Bad Business Read online

  Gibbons propped his chin on his fist and stared out the window at the traffic on Grand Street, thinking there was no way they were going to eat now. And even if they did, he wasn’t going to enjoy it. This was all McCleery’s fault.

  Shoulda shot him before he came in. Lorraine thinks he’s so goddamn poetic? Then let him die young.

  Gibbons was staring out at the Bell’ Isola Ristorante across the street when he noticed the door that led to the apartments upstairs opening. A fat man in a long camel’s hair overcoat stepped out, leading a dog on a leash. It was a German shepherd pup, his gangly legs still too big for his body. The dog sniffed around the sidewalk like crazy, straining to get to the curb. Gibbons squinted and got a better look at the fat man. It was who he thought it was. Ugo Salamandra.

  Well, there was nothing to be gained from hanging around here. Except heartburn. Gibbons stood up and started putting his coat on.

  “Where you going?” Tozzi said.

  “I forgot. I gotta go take care of something. I’ll just grab a slice of pizza on the way back to court. Apologize for me.” Gibbons sidled past Tozzi.

  “But, Gib—”

  “I’ll catch up with you later at the office.” He opened the door and went out into the cold before Tozzi could say anything else. He didn’t want to hear it.

  Walking to the curb, he buttoned his coat and pulled down his hat. The fat man with the shepherd pup was rounding the corner across the street. Gibbons shoved his hands in his pockets and trotted across Grand Street to catch up.

  — 8 —

  The dog was snuffling along the curb, hopping down into the gutter, sniffing around, then jumping back up and sniffing the sidewalk. On the other end of the leash, Salamandra was talking to the pup in Italian. It sounded like he was encouraging him, giving him a pep talk. When Gibbons caught up with the fat man on Mulberry Street, he pointed down at the dog.

  “That mutt takes a crap in the street and you don’t clean it up, you’re busted.”

  Salamandra looked over his shoulder at Gibbons, then looked past him. Two greaseballs were suddenly flanking Gibbons. Fucking Sicilians, they come out of nowhere.

  Salamandra didn’t seem surprised or startled by the intrusion. He was sleepy-eyed, smiling that big ho-ho-ho smile of his. “You can no arrest me. Poop-a-scoop law is a city law, no federal law. Effa-B-I gotta no jurisdiction with poop-a-scoop.” He looked like a big fat smiling Buddha.

  Gibbons looked at the greaseballs. They both had short legs and huge shoulders. Neither one wore a coat. Just suit jackets with sweaters underneath. Buddha was still smiling like a fool. Sure, it’s easy to be calm when you got protection like this.

  “So, you remember me,” Gibbons said.

  “Sure, I remember you. I don’ remember you name, but I know you face. Why not? I see you in court all the time. You one of those Effa-B-I men who arrest me in Brook-a-lyn long time ago, no? When you make a mistake, think I’m-a somebody else.” Salamandra looked him in the eye, big grin on his face. The guy had crust.

  “You still think we made a mistake, huh? You think we got the wrong guy?”

  “Why, su’! I’m-a no drug deal’. I’m-a businessman. I’m-a import Italian food—cheese, olive oil, tomato, peppers—”

  “Yeah, and I’m the Pope.”

  The dog was yelping, pulling on the leash. “Come on, Meester Effa-B-I. Walk with me. My dog, she want to walk.”

  They started walking, the dog leading the way, taking them down Mulberry toward Canal Street.

  Gibbons jammed his hands in his coat pockets. “You seem like a pretty happy guy for someone facing federal drug charges, Ugo.”

  “Always be happy.” Buddha made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “Never good to be sad. You be sad, it make you sick, then good-bye, you die. Always laugh. Good for you, better than medicine.”

  “Whatta you, a doctor now?”

  Salamandra laughed. “Come on, Meester Effa-B-I, it’s-a Christmas.” He pointed up at the strings of lights wound with tinselly garland strung across Mulberry Street from telephone pole to telephone pole. “Everybody should be happy for Christmas. You no like Christmas?”

  Gibbons shrugged. “When I was a kid, I liked Christmas.”

  Salamandra shook his head. “No, no, no, Meester Effa-B-I. No good to think this way. You die young, you think this way.”

  Gibbons looked him in the eye. “Is that a threat?”

  Buddha’s pudgy cheeks wrinkled as he grinned. “You so suspicious. You must be Italian, no?”

  “No.” God forbid.

  They passed by a storefront “social club” where three paunchy, middle-aged men in dark suits stood in the window, gazing out. They stared at Gibbons and Salamandra, followed them with suspicious eyes. One of the greaseballs mumbled a greeting to them. Salamandra caught Gibbons looking back at the three wiseguys and he laughed again. It was a wet, juicy laugh.

  “You think those men are Mafia, no? Very bad men, you think.”

  “What do you think?”

  Salamandra pouted and shrugged. “I never meet any Mafia man. I don’ know what Mafia man look like.”

  “How about your codefendants? You know what they look like.”

  Salamandra pursed his lips and shook his head, as if to say You know nothing. “Those men in court—they are not my friends. I do not know them. Is true. But I know one thing—they are no Mafia. Maybe criminal, yes. But Mafia, I don’ think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “Mafia like, ah . . . like Santa Claus.” He nodded at a paper Santa taped to the window of a pizzeria. “Sure, everybody in the whole world know about Santa Claus, but he no real man.”

  “So you’re telling me there’s no such thing as the Mafia?”

  “Yes, sure, of course there is Mafia. But no in America. Used to be Mafia in America. Maybe twenty, twenty-five years ago. Today maybe they call themselves Mafia, but they no Mafia. They all just punks, no coglioni.” He grabbed his crotch. “You understand what I say? They do crazy things and say they Mafia. But no true. Is bull-a-shit.”

  “What about the Zips?”

  “I don’ know what’s-a that.”

  “The Zips, the Sicilian wiseguys who’re operating over here. Guys like you and the other defendants.”

  “Those guys, I know nothing about them. Me. I’m-a no Mafia. I am businessman. I tell you that already.” Buddha pouted and punctuated his statement with a nod.

  “So you’re telling me there’s no such thing as the Mafia?”

  “In America, I don’ think so.”

  “How about in Italy?”

  “In Italy, in Sicily, yes, I think so. Very quiet, but very powerful in Sicily.”

  “But according to you, there’s no Sicilian Mafia over here.”

  Salamandra shrugged and looked at Gibbons as if the answer was obvious. “Sicilian Mafia very quiet people. If they here in New York, nobody ever know. Maybe they here, maybe they no here. You can never know.”

  “But you’re not in the Sicilian Mafia?”

  “No! I tell you that already.”

  “And you’re not the Barber of Seville?”

  Buddha laughed so hard his eyes disappeared in his fat face. Then he suddenly started to sing at the top of his lungs. “Fiiii-ga-ro, Fiiii-ga-ro, Figaro, Figaro . . .” The dog stopped dead in its tracks, flopped to its haunches, and looked up at its master in disbelief. The sound was painful. “You see? I’m-a no too good Barber of Seville, huh?” He laughed, tears rolling over his cheeks, spit gathering in the corners of his mouth. He was a real juicy guy.

  Suddenly Gibbons’s beeper went off, and the dog freaked, straining to break free from his leash. The greaseballs moved up behind him in a hurry. “Call off the guard, Ugo. It’s just my beeper.” When the greaseballs backed away, Gibbons unbuttoned his coat and unclipped the device from his belt to see who wanted him. He recognized the number on the LED readout. It was the office. They wanted him to call in.

  “Better go make you phone ca
ll, Meester Effa-B-I. Maybe you gotta go arrest another businessman.”

  “It can wait.” Gibbons switched off the beeper and stuck it in his coat pocket. “Tell me something, Salamandra. You seem to know an awful lot about the Mafia for someone who isn’t in it.”

  “Let me ‘splain to you. In Italy, every schoolboy knows about the Mafia. In America, you have cowboys. The sheriff, he go bang-bang, shoot all the bad men, make a big hero. Am I right? In Italy, we have the Mafia man. They call un uomo d’onore, a man of honor. Same thing like cowboy.”

  Gibbons snorted and spit in the street. “Man of honor, my ass. I’ve been chasing mob guys for thirty years, and I’ve never met one who even came close to being honorable.”

  Salamandra extended his hands in exasperation. “But that’s what I say to you. In America, no Mafia. How can you find man of honor in America if they are no here?”

  Gibbons glanced down at the dog and frowned. He didn’t like playing straight man for this tub of shit, but he wanted to know what this guy was all about. He was too calm for someone on trial, especially in court. But as aggravating as Salamandra was, talking to him beat going back to the restaurant and having another fight with Lorraine.

  “What about in Italy, Ugo? Are the men of honor honorable over there?”

  “Absolutely. The men of honor, they work in secret. If someone tell their secrets, they get very mad.”

  “And then what?”

  “They kill you, they kill you family. They make you pay.” He shrugged, raised his eyebrows, and stuck out his bottom lip. It was all obvious to him.

  They came up to the corner of Canal and Mulberry. The traffic was bumper-to-bumper on Canal, horns blaring at the poky pedestrians bundled in their winter coats, hats down over their eyes, meandering across the intersection, most of them clutching shopping bags. Gibbons had noticed that people always get dopey around Christmastime, especially the ones who come in from Jersey and the Island to go shopping. They don’t watch what’s going on around them. All they’re worried about is their Christmas shopping. It’s amazing more of them don’t get run over. Maybe it would keep ’em home if a few more did. A splat on the pavement in a down parka. Goose feathers stuck to a couple hundred pounds of bloody hamburger. A nice image. Ought to put it on TV as a public-service announcement. Make these idiots think twice before they go searching for bargains in the city.

  Salamandra reined the dog in and stepped off the curb. The two greaseballs were right behind them. He was going to cross Canal. Gibbons looked over at Chinatown on the other side. What the hell was he going over there for?

  “Lemme get this straight now, Ugo. You say there’s no Mafia in America, and you’re not in the Mafia. So what’ve we been doing in court all this time, jerking off? We got thousands of hours of audiotape, videotape, hundreds of photographs, dozens of agents ready to testify that they saw your people dealing drugs, working together to sell drugs. Working together like a family. And that’s how the Mafia works, like a family, right?”

  “I don’ know. I’m no in the Mafia.”

  “Forget about that crap. Just tell me why you think the United States government is going to all this trouble and expense to try you guys if it’s so obvious that there’s no Mafia here, huh? Tell me that.”

  Buddha stuck out his bottom lip and shrugged again. “Poo-blicity. Is that how you say? It make good pooblicity for government.”

  “Publicity? You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  Salamandra pointed to the nearest corner, where another crowd of people were waiting to cross Canal. At the edge of the crowd there was a tall, skinny guy holding a camera to his face. The long telephoto lens was pointed right at them.

  Gibbons shrugged his collar up and tugged the brim of his hat down over his brow. Shit.

  “How you say? Good press? Yes, yes, this is what I mean. Good press. Mafia make good press for United States government.”

  The light changed and they started to walk across the intersection. “I don’t understand. Explain what you mean.” Fatso.

  “I ‘splain to you. You chase Mafia, put ‘em on trial, send ‘em to jail—that make you look good. The lawyers, the judge, the police, the Effa-B-I—everybody look so good. They catch the bad Mafia man. Everybody in America, he know The Godfather, yes? Government make people believe they catch-a the Godfather. Oooo, how wonderful, they say. But that’s no real, that’s a movie peech’.”

  Gibbons was watching the photographer out of the corner of his eye. The guy was following them, snapping pictures from across the street. “You’re all confused, Ugo. You’re not making any sense.”

  “No, no, no, no, you listen to me. Everybody in America, they know the Mafia. But in America, there are many, many people much worse than the Mafia. Bad people nobody knows about. You gotta the Chinese people. They bring more heroina to America than the Mafia. You tell me. Am I right?”

  Gibbons nodded. “Yeah, so what? You supposed to look good by comparison?”

  “And what about the Colombians with the cocaine?”

  “What about ‘em?”

  “And the black Jamaica man with the marijuana. These people, they crazy with the guns and the dirty hair. They shoot anybody, they no care. And how ‘bout Dominican people. They sell a lotta drugs too. And Puerto Rican people do bad things, and the Irish people sell the guns, and Arabia people blow up the plane—”

  “So what’s your point?”

  “American people, they don’ know about these other bad people like they know about the Mafia. You put a bad Chinaman in jail, people say ‘So what?’ But you put a bad Italian man in jail, people say ‘Oooo, Mafia, whatta good job you do.’ Make you look like the sheriff, huh? We put the gold star on your shirt. You read the newspaper, okay? You see peech’ of Meester Augustine, dress very nice in nice suit? Joost put the gold star on his suit, he looka joost like the sheriff.”

  Gibbons narrowed his eyes. The fat bastard had a point. Mob cases do get more press than most others, and ambitious prosecutors have been known to go after high-profile cases for the publicity. But Tom Augustine wasn’t like that. He may have political aspirations, but as lawyers go, he’s always been a pretty straight shooter.

  Buddha shook his finger. “You no wanna admit, but you know I’m-a right.”

  They passed a Chinese restaurant, and Gibbons noticed the dead ducks hanging in the steamy window, roasted to a shiny brown with the heads and feet still attached, hanging by their necks from metal hooks. Gibbons stared at the row of ducks and grinned. Eighteen convicted defendants, all in a row. With a big fat one on the end.

  The beeper suddenly went off again. Gibbons pulled it out and looked at it. The office again.

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, keep your shirt on. I may learn something here.

  He turned it off and put it back in his pocket.

  “What’s the problem, Meester Effa-B-I. Maybe Sheriff Augustine, he want you. Make-a the—how you say?—the posse, go get Mafia man.”

  “You’re a real clever guy, Ugo. You know the score, don’t you? Well, since you know so much, why don’t you explain something to me? According to you, Mafia guys are supposed to be men of honor, right? So how can a man of honor sell drugs? You can’t tell me pushing dope is honorable.”

  Buddha gave him that look again, the it’s-so-obvious look. “You say you know Mafia, but you know nothing. Let me ‘splain philosophy of the man of honor. A person who takes drugs, he has no honor because he is weak and disgusting to do such a thing. This kind of person deserves to become a junkie. He chooses this for himself. Nobody make him take the drug. If a man of honor sells this weak person some drug, that’s joost business.”

  “Sounds like bad business to me.”

  Buddha frowned and shrugged. “You say that joost because it is against the law to sell drugs in America. But that law is not Mafia law. That law make no sense. You can sell whiskey to a drunk, that’s okay. Why? I don’t know. Makes no sense. Politicians make up the laws to h
elp themselves. That’s why they make no sense. Mafia law make sense, and that’s what man of honor must obey.”

  Gibbons shook his head. “You know, you’re full of shit, Ugo. The mob is in it for the money, just like everybody else. And that’s all there is to it.”

  “Mannagg’.” Salamandra bit his knuckle in exasperation. “Of course, everybody want money. Whatta you think?”

  “Then why should the Mafia be above the law?”

  “I no say that. You ask me what I know of man of honor, and I tell you. I no say is good or bad.”

  Gibbons wanted to bite Salamandra’s knuckle for him, hard. The fat bastard thought he was clever.

  The dog whined and looked back at Salamandra with expectant eyes as they weaved through the crush of people on the sidewalk. The crowd was probably scaring the poor animal. Salamandra spoke to the dog in Italian, very soothing and assuring.

  Gibbons glanced back at the two poker-faced greaseballs. He still couldn’t figure out where the hell Salamandra was going. As they passed a Chinese fishmonger’s stand, Gibbons’s eye was drawn to a mess of purple-gray squid in a nest of crushed ice. When he looked up again, he spotted that photographer about twenty feet ahead of them, walking backward and snapping pictures.

  Why don’t you take that fucking Nikon and get the hell outta here before I stick it up your—

  “I tell you something, Meester EfFa-B-I, now you tell me something.” Buddha had an earnest, inquisitive look.

  “Whattaya wanna know?”

  “Vincent Giordano—is he sick in the head?”

  Gibbons looked at him from under his brows. He had to watch what he said to Buddha about Giordano. “I don’t know, Ugo. You think he’s sick in the head?”

  “I think yes, he is crazy. Because only crazy man testifies against the Mafia.”

  “You said there’s no Mafia in America. You said none of the Figaro defendants were in the Mafia.”

  Buddha raised an index finger. “No. I say I am not Mafia. The men on trial, some of them are from Sicily. I don’ know about them.”