Bad Business

by Anthony Bruno

  “Bryn Mawr.”

  “Whatever.” Nemo looked up at him and grinned. “You don’t look too good, Augustine. Why don’t you sit down? Go ’head, sit on the rug. I don’t care. See what it’s like to sit on eighty million balloons.”

  Augustine declined the offer. He didn’t even want to look at the rug. “There must be something else we can do. I’m sure we can come up with a reasonable solution.”

  Nemo coughed up a laugh. “Fuck reasonable. We ain’t negotiating here. I’m telling you—you gotta do what you promised, and that’s all there is to it.”

  “Please. If you have any other acceptable alternatives, just tell me.”

  “Well, we can leave your kids alone and just whack you. How’s that?”

  Augustine felt a twinge behind his left eye. God, no. Not now. Not the cluster headaches. “You’re not serious.”

  “What’s not to be serious? We whack you, and the mistrial is practically a sure bet. The chief prosecutor eats a few bullets, and the jury finds out about it, and that old bastard judge will have to call it a day. Intimidating the prosecution, making the jury crazy, whatever the fuck you lawyers call it. It’ll work. Am I right?”

  Unfortunately, the dwarf was right.

  Nemo took the last drag and dropped the butt on the floor, grinding it out with his shoe. “Now, to tell you the truth, Augie, we’d rather not have to do it that way. Makes bad press for us, you know what I mean? It’d be better for everybody if you just get on the stick and do what you’re supposed to do.”

  Augustine closed his eyes and nodded. It was starting. Like a long nail slowly piercing the bone under the eye socket.

  Nemo got up off the milk crate and lifted the door. “You better get to work, Augustine. You don’t have much time.” He nodded at the rug. “Remember, we got product to move. Now go ’head, get goin’.”

  Augustine’s legs were numb as he stooped down and stepped out of the truck. The door slammed shut as soon as he was out, and Augustine heard Nemo yelling to the fat black man behind the wheel. “Go ‘head, get goin’.”

  The truck’s engine roared and it pulled out into the street. It made the green light at Madison and disappeared around the corner, heading uptown.

  Augustine wandered back onto the sidewalk and drifted toward his front steps. He stared up at the facade of the town house again, thinking that’s just what it was, a facade.

  He mounted the steps slowly, oblivious to the dark and the cold, squinting against the sweeping headlights of cars turning into the block from Fifth, his shirt drenched under his coat. The nail was being driven deeper, cracking his skull. He had to get inside and lie down. He had to think. Lord God, he had to think . . .

  — 3 —

  “Your Honor, I must reiterate my colleagues’ appeals for a mistrial in light of Mr. Giordano’s dubiously motivated defection. Mr. Giordano is going to testify as to alleged activities that have been connected with my client, and yet Mr. Giordano has admitted that he has never actually met my client, that his knowledge of my client is hearsay at best. . . .”

  Yadda-yadda-yadda.

  Tozzi stifled a yawn as he stared at the short, bearded lawyer who’d been rattling on for the past twenty minutes. This was the one who looked like Sigmund Freud. He leaned over and whispered to Gibbons, “Which one is this? I forget.”

  “I think that’s Kostmeyer.” Gibbons actually looked like he was paying attention.

  “Who’s he representing?”

  “One of the beauty parlor owners. It’s either the guy from Buffalo or the one from Cleveland. I can’t remember.”

  “I bet the judge can’t either.”

  The judge was slumped over the bench, his face propped on his fist. This had been going on all day, the defense lawyers getting up and making their pitches for a mistrial for their individual clients, all eighteen of them. They knew it wasn’t going to do any good, because the judge had made it pretty clear from the very beginning that he wasn’t going to grant a mistrial, not just because Giordano had flipped, but the lawyers had the right to be heard and they were all going to exercise that right and have their say, all eighteen of them.

  “Mr. Kostmeyer”—the judge’s stentorian whine suddenly filled the room like an air-raid siren—”you’re not telling me anything I haven’t already heard before ad nauseam. At the risk of appearing as boring and repetitious as you and your colleagues, I am going to repeat the advice I gave you all in chambers yesterday. If you feel that your client’s case will be damaged by the recent turn of events, then plea-bargain. It’s a time-honored American tradition, Mr. Kostmeyer. If you truly believe that the jury will hang your client, cut your losses and make a deal with the prosecution. You have my blessing. All of you.”

  The lawyer turned around and looked to his client seated at one of the defense tables, a painfully thin man with a razor-trimmed moustache. The client’s eyes rolled to Salamandra sitting at another table. Salamandra was frowning, shaking his head almost imperceptibly. The thin man looked back at Kostmeyer and shook his head. The lawyer looked at the judge and shrugged. “My client does not wish to pleabargain, Your Honor.”

  Tozzi stared at Salamandra. He was the one who was running things here. These guys didn’t breathe without his okay. Maybe the fat bastard’ll do everybody a favor and have a heart attack.

  Tozzi’s gaze drifted over to Lesley Halloran, Salamandra’s lawyer. He wondered what her part was in all this—stooge, gofer, accomplice? He also wondered why the hell she bothered him so much. She was a bitch in high school, but that was ancient history. He should just forget about it, ignore her. Anyway, she didn’t remember him. She didn’t even know who he was.

  The sudden bang of the gavel startled Tozzi and embarrassed him. He didn’t realize he’d been staring at her.

  “Twenty-minute recess. Court will reconvene at eleven o’clock.” The judge stood up and stretched his back.

  “But, Your Honor,” Kostmeyer objected, “I’m in the middle of my argument. I’d like to be able to finish in order to keep my presentation intact, if it pleases the court.”

  Judge Morgenroth screwed up his face and glowered down at little Freud. “The court has to go take a crap, Mr. Kostmeyer. That’s what would please the court.” The judge gathered up his papers and hopped down from the bench, disappearing into his chambers.

  “Well,” Gibbons said, crossing his arms, “some things you just can’t control. When you gotta go, you gotta go.”

  “Hmmm?” Tozzi was watching Lesley Halloran. She was explaining something to Salamandra.

  “I said when you gotta go, you gotta go. There’s no controlling it.”

  Tozzi stopped staring and shook his head. “That’s not exactly true. You know, people are capable of doing incredible things if they put their minds to it. I read about this swami in India who had so much control over his body that he could reverse the flow of his bowel movements at will.”

  “I’ll bet he was a lot of fun at parties.”

  “You laugh, but there’s a lot to be learned from guys like that. Mind-body coordination. Learning to balance one with the other. That’s the key to realizing your full potential.”

  “Please, spare me the aikido lecture. I’ve heard it.”

  “I’d like to hear it sometime.”

  Tozzi looked up at Tom Augustine standing over the railing. He’d apparently been listening, the sneaky bastard.

  “I don’t mean to be nosy, but did I hear correctly that you study aikido, Mike?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Very interesting. I’ve read a lot about it. It seems very different from the other martial arts. More cerebral. I’d like to give it a try sometime. Where do you do this?”

  “A place in Hoboken. It’s called the Hoboken Koki-Kai School of Aikido, on Washington Street.”

  “When do they offer classes?”

  “We meet on Monday and Wednesday nights at seven-thirty and Saturday afternoons at three.”

  Augustine t
ook out his electronic pocket calendar and entered the information. “I’m going to look into this. Thank you for telling me about it, Mike.”

  “No problem. We always welcome newcomers. Please come and give it a try.” Because I’d just love to throw your Brooks Brothers ass around the mat, Augustine.

  Gibbons leaned back and linked his fingers over his knee. “Hey, counselor, how long is this mistrial crap gonna go on? Why not let us go? We’re just warming the bench here.”

  “I wish I could dismiss you, but I have no idea how long these arguments are going to take. We may get through all their pleas by this afternoon, or it could take the rest of the week, depending on how verbose the opposition is feeling. I can’t say.”

  Tozzi noticed Lesley Halloran standing over by her table with Sigmund Freud and another defense attorney. She was laughing about something, her eyes crinkled and her mouth open in a wide smile. She casually put her hand on Freud’s shoulder and rested her forehead on it for a moment. They were all having a good laugh about something. He wondered whether she was sleeping with the ugly little putz.

  Tozzi’s face got hot thinking about her and Freud. “You know something?” he said, looking up at Augustine. “This whole trial is bullshit. I think we should handle this the way the Mafia would: Put a contract out on all eighteen defendants and their scumbag lawyers. Just rub ‘em out. No big loss, believe me. Christ, I wouldn’t mind doing a few of them myself. I mean, they’re guilty as sin. All of them. Everybody knows that.” Lesley had her head back on Freud’s shoulder, laughing her head off.

  Augustine suddenly looked very uncomfortable. His back was stiff, and he was looking over Tozzi’s head. Tozzi turned around and saw a guy hunched over a notepad, furiously scribbling away. He was wearing a black leather field coat, black pants, little black Italian loafers, a white shirt open at the neck, and dark glasses. His skin was pale yellow, and his long crooked nose combined with his receding chin to make him look like a great big rat. There was a press card clipped to the lapel of his jacket.

  “Would you care to elaborate on how you’d execute the defendants and their attorneys, Agent Tozzi?” The rat spoke in a nasal whine with a heavy Brooklyn accent.

  Tozzi glared at him. “That’s off the record and not for publication.”

  The rat grinned. “This isn’t an interview. You said it, I heard it. I can report it as news.”

  “Who are you?”

  The rat ignored the question and kept scribbling. “Do you have anything you want to add to your statement?”

  “I said that’s not for publication, pal. If you print it, I’ll deny I ever said it.”

  The rat looked up from his pad. His eyes were small and shiny, and his grin was lopsided. “Does a bear shit in the woods if there’s no one there to smell it?”

  “You know anything about libel, pal?”

  “Shut up, Tozzi,” Gibbons cut in. “Don’t say any more.”

  “But—”

  “Just shut up.” Gibbons turned to the rat. “Take a hike. You got what you wanted.”

  The rat shrugged, snickered, and scuttled away.

  Tozzi was seething. “Who the hell is he?”

  Augustine looked very disgruntled. “His name is Mark Moscowitz. He’s an investigative reporter for the Tribune.”

  Gibbons groaned. “Wonderful.”

  Tozzi’s stomach started to ache. “He can’t print that, can he? I didn’t mean that literally. I mean, that was obvious, wasn’t it?”

  Augustine crossed his arms and cupped his chin. “He very well can print it. He can report it as something he observed in the courtroom. Since you weren’t granting him an interview, you can’t say it was off the record. I suggest you try to watch what you say in the future, especially here in court.”

  Tozzi didn’t like Augustine’s tone. He was talking down to him, treating him like a naughty little boy. “Can’t we do something to stop this guy? Legally. Maybe I should go talk to him?”

  “No.” Augustine was stern and sharp. “If you go to him, he’ll just think you’re trying to cover up something and it’ll make him more curious. Just stay away from him. If we’re lucky, his editor will see how ridiculous the statement is and kill it. If they do print it, however, we’ll just have to sustain whatever damage it causes, if any. I wouldn’t worry about it, though. Not for the time being.”

  “I won’t.” Tozzi’s face was burning. Yes, it was a careless statement, and he regretted saying it, but no one in his right mind would take it seriously. And there was no reason for Augustine to get so high and mighty about it. Bastard.

  “I have to go make a few phone calls,” Augustine said. “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you go, boys. We’ll just have to see how it goes.”

  Gibbons shrugged. “Whatever.”

  Augustine turned on his heel and strode up the aisle, leading with his Ivy League chin, his floppy hair bouncing as he walked.

  — 4 —

  Tozzi shrugged off his coat and closed the door with his hip. “See? I told you I’d be right back. No trouble at all.”

  His cousin Lorraine was sitting in his kitchen, her coat over the back of the chair. She was wearing jeans and a plum-colored turtleneck, her long dark hair pulled back with combs. The tin of Christmas cookies she’d brought with the Currier and Ives winter scene on the lid was on the table in front of her. He set the paper bag down on the table, certain that she’d given the kitchen the once-over while he was gone, running her finger through the dust on the beige Formica counters, checking to see how empty the cupboards were and what was rotting in the refrigerator. He didn’t eat here much. Didn’t clean much either. Lesley Halloran would hate this place. She’d always had that Catholic girls’ school look—neat as a pin and clean enough to eat off.

  “Do you always go down to the corner deli when you want a cup of coffee?” Lorraine asked. She was trying hard not to sound judgmental.

  “Well . . . yeah.” He reached into the bag and pulled out two large paper cups.

  She shook her head in disapproval. “You’re as bad as Gibbons.”

  “I could never be as bad as him, even if I tried. Gibbons would be making you instant with hot tap water. Anyway, don’t talk about my partner when he’s not here.”

  “He’s my husband. I’ll talk about him whenever I want.” She hooked her hair over one ear. It was long and dark, threaded with silver.

  He sat down and pried the lid off his cup, then rummaged in the bag for the little plastic containers of half-and-half. “You said you had something you wanted to tell me. What’s up?”

  Lorraine took a deep breath and let it out slowly before she spoke. “Uncle Pete died this morning.”

  Good.

  “Oh . . .” Tozzi nodded, stirring his coffee with a plastic swizzle stick. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “No, you’re not.” Lorraine raised a condemning eyebrow. “You never liked Uncle Pete.”

  “He never liked me.”

  “Come on, Michael—”

  “No, no, correction. He never liked anybody.”

  “That’s a hell of a way to talk about the dead, Michael.”

  “No, listen, Lorraine. I’ve got nothing against the guy. He just never liked me, that’s all. He didn’t like me when I was a kid, and he didn’t like me that much when I grew up. Whenever my parents went over to visit him when I was little, he’d lock me out in the backyard all by myself. With all the junk he had piled up back there, I coulda been killed. I remember he had two old refrigerators in the back with the doors still on. You know how kids get locked in refrigerators and end up suffocating. Happens all the time. Now, I’m not saying Uncle Pete wanted me to die in one of those refrigerators, but he never bothered to clean out the place a little, make it a little safer because he had nephews and nieces over there once in a while. No. But, see, because he was my father’s godfather, we were the ones who always went over there on Sundays, at least once a month, and so I was the kid whose life was always in danger. So
you see what I’m saying? Uncle Pete didn’t like me. He made it obvious.”

  The miserable old cuss.

  “That’s not true, Michael.”

  “What was he, Lorraine? Ninety-three, ninety-four? God bless him. He had a full life.” Tozzi brought the coffee to his lips. “If you wanna call that living.”

  “Michael!”

  “Hey, let’s be honest. The guy lived like a pauper, and he didn’t have to. His house was paid off, he was getting a good pension plus Social Security. He just chose to live like a bum. But that was his prerogative. Just like it was his prerogative to hate me.”

  “Michael, Uncle Pete did not hate you, and I can prove it.”

  “How?” Tozzi picked out a butter cookie from the tin, a Christmas tree with green sprinkles on it.

  She reached down into her coat pocket and pulled out a set of keys. “Uncle Pete named you executor of his estate. These are the keys to his house.” She slid them across the table.

  Tozzi looked down at the keys, the cookie poised in front of his mouth. He sighed and put the cookie down. Shit.

  “Are you kidding me, Lorraine?”

  She sipped her coffee and shook her head. “No, I’m not kidding.”

  He stared at the keys. I need this like a hole in the head.

  Lorraine was laughing. “Michael, you look like my next-door neighbor when he finds dog poop on his lawn.”

  “I’m glad you think this is funny.” He lifted the Christmas tree cookie and bit it in half. “By the way, how’d you get the keys?”

  “Uncle Pete’s lawyer called you at the field office, but they told him you were tied up at the trial, so he called me. Uncle Pete had put me down as a next of kin—after you.”

  “So why didn’t he name you executor?”

  Lorraine shrugged. “Because he liked you better, I guess.” She sipped her coffee through a Mona Lisa grin.

  “No, no, no. It was because my father was his godson. That must be why he picked me.”

  “So why didn’t he name your father executor?”

  “Because he hated my mother. He never trusted her.”