Bad Apple

by Anthony Bruno

  1:01 P.M.

  “Aren’t you dead?”

  Gibbons heard the voice, but the words didn’t make any sense to him. He kept blinking his eyes, trying to get them to focus. He could sense that there was a lot going on around him—yelling in the distance, yammering up front, running feet—but he couldn’t tell exactly what was going on because he couldn’t keep his eyes open. His chest felt like someone had just tried to poke a hole through it with a telephone pole. His stomach didn’t feel so great either. Queasy. But it wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be—as if that were any consolation. He could still feel the reverberations of the impact, but there really wasn’t that much pain. He squeezed his eyes closed to stop the room from spinning, and without thinking he probed his bad tooth with his tongue. Surprisingly that didn’t hurt either. Then he remembered that he’d just taken that pill, the pain-killer Lorraine had brought.

  “You’re not dead.”

  He opened his eyes, finally recognizing Lorraine’s voice.

  “I thought you had died,” she said. She seemed sad and disappointed.

  He just stared at her, struggling to keep both eyes open. He couldn’t read her at all. She was kneeling by his side, but she didn’t seem very happy that he wasn’t dead. He sat up. “I was wearing a vest. Standard procedure for a manhunt.” He unbuttoned a shirt button and showed her a tan patch of the bulletproof vest. “You see any blood?”

  She sat back on her heels and looked him up and down, then scooted backward on her knees and checked his legs. She shook her head. “I don’t see anything.”

  Gibbons nodded, but he still couldn’t figure her out. She was acting weird. She should’ve been glad that he wasn’t dead. What the hell was wrong with her?

  He probed his chest and side through the vest, trying to figure out exactly where he’d been hit. He figured he had to have fractured a few ribs. As he felt the bones along his side, his hand found the empty holster, and suddenly he thought of Excalibur. He looked around on the floor, remembering that he’d pulled his weapon just before he was shot. It couldn’t have gone far. But where the hell was it?

  “Lorraine, did you see my gun?”

  “I’ve got it.”

  Freshy DeFresco was standing a few feet behind Lorraine, and Excalibur was in his hand, aimed at Gibbons’s head. Gibbons couldn’t believe it. Friggin’ Freshy DeFresco, this little piece of shit, was holding his gun, the gun he’d used his entire career as an FBI agent. Talk about nerve. He couldn’t fucking believe it.

  “Give me my gun,” he said. If the punk had been within reach, Gibbons would’ve ripped his face off.

  Freshy laughed. “Get real, man.”

  Gibbons furrowed his brows.

  All of a sudden, Freshy was trying to be a tough guy, but it was a pathetic attempt. The little shit kept hunching his shoulders and twitching his head to one side, and he couldn’t look Gibbons in the eye. He was acting weirder than Lorraine. Gibbons wondered if maybe he had died and this was hell: one big mental ward that looked like Macy’s.

  “I said, give me my gun, you little piece of—”

  “Can it!” Tony Bells’s legbreaker, the guy with the big jaw and the dumb look in his eyes, was standing over Gibbons from behind. He had a gun, too.

  Gibbons just looked at him. Shit, this had to be hell.

  Lorraine glanced from one gun to the other, not particularly concerned. Gibbons couldn’t figure her out. Either she was pretending these two clowns weren’t there, or that she wasn’t there. Or was she just resigned to the fact that she and her beloved husband were gonna get blown away by these two? Gibbons didn’t get her at all.

  Freshy was bouncing like a ball, twitching all over the place. “Stanley, let’s get outta here. C’mon.”

  “What about my cousin?” Lorraine asked without emotion. “What about Michael?”

  “What about him?” Freshy shot back, almost offended by the question. “C’mon, Stanley. Let’s go.”

  Lorraine stared up at him and made him look away. “They’ll find your friend, the man who took Michael. They will.”

  Stanley the legbreaker squinted. “Who? Who’s gonna find ‘my friend’?”

  Lorraine was defiant. “The FBI, that’s who. Michael’s a special agent. They’ll track your friend down to find Michael.”

  “Fuck.” Stanley started muttering to himself. “I told him not to handcuff them. You do federal time for kidnapping. I told him that. I told him I didn’t want no part of no kidnapping. I told him I wasn’t gonna come if he handcuffed them.”

  Gibbons was about to scream at Lorraine for blowing Tozzi’s cover, but then he realized that it was obviously already blown. Why else would they have Tozzi in handcuffs?

  “Stanley, don’t listen to her. C’mon, let’s go before the cops come.” Freshy was jumping out of his skin.

  “Shut up, will ya? I’m thinking.”

  Stanley must’ve been thinking very hard because his face was bending and twisting like chocolate swirling into vanilla. His brain must’ve been the one muscle he hardly ever used.

  Lorraine got to her feet, and Freshy backed away from her. She looked mean. “They’ll find your friend. They’re tracking them right now. You wait.”

  “Lorraine!” Gibbons could’ve killed her.

  “Michael is wearing some kind of device on his body, a microphone or something. They can hear everything with this little gizmo. That’s how they’re going to track down your friend.”

  “Lorraine!”

  She ignored him and continued to rip into Stanley and Freshy. “They’ve got all kinds of state-of-the-art equipment. Don’t worry. They’ll find your friend.” She wasn’t asking for their help; she was gloating over Tony Bells’s eventual defeat. She was trying to get back at someone, anyone, for the kidnapping of her cousin.

  Gibbons sat up. He was gonna murder her.

  “You wait,” she said. “They’ll find your friend. The FBI will—”

  Gibbons decided to cut her off before she could say any more. “Lorraine, just shut up.”

  “No, you shut up.” Her eyes flashed as she turned on him and screeched. “I want them to know that their friend has no hope, that the van outside is tracking Michael right now as we speak, that they should tell us where they’ve gone and help us find Michael before it gets any worse. Tell them what will happen.” She was all over the road, lashing out at everyone.

  Gibbons struggled to get to his feet, but only managed to get to his knees. Lorraine had snapped. She was yelling at him for all this, and he was the one who’d just been shot, for chrissake. He was in nutball hell, he had to be. He gritted his teeth as he tried to get to his feet again. “Don’t say any more, Lorraine. What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Everything! At least according to you.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing I do is ever right. I can’t even deliver pills the right way. I couldn’t have your toothache for you, which is what you really would’ve wanted. And I couldn’t even be a good widow. Well, I’m sorry, but that’s the way I am. You ought to just get rid of me.”

  “What the hell’re you talking about, Lorraine? Have you lost it or what?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I have.”

  Gibbons grunted and strained and finally got to his feet. “In case you missed it, I just got shot, Lorraine. I could’ve been dead. I don’t need this shit.”

  She was waving her arms like a real honest-to-goodness nut. “So shoot me! Then you won’t have me around to aggravate you anymore.”

  He stared at her, then pointed at Freshy. “I can’t. He’s got my gun.”

  She turned on Freshy and startled him. “Give him his goddamn precious gun back so he can shoot me. I’m sick of living with him.”

  Those words hit Gibbons harder than the bullets had. He didn’t understand what had gotten into her. Sure, he’d been grouchy and nasty when she’d gotten there with the pills, but so what? He was always grouchy and nasty. “Lorraine, you don’t reall
y mean that.”

  She snapped her head around and glared at him. “Don’t tell me what I mean and don’t mean. Goddamn it, I can think for myself.”

  Stanley shouted over her. “Shut up, the both of youse. I can’t think.”

  “You shut up,” Lorraine screeched.

  Gibbons scowled at him. “Yeah, shut the fuck up and mind your own business.”

  Stanley’s face expanded with anger. “Don’t tell me to shut the fuck up. You shut the fuck up.”

  Freshy was hopping around like a first-time firewalker. “C’mon, Stanley. Let’s go!”

  “You shut up, too. I’m trying to think.” Stanley’s eyes were confused little pinpoints. He pointed at Lorraine with his gun. “You said something about a surveillance van being outside?”

  “Yes! Don’t you listen?”

  Gibbons couldn’t believe her. Why the hell was she telling this asshole anything? Why couldn’t she just shut up?

  The gears started turning in Stanley’s head, and his gaze returned from the ozone. He panned his gun toward Gibbons as he snatched Lorraine’s upper arm. “Let’s go. Move. I want to see this van.”

  “Fuck you,” Gibbons said.

  Excalibur’s cold metal barrel was suddenly pressed to his scalp. “You heard the man,” Freshy said. “Move!”

  The little shit had grown balls all of a sudden. Gibbons would’ve bitten his hand off at the wrist if Stanley weren’t there holding a gun on Lorraine.

  “Move!”

  Gibbons raised his hands in surrender and looked over his shoulder at Lorraine. She had a smug expression as if she had everything under control. Maybe in her mind. He couldn’t imagine what she thought would happen when these guys saw the van. Half of him hoped Dougherty had moved the thing; the other half hoped he hadn’t. No telling what this dumb leg-breaker might do if he didn’t find it. Never promise an attack dog a bone unless you know you’ve got one.

  The main aisle was deserted as they moved in a pack toward the exit. Unarmed security guards watched from behind counters, biting their lips and pissing their pants, wishing the cops would show up already. Freshy and Excalibur escorted Gibbons out onto Thirty-fourth Street. Stanley backed through the glass doors, dragging Lorraine with him.

  “Where is it?” Stanley grunted, looking up and down the crowded street.

  Lorraine pointed with her head. “Right there. The blue plumbing truck.” She sounded annoyed.

  He dug his gun into her back. “Go.”

  Freshy jammed Excalibur into Gibbons’s spine, but Gibbons moved as slowly as he could get away with. Dougherty was a surveillance technician, not a street agent. He wasn’t required to carry a weapon, though it was possible that he kept one inside the van. If he was smart, he’d just take off as soon as he saw them coming. If he saw them coming. Knowing Dougherty, he was probably in the back with the headphones on, fiddling with his dials and knobs, trying to pick up whatever he could from Tozzi’s transmitter.

  “You,” Stanley said as they came up to the van. He let go of Lorraine and shoved her ahead. “Open the door.”

  Lorraine stumbled forward and hesitated.

  “Do it,” Stanley barked, rushing up behind her and jamming the gun in her back.

  Finally she looked scared. Gibbons was almost relieved.

  “Hurry up.” Stanley pushed her again.

  Reluctantly she knocked on the sliding door.

  No response.

  “Try the handle,” Stanley ordered.

  She tried it, expecting the door to be locked, but it flew open with her jerk.

  “Mrs. Gibbons!”

  Dougherty was shocked to see her. He was leaning forward on one of the stools, wearing his headphones of course, but he was also holding a .38 down by his side. Gibbons could see right away that Dougherty didn’t know shit about using a gun. Stanley could see that, too. He shouldered Lorraine out of his way and backhanded Dougherty with his heavy automatic. Dougherty buried his face in his lap, and Stanley clobbered him over the head. The surveillance tech poured out of the van and landed on the sidewalk in a heap, out cold. His forehead was scraped and bleeding.

  “In.” Stanley motioned with his gun, looking all around at the passing pedestrians, but no one had noticed Dougherty lying on the curb yet. “Everybody in.”

  Lorraine obeyed right away, which really pissed Gibbons off. She never hopped to it like that when he told her to do something. ‘Course he never held a gun on her either.

  “Get in.”

  Gibbons ignored him and hunkered down next to Dougherty. He knew Freshy didn’t have the balls to shoot him. Stanley stuck his gun in Gibbons’s ear and repeated the order, but Gibbons didn’t give a shit. He went ahead and checked Dougherty’s pulse. The guy had one, which was good enough for Gibbons. He’d be all right.

  “Get up!” Freshy said, his voice rising.

  Gibbons ignored him and looked up at Stanley, nodding at Dougherty’s revolver on the curb. “Take his gun,” Gibbons said. “Some punk may pick it up.”

  “What?”

  “I said, take his gun. There are enough guns out on the street.”

  “Oh.” Stanley turned to Freshy. “Pick it up.”

  Freshy did as he was told, but he didn’t look happy about it. Taking orders for menial tasks didn’t make him much of a tough guy. Gibbons smiled with his teeth.

  “Now get in,” Stanley ordered.

  When Gibbons took his time doing it, one of them shoved him from behind, and he landed on top of one of the stools, banging his chest. A dull pain like an old bruise radiated through the entire left side of his chest. He had a feeling that if he hadn’t taken that pain-killer, he’d be in tears right now. He hauled himself up with some difficulty and sat down on the stool. Stanley was reeling in the coiled wire of Dougherty’s headphones, yanking them off the poor guy’s bloody head.

  Freshy shut the sliding doors. “Drive,” Stanley said to him. The little shit stuck Excalibur in his coat pocket, climbed behind the wheel, started the engine, and screeched out into traffic.

  “Where’m I going, Stanley?”

  “Pass by the parking lot. See if Bells got the car. We gotta find him.”

  “Right. Good idea.”

  Stanley gazed at all the high-tech surveillance equipment jammed into the back of the van. He looked like a chimp sitting in a space shuttle. He pursed his lips and frowned as he tentatively pulled the headphone jack out of its plug. A speaker mounted on one of the walls suddenly crackled to life with an erratic wash of static. Stanley held out the headphones to Gibbons. “How’s this stuff work?”

  Gibbons laughed. “Don’t ask me, pal.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “The guy you left back at the curb is the one who knows how to run this stuff, not me.”

  Stanley glared at Lorraine. “I thought you said they could track them. Huh?”

  Lorraine set her jaw, then threw an accusing look at Gibbons. “I thought you could track them with this equipment.”

  Gibbons shook his head. “You two watch too many James Bond movies. That transmitter Tozzi’s wearing is very fluky. You gotta be within a quarter mile to pick up a signal. And if he’s in a steel-frame building or there’s one between the transmitter and the receiver, forget about it.”

  Lorraine protested, “But you heard him inside the store, didn’t you?”

  Gibbons shrugged. “It’s an old building. I dunno. Ask Dougherty.”

  “This is giving me a friggin’ headache,” Stanley grumbled at the speaker, and he went to put the headphone jack back in to silence the static.

  “Why don’t we leave it?” Lorraine blurted. “In case something comes through.”

  Gibbons stared at her. He was gonna kill her. No question.

  She stared back at him, defiant and angry. “Leave it on. I want to know if Michael’s all right.”

  “Yeah,” Freshy piped up from the driver’s seat. “I want to know if my sister’s okay, too. That freakin’ nut Bells is liable to do anything.”


  “Shut up!” Stanley yelled.

  Gibbons reached over to the volume control and turned it down.

  Lorraine was glaring at him. For some reason she really had it in for him, but he couldn’t believe it was just because he was grouchy before.

  “Hey, Stanley, look. The car’s still there.” Freshy was pointing through the windshield at a parking lot on Thirty-fourth Street past Ninth Avenue. The silver BMW was parked out front, facing out. There was no one in it.

  Two NYPD patrol cars sped down Thirty-fourth in the opposite direction, lights flashing, sirens whooping. No one said anything. No one had to. It wasn’t hard to guess where the cops were going.

  “Take this right,” Stanley said.

  Freshy turned in where a big green sign said LINCOLN TUNNEL. “But this goes back to Jersey, Stanley.” Even though he was already on a one-way access road to the tunnel and he couldn’t turn around, he wasn’t so sure about this. “What about Bells . . . and Gina?”

  “Don’t worry. I know Bells. I know where he’s gonna go.” Stanley sounded grave.

  “You do? How do you know that?” Freshy was obviously worried about his sister.

  “Everybody’s out looking for him. His face is on TV and everything. I know how he is. He’s going nuts thinking about it.” Stanley looked at Gibbons. “He probably thinks he killed a fed, too. You are a fed, right?”

  Gibbons nodded. He was tempted to say something about Bells shooting Special Agent Petersen, but he decided not to get Stanley riled. If Stanley was in the mood to talk, let him talk.

  “If I know Bells,” Stanley said, “he’s gonna go where he feels safe, and there’s only one place. He’s pretty good at keeping his cool, but I’ve seen him lose it. Gotta find him before he does. Gotta get him outta here before he gets pinched.” Stanley was mumbling to himself, gazing down at the gun in his hand, imagining something.

  “Whatta’ya mean? What happens when he loses it?” Gibbons wished he could see into Stanley’s head.

  Stanley looked up with basset hound eyes, but he didn’t answer the question.

  Freshy glanced back over the bucket seat. “So where’s he gonna go, Stanley?”

  “You know.”