Bad Blood

by Anthony Bruno

“What’s-his-name, the gardener, he just left a little while ago. What’re you still doing here?”

  “Nick left me here to do the beds. It’s about time, too. Look at that.” Tozzi pointed to the beds. “These roots need to breathe. Gotta break up the soil, let the air in.” He was right. The beds hadn’t been touched all season. Nick was a shitty gardener. Gradually the punk nodded in agreement.

  “You gonna be here long?”

  Tozzi shrugged. “As long as it takes. There’s a lotta work here. Look at those hemlocks, look how straggly they are. They have to be trimmed. That’s a big job. I won’t finish all this today. No way.” He figured he’d pave the way just in case he had to come back.

  “Yeah, the place does look pretty bad.” The punk nodded and pushed up the sleeves of his purple sweater. “Do a nice job, okay?”

  “Oh, yeah. Of course. That’s all I know how to do.” Tozzi kept smiling until the punk went back inside. Now he had to work, dammit. He always hated digging beds. To him it was worse than mowing grass in the heat of August. After that last summer he’d worked for a gardener, the one between his senior year of high school and his freshman year of college, he swore he’d never do this kind of work again. Who’d of thought eighteen years later he’d be digging beds again? Never say never, they say.

  He worked there from ten-thirty to almost three, and in all that time he didn’t see a goddamn thing. No one came in or out except for the punk who left around noon in D’Urso’s black Mercedes. No stream of illegal aliens, no giggling geisha girls, no sign of John D’Urso or his wife. Only a little girl who stared at him for a while from behind the sliding glass doors up on the deck, and a glimpse at the Japanese woman who pulled her away from the window. From the brief look he got, this woman seemed a little older than the girl who’d been murdered, mid-to-late twenties, maybe. She was also quite a looker. Tozzi kept thinking of these nannies as homely girls. Of course, he’d also expected to find some old bag running the Eastlake Academy, and Roxanne turned out to be something else. Something else indeed. As he worked, he kept hoping the Japanese woman would come out with the kid so he could talk to her, but that didn’t happen. He thought maybe if he could get inside, he could corner her. After the punk left, he rang the doorbell and asked to use the toilet. The Hispanic maid answered and showed him to the john in the basement. She also waited outside the door so she could escort him right back out. Shit. He kept trying to come up with some other ploy to get to the baby-sitter, but in the end all he could do was work and watch and wait for something to come his way. As the day stretched on, it became obvious that he was going to have to come back and work on those hemlocks on Monday. Shit. At quarter of three, he picked up his tools and headed back to his car.

  Driving back to his rented room in Weehawken, Tozzi couldn’t stop thinking about the Japanese woman at D’Urso’s house. Why would a Mafia guy let his wife get involved with a nanny business? And why Japanese nannies? Was it just to give the wife something to do, to get her out of his hair? Possibly. But even assuming the business was legitimate, why let her work out of the house? These guys never like to draw attention to themselves, and their homes are their castles, literally. Didn’t it occur to him that a home business like this might make the IRS or Immigration a little curious? And why just Japanese girls? It didn’t make sense. On Friday Gibbons had told him about the air hose he found in the Honda. Assuming that D’Urso was smuggling Japanese workers into the country, why go to all that trouble? Down at the Mexican border, you can get illegal aliens from Central America by the truckload. And they get themselves into the country. That had to be cheaper than shipping them one by one from Japan. Anyway Roxanne thought D’Urso’s wife was undercutting her price. What kind of profit margin could they have with these Japanese nannies? D’Urso would never get involved in any kind of operation that didn’t leave him with a healthy cut. It just didn’t make sense.

  He kept thinking about the D’Urso’s nanny, forcing himself to remember her face. There was something different about her expression, more world-weary than those other Asian nannies he’d seen around Milburn. None of that Teahouse of the August Moon happy-happy innocence. She looked like she knew more than she’d ever tell.

  Tozzi took the exit off the Parkway and looped onto Route 3 East, shaking his head at himself. He was doing it again. Christ, he’d only seen her for twenty seconds. He was doing a whole character study based on a twenty-second look from thirty feet away through a plate-glass door? Pretty flimsy. He was making up stories again, bending reality to make it be the way he wanted it to be. That’s how he got into trouble before. That’s the kind of shit Gibbons always warned him about. Well, maybe Gibbons was right.

  As he drove down the highway, he started thinking about the two dead kids and the cuts on their bodies and karate chops to the neck, and suddenly he remembered that there was an aikido class in Hoboken this afternoon at four. He glanced at this watch and decided he had just enough time to clean up, grab some sweats, and get over there. He decided throwing people around the mats might be a good way to work off some of this edginess he always seemed to have. Yeah, work off some of the frustration. Just what he needed after a wasted day like this.

  He was wrong.

  Neil Sensei finished his demonstration and bowed to the pasty-faced black belt, then instructed the class to pair off and practice. The spacey grad student from Stevens tapped him on the shoulder. “Shall we dance?” he asked.

  “Sure.” Tozzi noticed that he was a blue belt, one of the middle ranks. Good. Tozzi figured the guy was experienced enough to teach him something, but not so good as to make him look bad.

  “My name’s Chris. You’re . . . ?”

  “Mike.”

  He took off his glasses and adjusted the elastic strap. “Is this your first time here?”

  “My first time actually practicing, yeah.”

  Chris smiled and nodded as he put his glasses back on. “Thought so. You look a little confused. No problem. It took me about six months before I stopped feeling stupid.”

  “Six months, huh?” Great, just what I need, a six-month inferiority complex.

  “Okay, this technique is called Tsuki Kote Gaeshi, which roughly means a wrist twist from a punch attack. You punch me. Aim for somewhere around here.” Chris pointed to his sternum. “We’ll go slow.”

  Tozzi took his position, standing in hanmi with his front foot at a ninety-degree angle to his back foot. He clenched his fist, palm up, the way he’d seen the black belt do it, and thought about how the guy had punched Neil Sensei during the demonstration, twisting his fist and giving it some snap, karate fashion. After being criticized twice today for his imprecise attacks, he was determined to deliver at least one good punch. Chris looked him in the eye and nodded. Tozzi took a breath, stepped forward decisively, and punched . . . at air. Chris had turned sideways to avoid the blow, which left Tozzi’s arm extended right in front of him, Tozzi off-balance. Chris quickly took advantage of Tozzi’s weakness, grabbing his wrist and twisting it back so that Tozzi had no choice but to slam down onto his back.

  Tozzi forgot to fold his leg back behind him to control the fall the way he’d been taught. He hit the mat hard and felt it in his kidneys.

  Chris stood over him, fiddling with his glasses. “I guess nobody told you, Mike. The force of your attack always determines the force of the throw. That’s why I said go slow.”

  Tozzi nodded as he got to his feet. “Right.”

  “Okay, let’s try the other side.”

  Tozzi knew this meant he was supposed to switch his feet and punch with the other hand. This time he punched in slow motion, and Chris threw him nice and easy.

  When it was Tozzi’s turn to throw, Chris patiently talked him through all the steps, giving him pointers as he began to get it. They went back and forth like this, Chris throwing twice, then Tozzi throwing twice. When Tozzi threw, Chris slapped the mat hard as he fell, something all the experienced people did. It was meant to stop the mome
ntum of the fall. The resounding boom of Chris slapping the mat made Tozzi feel good, even though he knew it was really more like a pro wrestler pounding the hollow floor of the ring for effect, not him hammering Chris to the mat.

  They practiced like this, repeating the technique again and again, and after a while Tozzi actually began to feel that he was getting it. He was getting out of the way, most of the time, and a couple of times he sort of felt semi-competent, throwing Chris without exerting a lot of energy, just using the force of Chris’s attack against him.

  “Now how about punching a little more realistically?” Chris said. “Make like you’re really pissed at me. Like you really want to hit me.”

  “Okay,” Tozzi said. He took his position, determined not to hold back this time. Chris knew what he was doing. He’d get out of the way. This one would be for real.

  Tozzi stepped forward, light on his feet. He looked Chris in the eye, nodded, and rammed his fist right at Chris’s gut. Once again Chris got out of the way, caught Tozzi’s balance, grabbed his wrist, and twisted hard. Tozzi fell back and slammed against the mat, and even though he got his leg under him, he still hit hard enough to rattle his ribs.

  Chris stood over him, shaking his head.

  “What’sa matter?” Tozzi asked.

  “That didn’t feel right. Can we try it again? Same side.”

  “Didn’t feel right . . . Okay. Whatever you say.”

  Tozzi got back up and delivered the same punch. Chris threw him down with a loud thud. This time might have been a little bit harder.

  “Better?” Tozzi groaned, getting up on his elbows.

  “Yeah, that did feel better.” Chris looked content. “Your turn.”

  Tozzi climbed to his feet slowly, determined to do the best fucking Kote Gaeshi anyone had ever seen from a beginner. He really thought he had it now. He could do the whole technique without getting hung up on the mechanics of each little move. He took his position, standing in hanmi, waiting for Chris to throw his punch. Chris made a fist. Tozzi was ready. Chris started to move forward. Tozzi could already hear him hitting the mat. Come on. Now—

  “Hai,” Neil Sensei called out from the front of the room.

  Chris immediately stopped his attack and bowed to Tozzi. “Thank you, Mike.”

  “Ah . . . yes, thank you.” Tozzi felt like he’d been robbed.

  Everyone rushed back to their places, sitting seiza in two lines, waiting for Neil Sensei to begin the next technique. Tozzi glanced at Chris and frowned. He’d been ready. He felt he could’ve done it right this time. He’d been robbed, goddamn it.

  Tozzi sat down slowly on his knees. He could’ve done it, goddammit. Next time. He rested his weight on his heels, and immediately his thighs started to ache. Neil started his demonstration. Next time. Then he felt the charley horse mounting in his calf. Shit. He got his legs out from under him and sat on his butt as he quickly started to massage the cramp. Yeah . . . maybe next time.

  FIFTEEN

  “NO SWEET’N LOW?” D’Urso said. “No more Sweet’n Low, Michelle?”

  “I’ll get it,” she said and went back inside the house.

  They were all up on the deck, having coffee. Tozzi recognized D’Urso right away from pictures he’d seen in FBI files. Perfect steel gray hair, the granite-block build, the slick, continental clothes—he was unmistakable.

  The punk who tried to hassle him on Saturday was up there having coffee, too. Tozzi overheard D’Urso and his wife calling him Bobby. Today he was wearing a very trendy-looking baggy tobacco-brown suit. He also wore his shirt buttoned at the collar without a tie. A real Mr. Groovy, this Bobby whoever-he-was.

  Mrs. D’Urso was a nervous-looking woman, petite with thin little wrists that looked like they’d break easily. She had big hair, honey blond, and she was made-up for the ball first thing in the morning. She almost looked like one of those sultry bitches on the prime-time soaps, the ones who’re always pulling everybody else’s strings and making all the other characters miserable, except that behind all the mascara, she had these real scared-rabbit eyes. Tozzi suddenly wondered whether the rabbits they use for mascara tests ended up looking like Michelle D’Urso.

  From where he was now, on his knees in the beds that lined the back of the house, Tozzi couldn’t see much through the shrubs, but he could hear them pretty well. This would’ve been a hell of a lot easier, though, if he could just plant a bug under the deck and go back to the car to eavesdrop. But Tozzi couldn’t sign out equipment without Ivers’s say-so, and he knew Ivers would never go for it on this one. He’d go ape if Tozzi told him about the Japanese nannies. It was so nice having a boss you could talk to.

  Tozzi crawled a little closer so he’d be right under the deck. There were plenty of dead leaves stuck under the shrubs. If anybody came by, he’d start pulling them out by hand so he’d look busy doing the cleanup.

  “She’s still busting you about this, that sister of mine.” Tozzi recognized Mr. Groovy’s voice. “Thick head just like her ole lady.”

  “She just gets nervous, that’s all. Don’t worry about her.” D’Urso had a surprisingly mellow voice.

  “I don’t know what the hell she’s got to squawk about. Shit, she’ll be sitting pretty too when you get through.”

  D’Urso didn’t answer, and Tozzi wondered why. Maybe he’d answered with a gesture, or maybe he didn’t want to talk about whatever it was that his wife was giving him a hard time about.

  Just then he heard Michelle D’Urso’s high heels banging across the wooden planks of the deck. She pulled up a chair, but there was a moment of awkward silence.

  “John,” she finally said, “I don’t mean to be a pain about this—I really don’t—but I just don’t understand why we have to change now. It doesn’t make sense when we’ve been doing so well with them. It seems very risky to me.”

  “Oh, for chris—”

  “Shut up, Bobby.” D’Urso curbed him like a dog. “It isn’t risky, Michelle. It’s good business sense. Just look at the car business. Japanese cars used to be real cheap in this country, but then they got wise over there and raised their prices. So what happened?”

  “I don’t know, John. What?”

  “Dealers started bringing in cheaper cars from Korea. See, you gotta go with the market, honey. Get the best price.”

  “But, John,” she whined, “we’re not talking about cars.”

  “Listen, let me explain it just in terms of your end, the nannies. These girls are costing us twenty-five grand a piece now, right? This means we’ve got to place each girl in a home and have her on the job for fourteen months before we earn back our initial investment. Now, if we can get girls cheaper, we can shorten the turn-around time and show a profit that much sooner.”

  “Yeah but, John, you don’t understand.” Her whine got worse. “The Japanese girls have cachet. People want them in their homes, they’re the in thing. But grown-up war babies from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia? Come on, John. They won’t be so easy to sell. They’re no substitute for Japanese girls.”

  “Why do these ladies come to you, Michelle? For Japanese decorations or for nannies? Believe me. You offer them a good price, and they’ll take the war babies.”

  “I don’t know, John. I’ve got my hands full with these Japanese girls just trying to keep them under control. Who knows what these new girls will be like? It’s just going to add to the headache. Maybe we should wait awhile before we make the change.”

  “You worry too much about everything, Michelle.” Mr. Groovy had to throw his two cents in. “You think the yaks are the only ones who can keep your girls in line? Fuck ’em. We don’t need them. Your girls won’t run away on you—believe me—because even after the yaks are out of the picture, our guys will keep everybody in line real nice.”

  “Bobby,” she said, “they’re not stupid. Some of them are beginning to think they’re getting a raw deal. All the girls have plenty of opportunity to take off. It’s not like they’re in chains or anyt
hing. They’ve got some money—”

  “The pocket money you give them? Where they gonna go on that? Even if they hoarded it, how far do you think one of these kids could get without a green card and a passport? Wake up, Michelle. Anyway, most of your girls are still basically happy. It’s the factory guys who give us the trouble.”

  “Really. Maybe you forgot that it was one of my girls who ran off with her boyfriend and was killed by your friend Mashiro.”

  Tozzi stopped breathing. Say his name again, dammit.

  “He ain’t no friend of mine.”

  “I still have nightmares thinking about that headline about the ‘Death Bug.’ I keep wondering when the papers are gonna run a picture of her. Then what am I supposed to say to the family she worked for, huh? It’s giving me an ulcer, for God’s sake.”

  “Honey, I keep telling you the papers are not going to run any pictures of your girl,” D’Urso said. “If they had one, they would’ve used it by now.”

  “How the hell can you two be so goddamn calm?” she whined. “You act like this is nothing. I’m worried!”

  No one said anything for a moment. “I know you’re worried,” D’Urso said quietly. “But it’s really the old man you’re worried about, right?”

  “Of course, I’m worried about the old man,” she said in a loud whisper. “You went against his direct order, John. He told you not to use the girls for hookers, but you went ahead and did it anyway. What if he finds out about your whorehouse in Atlantic City?”

  “So what if he does?”

  “He told you not to use them as hookers, John! He’s the boss, John. He told you and you disobeyed him.”

  “Oh, Christ Almighty,” Bobby said, raising his voice. “They’re goddamn slaves. We’ll do what the hell we want with them.”

  She lashed right back at him. “Carmine Antonelli only looks like a nice old grandpa, Bobby. He’ll cut your heart out and eat it for breakfast if you cross him, and you know it. He’ll kill us all. He will. And what about my baby? Oh, God! Amanda! Her too, Bobby! Antonelli doesn’t care! He’d have her killed, too!”