Bad Luck (14 page)

“Who told you we got something going with the fight? That bodyguard your husband's got? The one who thinks he's such a hot shit? Tomassi, Tomasso, whatever his name is.”

Sydney shrugged and kept rubbing her nails, still with the little grin.

“You fucking him too? He tells you what you want to hear in bed? Is that how it goes?”

“You sound jealous, Sal.”

“Jealous? What are you, kiddin'? What do you think, you're my girlfriend?” Sal shoved his finger into the back of his mouth. He couldn't get that fucking macadamia nut loose. He wasn't jealous. She's a whore, for chrissake—what's there to be jealous? It was that fuck Tomasso. He knew there was something wrong with that guy the minute he saw him. He could be a cop, sure. He's sleeping with her, pumping her for information, same way she must do with everybody else. Tomasso could fuck everything up, depending on how much he knows. Shit. What if he knows about the fix? Oughta break his goddamn back, shut him up for good. Fucking Tomasso, he's gonna screw me up
here. Bastard! If it is him who told Sydney, he's dead. Definitely.

“So what's the story with this guy Tomasso? He got a baseball bat in his pants or what?”

“Mike's a nice guy.” Her eyelashes were on her cheeks again. She was gonna be shy and innocent now.

“Whattaya mean ‘nice guy'? I'm not a nice guy?”

“Mike tells me little things.”

“What little things?” He reached way back with his pinkie, but he couldn't get the nut out of his teeth. God
damn
it.

Sydney grinned and kept her eyes on her nails, then she started to hum a little tune.

Sal rolled his eyes to the ceiling. Here we go with the singing.
Madonn
'. “This must be a new one. I don't recognize it.”

“Sal . . .” She just looked at him. “It's the theme from
The Beverly Hillbillies.”
She said it as if he was supposed to know.

She started humming again, and he knew she'd keep it up until he told her what she wanted to hear. She thinks she's clever when she pulls this crap with the TV songs. The last time it was the song from
Mr. Ed.
The time before that,
The Flintstones.
Yabba-dabba-doo, for chrissake. He hated it when she did this with the songs. But he had to know if it was Tomasso.

He waited, hoping she'd stop humming, but she didn't. He was going to have to play along with her, so he bit his bottom lip and rolled his eyes like Ralph Kramden. “All right, stop with the humming, will ya?”

She switched from humming to singing da-da-da, a little louder now.

“Shut up now, I'm asking you.” Making like he was really getting mad.

She kept singing as she rubbed cream into her nails, the little grin turning into a smile.

“Come on, stop now.” He put a little pleading into his voice.

She didn't stop.

“Hey, listen to me, listen to me. Your boyfriend Tomasso is right. Okay? You satisfied?”

She looked over at him, still singing, still rubbing her nails. She wanted more.

He clasped his hands together as if he were praying and looked up at the ceiling. “I swear to Christ, if this was my wife, I wouldn't divorce her, I'd kill her.” This was what Sydney liked, the WASP version of an Italian. Guido in his guinea T-shirt, hanging out on the corner. Ha-ha-ha, very funny. Bitch.

She laughed and kept singing.
The Beverly Hillbillies.
Look at her. She's unbelievable. Superrich, my ass. Lee Iacocca's wife doesn't watch
The Beverly Hillbillies
, you can bet on that. Maybe when she was married to the other guy, she sat home all day watching television. She's weird enough. She's weird enough to keep this up all night and not tell him about Tomasso too.

“You know, it's no big deal,” he said. “It's not what you're thinking. Yeah, yeah, Russ and I are doing business and it does involve the fight. Okay? You wanna know what it is? I'll tell you. It has to do with the unions.”

She looked skeptical.

“Yeah, the unions. The janitors and the sanitation workers. Your husband wants to make sure the place is cleaned up right after the fight,
that night.
That means people will have to be working early Sunday morning and, by rights, they don't have to work then if they don't want to. That's why he came to me. For a price, I keep the unions in line so that the place gets cleaned up right away, no problem. There, that's the big deal we got going. You satisfied now? Now, who told you about it?”

That sly little grin. Very proud of herself. She reached over for the jar of macadamia nuts, took one, stuck it between her teeth, and crunched down loud enough for him to hear. She chewed a little, then started humming again.

Jesus Christ Almighty, this woman! He twisted his tongue and worked on that goddamn nut stuck in his teeth.
Tomasso told her. Had to be him, had to be. But how did
he
know? Sal contorted his tongue and finally got the piece of macadamia to come loose. He guided the tiny piece to the tip of his tongue and crushed it with his front teeth. “So what else did your friend Tomasso tell you?”

She screwed the cap on the small jar of cuticle cream and put it on the night table. “I didn't say it was Mike who told me. Besides, I never reveal my sources.” She turned over on her side and started rubbing his crotch through the sheet.

“It was him. I know. It had to be.” The son of a bitch. Thirty-six million. No one's gonna fuck me out of that. Cop or no cop. I want my own life-style of the rich and famous.

She started humming again as she got to her knees and dangled those tits of hers right in front of his face.

“Enough with the hillbillies! You're giving me a headache.”

She threw back the sheet, clutched his stiff dick, straddled him, and used it on herself like a dildo. All greased and ready to go. Unbelievable.

“Ummm . . . ‘black gold, Texas tea.'” Her eyes half closed, grinning.

He pulled her hands away, arched his back, and gave her the whole thing, right up to the hilt. She squirmed and twisted, but she wouldn't stop with the goddamn humming. “Hey, Sydney, do me a favor, will ya?”

“What would that be?”

“Just shut up and fuck.”

She moaned and grinned—Lolita on a bucking bronco—but she didn't stop humming. He linked fingers with her and decided to give her a good ride. What a weird bitch. Weird and nosy. He wondered what the hell she sang for that bastard Tomasso.

verybody was watching the action up in the ring, everybody except Tozzi and the other bodyguards. Tozzi was in position, standing a few feet behind Russell Nashe, his arms crossed over his chest as he stared across the crowded gym. He didn't like what he saw. The double doorway across the gym was open, bright with sunlight from outside. He could make out two silhouettes, one of them a huge figure, easily as big as the big man up in the ring, Charles Epps. Tozzi couldn't make out the faces, but the big guy was big enough to be Sal Immordino, Sal standing there with his brother Joseph. But what would they be doing here at Charles Epps's training camp with all these reporters and TV people? Much too much exposure for a slug like Immordino. Unless he was here for a reason, to make sure something was done maybe. To make sure a certain fed who was working undercover was taken care of? Tozzi stared at the silhouettes. He didn't like this. Sud
denly
he
felt exposed. He squinted, trying to make out the faces, but it was no use. The sun was too bright.

Tozzi turned away from the doorway and glanced up at the ring. The harsh gymnasium lights were gleaming off Charles Epps's shaved head as he stalked his anonymous sparring partner, a black guy whose face was obscured by the headgear. The sparring partner bore more than a passing resemblance to “Pain” Walker in size, physique, and complexion. No coincidence. But Tozzi had gotten a good look at the guy's face before this demo bout started, and there was one big difference between him and the champ: he was a lot closer to Epps's age than to Walker's. The guy wasn't feeble, but he wasn't twenty-six either. Like Epps, he fought in bursts, on again, off again, pacing himself so he wouldn't run out of gas, punching in flurries, then backing off and circling to get a breather. Epps was doing that right now, circling backward with heavy loping steps that might've been mistaken for footwork once upon a time. He was still credible as a contender, though, because of his hard punch. Tozzi could tell from that keen homicidal look in his eye that he was looking to use it. It was the same look Sal had when he had his big paw around Tozzi's throat in the elevator the other day. Wonderful.

Epps circled back toward his opponent now and started throwing left-jab, right-cross combinations, still looking for that opening. Tozzi heard the hiss of tired lungs and saw sprays of sweat against the lights as Epps kept punching doggedly, hoping to get lucky. Then out of the blue he threw a freight-train right that just missed, grazing the sparring partner's headgear and whipping his head around as if it had really connected. The restless crowd woke up and took notice. Tozzi was surprised and impressed himself. Apparently so was the sparring partner because he wasted no time backpedaling out of range. By all indications, Epps's legendary killer right hadn't aged a bit.

The bell rang then and the fighters went to their corners. Tozzi looked back at the doorway, but he couldn't see the big silhouette anymore and that made him a little
nervous. He wanted to know where the big guy had gone, wanted to know if it was really Sal.

The crowd started grumbling a little louder now, the reporters and photographers griping to each other, trading nasty opinions, looking over at the buffet table with hungry eyes, wondering when the hell this would get over with so they could eat. Nashe was smiling hard, scrutinizing the press, trying to read their collective feelings about the challenger. He'd invited them down here to Epps's training camp to build up some excitement for the fight, to prove to them that Epps wasn't the “shot” fighter they'd all been calling him, but this group didn't exactly seem thrilled to have made the trip out here to the middle of nowhere in the Jersey Pine Barrens.

Tozzi studied Nashe sitting on a folding chair next to the governor of New Jersey. Nashe was ignoring the reporters now. He wasn't going to let them bother him. He was smiling and yakking away now, having a grand old time with the gov. It was his party, after all. The governor didn't look very happy, though. He seldom did. The man always looked gray and constipated. Even the governor's bodyguards looked constipated. They were the usual Secret Service types—neat single-breasted suits, solid-color ties, Ray-Bans, little earplug receivers in their ears. One of these guys clearly thought Tozzi was an iffy character because he kept looking at him as if he expected Tozzi to suddenly erupt and do something crazy. This was almost funny. If the guy only knew. Tozzi suddenly looked over his shoulder and scanned the crowd. But does Sal know?

“Damn,” Nashe said to the governor, loud enough for the whole gym to hear, “I hope we look as good as Charles when we get that old.”

A few of the reporters snickered, but the governor didn't seem to get it. Epps did, though, and he glared down at Nashe from his corner. He was not amused.

The bell rang then, and Epps thundered out to the middle of the ring. Either Nashe's comment had gotten him riled or he'd decided to give the yawning scribes something
to write about. Whatever the reason, Epps came out swinging. His sparring partner didn't like the look of this sudden burst of youthful energy, and after that last near miss he wasn't going to take any chances. He moved in close and hung on Epps's arms. The guy wasn't stupid. He knew he was supposed to be the sacrificial goat. He just didn't want to have to take the full wrath of that right just so Epps could get a little extra space in the papers. The guy must've figured he could take whatever the big man was throwing in close like this—long arms at short range get cramped, can't do as much damage. Theoretically at least.