He slid the eggs onto a plate, buttered his toast, and cleared the mail off the table. Gibbons drained the last of his first beer and got himself another to go with his meal. But as soon as he cut into his first egg, the phone rang. He watched the yolk ooze out of the wound and considered letting it ring.
“What?” he said, picking up the phone in the living room.
“It's me.” Tozzi had a much better connection this time. It sounded like he was calling from across the street.
“What's up?”
“You ever hear of a wiseguy called âthe Hun'?”
Gibbons sat down on the couch. “Hmm . . . Doesn't ring any bells.”
“He was Varga's bodyguard and, from what I hear, the guy who did the actual dirty work on you-know-who.”
Gibbons looked through the kitchen doorway and watched the steam
rising from his plate as Tozzi proceeded to tell him how he squeezed Bobo Bocchino for what he knew about Varga and the murders of Lando, Blaney, and Novick.
“Tomorrow why don't you see what the files have on this Hun guy?” Tozzi said.
“That could be a problem. The man in the corner office has been monitoring what I take out of the files. I'm beginning to feel his breath on the back of my neck.” Gibbons told Tozzi about his meeting with Ivers that morning and his new partner.
“What about your friend Kinney?” Tozzi asked. “Is he going to be a problem?”
“No. He's your typical overworked agent, happy to do as little as he can get away with on this case.” It seemed funny talking about the “case” to Tozzi. He
was
the case.
“So how do we find out about the Hun? He could be our missing link to Varga.”
Gibbons suddenly remembered Brant Ivers's nasty comment about “gumshoe” techniques. He grinned into the phone. “We do it the old-fashioned way . . . we earn it.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“I'll tell you some other time. What're you up to?”
“I'm looking for a little torch.”
Gibbons could hear the contempt in Tozzi's voice. “Why?” he asked.
“I heard his current employer is Richie Varga.”
Arson? It was an odd choice. Burning down buildings for insurance money seemed relatively small-time for someone who'd seen the bright lights of Broadway. The money in drugs was much bigger and much quicker. If Varga was back in operation, Gibbons guessed he'd be concentrating on narcotics.
“Have you located this guy yet?” Gibbons asked.
“Not yet. Maybe tonight. I'll let you know.”
“Right. And I'll see what I can find out about the bodyguard. Take it easy.”
“You too.”
Gibbons hung up the phone and returned to the kitchen where the running yolk had already congealed on the side of his plate. He picked up the beer bottle and took a long swig, then sat down to eat. The eggs were still warm, but that didn't matter. Gibbons ate quickly and with gusto. He was going to pay a visit on someone tonight, do a little good ole gumshoe work.
He casually looked through his mail as he ate, throwing out everything but the gas-and-electric bill and a flyer for a lecture Lorraine was giving at Cornell on the differing concepts of war in the Christian and Islamic worlds in the twelfth century. She always sent him these announcements even though he'd never been able to attend any of her lectures. She used to write little messages on the flyers, but she didn't do that anymore.
Gibbons put the mail aside and concentrated on his dinner. He had to get moving if he was going to make visiting hours. On the radio, a sorrowful mezzo was singing a doom-and-gloom aria from some Italian opera. Gibbons didn't care much for opera. It was too dramatic.
When Gibbons stepped off the elevator onto the fifth floor, he glanced at the clock over the nurses' station. It was quarter of ten. He was expecting some nurse to give him flak about hospital visiting hours being nearly over, but the fat nurse with the long stringy hair sitting behind the desk didn't give him a second look.
He walked briskly, as if he knew exactly where he was going. He could find the room easily enough even if he didn't have the room number. It was the one with the cop posted outside the door. This uniform was a beefy, Irish-looking kid with a permanent scowl. Gibbons knew from personal experience that tough-looking guys always get stuck with this kind of guard duty. Superiors always figure that hard-ass types prevent trouble. They never realize that a certain kind of troubleâlike a hitâcannot be sidetracked that easily and that tough guys just attract additional trouble from assholes who have something to prove. If he was a supervisor, he'd give this kind of duty to women because people tend to underestimate them.
Gibbons pulled out his ID folder as he approached the cop, who stared back at him through squinted eyes, clearly expecting trouble. The cop, who had been sitting by the door, stood up and broadened his stance, which amused Gibbons. Did the kid really think he was going to storm the door?
Gibbons held up his ID. “I have to talk to him.”
The Irish kid took the folder out of Gibbons's hand and scrutinized it carefully. Gibbons wondered if he'd ever seen a real FBI identification because he took a good long time examining it.
“Nobody told me anyone was coming tonight.”
Gibbons flashed a knowing grin. “When do the feds ever tell you guys anything?” He'd meant it as a chummy sort of remark, but he
could see that the kid took it the wrong way. It was easy to understand, though. Feds had a badâand not undeservedâreputation for pulling rank on local police.
“Can't let you in without prior notification. Court orders.” He added the court business as if it was supposed to work on G-men like Kryptonite on Superman.
Gibbons took his ID back and put it in his pocket. “Okay,” he said with a big sigh of annoyance. “I'll have to call the Special Agent in Charge of the Manhattan FBI field office, who's at home now. He'll have to call the night clerk at the Justice Department in Washington so that they can get someone to call the Staten Island DA, who's also probably at home. The DA will call your captain, who will call you to chew your ass out for obstructing an FBI special agent conducting a priority investigation. It's almost ten now. By the time your captain gets his call from the district attorney, it's going to be very late.” Gibbons leaned up against the wall opposite the cop and crossed his arms. “It's your call. Shall we do it the easy way or the hard way?”
The expression on the Irish kid's face was priceless. He looked like he was trying to add up a lot of big figures in his head. It wasn't really that hard to figure out, though. Cops never like to get flak from the feds. It's an unwritten police rule that you steer clear of the feds when you can and just make way when you can't. When all this finally added up in the kid's brain, he nodded with a smirk of resignation. “Okay, go on in. It's your birthday.”
Just as the cop stepped aside, a woman's voice came over the p.a. system announcing the end of visiting hours. Gibbons ignored it and pushed through the door. The first thing he saw was a stacked blonde with her hands over her head and her dress bunched up at her armpits as she shimmied into it. A pair of white pumps with spike heels were on the floor next to her.
That crooked little son-of-a-bitch, Gibbons thought. Court orders, my ass. He wondered how much the Irish kid was being paid to protect the privacy of these illicit rendezvous.
“Conjugal rights?” Gibbons said with extra acid in his voice as he held up his ID for the man lying in bed.
Phillip Giovinazzo squinted through his heavy horn-rimmed glasses, showing two rows of perfectly even pearly white teeth. It was that toothy salesman's smile that a staff cartoonist at the
Post
had made infamous after Giovinazzo took over the family from his uncle Rocco nine years ago. The mob boss sat up and nestled comfortably in his
mountain of pillows, smoothing out the shirttails of his raspberry silk pajamas.
“What's he got there, honey?” Giovinazzo asked the blonde.
The blonde stepped into her shoes and squinted at Gibbons's ID. “I think he's from the FBI.”
“I want to ask you a few questions,” Gibbons said.
“See my lawyer,” Giovinazzo said, running a hand over his thick mane of brushed-back dyed-black hair. “Now if you don't mind . . .”
Gibbons walked in front of the blonde, pulled up the orange vinyl armchair, and sat down, tossing his hat on top of the telephone on the nightstand.
Giovinazzo jerked his thumb at the door. “Hey,
guaio
, I said take a walk.”
Gibbons just stared at him.
“Ah, Phil,” the blonde interrupted. “I think I'm gonna be going.” She leaned over and kissed him on the lips. Gibbons took in the great view he had of her ass and the backs of her legs. He wondered how much cash it took to get a bimbo like this to kiss an ugly guy old enough to be her grandfather.
Gibbons said, “Now I can see why playing possum isn't such a hardship for you, Giovinazzo.”
The mob boss pushed the girl aside so he could see Gibbons. “This is harassment, pal.”
The blonde backed toward the door. “I'll see you, Phil. Bye.” No one was listening to her.
Gibbons crossed his legs and balanced his chin on the pad of his thumb. “Harassment? I'm just sitting here.”
The blonde opened the door a crack. “So long, Phil,” she said.
Giovinazzo turned toward her abruptly, flashing his teeth at her. “Yeah, take it easy, honey. I'll see you soon, okay?”
The girl broke out into a delirious smile, as if she'd just won the lottery. Phil must've paid her very well.
After she'd left, Giovinazzo returned his glare to Gibbons. “I've got nothing to say to you.” He reached over to the nightstand for the remote control and switched on the TV. A baseball game appeared on the set mounted high on the wall opposite his bed. It was the Mets game. They were playing Philadelphia. Dwight Gooden was pitching. Mike Schmidt was at the plate with a man on second. The announcer was saying something about “power against power.”
Giovinazzo suddenly changed the channel from nine to eleven, where
Phil Rizzuto was calling the Yankee game. The Yankees were losing to Toronto in the eighth. Gibbons and Giovinazzo watched in silence as Dave Winfield swung on a slider and struck out.
“Put the Mets back on,” Gibbons said. “These guys suck.”
Giovinazzo ignored him and kept the Yankee game on.
“How long do you think you can hold out here?” Gibbons asked matter-of-factly. “The U.S. district attorney is getting antsy, you know. You're keeping him from pitching his perfect game.”
“I'm a very sick man,” Giovinazzo said to the television. “My doctors have testified to that.”
“Yeah, I know all about that. But you're messing up a perfect record. Every last schnook Varga testified against has been put away except you. Why prolong the inevitable?”
The boss responded by turning up the volume. Rizzuto was talking about his golf game. Even he was bored with the Yankees.
“I'd hate being cooped up in a place like this,” Gibbons said to no one in particular. “Blondes or no blondes.” He knew Giovinazzo liked the nightlife.
Giovinazzo suddenly bounced up on his bed. “I ain't talking!” he yelled. “You understand? I got nothing to say to you!” Then he slapped his hand over his mouth. Gibbons thought he was throwing up until he realized that Giovinazzo was removing the upper and lower plates of a pair of dentures. The mob boss defiantly threw the choppers into the top drawer of the nightstand. His lips had collapsed into his face. Suddenly he looked like a ninety-year-old Elvis impersonator.
“Well, fuck me,” Gibbons murmured in disbelief.
Giovinazzo settled back into his pillows and glared at the TV.
Gibbons got up and looked down at him, scowling like the Aztec deity. “I'm gonna give it to you straight, Giovinazzo. I'm here to warn you to leave Varga alone. You understand me?”
The mob boss bolted up in bed. “What the fuck you talking about?” His lips flapped and spit flew he was so excited.
“Don't give me that shit. You sent your goons after Varga. They found his first hiding place, but they won't do it again. We don't intend to lose him to your guinea vendetta ethics.”
“Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit!” Giovinazzo kept repeating himself, his face getting redder and redder.
“We know it was your guys who attacked the house in Ohio. Fortunately Varga didn't get hurt. He's been relocated, buried even deeper
this time. But I'm putting you on notice. Call off the dogs or you'll be facing a few more serious charges.”
“You're full of shit!” Giovinazzo screamed.
“Come off it. Your two boys came close, but they blew it. They got into the house, but they didn't make it to Varga.”
“They weren't mine, that's for sure,” Giovinazzo said, gumming the words. “I'd never send just two men after that fat fuck Varga. Not with that crazy Nazi of his.”