Bad Business (5 page)

Augustine frowned. “How do you mean?”

Nemo nodded toward the rug. “I'm sitting on a lot of product. A
lot
of product. I can't unload it because everybody's hot. They won't touch the shit while they're on trial. I can't even talk to my barber. You know who I mean.”

Salamandra, the Barber of Seville. Augustine nodded that he understood.

“Nothin's happenin' for us. It's like fuckin' gridlock, you know what I'm sayin'? I hang on to that rug too long, they may start thinkin' I'm holding out on them. On top of that, if the other guy—you know, from the farm?—if he don't get his do-re-mi, he's gonna be pissed as shit. And we don't wanna get him mad.”

Zucchetti, the other guy, from the farm. Augustine shook his head no. Indeed he did not want to upset Zucchetti. He held the purse strings. He approved the payments.

“Now, the way I see it, Augie, we got a coupla options here.” Nemo drew on his cigarette and blew smoke out the side of his mouth. “You can do what you promised to do in the first place. Make the mistrial happen so everybody can stop fucking around with this trial shit and we can all get back to work.”

“A mistrial takes time. This is a big case. I can't—”

“We don't have no more time,” Nemo overrode him.
“Vin's a rat. He's gonna do a Tweety Bird and start talking. That cannot happen. You understand what I'm sayin'?”

“Well, what can
I
do about that? I can't stop Giordano from talking.”

Nemo shrugged. “Maybe you should work on it. Like maybe you should work on it real hard. You know what I mean?”

“Are you suggesting that I have him . . .?” Augustine couldn't even bring himself to say it.

“You promised the guy from the farm that you'd get a mistrial if this ever happened. I'm not gonna tell you how to do your business. You just do it any way you have to.”

“But that's
not
my business. I wasn't supposed to have anything to do with”—he pointed to the rug—“that end of it. And I'm certainly not about to have Giordano—you know what I'm talking about.”

Nemo leaned forward with his elbows on his knees as he stuck the cigarette between his teeth. “Hey, you promised, and to my people a promise is a big thing. Don't give me this shit, it's not your business. You make it your business. Do it any way you have to. Just do it and do it fast.”

Sweat was trickling down Augustine's back. “But you said there were other options. Maybe there's something better we can do.”

Nemo nodded as he took another drag. “Yeah, we got a few options. There's the Sicilian option.”

“What's that?”

“That's the one where we kidnap your kids and send 'em back to you piece by piece until you do what you're supposed to do.”

Augustine was shaking his head, refusing to believe that this was happening to him.

“Let's see now,” Nemo said. “Tommy the fourth is up in Providence at Brown, and Missy is down near Philly at—how do you say it?—Brine Mower?”

“Bryn Mawr.”

“Whatever.” Nemo looked up at him and grinned. “You don't look too good, Augustine. Why don't you sit down? Go 'head, sit on the rug. I don't care. See what it's like to sit on eighty million balloons.”

Augustine declined the offer. He didn't even want to look at the rug. “There must be something else we can do. I'm sure we can come up with a reasonable solution.”

Nemo coughed up a laugh. “Fuck reasonable. We ain't negotiating here. I'm
telling
you—you gotta do what you promised, and that's all there is to it.”

“Please. If you have any other acceptable alternatives, just tell me.”

“Well, we can leave your kids alone and just whack you. How's that?”

Augustine felt a twinge behind his left eye. God, no. Not now. Not the cluster headaches. “You're not serious.”

“What's not to be serious? We whack you, and the mistrial is practically a sure bet. The chief prosecutor eats a few bullets, and the jury finds out about it, and that old bastard judge will have to call it a day. Intimidating the prosecution, making the jury crazy, whatever the fuck you lawyers call it. It'll work. Am I right?”

Unfortunately, the dwarf was right.

Nemo took the last drag and dropped the butt on the floor, grinding it out with his shoe. “Now, to tell you the truth, Augie, we'd rather not have to do it that way. Makes bad press for us, you know what I mean? It'd be better for everybody if you just get on the stick and do what you're supposed to do.”

Augustine closed his eyes and nodded. It was starting. Like a long nail slowly piercing the bone under the eye socket.

Nemo got up off the milk crate and lifted the door. “You better get to work, Augustine. You don't have much time.” He nodded at the rug. “Remember, we got product to move. Now go 'head, get goin'.”

Augustine's legs were numb as he stooped down and stepped out of the truck. The door slammed shut as soon as he was out, and Augustine heard Nemo yelling to the fat black man behind the wheel. “Go ‘head, get goin'.”

The truck's engine roared and it pulled out into the street. It made the green light at Madison and disappeared around the corner, heading uptown.

Augustine wandered back onto the sidewalk and drifted toward his front steps. He stared up at the facade of the town house again, thinking that's just what it was, a facade.

He mounted the steps slowly, oblivious to the dark and the cold, squinting against the sweeping headlights of cars turning into the block from Fifth, his shirt drenched under his coat. The nail was being driven deeper, cracking his skull. He had to get inside and lie down. He had to think. Lord God, he had to think . . .

“Your Honor, I must reiterate my colleagues' appeals for a mistrial in light of Mr. Giordano's dubiously motivated defection. Mr. Giordano is going to testify as to alleged activities that have been connected with my client, and yet Mr. Giordano has admitted that he has never actually met my client, that his knowledge of my client is hearsay at best. . . .”

Yadda-yadda-yadda.

Tozzi stifled a yawn as he stared at the short, bearded lawyer who'd been rattling on for the past twenty minutes. This was the one who looked like Sigmund Freud. He leaned over and whispered to Gibbons, “Which one is this? I forget.”

“I think that's Kostmeyer.” Gibbons actually looked like he was paying attention.

“Who's he representing?”

“One of the beauty parlor owners. It's either the guy from Buffalo or the one from Cleveland. I can't remember.”

“I bet the judge can't either.”

The judge was slumped over the bench, his face propped on his fist. This had been going on all day, the defense lawyers getting up and making their pitches for a mistrial for their individual clients, all eighteen of them. They knew it wasn't going to do any good, because the judge had made it pretty clear from the very beginning that he wasn't going to grant a mistrial, not just because Giordano had flipped, but the lawyers had the right to be heard and they were all going to exercise that right and have their say, all eighteen of them.

“Mr. Kostmeyer”—the judge's stentorian whine suddenly filled the room like an air-raid siren—”you're not telling me anything I haven't already heard before ad nauseam. At the risk of appearing as boring and repetitious as you and your colleagues, I am going to repeat the advice I gave you all in chambers yesterday. If you feel that your client's case will be damaged by the recent turn of events, then
plea-bargain
. It's a time-honored American tradition, Mr. Kostmeyer. If you truly believe that the jury will hang your client, cut your losses and make a deal with the prosecution. You have my blessing. All of you.”

The lawyer turned around and looked to his client seated at one of the defense tables, a painfully thin man with a razor-trimmed moustache. The client's eyes rolled to Salamandra sitting at another table. Salamandra was frowning, shaking his head almost imperceptibly. The thin man looked back at Kostmeyer and shook his head. The lawyer looked at the judge and shrugged. “My client does not wish to pleabargain, Your Honor.”

Tozzi stared at Salamandra. He was the one who was running things here. These guys didn't breathe without his okay. Maybe the fat bastard'll do everybody a favor and have a heart attack.

Tozzi's gaze drifted over to Lesley Halloran, Salamandra's lawyer. He wondered what her part was in all this—stooge, gofer, accomplice? He also wondered why the hell she bothered
him so much. She was a bitch in high school, but that was ancient history. He should just forget about it, ignore her. Anyway, she didn't remember him. She didn't even know who he was.

The sudden bang of the gavel startled Tozzi and embarrassed him. He didn't realize he'd been staring at her.

“Twenty-minute recess. Court will reconvene at eleven o'clock.” The judge stood up and stretched his back.

“But, Your Honor,” Kostmeyer objected, “I'm in the middle of my argument. I'd like to be able to finish in order to keep my presentation intact, if it pleases the court.”

Judge Morgenroth screwed up his face and glowered down at little Freud. “The court has to go take a crap, Mr. Kostmeyer. That's what would please the court.” The judge gathered up his papers and hopped down from the bench, disappearing into his chambers.

“Well,” Gibbons said, crossing his arms, “some things you just can't control. When you gotta go, you gotta go.”

“Hmmm?” Tozzi was watching Lesley Halloran. She was explaining something to Salamandra.

“I said when you gotta go, you gotta go. There's no controlling it.”

Tozzi stopped staring and shook his head. “That's not exactly true. You know, people are capable of doing incredible things if they put their minds to it. I read about this swami in India who had so much control over his body that he could reverse the flow of his bowel movements at will.”

“I'll bet he was a lot of fun at parties.”

“You laugh, but there's a lot to be learned from guys like that. Mind-body coordination. Learning to balance one with the other. That's the key to realizing your full potential.”

“Please, spare me the aikido lecture. I've heard it.”

“I'd
like to hear it sometime.”

Tozzi looked up at Tom Augustine standing over the railing. He'd apparently been listening, the sneaky bastard.

“I don't mean to be nosy, but did I hear correctly that you study aikido, Mike?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Very interesting. I've read a lot about it. It seems very different from the other martial arts. More cerebral. I'd like to give it a try sometime. Where do you do this?”

“A place in Hoboken. It's called the Hoboken Koki-Kai School of Aikido, on Washington Street.”

“When do they offer classes?”

“We meet on Monday and Wednesday nights at seven-thirty and Saturday afternoons at three.”

Augustine took out his electronic pocket calendar and entered the information. “I'm going to look into this. Thank you for telling me about it, Mike.”

“No problem. We always welcome newcomers. Please come and give it a try.”
Because I'd just love to throw your Brooks Brothers ass around the mat, Augustine
.

Gibbons leaned back and linked his fingers over his knee. “Hey, counselor, how long is this mistrial crap gonna go on? Why not let us go? We're just warming the bench here.”

“I wish I could dismiss you, but I have no idea how long these arguments are going to take. We may get through all their pleas by this afternoon, or it could take the rest of the week, depending on how verbose the opposition is feeling. I can't say.”

Tozzi noticed Lesley Halloran standing over by her table with Sigmund Freud and another defense attorney. She was laughing about something, her eyes crinkled and her mouth open in a wide smile. She casually put her hand on Freud's shoulder and rested her forehead on it for a moment. They were all having a good laugh about something. He wondered whether she was sleeping with the ugly little
putz
.

Tozzi's face got hot thinking about her and Freud. “You know something?” he said, looking up at Augustine. “This whole trial is bullshit. I think we should handle this the way the Mafia would: Put a contract out on all eighteen defendants
and
their scumbag lawyers. Just rub ‘em out. No big loss, believe me. Christ, I wouldn't mind doing a few of them myself. I mean, they're guilty as sin. All of them. Everybody knows that.” Lesley had her head back on Freud's shoulder, laughing her head off.

Augustine suddenly looked very uncomfortable. His back was stiff, and he was looking over Tozzi's head. Tozzi turned around and saw a guy hunched over a notepad, furiously scribbling away. He was wearing a black leather field coat, black pants, little black Italian loafers, a white shirt open at the neck, and dark glasses. His skin was pale yellow, and his long crooked nose combined with his receding chin to make him look like a great big rat. There was a press card clipped to the lapel of his jacket.