Bad Business (19 page)

He forced himself to concentrate on the page in front of him, scanning for his place so he could start up the tape again. But something suddenly caught his eye, something that didn't look right. At the bottom of the page he spotted the word “drug.” He read the line: “What about the big drug? Is coming now?” Salamandra was supposed to have said that. Gibbons made a face. Impossible.

He went to the middle of the page, to the conversation that preceded this.

Short man:
I sent sixty-six combs over the other day. The man over there will send us the shampoo as soon as he gets his combs. The guys down there will get a few bottles—you know, for the combs—and we get the rest.

Salamandra: Bène, bène
.

Short man:
Is he still happy? The man over there—I heard he wasn't happy.

Salamandra: Niènte paura
. He like you very much.
Nostro santo
, our saint,
he
make him mad.

Short man:
Is he gonna stop sending us stuff? You know, shampoo?

Salamandra:
No, no, don't worry.

Short man:
Good.

Salamandra:
What about the big drug? Is coming now?

Short man:
Not this time. Maybe soon, I hope.

Salamandra:
Yes, I hope so, too. I like big drugs, looks nice for me.

Gibbons couldn't believe this. He'd read thousands of transcripts like these over the years, listened to hundreds of hours of tapes. He knew how these guys talked, and they never called drugs drugs. It was always something else—shirts, pants, shoes, cheese, wheels, olive oil, shampoo,
combs, towels, anything but what it really was. Whoever transcribed this tape must've misheard it. Gibbons checked the numbers in the margin of the transcript that corresponded to the tape position, then fast-forwarded the tape recorder to the place just before where Salamandra supposedly said “big drugs.”

Gibbons pressed the phones to his ears and listened carefully. As with most of these tapes, there was a lot of background noise, loud music on this one. Sounded like that freak Michael Jackson. And a constant droning noise. Maybe hair dryers. They were in a beauty parlor.

“. . . No, no, don't worry.”

“Good.”

“What about the big drug? Is coming now?”

“Not this time. Maybe soon, I hope.”

“Yes, I hope so, too. I like big drugs, looks nice for me.”

Gibbons stopped the tape, rewound it, and hit the play button.

“. . . I like big drugs, looks nice—”

He rewound it and played it back again.

“. . . I like big drugs—”

He did it again.

“. . . big drugs—”

He did it again, then again and again, focusing on that one word:
Drugs
.

Salamandra had that thick Sicilian accent, and he trilled all his r's. Gibbons opened the bottom drawer of his desk and grabbed a worn paperback Italian-English dictionary. He looked up the word “drug.” Translation:
dròga
. That's what he thought. He rewound the tape and played it again. “I like big
dròg'
. . .” He stopped the tape. Maybe he was saying
dròga
, trilling the
r
and dropping the last syllable. Sicilians do that. They drop the last syllable on a lot of words.

But so what? In one language or the other, Salamandra is still saying drugs? Mafiosi don't do that. They never do that. Salamandra's not that stupid, not by a long shot.

Gibbons rewound the tape and played it again. He stopped the tape and the word echoed in his head.
“Dròg'
. . .
dròg' . . . dròg'
. . .” Trilling the r's.

Gibbons picked up the photo of Salamandra and the short guy out in the snow. He sifted through the other photos, hearing Salamandra saying
dròg'
in his head, and his eye was caught by another picture, another black-and-white glossy, this one of Vincent Giordano with the short man. Giordano was behind the wheel of a car, the short guy was in the passenger seat, turned toward Giordano. Again, only a sliver of the short guy's face was showing. Gibbons stared at Giordano's face. He looked worried in the picture, fretting, on the point of getting frantic. Gibbons wondered if he looked like that up in the bedroom at Uncle Pete's when he first saw the shooters pull their guns. He remembered the cop sitting up on the landing, guarding the crime scene yesterday. He and Lorraine had been over at the buffet table. Where he was standing, he could see right up the staircase. Tozzi had been in the other room with that pain-in-the-ass cousin of his who was busting his balls about who was gonna get that big Oriental rug. . . .

Dròg'
. . .

Drug . . .

Rug . . .

Trilling the
r'
s.

Rrrrrug . . .

No . . .

Big drug, big rug? Could Salamandra be saying “rug” on that tape? Gibbons thought about it. He tried to imagine how Salamandra would say “rug.” Yeah, that's probably just how he'd say it.

Then he suddenly remembered something. He remembered what Lorraine had said to him as they were watching
cousin Marie bend Tozzi's ear. She said she'd never noticed that rug before. It was the first time she'd ever seen it.

He tried to visualize the rug. Tozzi and Marie were standing on it. Maroon with a blue and tan design, sort of a tribal kind of design. And it was big, covered the whole room. Bigger than a nine-by-twelve.

He stared down at the transcript, replacing the word in his mind. “I like big rug. Is nice for me.”

Perfect place to stash dope, an FBI safe house loaded with junk.

Nah . . .

Yeah, but . . .

How could they get it in there?

Couldn't be. This is nuts.

Then he remembered that big shipment they'd heard was supposed to be coming into the country. Forty kilos of heroin. About eighty-eight pounds. Could you get eighty-eight pounds of dope into a rug that size? It's a big rug. Why not?

But how did it get to Uncle Pete's?

Nah.

It's not impossible, though. When it comes to dope, nothing's impossible.

Gibbons took off the headphones and picked up the telephone. He'd better talk to Tozzi.

Nemo stood on his tiptoes on the garbage can and looked through the window. The glass was frosted, which meant it was a bathroom. It was open a couple of inches. Somebody must've left it open yesterday when all the people were here after the funeral. See? This was gonna be even easier than he thought. He'd told that fuck French Fry it would be a snap, but no,
he
didn't want to do it. The spade found out about what had happened upstairs, read it in the paper, and he freaked, said he didn't want to go in there. What the hell was he afraid of, ghosts?

He pushed the window open all the way, then hauled himself up onto his palms on the sill, got one leg inside, then the other, and lowered himself in nice and quiet, bracing his foot on the sink. He didn't like doing this himself—he was a “made” man, after all—but he didn't have much choice. Anyway, what the fuck, there was no one here. It was gonna be easy. Just grab the rug and get the fuck out. The cop was gone. He just saw the guy leave out the front. At least French Fry was good enough to give him that idea. Call the
cops and report a residential break-in in the neighborhood, wait five minutes, then call in another one around the corner. Nemo had listened in on the police scanner in his car, just the way French Fry told him to, and it worked just the way the spade said it would. He heard the whole thing. The dispatcher sent the nearest car over to the first break-in, then because there were no other cars in the area, they pulled the guy watching this place and sent him to check out the other break-in around the corner. It was great. Now he had plenty of time to grab the rug and get out with it. No sweat.

Nemo ripped some toilet paper from the roll, wiped his nose, and threw it in the john. He rubbed his arms and shivered. It was fucking cold, and he couldn't get warm no matter what he did. He hated feeling this way. It was the worst thing in the whole goddamn world because you knew cold turkey was coming and you thought about it all the time, started going nuts because you had no idea where the hell you were gonna get your next fix and got the shakes just thinking about how much it was gonna hurt. Fucking psychological torture. He was flat broke, didn't even have the cash to cop on the street. Any other time he'd be going ape shit by now, but this time he was gonna be cool. Soon as he got the rug, he'd make a little slit and take some shit for himself. Not much. Just enough and then some. If Salamandra asks who the hell was dipping into the dope, he'd say he didn't know nothing. Blame somebody else. Blame French Fry. Blame anybody. Salamandra didn't know he had a little taste for horse now and then, and he wasn't gonna know. After all, he was a made man now. Made men aren't supposed to take shit. It wasn't like he was addicted or anything. He just liked it, made him feel warm inside. He could stop if he wanted to. He just didn't want to. That's all.

Nemo grabbed some more toilet paper, swiped his runny nose, and threw it in the toilet. He went to the bathroom door, looked up and down the hallway, and listened. Nothing.
No one here. Just as he thought. He slipped out of the bathroom and headed for the front of the house. No fooling around now. Just get it and get out before the cop gets back.

As he came into the front hall, he saw it right away in that front room to the left, that big red motherfucker with the crazy design. Oh, yes. He felt better already.

But before he went for it, he glanced into the room on the other side of the hall and he nearly shit his pants at what he saw. Some broad leaning over a table with her back to him, shoving paper plates and Styrofoam cups into a big green garbage bag. Some broad in jeans and a green sweater, long dark hair with a little gray showing, a dish towel over her shoulder. Jesus!

Nemo just stood there, looking at the broad, looking at the rug, back and forth, back and forth. He started getting real cold again, getting the shivers. Jesus Christ! He was here already for cryin' out loud, and the shit was right there. And that cop was gonna be back soon. She hadn't noticed him yet. She had her back to him, hadn't seen his face yet. And the rug was right there. And he was already here. . . .

Hey, what the fuck.

He watched her for a moment, then looked around for something he could use. Down the other end of the hall, toward the rear of the house, there was a wall phone. He could see the long coiled cord dangling there in the shadows. Nemo retreated down the hall and quietly undipped both ends of the white cord from the phone. It was one of those extra-long jobs. Good, very good.

He crept back down the hall, glanced at the rug, then went into the other room, walking softly. As he got up behind her, he realized how tall she was. Well, so what? The cord was wrapped around both his hands. No problem, just let out a little more slack. When he was ready, he hopped up, looped the cord around her neck, and yanked back hard.

She made a little yelp, like she was gonna throw up or something, but she quieted right down as soon as he got the
cord up under her chin, nice and snug, same way you do with a dog on a choke chain. She grabbed her throat, trying to get a finger under the cord, but it was no use. He had it nice and tight. A good sharp yank and a knee to the small of her back and she was down on her side. Yeah! Git along, little dogie. He grinned at the ease of his takedown. He'd done this before, plenty of times, and to guys a lot bigger than she.

Holding the cord secure in one hand, he snatched up her dish towel and wrapped it around her face, sawing it into her mouth. He flipped her onto her belly and sat on her back, then tied the towel behind her head in that tangle of dark hair. It was nice that the cord was so long and stretchy. He was able to get her wrists behind her back and tie them together without letting go of her throat. This babe wasn't going anywhere.

But as soon as he let up on the cord, he realized he'd made a big mistake. She'd wiggled around and was looking at him, her eyes wide and crazy, like a pony in a photo finish. She'd seen his face. Shit. Now he had to fucking get rid of her. He looked up at the closed front door and thought about the cop. Shit. Gotta be quick about it.

He stood up and grabbed a fistful of her sweater, then dragged her down the hallway to the kitchen. She slid real nice on the wood floor, but on that old gummy linoleum in the kitchen she was work, and that aggravated him. Fucking bitch. What the hell's she doing here anyway? Stupid bitch. This was supposed to be easy. Now's he gotta fucking do a job on her. Shit.

Nemo wiped his runny nose on his sleeve, wiped his sweaty face on the other sleeve. It was fucking cold in there. His teeth were chattering. He thought about the rug in the front room, thought about all the warmth inside that big red baby. He was gonna be nice and warm, his whole body. A little pot-belly stove burning nice and toasty right inside of him. Just do her, get the rug, and get the fuck outta there.

He scanned the kitchen counters for a knife rack. He
needed a knife to slit her fucking throat. But then he noticed something on the counter by the sink. It was hiding back there behind a big silver coffee urn, an open bag of Pathmark sugar, and one of those round blue containers of Morton salt, the little girl with the umbrella on the front. What he was looking at was a big fucking white plastic gallon of Clorox bleach. He thought of his mother. She loved bleach, used to use it on everything. He stared at that Clorox bottle, then looked at the bitch's face, her wild horse eyes. Don't have to kill her. Yeah. Why not? For Ma.