Bad Apple (25 page)

Gibbons shrugged. “Looks that way, doesn't it?”

She went to his side and squeezed his arm. It was the first sign of connection he'd gotten from her all day. He looked into her face and finally saw that she was there—not Professor Lorraine,
his
Lorraine. He wanted to hug her and give her a kiss that lasted until their breath ran out and then some, but Stanley's gun was prodding his back, and Buddha was giving them dirty
looks. Gibbons took Lorraine's hand and locked fingers with her.

They followed the crowd into the back room, where Buddha and company had been waiting to ambush Bells. Gibbons couldn't believe that he'd been that out of it that he didn't hear them come in. He couldn't imagine these baboons being quiet. They passed through a back door to a dim hallway with a cold cement floor that led to a loading dock at the back of the building. The stink from the Dumpster would have been worse than it already was if it hadn't been so chilly out. Freshy opened the gate of the freight elevator, and the gorillas hustled Bells inside, his arms pinned back behind him. They weren't gentle with him, but from the relaxed look on his face, nothing seemed to bother him. Stanley prodded Gibbons again, and he and Lorraine stepped inside, standing against the wall away from Bells. Stanley and Buddha took the middle position as Freshy dropped the wooden gate.

Stanley tugged on the rope that started the elevator. “We figured you'd come back here, Bells.” It sounded like an apology.

Bells just smiled and nodded.

“Yeah. I went up to look for you before, but the place was all dark.”

Bells's face hardened, then just as quickly it relaxed again.

Gibbons caught Stanley's eye. “This is the Belfry?”

Stanley nodded.

Gibbons shook his head. “Son of a bitch.”

“What did you do with my cousin Michael?”

All heads turned to Lorraine. Her clear demanding voice was startling among all these grumbling wiseguys.

Bells let his gaze bore through her like a slow drill press, but
Lorraine wasn't cowed. “What did you do with them?” she repeated. “Did you kill them?”

Freshy shuffled his feet, looking from Bells to Stanley to Buddha to Bells. He was worried sick about his sister.

Gibbons studied Stanley's face, looking for a clue. Had Bells killed them already? Were they up there dead on the floor? He remembered the duct tape and the garbage bags Bells had bought. His heart was pounding in syncopation with his throbbing tooth.

Buddha was looking into Bells's face for a clue of his own, but Bells revealed nothing. They just had to wait for the tired old elevator to get there. It seemed to take forever. When it finally stopped with a clunk, Lorraine had Gibbons's hand in a vise-grip. He'd forgotten about his tooth, but his heart was pounding down a brick wall in his chest.

The room beyond the gate was dark. Freshy raised the gate so fast, it banged at the top and dropped back down halfway. “Gina!”

Stanley stepped out and groped for the light switch. Fluorescent bulbs flickered on the ceiling, and suddenly the place was revealed: the kitchen, the couches, the plastic tarp bunched up on the floor. But where were Tozzi and Gina? Gibbons honed in on Bells's eyes, ready to follow his gaze. But Bells was watching Buddha.

The gorillas wrenched Bells's arms and shoved him out of the elevator. Stanley pointed his gun up and motioned for Gibbons and Lorraine to get out, too. Buddha was the last one out, the little emperor.

Gibbons felt Lorraine putting the squeeze on his hand again, digging her nails into the flesh over his knuckles. She was frantic, ready to explode, staring at something against the wall. Gibbons followed her gaze to a paint-peeled radiator under a closed
window. Then he noticed the two shiny items on the floor next to the radiator—a short chain padlocked around the steam pipe, and a black patent-leather shoe with a velvet bow on the front, a woman's shoe.

“Oh, Jesus.” Freshy's face crumpled as he lunged at Bells. “You son of a bitch!”

One of the goons stepped in his way, and Freshy literally bounced off him. Before Freshy even thought about making another attempt, the gorilla moved in on him and changed his mind.

“Whad'ja do with my sister?” Freshy yelled over the gorilla's head.

“And my cousin,” Lorraine added.

Bells made a big show out of looking at the radiator, then looking around the loft. He shrugged. “Beats me.” He was trying to be cool and unconcerned, but Gibbons could see the shadow of a blue vein surfacing on one temple.

Buddha walked up to Bells and got in his face. “So what's the story, Bells?”

Bells pulled down the lizard lids again. He was pissed, and he was trying not to show it.

“Talk,” Buddha grunted. “Tell me things.”

“Like what?” Bells was arrogant.

“Tell me about that funny money you tried to pass off on me this morning.” Buddha was like a spike—hard, short, and sharp.

Bells just looked at him for a second, then looked at Gibbons and pointed with his head. “Not in front of him.” He nodded toward the boxed-off room in the far corner. “In the bathroom.”

The little emperor didn't seem to like the idea. “Dom,” he said to one of the gorillas. He nodded toward the bathroom. “Go check it out.”

Ice water ran through Gibbons's heart. What if Gina and Tozzi weren't dead? What if they'd gotten loose and were hiding in the bathroom? Even if Tozzi had a gun, there were too many of them. But Tozzi was stupid enough to take them all on. Shit.

Big Dom reached around to the small of his back and pulled out a big black-matte automatic. A 9-millimeter, Gibbons assumed, with a big clip, fourteen, fifteen bullets. Big Dom moved toward the bathroom, leading with the gun like a point man on jungle patrol. When he got to the door, he waited and listened.

Gibbons balled his fists. Lorraine clutched his arm.

Suddenly Big Dom threw the door back and crashed into the bathroom, sweeping the small space with his weapon. He went all the way in, closed the door behind him, and came right back out, nodding to his boss. “It's okay, Mr. Stanzione.”

Gibbons started breathing again. Lorraine loosened her grip.

But Gibbons's relief didn't last. If Tozzi and Gina weren't in there, where were they? He glanced at the bunched-up plastic tarp between the green couch and the cabinets under the kitchen counter.

On Buddha's order, the gorillas let go of Bells, and Dom escorted him at gunpoint into the bathroom, followed by the little emperor, who walked with a swagger, hands in his pants pockets, the train of his camel hair overcoat swishing behind him.

After the bathroom door closed, Lorraine suddenly went into overdrive. “Stanley, where are they? What did he do with them? Tell me. Please, Stanley.”

Stanley shrugged, his eyes slanted back in sympathy. “I don't know, Mrs. Gibbons. I wish I could tell you something.”

“But, Stanley, you've worked with him. You must know—”

Stanley just shook his head and shrugged. “Sorry, Mrs. Gibbons.”

Freshy piped up. “Hey, Stanley, what about—?”

“Hey!”
A shout came from the bathroom, then a clunk and a crash. Then the lights went out, and the room went black.

“Nobody move!” Stanley shouted.

“What the fuck?”

“What happened to the lights?”

“Mr. Stanzione? You all right? You all right?”

The gorillas panicked. Gibbons could hear them scrambling in the dark.

“I said don't move! Nobody!” Stanley yelled.

Two shots rang out, muzzle strobes lighting the room, but they came from the elevator. Gibbons grabbed Lorraine and pulled her to the floor, covering her with his body. Jesus!

“Do what the man said. Don't move.” It was Bells's voice, and it was coming from the elevator. The gate banged closed, and the elevator motor groaned to life.

Two more shots lit the darkness, making Gibbons's ears pop. He pressed his chest to Lorraine's back, making her go down flatter.

“Don't do anything stupid now,” Bells warned in singsong. “‘Or would you rather be a pig?'”

The elevator ground its way down, and Bells fired again, keeping everyone at bay. The elevator was so slow, it was hard to say whether he still had a good shot at any of them or not, but Gibbons wasn't taking any chances, not with Lorraine there.

Twenty seconds passed, and the gorillas came out of the bushes, stumbling over the plastic tarp and cursing, groping for the bathroom.

“Mr. Stanzione? Mr. Stanzione? You all right?”

Gibbons heard one of them banging on the bathroom door, then there were more curses.

“What happened?” Stanley shouted from somewhere behind Gibbons.

“Jesus Christ!” Freshy breathed. “Jesus!”

“Gibbons?” Lorraine was shaky.

“Stay down.” Gibbons got to his feet, but stayed in a crouch, his hand on Lorraine's hip.

The lights flickered back on then, and Gibbons squinted against the sudden brightness.

“What happened?” Stanley shouted as he ran to the bathroom.

Gibbons followed him.

“Holy shit!” Stanley's big jaw dropped as he looked in from the doorway.

Gibbons looked over his shoulder. The gorillas were crowded around the little monkey emperor who was doubled over, writhing, clutching his head. Two halves of a broken porcelain toilet tank cover were on the floor. Big Dom was sitting motionless with his legs stretched out, heels together, his head slumped forward like a Raggedy Ann doll. A switch blade was sticking out of the back of his neck. Severed spinal cord, Gibbons thought, surgical precision. On the wall above Big Dom was an open junction box.

It wasn't hard to piece it all together. Bells had taken them both on. He must've grabbed Big Dom's gun and hit the circuit breakers. His efficiency in the dark with the rest of it was chilling.

Suddenly fearing for Lorraine, Gibbons wheeled around to go to her, but he froze when he saw her standing where he'd left her, looking at Freshy, who was on the verge of tears. It was a still shot of grief becoming a reality, the victims' relatives frozen in gut-gnawing pain, finally believing what they'd been trying so hard to deny. Gibbons felt a heaviness in his chest that threatened
to bring him to his knees with sadness for Lorraine. And for Tozzi.

The turtle-slow elevator stopped groaning then. The echo of the wooden gate banging open sounded up the empty shaft. It was a message from hell. The devil was on the run.

Tozzi couldn't believe he was so stupid.

“This way,” Gina said. The alley was dark, and she was hobbling because she'd lost her shoe and the ground was cold and uneven. It couldn't have been easy running on the cobblestones with one bare foot, but she wasn't complaining. She hadn't even complained when they got halfway to his apartment on the other side of Hoboken and he realized that he didn't have his keys. He never carried anything that could give away his real identity when he was undercover. The keys were stashed in the trunk of his car back at Freshy's house in Bayonne. He couldn't believe he hadn't remembered that. Stupid.

They were heading back uptown to the Macy's warehouse where they made the floats for the parade. It was Gina's idea. She said they could hide out there. But Tozzi didn't like the idea of going back uptown toward the Belfry. “C'mon. Let's go straight to the police station,” he suggested.

“That's farther than your apartment,” she gasped, pulling him along by the handcuffs. “The warehouse is closer. We'll call the cops from there.” As she ran up the alley, she made these scared little
eeep
noises.

Five minutes later, they emerged from the alley onto Fourteenth Street, where several cars were waiting at the traffic light.
Tozzi held her back as he scanned the faces in the front seats, looking for Bells, but Gina bolted across the intersection, terrified to be out in the open. There was an all-night gas station across the street on the corner, one of those modern ones with no garages, just an attendant's booth. The whole corner was lit up like daytime with fluorescent lights.

Tozzi pointed to the rear of the station. There was a lone pay phone over by the air pumps. “Look. We can call from over there.”

“No! Where're we gonna wait? Out here in the open? Bells will find us for sure. C'mon, the warehouse is just up this way.”

She had a point. Bells must've known by now that they'd escaped, and he knew they'd be on foot. Standing out under all these lights would be crazy. Tozzi gripped her hand and followed her back into the shadows of the side street. She started making the
eeep
noises again.

Back at the Belfry she'd really panicked when she'd heard the elevator coming up. She started to hyperventilate, and then she started
eeep
-ing, struggling to get some air into her lungs. He tried to calm her down, but she was frantic, terrified that Bells was going to get them. And after all that complaining that she wouldn't fit through the chain loop, she suddenly managed to get out of it somehow. Must've ripped a piece of her butt off doing it. They rushed over to the kitchen and tried the door to the stairwell, but it was locked, and it was a three-story drop out the window. The elevator was almost there, so he grabbed Gina and made her get down behind one of the leather couches, pulling the plastic tarp over them. He figured he just might be able to take Bells by surprise that way. But he practically had to lie on top of Gina to keep her still, and even with his hand over her mouth, she was still
eeep
-ing too loud. The elevator stopped with a
thunk.
They lay there frozen, eyes wide, listening for Bells,
Tozzi wondering what the hell he was going to do handcuffed to Gina. But he didn't hear any footsteps getting off the elevator.

“Bells? You here? Bells?”

It was only Stanley, and he didn't even get off the elevator, just called out and left when he didn't get an answer.