Bad Blood

by Anthony Bruno

  It was getting cold. The wind was beginning to bite. Tozzi shoved his hands in his pockets, wishing he had his trench coat with him, then remembered he didn’t have that coat anymore. He’d have to get a new one. Shit. That was a nice coat, too.

  Walking up Washington Street, he noticed the paper jack-o’-lanterns taped to the window of a very fancy Italian deli. There was a whole rack of designer pastas just inside the door and a freezer case next to it filled with a variety of frozen sauces. In his family, they called it “macaroni” not “pasta,” and “sauce” was “gravy.” He didn’t care much for these nouvelle salumerias that specialized in sun-dried tomatoes and porcini mushrooms. He liked the older places down on the sidestreets where you could get a big ham and mozzarell’ sandwich with sweet red peppers, where they make the mozzarell’ fresh in the back, where you can put a ten-spot on a horse if they know you in some of them. Admittedly, he liked the kinds of places wiseguys liked. Except he wasn’t a wiseguy. He was a fed.

  Elysian Fields Realty was on the next block. Tozzi walked briskly, anxious to get in out of the cold, anxious to find a home. But then his eye caught a small, hand-painted sign hanging over a doorway: HOBOKEN COOPERATIVE SCHOOL OF SELF-DEFENSE. There were a bunch of Japanese or Chinese characters written under the words. Tozzi backed up to the curb and looked up to the second floor of the building over the florist shop on the ground floor. The windows were all brightly lit. He could see several figures in white uniforms moving around up there. Tozzi suddenly thought about the dead couple and the violent blows to the neck that killed them. He glanced down the street at the Elysian Fields Realty storefront. That could wait. This was more important. He opened the door and went upstairs.

  There was no one in the small, cheaply furnished waiting room so he poked his head into the studio. It was a big space, just about the entire length of the building, paint peeling off the ceiling, brightly lit. The wood floor was almost entirely covered with big blue mats. There were about a dozen or so people on the mats, mostly guys, four women, a pretty even mix of white belts, orange belts, blue belts, and brown. They were paired off, practicing some kind of move that involved throwing an attacker grabbing you in a choke hold from behind. The teacher—the sensei as Tozzi remembered—was a mellow-looking guy with a full, reddish-brown beard and a receding hairline. He weaved through the pairs, watching them, frequently stopping to correct their mistakes. He was wearing what looked like a pair of full-length, pleated black skirt-pants over his white gi uniform. Tozzi had taken some karate at Quantico as part of his FBI training, a very condensed version modified exclusively for police work. He remembered his sensei only wearing his black belt. These skirt-pants were something new to him.

  As he watched the sensei instruct the class, he soon realized that this wasn’t karate, unless it was one of the more obscure forms. He doubted it, though, because it seemed nothing like karate. There were no kicks or chops. Everyone seemed very calm and poised. Whenever they paired off to practice, the person who initiated the attack invariably lost, usually winding up flat on his back or tumbling headfirst across the mat. The brown belts and some of the blue belts in particular seemed to exert very little effort when they threw their opponents. It almost didn’t seem real. Tozzi was intrigued. He leaned up against the doorway and watched as the sensei called for an end to the practice of this technique. The partners stopped, bowed to each other, then rushed to kneel in a line facing their teacher.

  The sensei then called on the biggest person in the class, a black guy who was built like a wide receiver. He handed the black guy a wooden sword and announced the Japanese name of the technique he was going to demonstrate. They faced off then, the black guy holding the sword in both hands. Suddenly he raised the sword over his head, lunged forward, and attacked as if he intended to slice the sensei right down the middle. Tozzi swore the guy was going to split his teacher’s head open, but the sensei simply stepped to the side, grabbed the hilt of the sword over the black guy’s big hands, apparently pumped up and down once, and flipped the big guy over head first. Holy shit! The floor shook when the black guy hit the mat. The sensei just stood there calmly with the wooden sword in his hand. Tozzi was impressed. It was just like something out of a kung-fu movie. When the black guy got back to his feet, the sensei presented him with the sword again. They did the same move a few more times. The black guy attacked a little more viciously each time, and each time he hit the mat a little harder. It almost looked fake to Tozzi.

  “Shomen Uchi Kokyu Nage,” the sensei repeated. “Also known as the ‘sledgehammer throw.’ With motion this time. For demonstration,” he added with a little smile.

  The sensei nodded to his partner, then turned and started to run with the black guy in hot pursuit. Tozzi was surprised to see him running away instead of taking a stand and fighting. There was no doubt that the black guy was going to catch him, given the length of the guy’s legs. The sensei was quick, though, and the black guy had to hustle to catch up and get within striking distance. Suddenly the sensei changed directions. The black guy followed, but when they got to the middle of the mat again, the sensei turned and faced the swordsman rushing at him full-tilt. The sword came down in a loud whoosh. He stepped to the side and grabbed the hilt, made that little pump-move, and the poor black guy was really flying now. Tozzi winced. The black guy hit the mat real hard this time. He took his time getting up. The sensei stood there calm and erect with the sword in his hand.

  When the black guy was ready again, the sensei gave back the sword and they repeated the technique slowly as he explained the fine points to the class. Finally he and the black guy knelt down and bowed to each other. “Shomen Uchi Kokyu Nage,” he said. “Please practice in two lines. Without motion, please.” A few people laughed.

  Tozzi was curious. He’d never seen anything like this before. It looked fake, but he had a feeling it wasn’t. He stayed for the rest of the class.

  When class broke up, he waited for the students to disperse before he went over to the sensei who had stepped out of those skirt-pants of his and was busy folding them on the mat. It seemed like a very involved procedure.

  “Hi,” he said. He hunkered down in order to be eye level with the sensei.

  The man stared at his feet. “No shoes on the mat, please.”

  Tozzi immediately stood up and took off his loafers, embarrassed. He should’ve known better. “Sorry. Tell me, this wasn’t karate you were just doing here, was it?”

  The sensei smoothed the pleats of his pants and shook his head. “Adult karate classes meet on Thursday and Saturday.”

  The guy wasn’t unfriendly, but he had that sort of affable evasiveness a lot of people had in the sixties. You ask a question, he answers it, but you don’t feel that you’ve gotten any information. “So what was this class?” Tozzi had to ask.

  “Aikido.”

  “Aikido.” Tozzi nodded. He’d heard of it, but he didn’t know anything about it. “So tell me, what’s aikido?”

  The sensei stopped and looked up at him. He seemed to be sizing up Tozzi, trying to figure out what kind of answer he could handle. “Aikido is a Japanese martial art. It’s based on harmonizing with the force of an attack and redirecting the attacker’s momentum against him.”

  Tozzi nodded again. “I liked that move you did with the big guy. The one with the sword?”

  The sensei smiled and continued to fold his pants, smoothing the wrinkles out of the sashes before folding them. “Shomen Uchi Kokyu Nage.” He looked up at Tozzi. “With motion?”

  “Yeah, with motion. That must really take some doing, throwing someone that big. You really made it look easy.”

  “That’s one of the things we aim for, minimal effort.”

  “You’re saying it was easy?”

  He shrugged. “It wasn’t hard.”

  Harder than talking to you? “Listen, my name’s Mike Tozzi.” He pulled out his FBI ID and showed it to him. “I’m a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investiga
tion.” He paused for a second, suddenly realizing that this was the first time he’d gone through this routine since he’d come back. “I’d like to ask you a few questions. About the martial arts in general. You’re not the target of this investigation, by the way. So don’t worry.”

  “I wasn’t.” The sensei picked up his black pants, now folded in a neat bundle, and stood up. He extended his hand to Tozzi. “Neil Chaney.”

  Tozzi put his loafers in his other hand and shook the guy’s hand. Standing together, he realized how small Chaney really was. Somehow he looked bigger, more formidable when he was doing aikido.

  “I’m investigating a double homicide in which the victims died from a single blow to the neck that fatally damaged the spinal column. It appears that this was done with a blunt, heavy object of some kind, but we’re not ruling anything out at this point.” Tozzi hated the way he sounded. He sounded like all those starched-collar, three-piece polyester-suit feds he couldn’t stand. He wondered if he’d always come off this way. He hoped to hell not. He consciously tried to relax his face before he posed his question. “Could someone who knew a martial art—like aikido, say—be able to do something like this?”

  Chaney frowned, considering the question. “A direct blow to the neck? No, not aikido.”

  “Why not?”

  “Aikido is a purely self-defensive martial art. In aikido, you don’t initiate an attack. You react to being attacked and you use the force of the attacker’s aggression back against him. What you’re describing is more in line with full-contact karate, tae kwon do, wu shu, the hard martial arts. Someone accomplished in one of the hard arts would probably have the ability to kill.”

  “But an aikido black belt couldn’t kill, even if he really wanted to?”

  Chaney shrugged. “Depends on the situation. But the basic philosophy behind aikido is peaceful, so killing shouldn’t even be in the person’s mind. If you absolutely have to fight, then neutralizing your opponent is the goal. Make the aggressor impotent by virtue of his own aggression. Inflicting pain isn’t the point.”

  “But aikido can cause pain.”

  “It can, but like I said, that’s not the point.”

  “What is the point?”

  Chaney smiled. “In twenty-five words or less?” He shook his head, still smiling. “Impossible to put into words. You’re looking for a nice three-line dictionary answer. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “Try.”

  “Well . . . let’s just say that the point of aikido isn’t how to cream the other guy. It’s how to fix the guy within yourself so that you’ll always be able to handle the other guy. It’s learning how to stay calm and relaxed but still strong, even when you’re under attack. And this can apply to everything in your life, not just a fight.”

  Tozzi nodded. He wasn’t sure whether this guy was a flake or not. It sounded just a little bit too New Age. But he had seen Chaney disarm the big black guy and flip him over. There had to be something to this.

  Chaney smiled knowingly. “You kinda sorta don’t believe any of this, right? Well, you can’t really describe what aikido is all about. You just have to do it to understand it. If you’re really interested, you’re welcome to come sit in on a few classes. You live around here?”

  “Ah, yeah. I’ll be moving in soon.” I hope.

  “Good. Maybe you’ll even like it enough to sign up. We can always use new white belts to throw around.”

  Tozzi thought about it for a moment. The idea of being calm and relaxed appealed to him. He couldn’t remember the last time he was really calm and relaxed. He was also intrigued by the idea of reacting to an attack and using the attacker’s momentum against him. He’d been in plenty of fistfights in his life and he understood how committing yourself to a punch could put you in deep shit sometimes. Besides, suppose the “Death Bug” killer actually was some kind of martial arts specialist. It wouldn’t hurt to put himself in the killer’s mindset, which he might get out of coming to Chaney’s dojo a few times. “Yeah, maybe I will give it a try,” Tozzi said. “When do you have classes?”

  “We meet at eight on Mondays and Wednesdays, and four on Saturdays. I hope to see you around . . .” Chaney tapped his forehead with his finger. “I’m sorry. What did you say your name was?”

  “Mike.”

  “Right. Mike. See ya around, Mike.” Chaney went to the edge of the mat, bowed, slipped on a pair of tan rubber flip-flops, and walked over to a bank of second-hand gym lockers against the back wall.

  Tozzi looked at his watch. It was twenty of eight. Shit. He wondered if the lady at Elysian Fields Realty was still waiting for him. He hoped she was. This apartment search had been dragging on too long. He was sick of living like a gypsy. He needed to find a place of his own, soon. He hopped into his shoes and headed for the door.

  Maybe tonight, he thought as he rushed down the rickety steps. Maybe I’ll get lucky. Who knows?

  NINE

  GIBBONS WAS dubious as he stared at the huge freighter looming over the edge of the dock, its mottled gray-green hull the color of dinosaur hide. What the hell was he supposed to find here? The reasoning for coming down here to the docks was shaky, but Tozzi had insisted. The fibers on the dead kid’s corduroy pants were from a new kind of synthetic carpeting found only in this year’s Hondas and Nissans. So what? Just go down and check it out, Tozzi kept saying. Asian Automotive Importers, port of entry for all Japanese cars in this area, go check it out. For what? I dunno, Tozzi says, giving him the dumb immigrant shrug, look around, pop a few trunks, maybe you’ll see something. Gibbons frowned and shook his head. The only thing he was going to see here were cars. What a ballbuster this guy is.

  The freighter started to lumber out into the bay with the help of a few tugs. The thing was so big and hulking from this distance it felt like the land was doing the moving, not the ship. Gibbons watched it through the cyclone fence that surrounded the endless lot crammed with brand-new import cars right off the boat from Japan. He stared at the freighter’s stern where HONDA was painted perpendicular to a vertical line of Japanese characters. He scanned the long lines of Honda roofs. All the little baby Godzillas just delivered from the belly of the big mama-san. Gibbons took out his handkerchief and blew his nose. Well, I’m here now, he thought. Might as well go in and take a look. Satisfied, Tozzi?

  He shoved his hands into the pockets of his black raincoat and headed for the guard posted at the entrance of the lot, a young black kid in a rent-a-cop uniform who’d been giving him the hairy eyeball ever since he got out of his car. As Gibbons approached his booth, the kid put on a pair of mirrored sunglasses. Gibbons smirked and shook his head.

  “You can’t come in, sir,” the guard yelled before Gibbons even got near his booth. “Employees only.”

  Gibbons nodded and kept walking.

  “I said you cannot come in,” the guard yelled.

  Gibbons ignored him and just walked right up to the booth. The kid held his hand threateningly on the holster of his pistol, but the holster was snapped shut. You do a real quick draw with the holster closed, genius.

  “Who’s the supervisor here?” Gibbons asked.

  “You can’t buy no cars here. You can’t come in.”

  Gibbons’s face was stone as he stared into the kid’s mirrored shades. Two malevolent Aztec deities stared back at him. “I don’t want to buy a car. Get on the phone and call whoever’s in charge here.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but you cannot—”

  “Tone down the drill-sergeant routine, palie. I can hear you. Just get on the phone and tell your supervisor that there’s a special agent from the FBI here to see him.”

  The kid’s face froze. His nostrils flared and raised his glasses. He didn’t believe it.

  Gibbons pulled out his ID and held it in front of the kid’s face. “Does this make you happy?”

  The kid stared at it for a long time.

  “It’s not a fucking book, genius.”

  “What?”
r />   “Never mind.” Gibbons started to walk around the yellow-and-black-striped lift gate.

  “Hey, come back here! I told you you can’t go in there.” He rushed out of his booth, but Gibbons turned and squared off, his hands ominously in his coat pockets. The kid was still holding onto his holster. He might as well have been holding his dick.

  “Don’t sweat it, kid. I’ll tell your boss you put up a good fight. I’ll tell him it was just like the Alamo.”

  “The what?”

  Gibbons scowled and turned away, disgusted. Everyone knows the goddamn Alamo. If they don’t, they should.

  The kid rushed back to his booth, obviously anxious to call in before his boss spotted the intruder wandering around by himself. Gibbons started walking toward the concrete-block bunker at the far end of the lot down by the water. It must’ve been at least a quarter mile from the front gate. As he walked, he noticed closed-circuit TV cameras on the lampposts, scanning the lot. Whoever was in the bunker already knew he was coming.

  Somebody came out of the bunker then and started toward him in a big hurry. As the figure got closer, Gibbons could see that it was a guy with a big belly and a stumpy stogy in his mouth, struggling to make tracks. The way he ran it looked like he was trying to get around his big gut, but it was a pesky obstacle. He didn’t look like he ran very often.