Bad Luck (40 page)

Gibbons put the frame back where it had been and looked at the pictures on the wall instead, but he kept coming back to Mrs. Ivers. He was thinking about Lorraine, wondering whether she was heading down the same road as Mrs. Ivers. He suddenly remembered Tozzi's friend Valerie and her Dick Tracy hat. He thought about Lorraine wearing that hat. She'd look good in it, mysterious. He kept staring at Ivers's wife, thinking about the blond bartender in the gray fedora. Lorraine the way she was, Lorraine the way she will be? He let out a long sigh, wondering whether he'd end up with one of these pathetic pictures on his desk. Maybe they should forget about it. Can the wedding. Just live together, put things back the way they used to be.

The way they used to be . . . Fat chance. Last time he saw her, she swore she'd call it off if he walked out the door. When he'd finally gotten back to his place on Sunday, she was gone, no note, nothing. He must've called her place down near Princeton at least twenty times, but all he got was the answering machine. Guess he didn't have to worry about getting stuck with dopey wife pictures on his desk. Shit . . .

The door opened then. Gibbons looked over his shoulder, expecting Ivers. It was Tozzi.

“What in the hell are you supposed to be?” Gibbons said. “Spiderman?”

Tozzi shut the door. There was a metal brace over his nose, white tape crisscrossing his face to hold it in place. Two nice shiners, one still a little puffy. He went over and took the chair next to Gibbons, across from Ivers's desk. He looked like hell.

Tozzi nodded at the SAC's empty chair. “So where is he?”

Gibbons shrugged. “He's late. What're you doing here? I thought you were gonna stay home and rest.”

“What the hell am I gonna do at home? Take painkillers and jerk off?” Tozzi's voice was low, subdued. It was hard to read his face with the bandages and the black eyes.

“Oh . . . I thought you were hurting.”

Tozzi just shrugged and stared out the window.

They didn't say anything for a while. The phone rang and one of the buttons flashed on Ivers's console. It stopped in the middle of the second ring. The secretary must've picked up at her desk outside.

Gibbons turned in his seat to face Tozzi. “You hear from Valerie?”

Tozzi started nodding, still staring out the window, more like he was thinking than saying yes. “I saw her yesterday. At the hospital. I'm getting sick of hospitals.”

“You talk to her?”

“Yeah.”

“So how is she?”

“She's over the hump, she'll be okay.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“And what about the two of you? She still mad?”

Tozzi nodded again. “Yeah . . . kind of.”

“At least she's talking to you. That's something.”

“Yeah . . .” Tozzi started feeling his face. “I think she was happy to see me like this. Like we were even now.”

“Yeah, but at least she's talking to you.”

Tozzi nodded, but he didn't seem to be listening. Maybe she'd told him to fuck off and he just didn't want to talk about it.

It got very quiet. You could just make out the faint sound of Ivers's secretary's printer zipping through a letter behind the door. Gibbons waited for Tozzi to say something. Must be the painkillers. He's never this quiet. “What'd they give you for the pain?”

“Percodan.”

“Makes you dopey, huh?”

“I didn't take any this morning.” Tozzi looked at him. “I drove in.”

“Ah . . .” Gibbons pressed his lips together and nodded. Depressed. Valerie must have given him his walking papers. He doesn't want to talk about it. Poor bastard.

“So where the hell is he?” Tozzi said. “I figured Ivers'd have his guns loaded for me, ready to chew my ass out.”

“For what?”

“Whattaya mean, for what? For screwing up the undercover.” Tozzi's eyes were wet and shimmering under the discolored flesh. “Nine weeks with Nashe and I didn't get a thing. We just got lucky at the end, that's all. Which is just what he's gonna say. He's gonna take me off the street, you watch. Sure as shit.”

“Not necessarily.” Gibbons wanted to be hopeful even though he knew Tozzi was probably right.

The phone rang again. Only one ring this time.

“You know, Gib,” Tozzi said. “I got my ass kicked three times in one day. I'am a special agent, I'am supposed to know how to take care of myself. I practice aikido two, three times a week. But what did it all do for me? I still got my ass kicked.”

Bad-mouthing aikido, a bad sign. He must really be depressed. He used to think aikido was the be-all and end-all. “Listen, Toz, you had five of Nashe's bodyguards gang up on you the first time. The second time Walker's guys were holding your arms while the heavyweight champion of the world worked you over. And shit, with Immordino at the fight, you were hurt, you were punchy, for chrissake. What did you expect?”

“Yeah, but I've seen guys who know aikido take care of five attackers at the same time. Easy.”

“Black belts, yeah. What're you? Only an orange belt. What's that? It takes years to really learn that martial-arts stuff so you can kick ass. You've got a long way to go, right?”

Tozzi just looked at him. “How do you know?”

“I know because, unbelievable as it may seem, I pay attention when you bore the shit out of me with your aikido stories.” You're supposed to smile, Tozzi. I'm trying
to make you feel better. Why don't you cooperate for once in your life?

The door opened then and Brant Ivers whisked into the room.

“Good morning,” he said to the rug. He dropped his morning papers on the desk and sat down in the high-backed swivel chair. Court was in session.

“What're you doing here, Tozzi? You look terrible. Why aren't you home?” Lot of compassion. Asshole.

“It looks worse than it feels. I'm okay.”

Ivers adjusted his suit jacket. Black pinstripe, two-tone gray rep tie. The man meant business today. He stared at Tozzi's face, assessing the damage, then shook his head gravely. One of his practiced gestures. “Well, if you say you're all right . . . Actually I'm glad you're here, Tozzi. I want to get a few things straight about the events in Atlantic City this weekend. Some matters of procedure.” The SAC was wearing that tight-assed headmaster look of his, the I'll-hear-your-side-of-it-then-I'm-gonna-bust-your-balls-because-I've-already-made-up-my-mind look.

Gibbons decided to head the asshole off at the pass. “I think Tozzi did a hell of a job down there. That tape he got of Immordino threatening him and admitting to murder and all? There's no way he can peddle that mental-incompetency bullshit anymore. Only bad thing is that with all the previous charges Immordino's gonna have to face on top of all the new charges, he'll end up spending more time in court than in prison.”

Ivers linked his fingers on the blotter. “Perhaps.”

Keep going, don't stop. “I talked to a guy I know at the U.S. Attorney's office last night. Immordino's lawyers were scrambling all day yesterday. Damage control. They know there's nothing they can do about the old charges, but they're very eager to deal on the current stuff. Since Nashe is gonna face charges for attempting to fix the fight and illegal gambling, they've offered to let Sal testify against him in exchange for immunity from prosecution on the same charges.”

Tozzi coughed up a sarcastic laugh. “What good will that do him? He could get life for killing Sydney.”

“That's still up in the air,” Headmaster Ivers said. “What
I
hear from the U.S. Attorney is that there's been some back-and-forth as to what the charge will be on Mrs. Nashe's death. At the very least Sal will face a manslaughter charge, but some of the boys over there feel they can kick it up to second-degree murder, based on Immordino's vengeful intentions against both Mr. and Mrs. Nashe when he pulled the trigger.”

“And what about Sister Cil?” Tozzi asked.

Ivers made a steeple with his fingers and touched his upper lip with it. “Now that's a very interesting question. They can charge Sister Cil as an accessory, but if they do, they'll have a very hard time selling second-degree murder for Sal. They could charge them both with manslaughter, but my guess is that they'll go after Sal on murder two and leave her alone.”

Gibbons frowned. “They're just being chickenshit about it because she's a nun. She hated Sydney as much as Sal did, and anyway, Sal was gunning for Russ, not the wife. The nun's guilty as sin, if you ask me. They ought to charge them both with murder two.”

Ivers tilted his head back and looked at him through half-closed lids. William F. Buckley now. “We don't prosecute them, Bert. We just arrest them.”

Gibbons bristled when he heard Ivers call him Bert. A real sarcastic prick today. “I also heard that Henry Gonsalves has offered to testify against Immordino.”

“Oh, yeah? How's he doing?” Tozzi asked.

Gibbons shrugged and raised his eyebrows. “Supposedly he's made a lot of progress, but he's never gonna be the same again. He has a hard time remembering things.”

“The perfect witness.” The sarcastic headmaster again. Ivers paused and just stared at the two of them, the eyes half closed. Gibbons could hear the printer running on the other side of the door.

Gibbons looked up at the ceiling and exhaled loudly. All right. Come on, say it.

Ivers's chair creaked as he leaned back. “Why is it that I feel we've been here before, that we've gone over this territory many, many times in the past? You're both competent agents, you get results, but can you tell me why you always have to undercut your successes by continually disobeying direct orders, stubbornly insisting on doing things your way, and ignoring well-established procedure? There's a big knot in my stomach right now from all the negative feelings I have stored up against you two. I really want to yell at you two, really lace into you, chew your asses out royally. But what good does that ever do? You don't listen. You don't improve. Why should I waste my breath? Why should I even waste my time with you?” Ivers grit his teeth.
“Why the hell shouldn't I have you two fuck-ups dismissed right here and now? Hmmm?”

“Hold it right there.” Gibbons was gritting his teeth too, but he waited for the blinding flash of rage to pass before he spoke. “There's gonna be some big convictions as a result of the arrests we made down there. But let's put all this into perspective. This was not some slap-dash shakedown. Tozzi collected more than enough evidence to put Sal Immordino away. Now I admit that we've been known to misinterpret instructions—yes, even disregard direct orders—but we have never ignored procedure. Never. No one's rights were trampled on down there, and no one was abused during those arrests, despite the fact that it was a very difficult situation. Everyone was mirandized. We did it by the book.”

Ivers didn't say a word. His face was red, his jaw set, as he unfolded the two newspapers on his desk and laid them out so Gibbons and Tozzi could read the headlines. The
Daily News
had a big picture of Sister Cil and Joseph Immordino lying flat on the floor, hands over their heads as Tozzi was handcuffing Joseph. The picture on the front page of the
Post
was juicier: Tozzi hunkered down over the nun with his hand under her armpit as he was frisking her.
One headline said
FBI BUSTS NUN.
The other was
FBI TO NUN: SPREAD 'EM, SISTER
!

Gibbons let out a long, slow breath.

Tozzi coughed into his fist. “This is very misleading.”

“You couldn't have waited until a female police officer arrived? There were cameras all around you, for God's sake. Don't you have any sense, Tozzi? Look at this.” Ivers pointed to the frisking picture. “You look like some kind of thug from a Salvadoran death squad.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.” The knot was in Gibbons's stomach now. “That woman was in possession of a deadly weapon. There were people all over the place, innocent citizens. Nun or not, she could've been packing another weapon. Don't tell me about procedure. Common sense tells you she had to be checked. Christ, she could've had a rocket launcher under that habit. No, I don't want to hear any more about this nun bullshit. Tozzi did the right thing.” Gibbons's knot got tighter. He'd told Tozzi to lay off the nun. Stupid shit.

“Would you like to know why I was late getting in here this morning? I was late because I had breakfast with the cardinal. He was very upset, Gibbons.
Very
upset. He gave me a real earful, and I had to sit there and take it. Nothing I said could calm him down. He told me he was going to call the Director in Washington this morning. And the President.”

“He can call the fucking Pope, for all I care. We nailed a top mobster, a fucking murderer, for chrissake. We also nailed a billionaire crook who's got God knows how many scams going. And in the process we managed to deplete the Mistretta family's war chest by about thirty mil. All by ourselves. How can you weigh all that against this trivial bullshit you're giving us here? Frisking a nun. This is bullshit!”