Tozzi? Nah. Couldn’t be.
Could it?
“C’mon, Sal! Get in! Hurry up!”
Sirens screamed across the parking lot in the distance. Revolving red-and-blue dome lights raced through the night, heading for the entrance to the track.
Sal got in and slammed the door shut. “Let’s go.”
Stacy sat on the edge of her chair, hugging herself. The room was cramped with too many folding chairs and a long conference table. It was also dim and chilly, too air-conditioned. She sat in the corner against the back wall, trying to stay out of the draft coming from the air duct on the ceiling. This whole place gave her the creeps. She wished Tozzi hadn’t brought her down here. Yes, she wanted to be with him, but not at a state mental hospital.
Looking through the one-way glass mirror that covered one wall, she scanned the ward on the other side. This was the room where the doctors observed the patients. It was like watching fish at the aquarium. Men in bathrobes and pajamas shuffled across the floor, wandering aimlessly. Other men in baggy blue jeans and white T-shirts smoked and stared out into space. One guy rubbed his crotch and rocked back and forth while he smoked, puffing, rubbing, rocking, puffing, rubbing, rocking. A fat guard in a gray uniform sat tipped back in a folding chair by the door, reading the paper. Tozzi leaned on the edge of a table, bouncing his cane on the floor impatiently. He was waiting for that guy Sal Immordino he kept talking about.
Except for the drone of the TV mounted high on the wall, it was fairly quiet in there. She strained to see what was on TV, but it was too far away. Some old black-and-white movie maybe. She could hear what was going on in there through the speaker that hung over the one-way glass in here, and she’d just overheard the guard telling Tozzi that Sal Immordino had been taken to the infirmary, but that he was due back soon. Tozzi was itching to talk to him. Even though she didn’t like being here, she had to admit she was more than a little curious to see this Mafia guy he kept talking about.
A video camera sitting on a tripod was pointed at the glass. Tozzi had set it up, hoping he could get Immordino to say something or do something to prove that he wasn’t insane. A red light on the camera kept flashing to show that it was recording. He’d told her not to touch it, just let it go by itself. But the silent, pulsing light was making her nervous. It was creepy.
She studied Tozzi’s face as he waited out there. His brow was furrowed, his mouth serious. He was like an eagle perched on a cliff, waiting to pounce. He’d asked her to drive him down here because his leg got stiff and weak when he tried to drive. Gibbons couldn’t drive him because this place was now officially off limits to them. Tozzi had said something about Dr. Cummings complaining to their boss, Mr. Ivers, about how they had treated Immordino last time they were here and Ivers had read them the riot act. But Tozzi never listened. He said he wasn’t on duty now, he was on sick leave, so this wouldn’t be an official FBI interview. It was just a visit.
Stacy couldn’t help but smile. That’s what she liked about him. He didn’t put up with any bullshit. He knew what had to be done and he just went ahead and did it. At least, with most things.
She rubbed her bare arms and sighed. She wished he was a little more take-charge when it came to her. It was so weird. He knew exactly what he wanted with everything else, but with her
…
Well, she just couldn’t figure him out. On the one hand, he always wanted to be with her. He’d been calling her and they’d been going out, but whenever they were together, it always started out just fine, then it would get
…
well, weird. He always said all the right things and he seemed to like her, but they were stuck in the heavy-petting stage, which seemed pretty odd for a guy his age. They’d make out like teenagers, but it never got any further than that, and he was the one who was always cutting it short. She couldn’t figure it out. What was holding him back? He said he wasn’t religious or anything like that. Maybe he had AIDS and he was afraid he’d pass it on to her. But he wouldn’t hide something like that. At least, she didn’t think he would. She didn’t know what to think.
Except that she really liked him and that she wished he’d stop acting so weird.
He was the first guy she’d known since seventh grade who didn’t try to put the moves on her the first time he met her. In fact, he didn’t even seem to be interested in her at all that night at Gilhooley’s. Too bad. Maybe if he had stuck around and drooled all over her the way most guys did, he wouldn’t have been shot.
She thought back to the scene on the street that night when she’d gone after him wanting to apologize, worried that she might’ve hurt his feelings. She remembered the drizzle in her hair and how you could see it in the streetlights. Then the flash of the gun in the dark and Tozzi yelling to her. That’s about all she remembered. That and the sight of Tozzi lying on the ground. They kept asking her afterward if she remembered seeing anybody else there, but she didn’t see anything but the gun flash. It was too dark, and it happened so fast.
She looked through the glass and focused on Tozzi’s bad leg. He said the bullet got him in the thigh, but she’d never actually seen the wound, let alone the bandage. What if the bullet hit a little higher? She stared at his crotch and crinkled her face. Oh, my God. Maybe that’s his problem.
The door opened then. Stacy was sitting behind it, so she didn’t see who it was right away.
“Will ya look at this? Must be
America’s Funniest Home Videos.”
“Shut that fucking thing off.”
“Want me to break it?”
“Just shut it off.”
A black man in a gray guard’s uniform came into the room, reaching out for the video camera. An enormous sallow-faced white man in a plaid flannel shirt and baggy khakis followed him in.
Stacy coughed to announce her presence.
Both men froze like deer caught in the headlights. The big white guy immediately stooped over and looked at the floor. It was only then that Stacy noticed the restraining belt around his waist, a wide leather belt with two additional straps that kept his wrists bound to his hips. His clenched hands were huge. They reminded her of pit-bull heads in studded collars.
The guard smiled at her. “Sorry about barging in on you like this. Didn’t know anybody was in here.” His eyes were all over her.
She flashed a phony smile and rubbed her arms. Her skin was hard with goose bumps.
The white man looked up at the guard from under his brows and mumbled something. The guard went over and closed the door.
Her heartbeat went into double time. She glanced at the nameplate pinned to the guard’s shirt pocket. It was Charles something, she couldn’t make out the last name. The lettering was small, and the lighting was bad. She wanted to know his last name so she could memorize it, just in case something happened.
The guard looked through the one-way mirror for a few seconds, then turned his attention back to her. He tilted his head to one side, narrowed his eyes, and started shaking his finger at her. “Ain’t you that girl on TV? The one with the dumbbell?”
Stacy flipped her hair over her shoulder and avoided his gaze. Men came on to her this way all the time, and she usually didn’t have any problem telling them to go to hell. But in here she was afraid to say anything to him, afraid of what might happen if she said yes, she was the Pump-It-Up Girl, afraid of what might happen if she said no and disappointed him. She glanced at Tozzi out on the ward and wondered whether he’d be able to hear her if she yelled.
“You that Pump-It-Up Girl, ain’tcha?” The guard was shaking his head like he couldn’t believe his eyes. “Damn. It sure as hell is you.”
Stacy started to shake her head no. “I don’t think
…
” Her words trailed off.
“Hell, I gotta get your autograph. You famous.”
“No
…
I’m not really
…
” Her throat was dry.
He turned to the huge white guy. “This here is the Pump-It-Up Girl, man. Can you beat that?”
The big man didn’t seem to care one way or the other. He was busy working his fists, flexing them in their restraints.
“Hey, look!” The guard was all excited, pointing at the glass. “I think that’s you right now.”
Stacy didn’t know what he was talking about until her eye found the television set out on the ward. Shit. Of all times to play that goddamn commercial. There she was curling the barbell. She didn’t need a good look to tell it was her commercial. Christ.
“I tol’ you that’s her,” he said to the white guy. “C’mere and get a better look.”
The guard pulled the big man over to the camera. He seemed reluctant to look, but he bent forward and peered into the viewfinder. “Look at the TV, man. Here, I’ll work the zoom for you. It’s like a telescope. Go ’head. You’ll see. It’s her.”
The big man bent his knees and squinted one eye as he looked into the camera. He turned around and looked over his shoulder, stared at her face, then turned back to the camera and looked through the viewfinder until the commercial was over. When he stood up again, he stared at her face. Her stomach was solid ice.
It was then that she noticed that his hands weren’t in the restraints anymore. They were hanging loose by his sides. When he saw that she’d noticed, he calmly slipped them back into the belt restraints as if he were putting them in his pockets. His grim face didn’t move the whole time. Only his eyes did.
Stacy thought about running out of there, but the room was jammed with chairs and the two men were between her and the door. She crossed her legs and hugged herself tighter.
The guard jerked his thumb at the glass. “Ain’t that Mr. Tozzi, the FBI man? Sure it is. I ’member him walking with that cane last time he was here.” He pointed his thumb at her. “Then you
must
be the Pump-It-Up Girl. I read about you in the paper. It said some FBI agent got his leg shot up saving you from a mugger in New York City. Yeah
…
That must’ve been him. Am I right?”
Stacy nodded and mumbled. “Right.” One of the gossip columns in the
Daily News
ran something about her a few days ago. Someone spotted her at the hospital visiting Tozzi and whoever it was called it in to the paper. The paper called her at the spa to confirm the story, but she didn’t realize that when she took the call. She got flustered when the columnist started firing questions at her and instead of just saying “no comment,” she altered the story a little and said she was being mugged when an FBI agent happened to come by and he saved her.
“That musta been some scary scene. Tozzi shooting it out with that mugger.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded. “Yeah
…
it was.”
“And you really was there, saw the whole thing, huh?”
She was puzzled by the question. “Well, yeah. Of course I was there.”
A goofy smile crept around the guard’s face as he made eye contact with the white guy. “You sure it wasn’t one of those publicity stories you famous people make up just to get yourselves in the news?”
She shook her head. “No, it really happened.” All of a sudden the guard seemed more loony than threatening with all these dumb questions. He kept looking at the white guy, nodding his head with this strangely confident “I-told-you-so” look on his face. The guard seemed like the one who should’ve been wearing the restraining belt.
But it was the big guy who was really making her nervous. His face hadn’t changed at all since he realized she was in here, and he kept staring at her—and not at her body, at
her.
She kept her eyes down, trying not to look at him, but he was hard to ignore for long. When she glanced over at him again, she was surprised but relieved to see that he wasn’t staring at her anymore. He was staring at the video camera.
She glanced up at the camera. The red light wasn’t blinking.
“Hey,” she said to the guard. “Did you turn that off?”
The guard didn’t answer. He was too busy rummaging around the room, examining the case the video equipment came in.
“What’re you looking for?”
The big white guy slipped his hands out of the leather restraints again and scratched his cheek. He walked around the table and took a seat across from her, staring at her the whole time.
“What do you want with me?” She didn’t want him to think she was frightened, but it was in her voice. She coughed and repeated herself. “What do you want?”
He raised an eyebrow and shrugged. The guard was poking around behind her. Her heart started to pound. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Tozzi on the other side of the glass, still waiting out on the ward. She thought about yelling, then wondered if she might be overreacting. But why was this guy wearing a restraining belt with his hands free like that?
The white guy looked up at the guard, then looked down at something on the floor. Stacy followed his eyes to the black camera case open on the floor. It was as big as a small trunk. Big enough to put a small body in, she thought. Her throat suddenly got so tight it ached.
The guard looked very serious all of a sudden, serious and disapproving. He was shaking his head at the white guy.
The white guy nodded his head yes. His face still didn’t move.
Stacy stood up. She felt a little queasy. “Where’s the women’s room?”
The guard didn’t answer. Instead he moved toward the door and stood in front of it.
Jesus. What the hell did they want? Stacy tried to remember all the things you’re supposed to do when you’re confronted with a rapist, but her mind drew a blank. All she could think was that there were two of them, they were both big, and the room was closing in on her.