Bad Luck (31 page)

“I don't give a shit how you
feel
, Tozzi. This is work. You're not supposed to
feel
like doing any of it. You just do it. Now hurry up. Go.”

“Gib, I can't—”

“Look, you're the one who told me you wanted to nail Immordino's balls to the wall. You wait around till it
feels
right, it won't happen. You understand? Figure out your priorities,
goombah
, and make it fast.”

Tozzi's face didn't change, but he started nodding. “All right, all right, you're right.”

“Go to the nurses' station and wait for the doctor. Keep her busy for a while. I'll take care of the rest. Now hurry up.”

Tozzi shrugged. “Whatever you want.”

They walked out into the hallway together, and Gibbons noticed that the commando unit from last night was off duty. The nurses' station was empty except for one nurse, who was busy doing paperwork. She glanced up at them, but there was no turn-to-stone, death-ray glare. Maybe the night girls hadn't told her about them.

Gibbons pushed the elevator button and told Tozzi he'd see him later. Tozzi leaned against the counter at the nurses' station and waited. The busy nurse stood up and asked Tozzi if she could help him. The elevator arrived then and Gibbons got on. As the doors closed Tozzi started explaining that he was waiting here for Dr. Conover to continue the conversation they'd started. This one was probably getting wet panties for Tozzi too. Gibbons shook his head as he rode the elevator down to the lobby. He'd never understand what women saw in Tozzi. He stayed on the elevator and rode back up to the sixth floor, where he'd gotten on. The doors opened and Tozzi was still leaning on the counter. He didn't see the nurse. Tozzi looked at him and nodded once. All clear. Gibbons walked out, turned left, and headed straight for Henry Gonsalves's room.

There were numbered doors on both sides of the hallway, some closed, some open. Shit. Gibbons didn't want it to look like he didn't know where he was going. He poked his head into the first open door. Some guy with his leg in traction watching cartoons on TV. A bunch of little blue people with squeaky voices running around in the woods. The guy hit the remote control and shut it right off, probably embarrassed to have been caught watching cartoons.

He moved on to the next room, a closed door, and glanced up and down the hall before he twisted the knob. A woman with dark bags under her eyes and long stringy hair was sitting up in bed. The room reeked of cigarette smoke. There was an open paperback in her lap, one of those
Gone with the Wind
kind of books. Gibbons noticed that both wrists were bandaged with gauze. “You here to see me?” she said.

“Nope.” He closed the door and moved on.

The next door was open. Gibbons poked his head in and saw somebody's big fat can sticking out of the sheets, a skinny gray-haired nurse standing over it. She was holding a hypodermic needle. “Can I help you, sir?” She sounded just like she looked, an old battle-ax. Shit.

“Ah . . . yes. Yes, you can,” Gibbons said.

The battle-ax seemed annoyed by his mere existence in her world. The ass didn't flinch.

“I'm looking for Henry Gonsalves's room. Or Hector Diaz, if that's the name he's registered under.”

“You should not be on this floor without authoriza—”

“I'm from Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Claims Investigation. My name is Baker. I'm here for an on-site identification of the patient and confirmation of treatment.”

“I wasn't told—”

“We don't make a practice of announcing on-site inspections.”

“I've never heard of anything like this.”

Gibbons shrugged. “If you don't want me to see him, I won't see him. But all payments for treatment will be withheld until the claim is investigated to our satisfaction.” He took out his notepad and pen. “I'll just need to have your name for my report.”

“Oh . . .”

Gibbons bit the insides of his cheeks to hold back the grin. Blue Cross/Blue Shield was like the IRS—you just don't fuck with them. And the battle-ax knew that.

The fat can spoke up then. “I'm getting cold, nurse.”

The battle-ax frowned down at the big wrinkly thing hanging out of the sheets, then looked at Gibbons. “Our Mr. Diaz is across the hall in 618.”

“Thank you.” He put his pen and notebook away.

He crossed the hall to 618 and opened the door. He didn't like what he saw. Gibbons knew what Henry Gonsalves was supposed to look like—square-shouldered, fireplug build, perpetual tan, full head of thick salt-and-pep-per hair. The man laid out on the bed had no color in his face at all, the flesh under his chin hung loose, and his hair was greasy, flat to his skull. There was a tube up his nose, IV drip in his arm, a green wire going down the neck of his hospital gown, and two yellow wires taped to his temples. Two monitors bolted to the wall over his head bleeped out his vital signs. Gibbons didn't know what the squirmy green lines on the monitors were supposed to look like, but
they didn't seem very lively, just little bumps and dips that seemed like they could flat-line at any moment.

Gibbons stepped over to the side of the bed and wondered how the hell close to death this guy really was. He wondered if Valerie was in a similar situation at her hospital down the shore. Poor kid. He felt cold all of a sudden. He was afraid to go near the guy, afraid Gonsalves would croak if he touched him. He stared at the poor bastard, wondering if the guy was as delicate as he looked. This wasn't going to be easy. Where the hell do you start?

“Hey, Gonsalves. Wake up.” Gibbons touched the man's hand. It was colder than his. Shit.

“Come on, Gonsalves. Wake up.” Gibbons shook his shoulder a little. It was like feeling Jell-O in a plastic bag. Gibbons drew his hand away, thinking the guy was starting to rot before he'd finished dying. He looked around for a more solid spot, then finally went back to his hand. “Wake up, Gonsalves. You hear me? I gotta ask you about Sal Immordino.”

The trainer's eyes fluttered and he moaned.

“Yeah, Sal Immordino. You know him. Let's talk about Sal.”

Gonsalves moaned a little louder. One of the monitors bleeped a little louder. Gibbons assumed these things were connected to the nurses' station. Shit.

“Calm down, Gonsalves. I'm not Immordino. I just want to talk to you
about
him. Come on now, wake up.”

His eyes fluttered again, then slowly opened. They were glassy and unfocused; the whites were yellow. He moaned again, seemed to be trying to say something.

“Come on, come on, come on. Wake up now, wake up.” Gibbons slapped his cheek as hard as he dared, which wasn't very hard. “Do you hear what I'm saying, Gonsalves?”

Gonsalves's head slumped to the side. “No, no,” he moaned. “Don' do tha'.”

Gibbons slapped him a little harder. “Gonsalves, tell me. Did Sal Immordino do this to you? Is he paying off your
man Walker to throw the fight with Epps? Did he do this to you because you tried to interfere with his scam?”

“Noooo . . . Don' . . . Stop . . .”

“Gonsalves, pay attention. Is ‘Pain' Walker going to throw the fight?”

“No, Clyde . . . Stop . . . You're gonna kill him . . .”

Clyde? Spikes started appearing in the green line on one of the monitors. Gibbons felt terrible doing this, but this was important. Valerie had taken two slugs she didn't deserve and wound up in the same condition. Immordino's work. Then he remembered something. Clyde was Immordino's nickname from his fight days, back when Gonsalves was his manager. Gibbons looked at the monitor, then looked at the door. He wanted to lock it, but hospital doors don't have locks. “What're you talking about, Gonsalves? You're not making any sense. Tell me about Immordino, tell me about Clyde.” And make it fast.

The trainer started rolling his head on the pillow, his eyes open but still glassy. “No, Clyde . . . You're gonna
kill
him.”

“Who? Kill who?”

“Stop now . . . You're gonna kill Lawson . . .”

Lawson. Earl Lawson. Gibbons remembered that fight very well. Somewhere in Florida—not Miami, maybe Tampa—1970, '71 maybe. They'd played clips from that fight on the news for weeks afterward. It was a nothing fight, a middle-of-the-card bout, both fighters on their way down, so there was nothing at stake for either of them. They were both pathetic, but Lawson still had a little style, some footwork, so he was outscoring Immordino. Then late in the fight something happened. Immordino went crazy. The bell rings to start the round, and all of a sudden, Sal shoots out of his corner and starts beating the shit out of Lawson, gets him on the ropes, and starts roundhousing Lawson's head like he wants to punch it off. The tapes showed the whole thing, nearly three straight minutes of Immordino hammering Lawson's head, no let-up, no mercy. The crowd's going wild, Gonsalves is screaming at
Immordino from the corner to back off, just let the guy fall, but Immordino's not listening. And the ref is just standing there, letting it happen. On the tape you can see the ring doctor yelling for the ref to stop it, but the ref is ignoring him, making like he can't hear. The bell rings to end the round, but Sal doesn't stop. Guys have to run into the ring to help pull him off Lawson. Must've taken seven, eight guys to hold Immordino back.

Lawson ended up dying on the way to the hospital, brain hemorrhage. The ref was brought up on charges, but Sal wasn't indicted. At the time the rumor going around was that Immordino had paid off the ref to let him do his thing on Lawson, but the DA couldn't prove it because there was no evidence of any heavy betting on the fight. It was pure malice. Apparently he'd just wanted to see if he could do it. That's how Gibbons saw it.

“Noooo . . . Stop . . .” Gonsalves's face was contorted in agony now. The green line on that one monitor was getting real spiky. Gibbons looked at the door. He felt awful doing this, but when was the FBI gonna get this close to Immordino again? If Immordino did do this to Gonsalves, wouldn't
he
want them to get Immordino, bring him to justice?
If
Immordino was the one. Gibbons was just assuming that part.

Gonsalves's breathing was wet and ragged. His head kept writhing into the pillows in anguish. Gibbons glanced up at the spiky line, then looked around for a chair to prop against the door but realized the floor was too slick. He went over to check the metal doorframe. Sure, it might work. He scooped all the change out of his pocket and picked out all the pennies. He hated fucking pennies, hardly worth carrying anymore, but now he was glad he had a lot of them. He made a short stack and carefully wedged them into the space between the closed door and the frame. He used his key ring to force the last one in. That would hold them off for a while.

He went back to the bed and grabbed Gonsalves's face, held it still. Jell-O in a bag. “Listen to me, Gonsalves. Is Sal
Immordino fixing the fight? Is Immordino paying Walker to throw the fight?”

“No, Clyde . . . Stop . . . No more!” Gonsalves's eyes still weren't focused, but he was speaking a little clearer now.

Gibbons gripped his face tighter, felt bone, and raised his voice. “Is Sal Immordino fixing the fight?”

“No, Clyde, no! My guys don't do dirty.”

“Is Sal Immordino fixing—”

The doorknob turned, back and forth, back and forth, impatient, then there was pounding on the door. “Open this door! Open this door right now!” He recognized Dr. Conover's voice.

Gonsalves coughed, wet and harsh. “I tol' you”—he was gasping for air—“I tol' you. My guys don't do dirty, don't throw no fights, Clyde. Forget it.”

More pounding. Big hubbub out in the hallway. He could hear Tozzi out there with them. Big pounding. What the hell was he doing, helping them?

“Just tell me,” he said in the trainer's face. “Is Sal Immordino attempting to fix the Walker-Epps fight? Just nod, Gonsalves. Just nod.”

“Stop, Clyde. You wanna kill me like Lawson? Stop it now. My guy don't throw no fights. We don't do that. Don't . . . No way, no . . .”

Gibbons heard the door squeal. Someone was prying it. It flew open with a boom, pennies hitting the floor and rolling all over the place. Dr. Conover rushed in followed by a couple of nurses, Tozzi and an orderly bringing up the rear. The monitors were squealing, green spikes on one, flat line on the other.

The little doctor shouldered him aside. “Get out of the way!” she shouted. “What the hell did you do to this man?” She put her stethoscope in her ears and didn't wait for an answer.

“Get out! All of you! Get out!” The skinny, gray-haired nurse pushed Tozzi out into the hall, then grabbed Gib
bons by the jacket and shoved him out too. A guy in scrubs pushing a crash cart nearly ran them over trying to get in.

Tozzi's eyes were wide. “I thought you knew how to be subtle. What did you do to him?”

Gibbons straightened his jacket. “Just asked him a couple of questions.”

“He tell you anything?”

“Sort of.”

“What do you mean, sort of?”