Bad Blood (32 page)

Tozzi glanced down at the house over his paper. “I see a three-car garage, doors closed. How do you know D'Urso's Mercedes isn't in there?” Tozzi turned the page and went back to the paper. “Short Hills is a very rich community. Rich people don't jog on the street. They go to health clubs. A rich guy doesn't just go out for a stroll in the neighborhood. Rich people don't hang out on the corner to shoot the breeze either. Rich people don't like to be seen around their houses. Don't ask me why—that's just the way they are. Now as for the dog, I'm surprised he wasn't shot on sight. Piss burns are murder on a lawn, especially from female dogs. Only thing you can do is cut out the whole section with a linoleum knife, replace it with a patch of sod, and hope it takes.”

“Are you through, Tozzi?” Gibbons wanted to break his nose in the worst way, the wise-ass.

“I'm just explaining why we have to sit here—”

“Hold on. What's this?” Gibbons lifted the binoculars and focused on the two figures walking up the road now, approaching D'Urso's corner lot. Two women, both wearing jeans and hats. He fine-tuned the focus to get a better look at the hats. That's what he thought they were, big straw coolie hats. Looking down from where they were parked high up on the hill, Gibbons couldn't see their faces. The hats covered them completely.

He handed the binoculars to Tozzi. “Couple of Jap broads coming up the road. From D'Urso's wife's baby-sitting crew, I'll bet.”

Tozzi lifted the binoculars and took a look. “They aren't Japanese. Look at how they walk. That's an American walk.”

Gibbons laughed. “Who're you bullshitting? American walk, my ass.”

“And besides, those hats are Chinese, not Japanese.”

“Oh, that's right, I forgot. You're the big expert on everything Japanese now that you're taking karate lessons.”

Tozzi looked at him through slit eyes. “Not karate. Aikido. I knew I should never have mentioned it to you.”

Gibbons smiled like a crocodile. “Noooo. I'm glad you told me. I mean, who wouldn't want to have Bruce Lee for a partner? God, I feel fucking safe as shit just sitting here next to you.”

“I will never tell you anything again, Gibbons. I swear to God.”

Gibbons pinched his nose and closed his eyes, trying to contain himself. He couldn't stop laughing, though, imagining Tozzi in one of those cheapie kung-fu movies.
Wham! Blam! Slap! Pow!
He'd be perfect. All this laughing hurt his shoulders, but he didn't care. He needed something to laugh about.

Tozzi tried to ignore him. “Those are two nice ladies from the neighborhood out taking a walk.”

“I thought you said rich people don't take walks.” He couldn't stop laughing.

“You're busting my balls, Gib.”

“And what about the coolie hats, Toz? What do you make of them?” He could tell from the tight look on Tozzi's face that he was getting under his skin. Good.

“I don't know, Gib. Let's see. Maybe they just got back from a trip to China. Maybe they're gardening hats. To keep the sun off their heads.”

“It's October, genius. The sun's not that hot.”

Tozzi ignored him and went back to the
Daily News
. Eventually Gibbons stopped snorting and chortling and went back to watching the house.

Nagai drove. Hideo sat next to him up front, Toshio in the back. Ikki was in the van up ahead with the others. He followed the van as it turned off South Orange Avenue and headed up the hill into Short Hills. They hadn't said a word since he'd given them their instructions that morning.

“Hideo,” he suddenly said, breaking the silence, “what would you do if a man raped your woman?”

“Kill him,” the young man said automatically.

“Toshio?”

“Rape
his
woman, then kill him.”

“And what would Ikki do?”

Toshio spoke up after a moment. “Rape the man
and
his woman. Then kill him.”

They all laughed, but it was tense.

Nagai couldn't stop thinking about Reiko, wondering what D'Urso and the punk had done to her, wondering why she wouldn't tell him last night. He imagined what she'd say if he pressed her for an answer. She'd scream, say it was his fault, say she told him they wanted to make her a whore. He tried not to think about it. There were more important things to worry about now. Anyway, if they
had
touched his woman, he'd have D'Urso's. Whatever they'd done to Reiko, he'd take an eye for an eye. The Mafia aren't the only ones with balls.

He steered the Caddy around a sharp curve, staying close to the van. He wondered how stupid D'Urso would be. Would he back down once they took his wife or would he keep playing the big man, daring them to do something? What D'Urso didn't know was that he was prepared to do anything he had to. Keeping Antonelli alive and Hamabuchi happy was all that mattered. If he had to kill the bastard and wipe out his whole family in the process, he'd do it. D'Urso would learn the hard way how the yakuza do business.

The van took a left and started climbing a steep hill. Nagai followed, the old Caddy's transmission clunking as it downshifted, the engine whining. D'Urso's house was on the next street on the right at the end of the block.

“You know what you have to do?” he asked the two kids.

“Hai.”

“Hai.”

“Good.”

He would have liked to have Mashiro here, but he felt confident with Moe, Larry, and Curly. They were good. D'Urso and Francione weren't home, so there shouldn't be any problems. If there were, Hideo, Toshio, and Ikki would handle it. No problem. They were good.

As the van took the next corner, Nagai set his jaw and gripped the wheel tight, wondering what he'd say to Reiko when he saw her.

“Goddamn,” Tozzi suddenly said.

Gibbons rolled his eyes at him. “What?”

“Wait a minute.” Tozzi had his finger on an item in the newspaper.

“What is it?”

Tozzi put the paper on the dash and pointed to the article. “Says here that the Dockworkers Local called a wildcat strike against Asian Automotive Importers yesterday.”

“Asian Automotive Importers is the car lot where I found the air hose and Japanese Coke can.”

“Yeah, I know. Listen to this: ‘A spokesman for Asian Automotive called the strike “unjustified and unexpected,” adding that his company will sue the union for loss of profits if they do not return to work immediately. A freighter containing new Toyota automobiles from Japan has been docked at the company's Port Newark facilities since early Friday morning, waiting to be unloaded. The Greater New York Toyota Dealers Association is urging Asian Automotive to settle with the union quickly to avoid loss of sales due to lack of inventory. A union spokesman predicted that the strike would be “a long one” if their grievances were not addressed,' blah, blah, blah. The Antonelli family has been mixed up with those dock unions since the forties.”

Gibbons nodded. “As I remember, about ten years ago one of Antonelli's people was implicated in some scam to buy controlling
shares in a Vegas casino with money siphoned from the Dockworkers' pension fund. You think D'Urso's got something to do with this?”

“Sure, why not? Maybe he's trying to pressure his buddy Nagai.”

“How?”

“That guy Takayuki? The one I talked to in the trailer behind the chicken shack? He told me about how they smuggle slaves in the trunks of new cars, how they take just enough food and water to last them until all the cars are unloaded and they can be let out after dark. He told me on his trip over they had to go hungry for a few days before they were unloaded. If there are people trapped in those Toyotas on that ship, they may be without food or water right now. It doesn't take that long to die of dehydration, does it? They could be in danger of dying. Hundreds of them.”

“And there's no profit to be made on damaged goods. Who's gonna pay for a dead slave?”

Tozzi frowned. “You're so eloquent, I can't stand it.”

“Hey, that's Mafia hardball. If D'Urso wanted to get something out of this Nagai character, this would be the way he'd do it. Grab him by the nuts and squeeze till he gives.”

Tozzi reached for the key in the ignition and started the engine. “We better find a phone and call this in. Get Ivers to alert the Coast Guard. Have them board the freighter and open some trunks—”

“Hang on a minute.” Gibbons was looking through the binoculars at the house. Those two broads in the coolie hats were still hanging out on the corner down there, but now a pair of vehicles was just pulling up in front of the house. A light metallic blue van and behind it a big old black Caddy. A Caddy
with fins
. Christ, Caddy's haven't had fins in—what?—twenty-five, thirty years.

“That's a sixty. I can tell from here,” Tozzi said, spotting the car. “My old man had one just like it.”

“Spare me the trip down Memory Lane,” Gibbons muttered, still peering through the binoculars.

Four men got out of the van, two out of the Caddy. Damn if these guys didn't look Japanese. Three of them crossed the lawn and went around back. Three went to the front door and rang the bell. A Japanese woman with real long straight black hair opened the door and motioned frantically, pointing back inside. There was a lot of
nodding, then the three who went around back returned dragging this little bleach-head blonde across the lawn.

“That's D'Urso's wife,” Tozzi said. “What's going on?”

“Looks like retaliation to me.” The three Japs who were at the front door suddenly cut through the bank of shrubs and trees that separated the lawn from the curb and surprised the two broads in the coolie hats who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Japs pinned their arms behind their backs and forced them over to the van where they'd already taken D'Urso's wife. “What're they bothering with them for? They're just out taking a walk.”

“Nobody walks in this neighborhood,” Tozzi said grimly.

Gibbons lifted the binoculars to his eyes again. One of the Japs was pointing vehemently at the two women, and D'Urso's wife kept shaking her head no. The women were struggling to break free, but it was useless. They fought so hard they knocked the coolie hats off their heads. Gibbons focused on their faces. The redhead looked familiar. But when he got a good look at the brunette, the bottom dropped out of his gut. “Oh, Jesus—”

Tozzi grabbed the binoculars out of his hand and looked. “That's Roxanne and Lorraine. What the fuck is going on?”

Gibbons wasn't listening. He strained to see what was going on in the distance, the figures disappearing into the van, thinking about Lorraine in that ridiculous hat silently screaming for help. He was pissed as hell at her, and he was paralyzed by the gruesome thoughts and possibilities that went through his mind so fast the only thing that really registered was the fear and anxiety of a world without Lorraine. He thrust his hand into his jacket, reaching for his gun, but he moved too fast and the pain that screamed through his shoulder instantly brought tears to his eyes. Goddamn! Lorraine needed him, but he was useless! He was a goddamn gimp!

Pinned against the seat by the pain, Gibbons blinked back the tears and saw the Japs getting into the van and pulling away from the curb, hanging a right around that corner and racing off down the hill. The old black Caddy with the fins followed close behind like a guard shark.

Gibbons turned his head toward Tozzi. “Go, goddammit! Hurry up! Go!” He didn't realize that Tozzi already had it in gear, that his foot was on the accelerator, that the forest-green LTD had left a long
pair of skid marks at the curb. He didn't even feel the pain now. All he could feel was this massive sense of dread about to roll over him, flatten him, ruin everything. That and the shame of realizing that he might not be able to do a damn thing to prevent his worst nightmare from happening.

Oh, Jesus . . . Lorraine. They've got Lorraine!

ANTONELLI SAT ON the edge of the limo's backseat with the door open, pointing that bony finger at D'Urso. The old man's face was red he was so mad. Even his scalp was red under the thin white hair. “What I want to know is where the hell you get off calling a strike on your own. Tell me, John. I want to know.”

D'Urso shrugged and caught a glimpse of Vincent standing off to the side between the fenders of the limo and the Mercedes. Big Vincent looked nervous. He was the one who picked this end of the lot, but he still looked nervous. He kept looking back through the cyclone fence, at that rotten pier over the water and the abandoned rowboat turned over on its back by the fence.

D'Urso glanced at the razor wire coiled on top of the eight-foot fence. What the fuck did Vincent think? Some hitter's gonna jump out from under the boat with a machine gun and start shooting through the fence? Fucking dummy. Still, he liked to see Vincent sweat for a change. The big man scanned the long lines of these little shitty Jap cars all around them, glancing nervously at Bobby leaning on the fender of the Mercedes with his arms folded over his chest while trying to keep his eye on the old man the way he was supposed to. Vincent didn't know where the fuck to look. All he knew was that he'd fucked up and let the old man get into a bad situation. If a hit was on, it could come from anywhere out here. D'Urso was glad to see him worried.