you’d find locked up on Rikers Island, the kind of guy who mumbled and brooded and called everyone “motherfucker,” a bad kid with a lot of attitude and empty eyes. If he had a good side, Walker made sure no one ever saw it. He was twenty-six years old with a twenty-five and oh record, all knockouts but one. A real nasty temper. He made you believe he actually despised every man he’d ever fought and that he genuinely wanted to kill the guy in the ring. The boxing commissions were constantly reprimanding him for the shit he pulled outside the ring—punching out reporters, trashing camera equipment, causing scenes in restaurants, hassling women in bars, shit like that—and the purists had made it plain a long time ago that they’d love to see someone beat the shit out of him and drive him from the ranks. The champ was good with the gloves, though. You couldn’t deny that. He was tough and efficient. He could take a punch and he had a talent for finding the openings. Tozzi zeroed in on the back of Walker’s head where he’d had his nickname shaved into his close-cropped scalp: PAIN.

  Sitting next to Walker was his trainer, Henry Gonsalves. He was the animal trainer, there to keep Walker from going berserk. Gonsalves was an ex-pug himself, and he looked it—flat nose like a glob of Silly Putty pressed to his face, eyes slightly out of line like an iguana’s, lumpy head, crouched posture, even when he was sitting. But the man had been training fighters for years, and his efforts finally paid off with Walker. Gonsalves was supposedly the only one who had any influence over the champ—some said he had a lot of influence over the champ—and Walker supposedly always called him “the father I never had,” but Walker mumbled and spoke hard-core “ghetto,” so no one was ever sure what the hell he was saying. But on top of being the champ’s trainer and surrogate father, Gonsalves’s other job—some say his primary job—was apologist. He was constantly making excuses for his man, and he had a rap that Tozzi must’ve heard at least a dozen times on TV about how Walker had been abused and confused as a child, how he’d been brought up by the state, how the media have misconstrued him, how he’s basically a good kid trying to work things out for himself, yada-yada-yada . . . Every time Walker fucked up, Henry would get up in front of the cameras and deliver the rap, and most of the time people bought it. People wanted to. Walker was a son of a bitch but he made headlines, and people love to see celebrities self-destruct in public. It makes them feel superior, the way Tozzi figured. That’s what made Walker big box office. If it weren’t for Gonsalves, though, Walker would fade away like a phony-looking, rubber-suit m
onster in a low-budget horror movie. No one cares about an asshole. But Gonsalves made Walker human and that’s why people stayed curious. Whatever Walker was paying his trainer, it wasn’t enough.

  As the reporters started yelling out questions for Nashe, Tozzi went back to staring at the back of Sydney’s head. She was so fine, with that hair of hers, the kind of classy woman most guys don’t even consider, because they know they wouldn’t stand a chance. Tozzi grinned to himself. Nothing at all like Valerie. His grin widened. Oh, what a naughty boy.

  “Mr. Nashe! Mr. Nashe! Tell us the truth.” One reporter overrode the shouts of his brethren. “We aren’t supposed to take this matchup seriously, are we? This is a Nashe event, a patented Nashe extravaGANza.” The reporter mimicked the billionaire’s ringmaster delivery. His brethren snickered behind their notepads. “You don’t really expect us to take this matchup seriously, do you?”

  Nashe started to answer, but Epps stood up and leaned into his microphone to interrupt. “I don’t take it seriously. That joke sitting over there has never had a real fight in his entire life. He’s the only one who should take this seriously, because he’s gonna be in serious condition after he meets me.”

  Walker stood up in a shot. He shouted over Nashe’s head. “Suck my dick, cocksucker!”

  Gonsalves pulled on Walker’s sleeve. “Sit down, Dwayne. Come on, sit down and be good.”

  Epps turned his head slowly, looked the champ in the eye with a mocking little grin on his face. He moved up right next to Nashe. Camera flashes strobed the room. Everyone wanted to get this shot: Billionaire extraordinaire Russell Nashe sandwiched between the champ and the challenger.

  Epps wrapped his big hand over the mike. “Pull down your pants, son, and I’ll bite it off. If I can find it.”

  Walker’s face bulged and contorted in fury, like his brain was bouncing around in his head, trying to break out. He lunged, swung wild with his right, and caught the back of Nashe’s head in the crook of his elbow. Nashe’s forehead bashed into the mike as he was thrust forward. Tozzi jumped, rushing to grab Walker from behind before he could throw another punch. In the meantime Nashe slid down the podium and scuttled out of the fray.