Bad Guys

by Anthony Bruno

  “I heard you were moving out west, Toz,” Bobo said, grinning like a weasel. “What happened? You come back?”

  “That was canceled.” Tozzi glanced at a stack of VCRs on the floor behind the door. “So tell me, how’ve things been with you?”

  Bobo looked confused. “Ah, not bad. Can’t complain.”

  “I mean since you got into this.” Tozzi pointed toward the shelves full of tapes. “After your boss went to jail.”

  Bobo coughed up a weak laugh and nervously flicked cigarette ashes on the floor. “Who’s that, Toz?”

  Tozzi grinned and shook his head. This was to be expected. Guys like Bobo never admitted that they worked for people like Joe Luccarelli, except when they were bragging to each other. He looked at the stack of VCRs again. “Those for sale?” he asked Bobo. “I’m looking for a good machine.”

  “Those? No, sorry, Toz, they’re not for sale.”

  “No? Then what are they doing there?”

  “They’re broke. People bring ’em in to be fixed.”

  Tozzi looked around the room. “I don’t see any tools, Bobo.”

  “Well, I don’t do it myself. See, I got this guy comes in, picks ’em up, fixes ’em at home. I’m just the middleman, you know what I mean?”

  “I don’t see any tags on those machines, Bobo. How do you know which one belongs to who?”

  Bobo pulled on his bottom lip. “Hey, Toz, is this a social visit or what?”

  “I’m just asking.”

  “It’s all kosher. Believe me.”

  Tozzi’s warm smile reappeared. “I’m glad, I really am. Because it would be a real shame if someone came in here asking for paperwork on those machines. You know they could give you a hard time about possession of stolen property, and that would be a real shame.”

  “You come here to bust balls or what? What the fuck do you want with me, Tozzi?”

  “Don’t get mad, Bobo. Please. I just want your opinion on a certain matter, that’s all.”

  “What? What is it?”

  “Well, I’ll tell you. I look around in the neighborhoods—New York, Newark, Jersey City, Brooklyn, the Island, everywhere—and I see that there’s a lot of shit going down. You know, gambling, hookers, protection, narcotics. The kind of things you used to know all about. Right?”

  Bobo shrugged. He wasn’t admitting to anything.

  “Now here’s what I can’t figure out. The families aren’t what they used to be, everybody’s doing time it seems like. So where’s all this heavy action coming from?”

  Bobo kept flicking his cigarette. “Hey, Toz, you weren’t born yesterday. If there’s a buck to be made out on the street, there’s always gonna be somebody—”

  “But hold on!” Tozzi laid his hand on Bobo’s arm and Bobo flinched. “I’m not talking about small-time shit. I’m talking big deals, professional stuff. Somebody’s got to be financing it. The way I figure there’s got to be an angel somewhere backing up this kind of volume. Who could that be, Bobo? Who’s putting up the money?”

  “Tozzi, you’re out of my league. I don’t know nothin’ about that kind of stuff anymore.”

  The warmth in Tozzi’s smile turned cold. “You got a nice business here, Bo. What’s really nice about it is that it’s all cash. How many tapes you rent in a day? Hundred and fifty, two hundred, two-fifty. That’s four, five bills a day times seven days a week—all cash. Even if you report just half of what you make, you’re still way ahead of the game.”

  “What’re you saying here, Tozzi? You saying I don’t run a legitimate business here?” Bobo’s jitters were making him belligerent now.

  Tozzi stared hard at him. “What I’m saying is that I can get the IRS on your ass in ten minutes if that’s what you want. And believe me, they really like guys like you, Bo. They’ll look into everything. Those guys’ll get so cozy around here, you’ll begin to think they’re in bed with you at night.”

  “Give me a break, will ya?”

  “And even if they don’t prosecute—which is a long shot given your record, pal—the fucking back taxes and penalties will kill you. Do you doubt me, Bobo?” Tozzi looked down at the VCRs again and tapped the bottom one with his shoe. After a long pause, he asked, “So what do you think, Bo?”

  Bobo’s face was sweaty. He kept rubbing his mouth and pulling on his lip. “You don’t know what you’re asking me for, Toz,” he muttered. “This is very heavy, man. Heavy-duty.”

  “Yeah? Tell me about it.”

  Bobo abruptly walked to the back door. He was all hunched over as if he had bad stomach cramps. He looked like he was beginning to shrink. Tozzi followed him. “I shouldn’t be telling you this,” Bobo hissed.

  “I won’t tell anyone where it came from,” Tozzi said.

  Bobo’s mouth was dry. He was having a hard time breathing. “There’s a new boss. There’s a whole new fucking family.” Bobo glanced out to the front of the store. “Richie Varga.”

  Tozzi wasn’t surprised. But how the hell could Varga run a family while he was under witness protection? “Keep talking, Bo.”

  “Don’t ask me how he’s doing it or where he is ’cause I don’t know, I swear. All I know is that his people are creepy as hell. A lot of them are leftovers from the old families, but some of them nobody’s ever heard of before, especially the enforcers. It’s like these guys popped up from nowhere. And that’s why they’re so creepy. They’re invisible.”

  Bobo’s eyes suddenly widened. He looked at Tozzi and the thought crossed his mind. Tozzi? Nah, not Tozzi.

  “I don’t believe it.” Tozzi shook his head. “Varga was a little nothing. Even when the big boys took him in for helping them dump Collesano, he was still a little schlump. How could he get that kind of power?”

  “Varga may look like a jerk, but believe me, he’s not. When he got to New York, he started making connections, doing little deals here and there, building up his bank account.”

  “Come on, will ya? What kind of connections could Varga make in New York? Sure, the bosses were happy to have his help against Collesano and the Philly mob, but they weren’t that in love with the guy. They kept him on a short leash, they had to. You can’t tell me Luccarelli, Mistretta, and Giovinazzo just let him pull whatever deals he wanted. With those guys, you play by their rules.”

  “Not with Varga, Toz. With him it was different. They were like broads with him, they loved him. They let him get away with murder.”

  “Why?”

  Bobo looked very panicky and very pale. “Because he proved himself,” he whispered.

  “What do you mean ‘he proved himself’?”

  Bobo seemed to be having a hard time breathing. “This is only what I heard, you understand? I wasn’t there. This is just what I heard, okay?”

  “Yeah, I understand.”

  “Okay . . . okay . . . See, Varga wanted to prove to them that he was on the up-and-up. He screwed his own father-in-law right up the ass, so he didn’t want the big boys to have any doubts about his loyalty to them. Now I don’t know how he knew this, but he told them that he found out there were feds working undercover inside the families, at least three that he knew of.”

  A gunshot went off in Tozzi’s brain. Lando, Blaney, and Novick.

  “The bosses wanted to hear names, but Varga said he’d take care of it for them. About a week later he called for a meeting—the back room of this restaurant in Brooklyn, Gilberto’s in Sheepshead Bay. Luccarelli, Mistretta, and Giovinazzo all sitting together, suspicious as hell of each other, waiting to see what Varga had for them. Finally Varga comes in pushing one of those dessert carts.” Bobo couldn’t seem to catch his breath. He swallowed hard and went on. “On the cart there’s this long tray with one of those clear plastic lids you can see the cannolis and stuff through. But right away, everybody can tell it’s not pastry under there. Varga whips the lid off to show the bosses. Three heads. I heard the eyes were scooped out, too. Because they saw what they shouldn’t have, you know. The bosses recogni
zed them. One from each family. Varga goes in his pocket then and pulls out their badges to prove that they really were feds. Gave ’em to the bosses as souvenirs. But you didn’t hear it from me. You understand, Toz? You did not hear it from me.”

  Tozzi wasn’t listening. His vision blurred. He was thinking about Joel Lando. He wanted to break something. “You’re full of shit, you fucking liar. Could never have happened, never. Varga had no muscle of his own back then, and that limp prick sure as hell didn’t do it himself.”

  “I heard it was his bodyguard who actually did the job. Varga just ordered it.”

  “Who’s the bodyguard? What’s his name?”

  “I don’t know, Toz, I swear. All I know is that they call him ‘the Hun’ because he looks like a fucking Nazi even though he’s Italian. That’s all I know, Toz, I swear.” Bobo raised one hand and laid the other on a video box lying on a shelf. “I swear to God, Toz.”

  The Hun, the Hun . . . it didn’t ring any bells with Tozzi. He tried to think of German-looking guys, light blonds with clear blue eyes and square heads, tall well-built guys, but he couldn’t come up with any grown-up Hitler Youth in the mob. But his head was racing, and he couldn’t think straight—he was too angry to think straight.

  He grabbed Bobo’s coffee-stained shirtfront. “I want to know the Hun’s name.”

  “I’m telling you, Toz, I don’t know any more than I told you. I—”

  Tozzi’s hand slammed into Bobo’s throat, forcing his head back into a shelf. “You think I’m fucking around here? I want that guy’s name, do you understand me? I want to know who Varga’s bodyguard was and I want to know right now.”

  Bobo’s face was red, his arms hanging helplessly at his sides like stiff salamis. He was too scared to defend himself. “Toz, I don’t—”

  “Two hours, asshole. That’s how long it’ll take me to get a couple of IRS agents down here.” Tozzi was putting all his weight on Bobo’s throat.

  “Listen . . . listen,” Bobo croaked. “I swear to you, I don’t know who this Hun guy is, but I know someone who probably does. Okay? Someone who’s been doing a lot of work for Varga lately. You know Paulie Tortorella?”

  Tozzi shook his head and let up a little on Bobo’s neck.

  “He’s crazy, the kind of guy who’ll do anything for a buck as long as there’s a thrill in it. Used to be a nobody, a hanger-on. Did little stupid jobs for Giovinazzo’s people every once in a while. These days he calls himself a specialist, a torch. He’s a real arrogant little son-of-a-bitch.”

  “Where do I find him?”

  “I don’t know where he lives, but he hangs out at this place on Ferry Street in the Ironbound. A Portugee bar, Leo’s I think it’s called.”

  “How do I find him?”

  “You can’t miss the little fuck. He looks like a jockey, five-feet-nothin’. And a real loudmouth.”

  Tozzi let go of Bobo’s throat and pulled the man’s face up to his own. “If I don’t find this Tortorella where you say, I’ll be back. Okay?”

  Tozzi didn’t wait around for a response. Bobo just stood there, paralyzed, watching as Tozzi shoved his way through the front of the store.

  “Hey, Bobo.” The black kid poked his head through the doorway. “We got somethin’ called My Bloody Valentine!”

  Bobo shook his head and closed his eyes.

  TWELVE

  Tozzi unwrapped what was left of his veal-and-pepper sandwich and tossed it out the window to a mutt pawing through the garbage inside a ripped plastic bag. The dog was all black, and in the dark of the alley, it was just a pair of tawny eyes. Tozzi stared at those fearful, suspicious eyes as the dog sniffed the sandwich. He felt like giving somebody a break because no one was giving him one.

  He punched the buttons of the Buick’s silent radio in frustration as he looked at the front door of Leo’s Tavern, nervously trying to make something happen. The car, a ’77 copper-brown LeSabre, belonged to a man in his aunt’s building who was laid up in the hospital. Tozzi was “borrowing” it. For the past two hours, he’d been staring at that door and the flickering neon Rheingold sign in the window. His back was sore, his underwear was all crammed up his ass, and he had a throbbing headache. Sitting tight on a plant could be fucking torture.

  Since seven o’clock that evening, he’d mentally taken note of everyone who’d gone into the tavern, then one by one accounted for them as they left. At eight-twenty he went in, sat at the bar, ordered a beer, and looked around for anyone small enough to have been a jockey. There were a couple of short stocky guys, but they were all Portuguese immigrant stonemasons, still wearing their work clothes, their shoes and pant legs white with mortar dust.

  Tozzi nursed his beer, then ordered another. He struck up a conversation with the bartender about the World Cup games and this wonder that Argentina had on their team, Diego something or other. Tozzi didn’t know shit about soccer, but the bartender was a fanatic, so it was easy for Tozzi to make the guy carry the conversation by just acting enthusiastic. It was one of those bullshitter techniques Tozzi had become good at.

  After he finished his second beer, he waved so long to the bartender, who was busy uncorking a bottle of wine for the stonemasons, and went back to the car where he’d been sitting ever since. Now it was twenty to midnight. The bar would be open till two, but Tozzi had a feeling Tortorella wasn’t going to show tonight. He didn’t have a good reason, he just had a feeling. He reached for the key in the ignition and thought about Gibbons. Gibbons would wait for the place to close. Gibbons always went by the book. Tozzi preferred his instincts. They always used to argue about that.

  Anyway, to hell with Tortorella. He had a better idea.

  He fired up the engine and pulled the long metallic-brown sedan away from the curb. Tozzi was nervous and he had to move. He knew where he was going, but he wasn’t sure why he was going there. He just told himself something would happen when he got there.

  “What?” Her voice on the intercom didn’t sound pleased.

  “Hi,” he said, leaning into the intercom box. The fluorescent lights in the vestibule were too bright. He felt exposed.

  “Who the hell is this?”

  “It’s me, Thompson. Your lover boy.” He felt like an asshole as soon as he added that.

  She didn’t respond. After a few seconds, the buzzer buzzed and he pushed through the glass door.

  On the elevator up to her floor, he suddenly wondered what the hell he was doing there. But by the time the elevator doors opened on her floor, he wasn’t worrying about that. Tozzi told himself he didn’t need reasons; only bad guys needed reasons.

  Turning a corner in the hallway, he suddenly spotted her leaning against her open doorway, wearing a long blue caftan. Her hair was tousled and loose, her eyes smoky and subversive. Young Lauren Bacall with a little Sophia Loren thrown in. She didn’t say a word; she didn’t have to.

  “How ya doin’?” he said. He hoped a boyish grin would do the trick. If he had a boyish grin.

  She didn’t say anything. So much for his boyish grin.

  “Okay. So now that we both know I’m an asshole and that I shouldn’t be pulling this kind of shit at my age, why don’t you accept my apology and invite me in for a drink? Two fingers of rum with a splash of soda. And a piece of lime if you’ve got any.”

  “I don’t like rum. Will Chivas do?”

  “Sure, fine.”

  She turned and headed for the kitchen. He followed, watching the bottoms of her bare feet play peekaboo under the hem of the caftan. She seemed to have pretty big feet for a woman. Roberta had little square feet. Fred Flintstone feet. Joanne’s were big but narrow and graceful.

  “You had a bad day, right?” she said sarcastically as she pulled down two rock glasses from the cupboard. “And you just had to see me.”

  “You sound like you’ve heard this before.”

  “Yup.”

  “From Richie?”

  She gave him the finger.

  “Okay, okay. I
won’t even mention him. I promise. Anyway, I didn’t exactly have a bad day, just an unproductive one.”

  “For me, that’s a bad day,” she said, handing him his drink.

  “Salute,” he said, and clinked her glass. He thought about mentioning the bomb in his cousin’s car, but then decided not to. There was nothing to be gained from bringing it up. Joanne didn’t like to reveal much of herself in the way of emotions; she didn’t even bother to fake it. Whether she was playing straight with him or not was going to remain her business and hers alone.

  “I just came because I wanted to see you,” he said.

  “Uh-huh.” She sipped her scotch and looked at him over the rim of her glass. Vintage Bacall. He’d always thought Bacall was hot.

  “Yeah, well on second thought, maybe it has been a bad day,” he said. “But I don’t really want to talk about it.”

  “I know you don’t want to talk about it.” There was a wry laugh in her reply. “Tell me, are you still going to be ‘Mr. Thompson’ with me?”

  He thought about it for a minute. He’d slept with her, for chrissake. If she was involved with the mob, she probably already knew his name, just like Vinnie Clams did, so it wouldn’t matter if he told her. He had a feeling she wasn’t involved, though. Oh, what the fuck. “My name’s Tozzi, Mike Tozzi.”

  “That’s better.” She raised her glass to him and smiled.

  He grinned and put his drink down on the kitchen counter. He looked her in the eye and they started to laugh at nothing. Then he pulled her close and kissed her, a silly, sloppy, delicious kiss. She didn’t taste so much of tobacco this time.

  “That’s better,” he said. He smoothed the material over her ass and the back of her thigh. She wasn’t wearing anything under the caftan.

  “The kitchen floor isn’t my style, Tozzi.” She disengaged from his embrace, picked up her drink, and walked out of the kitchen.

  Tozzi grabbed his drink and followed her into the bedroom. It isn’t her style, she’d said. It was too uncool just to say no. From the living room, he could see her standing by the bed, pulling the caftan over her head. She stood there looking back at him, resting one fist on her naked hip. She took another sip of her drink, and the rim of the glass underlined those beautiful dark eyes. Entering the bedroom, Tozzi wondered if Bacall ever said something wasn’t her style in any of the Bogart movies.