Bad Luck (11 page)

A couple of guys laughed. The nun was staring hard at the little guy who asked the question.

Sal sipped his wine.
“Don't worry about him. He's not dumb, he knows how to add. He'll go for the money.”

“But what if he doesn't want to do it?”

A big grin opened up across Sal's face like a crack in a dinosaur egg.
“Don't worry about it. I'm a very persuasive guy.”

Everyone laughed, even the nun. Except she seemed to be forcing it. Maybe she thought it was expected of her.

Around the dinner table, the wiseguys kept making jokes about Sal's powers of persuasion, Juicy Vacarini say
ing that Sal might have to show Mr. Mad a few new moves. The men howled. Gibbons frowned. He didn't get it. The Golden Boy? Mr. Mad? People placing big bets in Las Vegas? None of this jibed with anything he'd read in the latest file on Sal Immordino. He looked at Dougherty who looked just as confused as he was.

Dougherty shook his head and shrugged. “This is all news to me.”

“Who's Mr. Mad?”

Dougherty shrugged. “Beats the hell out of me.”

Gibbons went back to the monitor. Watching them eat was making him hungry. He sipped his coffee and strained to make out what had degenerated into barely discernible hubbub. He wondered where the hell Dougherty had the mikes stashed.

Frank Bartolo asked someone to pass the grated cheese then, and he was told the bowl was empty. Sal picked up a cut-glass bowl and held it out toward one corner of the table.
“Joseph
,” he said,
“get some more cheese, will ya?”

It was the first thing Sal had said to his brother since they'd sat down to eat, and Joseph was looking daggers at him now.
“What do I look like? A waiter? Go get your own fucking cheese.”

The room was instantly silent. Sal held out the empty bowl, staring at his brother.
“I said we need more cheese, Joseph. I asked you nice. Now go get it.”
Sal's tone wasn't menacing. It didn't have to be.

Joseph's eyes darted around the table. They all stared back at him in silence, like buzzards. Even his sister. Finally he leaned across the table, snatched the bowl out of Sal's hand, and left the room in a huff. Cil looked at Sal and shook her head in disapproval, but Sal didn't acknowledge her. She folded her napkin and put it to next her plate, then got up and went after Joseph.

Dougherty quickly threw a couple of switches and turned a few dials. Another monitor came to life with Joseph leaning against a kitchen counter, a row of cabinets behind him, a big refrigerator by his side. Sister Cil was
Standing in front of the sink, clutching her elbows.
“Don't be mad at him, Joseph,”
she said.
“He's your brother.”

Gibbons caught Dougherty's Irish eyes. Who's he kidding? Gibbons thought. This sound is too good. He had to have gotten into the house and bugged the place silly. “Come on, Dougherty. Where are they?”

Dougherty waved him off, grinning. “Just listen.”

“Sal is forbidden from being himself and that's a terrible thing, Joseph. He may not show it all the time, but I know that he really does appreciate all that you do for him.”

Joseph threw his hands up.
“Then why does he treat me like a flunky, huh? He isn't fair to me, Cil. I never get to do anything on my own. I just take orders. I'm a nobody, as far as those guys out there are concerned.”

Sister Cil smiled tolerantly and held up the gold crucifix hanging from her neck.
“You remember what Grandma always used to say
? ‘Gesù Cristo vede e provvede.'
Jesus sees and provides. He'll take care of you when the time is right, Joseph.”

Joseph held the gold cross, leaned closer, and stared at it.
“Hey, what's wrong with Jesus' head?”

“What?”

He was pointing at something on the cross with his pinkie.
“See? All these tiny holes in His head? That's your big-deal brother Sal for you. He buys you crap, that's what he does.”

Sister Cil tucked in her chin and inspected the cross herself.

“Look close at the back of His neck. You can see where it was welded. Gold, my foot. This is a cheap piece of—”

“Be quiet, Joseph. Don't say another word.”
She reached behind her neck to unfastened the chain.
“I can't believe this
,” she said as she fumbled with the clasp.
“It's a sin, a sacrilege. How could anyone do such a thing? To Jesus, for God's sake. Sal's gonna have a fit.”
When she finally got the chain undone, she took down a glass from the cup
board and filled it with water. Her hand was shaking. It looked like she was the one having the fit.

“Whattaya talking about, Cil? You're not making any sense.”

“Be quiet, Joseph!”

She dropped the cross into the glass of water, and Gibbons's headphones let out a high-pitched squeal.

Dougherty ripped off his headphones. “Shit,” he muttered. “She found it. The only goddamn bug I had in there, and she found it. Shit, fuck, piss.”

Gibbons glanced over at Dougherty. His Irish eyes weren't smiling anymore. “I had a feeling that's where it was.” He shook his head and smiled with his teeth. “Sticking a bug in the Lord's head. You're gonna burn in hell a long time for this one, Dougherty. A
long
time.”

Dougherty scowled at him. “Yeah? Well, I won't be alone, Gib.”

Gibbons poured himself some more coffee from the Thermos bottle. As he took a sip he looked up at the silent nun in sheep's clothing staring at the cross in the glass on the counter, chewing on her finger, ignoring whatever it was her stupid brother Joseph was saying to her. Gibbons lowered the cup to his lap and wondered what the hell her problem really was.

ibbons sat by himself at a small round table in the cocktail lounge that was tucked around the side of the soaring escalators that led up to the lobby at Nashe Palace. He sipped the beer from his glass and made a face. He glared at the half-empty brown glass bottle with the frolicking country maiden on the label. Imported German piss was what it was,
expensive
imported German piss. Four fucking bucks a bottle. Waitress recommended it, said it was Russell Nashe's personal favorite. Just goes to show that money can't buy taste. Christ. Coulda bought a six-pack of Rolling Rock for what he was paying for this.

He looked down at his shoes and frowned at them too. They were white, to match his belt. All part of the costume: burgundy pants, yellow short-sleeved shirt, royal-blue polyester blazer. He'd been here two days and he'd worn this outfit the entire time, hoping to blend in with the thousands of senior citizens who were shuttled into Atlantic City every day by bus. He'd picked up Tozzi's trail
last night, and he'd been trailing him ever since. The outfit must've worked, because Tozzi hadn't spotted him yet. Gibbons sort of wished Tozzi would've made him by now, though. He didn't think he looked
that
much like a senior citizen. He glared over at Tozzi sitting at the bar with his back to him. Asshole.

He watched Tozzi trying to make time with the blond bartender again. This was the third time he'd come back here in the past eighteen hours, and the German piss was the fifth different beer Gibbons had tried. He wished Tozzi would go somewhere else, somewhere where they served something other than Bud and imported shit. But the asshole apparently had the hots for this blonde, so he kept coming back here. A real piece of work, this guy.

The blonde was wearing a gray fedora, a man's hat. She'd worn it yesterday too. She wasn't a knockout in the looks department, but there was something very appealing about her. She was different, Gibbons could tell, and in that hat she was very sexy, not centerfold sexy, really sexy. He'd heard her giving Tozzi shit earlier today, making fun of his oily guinea charm. She was sharp, with a good sense of humor and, more importantly, a functioning brain. Gibbons liked her. In a way, she sort of reminded him of Lorraine—the way she used to be.

Gibbons watched the blonde in the hat move down to the end of the bar to take care of a customer. He picked up his glass, went over the bar, and took the stool next to Tozzi.
“Qué pasa, goombah?”

Tozzi did a double take. He didn't seem happy to see his old partner. Suddenly his eyes were all over the place, looking for who knows what. Tozzi had always been a paranoid bastard, but never quite this obvious about it. Gibbons wondered whether Tozzi was afraid he was compromising his cover. Or was Ivers on the money with his suspicions about Tozzi going cuckoo? Tozzi did sort of have that unpleasantly surprised expression, like reality had just dropped by for a visit without calling first.

“What the hell you doin' here?”

Gibbons smiled with his teeth. “Shouldn't use that tone of voice with the customers,” he said. In fact, Gibbons didn't like his tone of voice at all. He'd overheard Tozzi doing the wiseass routine with the blond bartender before. He realized Tozzi was trying to stay in character, but the Nicky Newark act was a little
too
good. Gibbons looked down at the rock glass in Tozzi's hand. Bourbon, no doubt. Wild Turkey. Either that or that peculiar rum he likes. But at one-thirty in the afternoon? Was that part of being in character too? Gibbons had a bad feeling.

“What the fuck you doing here?” Tozzi repeated. Again, a little too belligerent for Gibbons's liking.

Gibbons nodded at the blonde in the hat pouring tomato juice into a Bloody Mary. “You boppin' her too? What'sa matter? Can't get enough from the boss's wife?”

Gibbons was guessing, but from the hateful glint in Tozzi's eyes it looked like he'd guessed right. He'd seen Tozzi with Sydney Nashe in the parking garage last night, and even though they were in public there was something about the way she smiled at him and kept touching his sleeve that indicated a little more intimacy than there should've been. He'd followed them into the lobby, and when they got on the VIP elevator alone together, Gibbons caught a glimpse of her reaching up for Tozzi's face as the doors closed. Gibbons had assumed they were going up to the seventeenth floor where Sydney kept her own private suite. He knew about Sydney's playroom from a New Jersey State Police surveillance report that was on file with the Bureau. Tozzi had never mentioned it in any of his reports.

The lines around Tozzi's mouth were getting deep and mean now. Gibbons shook his head. It never fails. When it comes to women, he always leads with his dick. Of course, with this dish Sydney, Gibbons could hardly blame him. “So tell me it isn't true.”

Tozzi glanced down the bar to make sure the blonde was out of earshot. “What do you think? Sydney's my best source. Also, my only source.”

“So enlighten me. What has she told you that you haven't been telling us?”

Tozzi's nostrils flared when Gibbons said “us,” and Gibbons wondered why. Was Tozzi storing up some kind of resentment against the Bureau? Or was he reacting to the fact that his old partner seemed to be putting himself on Ivers's side instead of where they usually were, out on the edge together? Tozzi looked back down the bar before he spoke. “She hasn't told me much. She doesn't give it away.”

“So what
has
she told you?”

Tozzi leaned closer. “Nashe is in deep with the Mistrettas. Five years ago they sold him the land we're standing on to build this place. Now his note is overdue and they want their scratch, badly. Sal Immordino has been down to make the collection himself. But as far as I can tell, the balance is still outstanding because Immordino has been back a few times.”