Bad Blood (16 page)

“Nothing personal, Mr. Halbasian, but because of my job as a federal law-enforcement employee, I'm obligated to ask these things. You see, it would reflect badly on me if I rented under anything other than legal circumstances. I'm sure you can understand that.” He looked down patronizingly on Halbasian.

“Oh, no problem. I entirely understand your position.” The kid was frying. It was clear from his face that he hated Tozzi's guts now.

All of a sudden Tozzi had second thoughts. What the hell was he doing? He wanted this apartment, for chrissake. He
needed
this apartment. Couldn't invite a woman like Roxanne back to that shitty rented room he's got now. Maybe Ivers was right, maybe he did have problems with authority figures. Maybe it wasn't too late to make up, though. He put on the warmest smile he could muster and started complimenting the renovations. Roxanne picked up on her cue and chimed in, but Halbasian didn't look happy. He looked like he was going to pick up his ball and go home.

Mrs. Carlson piped up, desperate to salvage the situation. “Mrs. Tozzi works in Washington. A lobbyist, you said?”

“Yes. I do lobby work for several British concerns.” She left it simple. Let young Halbasian's imagination fill in the blanks. Very smart.

Mrs. Carlson clucked down at Halbasian, keeping him close under her wing and away from Tozzi. “They keep an apartment in Washington. Mrs. Tozzi stays there most of the time, and Mr. Tozzi's work brings him to the capital frequently.”

“How much time would you actually be spending here?” Halbasian asked Tozzi. The little piss-off wasn't too good at hiding his feelings.

Tozzi opened his mouth to answer, but Roxanne cut him off before he did any more damage. “Well, besides being stationed in DC, I do travel quite a bit. As does my husband, sporadically, as he's needed. It's hard to say how much time we'd be spending here in Hoboken.” She looked at Tozzi, begging him with her eyes not to blow it. “Maybe two weeks a month?”

He shrugged. “Sometimes more, sometimes less. It depends on work.”

Young Halbasian nodded, squinting at Tozzi. Either he was trying to figure out how he could get rid of him and just take her, or he was wondering how he could rent out the apartment on the sly for the weeks they wouldn't be there, the money-grubbing little shit.

“The apartment really is su-pah,” Roxanne suddenly gushed to Tozzi. “I saw some wonderful Laura Ashley prints that would go nicely with the Persian rug. And don't you think that scrubbed pine
cupboard we saw at Dillingham's would be perfect for the dining area? Over there?”

Halbasian twitched his pointy mouse nose and raised an eyebrow. He smelled fine English cheddar. He was going for the bait again. Tozzi covered his mouth with his fingers and grinned.

“And the portrait of grandfather over the mantel? With the two tufted leather armchairs on either side.” She turned to Halbasian and started gushing directly at him. “You'll have to come for tea once we've set up. A proper English tea by the fire. I bake the yummiest scones, Mr. Halbasian.”

The grubby little mouse relaxed his face. He was thinking of Alistair Cooke with the roaring fire behind him. The scones did it. She was right. A real sucker for the Brit pedigree baloney.

He glanced at Tozzi quickly, then settled his gaze on her. His expression was liquid, like someone who'd just taken a terrific crap. “What can I say, Mrs. Tozzi? You're perfect. I'll have the leases sent to Mrs. Carlton's office by Monday.”

“Su-pah!”

“Wonderful!” Mrs. Carlson said with unconcealed relief.

“I know you'll like it here,” Halbasian said. He shook Roxanne's hand, then reluctantly offered to shake Tozzi's.

Tozzi smiled and pumped his hand. “Just one thing, Mr. Halbasian. That junk in the backyard—when will it be cleaned up?” He wasn't letting go of young Halbasian's hand. He couldn't help himself.

“Soon.”

“How soon?”

“Very soon.”

“I hope so.” Tozzi finally let go. Halbasian wasn't about to wince in front of them, but his fingers did look a bit red.

They were playing the “Tarantella” now, which was a blessing because it had no words. When the skinny guitar player sang, he ended all his phrases by sliding around the note before settling on it, sort of like a warped Dean Martin record. His guitar was also a little out of tune, and he paid absolutely no attention to the rhythm machine clicking out a fast samba beat. His partner, the accordion player, looked just like Dom DeLuise. He was the better musician, but he
was too damn loud. Tozzi's cousin Sal took accordion lessons when they were kids. When Sal was twelve, they bought him an amp. Lady of Spain, I adore you for the whole neighborhood. Amplified accordions should've been included in the Geneva Convention.

Across the table, Roxanne picked the meat out of a mussel and discarded the shell in the empty plate between them. “Halbasian's going to change his mind. He doesn't like you.”

Tozzi glanced at the plastic grapes and the Chianti bottles hanging on the wall. The bottles were vibrating dangerously, thanks to the accordian. “Yeah, I know Halbasian hates me, but he
loves
you.” He took another mussel from the big bowl. He really wanted to dunk a piece of bread in the sauce, but he was afraid she'd think he was a pig. “As soon as he heard your accent, I knew we were in.”

“Is that the only reason why you asked me to do this? Because I'm British?”

“No. I'm not that calculating.”

“Yeah, I'll bet.”

“Anyway, you're not completely British.”

She stopped chewing and stared at him. “You really are a sleuth, aren't you? How did you know?”

“Your accent isn't always so strong. It slacks off when you're off guard. Your choice of words gives you away, too. For instance, most of the time you say things are ‘great,' but with Mighty Mouse everything was “ ‘
supah
.' ” Tozzi reached for a piece of bread and thought about dunking again, then put it down on the side of his plate.

“Well, now that the jig's up, I guess I have to fess up.” She speared another mussel, chewed, and swallowed before she continued. “I was born in America—right here in Jersey, in fact, in Trenton. My father's British. He was working at a research lab in Princeton back then.”

“So where did you get the accent?”

“We moved back to England when I was four. He got bored with what he was doing here so he decided to go home and teach. We lived in London until I was twelve.”

“Then what?”

“Oddly enough, we moved back to Princeton. Dad received a lifetime fellowship from the Foundation for Advanced Scholarship.”

“Isn't that the place where people get paid just to sit around and think?”

She grinned. “That's one way of putting it.” She tore off a piece of bread and dunked it in the sauce. Tozzi smiled. She was okay.

Tozzi dunked his bread then and was careful not to get any sauce on his shirt. “Now, as long as I'm playing Sherlock Holmes,” he said, wiping his mouth with his napkin, “I'd say your mother wasn't English. You're too good-looking to be one hundred percent Brit.”

“Heavens!” she said with heavy irony. “You mean my gypsy blood is
that
evident?”

“Gypsy?”

“Russian gypsy. From the Ukraine.”

Tozzi chewed another piece of bread and nodded. Gypsy blood . . . He felt a little guilty thinking what he was thinking, but he couldn't help it.

The duo suddenly got much louder as they finished the “Tarantella” with a dramatic crescendo, the accordion making the silverware rattle. The Chianti bottles were trembling. Tozzi felt like he was at an Italian wedding.

“What is this, an Italian wedding?” she said over the noise.

Tozzi shrugged. She really was all right.

“We're gonna take a break right now,” the guitar player said with his mouth right on the mike, “but we'll be back in a little while to do a whole set dedicated to Mr. Sinatra. Okay?”

A few people applauded. An old guy sitting behind a golden-fried mountain of calamari banged his knife against his water glass.

“I can't wait,” she said, rolling her eyes to the ceiling.

Too bad. Tozzi actually liked Sinatra, but these two guys might change that. “I apologize for the lounge act. It's the food I come here for.”

She sipped her wine. “No need to apologize. I know how it is. The tackier the restaurant, the better the food. I know a few places in Trenton just like this.”

The tough-looking waiter came by then to take their plates and leave their salads. He looked like he could've been related to the accordian player. “Everything okay?” he asked.

Tozzi nodded. “Fine.”

“You got any requests for the band? After the Sinatra set, that is.”

“Do they know ‘When the Moon Hits Your Eye Like a Big Pizza Pie'?” Roxanne asked.

“Why su'.” The waiter smiled like a bulldog. Apparently he
thought she was okay, too. He picked up their bowl of mussel shells and left.

“That one they should do well,” she said with a conspirator's twinkle in her eye.

Tozzi sipped his wine and remembered the real name for that song, “That's
Amore
.” He decided not to go looking for signs and symbols, not yet. “So, Roxanne, now that you've been good enough to be my wife for the interview, I'd like to return the favor and help you with your Japanese nanny problem, if I can.”

She sighed deeply and dropped her cheek on her fist. “I don't know what to do. I can't last another quarter the way things are going.”

“Tell me about it.”

“There's not much to tell. I'm being undercut. I don't know exactly what the Japs are charging, but it has to be less than we are because they're stealing all the business.”

“Where do they come from?”

She shrugged. “I'd like to know. There are only a handful of nanny schools in this country, and I represent all of them.”

“You mean the Eastlake Academy doesn't really train nannies. You're the agent for these schools.”

“Exactly. Calling my business an academy is a bit of bullshit, but it's the kind of cachet you need to bring in customers. People like Mr. Halbasian would be impressed by something called the Eastlake Academy.” She turned up the Brit accent as she said this, then laughed, but it was forced. “My guess is that the Japanese girls are all illegal aliens.”

“Could be. But are they free agents cashing in on a good thing, or is there some kind of organization behind them?”

“Oh, no, they have an agency . . . of sorts. One of my ditzier ex-clients had to tell me all about them when she called to cancel the nanny I got for her. The woman blithered on about a Mrs. D'Urso from Short Hills and how she'd supplied her with a wonderful little Japanese girl who does absolutely everything for her—short of satisfying her poor husband, I suppose. From what I understood, this Mrs. D'Urso is running a real backroom operation out of her home—no advertising, no listing in the Yellow Pages, all word of mouth. Doesn't pay her taxes either, I'll bet. She's the one who apparently started this whole Japanese fad, and from what I've heard, she's marvelous at
convincing these snotty nouveau-riche ladies that they simply must have one of her girls. These ladies have been my bread and butter, but this year I've been losing them in droves.”

Tozzi speared a forkful of arugula and thought about telling her, then decided he better not. He could be wrong. But if his hunch was right, her competition was tougher than she ever imagined. He knew of a D'Urso who lived in Short Hills, John D'Urso, the most aggressive
capo
in the Antonelli family. But if this Mrs. D'Urso was John D'Urso's wife, what the hell would she be doing running a nanny service of all things? He wondered if her nannies were all Japanese. He wondered if the girl who was killed in the Death Bug had been one of her girls. There was a lot to wonder about.

“I take it from your silence that my problem is pretty hopeless,” she said.

He shook his head. “No . . . not necessarily. Could you get me this Mrs. D'Urso's address? I can pass it on to Immigration and Naturalization. They may be interested in checking these girls for green cards.”

“I'm sure I can get it for you. I'll chat up that ex-client of mine. She has a very big mouth.” Roxanne looked happier already. Tozzi felt a little light-headed. He really wanted to help her.

He ate some more arugula and gave her an encouraging smile, but he had no intention of alerting Immigration and Naturalization. They love to pull those infamous raids of theirs, which might be good for them, but not for him. His concern was a double murder, and they'd most likely fuck things up for him. They could have theirs later.

The duo returned to their instruments then. Tozzi hoped the guitar player would tune his guitar, but it didn't look like he was going to. He just adjusted the strap on his shoulder, grinning into the mike, as his partner cranked up the rhythm machine and picked a beat.