Bad Guys (15 page)

“What's the matter?” he'd asked in an alarmed whisper.

She soothed him and told him to go back to sleep. He pulled her close and eventually drifted off again.

She sighed now. This was maddening. It was the perfect opportunity to get rid of him, but she couldn't do a thing. She briefly considered killing him herself, but rejected the idea immediately. Her father always said, “Keep your hands clean, no matter what.”

Well, there is one consolation to having him around a little longer, she thought, resigning herself to the situation. He is a great fuck.

She grinned and settled back into her pillow, smugly wondering whether he'd admitted to himself that he was in love with her.

Tozzi was staring out the window at the passing clouds. Joanne was playing with his chest hairs. He glanced at the clock-radio and saw that it was 8:34. He was surprised; he thought it was later. They must've gotten up very early.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

An ex-jockey turned torch. Some guy named the Hun. Your husband. You. “Not much,” he said.

“You look like you've got a lot on your mind. What's the matter?”

He turned and looked at her. “Last night you said that a bad day for you is an unproductive day. I don't know what that means. In your business, I mean. Don't computers pretty much run themselves?”

She looked at him funny but answered anyway. “Sure, they run fine by themselves, but they've got to have something to run for us to make a profit. The hardware is useless unless we've got data to process.”

“So what's an unproductive day for you?” He was lying on his side now, watching how the end of her nose moved when she talked.

She laughed at what was obvious to her. “An unproductive day is a day when we don't sign up new clients.”

“What kind of clients?”

“DataReach handles data for big corporations, insurance companies, hospitals, universities, municipalities. Our main-frame computers hold their personnel data, their files and records, the kind of information that used to fill up warehouses with paper.”

“I thought big companies all had their own computers these days. Why do they have to use yours?”

“For some midsized companies it's more cost-effective to rent time and equipment from us than to buy their own hardware and hire staff to run it. Then there are the big companies that haven't decided on how they want to computerize so they use us as a temporary measure. A lot of the insurance companies we serve are like that. Of course, insurance people are very slow to do anything. They're notorious for their inefficiency and indecision. I'll be retired before most of them get their acts together and set up their own systems.”

“How'd you get into data processing? You know, from being married to what's-his-name.”

“I went back to school. For business, not computer science. I got my MBA and took a sales job with another data-processing firm up in Clifton. I was good at it, very good. Word got around, and DataReach lured me away. They weren't very big when I started with them back
in . . . eighty-one I guess it was. But I've grown with the company, and we've been good for each other. Besides, computer services is the growth industry right now, and I want to be where things are happening.”

Tozzi nodded. He was only half-listening, remembering where he was when she was getting her MBA. Hotshot narcotics detective with the Boston PD.

“What about you?” she asked. “Did you always want to be a cop when you were a kid?”

Tozzi shook his head. “I always wanted to bust balls and go against the grain. When everyone else was dropping out of college to drive cross-country or bum around Europe, I dropped out and became a cop. This was up in Boston. I was so good at it I surprised myself. That's because I thought I was playing cops and robbers. But I didn't get along with the rank and file; I didn't fit the department profile. In other words I wasn't a mick with roots in Southie. After four years and five medals of valor, the brass had no choice but to kick me up to detective. They figured, Hey, this guy's a cowboy, he'll get his head blown off sooner or later. No loss.”

“What did you work? Homicide?”

“Narcotics.”

“You're not a city cop now, though. How did you get to be a federal agent? You are a fed, aren't you?”

Tozzi looked her in the eye before he answered. Used to be a fed, he thought, then he nodded to her question. “The Drug Enforcement Administration heard about the boy wonder up in Boston and they invited me to become a fed. At first I resisted their offer—city cops generally don't think much of the federal law-enforcement agencies—but then they showed me what a wild-West show they were running down in Florida. Seaplanes, choppers, swamp buggies, submachine guns, kilos, smugglers—it was romance. It was my big chance to make up for missing out on Vietnam. You can see where my head was at the time.”

He looked out at the clouds again. That had been a weird time for him. He liked to believe that business about Florida being his Vietnam, but in truth, he took the job to spite Roberta.

“I was married then,” he said, breaking the silence. “She wouldn't move to Florida, said she couldn't stand living in the South because of all the prejudice. I pointed out to her that there weren't too many
black faces at her father's factory in Providence, but that didn't penetrate. She had a gift for repelling anything she didn't want to know. It was like an invisible force field. What a mistake marrying her was.”

Tozzi fell silent again and stared blankly out the window. His marriage to Roberta was the one time in his life that going against the grain didn't work for him. He tried to make it work—at least he thought he did at the time—but in looking back he had to admit he didn't try very hard. Roberta had made it clear from the start that she didn't want to be married to a career agent, and she was prepared to sit tight in Boston and hold her breath until she got her way. He had never had any use for tight-asses in his life, but he treated it like a game at first. Eventually it became a battle of wills. He deliberately ignored his marriage and forced her to make the first move. It took over a year for her to do it. When he was served with papers, he cussed her out and trashed his living room in Lantana. But even then he knew he was just going through the motions.

For the first time in a long time Tozzi started counting the years. Fourteen years in law enforcement, four since the divorce, seven since they really lived together. Suddenly the loneliness of his life became overwhelming and the hard facts gathered in a lump in his throat. His failed marriage never bothered him much before. But that was when he still had the Bureau to call home.

Why the fuck am I thinking about her? he thought angrily.

“Hey, what's wrong?” Joanne said. “All of a sudden you look mad at the world.” She started to knead his shoulders.

He sighed and muttered. “Just thinking about the past.”

“How about some breakfast?”

“I'd like to meet your father sometime,” Tozzi said out of the blue. “That all right with you?” This was a real long shot, but he figured he'd ask anyway for the hell of it.

“Why do you want to meet my father? So you can bust him?”

“Bust him for what? I just want to meet him. I'm curious.”

“My father's not a curiosity.”

“Don't get hot. It was just a suggestion. I didn't mean anything by it.”

She threw the covers off and reached for her caftan on the floor. “All right . . . since you're so ‘curious.' I haven't been down to see him in a while. Let's go today.”

Jesus Christ. He couldn't believe it.

“Sure, fine.”

“You'll probably be very disappointed,” she said sarcastically. “He doesn't look like the Godfather or anything.”

“I didn't say he would.”

She gave him that wry grin again. “How do you like your eggs, Tozzi?”

He shrugged. “Over easy.”

“So do I. You make them. I don't cook.”

She walked into the bathroom and left Tozzi naked on the bed.

He wondered whether Bogie had ever made eggs for Bacall. He let his head fall back into the pillows as he listened to her shower running and imagined her naked and wet. He'd never felt so good about a woman before, not Roberta, not anybody. Maybe this was love, he thought, and immediately grimaced at the word, recalling Gibbons's warning.

“But what the hell does he know?” Tozzi muttered, getting out of bed.

“Dad?” Joanne leaned over and touched his shoulder.

Jules Collesano was oblivious to his daughter's presence. His eyes darted around the table as the croupier, a petite black girl in a red vest, white shirt, and black tie, dealt out cards from the “boot.” She had a Cleopatra hairdo that didn't move at all. Jules looked confused and upset as she nimbly flipped out cards to the three other men huddled over the table, then quickly scooped them back up. It was as if it were the first time he'd ever played blackjack and he just couldn't understand how his money was disappearing so fast.

“Daddy?” Joanne repeated. She said it so pathetically Tozzi wondered whether this was the same woman he'd spent the night with.

“Not now, honey,” he said, a little too loudly. “I'm all set, see?” He raised a tall glass of orange juice from the table to show her. A screwdriver, Tozzi guessed. The old man's fingers were thick and stubby, and Tozzi noticed that he shook a bit. Suddenly Jules scowled meanly when Joanne didn't go away. He thought she was the cocktail waitress.

“No, Daddy, it's me.”

He snapped his head up, still scowling. It took at least twenty seconds for him to realize that this was his daughter. Joanne smiled down at him with steadfast benevolence, like a plaster saint. This was apparently her way of dealing with his senility.

Gradually his face started to relax, then suddenly it blossomed with love and recognition.

“Joanne,” he said sweetly, touching her cheek with the flat of his rough-looking hand.
“Quanto sei bell'!”

That phrase instantly triggered a memory: his Aunt Carmella's parlor and the smell of her anisette cookies. Tozzi remembered her always saying the same thing to him whenever his mother brought him over for a visit.

Joanne hugged her father, but the old man's mind was still on the game as he squirmed around to see what the croupier was doing. The other men at the table kept their eyes on the game and nothing else. Gamblers only pay attention to where their money is going.

“I knew you'd be here,” she said with a disapproving frown.

“And where the hell else should I be? With the senior citizens playing shuffleboard? Shit on that.”

He picked up his screwdriver and took a long drink. His hand actually shook a lot more than Tozzi originally thought.

“Hey!” he suddenly said, pointing a stubby finger in the croupier's face. “This is my little girl here. You hold my place, you hear? I'll be back later.”

The black girl smiled diplomatically but didn't respond. The pit boss, a short blonde in a gray suit, perked up when she heard Jules's command. Like all the other pit bosses here, she looked like a bank manager, only happier. Jules was so out of it he'd forgotten that croupiers have to change tables frequently and so there was no guarantee that the black girl would be at that table when he returned. Smartly the black girl said nothing to him, knowing that even the hint of collusion with a customer could mean her job.

“You don't have to yell, Dad.”

He leaned into Joanne's face and said in a stage whisper, “You gotta talk to
moolinyahms
like that. Otherwise they don't understand.”

Tozzi could never understand how some old guys got away with saying racist crap like that without violent consequences. The croupier waited for Jules to pick up his chips before she started the next game. The pit boss's smile returned when he got off his stool.

“Daddy, I want you to meet a friend of mine,” she said, leading him away from the table. “Daddy, this is Mike Tozzi.”