Bad Apple (15 page)

Freshy did as he was told, but he didn't look happy about it. Taking orders for menial tasks didn't make him much of a tough guy. Gibbons smiled with his teeth.

“Now get in,” Stanley ordered.

When Gibbons took his time doing it, one of them shoved him from behind, and he landed on top of one of the stools, banging his chest. A dull pain like an old bruise radiated through the entire left side of his chest. He had a feeling that if he hadn't taken that pain-killer, he'd be in tears right now. He hauled himself up with some difficulty and sat down on the stool. Stanley was reeling in the coiled wire of Dougherty's headphones, yanking them off the poor guy's bloody head.

Freshy shut the sliding doors. “Drive,” Stanley said to him. The little shit stuck Excalibur in his coat pocket, climbed behind the wheel, started the engine, and screeched out into traffic.

“Where'm I going, Stanley?”

“Pass by the parking lot. See if Bells got the car. We gotta find him.”

“Right. Good idea.”

Stanley gazed at all the high-tech surveillance equipment jammed into the back of the van. He looked like a chimp sitting in a space shuttle. He pursed his lips and frowned as he tentatively pulled the headphone jack out of its plug. A speaker mounted on one of the walls suddenly crackled to life with an
erratic wash of static. Stanley held out the headphones to Gibbons. “How's this stuff work?”

Gibbons laughed. “Don't ask me, pal.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “The guy you left back at the curb is the one who knows how to run this stuff, not me.”

Stanley glared at Lorraine. “I thought you said they could track them. Huh?”

Lorraine set her jaw, then threw an accusing look at Gibbons. “I thought you
could
track them with this equipment.”

Gibbons shook his head. “You two watch too many James Bond movies. That transmitter Tozzi's wearing is very fluky. You gotta be within a quarter mile to pick up a signal. And if he's in a steel-frame building or there's one between the transmitter and the receiver, forget about it.”

Lorraine protested, “But you heard him inside the store, didn't you?”

Gibbons shrugged. “It's an old building. I dunno. Ask Dougherty.”

“This is giving me a friggin' headache,” Stanley grumbled at the speaker, and he went to put the headphone jack back in to silence the static.

“Why don't we leave it?” Lorraine blurted. “In case something comes through.”

Gibbons stared at her. He was gonna kill her. No question.

She stared back at him, defiant and angry. “Leave it on. I want to know if Michael's all right.”

“Yeah,” Freshy piped up from the driver's seat. “I want to know if my sister's okay, too. That freakin' nut Bells is liable to do anything.”

“Shut up!” Stanley yelled.

Gibbons reached over to the volume control and turned it down.

Lorraine was glaring at him. For some reason she really had it in for him, but he couldn't believe it was just because he was grouchy before.

“Hey, Stanley, look. The car's still there.” Freshy was pointing through the windshield at a parking lot on Thirty-fourth Street past Ninth Avenue. The silver BMW was parked out front, facing out. There was no one in it.

Two NYPD patrol cars sped down Thirty-fourth in the opposite direction, lights flashing, sirens whooping. No one said anything. No one had to. It wasn't hard to guess where the cops were going.

“Take this right,” Stanley said.

Freshy turned in where a big green sign said
LINCOLN TUNNEL.
“But this goes back to Jersey, Stanley.” Even though he was already on a one-way access road to the tunnel and he couldn't turn around, he wasn't so sure about this. “What about Bells . . . and Gina?”

“Don't worry. I know Bells. I know where he's gonna go.” Stanley sounded grave.

“You do? How do you know that?” Freshy was obviously worried about his sister.

“Everybody's out looking for him. His face is on TV and everything. I know how he is. He's going nuts thinking about it.” Stanley looked at Gibbons. “He probably thinks he killed a fed, too. You are a fed, right?”

Gibbons nodded. He was tempted to say something about Bells shooting Special Agent Petersen, but he decided not to get Stanley riled. If Stanley was in the mood to talk, let him talk.

“If I know Bells,” Stanley said, “he's gonna go where he feels safe, and there's only one place. He's pretty good at keeping his cool, but I've seen him lose it. Gotta find him before he does. Gotta get him outta here before he gets pinched.” Stanley was
mumbling to himself, gazing down at the gun in his hand, imagining something.

“Whatta'ya mean? What happens when he loses it?” Gibbons wished he could see into Stanley's head.

Stanley looked up with basset hound eyes, but he didn't answer the question.

Freshy glanced back over the bucket seat. “So where's he gonna go, Stanley?”

“You know.”

“No. Not there.”

Stanley didn't answer.

“Shit! Shit, shit, shit!” Freshy was suddenly very upset.

Gibbons was confused. He didn't like the sound of any of this.

As the van slipped into the artificial light of the tunnel, the soft crackle of the static began to fade. Lorraine stared at the speaker, then threw her head back and sighed. “Oh, God.”

“Just walk. Keep walking. Just keep on walking.”

Tozzi wanted to kill the bastard. He and Gina were walking, holding hands and climbing the subway steps like a nice couple, just the way Bells wanted, but the son of a bitch kept giving them orders anyway. He was right behind them, holding his gun on them in the pocket of his overcoat, talking nonstop in that singsong wiseguy drone of his, telling them to keep walking. Tozzi swore to God he was gonna kill this bastard. For Gibbons.

The image of Gibbons lying on the floor—one leg crooked back, lifeless arms up over his head—was driving Tozzi crazy. He wanted to rip Bells's fucking heart out.
Gibbons.
He'd killed
Gibbons.
The bastard should suffer, suffer a lot. Tozzi wanted to get a piece of Bells so bad, his hands were shaking.

When they reached the top of the stairs and walked out into the sunlight on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Spring Street, on the edge of SoHo, Tozzi glared at Bells sideways.

Bells was grinning like a lizard. “You like this, don'cha, Mikey-boy? Holding hands with Gina, strolling down the street. Maybe we should go check out some art galleries while we're here. That's your kind of thing, isn't it, Gina?”

“Go fuck yourself, Bells.”

Bells laughed. “You got some fresh mouth, Gina. I don't know why they call your brother Freshy.”

Tozzi tried to smother his fury. “Where we going, Bells?”

“Whatta you care, Mikey? You got the girl. Just enjoy it.”

“Yeah, right.”

“You telling me you're not enjoying it? C'mon, Mikey, be honest now. You been dying to get Gina in the sack. Or who knows, maybe you done her already. Is that it, Mikey? You had her a couple of times, and now you don't want no part of her no more? Is that it? What'sa matter? She snores?”

Tozzi slid his eyes toward Gina, but she kept her eyes straight ahead. He wasn't sure if Bells was just guessing about them. Maybe he knew about that afternoon at her apartment.

“Tell me. Is she nice, Mikey?”

Gina's glasses flashed as she whipped her head around. “Get off it, will ya, Bells? You're not funny.”

“Oh, no? You used to think I was funny.”

Tozzi tried to catch her eye, but she was looking straight ahead again.

They passed an old-fashioned barber shop and a jewelry repair shop as they headed east toward West Broadway, where the expensive shops and galleries were. And the crowds. Tozzi had been shitting bricks on the subway, worrying about Bells with that gun in his pocket while they were jammed in shoulder-to-shoulder with dozens of citizens. Tozzi was afraid something might set him off, and he'd start shooting again the way he did in Macy's. Luckily, nothing happened on the subway, but Tozzi knew he had to keep him away from crowds.

Tozzi's head started to throb again from the pistol-whipping. He thought about his black-belt test scheduled for that night, and suddenly he wanted to bite something, he was so mad. Not because he was going to miss it again. That didn't matter anymore,
not after what had happened to Gibbons. What pissed him off was that he'd come all this way, studied aikido for five and a half years, and what good did it do him? Here he was at the mercy of some jerk who had no formal training in anything, just some scumbag lowlife with a gun. He remembered what they always said at aikido practice. A guy comes at you with a gun, just give him what he wants. No martial art in the world can help you against a bullet from across the room. And even though Bells was up close and the gun was in his pocket, which could've given Tozzi some leverage, he was handcuffed to Gina, so he couldn't risk it. He felt totally helpless handcuffed this way. The only thing to do was to just stay calm and relax. Be aware of everything that's going on all around. Maintain the basic principles of aikido. And hope for a miracle.

Tozzi sighed. Why bother studying any martial art when all you have to do is plunk down a couple hundred bucks for a handgun, and you've bought yourself total control? It wasn't fair. Sure, he knew aikido training was supposed to be a constant ongoing thing, something you did for life. You were always a student, no matter how long you'd been doing it, and no one ever “mastered” it, not even the masters. Besides, aikido was supposed to be
life
training, not combat training. There was a lot more to it than just fighting. Tozzi knew all that, but it wasn't very reassuring right now. All he knew was that he was almost a black belt, and Bells, who only wore a belt to keep his pants up, had the upper hand. And all he had was a goddamn gun. Christ.

Tozzi's temper started to simmer down. Getting mad never helped anything. He felt Gina's fingers in his hand. They were cold. She was gonna catch pneumonia. It was pretty chilly out, and she was only wearing slacks and a blouse, but she wasn't complaining, not about that. The wind blew her hair across her face and into her glasses. He wondered what she was thinking.
He wondered what was really going on between her and Bells. She was too quiet, angry but not outraged. Sure, she was tough, but wouldn't someone being kidnapped at gunpoint be a little more hysterical? Maybe she felt guilty about something she'd done to Bells. Maybe she thought she deserved this. Why wasn't she putting up more of a fuss? Why didn't she seem scared?

But that got Tozzi thinking about how
he
looked. Was he reacting like Mike Santoro the pornographer or Mike Tozzi the FBI agent? Maybe
he
should be a little more hysterical. Maybe he should try to weasel his way out of this, the way Mike Santoro would, profess shock and innocence at what was going on, grovel a little. Maybe he was being too stoic for the greaseball he was supposed to be.

Yeah, but what if Bells already knew that he was an undercover agent? Freshy could've told him. Tozzi wouldn't put it past that little shit. If Bells knew, maybe he was thinking he could use Tozzi as a bargaining chip to negotiate his way to freedom. The problem was, he didn't know what Bells knew, and Bells wasn't saying anything. Obviously Bells knew Gibbons was the law, or he wouldn't have shot him. But how much else did he know? Tozzi glanced over his shoulder at Bells's face. It was disturbingly placid under the circumstances, almost as if he were meditating. You could never tell what this guy was thinking, what set him off. Tozzi had to get him talking.

“Why me, Bells? What'd I do to you? I don't get it.”

Bells didn't answer. They were walking together at a nice clip, but Bells was in his own world now.

“Talk to me, Bells. Lemme help you. We'll figure something out.”

Bells started to laugh. It started as a private little hiss, but it soon snowballed into near-hysterical belly laughs.

Gina parted the hair out of her face and looked back at him. “You're sick. You know that?”

“C'mon, Bells. Listen to me. Lemme help you out here. Take the cuffs off. C'mon.”

Gina smirked. “How's he gonna do that? He doesn't have the key.”

She was right. Bells hadn't taken the security guard's keys when he knocked the guy out. Still, Tozzi had to keep up the chatter. He had to get Bells talking. Bells had to realize his hostages were people, not props.

“Bells, you're not listening to me. I wanna help you out.”

Bells slowed down their pace. He was laughing so hard, he was in tears. “Help me out? How're you gonna help me out? You're a fucking rat, Mikey. You don't wanna help me. You wanna screw me.”

The word hit Tozzi like a dagger in a tree trunk.
Rat.
Bells did know.

“Whatta'ya talking about, Bells? Whatta'ya mean, ‘rat'?”

Bells was out of control, laughing like he was on laughing gas. “You're a rat, Mikey-boy, a big fucking rat. That old guy I shot at Macy's? The one with the swollen face? You met him out in front of the candy store in Bayonne this morning. You told me he was just some guy looking for a dentist or some shit. Well, I saw him on TV, Mikey. He's a fucking fed, my friend.”

Was
a fed, Tozzi thought.

“You've been working with the feds, Mikey-boy. That ain't nice.” Bells wasn't laughing anymore.

Tozzi's gut turned to concrete. He was afraid to deny it. Bells might go berserk. But if he admitted that Bells was right, Bells would kill him for sure.

“Is that true?” Gina glared at him.

“What?”

“That you're working with the government. You were trying to get my brother in trouble, weren't you?”

“No.”