5 Bad Moon (22 page)

The blonde smiled and nodded.
“Da,
moh-nee. Sohk, feefty. Fohk, one honndred.”

“That’s very nice, honey. Now get back down there and finish. We gotta talk business here.”

The blonde looked puzzled.

Sal pointed over the seat, down at Charles’s crotch. “Don’t look at me. Look at him. Go on. Get back down there and finish up what you were doing.”

She looked dubious, but she knew what he meant. Her head disappeared in his lap. Charles coughed and squirmed. He glanced nervously in the rearview mirror. Sal could hear her sucking up a storm down there, but the sounds coming out of Charles weren’t exactly the sounds of pleasure.

The blonde started jabbering again. She sounded disappointed.

Sal leaned forward and looked over the seatback. “What happened, superstud? I thought you brothers never had those kind of problems.”

Charles muttered something under his breath.

“Did you pay her, Charles?”

“Yeah.”

“Then take a hike, honey bun.” Sal jerked his thumb. “He’ll come find you later when he feels up to it. Go ’head, go.”

The blonde was puzzled, but she got the idea when Sal tossed a twenty at her and pointed to her door. Lucky for her she didn’t speak English. Pros usually keep their mouths shut anyway, and this one was probably here without papers. He didn’t have to worry about her. As she closed the door outside, Sal got a close-up of that red Ace bandage thing over her crotch. Weird-looking thing.

The door slammed shut. In the quiet, Sal could feel Charles simmering. “Don’t get moody on me now, will ya, Charles?”

“I was into something with her, Sal. Couldn’t you wait outside just five minutes?”

Sal leaned over the seatback. “A boss does not wait, Charles. Not for nothin’. You’re a man of honor now. You got responsibilities. You got obligations, obligations to
me
.”

Charles turned around and glared at him. “Yeah, I got all these obligations, but I ain’t got no pay, Sal. When do I get to see some cash?”

“You got a fresh mouth, Charles. You don’t talk to a boss that way. You got a lot to learn, pal.”

“Yeah, but what about—”

“Shhh.” Sal put his finger to his lips. “Never mention money to me. It’s disrespectful. It’s out of line. You work for me and I take care of you. From now on I’m like your father, okay? Certain things you just don’t ask. When I have it, I’ll provide for you. That’s all you need to know.”

Charles zipped up his pants and tucked in his shirttails. He was pissed.

“Here.” Sal reached into his jacket and pulled out the 380. He tossed the gun over the seat, then took the silencer out of his pocket and threw that over, too.

Charles frowned down at the hardware. “What’s this for? What do I need this for?”

“I got something for you to do.”

“What?”

“Don’t say ‘what?’ like that. You don’t say nothing when I tell you to do something. You just do it. That’s all. You’re lucky I’m such a fucking patient guy. You know that, Charles? Mistretta was your boss, you’d be facedown in the mud in Secaucus saying hello to the rats. You know what I’m saying, Charles?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know.”

“Now, listen to me. We got one more guy to whack. Vacarini. You know who I mean?”

“Yeah, Juicy. I know.”

“He’s not gonna be a big problem. I’m not worried about him. What I am worried about is what happens
after
we do him.”

“Whattaya mean, Sal?”

“I’m worried about Emerick. Oh, by the way, did you get me any more Thorazine for him?”

“No, sorry, I forgot again. I’ll get you some this week. Don’t worry. I won’t forget.”

“Jesus, Charles. My sister’s having a hell of a time keeping the guy under control. And he’s talking too much now. He needs his pills.”

“I’ll get ’em. This week. I promise.”

“Please. I don’t wanna wake up one morning and find my sister nailed to the wall, for chrissake. You know what I mean? Now, what was I saying? Oh, yeah. Emerick. We gotta do Emerick after we do Juicy. Can’t risk keeping him around. You know what’ll happen if the cops catch him? They’ll take him back down to the bin. What if he starts talking to the doctors down there? He knows them, he trusts some of them. What if he starts telling them things? What if he remembers too much about us and Mistretta? He could fuck us up. I was thinking maybe instead of just letting him go, we should do him, too, and make it look like he killed himself. Whattaya think? That fit in with his psychological profile? Would he do something like that?”

Charles shrugged. “I dunno. He’s a nut. Nuts do all kinds of weird shit. Sure, I guess he’s the kind who could do himself. Why not?”

“All right then. That’s what we’ll do. Right after we do Juicy.”

“So how we gonna do Juicy?”

“He’s not hard to find. Don’t worry about it. I called a guy from my old crew today, guy named Loopy Lou. He’s gonna find out where Juicy’ll be this week. I’ll let you know.”

“You want me to whack him?”

“What else?”

“By myself?”

“Why not? Is that a problem?”

Charles shrugged. “No. No problem.” He picked up the silencer. “I never used one of these things. How’s it work?”

“Here. Gimme.” Sal took the silencer from Sal. “Gimme the gun. I’ll show you.”

Charles passed the gun back and peered over the seat as Sal held the silencer to the barrel of the gun. “See? It goes on like this. Just screw it together, that’s all. Only, don’t strip the threads when you put it on. You put it on crooked, it could explode in your hand when you pull the trigger. Here. Put it away now.” Sal handed the gun and the silencer back to Charles.

Charles sat behind the wheel, holding the gun and the silencer, nodding at them. Sal could hear him trying to screw in the silencer. “There a trick to this, Sal? I can’t get it to go in.”

Sal grinned. Of course you can’t, Charles. That one’s not threaded.

He reached into the pocket of his jacket and got his hand around the butt of the other 380, the gun he’d used on Mistretta and Bartolo, the one Charles shot Tozzi with. He flipped the safety with his thumb while it was still in his pocket.

“I really hate to see Emerick go, but you know how it is, Charles. Emerick’s like a lotta people. He talks too much. Whether a guy’s nuts or not, a lotta guys have this thing inside them that makes them want to spill their guts. I don’t know what it is, but a lotta guys have it. That’s why you should never trust too many people. There are very few people in this world who can really keep their mouths shut.”

Charles nodded. He was still trying to get that silencer on.

“Sometimes you can’t even trust a made guy. I seen it happen. Guys I never woulda believed would ever do such a thing.”

“Ummm
…
” Charles wasn’t listening. He was still trying to figure out how that silencer went on.

“Take my advice, Charles. Don’t trust anybody you can’t trust. You know what I’m saying? Now that you’re a made guy, I want you to understand that you’re part of my family. I treat you like a son, you treat me like a father. Understand?”

“Yeah, I understand.”

“That’s why I want to give you my blessing.”

Sal looked around to see if there was anyone outside, any of those cocoon people. Then he put the barrel of the gun to the back of Charles’s headrest.

“Hey, Charles.” Sal looked at Charles’s face in the rearview mirror.

“What?” They made eye contact in the mirror.

“Didn’t you hear me? I said I wanna give you my blessing.”

“Huh?”

In the name of the Father
…

The explosion rocked the car. Sal’s ears popped. Blood glistened on the dashboard. Charles started to slump forward, but Sal reached over the seat and caught him by the jacket before he leaned on the horn.

And the Son
…

Sal fired through the seat. The body jolted.

And the Holy
…

Sal pulled the trigger again. The head jerked back and slammed into the headrest. Sal couldn’t hear a thing now.

Ghost
…

Another jolt. Sal’s ears ached.

Amen.

The vinyl on the seatback was smoking. He pushed the body over onto its side on the front seat. Charles would’ve looked like he was just sleeping it off if it weren’t for the shine of all that wet blood in the darkness.

Sal got out of the car and opened the driver’s door with his sleeve over his fingers. He leaned in and found the gun and the silencer on the floor under the steering wheel. Loopy Lou had gotten the gun for him and had it delivered to Cil’s place baked in a loaf of bread from the bakery. As Sal bent down to get the hardware, his face was right next to Charles’s lap.

Too bad you didn’t come when you had the chance, Charles. The girl was doing her best. We coulda said you went happy. Too bad.

Sal stood up, shut the door with his hip, and started walking back to Lucy’s little Datsun. He peered into the shadows, his hand on the warm gun in his pocket, ready to start shooting if he had to. But even though he was still tense, he was glad this was all done. He didn’t need Charles anymore. The guy was just a goddamn liability. If he ever got caught, he was gonna talk himself silly. Sure as shit.

But as he walked back toward Tenth Avenue, Sal couldn’t help wondering if maybe he should’ve done the pro, too. He wasn’t that worried about her, though. He didn’t think she saw him that well. What he was worried about was getting the hell out of there. He hoped to hell that goddamn Datsun didn’t act up on him again. He didn’t like being out here like this. Too many hiding places for a shooter. And with those fucking guys you could never be too careful.

Sitting on the edge of the couch in his borrowed apartment, Tozzi stared at the headline on the
New York Post
:
HOLY GHOST HIT MAN STRIKES AGAIN
! The front-page photo was a classic rubout shot, the car door open, body slumped over the seat, one leg hanging out, blood trickling off the shoe. Tozzi had already read the article. It was real creative writing. The reporter had done some snooping around the local mental hospitals, and somehow he found out about Donald Emerick’s escape. Since Sal Immordino had been incarcerated on the same ward as Emerick, and Charles Tate, this latest victim, had worked on that ward, all the reporter had to do was connect the dots. According to the article, Sal was doing a Svengali on Emerick, controlling his mind, sending the guy out to kill for him. It wasn’t that different from the scenario Madeleine Cummings had come up with the other night in Ivers’s office, and this guy from the
Post
didn’t even have a Ph.D.

Tozzi shook his head and frowned. Reading Cummings’s theory in the tabloid put it in its proper perspective. It was pure bullshit. It would’ve worked better as a plot for a grade-B mad-scientist movie with swirling pinwheels and that weirdo singing-saw music they always used in the fifties.

To his credit, though, this genius from the
Post
had figured out that Sal was on a revenge trip, getting back at people who’d wronged him in the past. Mistretta and Bartolo were obvious targets. “Undoubtedly” Tate must have mistreated Sal in some way at the hospital, the reporter speculated. Undoubtedly. Another scene from a grade-B movie. Igor whips Frankenstein, Frankenstein gets loose and breaks every fucking bone in Igor’s body. What this brilliant journalist didn’t mention at all was the other victim, John Palasky. What the hell did he do to Immordino? “Undoubtedly” John must’ve done something to deserve seven slugs at near point-blank range.

Tozzi put down the paper and breathed deeply until his stomach unclenched. Actually, he was thankful that the press hadn’t gotten wind of the fact that the “Holy Ghost” had struck a fourth time out in Jersey. He’d managed to keep the police from releasing the details of John’s murder. Tozzi was even more thankful that they hadn’t found out that it was the Pump-It-Up Girl who was sitting in the driver’s seat next to John when it happened.

He glanced down at the pile of windup toys Stacy had brought him on the coffee table. He hadn’t seen her since the night John was killed. They’d talked on the phone, but she was still freaked and she said she wasn’t ready to see him yet. He had a feeling she was afraid of him now, afraid that being around him was dangerous. He wasn’t worth the risk. He looked down at his crotch. He was still in his T-shirt and shorts. She was right. He wasn’t worth the risk.

He stared out into space. Lorraine was probably right, too. He was poison with women. Stacy was a kid, she didn’t need all his head trips. It was all for the best that she was scared off.

He caught himself staring at that picture on the front page again, Charles Tate’s foot hanging out of the car. What Tozzi wanted to know was how this reporter found out about Emerick. Why would the hospital tell him anything? Admitting that they’d had an escape would just be embarrassing for them. Could Cummings have talked to the press? He didn’t think she would, not on her own at least. He just wondered if this was some kind of ploy she had cooked up to flush Emerick out, something Ivers had approved that they weren’t telling Gibbons about because he’d been sulking and dragging his ass, resenting the fact that Cummings was in charge of this investigation now.

Tozzi shifted his gaze and stared out the grimy window at the morning light coming through the iron security bars. It was the most light he’d seen in this place since he’d moved in here. He didn’t think a first-floor apartment got this much sunlight, not in New York. Unconsciously he fingered the bullet scar on his bare thigh as he stared at the filthy sun-filled window and seriously considered doing what he’d been thinking about.

Ivers had ordered him to sit tight and stay out of this, to use his sick leave to recover. But when the hell did he ever listen to Ivers? Immordino was behind all this, he was sure of that, and the bastard wasn’t mental and he wasn’t Rasputin the mad monk either. He was a dethroned
capo
making a power play for control of the Mistretta family, a bold, desperate gambit. This was about power, not psychopaths.

The phone rang. Tozzi blinked, realizing that he’d been staring at the sunlight. He reached for the receiver on the end table. At this hour he knew who it was.

“G’morning, Gib.”

“Fuck good morning. You seen the paper yet?” Gibbons had a full head of steam going and it wasn’t even seven o’clock.

“Yeah, I saw it. The Holy Ghost Hit Man. It was just a matter of time before they came up with a name. It’s catchy. Lot better than Son of Sam, I think.”

“Holy Ghost, my ass. It’s Immordino.”

“You don’t have to convince me.” Tozzi rubbed his eye. “You think it was Cummings who talked to the press about Emerick?”

“Shit, she doesn’t talk to anyone about anything. Doesn’t have to because she knows it all. She spends all her time on the phone now with Behavioral Science in Quantico and then huddles with Ivers in his office. They don’t tell me bullshit.”

“She still staying over your place?”

“Unfortunately.”

“You home now?”

“Yeah.”

“Isn’t she gonna hear you?”

Gibbons raised his voice. “I don’t give a good goddamn what she hears.”

“You think you can shake her this morning?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, Toz. She may need me to go out for rubber bands or something crucial like that.” He was more sarcastic than usual.

“Listen, why don’t you ditch her and meet me this morning? I’ve got an idea.”

“Meet you where?”

“Queens. Mistretta’s funeral is this morning.”

“I already told Ivers and the good doctor we should be over there, but they said no, it’s not that important. We can get an intelligence report from the NYPD people. Christ, Ivers’d eat shit if she told him it was a brownie.”

“I bet Immordino will be there.”

“You think so?”

“Of course. He’ll be acting like an idiot, but he’s gotta be there. If he’s ready to make his move, he wants everybody to know that he’s back on the scene, and Mistretta’s funeral is the perfect place for his coming-out party. The whole family will be there.”

“Yeah, but Juicy’s running the show now. He’s not gonna put up with Sal’s shit. I bet he won’t even let Sal into the church.”

“Nah, Juicy’s not gonna make a scene, not at Mistretta’s funeral. They gotta pay their respects to the old man. Anyway, Sal can’t afford not to go.”

“How do you figure?”

“Sal’s gotta get the hearts and minds of the rank and file. He hasn’t been out of the bin long enough to go around and press the flesh, reestablish the old ties. If he knew he had enough guys he could really count on, he could say fuck it and just stay home. Let ’em think he had Mistretta killed, he wouldn’t care. Staying away would be his challenge to Juicy. But I don’t think he has that kind of manpower yet, so he has to go. Until he can make some promises and win some of these guys over, he’s gotta watch himself. The soldiers are gonna stay loyal to Juicy until they hear what Sal’s offering.”

“Hmmm
…
you could be right, Toz.”

“But I don’t wanna go to the funeral to
see
anything. I wanna
be
seen.”

“Whattaya talking about? Sal thinks you’re dead. You gotta stay out of sight.”

“No, that’s the point. I wanna be the monkey wrench in Sal’s works. He sees me alive, he’s gonna have to rethink his plans. Besides, a lot of those wiseguys know who I am. What’ll they think if they see me sitting in church with Sal? I wanna get right up next to the big son of a bitch and act like we’re old pals from way back. How many supporters do you think Sal will get once they see him cozying up with the FBI agent who supposedly can put him away? You know what they’ll think? They’ll think he’s made a deal with the government, that he’s talking to us. That’s what they’ll think. And that’ll make him poison.”

“Immordino’s not gonna stay put for that.”

“What’s he gonna do? He’s gotta keep up the numskull act because he’s in public. He can’t do anything to me. He’s not gonna punch me out in church, not in front of all those people. He knows there’s gonna be cops there watching. And just in case he happens to whisper sweet nothings in my ear, I’ll be wearing a wire. We get him on tape telling me to get the fuck away from him, and he’s screwed. We take it back to the judge, and Sal will have to stand trial on all the old charges.”

“You got it all figured out, huh, Toz?”

Tozzi sighed into the phone. He could hear it coming. “Go ’head, say it. You don’t like any of this. This is ‘free-lancing,’ according to you. You think we should go ask Ivers for permission first. But you know what the hell he’s gonna say. Cummings has him buffaloed with this serial-killer bullshit. Christ, if we call and ask him right now, Mistretta will be rotting in the ground by the time he gets around to giving us an answer.”

Gibbons didn’t say anything. Tozzi could hear him breathing. At least he was thinking about it.

“Look, we’ve got an opportunity here, Gib. We can possibly put Sal Immordino away for good. At the very least, we’ll keep him from taking over the family. Face it, Juicy’s no angel, but at least he’s predictable. Sal, on the other hand, has big ideas. He always has. He takes over, and we’ve got problems. They’ll be into shit we never even heard of.”

Gibbons was still thinking.

“But we gotta act now, Gib. The funeral starts at ten. We got three hours. If you don’t wanna come, don’t come. I’ll go alone. Stick with Cummings. I’ll be all right.”

“You got a wire?”

“Yeah, I got a Nagra here. I got surgical tape, fresh batteries—I’m ready to go.”

“Where’s the funeral?”

“Howard Beach. The church is St. Anthony’s. It’s on 159th Avenue.”

“I know where it is.” Gibbons sighed into the phone. “Okay. I’ll be parked across the street at twenty after nine. You find me.”

“I’ll be there.”

Tozzi hung up and stared at the phone. That was too easy.

He got off the couch and walked through the living room to the bedroom. The first thing that caught his eye when he entered the room was the folded black cloth belt on the dresser. It was John’s black belt, brand-new, never worn.
Sensei
had given it to Tozzi, and he planned to put it in John’s casket before they sealed it. His funeral was on Friday.

Tozzi picked up the belt and weighed it in his hand.
Sensei
had suggested that Tozzi hold on to it for himself, for when he finally made
shodan.
He could wear it in memory of John. But Tozzi didn’t feel right about keeping it. He’d called John’s father and asked him what he thought about burying John with his belt. Mr. Palasky said John probably would’ve wanted that. Aikido had meant a lot to him.

Tozzi looked at himself in the mirror over the dresser, standing there in his underwear, hair mussed, the belt in his hand. John was a good guy. It shouldn’t have happened to him. Tozzi put the belt back on the dresser.

“Immordino’s not gonna get away with this,” he murmured to the belt. “I promise you, John.”

Tozzi pulled the T-shirt over his head and picked up the Nagra mini-tape recorder from the dresser. He stood sideways in front of the mirror and held the Nagra to the small of his back. That’s where he’d put it. Run the wire around his ribs and up his chest, then attach it to the tie-pin mike. He’d never liked wearing these things. They were an invitation for trouble. If a wiseguy ever caught you wearing one, you could just forget about it. But this time it was different. He wasn’t going undercover, and he didn’t think anyone would be frisking him in church, least of all Sal the dummy.

He took the roll of surgical tape, pulled out about six inches, ripped it off, stuck it to the dresser, then pulled off six more inches. He stuck the strips of tape to the slender tape recorder, then carefully brought it to his back, watching in the mirror. Positioning it in the crevice of the small of his back, Tozzi held the Nagra in place with one hand as he smoothed the tape against his skin. As he attached the last piece, the doorbell rang.

Tozzi frowned at the front door. “Who the hell
…
?”

He snatched the T-shirt off the bed and put it on as he went to the intercom in the living room. “Yes?”

“Hi. It’s me. Stacy.”

“Oh
…
hi.”

“Can I come in?”

Tozzi buzzed her in and glanced at the clock on the mantel. Five after seven. Why so early? he wondered. He grabbed the knob and started to open the door when he suddenly realized that he was still in his shorts. He rushed back into the bedroom and grabbed his suit pants.

When he came back out, Stacy was standing in the living room, wearing a black minidress made out of sweatshirt material under a tan trench coat. She flipped her long corkscrew curls over her shoulder and looked at him with sad eyes. She looked washed out, like she’d been crying a lot. “Hi,” she said. It was little more than a whisper.