Bad Blood

by Anthony Bruno

  “Hey, hey, hey, what’s going on here, what’s going on? What can I do for you there, pal?”

  The guy was all out of breath, panting through his teeth clenched onto that stogy. He unzipped the front of his green thermal sweat jacket and uncovered that behemoth belly of his. The buttons of his brown plaid flannel shirt were in agony, straining to stay together. He was a real sketch, this guy. He had to be somebody’s brother-in-law, somebody who had some pull with the union. That’s how these kinds of guys get these kinds of cushy jobs, which is how they get these kinds of bellies.

  Gibbons didn’t say anything; he just held up his ID. The guy looked at it, blinking. He was holding onto his belly like a beach ball, massaging it with fingers spread as he blinked at the ID.

  “ ‘Special Agent C. Gibson,’ ” the fat guy read aloud. “What’s the C stand for?” he asked.

  Gibbons glared at him. “It’s Gibbons, not Gibson, and don’t worry about the C.” Nitwit.

  “Okay, okay, okay.” The fat guy started blinking like crazy now. “So what can I do for you, Mr. Gibson? What can I do for you?”

  Gibbons shut his eyes. It wasn’t worth the effort. “I want to look around.”

  “Uh-huh.” There was a long pause. “Look around for what?”

  Gibbons gave him the stare. Another long pause. “I’m not at liberty to say, Mr . . . ?”

  “Gianella. Joe, call me Joe.” He smiled and rubbed his belly. When he smiled, his eyes disappeared in his fat face. “Lookin’ for somethin’, huh? So whatta ya lookin’ for? Jimmy Hoffa?”

  “You know where he is?”

  “No, no, course not. That was just a joke. You know, a joke.” Joe looked nervous.

  “Look, Joe, let me lay it all out for you, okay? I’m FBI, you’re not. That puts you at a disadvantage because if you don’t get away from me and let me do my business, I can have you charged with obstruction of justice and arrest you as a suspected accomplice in whatever it is I’m investigating that I already told you I can’t tell you about. So you bust my balls now and I’ll really bust yours later. Do we understand each other?”

  Joe started nodding like a marionette, jerking his head and shoulders up and down as he kept saying “Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh . . .” Gibbons wanted to punch him in the eye because he knew the fat slob was just trying to stall him.

  “You know, Mr. Gibson, I do believe you are what you say you are. But let’s just suppose you ain’t. I mean for all I know you could be some kind of corporate spy, you know? I mean, other car companies try to sabotage the competition all the time. Put pin holes in the brake lines, a little bit of sugar in the gas tanks to gum up the valves. You know what I’m talking about?”

  Gibbons wanted to coldcock this guy in the worst way, but he knew better. They’d file charges against the Bureau that could invalidate any evidence he might find here. Oh, for the good ole days when J. Edgar ran things, when the law didn’t get in the way of justice. He bit his tongue and reached for his wallet, pulling out a printed business card. “Here. Call this number. It’s the FBI field office in Manhattan.” Gibbons pointed toward the World Trade Center towering over the horizon. Joe looked like the type who needed visual aids. “Ask them for verification.”

  Joe took the card and blinked at it.

  “Go ahead,” Gibbons ordered. “Make the call. I’ll wait right here. Hurry up.”

  Joe did that Howdy Doody nod again. “Yeah, good, okay. I’ll do that. Be right back. Just hang on, Mr. Gibson.” Gradually he turned and headed back to the bunker, studying the card as he walked.

  Gibbons kneaded the back of his neck and glanced at the guard booth. He couldn’t see the kid’s head, only his feet propped up on the little counter in the booth. He was probably dozing. A regular Marshal Dillon, that one. He looked back toward the bunker and saw the Human Beach Ball huffing and puffing to make the quarter mile, running a few steps, then walking, then running a few more steps, then walking again. Gibbons glanced up at the video camera on the light pole staring down at him. He’d have to work fast.

  He went into his pants pocket and came up with a bunch of keys on a ring, universals he’d brought from the field office. He headed for the nearest line of cars, four-door Accords, and quickly found the Honda key in his bunch. He glanced at the feet in the guard booth and fatso in the distance. He quickly turned the key in the trunk of a maroon sedan, knowing he didn’t have much time. The Human Beach Ball would be back in the bunker in a minute. Gibbons imagined him collapsing into a squeaky desk chair at a cluttered metal desk, picking up the phone and starting to make the call, then looking up at the bank of black-and-white monitors right in front of him and seeing the pain-in-the-ass fed searching trunks.

  Gibbons jiggled the key and finally got the trunk open. He scanned it quickly, lifted the mat and checked the tire well, slammed it shut, and moved on to the next car, a smoke-gray one. He knew this was an illegal search, but he didn’t give a shit. Getting a warrant was a pain in the ass—by the time you finally get a judge to sign one, nine times out of ten either what you’re looking for isn’t there anymore or the investigation has taken you in another direction. Gibbons preferred one-stop shopping.

  “Shit.” The trunk of the smoke-gray Accord was empty, too. He skipped a few cars down the line and tried a silver job. Joe hadn’t made it to the bunker yet. He was trying to maintain a fast walk now. Gibbons kept seeing himself on those monitors, multiple images from different angles. Maybe he should’ve gotten a warrant.

  He popped the trunk and his eyes narrowed when he spotted a balled up thermal blanket and one of those crinkly plastic bags. The bag was full. Quickly rifling through the top, he found aluminum foil, plastic wrap, cellophane, and a couple of empty Coke cans. He didn’t notice anything unusual at first because the cans looked like ordinary red-and-white Coke cans. Then he looked at the fine print on the side of one of them. It was written in Japanese characters.

  Gibbons chewed on the inside of his cheek. Maybe those Jap auto workers aren’t as perfect as they always make them out to be on TV. Maybe they goof off just like everybody else in the world, except they do it in the trunks of the cars.

  But then he spotted something else. A white plastic hose wedged between the wall and the floor of the trunk. It didn’t have any fittings on the end and had no apparent purpose that he could see. He took a closer look and saw that the end of the hose was pretty chewed up. He grabbed the hose and pushed it back toward its source. It moved freely. He shut the trunk halfway, looked through the back windshield, and moved the hose again. As he suspected, the other end jutted in and out of the crease in the backseat.

  He walked around to the driver’s side of the car and inspected the dash through the window. On the climate control panel, the vent switch was on “Fresh.” He cupped his hand over the window of the next car and saw that the vent lever was on “Recirculate.” The vents in the silver car were apparently left open so fresh air could get in and feed this air hose. It looked like somebody had spent some time in this trunk. Rents weren’t that high in Japan.

  Gibbons went back to the trunk, yanked out the hose, wound it around his hand, and shoved it in the pocket of his raincoat. He picked up one of the Coke cans, wrapping some tin foil around it to preserve any possible fingerprints, and put it in his other pocket. He shut the lid and put the keys back in his pants pocket, then wandered back into the aisle to wait for Joe, wondering whether the fat ass had spotted him on a monitor with his head in the trunk of that car.

  Inside the bunker, Joe was panting, trying to catch his breath, pointing to the business card in his hand. “F . . . BI,” he rasped. “Jesus . . .”

  John D’Urso sat on the edge of the cluttered metal desk, gently patting the steel-gray hair at the back of his head as he stared up at the monitors. There were eight of them, two horizontal rows of four, each one a fish-eye panorama of cars, cars, and more cars. All except for the second from the right on the top row. That monitor was focused down on the nosy old guy in
the awful-looking, single-breasted black raincoat, the guy who just shoved a hose and a soda can into his pockets.

  He glanced over at the skinny yak in the horrible madras sports jacket leaning against the wall. He was staring up at the monitor, too. He already had his gun out.

  “Take it easy there, brother,” he said to the young yakuza hitter, waving his hand in front of the man’s gaze and motioning for him to stay where he was. The yak narrowed his eyes to imperceptible slits and stared at him, clutching his gun in both hands. “It’s okay. Put your piece away.” D’Urso mimed putting an imaginary gun under his jacket. Reluctantly the kid put his gun away. The yaks didn’t like taking orders from him.

  “Mr. D’Urso, this guy says he’s FBI. Jesus Christ, what’re we gonna do, Mr. D’Urso?” Joe was still panting, sweat running down his face.

  “You calm down, too, okay?” D’Urso reached for the control panel and turned a knob. The camera zoomed in fast, and the monitor went gray and out of focus, the picture lost in Gibbons’s coat. D’Urso pulled back and focused on Gibbons’s head. Just then Gibbons looked straight up and stared into the camera. “Thank you very much,” D’Urso said with a smile. He looked down at the Panasonic VCR on a shelf under the monitors, adjusting his tie as he watched the blue numbers mounting steadily on the counter.

  “He gave me this, Mr. D’Urso.” Joe showed him the business card. “He said I should call his office to see that he’s okay. What should I do, Mr. D’Urso?”

  The yak was moving toward the door. He had that goddamn gun out again.

  “Hey, you, sit down, I said.” D’Urso shook his head and muttered to Joe, “Christ, you gotta put these goddamn people on leashes.”

  The yak resumed his position against the wall, staring up at the monitor with his arms folded over his chest, the muzzle of his piece poking out of his armpit.

  “Take it easy before you have another heart attack, Joe.” Joe was sweating like a pig, his face like a ripe tomato. D’Urso ran a fingernail between his teeth as he thought this through. FBI, huh? So what does he know? Maybe nothing. Maybe a lot. This could be good though, if he’s on to the slaves. Maybe we can finagle it so that Antonelli and Hamabuchi take the rap for this. Get rid of the competition and clear the way for me. Depends on what this guy’s here for. Gotta wait it out a little and see.

  “Joe, listen to me. Get on the phone and call that number, just like he told you to.” D’Urso pointed to Gibbons on the monitor. “If this guy finds out you didn’t make the call, he’ll know something’s up and he’ll just come back. Call ’em and get mad, be real indignant. Think like he’s stepping on your rights. You understand me? After you make the call, go back out and cooperate with him. Be real nice. If he wants to look inside any cars, though, you tell him you don’t have the keys and you can’t get them today. Be polite about it and just tell him to come back tomorrow. Tell him he can see anything he wants tomorrow. Okay? Now make the call.”

  Joe wiped his face with his sleeve and picked up the phone. As he dialed the number, D’Urso took the card and read the name on it. “Mr. C. Gibbons, huh?” He glanced at the monitor and saw the old guy rotating his head on his shoulders. “What do you want, Mr. Gibbons? What is it you want?”

  Joe was on the line now, complaining to someone about being hassled by some guy who said he was an FBI agent. He demanded to know if this guy “Gibson” was for real and what the hell this was all about anyway. D’Urso grinned and nodded encouragingly. Joe was pretty convincing.

  D’Urso glanced down at the VCR again, then looked at the yak to make sure he was sitting still. The kid hadn’t moved, but the gun was still poking out from under his armpit. In the shadows it looked like a snake head. He looked up at Gibbons who was cracking his knuckles now, and stroked the hair on the back of his neck. He was thinking of different angles, thinking hard.

  TEN

  D’URSO’S OFFICE was big, but Nagai felt closed in here. He lit a cigarette, took a couple of puffs, then put it out in a big red venetian glass ash tray on the chrome and smoked glass coffeetable. He felt like throwing up. What the hell was wrong with D’Urso? How could he just let this happen? The FBI man was right there and he just let him go! Everytime Nagai thought about it his stomach tightened and he felt worse. Hamabuchi wasn’t going to blame D’Urso for this; he was going to blame him. The kid was there, he saw everything, so Hamabuchi probably knows all about it already. Nagai gulped air to keep from heaving. That goddamn smell from downstairs wasn’t helping. He could hear the conveyer belts grinding on the floor below, and he could picture all those slimy carcasses parading through the plant. Chicken shit out back, chicken blood and chicken guts everywhere else. He felt green. He folded his arms over his chest, pinched his nose, and sat very very still, staring straight ahead at the TV set, watching that man in the black raincoat breaking into car trunks again. It was the third time he’d seen the tape. What the hell had D’Urso been thinking about when he let this guy go? Is this how he thinks they’re going to run things when they go out on their own? The hell they are!

  D’Urso was sitting to his left on the gray velvet sofa, his fingers linked over his crossed knee. Francione sat on the arm of the sofa, hovering over his brother-in-law. They looked like they were watching a goddamn movie, as if this didn’t concern them. What the hell are we supposed to do with a stupid video? The kid had been ready to take care of it right there and then, but D’Urso stopped him. Stupid asshole. The kid shouldn’t have listened to D’Urso. He should’ve killed the FBI man. But Hamabuchi isn’t going to blame this kid he sent me and he isn’t going to blame Antonelli’s people either. No, he’s going to blame me, and that’s going to cause problems. Goddamn them all.

  Nagai glanced over at D’Urso. No reaction. What the fuck is wrong with him? On the TV, the FBI man scratched his head and stretched, then stared right up into the camera and wrinkled his ugly face. Damn him. He should be dead now. Dead.

  “His name is C. Gibbons,” D’Urso said. “That’s what it says here on his card.” D’Urso showed him the business card the FBI man gave fat Joe.

  Nagai looked at the card, then stared up at D’Urso. “I still don’t understand why you didn’t kill him. You had the chance. My man was ready. Why did you stop him?” He wanted to scream at D’Urso, but the way he felt, he didn’t have the energy.

  “I’ve been trying to tell you, Nagai, but you’re not listening to me. I had this crazy idea that we could frame Antonelli, have the FBI pin him with the slave thing, which would eliminate the competition for us when we get started. But then I thought about it. It wouldn’t work. I’m too directly involved. They’d grab me long before they got to him. It was a nice idea, but totally unworkable.”

  “So why are we sitting here looking at television?” Nagai threw his hand out at the twenty-five-inch Sony. “Let’s go find this guy and get rid of him before he talks.”

  Francione started laughing like a hissing radiator, his shoulders bobbing up and down. “Hey, Nagai, I don’t know how you do things over in Japan, but here you don’t go shooting federal agents like it’s nothing. Shooting cops is not smart. They get very upset when you shoot one of their own. And that’s when they start busting balls.”

  Mr. He-knows-it-all. Stupid punk. We’re not afraid to shoot cops. “I’d like to have you shot, punk,” Nagai muttered in Japanese.

  D’Urso uncrossed his legs and sat forward, gesturing with his palms up. “I know you’re mad, Nagai, but listen to me. We couldn’t have done the guy there anyway.”

  “Why not?”

  “You think that guy’s office didn’t know where he was? If he was missing for a day or two, they’d start retracing his steps right back to the car lot. Then we’d really have trouble.”

  “We really have trouble now! I say it would’ve been simpler to kill him then. If anyone came looking for him, you could’ve had that fat ass Joe tell them yes, their friend Gibbons was there but he left. Simple as that.” Nagai could feel the heat in his cheeks.r />
  “You don’t know what these guys are like, Nagai. You think the FBI is gonna just go away because some fat slob down at the lot tells ’em their man left. Not very likely.” D’Urso was smiling. At what, goddamn it?

  Spasms rippled across Nagai’s gut. The FBI was going to expose the slave trade, and Hamabuchi was going to blame him. D’Urso keeps talking about how great their partnership will be, but they’ve got nothing set up yet. They can’t protect him from Hamabuchi. Everything should’ve been running smoothly before they turned on their bosses. He wanted to have the chance to smuggle his kids out of Japan before they made their move. Nagai got that gagging feeling at the back of his throat again. Now he’ll never see his kids. Hamabuchi would see to it. In his mind he could see the picture of Hatsu, Kenji, and the baby that he kept in his wallet. No . . . he couldn’t let that happen . . . not if he could help it.

  D’Urso sat back and extended his hands. “Look, Nagai, I can see that you’re making yourself sick over this, but the only thing we can do right now is ride this thing out.”

  “I don’t understand you. You’re not even worried.”

  “Sure, I’m worried, but we can’t overreact. You’re assuming that this guy Gibbons knows all about the slaves. But what has he got? A piece of hose and a Coke can. What’s that? Nothing. I really don’t think we have anything to worry about right now. If he comes back asking more questions, pointing fingers . . . well, then we’ll have to figure something out.” He looked up at his brother-in-law. “Won’t we, Bobby?”

  Francione smirked, his eyes half-closed. “Don’t worry, Nagie. I’ll take care of this Gibbons guy if it comes to that.”

  Nagai’s eyes shot open. “Him?” He pointed at the idiot brother-in-law. “You’re not serious, are you?”

  Francione pointed right back at him and started yelling. “Hey, look, Nagie, you ever wonder why the hell that fed was down at the docks in the first place? You ever think maybe it was because of that VW they found in the river? Maybe that’s what he was investigating. If you and Mishmosh had gotten rid of those two bodies the way you were supposed to, we wouldn’t be in this situation now. Maybe it’s your fault that this Gibbons guy was snooping around.”