Bad Luck

by Anthony Bruno

  Sal shook his head, staring at one of the concrete trucks, the drum spinning round and round, red and yellow stripes spiraling. Mistretta, that clever bastard, left him in charge, yeah, but he squirreled away most of the family’s money where Sal couldn’t get at it. So any major purchases Sal wanted to make had to be made with money he made himself. In the beginning Sal still thought he could pull it off—they were making good money with gambling and girls, and they were doing all right with the garbage trucks too—but then one thing after another happened. One guy needed money for this, another guy needed money for that, Mistretta’s daughter wants a new house, his wife wants a condo in Florida, then his nephew wants to buy into an auto mall, then the bail money for everybody and his uncle, and the next thing you know, there’s no money for what Sal wants. The three concrete plants are still up for grabs, but all he’s got is about thirty mil to work with. Personally he could come up with another two himself, but what the hell’s that? Nothing. Enough for one of the concrete plants maybe. But you’ve gotta have all three or it’s no good. You won’t have the control otherwise. Well, fuck it. Mistretta gets out at the end of the month and then it’s his problem, thank God. Better to go back to running the crew again. Just be a captain, worry about your own guys. The concrete thing would’ve been nice, but it’s too late now. Just get Mistretta his goddamn money and keep him happy. That’s all that’s important now.

  Sal glanced up at Nashe who was waiting for an answer like a dog waiting for dinner. Fucking jerk. Yeah, he could smile. Joseph too. They weren’t gonna be the ones to tell Mistretta that he didn’t have the money yet. No, that wasn’t gonna be their job. Even if he broke both of Nashe’s legs right now, he’d be getting off easy by comparison. Mistretta did not like to be disappointed. Sal remembered what Mistretta did to Tommy Ricks, and a pain shot through his gut so bad he nearly doubled over.

  Nashe suddenly put his hands up as if he were being robbed, except he was still grinning with those big stupid teeth of his. “Sal, I give up. Just tell me what you want. I can accommodate you. We can work something out. Just talk to me.”

  Joseph stood up, mustache twitching, eyebrows squiggling all over his forehead. “Hey, I already told you. You don’t talk to my brother. He’s a very sick man. He doesn’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I’m the one you talk to—”

  Sal stopped rocking then, raising the hand with the rubber ball and waving his brother off. Enough! They had to have that money and they had to have it soon. Joseph wasn’t gonna get it out of Nashe. It was time for Sal to speak for himself. No sense playing dumb with Nashe. Bugs Bunny knows the score.

  “Listen to me, Russ,” Sal started, then cleared his throat.

  “Sal! Whattaya doin’?”

  “Don’t worry about it, Joseph.” Sal pointed his finger at Nashe as he turned back to him. “Let me tell you something, Russ. When I want something I pay for it. I just pay for it. No credit cards, no leveraging, no junk bonds, no fancy mortgage arrangements. I pay cash. That’s all there is to it. Now, five years ago you wanted something from us, the land on the boardwalk, and so we leased it to you. You drew up the conditions, we didn’t. Now, according to those conditions, it’s time to pay. So naturally we expect you to live up to your promise and pay up. That’s not unreasonable, is it?”

  “No, of course not, Sal. But by the same token you’re not appreciating my point of view here.” Nashe was on the edge of the stool, hovering over him, still grinning that stupid rabbit grin.

  Sal looked at the floor and shook his head as he switched the rubber ball to his left hand and made a fist with his right. He had to make Nashe “appreciate” his point of view.

  “You see, Sal, I can make it worth your while if you—”

  Sal’s fist shot up like an erupting volcano, a solid upper-cut to the middle of Nashe’s chest that knocked the Golden Boy off his stool and back over the drafting table. He crashed to the floor on his shoulder, the blueprints crushed underneath him. Bugs wasn’t grinning now. Sal was.

  “Mr. Nashe. Mr. Nashe!”

  Sal glared at the voice coming from the other side of the trailer door. It was that wiseass bodyguard, Mr. Mike.

  “Are you okay, Mr. Nashe? Mr. Nashe?” The asshole was pounding on that flimsy aluminum door like he was gonna break it in.

  Joseph looked jumpy. “Who the hell’s that?”

  “One of my bodyguards,” Nashe rasped, holding on to his chest.

  Sal watched Nashe crawl to his knees. The Golden Boy was rubbing his chest, sitting on his heels, staring up at the poster on the wall with fear in his eyes, like he was praying to it for mercy or something. Sal looked at the poster, the challenger and the champ eyeballing each other, nose to nose, muscles rippling, legs like tree trunks. When he looked at Nashe again, the Golden Boy was nodding at the poster. His Bugs Bunny teeth were sticking out, but he wasn’t smiling. Good. Maybe he was ready to get serious now.

  “You know, Sal, I may have an idea for you.”

  Mr. Mike was still pounding on the door, going crazy out there.

  Sal nodded toward the door. “Take care of your man first.”

  Nashe nodded. “It’s okay, Mike,” he called out as he got off his knees and brushed himself off. He unlocked the door and opened it. “What’s the problem, Mike?”

  The asshole bodyguard stood in the doorway, glaring in at Sal and Joseph. Real tough guy. “I heard a big noise, Mr. Nashe.”

  “It was nothing, Mike. I knocked over a stool. That’s all.”

  Mr. Mike looked very suspicious. He was staring at the crushed blueprints on the floor. “You sure you’re okay, Mr. Nashe?” He was eyeballing Sal.

  Nashe clapped him on the shoulder and came up with a confident bunny smile. “You’re doing a good job, Mike. Believe me, everything’s okay. I’ll let you know when I need you. I promise. Okay?”

  Sal stared right back at the guy, right in the eye, but the asshole didn’t flinch. Sal didn’t like this guy at all.

  Mr. Mike looked around the trailer one more time, then finally left. Nashe closed the door and locked it.

  “What’s his problem?” Sal asked.

  “Yeah, what the hell’s his problem?” Joseph chimed in.

  Nashe bent over to pick up the stool, squinting a little as he felt his chest with the other hand. “Mike? Mike’s a good guy. Don’t worry about him. He’s new, that’s all. Eager to please.” Nashe set the stool down behind the drafting table and sat down. “One of your paesans, by the way. Tomasso’s his name. Mike Tomasso.”

  Sal shrugged, unimpressed. He didn’t need any more paesans. He needed the money. “So what’s your idea?”

  Nashe looked up at the fight poster again and flashed his nervous-rabbit grin at Sal. “I think you’re gonna like this, Sal,” Bugs said. “I think you’re gonna love it.”

  Sal glanced at the two fighters on the poster, then tilted his head back and looked at Mr. Bunny. “Oh, yeah? Tell me what I’m gonna love.”

  Bugs showed more teeth. “It’s gonna be a big fight. The biggest there ever was. Two weeks from this Saturday.”

  “So?”

  “You a betting man, Sal?”

  He tilted his head to the side, staring at the big rabbit with the chubby cheeks in the expensive suit, and started squeezing the black rubber ball again. “Keep talking.”

  BI Special Agent Cuthbert Gibbons looked at his boss sitting behind his big mahogany desk, his upper body framed by the high-backed oxblood leather executive chair, one of the towers of the World Trade Center rising behind him out the window. At the edge of the desk, there was a new brass nameplate with the new title: “Assistant Director Brant Ivers.” Something new—special agent in charge of the Manhattan field office is now automatically an assistant director too. Ivers looked the part. He seemed a little grayer at the temples all of a sudden, a little craggier around the eyes, the chin dimple a little deeper now. Over Ivers’s head, windows in the World Trade Center sparkled against a clear blue sky. I
t was an inspiring sight, a portrait of a modern American lawman. Assistant Director and Special Agent in Charge Brant Ivers. Gibbons took a deep breath and let it out slow. Shit is still shit, no matter what you call it.

  Gibbons had noticed the portable tape recorder on Ivers’s blotter when he first came in. Ivers was glancing down at it now, staring at it actually. Gibbons assumed it had something to do with why he’d been called in here.

  “So, Bert,” Ivers started, leaning forward and lacing his fingers on top of the desk, “is everything all set for the big event?”

  Gibbons squinted at him. “What big event?”

  Ivers chuckled softly. “Come on, Bert. The wedding, of course.”

  Gibbons looked down at the dark red Bokhara rug and scratched his scalp through his thin steel-gray hair. He hated it when people called him Bert, hated it almost as much as he hated his given name, Cuthbert. Anyone who knew him at all knew it was Gibbons, just Gibbons. But what he hated even more was being asked about his personal life. The wedding was none of Ivers’s goddamn business. Asshole.

  “It’s coming along just dandy,” he said, his upper lip curling back like a Doberman’s.

  “That’s great. I’m glad to hear it, Bert. It’s not often that we get to celebrate weddings around here. Agents are usually pretty settled by the time they get to this field office. And very often marriage isn’t a viable option for a man when he reaches a certain age.”

  Gibbons lifted his chin to tighten up the flesh under his chin. “And what age is that?”

  Ivers smiled and crinkled his eyes. “Well, face it, Bert, we’re not spring chickens anymore, neither of us. And you—well, you are past retirement age.”

  “Bureau retirement age,” Gibbons reminded him. “Retirement is sixty-five for the rest of the country.”

  “No insult intended, Bert. You’re an exceptional agent. That’s why we made an exception in your case and let you stay on.”

  Gibbons raised an eyebrow. He loved this royal we shit.

  “Anyway,” Ivers continued, “what I’m trying to say is that the Bureau wishes you and Lorraine all the best. You both deserve it.”

  “Thank you.” Asshole.

  “I’ll bet Lorraine is relieved that you’re working here in the office and off the streets now.” Ivers pushed the small tape recorder to the middle of his desk.

  “Oh, yeah.” Deskwork is a real gas, Brant. I just don’t know how to thank you.

  “It may be a cliché, but in your case it’s true. You’re a very lucky man, Bert. Lorraine is a . . . an exceptional woman.”

  Gibbons’s upper lip curled back again. “Thanks for saying so.” Lorraine used to be exceptional. Now she’s just exceptionally loony. The old Lorraine was a good woman. She was the one he wanted to marry. She had goddamn sense. But the one he’s got now is fucking out of her mind, and she’s driving him batty too. It’s all this wedding shit. It’s affected her brain. It’s all she worries about—the flowers, the dress, the caterer, the church, the this, the that . . . The wedding arrangements and curtains. She’s got this thing about curtains all of a sudden. Stupid-looking frilly curtains that block out all the light. There isn’t a window that’s safe when she’s around. The worst thing, though, is that she won’t even fight with him anymore. Whatever he says, she goes along with it right away. She bends over backward to make things nice for him. Too nice. He knows why, though. She’s afraid he’ll get cold feet and back out of the wedding. That’s why she’s acting so gooney. He has a good mind to call the whole thing off and show her. Yeah, call it off until the loony bird flies south and the old Lorraine comes back.

  “Tell me, Bert,” Ivers said. “Is Tozzi going to take part in the ceremony?”

  Gibbons frowned. Ivers was getting cute now. “Tozzi? I haven’t seen Tozzi since you separated us. Tozzi’s been on an undercover for the past two months, and I’ve been chained to my desk. You know that.”

  “Well, I only ask because Tozzi was your old partner and he is Lorraine’s cousin, isn’t he? I just assumed that he’d be part of the wedding. Maybe your best man, I don’t know.” Ivers was staring down at the tape recorder, running his finger along the buttons.

  Gibbons crossed his arms and stared at Ivers until the man looked up at him again. “How about we drop the small talk and cut to the chase, okay?”

  The SAC peered up from under his brows and grunted a cough. He didn’t look so bullshit friendly now. Good.

  “Have you seen Tozzi recently?” Ivers asked grimly.

  “I told you. I haven’t seen him in two, two and a half months. Why? Is something wrong?”

  Ivers looked down at the tape recorder again. “Do you know anything about his current assignment?”

  Gibbons was getting pissed. “Undercovers are classified information. I have nothing to do with that investigation, whatever it is. I’m not supposed to know anything about it.” He’d heard some rumors from other agents, but not much.

  “Tozzi is based in Atlantic City, using the alias Mike Tomasso. He’s working as a bodyguard for Russell Nashe. Are you familiar with him?”

  “The real estate tycoon? Sure. Who isn’t? You see his face everywhere these days.”

  “We have reason to believe that Nashe is involved with the mob, specifically the Mistretta family.”

  What a big surprise. Gibbons crossed his legs and laced his thick fingers over his knee. “Based on what?”

  “A former Mistretta family associate named Donny Scopetta, who is currently living under federal-witness protection, unexpectedly found himself in a rather tight spot. Originally, in exchange for immunity from prosecution, he had cooperated with the United States Attorney’s office on several cases involving illegal dumping of toxic waste. He and his family were relocated, given new identities and so on, and apparently he thought he was home free. But then his name came up in a kidnapping-murder case that the Albany office had been working on for some time. Apparently Scopetta was the one who had driven the victim, a Mr. Barry Grunning, over the border into New York in the trunk of a rented car. Mr. Grunning was a loan officer at a bank in Passaic who got religion one day and suddenly decided he wasn’t going to do business with the loan shark he’d been bankrolling for nearly ten years. Scopetta apparently did not participate in the actual killing—he just delivered the victim.”

  “He’s still an accessory.”

  “Of course. And the prosecutors up in Albany were prepared to try him, but then Scopetta’s attorney offered them a deal. He said his client had more good information to offer in exchange for reduced charges. Scopetta, it turns out, had some very interesting things to say about a lot of people, one of them being Russell Nashe. Scopetta claims that Nashe had a long-standing relationship with the Mistretta family. He claims to have overheard conversations in which people high up in the family discussed dealings with Nashe. What he said about Nashe amounts to hearsay, really—essentially useless to the prosecutors. But they passed on a copy of the transcripts to our office, and I thought it was worthy of a follow-up. That’s why I sent Tozzi down to Atlantic City.”

  Gibbons was getting impatient. “Yeah? So what’s the problem?”

  Ivers picked up a pencil and started tapping the tape recorder. “I’m not even sure there is a problem. It’s just a suspicion right now. But a very strong suspicion.”

  Gibbons shifted in his seat. “So are you gonna tell me, or is this gonna be a Hitchcock movie?”

  Ivers frowned. “I want you to hear something,” he said. The SAC stood the small tape recorder up on one end and pressed the Play button.

  Gibbons heard the hiss of interference, then a phone ringing twice. Someone picked up. “Yeah?”

  “Hello, Mamma? This is your favorite son, Mike.” Gibbons recognized Tozzi’s voice. “The ravioli wasn’t very good this week. No taste at all.”

  “That’s too bad. Keep in touch, Mike,” Tozzi’s contact responded. Someone hung up, then a dial tone.

  Gibbons grinned to himself, reca
lling Tozzi’s favorite undercover call-in method. He reported on his progress as if he were critiquing Italian food. When the food wasn’t good, that meant he had nothing to report. When the food was good, that meant he was on to something. When it was out of this world, he’d hit the jackpot.

  Ivers unbuttoned his suit jacket and Gibbons spotted his pale yellow suspenders. Very fashionable, Brant. Gibbons brushed a speck of lint off his charcoal-gray suit pants as the dial tone ended and the tape rolled silently. He’d bought this suit in 1974, on sale. It was August. He remembered because it was one week before Nixon had resigned. It came with two pairs of pants and cost sixty-nine ninety-five. Whenever he wore it, he couldn’t help thinking of Nixon waving to his staff as he got into the helicopter on the White House lawn like some banana-republic dictator making a run for it. It was a good suit.

  The phone on the tape started ringing again. The gruff man’s voice answered again, Tozzi’s contact. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, Mamma, this is your hoy, Mikey,” Tozzi said. Even with the pay-phone static, Gibbons could detect a wiseguy edge in Tozzi’s voice. Maybe someone was listening and he had to stay in character.

  “Where’ve you been, sonny boy? You forget about your mamma? It s been almost two weeks. Pappa’s been worried about you.” The contact made no attempt to hide his annoyance. Gibbons looked up at Ivers. Pappa.