Bad Blood (31 page)

A little girl with short red braids came out of the store, holding
her father's hand. She was wearing a wide-brimmed, straw Chinese coolie hat, pressing it to her head against the breeze with her free hand. Lorraine couldn't see her face, only the braids. The girl was whining that the wind was going to blow her away, but her daddy reassured her that he wouldn't let that happen, just keep walking. They paid Lorraine no mind as they walked around her.

She looked across the street and gazed at the storefronts over there, looking for a number. She squinted at the Christian Science Reading Room and the stationery store next door, and then she spotted it, #49, on the glass door between the stores on the ground floor of that two-story yellow-brick building. She dug into the breast pocket of her lumberjack shirt and pulled out the scrap of paper with the information she'd scribbled down from the phone book: Eastlake Academy, 49 Main, Rm. 22.

Lorraine pushed the hair out of her face and dashed through traffic, heading for Room 22. She chewed her lip as she ran. Please be there.

She pushed through the glass door, climbed the stairs, and followed the arrows to the Eastlake Academy. When she got to the door, she could hear music inside. It sounded like a Vivaldi concerto, very bouncy and determined. She knocked on the door, waited, knocked again, then let herself in. She wasn't going to be put off anymore, not by anyone.

The waiting room was empty. She followed the music to the next room where Roxanne was sitting behind her desk, staring out the window with her feet up on the radiator. The music was coming from the stereo nestled in with the books on a high bookcase.

“Hello.”

Roxanne's head whipped around, her eyes wide with alarm. She stared at Lorraine for a moment. It wasn't a very welcoming stare.

“God, you scared me.” Roxanne got up and turned off the music. She looked like she wanted to be alone.

“I apologize for barging in on you like this, but as you can probably see, I'm at wit's end.”

“Is there something wrong, Lorraine? Can I help?” There was chilly formality in Roxanne's voice, a kind of clipped detachment she must use with her clients. Not the tender doe Lorraine met at the hospital. Something was bothering her.

“I don't mean to bother you, Roxanne, but you're my last hope.”
Lorraine sat down on the edge of the burgundy leather sofa. She'd been up most of the night, and she was exhausted. “What's wrong?”

“Gibbons. He's the only thing that's ever wrong.”

“I don't follow you.” Roxanne sat down behind her desk. She sat very straight and proper, still very cold. Lorraine decided to ignore it. For the moment, she had her own problems to deal with.

“He was released from the hospital yesterday. Yesterday! He's supposed to be resting, for God's sake. But where do you think he is right now? Out on a plant with Michael.”

“A plant?”

Lorraine sighed. Roxanne didn't know the jargon . . . yet. “That's what
they
call it. A stakeout. Michael told me last night on the phone.”

“I talked to him this morning. I was supposed to see him last night, but he got tied up with something important, he said. He said he was going to be working this morning, but he didn't give me any details.”

Oh, so that's why the cold shoulder. Michael stood her up last night. And Michael's cousin must be culpable by blood, no doubt. Lorraine sighed. She was tempted to say something to Roxanne, give her the voice of experience, but what good would it do? It's like the college professor telling the bright-eyed student that pursuing a career in academia might be a mistake, that there's no future in it. They already have their minds set. They never listen.

“They're like goddamn kids, those two,” Lorraine said instead. “Daredevils hell-bent on getting themselves killed. The trouble with them is that Gibbons won't admit to himself how old he really is. He thinks he can keep up with Michael, and Michael does nothing to discourage him. Michael, on the other hand, feels he has to live up to the legend, Gibbons, the salty old dog of the Bureau. They feed off each other like that. They're incredible.”

Roxanne sighed and shook her head, the frost melting away. “Yes, they certainly are incredible.” She looked up at her bookcase and smirked. “You know, I've only known your cousin for a week. Seven days and one morning to be exact, and he's got me acting like a silly idiot. I think about him all the time. It's ridiculous. I haven't felt this way about a man since high school. I didn't think I'd ever feel that way again. So giddy, so . . . I mean, this simply is not adult behavior. After all, it's only been a week . . . and a morning.”

Lorraine sighed. “Sounds like you're pretty much head over heels.”

Roxanne just looked down at her blotter and shrugged.

A loud drone from outside filled the silence. A small airplane, Lorraine guessed. She hugged the flaps of her lumberjack shirt. It was cold in Roxanne's office. “I went to your apartment this morning, but you weren't home. I looked you up in the phone book. I had to find you because I need a favor.”

“What is it?”

“I want you to give me that mobster's address. That's where they are. I want to talk some sense into Gibbons before he gets hurt again.”

Roxanne started playing with the ring on her finger, a flat oval onyx in a beaded silver setting. “Well, I—”

“I know you know where it is. Gibbons told me it was you who put them on to this D'Urso character in the first place.” Lorraine stared into her eyes. She was not going to be put off.

Roxanne seemed startled by her determination. “Well, yes, it's true that I told Mike about Mrs. D'Urso's pirate baby-sitter business, and one of my nosybody ex-clients did tell me where she lived. I've driven by the house, just out of curiosity, so I could take you there. But . . . well, Mike and Gibbons won't be very pleased to see us, will they? Interference from us . . . well, wouldn't that be some kind of crime? Technically, I mean. Like obstruction of justice, or something like that.”

Lorraine stared hard at her. “Is it that you're so mad at Michael you don't want to see him, or does he have you that snowed with the FBI bullshit? He's got you thinking the same way Gibbons made me think all these years. You're making room for the FBI. You can't take the man without the Bureau. It's a package deal, no substitutes. I think having to live with a conniving battle-ax of a mother-in-law would've been better than this.”

Roxanne was twisting that ring around her finger, around and around. “But do you really think going to find them would be wise? I mean, will Gibbons really listen to you if you just show up like this? He'll only be furious and more unreasonable, won't he?”

“I really don't care what he thinks. I'm tired of accommodating his feelings, cajoling him, stroking him, always trying to persuade him to see it my way. I'm worried about me now for a change and
that's what I intend to tell him. If he really cares about me, he'll come home and rest the way he's supposed to. The doctor said he could do permanent neurological damage, maybe even paralysis, if he doesn't take it easy. So if he gives me this shit about having a job to do, then that's it. He can get himself shot for all I care because I don't want him on his terms anymore.” She stuck her hands under her armpits. Her fingers were freezing. “So are you going to give me that address or not?”

Roxanne stopped playing with her ring. “I suppose if I were ever in your position, I wouldn't want to be put off. It could happen.” She looked up at her bookcase again and sighed. “All right. I'll take you there.”

“Just give me the directions. You don't have to come.”

“Yes I do. Otherwise it'll be two against one.” Roxanne flashed a knowing grin.

Lorraine shook her head and grinned back. Roxanne was all right. There was hope for her yet.

“Come on,” Roxanne said, walking around the desk. “We'll take my car.”

Seeing the shine of Roxanne's red hair as she stepped into the sunlight reminded Lorraine of that little girl with the red braids and the coolie hat. “Fine. We just have to make one quick stop first.”

As she followed Roxanne out into the reception room, Lorraine snatched a Kleenex from the box on the desk and blew her nose. A united front. Two on two. Maybe she wouldn't be put off this time.

GIBBONS SHIFTED his butt and pressed his back into the passenger seat, then picked up the binoculars and scanned the property around D'Urso's house again. It was almost ten-thirty and still quiet. He stuck his finger in the neck brace to get the damn thing off his Adam's apple for a minute. The pain he felt yesterday had diminished considerably, but now he had a new pain. It felt like he had two bowling balls hanging off his shoulders and no matter what he did he couldn't shrug them off. He wondered if Nurse Fay, the two-ton buttercup, felt this way all the time.

“How's the neck feel?” Tozzi asked.

“Fine.” Gibbons shot a sour look at his partner. “Why do you keep asking me that?”

“I have to,” Tozzi said, gazing down at the
Daily News
open on the steering wheel. “I promised Lorraine I'd take care of you.” Tozzi didn't look up but he had this shit-eating grin on his face.

“Fuck you, Tozzi.” He scanned the house with the binoculars again.

“You're quite welcome, Gib.”

Gibbons put down the binoculars. “This is useless. There's nothing to see here. Come on, let's go. We'll tell Ivers and let him do what he wants with it. At least it'll get things moving.”

Tozzi shook his head. “You said we could sit on it until the middle of next week. You promised.”

“So what?”

“You promised.”

“I take it back then. Let's go.”

Tozzi shook his head again. “See? Lorraine is right about you. You don't keep your promises.”

“Eat shit.”

“Why don't you just take the goddamn painkillers and sit still for a while?”

Gibbons didn't answer. He'd brought the pills, just in case. But Tozzi was just assuming he had them. Prick.

“If we don't see anything by lunchtime, we'll go. Okay?”

“Don't do me any fucking favors.”

Tozzi went back to his newspaper, but Gibbons could feel him grinning, the bastard. Bad enough that he was letting Tozzi drive his car. He could drive it himself if he wanted to—he wasn't an invalid. It was just looking left and right when he came up to an intersection that was a problem. Sometimes he'd forget about his neck and turn his head instead of turning his shoulders. That hurt like a bitch. That's why he was letting Tozzi drive. Not because he couldn't. It was just to give himself a break. That's all. He lowered the binoculars and looked at Tozzi. He better realize that.

After a minute, Tozzi noticed that he was being stared at. “What're you looking at me like that for?”

“Like what?”

“Like Sister Theresa Ignatius, my fifth-grade teacher, that's what.”

Gibbons didn't like being compared to a nun. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“You got this real pissy look on your face. What am I, putting fingerprints on your steering wheel? What?”

“Shut up and read your paper.”

Tozzi looked down and flipped the page. “It's okay. I know what's bothering you.”

“Oh, yeah? What?”

“Lorraine.”

“Fuck you.” He tried rotating his shoulders a little. The bowling balls had suddenly gotten heavier.

“Yeah, all right, fuck me.” Tozzi snapped another page. “You been fighting with her all week, and now you want to take it out on
me. Well, that's okay. Go ahead. I'll be the punching bag. I understand.”

Gibbons could feel his face turning to stone. He wanted to smash Tozzi over his big guinea nose with the binoculars. Bastard. Of course it was Lorraine who was bothering him. What the hell did he think? Tozzi's too goddamn young, that's his problem. He sleeps with anything that moves and thinks it's love. In ten, fifteen years he'll change his tune. That's when he'll wish he had a good woman, not some bimbo, someone you can talk to, someone you can stand to be with more than ten minutes. That's his whole problem. He doesn't know what loving a woman is all about. Not really. No use explaining it to him, though. The guy's got a thick head. Always has to learn the hard way. Bastard.

Gibbons let out a long sigh that ended with a rumbling growl deep in his throat. “Come on. D'Urso's not here. We're wasting our time. Let's get out of here.”

Tozzi kept looking at the paper and shook his head slowly. “Who was the one who always preached to me about being patient on a plant? About sitting tight and waiting it out until your ass went numb? About following proper procedure no matter how boring it got?”

“The place is too quiet,” Gibbons overrode him. “If you weren't so damned interested in the paper, you'd see that. Christ, we've been here since eight and all I've seen is one goddamn dog pissing on D'Urso's lawn. I haven't seen a single person in this neighborhood. Not even a fucking jogger. D'Urso's not here, believe me.”