Bad Apple (30 page)

He frowned up at all the brownstones along the street. “I could've sworn it was here. Damn. C'mon, we'll find a cop car.”

He started toward Columbus, and she followed without any argument, though he kept sneaking looks at her, wondering why she wasn't giving him any shit about his mistake. He couldn't figure her out. She'd given him shit about everything else today. What was she, tired?

Up ahead at the end of the block, Tozzi could see the crowds of midnight strollers milling around the Museum of Natural History—parents with little kids, trendy young couples, packs of teenagers—all here to see the inflating of the giant balloons. He could make out Woody Woodpecker and Underdog beginning to take shape. The half-inflated balloons were like nightmare behemoths springing up from the ground. The whole scene was like Mardi Gras—but New York style.

They picked up their pace, both of them eager to find some policemen. Though they hadn't said much since their float had taken them through the tunnel, they were both thinking about Bells, worried that the cops in Hoboken hadn't stopped him, that he might show up again like the boogie man. Tozzi stared at the shadowy figures walking briskly on the other side of the street, imagining that one of them could be Bells. He tried to be rational about it, though, telling himself that the chances of Bells finding them here in the middle of Manhattan were pretty slim. But then again, Bells wasn't your average bad guy. He was more than just weird.

He glanced sideways at Gina. She looked like an Arab woman with her face buried in that coat. He just couldn't figure her out.
You would've thought that making love would've made her a little chummier with him, but instead she'd sunken into herself, become quiet and distant, lost in her own thoughts. What was the phrase they used these days? Emotionally unavailable? He wondered what she was thinking about. He wondered about this alleged “Sicilian girl.” Could Gina really be pregnant? But who'd the hell want to have Bells's kid? Except maybe she wanted to have a baby. Maybe she wanted Bells's.
“Gina, it's me. Gimme a call.”
Tozzi tried not to think about it. Getting to a police station and getting the handcuffs off—that's what he should be focusing on.

But it was hard to focus when all he could think about was that message on her answering machine, and what would've happened if they hadn't escaped from the Belfry, and the fact that he was freezing his ass off. His handcuffed hand was pink and chapped. Gina kept hers tucked up the long sleeve of the coat, but his fist was hanging out like a frozen Cornish hen. He wished she'd at least hold his hand—just for a little warmth. But even that kind of connection was more than he could hope for with her.

The dark brownstone stoops along Seventy-eighth made Tozzi nervous, and it annoyed him that his heartbeat was keeping up with their marching footsteps. It was stupid to worry about Bells now. He was probably long gone, heading for the hills to escape the manhunt. But still, Tozzi was edgy. So much for maintaining aikido principles. Maybe it was good that he had missed his black-belt test tonight. He wasn't ready. You're supposed to be able to keep calm and centered, at least to some extent, when you're a black belt. Tozzi sure as hell didn't feel centered now.

Logically he knew that Bells wasn't going to pop out from behind the garbage cans, but of course Bells wasn't the only
dangerous nutcase in the New York metropolitan area. Any old mugger, rapist, crack addict, chain snatcher, demented street person, or plain ole asshole with a chip on his shoulder could show up to give them a hard time, and he still felt vulnerable handcuffed to Gina. If he ended up in a situation where he had to confront an attacker, there wasn't a whole lot he could do to defend himself that wouldn't put Gina in danger. Of course the way he was feeling right now, he wasn't so sure he wanted to defend her. He felt that she was excluding him. After all they'd been through today, why wasn't she leveling with him about her relationship with Bells? Why did he feel that she was holding something back from him?

Margie's wedding ring was something else that bothered him. How did Gina get it, and why did she wear it around her neck? Was it supposed to be like wearing a cross to ward off the vampire? Apparently it didn't work with Bells. It was pretty ghoulish if you asked Tozzi. What the hell was it supposed to mean? Maybe Gina was into headgames even more than Bells was. Maybe she was playing with Bells's head. Maybe Gina wasn't so innocent. Maybe Bells got fed up with her messing with his head, messing with his
wife's
head. Maybe Gina was the one Bells really had it in for, not him. Maybe he was just a side dish for Bells. Maybe it was Gina who was the meat.

He watched her glasses glinting under the streetlights as they walked.
“Gina, it's me. Gimme a call.”

Tozzi had made love to her twice, and for a while today he'd thought he understood where she was coming from. But he didn't understand shit. If anything, he understood less than he did before.

He wondered if Bells felt the same way about her, if he was just as confused and aggravated by her. He wondered if Bells understood her any better than he did.

He wondered how many times Bells had been to bed with her.

Then his face got hot as he became angry with himself for even thinking this. He was a born paranoid, a conspiracy theorist before they even had a name for people like him. He was always looking for the shady side, for the ulterior motives. It was probably what made him a good organized-crime agent, but it was also what kept him from ever having had a single decent long-standing relationship with a woman in his entire life. He didn't know how to trust people. Gibbons was the only one he could really trust. And now Gibbons was gone. Who was he gonna trust now?

Tozzi sighed on the cold air, and his despair flew off into the night, like a bird heading south. Couldn't worry about all that now, he thought. There were more immediate problems to take care of. He curled his wrist around the cold steel handcuff. Unfortunately his life couldn't be fixed with a hacksaw.

As they approached the end of the block, Tozzi breathed a little easier. Columbus Avenue was brighter and full of people. They'd be able to find a cop there. He looked at her again, searching her face for a clue, but the streetlights glanced off her glasses, and he couldn't see her eyes. It didn't matter. He couldn't read her even when he could see her. He scanned the area around the back end of the museum, looking for a cop car in the roving mass of people.

They were almost at the corner of Seventy-eighth and Columbus when suddenly she stopped walking, and his arm was jerked again. She nodded at something down on the ground, her face still covered. A homeless person wrapped in plastic bags and newspapers was asleep in the shadows of a stoop, the legs sticking out in the streetlight. Tozzi's heart started to pound. What? Did she think it was Bells? Immediately he was annoyed with
himself for being so paranoid. It was a homeless person. It wasn't Bells. How the hell could it be Bells?

“How's it going, Mikey-boy?”

Tozzi jumped when he heard the voice right behind him. He turned his head to see Bells standing there, grinning in his face. He was holding a gun down low, aimed at Tozzi's back. Tozzi's heart was in his throat.

Gina's eyeglasses flashed. She didn't say a word.

“Shouldn't leave without saying good-bye to the host, Mikey-boy. It's not polite.”

Tozzi turned around all the way to face him, tugging on the cuffs and forcing Gina to do the same. Bells backed up a half-step, keeping the gun leveled on Tozzi's midsection. Tozzi forced himself to stare at the son of a bitch's laughing eyes.

Tozzi could not believe this. “How?”

Bells shrugged. “Must be magic.”

Tozzi was speechless.

But Bells was enjoying himself. “So whatta'ya say we all go back to my place and carve up some turkeys? How's that sound, Gina?”

She snarled from behind the collar of the coat. “Why don't you do it right here? With all these people around.”

Bells rolled his eyes toward the edge of the crowd out on Columbus twenty feet away, then he grinned at her. “They're not that close. We have enough privacy here. I could do it here if that's what you want, Gina. Whatta'ya think, Mikey? Think I could get away with it?”

Tozzi didn't answer. He was unarmed, handcuffed to Gina, dead tired, on a shadowy side street—of course Bells could get away with it.

“I'll bet you fi' dollars I can shoot the both of you and be halfway back to Jersey before anyone even notices.”

Tozzi started to nod to himself, thinking Bells was absolutely right. He could do it. Then all of a sudden Tozzi was very calm. He knew Bells could kill him if he wanted to, and under the circumstances there was nothing Tozzi could do about it. And so he really didn't give a shit. He wasn't afraid anymore.

“C'mon, Mikey. Bet me. It's only fi' dollars.” Bells inched forward, the gun still leveled on Tozzi.

Gina let go of the collar. “For God's sake—”

Bells glared at her. “I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to Mikey-boy.” The grin wrapped around his face like a boa constrictor. “So what's it gonna be, Mikey-boy? You gonna take me up on it?”

“You know, Bells, I really don't care what you do. It's all in your hands now. I can't stop you. There's not a thing I could do.” Tozzi was centered. His pulse was even.

Bells frowned. “Whatta'ya mean, it's all up to me?”

“It is. You do whatever you gotta do, Bells. It's outta my hands.”

The shadows etched deep lines around Bells's mouth as the wiseass grin gave way to a scowl. Tozzi had taken the joy out of it for him. There was no fun in killing if the victim wasn't scared. Tozzi had turned the situation around and thrown it back in Bells's face. It was pure aikido.

Bells's face transformed again, the snake grin slithering back. “What is this, Mikey, some kind of reverse-psychology thing? Do you really think you can psyche
me
out? Think again, my friend.”

Tozzi just shrugged. He looked bored.

The grin on Bells's face drooped. So did the gun in his hand.

Tozzi didn't hesitate. He swatted Bells's hand, and the gun clattered to the sidewalk. Tozzi kicked it into the shadows under
the stoop where the homeless person was sleeping. A metallic clank rang out as the gun hit a garbage can.

Bells turned toward the noise, and in that second Tozzi went to knee him in the groin. But Gina beat him to it, kicking him in the nuts with her foot. Tozzi's knee caught him in the face as he doubled over with pain from Gina's blow.

“Bread and butter,” Gina yelled, and Tozzi knew exactly what she was thinking.

They stepped forward, one on either side of Bells, and hooked their handcuffed wrists under his chin, yanking him up and over, slamming him down on his back on the concrete sidewalk. Bells groaned, curling up on his side and clutching the back of his head.

Tozzi smirked at her. “Why couldn't you cooperate like that before?”

“Why couldn't you?”

“Never mind. Let's find the gun.”

They started for the shadows, but Bells suddenly shouted “Stop!” and Tozzi felt something slash his calf. He high-stepped out of the way and saw Bells on the ground with his pantleg rolled up, a shimmering blade in his hand. “Back off,” he ordered, and slashed a wide circle around himself, forcing them to get away from him. He scooted on his butt into the shadows under the stoop, feeling with his free hand for the gun.

Gina tugged on Tozzi's arm, ready to bolt. Tozzi felt his leg. There was no pain, but his pants were sliced, and he could feel the wetness of blood.

“C'mon!” Gina urged. “Before he gets the gun.”

Bells was reaching into the shadows around the sleeping legs when suddenly a zombie face sprang out of the dark. “It's mine!” she declared in a sandpaper shriek. The woman was a
fire-eyed, wool-capped, Thorazine-deprived demento used to defending her space.

Bells brandished the knife in her face. “Move, bitch.”

She pointed the gun in his face. “You move!”

Bells backed off on all fours like a retreating spider. He looked up at Tozzi and Gina, then glanced at the woman. He stared Tozzi in the eye and grinned, holding the knife pointed up. It glinted like a candle. “So who needs a gun?” Slowly he started to haul himself to his feet, wincing with pain.

“Come on!” Gina yanked on the handcuffs.

But Tozzi was unmovable. His first instinct was take Bells on, confident that he could handle a knife attack—then he remembered that he and Gina were Siamese twins. He'd never done aikido for two, and it was no time to experiment.

Reluctantly he started to backstep toward the crowd on Columbus, led by Gina's tugging, but he didn't like this. Bells was crazy, and he was out for blood. There were people all over the place. No telling what Bells would do. They couldn't just run away. Bells liked to take hostages, and there were plenty to choose from in this crowd. All Tozzi could imagine was Bells snatching some little kid, a toddler, a baby from its stroller, and holding the knife to the kid's throat. He and Gina couldn't just run away to save themselves. He was going to have to keep Bells on the string and lead his mind, keep him following them until they could find a cop, a couple of cops, a
lot
of cops with a
shitload
of guns so that they could take this sick fuck down.

“Where ya goin'?” Bells said. He was on his feet, a little unsteady, still holding the back of his head. He tottered forward.

Tozzi looked over his shoulder. Gina was frantic, pulling him to move faster. Tozzi could hear the voices in the crowd—kids oohing and ahing, parents telling them to look at this, look at that. On the other side of the avenue, Woody Woodpecker, Spider-Man,
and Bart Simpson were becoming giants as the balloons filled out. Farther up the block, Garfield, Pink Panther, Bugs Bunny, Betty Boop sitting on a quarter moon, and Goofy in a Santa suit were bobbing and weaving as they puffed out their chests and came to life. He looked down at the zombie with the gun and Bells doing the Transylvania shuffle as he lurched toward them. This was too fucking bizarre.