Bad Blood

by Anthony Bruno

  “No.”

  “He’ll bust your balls if he finds out.”

  “He won’t find out.” Tozzi took a swig. His eyes didn’t leave the girl. It certainly was nice to see miniskirts back in style.

  “What if you have to discharge your weapon and ballistics comes up with the nonapproved slug?”

  Tozzi shrugged. “I’ll tell him something.”

  One of the dogs refilled the blonde’s glass and spilled some on the floor. The blonde wiggled up onto her stool and crossed her legs, giving them a nice stretch of thigh to look at. Gibbons wondered what blue margaritas tasted like. He had a feeling he probably wouldn’t like them. He was actually surprised they made them here at the Auld Sod. He was surprised they got girls like that in here now. They never used to.

  “Why don’t you go over and talk to her?” he asked.

  “I’m thinking about it,” Tozzi said. He seemed hypnotized. “I could use a woman.”

  Gibbons laughed. “Who couldn’t?”

  Tozzi took another swig. “I need a wife.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t mean to marry. Just someone to pose as my wife. This apartment in Hoboken I told you about? I have to meet the landlord. He only rents to couples and I told the real estate agent I was married. I need a wife by Friday.”

  “Oh.” Gibbons watched the blonde run her fingers through her hair. Her nails were long and purple, and she was wearing three earrings in one ear. “Forget it. Try one of her friends. They look like wives. She doesn’t.”

  “Hmmm . . . I have a feeling she wouldn’t buy my story anyway. She’d just think it was a come-on.”

  “It’s a good come-on.”

  “Yeah . . . But if you were a landlord, would you rent to a woman who looked like that?”

  “If I lived in the building, sure.”

  “I dunno . . .” Tozzi took another swig. “I don’t think so.”

  Gibbons gulped down the rest of his glass. “So how’s that going? You, ah . . . getting things back together all right?” He didn’t know quite how to phrase it without making Tozzi sound like a mental patient. Tozzi was just coming out of a pretty shaky state, though. The guy went underground for chrissake, had to look over his shoulder every two minutes, people chasing him day and night from all directions—it must’ve done something to his head.

  “Yeah, it’s coming along,” Tozzi said. “It’s pretty weird, though. Everything I have now is new. Very weird. Of course, I guess you don’t have much choice when you whittle your life down to three handguns and a suitcase full of dirty laundry.”

  Gibbons rubbed his nose and grimaced. Tozzi was going to get maudlin now, start crying in his beer. It was the guinea in him. He reached for his second bottle of Rolling Rock, tilted his glass, and poured. He usually ordered beers two at a time. It saved time waiting for service.

  Tozzi suddenly took his eyes off the blonde and glanced at Gibbons. “Tell me, how’re things with Lorraine?” He asked in that tone of voice that made it plain he already knew, so don’t bother to lie. “I talked to her the other night. She’s pretty upset that you decided to come out of retirement and go back to work.”

  Gibbons stared hard at the blonde. What was he, Lorraine’s goddamn agent? Does Tozzi think he can start busting balls just because he’s her cousin? Shit. He and Lorraine Bernstein had been an item long before he even knew Tozzi existed. Sure, they’ve been having fights. Big fights. But that was none of Tozzi’s goddamn business.

  “She says she’s mad because you made a ‘unilateral decision.’ That’s how she put it. She’s hurt that you didn’t at least discuss it with her first.”

  “We’re not married, Toz.” Gibbons sipped his beer. I don’t have to explain anything to anyone. Including you.

  “Why don’t you just talk to her? You know, explain your side of it. She’ll understand . . . eventually.”

  The blonde dropped her purse then. She got off the bar stool to pick it up, bending over from the waist and pointing her fanny to the crowd. Half the guys in the room went to heaven.

  “Just talk to her, Gib. That’s all. Just talk to her.”

  Gibbons glared at him. “Mind your own fucking business, Tozzi.”

  Tozzi nodded. “I knew you’d understand.”

  When Gibbons looked back, the blonde was heading for the door. Damn.

  SEVEN

  RESTLESS FLAMES shot out of tall oil-refinery smoke stacks and licked the black night over Elizabeth and Linden. In the distance, hundreds, maybe thousands of naked light bulbs outlined the nebulous pipework grids below those big lit candles. Closer, the roar of incoming jets made the corrugated aluminum door vibrate in his hand as the red and green lights of the departing flights filled the sky with artificial stars. A chill wind threatened frost. It reminded Nagai of home.

  Nagai shut the warehouse door and threw the bolt. The greenish fluorescent lights inside made him blink as he walked through the maze of aisles formed by pallets stacked high with boxes of canned food. Del Monte Fruit Cocktail, Campbell’s Pork’n’Beans, Heinz Sweet Gherkins, S&W Creamed Corn, Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup, Bumblebee Chunk Light Tuna, V8. He wondered whether this place was still safe. He’d been careful about finding it, but Antonelli’s family controlled East Newark and Hamabuchi’s men moved like shadows. They certainly could’ve found it by now. He hoped not. Mashiro needed his own dojo.

  Coming around a stack of Progresso Lentil Soup, he saw his samurai carrying two metal folding chairs into the center of his space. He stopped and watched Mashiro set up the chairs side by side, then fetch a glass jar of something he couldn’t quite make out and a white porcelain rice bowl, setting these down on one of the chairs. Nagai noticed the white futon in one corner of the gray concrete floor and the hotplate next to the antique stained cherry-wood weapons box. Nothing else in the way of comforts. This was how Mashiro wanted it. A secluded place to practice in is a samurai’s paradise. Every morning he packs his things and stows them in the trunk of his car, then sets up again in the evening, like setting up camp. He noticed that Mashiro had already hung his ancestor’s armor on the wall as he always did before practicing. It was his inspiration. Nagai watched the samurai taking off his shoes and socks and thought how cold the concrete floor must be. Mashiro’s life was simple and purposeful. In a way, Nagai envied him.

  Mashiro finally acknowledged his lord’s presence with a curt bow, then went for his katana laid out on the futon and slipped it into the black belt that held his white gi jacket together. He then fixed the short sword, the wakizashi, so that it sat laterally over his belly. When he was ready, he looked to his lord and nodded.

  Nagai returned the nod and went to the two folding chairs where he found a jar of Partytime Maraschino Cherries inside the rice bowl. He sat down in the empty chair, opened the jar, and dumped the cherries into the bowl. They were neon red under the fluorescent lights. He popped one in his mouth and immediately wished he had a whiskey sour.

  “Ready?” he asked Mashiro in Japanese.

  The samurai nodded and pulled his sword an inch out of its scabbard. A dark-crusted scar covered the cap of what was left of his right pinkie. Nagai saw a glint of metal where Mashiro had pulled the sword out. That was the place where the blade met the hilt, the place where the ancient characters were engraved. “Cut through cleanly—four bodies—in the hands of Yamashita of Kinki.” He knew that Mashiro hoped to add a similar inscription of his own someday.

  Nagai picked out a cherry by its stem, twirled it between his fingers for a moment, then abruptly flicked it at Mashiro. The samurai instantly drew his sword and slashed down all in one blurred motion. Nagai could see one half of the cherry a few feet from Mashiro’s foot. The other half had disappeared someplace.

  “Very good,” Nagai said.

  Mashiro returned the katana to its black leather scabbard. “Please continue,” he said in Japanese. His goal was perfection, not praise. Nagai admired his discipline. He thought about telling Mashiro about D’
Urso’s offer—he’d been thinking about it all day and he still couldn’t decide whether it would be a smart move or not. He wondered how Mashiro would react to it. Would he follow his “lord’s” wishes without question? Or would the samurai think less of him for betraying his lord?

  Nagai selected another cherry and tossed it in a high arc. It started to fall short of Mashiro’s position, but the samurai rushed forward quickly and the blade slashed right to left, severing the target in two.

  “Your finger doesn’t bother you?” he asked. “It doesn’t seem to have affected your swordsmanship.”

  “I’m learning to compensate,” Mashiro replied. “The weakened hand must remind me of my error.”

  Nagai nodded thoughtfully. Mashiro lived by the book. There had to be some resentment, though. Nagai certainly resented Hamabuchi each time he’d been punished. “I’m sorry, Mashiro, but it had to be done.”

  Mashiro looked puzzled. “Why apologize? This is the way of the yakuza. This is how it must be. That’s all.”

  Nagai flicked another cherry off his thumb as if he were shooting a marble. It made a line drive right for Mashiro’s face. The sword waited over the samurai’s head, then cut down vertically, greeting the cherry right in front of the samurai’s nose. The two halves dropped at his feet.

  Mashiro sheathed his sword. “You seem unsettled by this, my lord. Have you lived in America so long that you’ve forgotten our ways?”

  Nagai twirled another cherry between his fingers as he stared at his samurai. Mashiro understood him. He could talk to Mashiro. They were fellow outcasts, after all. “Maybe I have been here too long,” Nagai finally said. “But life is comfortable here. I like it here now. In many ways I like it better than back home.” He stared at the spinning cherry in his hand. “But if I like it so much, why do I always think about returning? Is it just to be with my kids again? Or is it really something else?”

  “Your confusion is smoke. It will blow off. Your aim is to see Japan again, be with your children, and most importantly, regain your former place of honor within the Fugukai.” In Japanese Mashiro’s words were eloquently blunt. He spoke with absolute certainty. Nagai wished he could be so certain about things.

  “Yes . . . I suppose.” He put the cherry on his tongue, pulled out the stem, and rolled it around in his cheek.

  “But you are worried about Reiko,” Mashiro went on. “You would like to take your woman back to Japan with you.”

  Nagai nodded. Mashiro knew him very well. “To live honorably in Japan with Reiko, with my children . . . that would be paradise.” It was beginning to sound like a foolish dream.

  Mashiro shook his head. “There is no paradise. Only struggle.”

  “Winning is paradise.”

  Mashiro frowned and tilted his head, considering the statement. “Yes . . . you might say that.”

  Nagai took a cherry in each hand and suddenly pitched them underhand at the samurai. Mashiro made a choppy figure eight with his blade, cutting both targets. A lopsided half rolled back and collided with the pointy black toe of Nagai’s alligator shoe.

  “What about you, Mashiro? Do you want to go back to Japan?”

  “If you want me to.”

  Nagai grinned. “But you don’t really want to.”

  Mashiro shook his head. “No. Here is better for me. They want me badly over there. If I went back, I’d be an animal on the run again.” He glanced up at the armor on the wall. “I’d rather not repeat Yamashita’s fate.”

  Nagai stared into the pattern of the ancient armor, tiny, dull brass plates tightly knotted into an intricate weave of dark green, brown, and black leather thongs. He knew the story of Mashiro’s ancestor who wore that armor, Yamashita, the illegitimate son of Japan’s most famous samurai, Musashi Miyamoto—or so Mashiro claimed since Musashi supposedly had no children. According to Mashiro, Yamashita’s lord Nagai was killed in battle, and all of his samurai were forced to become ronin, wandering warriors, exiled to a life of endless migration and marauding because of their lordless status. Despite his reputation as a fierce swordsman, Yamashita died like a peasant, the result of a trivial vendetta. His throat was slit from behind while he was humping some local woman. The murderer was a ninja hired by a Chinese silk merchant who lost his favorite horse to Yamashita in a dice game. Very dishonorable to kill a man while he’s making love, but a typical ninja tactic, according to Mashiro. Nagai wondered if Mashiro would consider him a ronin if he betrayed Hamabuchi for D’Urso. Did samurai ever switch sides?

  Nagai took two more cherries and lobbed them far to either side of Mashiro. The samurai drew the long sword in his right hand, the short sword in his left, and spread his arms like a bird of prey. He moved fast to the right, then lunged left. The katana sliced through one cherry, but the wakizashi only succeeded in batting the other one across the room and into a stack of boxes. Mashiro scowled and grumbled to himself.

  Nagai was chewing another cherry. “Tell me something,” he said. “What do you think of D’Urso? Really.”

  Mashiro raised an eyebrow. “How do you mean?”

  “Should I trust him?”

  “You’ve trusted him this far.”

  “So.”

  Mashiro rested his hands on the hilt of the long sword in his belt. “Something is bothering you. What? What has D’Urso done?”

  Nagai considered telling him then, but suddenly changed his mind. “There’s nothing that he’s done in particular. I just have a bad feeling about him sometimes. I always find myself wanting to know what he’s really feeling. On the surface he seems fine, but there always seems to be a nasty undercurrent, especially whenever Francione is around. I just don’t feel right around them.”

  Mashiro scratched his neck. “I know little of feelings. Only actions.” Nagai knew he’d say something like that. You’re a big help.

  “I get the impression that D’Urso has some big ideas, ideas that could wreck our partnership with the Mafia. I couldn’t let that happen.”

  Mashiro shrugged. “What difference does it make who we sell our slaves to?”

  “Hamabuchi wants us to do business with Antonelli’s family. You know how he is about Antonelli, his old friend from the days after the war.”

  “Everything is war, all the time. Which war?”

  “The one we lost.” Wise guy. Is this how your ancestor spoke to his lord? “Hamabuchi told me right out. If our partnership with Antonelli’s family falls apart, he’ll blame me. He’s already said as much. That’s a lot of money he’d be losing.” Nagai then held up his hand, fingers spread to show Mashiro his two stumpy fingers. “Another finger won’t satisfy him if this deal is blown. I’m in exile as it is. The only punishment left is . . .”

  “Death.” Mashiro nodded like a horse. Who the hell’s side was he on anyway?

  The samurai got down on his knees then and bowed to his lord. “I will stand by you, no matter what. You have my pledge.”

  Nagai grinned wearily. Mashiro was a good man and tough, too. But come on, he was only one guy. And could D’Urso’s Mafia boys really protect him from Hamabuchi’s revenge? Not if they were all like that joke Francione. “Hamabuchi has a lot of men over here watching us,” he said. “We’ve got sixty with us, but I know there’re more here than that. The guys in our crew, the ones who supposedly take orders from us, they really get their orders directly from him. I know it. I’m living with assassins all around me.” Nagai threw another cherry into his mouth, then spit it out. What the hell was he eating these things for?

  Mashiro got to his feet and gestured with his head toward the bowl of cherries. Didn’t he hear any of this, goddamn him? Nagai grabbed a handful of cherries in disgust and threw them at him.

  Mashiro drew both swords. Flashing steel surrounded him like an evil mist. He was a goddamn human food processor, sending specks of neon red flying in every direction. His final slash was with the short sword. A cherry half flew straight up into the air. When it came down, he caught it on the flat of his
blade. “There will be no trouble with D’Urso and no trouble with Hamabuchi. You will be happy. I am dedicating myself to it. Please do not worry.” He flipped the sword up and tossed the cherry into his mouth. He bowed, grinned, and chewed.

  Nagai forced a smile. Maybe he could switch sides and pull it off. Maybe Mashiro really was a one-man army. Musashi Miyamota apparently was. If Mashiro could keep him alive long enough for him to establish a power base here with D’Urso, it just might work out after all. It was possible. Nagai picked out another cherry from the bowl and popped it into his mouth. Life just might be okay after all.

  EIGHT

  IT WAS ALMOST seven when the PATH train from the World Trade Center rumbled into the Hoboken station. Tozzi’s car was packed shoulder-to-shoulder. Lots of oxblood leather briefcases, Burberry raincoats, tortoise-shell glasses, and panty-hose legs in white Reeboks, and they were all getting off here. Standing in line to get through the turnstiles, Tozzi wondered if Hoboken was really the place for him. He climbed the stairs up to the street with the crowd and crossed the wide cobblestone street. As he approached the curb on the other side, he saw himself in the reflection of a plate-glass window in a fern bar. The light gray suit and the black Italian loafers were too new; they weren’t him yet. He took a good look and was a little disappointed with what he saw. He didn’t look that different from the rest of the crowd. Maybe he did belong here.

  He’d promised the lady at Elysian Fields Realty that he’d be there at seven. He figured he may as well start looking for another apartment because there was no way he was going to be approved for the one on Adams Street that Mrs. Carlson had showed him. No wife, no good. He considered going to that meeting with the landlord on Friday anyway and telling them his wife had died unexpectedly, a brain tumor or something like that. Maybe the landlord would take him out of pity. But that was too stupid, he decided. Everything was stupid.

  He’d spent the whole day trying to make a concrete connection between the “Death Bug” murders, cult killers, and swords, and he came up with absolutely nothing. He’d somehow forgotten how frustrating it can be poring through files, cross-checking possibilities on the computer, spending hours and hours trying to make the facts work the way you want them to, then finally realizing that what you thought was a brilliant hunch wasn’t worth shit. The deep cuts on the two bodies weren’t quite like anything on file in the National Crime Information Center database. The labs kept insisting that the cuts were done simultaneously with a single blade, and there was nothing like that in the computer. Tozzi had found it hard to swallow when he first heard it, and he was still skeptical. It sounded physically impossible. The ME had to be wrong about that.