Bad Blood

by Anthony Bruno

“Where’s Gibbons?” Lorraine asked as soon as she was free. “Is he all right?”

  Tozzi frowned. This is gratitude. “He’s around here someplace.” Jesus.

  “Hey, what about me?” Michelle whined.

  “You sit still,” he said. “You’re under arrest.”

  “What?!”

  He ignored her, reaching into his shoulder holster and pulling out his revolver. “Lorraine, take this.” He handed it to his cousin. She held the gun as if it were radioactive.

  “Gibbons ever show you how to work a safety? This thing.” He worked it on and off to show her.

  “Uh . . . I don’t know, Michael.”

  “Take it, Lorraine,” he ordered. “The three of you stay right here until I come back. If anyone shows up to bother you, use it. You hear me? Use it. Just make some noise.” He looked down at the big gun in her slender trembling hands. It’ll make noise all right. A .357 Magnum makes a lot of noise. He wondered whether he was making a mistake. Shit, he had no choice. He was alone out here. Gibbons could be in trouble. He should also call for help, have those yaks on the run picked up.

  He picked up the shotgun and stood up. Roxanne was rubbing her wrists, still looking at him with that pissy, accusatory face. When he talked to her this morning, he had a feeling she was mad about last night. Clearly he was right. Christ. He didn’t need this shit now. He leapt down out of the back of the van, avoiding her gaze. “Sit tight, gang. I’ll be back.”

  He shaded his eyes from the sun and scanned the lot. He spotted Gibbons way in the distance across the lot with some little skinny guy, taking their goddamn time about getting here. What the hell is this? The old age home? Then it occurred to him that maybe Gibbons was hurt. He was walking, though. If he was hurt, it probably wasn’t that bad. Tozzi looked around the big lot. They needed help. He had to get to a phone. He spotted a concrete bunker at the other end of the lot, but that was at least a hundred-fifty yards away. The guard booth at the entrance was even farther. He didn’t like the idea of leaving the three of them here alone. Magnum or no Magnum. Then he spotted D’Urso’s shot-up Mercedes. A car phone. Maybe he’s got a car phone in there.

  He trotted over toward the black Mercedes, confident that D’Urso was the type to have a car phone, but when he came up to the bodies, he paused to check. The samurai was on his back, his black helmet skewed over most of his face. He stared at Francione’s body and couldn’t help feeling glad that he was gone. That guy was trouble, pure and simple. If he stuck around, he’d just get worse. Better off dead. Tozzi stared at the coagulated blood soaking his groovy shirt and wondered who did the honors. Forensics will figure it out. He craned his neck to get a better look at the big guy over by the Mercedes, maybe recognize—

  Suddenly he felt metal hitting metal as the shotgun whipped out of his hand. He saw it scuttle and clatter over the asphalt and disappear under the black Caddy. Then he saw the blade glimmering right in front of his face like a cobra ready to strike. He leapt back out of range. The corpse was up on his elbow, moving—the samurai. The sword was in his hand. Instinctively Tozzi reached into his empty holster. Shit. He glanced over at the van. Mashiro was on his feet now. There was blood flowing down his sweaty face inside the helmet. There was a lot of blood all over the front of his braided armor. He stunk like something gone rotten. The expression on his face was mean. The eyes were empty black slits. All of a sudden Tozzi thought of that tongue-twister from when he was a kid: The big black bug bled black blood. Say it three times, fast. Shit.

  Behind him, he could hear Roxanne and Lorraine in the van getting hyper, debating what they should do, no doubt. Lorraine didn’t know how to use a gun. Did Roxanne? Not likely. If Lorraine started shooting, though, maybe it would distract this nut. Maybe she’d even get lucky and hit the son of a bitch. Of course, she might hit him, too. No. Don’t shoot, Lorraine. No, don’t.

  Mashiro gripped the sword in both hands and held it high over his head, sort of like a batter at the plate. He stalked Tozzi slowly, his knees bent, his stance wide. His breathing was wet and hoarse. Tozzi backstepped, trying to keep himself from staring at the shiny blade. He vaguely remembered Neil Chaney saying something at their all-night aikido session about keeping the proper distance from an opponent and being aware of the whole man, not focusing on any single part of him.

  He then remembered something else Neil had said about the martial arts in general. Whenever at all possible, avoid a fight. Run away if you have to. Better that than having to use your skills.

  What skills?

  Tozzi was sweating. His throat was dry. His eyes stung.

  He thought about running, pretty confident that he could get away. Mashiro had short legs, and besides he was wounded. He’d lost blood; he couldn’t be very steady on his legs. But then he remembered Roxanne and Lorraine inside the van. And Michelle D’Urso, still handcuffed. He couldn’t leave them here with this psycho. He couldn’t just run away. He’d have to keep Mashiro occupied at least until Gibbons got here, until Gibbons could shoot this mother in the head and finish the job. Come on, Gib. Make it snappy.

  Tozzi backpedalled to put more distance between them, but Mashiro rushed him unexpectedly to keep the same distance. He moved amazingly fast, with this peculiar bow-legged step, like a scorpion on the attack. Damn. So much for the bad legs theory.

  Mashiro started mumbling bitterly in Japanese. Tozzi could guess what he was saying—the same thing he’d be saying if he had a couple of slugs in him and was crazy for revenge. His stomach started to cramp as he kept moving back slowly, maintaining that distance between them as he wondered what the hell he was going to do when this guy finally made his move. The Bureau didn’t offer much in the way of sword defense when he was in training at Quantico. The only sword experience he had was the little bit he’d done in aikido class with the wooden practice sword, the bokken. Well, you use what you’ve got, right? He just wished he had a little more faith in what Neil had shown him. This was no time for doubt.

  Tozzi kept backstepping, considering other possibilities, considering faking left and right, hoping the samurai would show a weakness he could take advantage of, a sore knee, anything he could—

  But suddenly Mashiro attacked, rushing him head on, the sword held high. Tozzi had no time to think. He just acted, doing exactly what he did last night each time Neil attacked him that way with the wooden sword. He got out of the way. Not by stepping back, but by stepping into the attack and staying close to Mashiro, too close for the long blade to be a threat, facing him as he passed. Tozzi turned around completely as Mashiro rushed by and backstepped away quickly as Mashiro spun around and countered with a horizontal waist-high swipe. Mashiro yelled something in anger, but the swoosh of the lightning blade cutting the air was the only sound Tozzi really heard.

  It worked! Damn, it worked! Tozzi wiped the sweat from his brow and immediately corrected his posture, forcing himself to stand relaxed in front of the samurai, shoulders square, presenting a big chest, giving his opponent “a big target,” as Neil always said.

  Mashiro rushed him again, holding the sword as if he were planning to lop Tozzi’s head off, and again Tozzi avoided the sword by stepping into the attack, then moving out of range behind his opponent.

  It worked again! Tozzi was in heaven. This was great! There really was something to this aikido stuff. He felt guilty that he’d doubted.

  Mashiro’s grumbling got a little louder now. He peppered it with short, abrupt shouts, like an angry dog barking at an intruder. Suddenly, in mid-bark, he attacked once more, the sword held high over his head again as if he aimed to split Tozzi right down the middle. Stay calm, stay calm, Tozzi repeated to himself. He forced himself to wait, wait, wait—until Mashiro had committed his balance, until he couldn’t reverse his attack—then he spun out to the side, actually nudging shoulders with the mad Jap as the polished blade whooshed through the space where Tozzi had been, struck the ground, and sunk into the blacktop. Mashiro screamed in fury and yanked out t
he sword, then turned and immediately positioned himself for another pass.

  Shit. Tozzi realized he could have done something that time. If he’d been quicker, he could’ve tackled him from the side while the sword was stuck in the pavement and gotten Mashiro away from his weapon. Or he could’ve punched him in the kidneys. Or grabbed him from behind and tied him up in a full-nelson. He knew what Neil had preached about resisting the natural urge to fight with your emotions and revert to ingrained streetfighting methods. He remembered all that stuff about the dangers of losing your one point and getting unsettled. But this was ridiculous. He knew how to street-fight. He didn’t know aikido. Anyway, all he had to do was keep Mashiro busy until Gibbons got there. He glanced over his shoulder. Goddamn Gibbons who was still fifty yards away, taking his ever-loving sweet time getting here with that old crony of his, whoever the hell he was.

  The sun beamed off the samurai’s black helmet. The small brass plates on his armored chest shimmered. Mashiro was shouting nonstop now, ranting at Tozzi. He was breathing heavily, and the tracks of his sweat marbleized the bloodstains on his face. He smelled awful.

  Come on, man. Do it again. Same move. Come on, you ugly mother. Do me a favor.

  An inhuman guttural scream erupted from the samurai as he rushed again, sword held high over his head.

  Tozzi grinned. Goddamn! He was doing it again! The same move!

  He steadied himself, forcing his legs to stay still until the right moment, waiting for the sword to begin its downward arc, waiting for the moment, anticipating his counterattack.

  Tozzi waited, waited, then moved, spinning out to the side, bringing himself shoulder to shoulder with Mashiro as the blade sliced the space where he’d been. Now! He stepped behind Mashiro and reached under his elbows, visualizing his hands slipping under Mashiro’s armpits, his fingers linking behind the samurai’s sweaty neck under the helmet. He could feel himself bearing down fast and hard, forcing him to drop the sword.

  His mind was there before he hands were, though, and it didn’t happen the way he envisioned it.

  As Tozzi reached out and committed himself to his attack, Mashiro suddenly wheeled around and struck, cutting Tozzi just above the elbow with the part of the blade closest to the hilt. The shock of being cut made everything go black for a microsecond. Then Tozzi heard one of the women screaming, and instinctively he grabbed the wound with his other hand and backpedalled the hell out of the way before the killing blow came.

  Mashiro was growling and laughing. Tozzi looked down at his arm. His jacket and shirt were neatly sliced; blood was seeping through his fingers. That goddamn thing was sharp as a razor. Tozzi suddenly felt guilty. This was his punishment for disregarding Neil’s instruction. Catholic school logic.

  “Shoot him! Shoot him!”

  The samurai turned his attention to the voice screaming from the van.

  “Shoot him!”

  Roxanne was yelling at Lorraine who was clutching the revolver in both hands, squinting and wincing, trying to track Mashiro who was stalking them now, moving evasively right and left as he approached the van with that scorpion scuttle of his. His grunting was cocky and menacing, spider-and-the-fly menacing. It was obvious to him too that Lorraine had never fired a gun.

  “Hey, asshole!” Tozzi shouted. “Come finish me off! Come on, you bastard, don’t leave me like this! Finish the job, you dishonorable son of a bitch you!”

  Mashiro paid him no mind, intent on doing his sidewinder dance toward the women.

  Roxanne was going crazy up there. Shit! Leave them alone, you thick-headed bastard. Tozzi ran on the balls of his feet, ran right up behind Mashiro, and kicked him in the seat of his pants.

  Mashiro erupted, turning and slashing repeatedly, enraged.

  Tozzi jumped back out of range, gripping his wound, trying to ignore his own lightheadedness. “Me, asshole! You deal with me first!”

  Mashiro broke into an awkward, hobbled run. Tozzi turned quickly and ran, too, sprinting away from the samurai. But then Tozzi heard an unearthly roar behind him, and he slowed down to look over his shoulder. Mashiro was just standing there in position, his sword up in the batter’s stance again, waiting for Tozzi to answer his challenge. Tozzi glanced at the van, then turned and faced him. He wasn’t going to be afraid.

  Mashiro charged quickly and attacked. Tozzi ducked, the blade whirring over his head. Mashiro stumbled with the force of his own swing, and Tozzi kicked him in the butt again, then started to run back the other way.

  “Come on, ugly! Catch me!” He glanced ahead at the van and caught the terror in Roxanne’s face. He looked back over his shoulder as he ran. Mashiro thrust his sword into a brown Corolla’s headlight and let loose with that gravelly shout again, the samurai war cry. He broke into a wild run, chasing Tozzi for all he was worth, following as Tozzi zigzagged down the aisle, taunting him, circling around and dodging him. Tozzi wondered who was going to run out of steam first. Up ahead, Tozzi could see the rear end of the black Caddy, Roxanne and Lorraine standing on the tailgate of the van just beyond. Panting for breath, he felt weak and faint, but Mashiro’s plodding footsteps were right behind him now. He couldn’t think now, just do. Adrenalin worked his legs as the presence behind him got closer. He glanced back quickly and saw the threatening shimmer of the blade. He kept running, pushing. Go, go, don’t stop. Then he suddenly remembered something from last night. The sword was moving toward his head now, he could feel it coming. No time to think. Just do. And he did.

  Tozzi stopped abruptly and turned to face Mashiro, the way Neil had shown him. As the sword descended just inches from Tozzi’s face, he grabbed Mashiro’s hands on the hilt, braced the samurai’s elbow, pumped down once to take his balance, then once more with feeling to do the throw. Mashiro flipped over in a flash. Tozzi blinked and panicked, suddenly remembering that he was supposed to take the sword away, too. Mashiro still had the goddamn sword. But when he looked up, he saw the samurai’s body suspended in mid-air, upside-down, jerking violently. Tozzi blinked. He was confused. This wasn’t right. The sword slipped from Mashiro’s fingers then and clattered onto the pavement. Tozzi felt dizzy. He couldn’t figure out what the hell—

  But then the blood dripped off the chrome point of the Caddy’s tailfin and it glinted in the sun, sticking out of Mashiro’s chest, and Tozzi finally realized that the samurai was impaled there. Like a Japanese beetle stuck on a pin.

  “Madonna mia!”

  Tozzi turned toward the raspy voice and was surprised to see that the old geezer hanging on Gibbons’s arm was Carmine Antonelli.

  “Quiet.” Gibbons scowled down at the old don, then looked over at Tozzi who was prodding his wound.

  “You hurt bad?” Gibbons asked.

  Tozzi gasped for air and coughed. “I dunno. I don’t think so.”

  “Put your arm up over your head. Higher than your heart,” Antonelli said. “It’ll control the bleeding.”

  Gibbons glared at him. “You a doctor now?”

  Antonelli shrugged. “Just trying to help.”

  “Just try to shut up.”

  Antonelli shrugged again and looked away.

  Gibbons took a look at the wound. “He’s right. Put your arm up. By the way, I take back what I said about whatever it is you’re studying. Aikido, right? Nice move. I’m impressed.”

  Tozzi made a face and shook his head at the dangling samurai. “I don’t know,” he muttered. “It worked, I guess, but it didn’t feel right—”

  “Jesus, you’re a violent son of a bitch. You never told me this about yourself.” Roxanne came around from behind him and pulled his arm down so she could look at it. Without asking, she helped him out of his jacket, then ripped the torn sleeve off his shirt and made a tourniquet out of it. Her eyes were soft and caring. The touch of her hands made him feel even more lightheaded. Maybe she wasn’t mad anymore.

  “Aren’t you going to say ‘thank you’ for the rescue?” he asked.

  “I wasn’t planning on it.�
��

  “No?” Shit.

  She smiled slyly then and showed that incredible space between her teeth. “But if it’ll make you feel better—”

  “No, no, no . . . it’s okay.” Tozzi grinned. “Just tell me one thing. How the hell did you get mixed up with—?”

  Tozzi suddenly became aware of Lorraine standing beside him. She stood there like a zombie, her arms hanging limp, her hair wild. She stared at his wound as Roxanne wrapped it, tears brimming in her eyes.

  “Here,” she said, suddenly sticking his gun into his holster.

  “What’s wrong, Lorraine? Are you hurt?” Tozzi knew what was wrong, but he didn’t know what to say to her. He looked at Gibbons. Don’t be a jerk. Say something.

  Lorraine’s eyes flashed like a death ray as she glared at Gibbons. “No. I’m not hurt.” Her voice was like ice. Tozzi’d never heard her sound so vengeful.

  Tozzi looked at Gibbons who was just staring at Lorraine. Gibbons let out a long sigh, but he didn’t say anything. What the hell was he waiting for?

  She turned abruptly and stomped off. Tozzi waited for Gibbons to say something, to stop her, to go to her, but the asshole didn’t. He felt for them both really, but maybe a little more for her. Aw, come on, Gib. I know it’s hard, but don’t be a jerk. Don’t do this to her.

  Antonelli started coughing and wheezing then, and Gibbons glared at him as if he’d done something wrong. Lorraine was already in the next aisle, still walking. Gibbons kept looking down at the little old man. He kept not looking at Lorraine. What the hell’s wrong with you, man?

  A chill wind suddenly blew in off the bay, pushing the gliding gulls sideways across the sunny sky. Tozzi sighed and shook his head. Roxanne wasn’t smiling anymore. She knew what was going on. He let out a long, disgusted sigh and stared at the dead samurai impaled on the fin of the old black Caddy that was just like the one his father used to have. The sun was bright and hot for this time of year. A stream of very red blood was snaking its way across the black asphalt from the dark puddle that had collected under the shadow of the chrome bumper. Tozzi sniffed and wiped the sweat off his face. The big black bug bled black blood.