“That was incredible. He’s great.” Stacy flipped her hair over her shoulder, still applauding.
“Yeah, I know. He is good.” Tozzi was trying to be enthused, but he was afraid he sounded flat and phony. He really wanted to be down there testing, getting pumped for it, doing it, taking the challenge. He had a feeling that if he could only test and take on a
randori
attack, it would get his juices flowing again and perk him right up. He’d be radiating with positive energy,
ki
shooting out of every part of him. Including the part between his legs.
“You look a little green, Tozzi.” Stacy was looking into his eyes.
“Hmmm? Whattaya mean? I feel all right.”
“I don’t mean sick. I mean green as in envious.”
“Me? Nah. Not me.” Tozzi’s face felt hot all of a sudden.
She took his hand, a pained look of sympathy on her face. “This is what’s been bothering you, your test, right? That’s why you and I haven’t been
…
I don’t know, meshing. Between work and your leg and missing this test, you’ve been pretty distracted. I understand. But maybe now that the test has passed, we can
…
I don’t know. Maybe we can
…
” Her hand was on his thigh. Her tawny eyes were melting into his.
He cleared his throat and forced himself not to look down at her hand on his leg. It was still nap time in his shorts, dammit.
Her hand inched up his thigh as she leaned in closer to him. His heart rate instantly shot up to its target rate. He didn’t want her to find out he had a limp dick, for chrissake, that he couldn’t get it up. Oh, man
…
They were nose to nose, her lips brushing his.
“Stac—”
“Shhh. Don’t talk.”
Her tongue touched his teeth.
“Stacy, this isn’t—”
“Don’t talk.”
Her hand was rounding his thigh. His brow was beaded with sweat. Oh, God.
Her hand went to the back of his head as her lips ground into his.
He grabbed her wrist. “Stacy,” he mumbled through the kiss, “Stacy, this isn’t—”
“YEEEE-EEEE!”
He pulled away from her and stared down in the direction of that thundering guttural yell. He recognized it immediately.
Sensei
was turned around on his chair, glaring up at Tozzi. The woman who was on the mat doing her
bokken kata
stopped in the middle, and the whole gym was still.
Sensei
stared at him, grim-faced, for a long moment, then he smoothed the hair over his ears and turned back to the woman on the mat.
“Please continue,”
Sensei
’s assistant called out to the woman. She started the
kata
from the beginning.
Tozzi’s face was on fire.
Stacy pushed away from him and sat with her knees together, her hands in her lap. Her face was red, too. “Sorry.”
When Tozzi looked down at the mat again, his eye caught John sitting
seiza
on the edge. He wasn’t smiling, and his face was green, the envious green.
Tozzi shrugged and looked away. John hadn’t been kidding that day at the apartment. He really did like Stacy.
Wonderful. Just what he needed, another enemy.
He looked down at his crotch and frowned. This is all your fault.
Sal Immordino was getting butterflies standing out there in the hallway away from the gym door with his back against the wall. He didn’t like being here. The place was unfamiliar, and there were too many lights. He felt like an easy target. “So you see ’em?”
Charles had his hands cupped over the glass, peering into the gym, looking for Tozzi and the Pump-It-Up Girl. Sal didn’t want to risk putting his face to the glass. Tozzi might spot him first. “Yeah, I see ’em now, Sal. They smoochin’ up in the bleachers. That Japanese guy just got mad at ’em.”
“What the hell’s goin’ on in there?”
“People beating each other up.”
“Still?”
“Yeah, they must like getting beat up, these people. Pretty stupid if you ask me.”
Sal looked at Charles in that stupid thermal sweatshirt jacket and those high-top basketball sneakers. I’m the one who must be stupid, Sal thought. Who the hell ever heard of a
moolinyam
wiseguy? If it ever got out that he made this guy, there wouldn’t be anybody in the family on his side. Christ, every family in the country would want his head on a stick. They wouldn’t have to hire a shooter. Guys would volunteer to do it for free. Jesus. What the hell was he thinking?
Charles was frowning into the glass. “Man, she all over him again. The bitch is in heat. Damn.”
“Stop pulling your pud over her, will ya, Charles? You’re fogging up the window.” Sal got off the wall and tugged the brim of his golf cap down. “C’mon, let’s go.”
Charles looked surprised. “Go? Where you wanna go?”
Sal rolled his eyes. “Use your head, Charles. Can’t do it here. Too many witnesses.”
“Then where we gonna do it?”
Sal bent down to look through the window, careful not to get too close. “That’s up to them. C’mon. Let’s wait in the car. I don’t like it in here.”
Sal started down the hall, but Charles still had his face to that window. He had the hots something bad for that girl. He couldn’t wait for Sal to do Tozzi. This guy actually thought he had a shot at getting her once Tozzi was gone. Sal just shook his head. They didn’t make dumb like this anymore. This was special-order dumb. And now he was a made man. Jesus.
“Hey, Charles!” he hissed. “Let’s go, I said.”
The
moolinyam
peeled himself off the glass. “I’m comin’, man, I’m comin’.”
Sal sighed. Jesus
…
Sal shaded his eyes from the glare of the floodlights and looked into the front seat of Stacy’s Jeep. “You serious, Charles? You really don’t know how to do this? I thought all you people knew how to break into cars.”
“I told you, man. I don’t know how to do this shit. You white people think all niggers’re bad. Ain’t true.” Charles was nervous. He was looking all over the place. “Where the hell are we, man?”
“Montclair, I think. Maybe Bloomfield. I’m not sure. Don’t worry about it.” Sal wished to hell he didn’t need this guy as much as he did. Charles was really aggravating him.
The parking lot back at that gym in Belleville had been dark compared to this place. This place was lit up like Yankee Stadium. Bright floodlights beamed across the gravel lot from the long, low brick building. A painted sign lit with spots hung over the front door: Larry’s Woodside Bar and Grill. It was nothing but a glorified pizza joint, the kind of place that had neon beer signs in the small front windows. Thank God there were no windows facing the lot.
Charles was jumpy, but Sal could relate. It was a dark night, no moon and no stars. With those freaking lights shining down on them, it felt like one of those Nazi prisoner-of-war camps you see in the movies. Not the
Hogan’s Heroes
kind of camp either; the one Steve McQueen busted out of in that movie where he jumped the fence on a motorcycle. That kind of concentration camp.
Sal could see his breath as he scanned the lot, which was fall of cars. It was the perfect place for a hit. A shooter could be anywhere out here. That’s why he was jumpy.
Sal squinted through the side window into the shadows under the dashboard on the driver’s side. He was looking for the hood release. If there was an alarm on this thing, he wanted to get the hood open quick and yank the battery cables before anyone inside paid attention. They wouldn’t notice it right away—the jukebox was so goddamn loud you could hear it all the way out here—but someone would hear it eventually if they didn’t kill it right away.
“You don’t have a Slim Jim, huh?”
“You asked me that already, Sal. I
told
you. I don’t know what the fuck a Slim Jim is.”
“Hmmm
…
”
Sal glanced at his long shadow on the gravel and considered the alternatives. The bar was about twenty, thirty yards away. Not as far from these freakin’ lights as he’d like to be, but it could be worse. The Jeep was facing the building, which was excellent. When they came out, they wouldn’t have to go around the Jeep to get in. Also, the front seats cast a nice shadow over the backseat, and way in the back it was even darker.
“Okay, gimme the pry bar and the cutters.”
Charles pulled the pry bar and the bolt cutters out of his pants. The stupid mook looked like Harpo Marx.
“Whattaya gonna do, Sal?” Charles followed him around to the back of the Jeep.
Sal took the pry bar and stared at the lock on the back door for a minute. “Listen to me now. If this thing has an alarm and it goes off, I want you to dive in there as soon as I get this door open and pop the hood from under the dash. I’ll go around and clip the battery cables to kill it.”
“I dunno, Sal. What if somebody inside hears it?”
“People never come running out as soon as they hear these things. They always figure it’s someone else’s car.”
“I dunno, Sal
…
”
“Just shut up and do what I tell you, okay? Jesus Christ.”
Sal looked over his shoulder. He thought he saw a shadow move between the cars. He waited, frozen, nerves tingling in his gut. It could be the shooter waiting for him. It could be. But probably not. He’d been telling himself all night that logically it was very unlikely. If someone had followed them all the way up here from the hospital, he would’ve spotted the guy by now. Unless the shooter was really good. Or there was more than one. Sal tried to remember whether Juicy was the kind of guy who’d pay for a quality job. He wasn’t sure.
Sal got down on one knee and examined the lock cylinder a little closer. He positioned the straight end of the pry bar next to the keyhole, hoping to get a little toehold, but the damn thing kept slipping off. He turned the bar around to the hook end and banged at the lock a little to get under the lip. He banged easy at first, then a little harder, then a little harder still until he was eventually smacking the shit out of it, denting the body all around the keyhole, trying to get a piece of that goddamn lock.
C’mon, goddammit!
“Guess there ain’t no alarm, huh, Sal?”
The
moolinyam
thought he was fanny now. Sal didn’t say a word, just kept whacking away at it until he got the hook under the lock and was able to yank the whole cylinder out. He stuck the hook under the edge of the door then and pried it open. It didn’t put up much resistance, just made a little metallic croak as it popped.
Sal handed the tools back to Charles, then reached into his belt for the gun.
“Whattaya gonna do, Sal?”
“Whattaya think I’m gonna do, Charles? I’m gonna wait in the back here until they come out. After they get in, I’m gonna shoot Tozzi right in his friggin’ head, and that’ll be the end of that.” Sal checked the gun, popping the clip, then popping it back in.
“You gonna shoot him from behind?”
“How else?”
“Shouldn’t you shoot him from the front? That’s how you did all the others. I mean, if you want Emerick to take the rap for this, you gotta do ’em all the same way, don’cha?”
“Front, back, what’s the difference? Just as long as I give him the sign of the cross, right? Just as long as Tozzi’s fucking dead.”
“Don’t get hot, Sal. I’m just asking. I guess it’s okay to do one from the back, I dunno. Serial killers don’t always kill the same way. Don’t think so. Now that I think about it, I saw this thing on TV once about Jack the Ripper. Man, he did ’em all different ways. Cut ’em up, pulled out their guts—”
“Enough, Charles. You’re aggravating me. Just shut up and get outta the way.”
“I was trying to help. After all, I’m your made man now.”
Sal frowned into the shadows. “Yeah
…
I know.”
Sal opened the hatch all the way and climbed into the back. The Jeep sank with his weight and Charles looked very dubious. Sal didn’t want to hear about it.
“Go wait in the car, Charles, and stay down out of sight. But don’t fall asleep, you hear me? When you see Tozzi’s head blow apart, start up the car and come and get me quick. You understand? Don’t start the car until you see him get it, but don’t drag your ass either. You understand?”
“I understand, I understand. No problem.” Charles was nodding like he was an old pro at this.
Sal shut his eyes. He didn’t even want to think about all the ways this guy could fuck up.
“Now, shut the door, Charles, and get the fuck outta here.”
“Just one thing, Sal.”
“What?”
“You ain’t gonna shoot the girl, are you?”
Sal knew this was coming. “Not unless I have to.”
“You don’t have to kill her, Sal. She don’t know nothing. She didn’t hear you talkin’ at the hospital the other day. I know she didn’t. Promise me you won’t do nothing to her. Okay, Sal? Will you do that? For me?”
“Look, Charles. I don’t know what she knows or what she don’t know. But if she turns around and sees me, she has to go. If she minds her own business and doesn’t turn around, no problem. But if she looks at me, I got no choice.”
Charles nodded, but he didn’t look happy. He had it bad for that broad. No use getting him all upset now, but Sal had already made up his mind. The Pump-It-Up Girl definitely had to go. She had to have heard him talking to Charles at the hospital, and Sal couldn’t risk leaving any witnesses after he whacked Tozzi. And besides, Emerick was a known blonde-killer. He wouldn’t let a sexy bitch like her live if he had the chance to plug her. It wouldn’t fit his profile.
’Course, if he did shoot her, Charles’d be hell to live with. And for the time being he still needed the guy. Sal pressed his lips together and thought about it. Maybe he didn’t have to kill her. It was hard to decide. When the time came, he’d know whether to shoot her or not. If she turned around and he saw her looking at him, he’d just do it. Period. That’s all there was to it.
He looked up at Charles’s anxious face. “Don’t worry about it. Just shut the door and go wait in the car.”
“Okay.” Charles nodded as he lowered the back door, but he didn’t sound convinced.
Sal could hear Charles’s departing footsteps on the gravel as he lay down in the shadows and tried to get comfortable. The space was tight for him, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. They might see him if he tried to hide in the backseat. He tucked his knees in and curled up in the fetal position, clutching the gun between his knees as he twisted his body to get the silencer out of his jacket pocket. The sound of metal sliding over metal filled the quiet as he screwed the silencer onto the barrel.
The inside of the Jeep smelled like her, the Pump-It-Up Girl, a sweet, fresh smell rather than a heavy perfume smell, kinda like green apples or watermelon or something like that. Sal shifted his position to make room for his shoulders and he found something on the floor back there under his knees. A teddy bear. A soft white teddy bear. He jammed it between his shoulder and his head and used it as a pillow. The teddy bear smelled even more like her, kinda nice. From what little he’d seen of her, she seemed like a pretty nice kid. But he was still gonna shoot her if he had to. Too bad, but that’s what you get for hanging out with a bum like Tozzi.
Tozzi felt terrible. Stacy and John were making him feel like a real shit, and he hadn’t done a thing, really. She was sitting over here pouting, wondering why he kept putting her off, and John was down at the other end of the long row of tables, sneaking hostile looks at Tozzi from behind his beer mug, like a sniper. They were supposed to be celebrating, for chrissake. Everybody else here was. Beer was sloshing, waitresses were dropping pizzas down onto the table from overhead, the jukebox was playing Bruce. Testing was over, for crying out loud. You were supposed to take it easy now, get a little drunk, relax, have a good time. But not these two. John thought he was trying to put the screws to him, and he didn’t know what the hell Stacy thought. They just didn’t understand.
Under the table he ran his finger along the inseam of his pants near his crotch. It was becoming a nervous habit, constantly checking to see if there was any improvement. But there wasn’t any.
Stacy flipped her hair over her shoulder and kept her eyes on her glass of ginger ale. She didn’t want to be here. On the way over, she’d kept asking if they could skip the celebration and go somewhere quiet where they could talk. He knew she wanted to talk about them, and he didn’t want to talk about it. How the hell do you tell a woman you gotta problem with your equipment? He glanced down her cleavage. The last thing he wanted was her sympathy.
John was just being totally weird, acting like Tozzi had stolen his girl. Tozzi had no idea John felt that strongly about Stacy. He thought John understood that he was kidding when he talked to him on the phone the other night and said he might try to fix them up because he thought maybe he was too old for her. Christ, what guy in his right mind would want to pawn off Stacy? John must’ve been expecting Tozzi to play Cupid, then he sees them making out in the bleachers at testing. No wonder the guy was acting like he wanted to challenge him to a duel.
Tozzi was about to get up to go talk to him when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up and saw
Sensei
standing behind him. He was wearing a long-sleeved pinstripe shirt now with his usual multiple layers of T-shirts underneath.
Sensei
always liked to brag that he was only 135 pounds, but Tozzi could never figure out if he wore all the T-shirts for warmth or to bulk himself up.
Sensei
squinted one eye, and a sly grin stretched out his mustache. “Drink, Tozzi, drink,” he whispered into Tozzi’s ear. “You look so sad, like old man. Why? You have beautiful sweetie. Better than black belt.”
“Hai, Sensei.
” Tozzi’s face was hot again. This was
Sensei’s
way of reminding him that he didn’t appreciate people kissing in the stands during testing.
“Next time, Tozzi, you get black belt,
Sensei
get girl.” He nodded and flashed that sly grin of his, then moved back to his seat where a fresh Heineken was waiting for him.
Stacy leaned toward him and yelled over the music. “What did he say?”
Tozzi yelled back. “He told me to drink up.”
“Oh.” She shrugged and took a sip of her ginger ale, then went back to pouting. “Why don’t we get out of here?” she yelled. “I can’t hear a thing in here.”
“Don’t you want any pizza?”
She shook her head.
“I am sort of hungry.”
“I’ll wait for you in the car then.” She started to get up, but he took her wrist. He didn’t want her to go away mad. He was afraid she’d just take off and leave him here with his friends.
“Forget about the pizza. I’m not that hungry. Just wait a second while I congratulate a few of the guys, then we can go.”
She nodded, but she didn’t look happy. “I’ll wait here.”
Tozzi pushed his chair back. “Don’t go away.”