Bad Business (6 page)

“Would you care to elaborate on how you'd execute the defendants and their attorneys, Agent Tozzi?” The rat spoke in a nasal whine with a heavy Brooklyn accent.

Tozzi glared at him. “That's off the record and not for publication.”

The rat grinned. “This isn't an interview. You said it, I heard it. I can report it as news.”

“Who are you?”

The rat ignored the question and kept scribbling. “Do you have anything you want to add to your statement?”

“I said that's not for publication, pal. If you print it, I'll deny I ever said it.”

The rat looked up from his pad. His eyes were small and shiny, and his grin was lopsided. “Does a bear shit in the woods if there's no one there to smell it?”

“You know anything about libel, pal?”

“Shut up, Tozzi,” Gibbons cut in. “Don't say any more.”

“But—”

“Just shut up.” Gibbons turned to the rat. “Take a hike. You got what you wanted.”

The rat shrugged, snickered, and scuttled away.

Tozzi was seething. “Who the hell is he?”

Augustine looked very disgruntled. “His name is Mark Moscowitz. He's an investigative reporter for the
Tribune.”

Gibbons groaned. “Wonderful.”

Tozzi's stomach started to ache. “He can't print that, can he? I didn't mean that literally. I mean, that was obvious, wasn't it?”

Augustine crossed his arms and cupped his chin. “He very well can print it. He can report it as something he observed in the courtroom. Since you weren't granting him an interview, you can't say it was off the record. I suggest you try to watch what you say in the future, especially here in court.”

Tozzi didn't like Augustine's tone. He was talking down to him, treating him like a naughty little boy. “Can't we do something to stop this guy? Legally. Maybe I should go talk to him?”

“No.” Augustine was stern and sharp. “If you go to him, he'll just think you're trying to cover up something and it'll make him more curious. Just stay away from him. If we're lucky, his editor will see how ridiculous the statement is and kill it. If they do print it, however, we'll just have to sustain whatever damage it causes, if any. I wouldn't worry about it, though. Not for the time being.”

“I won't.” Tozzi's face was burning. Yes, it was a careless statement, and he regretted saying it, but no one in his right mind would take it seriously. And there was no reason for Augustine to get so high and mighty about it. Bastard.

“I have to go make a few phone calls,” Augustine said. “I'm sorry, but I can't let you go, boys. We'll just have to see how it goes.”

Gibbons shrugged. “Whatever.”

Augustine turned on his heel and strode up the aisle, leading with his Ivy League chin, his floppy hair bouncing as he walked.

Tozzi shrugged off his coat and closed the door with his hip. “See? I told you I'd be right back. No trouble at all.”

His cousin Lorraine was sitting in his kitchen, her coat over the back of the chair. She was wearing jeans and a plum-colored turtleneck, her long dark hair pulled back with combs. The tin of Christmas cookies she'd brought with the Currier and Ives winter scene on the lid was on the table in front of her. He set the paper bag down on the table, certain that she'd given the kitchen the once-over while he was gone, running her finger through the dust on the beige Formica counters, checking to see how empty the cupboards were and what was rotting in the refrigerator. He didn't eat here much. Didn't clean much either. Lesley Halloran would hate this place. She'd always had that Catholic girls' school look—neat as a pin and clean enough to eat off.

“Do you always go down to the corner deli when you want a cup of coffee?” Lorraine asked. She was trying hard not to sound judgmental.

“Well . . . yeah.” He reached into the bag and pulled out two large paper cups.

She shook her head in disapproval. “You're as bad as Gibbons.”

“I could never be as bad as him, even if I tried. Gibbons would be making you instant with hot tap water. Anyway, don't talk about my partner when he's not here.”

“He's my husband. I'll talk about him whenever I want.” She hooked her hair over one ear. It was long and dark, threaded with silver.

He sat down and pried the lid off his cup, then rummaged in the bag for the little plastic containers of half-and-half. “You said you had something you wanted to tell me. What's up?”

Lorraine took a deep breath and let it out slowly before she spoke. “Uncle Pete died this morning.”

Good
.

“Oh . . .” Tozzi nodded, stirring his coffee with a plastic swizzle stick. “I'm sorry to hear that.”

“No, you're not.” Lorraine raised a condemning eyebrow. “You never liked Uncle Pete.”

“He never liked
me.”

“Come on, Michael—”

“No, no, correction. He never liked
anybody
.”

“That's a hell of a way to talk about the dead, Michael.”

“No, listen, Lorraine. I've got nothing against the guy. He just never liked me, that's all. He didn't like me when I was a kid, and he didn't like me that much when I grew up. Whenever my parents went over to visit him when I was little, he'd lock me out in the backyard all by myself. With all the junk he had piled up back there, I coulda been killed. I remember he had two old refrigerators in the back with the doors still on. You know how kids get locked in refrigerators and end up suffocating. Happens all the time. Now, I'm not saying Uncle Pete
wanted
me to die in one of those refrigerators, but he never bothered to clean out the place a little,
make it a little safer because he had nephews and nieces over there once in a while. No. But, see, because he was my father's godfather, we were the ones who always went over there on Sundays, at least once a month, and so
I
was the kid whose life was always in danger. So you see what I'm saying? Uncle Pete didn't like me. He made it obvious.”

The miserable old cuss
.

“That's not true, Michael.”

“What was he, Lorraine? Ninety-three, ninety-four? God bless him. He had a full life.” Tozzi brought the coffee to his lips. “If you wanna call that living.”

“Michael!”

“Hey, let's be honest. The guy lived like a pauper, and he didn't have to. His house was paid off, he was getting a good pension plus Social Security. He just chose to live like a bum. But that was his prerogative. Just like it was his prerogative to hate me.”

“Michael, Uncle Pete did not hate you, and I can prove it.”

“How?” Tozzi picked out a butter cookie from the tin, a Christmas tree with green sprinkles on it.

She reached down into her coat pocket and pulled out a set of keys. “Uncle Pete named you executor of his estate. These are the keys to his house.” She slid them across the table.

Tozzi looked down at the keys, the cookie poised in front of his mouth. He sighed and put the cookie down.
Shit
.

“Are you kidding me, Lorraine?”

She sipped her coffee and shook her head. “No, I'm not kidding.”

He stared at the keys.
I need this like a hole in the head
.

Lorraine was laughing. “Michael, you look like my next-door neighbor when he finds dog poop on his lawn.”

“I'm glad you think this is funny.” He lifted the Christmas tree cookie and bit it in half. “By the way, how'd
you
get the keys?”

“Uncle Pete's lawyer called you at the field office, but they
told him you were tied up at the trial, so he called me. Uncle Pete had put me down as a next of kin—after you.”

“So why didn't he name you executor?”

Lorraine shrugged. “Because he liked you better, I guess.” She sipped her coffee through a Mona Lisa grin.

“No, no, no. It was because my father was his godson. That must be why he picked me.”

“So why didn't he name your father executor?”

“Because he hated my mother. He never trusted her.”

“Oh, Michael, will you please stop with that?”

“It's true. He didn't trust her because she's not Italian. That's probably why he didn't like me. I was a half-breed.”

“So why did he pick you, then?”

“Revenge.”

Tozzi picked out another butter cookie, a bell with red sprinkles on it. He tossed it in his mouth and chewed without thinking, then realized he was eating only out of aggravation because he never ate anything artificial that was red. Red dye number whatever. Gives you cancer.
Shit
.

Lorraine picked around in the cookie tin until she found a plain one with nothing on it. “You shouldn't get yourself all worked up over this, Michael. Being executor isn't that big a deal.”

“You don't think so? I'd rather be Secretary General of the United Nations. You watch. This is gonna be nothing but trouble. You're gonna find out you've got cousins you never knew you had. They're gonna smell Uncle Pete's will and they're gonna come out of the woodwork. You watch. And they're all gonna swear that they were so close to Uncle Pete. And who're they gonna scream at when they don't get what they want? Who're they gonna sue? Huh? The executor. Me.” Tozzi picked out a plain cookie with a walnut stuck in the center. “Besides, I don't have time for this right now. I'm stuck on this trial thing, the Figaro Connection.” He bit into the cookie and it crumbled in his hand. “Shit.”

“Don't get all bent out of shape. The university's on winter
break until the end of January. I'm only teaching one course next semester, and I have all my notes from last year, so I don't have that much to prepare. I can do a lot of the running around for you.”

“Really? I thought you were painting Gibbons's apartment, making the place livable now that you're living there.”

Lorraine stared at him dead-on. She wasn't smiling. “I've been fighting with Gibbons over colors for the past two weeks. He doesn't like anything I suggest. He says my tastes are too ‘teacups and doilies.'”

“You can't compromise?”

Lorraine sighed. “Do you know what his idea of a compromise is? Pepto-Bismol pink. Do you know why he likes that color? He says it's the color they paint police interrogating rooms. It supposedly has a very soothing effect on agitated suspects. That's what he told me. This is what I'm married to.” She took another cookie. A bell with the red carcinogen sprinkles.

“Don't they make a pink that you both like?”

“I hate pink. And do you know that ugly blue plaid carpeting he has in the hallway? He says he likes it. He doesn't want me to replace it.”

Tozzi frowned and shrugged. “It's not so bad.” He remembered that blue plaid. It was just like the pleated, blue plaid skirts Lesley Halloran used to wear to school with the navy blazer, her school uniform. He also remembered that blue-jean miniskirt she wore with the lacy white blouse at the Halloween dance sophomore year. The night he almost asked her to dance.

“Michael? Are you listening to me?”

“Hmmm?”

Lorraine shook her head, disgusted. “You're as bad as Gibbons. All you think about is the FBI.”

“Come on, Lorraine. You know that's not true.”

“Well, maybe it's me, then. I used to be able to overlook
Gibbons's eccentricities, but now that we're married, they seem to bother me a lot more. I'm trying my damnedest to avoid the stereotype. You know, the woman who grins and bears it during the courtship, all the while thinking she's going to change her man once they're married. But he doesn't make it easy.”

“What eccentricities? Gibbons has been my partner for eleven years; I've never noticed anything that eccentric about him. I mean, he's a pain in the ass, and he can be a mean son of a bitch—and very sarcastic to boot—but other than that he's the salt of the earth.” Tozzi was grinning, waiting for her reaction.

“Well, he
can
be the salt of the earth occasionally. But there are just some things he does . . .” She pressed her lips together and shook her fist. “I'd like to brain him sometimes.”

“Me too. Like today. He was in a foul mood all day, bit my head off every time I turned around. And just because he saw this guy in court he can't stand, a guy who used to be an agent with us.”

Lorraine's eyes narrowed. “What's his name?”

“Jimmy McCleery.”

Lorraine closed her eyes and winced. “That explains why he was such a bear last night. Oh, God.” Her eyes suddenly snapped open and she snatched a green Christmas tree from the cookie tin. “Why am I eating these?”

“You know McCleery?”

She looked at him for a moment as if she were debating whether she should tell him or not. “Yes,” she finally said, “I know him.”