Bad Blood

by Anthony Bruno

  THIRTY-ONE

  IVERS HAD THAT constipated look again. His lips were thin and tight, and his brow was furrowed. He sat there behind his big mahogany desk in that awful shit-brown suit of his, making faces at the letters on his desk, trying to maintain some semblance of being the Special Agent in Charge of this field office. Gibbons almost felt for the guy. This one must’ve been a bitch to explain to the Director.

  Tozzi was in the other chair across from Ivers, both feet on the floor, both hands on the arms. He looked calm and composed, his face relaxed. He claimed he was learning how to keep his “one point,” whatever the fuck that was. Somewhere under his belly button, he said. What a whack. This aikido shit is going to his head. He’s going fucking zen now. Jesus.

  Ivers’s chair creaked, and he started huffing and puffing again, blowing air out his nose loud enough for his secretary outside to hear. The Big Bad Wolf was going to give it another try.

  “You’re originals, you two.” He picked up one of the letters on his desk. “This one is from Amnesty International. You’ll be getting letters of commendation from them for your work in freeing the slaves.” Ivers shook his head. “FBI agents getting kudos from Amnesty International. This has to be a first.”

  Ivers picked up another letter. “The Japanese ambassador has invited you two to a luncheon. They want to give you medals or some such shit for your”—he looked down at the letter—“your ‘heroic efforts in single-handedly rescuing Japanese citizens victimized by an international criminal conspiracy.’” He looked at them over his half-glasses. “Nice.”

  Gibbons’s stomach went sour as he thought about raw fish. “Forget it. I’m not eating sushi.”

  “You ever try it?” Tozzi said. “It’s not bad.”

  Ivers glared at them. “Everybody loves you. The whole world thinks you’re both just wonderful. Thanks to all the news coverage over the weekend, even the President has inquired about you two. The Director ended up having to do a fancy little tap dance in the Oval Office this morning, answering a lot of questions he really didn’t have good answers for. He got on the horn with me right afterwards and put my balls in the vise. What the hell’s going on up here? he wants to know. An international slave trade in the United States and he knows nothing about it? Two special agents from the New York office playing Batman and Robin against a yakuza-Mafia coalition, but he doesn’t know a goddamn thing about it. All I know is what I read in the papers, since you guys apparently think filing regular reports is beneath you. But I can’t very well tell him that, can I? No, I have to do a fancy little tap dance of my own. That’s what I had to do.”

  Gibbons scratched his nose. He didn’t need this bullshit. “Sorry for your trouble.” Asshole.

  “You know, everybody else may think you’re heroes, but I don’t. I think you’re hotdogs. Disruptive, insubordinate hotdogs. You’re a mockery of everything the Bureau stands for.”

  Gibbons saw red. “Listen, pal, I was out in the field catching lead when you were still wearing short pants in prep school. Don’t tell me what the Bureau stands for. It stands for catching bad guys and bringing them to justice, not creating paperwork in the office and not watching your ass all the time just so you can worm your way up to the next promotion.”

  Ivers slapped the desk. “You’re out of line, Gibbons.”

  Gibbons pounded the desk. He’d been dying to tell this guy off. “Three-hundred-and-twelve people were trapped on that ship, fifty-nine had already gone into shock from dehydration when the Coast Guard started popping trunks. Mrs. D’Urso was so shook up on the scene, Tozzi was able to get her to tell us where her husband kept his records, and as a result, twelve-hundred more slaves were located and freed this weekend. Carmine Antonelli was arrested on a charge that’ll probably stick for a change. John D’Urso didn’t get to kill his boss, which you can bet would’ve set off the kind of gang war this town hasn’t seen since Lucky Luciano was around. And on top of all that, the yakuza doesn’t have a foothold in New York anymore. Is all this the result of your able leadership, Ivers? Not on your fucking life. All you know how to do is suck up to the Director and write reports. We know how to get results.”

  “Easy, Gib,” Tozzi said.

  “Yes, you got results,” Ivers shouted back. “But not by the book. Not our book. You withheld vital information from the Bureau while you conducted the investigation your way.”

  “It all came down so fast,” Tozzi cut in. “There wasn’t a whole lot of time for writing up reports. We took the only sensible course of action.”

  “Cut the bullshit, Tozzi. You guys endangered hundreds of lives doing things your way. It wasn’t sensible. It was bullshit.”

  Gibbons was sorely tempted to say it right there and then, but he still wasn’t sure yet. Instead he looked past Ivers, out the window. “Oh, go scratch, will ya?” he muttered.

  Ivers pointed his finger in Gibbons’s face. “You know, the only reason you’re so goddamn arrogant, Gibbons, is that you’re riding high with all this hoopla. You know we can’t touch you right now. God forbid if the two big heroes were ever disciplined. I can hear the editorials now if we tried it. It’s like goddamn blackmail. And this isn’t the first time you’ve done this to me.”

  That’s it. Gibbons sat forward on the edge of his seat and stuck his finger in Ivers’s face. “Well, if I’m such a goddamn thorn in your side, maybe I should quit. How about that? I’ll quit and you can go back to fucking things up your own way. That okay with you, Ivers? Will that make you happy?”

  Ivers was seething. “That would make me very happy.”

  “Fine.” Gibbons got up and knocked his chair over as he did. He walked out the door and slammed it behind him.

  Tozzi looked at the door in shock. Gibbons, the black of shoe, the white of shirt, the straight of arrow, mouthing off to a SAC? He never thought he’d see the day. He looked at Ivers. “Ah, maybe we should continue this later when we’re all a little cooler.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that, Tozzi. We certainly will continue this later. You can count on it.” Ivers’s tone was sarcastic and ominous. He started shuffling through files, making himself busy all of a sudden, which was obviously Tozzi’s cue to get lost. He was an asshole.

  Tozzi left Ivers’s office and went directly to Gibbons’s cubicle where he found his partner sitting with his feet up on his desk and his fingers linked over his mouth as if he were praying. Tozzi expected him to be fuming. Actually he looked more sad than mad.

  “Hey, Gib, you’re not serious about quitting, are you?” Tozzi pulled up a chair and sat down.

  Gibbons rolled his eyes at Tozzi, then blinked and sighed. Tozzi didn’t like the implication of his not answering.

  “Ivers is an asshole. Putting up with his crap is just part of the job. You know that.”

  “Yeah . . . I know that.”

  Gibbons was almost whispering he was so subdued. This wasn’t like him. Normally he’d be cussing Ivers up and down. What the hell was with him? “Listen, let Ivers cool down a little, then I’ll go back and talk to him. We’ll go in together later this afternoon, listen to his crap, make nice, and be done with it. What the hell, just make him feel like he’s on top. That’s all he wants—”

  “How’s your girlfriend, Toz?”

  “What?”

  “Roxanne. How is she?”

  “She’s okay. But what’s she got to do with anything?”

  Gibbons nodded behind his folded hands. “She’s a nice girl. Don’t be stupid. Be nice to her.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “Just listen to me. Be nice to her. Don’t ever hurt her. You’ll regret it.”

  Tozzi sighed. Now he knew what this was all about. “My dear cousin Lorraine. She’s on your ass again about retiring, right?”

  Gibbons let out a long sigh. “I haven’t talked to her since she walked off the car lot the other day. She’s not answering the phone.” He picked up a ball-point pen off his desk and clicked it a fe
w times. “She’s right to be pissed off at me. I don’t blame her.”

  “So you’re gonna quit the Bureau to keep her happy? Come on, Gib. That’s crazy.”

  “You know, when I was laid up in the hospital, I gave some pretty serious thought to getting married. I gave it a lot of thought. We need some stability, something more permanent. We’re not getting any younger. Me especially. What am I gonna do when I get out of this job? What if I got real sick, bedridden like I was? Who’s gonna take care of me? Who’d take care of Lorraine, for that matter? You?”

  “You’re getting maudlin, Gib. Either that or senile.”

  “Go ahead, make jokes, Tozzi. You can laugh ‘cause you’re still young.” He started clicking the pen again. It was beginning to aggravate Tozzi.

  “What are you saying here? You want to retire now? Go settle down in some leisure village with my cousin? Is that what you’re thinking?”

  He looked Tozzi in the eye. “I don’t want to lose her.”

  “You mean she gave you an ultimatum? If you don’t quit the Bureau, she walks out of your life forever?”

  Gibbons shut his eyes and shook his head solemnly. “No, I told you. I haven’t talked to her about this at all. This is what I’m thinking.”

  Tozzi’s heart was beating fast. He didn’t want to lose his partner. “You better go see a doctor. You’re definitely not yourself.”

  Gibbons put his feet on the floor and threw the pen on the desk. Tozzi waited for the nasty remark. It didn’t come. What the hell’s gotten into him?

  “Just give me a straight answer, Gib. Just tell me. Are you quitting or not? I have to know.”

  Gibbons smiled like a crocodile, a born-again crocodile, a crocodile holding onto new wisdom, a crocodile who’d seen the light . . . a crocodile with no fucking bite. “Later,” he said, moving around his desk. “I gotta go to the john.”

  He walked out and left Tozzi sitting alone in his cubicle. Tozzi’s brow was furrowed. There was a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach, and it wasn’t because it was almost lunchtime. He picked up the pen from Gibbons’s desk and started to click it.

  Bad Blood

  All Rights Reserved © 1989, 2008 by Anthony Bruno

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  Originally published by Putnam's

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  ISBN: 978-0-786-75339-0

  Distributed by Argo Navis Author Services