Bad Guys (21 page)

If the Manhattan field office was a village, Gibbons often thought, Hayes would be the village idiot. He looked like a pro linebacker stuffed into a Robert Hall suit, but he had a soft whispery voice and a vague, confused way about him. He'd started with the FBI as a special agent, believe it or not. His size was an asset, but he was never able to bring himself to use it as a means of intimidation. And, of course, once he opened his mouth, he didn't seem very intimidating at all. His main problem as an agent had been that he was too thorough. He did things the right way, which meant his methodology was impeccable but his results amounted to shit.

Gibbons sat at the cubicle with a yellow legal pad in front of him, trying to figure out how to overwhelm Hayes and throw up a smoke screen for Ivers. He had no choice but to use the files now, and Ivers would get his weekly printout of who called up what on the computer.
But if Gibbons called up a lot of stuff, all kinds of stuff, it might keep Ivers busy second-guessing him for a while.

Gibbons put together a list of names and events he wanted files on. There were twenty-six items on the list and eighteen of them had clear links to Tozzi, either cases he'd worked on, people he'd investigated, or crimes he'd tried to break. Seven of the items had more tenuous connections with Tozzi. Ivers would have to do some research to figure out why Gibbons might be looking into these things. This, he hoped, would obscure the information he really wanted, information on Steve “the Hun” Pagano.

Tozzi, that bastard, had wakened him from a deep sleep late last night and told him about his encounter with Paulie Tortorella and how he squeezed him for Pagano's name. Tozzi was so excited and incoherent, Gibbons didn't even bother to tell him that Phillip Giovinazzo gave him the same information. Tozzi said they needed to know more about Pagano and insisted that the FBI files were the only way. Gibbons didn't think it was such a hot idea, but at three
A.M.
he wasn't going to argue about it.

Gibbons stared at Pagano's name where he'd written it down on the list. Tozzi was probably right, going to the files was the only way—the only practical way. Gibbons had considered going back to Giovinazzo and leaning on him some more, but it was unlikely that he'd say anything crucial about a fellow gangster.
Omertà
and all that bullshit. Tozzi could go hit up on Bocchino the fence again, maybe pay visits on other small-timers to see what else he could find out about Pagano, but Gibbons didn't like the idea. Tozzi was a hothead, and his antics could draw unwanted attention. He was lucky he didn't get caught at that fire. Gibbons figured the less time Tozzi spent out on the streets the better. The files were the only practical way.

Gibbons tore off the top sheet from the pad and turned over the book he'd brought from home. It was the book he'd been reading about the influence of the Teutonic tribes on the Roman Empire. This was going to be another long, boring day, more so than usual because he was going to have to pretend that he was reading through all these files. That's why he'd brought his book. He planned to read about barbarians while he scrolled through the files to make it look like he was reading from the terminal at his cubicle.

As he walked over to Hayes's desk, he scanned the list. Pagano's name was the eleventh item on his list. He figured he'd have to wait
till at least eleven-thirty before he could safely get to Mr. Pagano.

“I want whatever you've got on all these,” he said to Hayes, dropping the list on his desk.

Hayes peered up, squinted with his usual confused look, then stared down at the list. This took a while.

Gibbons looked at his half-eaten doughnut on the paper napkin. It looked like a rat had been nibbling on it. “You gonna eat that?” he said.

“What?”

“The doughnut. You gonna finish it?”

“Why do you want to know?”

Hayes's mere existence irritated Gibbons, and he hated having to spend more than a passing moment in the man's presence. “Just asking,” he said.

It took twenty seconds for Hayes to digest all that before he returned to the list. “Do you want them in this order?” he finally asked.

“Yes.”

“All right,” he said slowly as he swiveled in his tiny secretary's chair to face his keyboard.

Gibbons was reminded of that business about chaining a hundred chimps to a hundred typewriters for a hundred years and eventually one of them would type out
Hamlet.

“I'll feed the files directly to your terminal,” Hayes said. “When you want the next file, you hit the ‘escape' key, then type ‘n' space ‘f'—for ‘new file'—and hit the ‘return' key. Okay?”

“Fine,” Gibbons said, turning back to his cubicle.

“But give me a few minutes to get you on line,” Hayes called after him.

“Sure. Take your time.” You usually do, you big baboon.

Gibbons went back to his seat and picked up his book. He started reading, but his mind wasn't on it. He was thinking about this whole stupid ruse, annoyed with himself for having to waste the day making it look like he was reading through all those files. The fact that he had to be so devious made him angry. Especially because he had to do it for Hayes's benefit.

He got up and went back to Hayes's desk. “I forgot to ask you,” he said. “If I want to cross-reference these files, can I jump around or do I have to take the files in order?”

Hayes nodded. At what, Gibbons hadn't a clue. He left his command
post trailing Gibbons's list behind him and went to the Xerox machine. He was still nodding. When a copy of the list came out of the machine, he gave the original back to Gibbons. “Refer to your list,” he finally explained. “I'll enter the files in this order. When you want the first one, enter ‘n space f space 1.' For the second file, ‘n f 2,' and so on. That way you can skip around.” The ape lumbered back to his desk, dragging his knuckles. “It'll take me a little more time to get it set up for you this way. Just a little bit longer.”

“No problem.” Gibbons looked down at the crumbly half-eaten doughnut. It was really bothering him.

Well, this should save some time, he thought, scanning his list as he returned to his seat. His eye fell on Reverend Miner's name. Reverend Miner and the Empire of God. First Church of the Unholy Survivalist, Tozzi used to call it. That and St. Rambo's. The reverend had more guns and munitions stockpiled than the New York State National Guard. Tozzi was the one who found the warehouse up in Rhinebeck. Crazy son-of-a-bitch. He had no patience for long-range surveillance, and he seldom waited for backups. That time Tozzi walked right across a cow field in broad daylight with a Nikon around his neck, climbed the roof of the warehouse, broke in through a ceiling vent, and took the whole roll of Miner's arsenal. Then when some farm-boy believer caught him coming out of there with his camera, Tozzi told him he was just taking pictures of the cows. The farm boy was holding a hatchet, making it very clear that he wanted the camera. Tozzi, the crazy bastard, dangles the Nikon in front of the guy's face like a hypnotist's pocketwatch, then hauls off and coldcocks him. What a fucking cowboy.

The next item on the list was the Cartagena Connection, cocaine smugglers. Gibbons shook his head at the memory. These slimy Colombians were making a delivery at the East Hampton Airport on Long Island. Their cover was a helicopter shuttle service from Manhattan. Seven agents and a dozen local cops were undercover waiting for them to touch down and unload when some stupid rookie jumps the gun and starts yelling and waving his service revolver at the chopper. One of the Colombians was already out of the hull, but his buddy inside started yelling for him to get back in. The chopper was two feet off the ground, the engine revving, ready to take off again. The bullets were just about to start flying when out of the blue, Tozzi runs out onto the tarmac pushing a lawnmower. Nobody knows what the hell
to make of this, not even the Colombians. All of a sudden Tozzi's swinging this lawnmower like he's gonna throw the hammer. Then he lets it fly, right into the chopper's tail rotor. The noise was enough to scare the shit out of anyone, and it was only afterward that they found out the chopper could've flipped over and exploded. Tozzi was unimpressed with that information, as Gibbons remembered.

Gibbons's grin of nostalgia gradually faded. Tozzi had a long history of being reckless. It was unlikely that being out on his own made him any more cautious, and that worried Gibbons. Did Tozzi really believe he could knock off all the guys on his hit list, then safely make it out of the country to one of his relatives'? Tozzi wasn't that stupid. At least he never used to be. Gibbons decided he better find out more about what Tozzi was doing with his time. Particularly what he was doing with Varga's wife. They had to be very careful now.

Gibbons frowned. He knew he was thinking like an old lady. After all, who was going to catch them? He and Kinney were the only guys assigned to the case, and Kinney didn't give a shit about finding Tozzi. Still, he was uneasy, and he knew why. Consulting Bureau files for the benefit of a felon is a felony itself. Before this he'd maintained a degree of skepticism about Tozzi's crusade and in his mind he felt uncommitted, but by going into the files now he was actively working with Tozzi, and this time it really felt like he was doing something illegal.

Hayes's head suddenly popped up over the edge of his cubicle. “Okay, Gibbons, you're on line. You can proceed.”

Gibbons nodded absently. He called up the first file, thinking about Ivers's monitoring system, wondering if the SAC could get lucky and figure out that the renegade had a confederate within the Bureau. He scrolled randomly, then called up another file, lingering over it for several minutes before he switched to a new one, deliberately avoiding the Pagano file. He looked around the side of the cubicle. Hayes was still nibbling on that goddamn doughnut. What the hell, he thought. We're already in this far.

He keyed in “n f 11” and waited for the printing to appear on the terminal. There was a pause, then a short message appeared. “No file under that title. Searching for cross-reference. Please wait.”

Gibbons's stomach sank. He pictured Ivers's face suddenly appearing on the screen, telling him that the jig was up. Gibbons told himself that he was being paranoid. The computer was just doing its thing, for chrissake.

It took nearly a full minute for the computer to find what it was looking for, and when it did, Gibbons was certain that it had goofed. The file that appeared was titled “Mafia Undercover Activities: Philadelphia Field Office, 1981–1983.”

He started skimming. The file was more or less a routine intelligence summary of what the Philly field office had discovered about their local mob family during that three-year period. Gibbons had seen countless reports like this over the years. What they said was usually pretty predictable.

He scrolled down and kept skimming. Then, several pages into the report, he saw Pagano's name flashing in boldface. This was how the computer let you know that it had found what you were looking for.

Pagano's name was on a double-columned list with his nickname in parentheses. Gibbons scrolled up to the paragraph before the list, which stated that the following was a list of cover names used by special agents while working undercover.

Gibbons scrolled back down to the list and Pagano's pulsating name. Then he read the corresponding name in the column beside it.

His skin went cold. “Goddamn,” he said in a whisper.

Late that afternoon, Bill Kinney went into the File Room. He was looking for Gibbons and he hoped Hayes might've seen him. Hayes wasn't at his desk, though. Kinney decided to wait for him, and as he stood there, he scanned the librarian's desk.

Something caught Kinney's eye right away, the copy of the handwritten list Gibbons had given Hayes that morning. He recognized Gibbons's cramped scrawl. He turned the list around on the desk and examined it closer. The entry for “Steve ‘the Hun' Pagano” was circled. Next to it, Hayes had made a notation: “
No file
—
referred to Mafia Undercover Activities: Philly FO, 81-83.”

Kinney breathed slowly. His eyes glazed over. He knew what was in that file.

And now Gibbons knew too.

Gibbons had a lot on his mind as he drove south on the Garden State Parkway. He was heading for Tozzi's aunt's apartment in Bloomfield. He'd tried calling Tozzi from a pay phone on Broadway that afternoon, but there was no answer, so now he was going out to find him. He had to tell Tozzi what he'd found out, and then they had to decide how they'd handle it.

Kinney's face lingered in his mind like a powder burn. Kinney the Yuppie. Kinney and his fine old gold pocketwatch. Kinney the Hun. Kinney the butcher. The devil had a face now, and Gibbons could see him everywhere he looked.

Gibbons had spent most of the afternoon in the File Room, killing time with the files he'd asked Hayes for, gazing blankly at the screen, wondering how he should approach this. He'd considered telling Ivers about Kinney, but he had no hard evidence. It was possible that they could go to Joe Luccarelli and Sabatini Mistretta in prison and ask them to testify against Kinney, but their cooperation could never be counted on, and anyway testimony from convicted gangsters could easily be discredited by a good lawyer. And on top of that, even though Luccarelli and Mistretta saw the heads, as far as he knew they didn't actually see Kinney butcher Lando, Blaney, and Novick.