Bad Apple (24 page)

Gibbons stared blankly at the rows of bottles behind the bar. Maybe the bulletproof vest hadn't saved him that morning. Maybe he really was dead. Maybe this was the lounge act for hell. It was just too weird.

The stripper was leaning on her elbows, flipping through a yellow paperback edition of something called
The Consolation of Philosophy
by this guy Boethius. She had a cute jet-black Dutch-boy haircut that fell forward over her cheeks as she looked down at the book. Her boobs were dangling down over the bar. They
were cute, too. He wondered whether Lorraine had noticed that the kid wasn't wearing anything. She had a way of being oblivious to certain things. When she'd spotted the book on a chair behind the bar, Lorraine couldn't help asking who was reading it. The Middle Ages was her period, after all, and when the stripper told her she was reading it for a lit class she had to take, Lorraine's teacher mode kicked right in, and she started unloading everything she knew about this Boethius guy. The kid was eating it up. She knew she was getting a hand-feeding, and Gibbons was willing to bet that Lorraine's words were gonna find their way onto this kid's final.

Gibbons checked the place out. Two old geezers were down at the other end of the bar, clutching drafts and ignoring each other. There must've been some customers in the back room because the bartender had brought a tray of drinks back there a little while ago, but Gibbons hadn't actually seen anyone. It was a good thing the patrons were more interested in drinking than seeing the show. Lorraine's lecture had stopped the action. Philosophy and T&A don't exactly mix.

“So Boethius was really that important,” the kid was saying. “I couldn't figure out why our professor had us reading him. He's a little on the boring side.”

Lorraine took a quick sip of her scotch. “Boethius is
very
important. He was the main disseminator of Platonic thought in Western Europe.”

The kid's eyes widened between the wings of her haircut. “Our professor never told us that.” She had one of those sweet, ingenuous voices that reminded Gibbons of girls who wore bulky turtlenecks and corduroy skirts out in the sun. Not g-strings by the cool blue light of a jukebox.

“The works of Plato were unknown to Europe in the Middle Ages. The Arab world knew Plato, and it was through Arab
interpreters of Plato that Boethius formulated his philosophy. If it weren't for him, the importance of Plato and his followers might never have influenced Western thought. And can you imagine what would've happened then?”

Gibbons's eyes slid toward his wife over the rim of his glass. A world without Plato. Perish the thought.

He gritted his teeth in a grin of pain as a flurry of throbs shot through his jaw. He flipped his wrist over to look at his watch, then glanced at the front door. He'd called in to the field office for the fourth time a half-hour ago, and they gave him the same old shit: Stay put, men are on the way. It had been almost three hours since Buddha Stanzione threw him and Lorraine out of the surveillance van and left them on the street. You'd think Ivers would've sent some guys right out,
pronto
, considering the situation. Well, they could take their goddamn time now. The trail was stone cold. Bells might've been in the area three hours ago, but he was long gone by now. They could count on that. Gibbons drained his glass and motioned to the scurvy-looking barkeep to do him again.

Lorraine pointed at her empty glass, too, but she didn't miss a beat with the kid. She just kept on yapping. “I'm sure your lit professor told you about the Wheel of Fortune. Fate personified as a woman? Lady Luck, she's sometimes called. She's often portrayed wearing a huge wheel on her body with tiny mortals caught in the spokes. The ones at the top of the wheel are joyous, while the ones at the bottom are in misery. Chaucer spoke of the Wheel of Fortune in several of his poems, if I remember correctly. Well, this popularization of human fate being cyclical and out of the individual's control comes directly from Boethius.”

The stripper nodded, raven hair bouncing like the beautiful Breck girl. She was taking down notes on cocktail napkins. A
small stack was piling up on the bar. Gibbons still couldn't believe this—Lorraine oblivious to the whole scene here, acting like this kid with the nice gazongas was one of her students and this was her office down at Princeton. Maybe this was how she was dealing with the whole trauma thing. First she sees him getting shot, then she sees Tozzi getting kidnapped, then she gets kidnapped herself—maybe this was like denial for her. Still, it was very weird. Never in a million years would he have thought he'd ever see his wife in a place called Joey's Starlight Lounge. Never.

Gibbons glanced at his watch again. What the hell was taking them so long? Apprehending Bells was supposed to be top priority. Two agents—no, three if you counted him—had been assaulted by this guy in less than twenty-four hours, and this is the kind of response you get? Frigging Bells had shot him and left him for dead. Same with Petersen, and for all Gibbons knew, Petersen might have croaked in the hospital sometime today. And Tozzi? Well . . .

He looked down at the bar in front of him, and as if by magic, a fresh drink was sitting there, waiting for him. He picked it up, took a long sip, and basted his bad tooth in liquor for a while before he swallowed. He'd been trying not to think about Tozzi because he didn't like what common sense was telling him was most likely true. If Bells had had no compunction about taking nearly point-blank shots at FBI agents twice today, what was he gonna do with the one who was actually wearing a wire on him, the one he had handcuffed like a prisoner on a chain gang? It was time to face reality. Tozzi could be dead.

Gibbons stared down into the amber liquid in his glass, and the bar and the jukebox and the kid with the tits and even Lorraine flew out into the stratosphere, leaving him alone in an empty black hole, just him and the bartop and what was left of
his scotch. Tozzi dead. He felt like pulling into himself and grabbing onto whatever he could. Tozzi dead. Things wouldn't be the same. He wouldn't be able to work anymore. Couldn't deal with a new partner and wouldn't last ten minutes on a desk job. Tozzi dead. Lorraine would be different. She'd blame him, blame the Bureau, which would amount to the same thing. Tozzi dead. It could never be the same. None of it. Nothing. Tozzi dead. Just pull back and hang on to what's left.

He reached for his glass, but he couldn't lift it to his lips. What was the point? Tozzi was dead.

Gibbons let out a sigh so deep and sad, it felt like his ghost had slipped out his nose and left him there. He really didn't care, though. Everyone in this place was alone and separated. Lorraine and the stripper kid weren't talking; they weren't communicating. Lorraine was spouting, and the kid was sopping it up, thinking about how she was gonna ace this lit course with all this stuff she was getting down on the cocktail napkins. The two old drunks sitting together down the end of the bar didn't even acknowledge each other, let alone anyone else. The bartender was busy counting out the cash in the till. Gibbons was tempted to strike up a conversation—something he never did unless he was looking for information about a suspect. Bartenders were supposed to be good at listening to other people's troubles. They probably don't care any more than the next guy, but they know how to make believe. That was okay. Gibbons would take the make-believe understanding. He just needed to talk to someone, anyone. Because Tozzi was dead.

“Say,” Gibbons started, but the bartender's gaze sailed past him to the front door. His sickly face was drawn. All of a sudden he was tight-mouthed and owl-eyed. He kept counting the money in his hand, but he wasn't looking at it.

Gibbons looked at the reflection in the mirror to see what had spooked him.

Holy shit! It was Bells.

The mobster breezed past the blue glow of the jukebox, ignoring the bartender, who obviously knew who he was. He was holding a big plastic Ace Hardware bag, something heavy inside. He was heading for the back room. Gibbons instinctively reached inside his jacket for Excalibur as he got up off his stool. He heard the words in his head before he started to say them:
Freeze! FB
—

His fingers fell into the empty holster. He forgot. He didn't have Excalibur.

But Tozzi was dead.

Gibbons moved fast, as if he were weightless. He swept an empty longneck Bud bottle off the bar in front of the closest drunk, and before the drunk realized it was gone, Gibbons had it jammed in Bells's back, his other arm wrapped around the bastard's neck, pulling him backward.

“Freeze, motherfucker! FBI!” Gibbons's breath was hot, ignited by his wailing tooth. He was breathing fire.

Lorraine spun around in her seat. “Gibbons!”

“Jesus!” The stripper stood up and covered her nipples with Boethius.

Bells was relaxed, almost limp.

The bartender's eyes bulged. He looked toward the back room. “Stanley!” His voice was a sharp rasp, like an old dog's bark.

The name didn't register with Gibbons until eight figures emerged from the gloom of the back room: Bells's right-hand man Stanley, Buddha Stanzione, that little shit Freshy, and Buddha's pack of gorillas.

Gibbons cursed under his breath behind Bells's head. The gang was all here. Wonderful.

“Hey, Bells.” Stanley's greeting was tentative.

Buddha's eyes were cold. “We been waiting for you, Bells.”

Freshy was nervous, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He avoided looking at anyone for too long.

The gorillas, like their boss, only had eyes for Bells. It was as if Gibbons weren't even there.

Gibbons glanced into the mirror over the bar. The women were frozen, the drunks confused. He looked at the bartender's face, wondering whether the guy realized that he was holding a beer bottle to Bells's back and not a gun. It was hard to tell. The bartender's slack-jaw expression was hard to read.

“Let him go,” Buddha muttered.

Stanley chimed in. “Let us deal with him.” He sounded a little uncomfortable siding with Buddha against his man Bells. Of course, with all these gorillas hanging around, he didn't have much choice.

Gibbons glanced at the mirror again. Bells was looking right at him, flashing this shitty little grin, like he had something up his sleeve. He was still holding the bag from the hardware store, which got Gibbons to wondering about what he had in there. But it was the smug, lizard-eyed look on the bastard's face that he couldn't figure out. You'd think the guy would be a little shook up under the circumstances, but instead he was very cool. He actually seemed to be enjoying himself.

Bells raised his eyebrows at Gibbons in the mirror. “Vest?”

Gibbons didn't answer, but he was surprised the bastard recognized him.

“You were wearing a bulletproof, right? Son of a gun.” He shook his head and chuckled, like a multimillionaire who'd just
lost ten grand at the roulette table, like it didn't matter, it was only money.

“C'mon, Gibbons. Let him go,” Stanley repeated.

Bells smiled at the little capo. “I didn't see any cars outside, Buddha. You must've parked on the side behind the hedges and come in the back way, right? I should've thought to check. How stupid.” He rolled his eyes to the side and looked at Gibbons in the mirror. “I guess you didn't know they were here either, huh?” He was still smiling like none of this mattered to him.

Buddha was getting that constipated look, like he wanted things to get moving. The gorillas moved closer, crowding in around the capo's back.

“Forget it,” Gibbons said to the whole bunch of them. “He's under arrest, and I'm taking him in.”

Buddha shook his head.

Gibbons ignored him. “He'll stand trial for what he did. The right way. Not your way.”

Bells started laughing, softly and to himself. Gibbons frowned. What was he doing, building his case for an insanity plea? Gibbons dug the beer bottle into his back out of spite.

“He's ours,” Buddha mumbled. “We'll take care of him our way.”

“Forget it.” Gibbons listened for the door behind him to open. If it was true that timing was everything, now would be a great time for those guys from the field office to show up. Gibbons waited, but he didn't hear anything. So much for timing.

Stanley stepped forward. He had a curious look on his face.

“Stay where you are.” Gibbons jammed the bottle into Bells's back and jerked him back.

“Easy, my friend, easy, easy.” Bells was smooth.

Stanley took another step closer and craned his neck to see
behind Bells's back. Gibbons felt his stomach sink. He knew right there and then that he was screwed.

Stanley turned to the pack. “Freshy, you still got his piece?”

“Yeah.” Freshy pulled Excalibur out of his pocket and held it up for everyone to see.

“That's what I thought.” Stanley moved closer and stared down at the beer bottle. His big jaw broke into a big grin as he shook his head. “Nice try, Gibbons.” He took the bottle out of Gibbons's hand and waved it at Buddha and his bruisers.

On Buddha's nod, the gorillas moved in and grabbed Bells. He didn't say a word, and he didn't look particularly upset either. One of them looked in the plastic bag and pulled out a box of heavy-duty lawn-and-leaf plastic bags and a couple of rolls of duct tape. The gorilla reached in again and came up with an electric knife sharpener.

Lorraine covered her mouth. “Oh, my God . . .”

“Upstairs,” Buddha grumbled. “Everybody.”

“I'll make coffee,” Bells quipped as the gorillas shoved him through the back room.

Stanley had his gun out. “Mrs. Gibbons?” he said to Lorraine. He was being polite about it, extending his arm to show her the way.

She looked at Gibbons, her brows slanted back in distress. “Do we have to . . . ?”