Bad Luck (19 page)

The girl looked up and stared at Sal, tears pouring out of her eyes. If Walker wasn't listening, she'd remind him. She'd remind him about the three mil too. You could bet on that.

Sal turned away and took a deep breath. He felt nice. He felt warm inside. It was all gonna work out. It really was. “C'mon,” he said to his brother. “Let's go.”

ibbons couldn't get over it. He stared across the long marble floor at the short little fat guy in the black raincoat standing in front of the big dinosaur skeleton. He'd been following the guy around Manhattan for the past three days—coffee shops, department stores, museums, Central Park, all over the place—and he just couldn't get over it. It wasn't just his face, the sourpuss with the lopsided mouth. It was the way he walked, the way he snapped at people and glared at them behind their backs, the way he was always straightening his tie clip, his cuffs, his lapels, the way he shook out his handkerchief and blew his nose like a fog horn. Gibbons just couldn't get over it. Sabatini Mistretta was a dead ringer for J. Edgar Hoover.

Gibbons tipped back his hat and looked at his watch. It was almost three. If Mistretta followed his usual pattern, he'd start heading for a coffee shop soon. Coffee, light with Sweet 'n Low, and a piece of pie. Yesterday it had been peach pie. The day before, coconut custard. Gibbons had
been thinking about coconut custard pie ever since. Lorraine told him he shouldn't eat things like coconut custard pie anymore. His cholesterol was too high. She had the doctor do a work-up on his cholesterol when they went for the blood test. It was over two twenty, whatever the hell that meant. She said she'd buy him frozen yogurt pies from now on, and that's what she did, that very night. He took his hat off and put it back on. Yogurt is not coconut custard. Not by a long shot. Holy Matrimony. Can't fucking wait.

Gibbons strolled through the dinosaur hall, stopping at the information plaques, keeping his eye on Mistretta. He and Lorraine used to make it up here to the Museum of Natural History at least once a year. This place and the Metropolitan Museum of Art were their favorites. She really liked the room at the Met with the armor and the swords and the lances. It wasn't her period, but the sight of all those knights tilting forward on their armored chargers gave her a thrill. Plate armor is early Renaissance, not medieval. He'd learned that from her the first time they went there together. In the Middle Ages they wore chain mail. He used to like to bait her with his bias for the ancient Romans, telling her that in the days of the Caesars, an imperial legion could've beaten the shit out of any army from the Middle Ages, Christian or barbarian. As proof, he'd take her to the case where the Roman short swords were kept. Faster, lighter, more compact. They were like Uzis compared to the heavy broadswords the French and the English had used in the late Middle Ages. But then Lorraine would always point out that the long bow was the product of the late Middle Ages, and he'd say that projectile weapons marked the beginning of pussy-shit fighting. Toe-to-toe, man-to-man the way the Romans did it—
that
was fighting.

Gibbons sighed. He and Lorraine didn't seem to do stuff like that anymore. Now they went to malls and looked at curtains. He stared at Mistretta and wondered if his wife made him pick out curtains. No, Mistretta probably didn't give a shit about curtains. Probably thought replacing perfectly
good curtains that only needed a good washing was a waste of money. He was supposed to be a cheap son of a bitch. But it
was
a waste of money.

He walked over to the other side of the big dinosaur skeleton that Mistretta was looking at and watched him through the dark copper-colored rib bones. Gibbons had to laugh. It looked like the boss was back in prison. That's where he should be, the little shit.

Mistretta looked up from the information plaque in front of him and stared Gibbons in the eye. Gibbons looked away. Mistretta probably just assumed he was being followed. The parole board had had someone on his tail from the minute he arrived at the halfway house here. That's why he spent his days on the I-Love-NY tour, religiously avoiding all contact with his mob boys.

According to Mistretta's watchdog, that guy Saperstein, Mistretta hasn't seen anybody since he's been back, except for Immordino's sister, the nun. That was last Friday, two days before the big powwow at Immordino's house. According to what he and Dougherty had overheard from the surveillance van, Mistretta has given his blessings to whatever scam Immordino's got going, the one that has something to do with Vegas, Golden Boy, and Mr. Mad—whoever the hell they were. But somehow this didn't jibe with Mistretta's profile. He was a hands-on boss, and his family had been unusually quiet while he'd been in prison. Why would he let his people start something now, so close to his release? If in four years he hadn't trusted Sal Immordino to be anything but a caretaker, why trust him now? It didn't make sense.

Unless Immordino was making an end-run play on his own. One big score before he has to surrender the reins? Behind Mistretta's back? If it has something to do with Las Vegas, it has to involve big money; and if Gibbons had learned anything in his career as a special agent in the Organized Crime Unit of the Manhattan field office, it was that when big money is concerned
anything
is possible.

Gibbons made like he was examining the bones, keeping
Mistretta in his peripheral vision. He wasn't sure whether Mistretta had made him yet, but the way the guy was staring at him through the bones now seemed to indicate some kind of recognition. But maybe Mistretta was just naturally hostile toward everyone who crossed his path. The Director was like that. Or maybe Mistretta was so cautious that he was constantly on guard, perpetually on the defensive. You don't get to be
capo di capi
of the second-largest crime family in New York by being careless.

“You want something?” Mistretta's gravelly tones echoed through the long hall.

Gibbons tilted his head back and stared at him for a few moments. “You offering anything?”

Mistretta's eyes narrowed. “You been following me all day. Yesterday too. What do you want with me?”

Gibbons sauntered around the iron railing encircling the dinosaur, passed under the long neck, and walked up to Mistretta. He reached into his inside pocket and pulled out his ID.

Mistretta raised an eyebrow as he glanced at Gibbons's ID. “I'm impressed.” J. Edgar used to raise one eyebrow in contempt the same way.

Gibbons scanned the bones, following the dinosaur's long long neck way up to the little head. “Tell me something, Mistretta. How's Sal?”

“Sal who?”

“Immordino.”

Mistretta shrugged. “Don't know him.”

Gibbons smiled. “You were seen saying your prayers with his sister last week.”

“I know his sister. I don't know him.”

Gibbons pinched his nostrils. “Seems funny that you'd leave a guy you don't even know in charge of your family.”

“I don't know what you're talking about. My kids are all grown. My wife takes care of herself.”

“I'm sure she does.” Women do.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

Gibbons shrugged and smiled with his teeth like a crocodile.
“What do you know about Seaview Properties, Incorporated?”

“Never heard of it.”

“Really? You're on the board of directors.”

Mistretta didn't answer.

“Seaview Properties holds the title to the land that Nashe Plaza Hotel and Casino is built on in Atlantic City. That's what it says in the tax records down there.”

“So what?”

“Sal Immordino has been spending a lot of time down in Atlantic City. Having meetings with Russell Nashe.”

“Who's he?”

Gibbons showed his teeth again. “Now, why would the acting head of your family—your
other
family—be having meetings with the man who built his casino on your land?”

“Sal Immordino doesn't have an acting head. He's a functional idiot. A very unfortunate person.”

“I thought you didn't know him.”

“That's what his sister told me.”

Gibbons nodded and stared down the length of the dinosaur's tail. Supposed to have had a second brain in the tail. About as big as a walnut. “I'm gonna take a wild guess, Mistretta, but I'll bet Nashe owes you money on that land and Sal's down there doing the collecting for you.”

Mistretta looked up at the dino head. The flesh on the lopsided side of his mouth was all wrinkled and knobby, just like the Director's.

“According to what's on file at the Atlantic City Municipal Tax Board, Russell Nashe signed a ninety-nine-year lease for that land five years ago. Five years and twenty-six days ago.”

Mistretta shrugged, still looking up at the head.

“Five years is a nice neat period of time. I'm thinking maybe Nashe was supposed to make some big payment on the fifth anniversary of the lease. Maybe he didn't make that payment. Maybe Sal Immordino's trying to find out why, trying to help him along with his delinquent pay
ment.” But what's this got to do with Vegas? Nashe doesn't have any casinos in Vegas.

Mistretta fussed with his tie clip until it was perfectly horizontal. He ruffled the lapels of his raincoat, then rubbed his nose and sniffed.

Gibbons stared at him for a minute, waiting for him to say something. A couple of little old ladies in L. L. Bean mountain parkas walked into the room, took a gander at all the bones, and turned right around. Not their cup of tea. “Does any of this sound plausible to you, Mistretta?”

He raised that contemptuous eyebrow again, then let it down slowly and relaxed his face. “You see this big dinosaur here? They used to call it the brontosaurus, but then they found out that there was no such thing as a brontosaurus, because this guy who thought he made a big new discovery really only found pieces of the same kind of dinosaur he'd found a couple years earlier. See, what he thought was a completely new thing was just a plain old—” Mistretta looked down at the plaque and scanned it with his finger—“an old
a-pat-osaurus.
An apatosaurus.” He shrugged and raised his eyebrows. “For years everybody said it was a brontosaurus, but all the while it was just another stupid apatosaurus. See, that's like circumstantial evidence you guys use. People—experts—they think something is one way. They go to court and swear on the Bible that that's the way it is, absolutely, couldn't have been any other way. Juries hear this shit and convict innocent people, ruin their lives. Then, years later, these big experts come back and say they made a mistake. It wasn't the way they'd said, after all. Turns out it wasn't a brontosaurus. Just an old apatosaurus.” Mistretta nodded. “Happens all the time that way.”

Gibbons rolled his eyes. Mistretta was gonna be cute now. “Very edifying. Know anything about any bones buried under Nashe Plaza?”

Mistretta glowered at him with the bulldog face. Pure J. Edgar. Incredible.

Gibbons leaned on the railing. “You believe in reincarnation?”

Mistretta narrowed his puffy eyes and scowled. “Wha'?”

“Never mind.” Gibbons focused on the dinosaur's disproportionately big feet. Had to be big to hold up that much weight. “What's new in Vegas these days?”

“What the fuck do I know about Vegas? I been in prison. In Pennsylvania.”