Bad Business (26 page)

He can deduct it from my fee
.

Nemo seemed to pulse with renewed strength when he heard that. He opened his eyes and stared up at Augustine.

“And what if I don't do it? What're
you
gonna do about it?”

Augustine flinched. Another stab under the eye.

Why, the arrogant little prick
.

Augustine knelt on the barbell and gritted his teeth. “Do you recall what happened to your friend Giordano? Hmmm? I can arrange for a repeat performance, little man.”

Nemo made a sound somewhere between a groan and a wail. “Whattaya talkin' 'bout? I don't understan'.”

“Don't worry about understanding. That's not your concern. Just do what you're supposed to do and the story will have a happy ending.”

Nemo was struggling pathetically, huffing and puffing to get the barbell back on the rack, but Augustine's knee was on it. Nemo was still fighting him. He needed more convincing.

“How much dope do you think there is in one of those packets, Nemo? About 300 grams, I believe. About a third of a kilo. If I let you keep, say, three packets, how long would that last you? One whole kilo of uncut heroin. That's the same as—what?—about ten kilos of the adulterated stuff they sell on the street.”

He moved a little farther forward, pushing the barbell more toward Nemo's abdomen, where he couldn't hold it up
as well. Augustine stared at Nemo's contorted, purple face as he winced against his own torture.

“Wait, wait! Shit!”

Augustine paused. “Yes?”

“You'll square it with Salamandra? He'll never know it was me who got those packets? You won't tell him?”

“If you do those two things for me.”

Nemo was breathing hard. He was thinking too much. Augustine continued to move the barbell.

Come on, dammit!

“All right, all right! I'll do it! I'll do it!”

“Good.” Augustine stood up straight and let the barbell drift back toward him. He stepped back, away from the rack. “Take a load off, Nemo. Get comfortable.”

The drilling eased up a bit.

Nemo made that ungodly noise again as he heaved the barbell onto the rack. It landed with a metallic clang. Nemo's arms fell to his sides. He was out of breath, tongue hanging out, totally exhausted. Marat in the bathtub. Under his coat, Augustine was drenched himself.

Augustine gazed down at him as if he were a worm on the pavement. The man was pathetic. But he wondered just how pathetic. Pathetic enough to mainline pure heroin? That would be convenient. After all, today's confidant can be tomorrow's tattletale, and Nemo was certainly the type to go crawling back to Salamandra, crying for forgiveness. These sentimental Mediterranean types are like that. Well, if the dope doesn't get him, something else will. It can be arranged when the time comes.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a rowing machine on the other side of the room. A poor substitute for the feel of real oars. He suddenly recalled what it was like to take a shell out alone on the river, the invigorating breeze at your back, the pure joy of controlled energy. Lord, he hadn't
done that since Yale. The memory made him smile. He took a deep breath and realized that the pain was beginning to subside.

Yes, he thought, cream always does float to the top.

“Ai-okay!” the instructor called out from the corner of the mat.

Tozzi glanced over at Neil Sensei as he moved to the front of the mat, his loose-fitting black
hakama
swishing as he walked. Tozzi's partner—another blue belt named Sam—stopped pushing, and they bowed to each other. They'd been on their knees facing each other for the past five minutes, sitting
seiza
as they did
kokyu dosa
, which was always the last thing they did in aikido class. It wasn't a technique or a throw, and it was much more than just an exercise. It was more like a self-test of your
ki
, your internal energy—or whatever you wanted to call it, since everyone seemed to have their own definition for
ki
.

Tozzi and Sam had been taking turns pushing each other over, one holding his hands out in front of him to push while the other held the offered wrists and resisted. If the guy doing the pushing used too much muscle and not enough
ki
, he usually couldn't make his partner budge. It was hard to explain how it worked, but when you got the right feeling—a
heavy, rooted feeling in your gut, a strong but relaxed feeling in your arms, moving from your center and not just using physical power—it worked. You could move the guy, no matter how big he was, push him right over onto his back, where you'd pin him—again using
ki
, not muscle—and he'd try to sit up and break your hold. Tozzi and Sam were pretty evenly matched. Neither one blinded the other with his radiating
ki
. But tonight Tozzi was a little off. He kept reverting to muscle, and Sam's resistance was good enough to frustrate him. He just didn't seem to have it tonight. Maybe if he practiced just a little more. Maybe Sam would stay late and work with him.

The others in the class had scrambled back to the front of the mat by now and were sitting
seiza
in a straight line facing Neil Sensei, who was also sitting
seiza
. He was the only one wearing the black skirt-pants, the
hakama
, which only black belts wore. Neil Sensei silently inspected the troops, checking everyone's posture, making corrections with gestures, not words, arching his back or expanding his chest to encourage his students to “be big.” It was a common problem, one of Tozzi's major ones. He was a pretty big guy and he thought he had fairly good posture until someone would point out to him in the middle of class that he was all hunched over. This tended to happen a lot whenever he did
kokyu dosa
, and it affected his ability to be strong. It reflected a less than positive mind, Neil Sensei had said. In the past three years, since he'd started taking aikido, Tozzi had often thought his poor posture was indicative of a basic character flaw: low self-esteem. He wanted to be big, but his body kept broadcasting the opposite.

When Neil Sensei was satisfied that everyone's posture was as good as it was going to get, he spun around on his knees and faced the framed Japanese
kangi
characters that spelled out “Aikido” hanging on the wall, and everyone bowed together. He spun back around and smiled behind his droopy moustache.

“For those of you who are new, welcome to the Hoboken Koki-Kai School of Aikido.”

Tozzi looked down the line. He'd noticed a few new faces tonight. One guy was wavering back and forth, a big guy. His legs must've been killing him. They always do when you start out.

Neil Sensei surveyed the class, smiling and nodding, not saying anything. He always did this at the end of a class. It was another kind of test to see if you could keep good posture to the bitter end. Tozzi remembered when he was a white belt. These last few minutes were always agony.

Finally Neil Sensei bowed to the class and everyone bowed back, shouting in unison, “Thank you, Sensei.” Tozzi normally hated protocol, but here he didn't mind it because all the formal bowing was really just thanking your partners and your teacher for a good practice, not paying respect to someone just because he had rank.

Neil Sensei walked off the mat by himself, then everyone got up and dispersed, wandering off to change. Tozzi got up and stretched his legs, but he stayed on the mat. He didn't want the class to end. For a little while, he'd been able to forget about his troubles. But now the image of Augustine's shadowy face in his dim-lit study was haunting him again, and anxiety started to rise up around his knees like a gathering fog.

He looked around for Sam, but Sam had already gone to the locker room. He thought about asking someone else to practice with him a little while, then changed his mind. He was too agitated and he had a feeling that more bad
kokyu dosa
would just make him even more hyper. Instead he went to a corner of the mat near the windows and sat
seiza
. He thought maybe if he did a little breathing exercise, he might be able to recapture something of that nice, confident, centered
ki
feeling. He could definitely use it right now.

He started slowly, arching his back and closing his eyes,
exhaling out his mouth evenly for thirty seconds until there was absolutely nothing left in his lungs, holding it for a count of five, then—and this was the hard part for him—inhaling through his nose continuously for thirty seconds, holding for another five count, then starting all over.

Tozzi concentrated on his breathing, estimating the time rather than counting it out. But after a couple of cycles, he started thinking about Augustine again and that fancy town house of his and the piece of the rug he'd given him. He imagined the pattern on that rug, and his stomach bottomed out. Forty kilos of heroin. If he was ever caught with forty keys of heroin, they'd hang him up by his balls and let him twist in the wind. He could just hear Ivers screaming at him, telling him that he should've known better, that he should've turned it in to the Bureau. His suspension would have nothing to do with it, Ivers would tell him. There'd be no excuses.

Tozzi thought maybe he could try explaining that he needed the rug to deal with Augustine, who was trying to frame him. Except no one was gonna buy that. Augustine was the white knight; he, on the other hand, was the hothead, the renegade, the guy with the attitude. Christ, his murderous inclinations were even in the newspaper, thanks to that little fink, Moscowitz.

Tozzi strained to keep inhaling as long as he could. If they ever caught him in possession of that much dope, Augustine'd probably prosecute the case himself. And despite all the allegations and accusations Tozzi could make against him, the bastard's armor would end up shining like the sun. Tozzi could see it all now: Augustine puts the dirty FBI agent away as his last case before leaving the U.S. Attorney's office and assuming his new duties as mayor of New York City. One last triumph before he goes. Originally, when he'd gone to Augustine's town house, he'd thought he'd be able to lead Augustine's mind with the rug, lead his mind the way he did in aikido, make the attacker follow your bait, snooker
him into a compromising position, then throw him down hard on his ass. But now he wasn't so sure that was going to work with Augustine. He could see it all backfiring on him. Maybe he put too much stock in what he learned on the mat. Maybe aikido principles shouldn't be translated so literally into everyday life. Maybe it was just good for throwing people here in the
dojo
or maybe even in a fistfight. Maybe going to Augustine with that patch of rug was a mistake, a big mistake.

Tozzi's chest shuddered as he inhaled. He suddenly realized that his shoulders were hunched again. He wasn't being big. Shit.

“Yo, ‘scuse me.”

Tozzi opened his eyes. One of the new guys was standing over him, the big guy who was wavering on his knees at the end of class. He was a huge black guy, six-two or -three, at least two-forty, with a blubbery gut that bulged out of his
gi
jacket. Most new people didn't have
gis
their first time on the mat. Maybe the guy had studied some other martial art at one time or another. Must've been a long time ago, though, judging from the size of that gut.

“Hey, man, can I ax you a favor?”

Tozzi looked past him. The
dojo
was empty. Everyone else had gone home. “Sure.”

“That cokie-dokie thing we did at the end, that don't make no sense to me. What's dat s'posed to be?”

Tozzi looked up at him. He was bouncing as he stood there, all his weight on one leg, his face scrunched, head tilted over to one side.

“How're your legs?”

The guy looked down at his legs. “My legs are my legs, man. They work.”

“I mean, can you sit
seiza
a little more?”

“No problem.” The big guy lumbered down to his knees in front of Tozzi, sort of like an arthritic hippo. “Show me how it s'posed to go.” He stuck out his hands. They were like
baseball gloves. His forearms were as thick as baloneys. He reeked of cooking grease.

“My name's Mike, by the way.” Tozzi offered his handshake.

“Uh . . . Darryl. But my frien's call me French Fry.” He flashed a big smile and showed a few missing teeth as he gripped Tozzi's hand. It was like a big fat bat wrapping its leathery wings around Tozzi's paw.

“Okay, now the first thing about
kokyu dosa
is that it's not a contest. It's not like arm wrestling. If it were, obviously you'd win . . . most likely. Given our size difference. Here, lemme show you. You push me. Use a lot of muscle and push hard.”

French Fry put out his hands and Tozzi took his wrists. French Fry pushed hard, but Tozzi used
ki
and made his arms unbendable, strong but relaxed. French Fry wrinkled his face and sputtered as he pushed, but it was no use. He couldn't push Tozzi over. He got up off his butt to bear down harder, but his hands kept going up over Tozzi's shoulders. Tozzi sat there, smiling cryptically, the same way Neil Sensei did, rooted to the mat, making French Fry frustrated as hell. He felt good. He'd had a moment of doubt that this big guy was going to move him and make him look stupid, but his aikido was working. He felt bad that he'd ever doubted. It did work.