Bad Apple

by Anthony Bruno

  Lorraine thought back to when she was kneeling over him on the polished floor in Macy’s between the cosmetics counters. Had she really filed him away like an obituary cut out of the newspaper, right on the spot? It was humiliating to have to admit to herself that she’d actually thought about “the next one.”

  She could feel her face getting hot. Christ, if Gibbons had really died, she could’ve hopped up on a stool and had one of the counter girls do a makeover on her. After all, she would have to start “dating” again, as those old gaudy divorcees always say on the TV talk shows. The thought of a postmenopausal woman using the word dating had always seemed idiotic and embarrassing to her, but now she was ashamed to admit that she’d secretly believed all along that someday she’d be “dating” again herself. Because deep down she believed that her husband would inevitably be killed in the line of duty.

  She stared at Gibbons’s hand rubbing circles into his shirt. She didn’t want to apologize to him. Feeling what you feel isn’t a crime, and besides, he didn’t deserve an apology. But she did want to connect with him, talk to him, figure out what was going wrong between them. Of course, she knew what he’d say if she tried to discuss her feelings. “What is this, a support group, Lorraine?” He always avoided real emotion with his snide humor. But this she had to get off her chest. She had to know why she was so ready to accept his death, why she couldn’t cry when she saw him lying there. Maybe that said something about their relationship, something neither of them was willing to face. She needed to talk to him about this, but the evil Tin Man was sitting right there, and moonfaced Freshy was up front in the driver’s seat. And Gibbons was furious with the whole situation, she could tell. He was definitely in no mood to talk. As if he ever were.

  The van suddenly jolted, and everyone lurched forward as Freshy hit the brakes hard.

  “Hey!” Stanley shouted. “Whatta’ya doing, jerkoff?”

  “Sorry.”

  “You’re driving like an idiot. What’sa matta with you?”

  Freshy turned around and gave Stanley a dirty look. “What’sa matta with me? Bells has my sister in fucking handcuffs, and he’s taking her back to his place. That’s what’sa matta with me. He’s fucking crazy, that guy.”

  Stanley glared at him, like an unamused largemouth bass ready to swallow something whole, just out of spite. He clearly didn’t like anyone saying anything bad about Bells.

  “Watch out!” Stanley yelled.

  Freshy turned back to the road and slammed on the brakes. Tires screeched as the van came up fast on the car ahead. They stopped inches from the car’s bumper.

  “Will you watch what the fuck you’re doing? You’re gonna have an accident.”

  “I’m nervous,” Freshy shouted back. “You guys got me all nervous.”

  Lorraine glanced at Gibbons. Her heart was pounding. She was certain he would’ve taken advantage of the diversion to pounce on Stanley. But he didn’t. He just sat there, not moving, staring out of the shadows, his eyes glimmering. Her heart pounded harder. She couldn’t help thinking that his anger was all directed at her, not Stanley or Freshy, at her. For not crying. But that was ridiculous. She was being absurd. He wouldn’t want her to cry. He hated it when she got emotional.

  She looked away to avoid Gibbons’s accusing stare. “I don’t think you really have to worry about your sister,” she said to Freshy, hoping to break the tension. “Wiseguys don’t hurt women, do they? La Cosa Nostra rules of honor forbid it, no? Especially an innocent woman.”

  The largemouth bass coughed up a laugh. “An innocent woman . . . I like that.”

  “Shut up!” Freshy snapped.

  Lorraine wrinkled her brow. She was confused.

  Gibbons’s voice came out of the shadows, like the oracle of doom. “Nobody’s innocent, not with these people.”

  Freshy was pouting and scowling at the windshield.

  Lorraine looked at Stanley. “Did Freshy’s sister do something wrong? Why did you say that?”

  The big jaw grinned. “Lemme put it this way. Bells has this thing about loyalty. To him, it’s like the most important thing there is. He’s loyal to his people, no matter what.”

  “What people?” Gibbons asked.

  The jaw grinned again. Stanley wasn’t going to mention any names. “Bells expects the people he deals with to be as loyal to him as he is to them. You follow?”

  Lorraine frowned. “No. I’m afraid I don’t.”

  Stanley sighed and rolled his eyes. “Listen. As long as I’ve known Bells, he always says the same thing to me: ‘Trust, Stanley, trust. It’s the most important thing there is in the world. If people can’t trust each other, they may as well be animals. It’s the only thing that makes people human.’ I’ve heard him say this a million times. Now if he trusts you and you turn around and fuck him over, you deserve the worst, the way he figures. ‘There’s nothing worse than a traitor,’ he always says. ‘Nothing.’”

  “What’s that got to do with my sister?” Freshy grumbled.

  “Just shut up and watch the road.”

  Lorraine’s brow was still furrowed. “Are you saying he’d even hurt a woman if he thought she betrayed him?”

  Stanley shrugged and gave her the fish face, but Freshy cut in. “His wife paid the price for—”

  “Shut up!” Stanley exploded. He glared at Freshy, then at Gibbons, who just sat there, taking it all in, like an owl in the dark.

  A sudden chill ran through Lorraine’s bones. She was still confused, but also frightened, because she sensed a bond between Stanley and Gibbons that excluded her. It was Gibbons’s silence that frightened her. From the way Stanley talked, it seemed that punishing an unfaithful woman needed no comment. It was automatic and deserved no appeal. But was Gibbons’s silence his unspoken agreement with this male code of justice? Is that what he felt she deserved for not being a good wife, for not crying and howling at the moon in utter grief for him?

  But that was ridiculous. Gibbons had been unconscious, and when he came to, he was disoriented. How would he know what she had done, or how she had reacted? He wasn’t a mind-reader; he didn’t know how she felt.

  But she still felt that she was being accused, that she had done something fundamentally wrong. A crime against a man.

  Her gaze bounced from one face to the other—red-faced Freshy, the largemouth bass, Gibbons in the dark. One cop and two criminals, but to her they had more in common with each other than she had with any of them. They were men and she wasn’t. And she hadn’t cried when her man had been shot.

  She glanced up at the softly hissing speaker. If Michael were here, would it be four against one? she wondered.

  FOURTEEN

  2:18 P.M.

  The slit of light beaming through the black shifted whenever the truck made a turn. Tozzi watched it creep up Gina’s arm, then settle across her body, like a sash from her hip to her shoulder, continuing into a crate of red onions by her head. She got fidgety when the light didn’t move off her right away, but with the handcuffs on, she couldn’t get away from it. The diagonal line crossed her hair, and Tozzi’s eye was drawn to the soft brown strands shimmering on a field of black nothing. Under this kind of scrutiny, the color seemed lighter than he remembered it, almost a blondish brown. He wished the light would move up to her face so he could see her eyes and mouth. He wanted to see her expression to get some inkling of what she was thinking. He couldn’t figure her out for shit.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about Bells’s voice on her answering machine that day. “Gina, it’s me. Gimme a call.”

  Supposedly she wanted nothing to do with the mob, wouldn’t give any of her brother’s hoodlum friends the right time of day. So why was Bells calling her? Why was he so jealous? What was he, the exception to her rule? Why?

  And another thing: Why did she admit to Bells that she’d slept with Tozzi that one time? Why didn’t she tell him to mind his own business and go to hell? Why did she feel she had to confess to him?

&
nbsp; From the way Bells had reacted—going nuts with those two Koreans and hijacking this truck and all—it certainly looked like these two had some serious history together. But if Bells went rip-shit because Tozzi had slept with Gina, why didn’t he take it out on Tozzi directly? Was it because he knew Tozzi was a fed, and he didn’t want to kill another one and make it worse for himself? Not likely. Bells didn’t think like that. Kill one, kill two, kill three—what’s the difference? But why didn’t he even pistol-whip them to get it out of his system? Why wait?

  Maybe because he had something else in mind, something worse than a beating. Why else would he be keeping them captive like this?

  Shit.

  The truck changed direction, and the golden sliver of light moved up Gina’s cheek, slicing the corner of her purple glasses, illuminating her eye from the side. It was like looking through amber. Unfortunately he couldn’t see her eyebrow, so the eye had no expression, no attitude. Was she sulking? Was she mad? Was she afraid? What did she think Bells was going to do to her? She’d say something if she were afraid, wouldn’t she? Even if she hated Tozzi, she would say something, wouldn’t she? She was stubborn, though, the type who’d rather stay pissed off than show her real feelings and let on that she might be human, like the rest of the world. And they say guys are bad.

  It was getting colder back there with the vegetables. Cold like a basement. Gina had to be freezing.

  “You want my coat?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer right away. “How? What about the handcuffs?” Sarcastic.

  “You wear it inside out. I can get it over the cuffs.”

  “Keep it.”

  Her drop-dead response reminded him of Gibbons. That was just the way he talked. Or used to talk. It was hard to think of Gibbons as being dead. . . .

  “I changed my mind.” Her voice flew out of the dark.

  “About what?”

  “The coat. I’m cold.” She said it just like Gibbons would’ve, making it sound like it was his fault that she was cold.

  “Sit up and I’ll pass it to you.”

  They both sat up and Tozzi shrugged out of the coat, then turned it inside out as he passed it over his arm. She grabbed his wrist, and he felt a little tingle at her touch. Then he realized that she was only trying to make it easier to get the coat off his arm and onto hers. As she struggled and wriggled into the inside-out overcoat, the satiny blue lining appeared in the slit of light. The shine was regal.

  “I’ll give it back as soon as I warm up.”

  “That’s all right. Keep it. I’ve got a sport jacket on.”

  Silence. Not even a thank you.

  After a few moments, her voice came out of the dark again. “Who was that guy back at the store?”

  “The one Bells killed?” He knew she meant Gibbons, but he asked anyway.

  “Yeah, him.”

  Tozzi didn’t answer right away. “He was my partner. His name is Gibbons.”

  “Your partner? I thought my brother was your partner.”

  “My FBI partner. I’m an agent, too.”

  She turned over to face him, but he had no idea how she was reacting to this. All he could see was a slice of her hair shining in the light. Maybe she wasn’t surprised. Maybe she’d figured as much. Maybe she was sympathetic.

  “Gibbons was a good man. We put in a lot of years together, he and I . . . a lot of cases.”

  “You were undercover. You were trying to frame my brother.” There was scorn and accusation in her voice. She didn’t give a shit about Gibbons.

  “Freshy wasn’t our target. Actually your brother was helping us. We flipped him.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means we got him to work for us. We knew he was associated with certain organized crime figures that we were interested in—”

  “Who?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Who?”

  “Bells. Buddha Stanzione.” Normally Tozzi wouldn’t name names, but it was pretty obvious now. “Your brother agreed to introduce me to his mob associates in exchange for dropped charges and our promise of witness protection afterward.”

  “Witness protection? We’ll never see him again. My mother will die!” She sounded genuinely upset, almost vulnerable.

  “Family visits are permitted. They do it all the time. Your mother can go into witness protection with him if she wants. It can be arranged.”

  “That’ll kill her for sure.”

  Silence seeped into the black like a vapor. The truck made a sharp turn, and Tozzi rolled back. Gina started to roll, too, but she put her free hand on his hip to brace herself. She took her hand off right away. The slit of light was on him now, slicing across his chest.

  “Sorry,” she muttered.

  “No problem.” He listened to her breathing. Her face was closer to his now. “Can I ask you something?”

  “What?”

  He wasn’t sure how to put this. “Are you . . . ? Why is Bells so jealous? About you, I mean.”

  “He’s nuts.”

  “I know that. But why is he so jealous? Are you two . . . ?” He let it trail off, hoping he wouldn’t have to say it.

  “Are we what?”

  “You know, involved. Romantically.”

  The truck turned again, but not so sharply. They both braced themselves for this one and weren’t thrown. The light shifted over to her face. He could see her mouth now. She had a very sexy mouth. He’d never really noticed it before. It was pouty, very French.

  “So? Are you involved with him?”

  “You ask the stupidest questions.” The upper lip curled with impatience.

  “It’s not a stupid question. The guy goes berserk in a department store, knocks out a security guard, kidnaps two people, and kills another one, all because he wants to give you a stupid bracelet but he finds you talking to me instead? I’d say those are some pretty serious feelings. Certainly looks like something’s going on between you two.”

  “Well, you’re wrong.”

  Tozzi could feel the blood rush to his face. “No, I’m not wrong. You’re lying.”

  “Where the hell do you get off calling me a liar? How many goddamn lies have you told? Or are you excused because you’re an undercover cop?”

  He wasn’t about to debate her on that one. He’d heard plenty of righteous defense attorneys lambaste the ethics of taking a false identity for the purpose of nailing a known bad guy. Unfortunately, whenever Tozzi got on the stand, he wasn’t allowed to bring up the ethics of lawyers who take dirty money from these same bad guys, their clients, for services rendered.

  “And who were you supposed to be the day you came up to my apartment?” she continued. “What, was I supposed to be your goomata? Was that gonna be part of your cover?”

  The slit of light moved to her eyebrow. It was vicious.

  “You’ve got it all wrong. I did not consider myself undercover that afternoon.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I spent that time with you because I wanted to. Because . . . because I really felt something for you.”

  “You’ve got a hell of a lot of nerve saying that to me. Do you really expect me to believe that? How could you feel anything for me? You were undercover. It was the perfect male fantasy. You could sleep with me and not be responsible because you were really someone else. Men have wet dreams over stuff like that. Love ’em and leave ’em. Right?”

  “That’s not the way it was.” Tozzi hated it when women used that line of reasoning, blaming him for something “all men do.” He wasn’t personally responsible for every high crime and misdemeanor committed by the entire male race, for chrissake.

  “So how was it then? Tell me. You didn’t even tell me your real name. How genuine could your ‘feelings’ for me have been if you couldn’t tell me who you really are?”

  “You know my real name. It’s Mike.”

  “Is your last name Santoro?”

  He stared at the line of light on he
r brow for a moment. “No.”

  “Then what is it?”

  He sighed. “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t. It goes against policy.” He cringed at the way that sounded, but she was a loose cannon with that big mouth of hers. Giving her his real name would be stupid, worse than stupid.

  “Wonderful,” she said. “You have all these deep feelings for me, but you can’t tell me who you are. What is this, Beauty and the Beast?”

  Tozzi couldn’t hold it in any longer. “And what about Bells? What about that call you got on your answering machine? The one from him. Tell me about your deep feelings for Bells, and I’ll tell you my name.”

  “Oh, here we go. He sleeps with me once and now he wants to own me. What is it with men? It must be the hormones. They can’t borrow, they have to own.”

  Tozzi kneaded his own thigh to keep his hand busy. If she were a guy, he’d strangle her. Except a guy wouldn’t say stupid shit like this, and a guy wouldn’t tell it to the air as if he weren’t even there, a guy would say it to him directly.

  The truck took another sharp turn, but neither of them had a chance to brace for this one. Gina muttered something under her breath as she rolled into Tozzi and immediately pushed herself away again. He could just imagine what she’d said. She scooted away from him, stretching out both their arms to get as far away as possible. That’s when he noticed something shimmering in the slit of light, something he hadn’t noticed before. She was on her back, and in the light that crossed her blouse, he saw the necklace she was wearing. Hanging from a thin gold chain was a gold ring with delicate carving on it. Tozzi wasn’t sure, but when he squinted, he thought the carving looked like an ivy vine that twined around the sides of the ring. He wondered if it was a wedding band.