He shut off the air conditioner and opened a window. If it was too cool when they walked in, Kinney would be suspicious. Tozzi looked down at the alley again, then picked up the paper from the coffee
table. He returned to the couch and started reading the personals to take his mind off his concerns for his old partner.
Gibbons turned into the cobblestone alley, and all he could hear over the whoosh of the air conditioner were the thumps and squeaks of his tires going over the uneven stones. Rush-hour traffic was as bad as usual, and this short trip down the alley always came as a welcome relief. But not today.
He'd lost the silver Volvo somewhere on the approach to the Lincoln Tunnel, but that didn't matter. Kinney was a clever guy and an experienced agent. If Gibbons could find out where he lived, he could find out where Gibbons lived.
Pulling up to his stall, Gibbons wondered if Kinney could've possibly beaten him through the tunnel. He put the car into reverse and started to back into his space. A blazing orange sun reflected off the windows of the building across the alley. He wondered if Tozzi was ready. In the rearview mirror he could see the cool shadows under the stall, then the glint of his approaching back-up lights on the fenders of the cars on either side. When he cut the engine and put it in park, he just sat there for a moment. It was quiet and dark and insulated under there. For a moment, Gibbons almost felt safe.
Tozzi was going nuts. It was twenty of seven and no one had showed. Something had gone wrong. He was worried about Gibbons.
Suddenly there was an insistent knock on the door, four quick raps.
Tozzi drew his weapon and got behind the door. Why was he knocking? Why
would
he be knocking?
The knocking turned into pounding. “Hey, anybody home?” an annoyed voice called through the door.
Tozzi pictured the door flying open, followed by a hail of gunfire. “Who is it?” he answered, his heart pounding.
“Pizza.”
“What?”
“Pizza, pizza. I got a pizza for 6D. Gibbons, right?”
Tozzi paused. It was a trap, he knew it. He crossed the doorway quickly and put on the chain lock. Standing away from the door, gun ready, he opened it a crack. There was a woolly-headed black kid in bright yellow high-top sneakers holding a pizza box. The name “Gibbons” was scrawled on the box in black crayon.
“Take it, man. It's already paid for,” the kid said.
“What do you mean it's already paid for?”
“Look, man, I just deliver them.”
Tozzi didn't move.
“Hey, look, Jack, I got no time for this. I'll just leave it right here, okay?” The kid put the box down on the floor and left.
Tozzi stared at it. His throat was so constricted it ached. Lando, Blaney, and Novick. Oh, God.
He stared at it for a few minutes, afraid to open the door because he was afraid to open the box. But he had to know. Sliding the chain from the plate, he opened the door and peered out, right and left, the .38 clutched in his hand. The hall was empty.
He slid the pizza box in with his foot, then shut the door and locked it. He stared down at it for a moment before he picked it up and laid it on the table. He broke the tape on the sides and front, then slowly opened the lid.
Sitting in the middle of the pizza was a gun, a .38 Colt revolver, Gibbons's gun, Excalibur. It lay there on its side in a puddle of tomato-tainted oil like a dead fish.
Strings of mozzarella cheese clung to Excalibur as he lifted it from the pizza. His hand was trembling as he stared at it. “Oh, shit,” he murmured.
Gibbons was on his hands and knees, his head tucked into his chest, taking slow shallow breaths to minimize the pain that racked his body. It was all he could do, handcuffed to the steampipe the way he was. Conserve your strength, he kept telling himself. But what for? Another whack with the rubber hose? He looked at his watch. This had been going on for fifty minutes now, and he had a feeling Kinney was just beginning.
Just then another punishing blow landed on that same shoulder. He kept thinking it must be separated by now, though he had no idea what a seperated shoulder should feel like.
Kinney performed with that damn length of black hose, like a ballet dancer, slowly getting up on his toes for every stroke, whipping it down backhand across Gibbons's back and shoulders, always careful with his follow-through. Kinney took his time and placed the blows precisely, pausing now and then to explain his method.
“Never go fast with a beating, Bert,” he said, pausing to take aim again, this time making Gibbons's tailbone throb. “Speed anesthetizes the experience. You fall into a rhythm and mentally the victim prepares for the blows. The hose does the damage, yes, but it's pain without fear, and that defeats the purpose. Your man has to wonder when it's coming next. He's got to taste that terror of anticipation, Bert.” Suddenly the hose ripped into the back of Gibbons's head. “Give him time to think that maybe it's finally over. Present him with hope . . . then take it away.”
Gibbons waited, watching his own blood drip from his brows to
the dusty wooden floor. He waited and told himself it wasn't over yet, refusing to hold out any kind of hope. But then, without warning, the black hose dropped right in front of him, the hose but without the hand. It was well within reach.
He could hear Kinney's soft laugh. He looked at the hose and he was tempted. Just one good smack at the bastard, that's all. Just one good one right in the face. Maybe put his eye out, the bastard.
“Go ahead, Bert. Take it,” Kinney whispered, mocking him. “You're not that old. You can still take care of yourself, can't you? Go for it.”
And without thinking, Gibbons grabbed for the hose with burning hate in his heart, but before his fingers could grasp it, Kinney's foot slammed into his windpipe, the toe of the heavy black wingtip he'd been looking at for nearly an hour finding the delicate cavity just above the sternum. Gibbons arched back and clutched his chest with his free hand, thinking Heart attack, when Kinney delivered a hard uppercut into his face, drawing blood over the cheekbone. Gibbons fell back. The handcuff on his right wrist rattled down the steampipe as he landed flat on his back.
Through the haze of numbing pain, Gibbons could see Kinney's face clearly now. The bastard kicked him in the ribs, and instinctively he tried to grab Kinney's ankle and trip him, but he was too weak to react fast enough. Kinney kept kicking, his gleeful glinting eyes set in an otherwise placid face that smiled in winces whenever he delivered a new blow. A mindless frozen Doberman smile that Gibbons saw in strobe flashes between kicks, again and again and again, never changing, a mask carved in ice . . .
When Gibbons woke up again, it was dark out. He went to look at his watch, but the face was smashed. His head throbbed, he was sore all over, and the flesh around his eye felt stiff and lifeless. So this is what it feels like to be knocked out twice in one day, he thought.
He was slumped on the floor, his back against the radiator. As soon as he tried to stand up, his head started to spin. He went to clutch his temples, but the handcuffs stopped him. He stared at the cuffs in confusion for a moment. He'd forgotten about them.
Sitting up slowly, he was able to peer over the sill of the dirty casement windows and see a panoramic view of the Statue of Liberty's backside with the World Trade Center in the background. He knew
he was still in Jersey from the proximity of Lady Liberty, in an abandoned warehouse somewhere on the waterfront in Jersey City or Bayonne. He didn't like the fact that they weren't trying to keep their location a secret from him. It didn't bode well, as Lorraine might say.
His face was crusty with blood, particularly the area around his left eye. That goddamn college ring, the garnet stone.
He couldn't remember passing out, but from the way he felt and the way Kinney had behaved, he just assumed that the bastard continued to beat him while he was unconscious. It was easy to understand why they called him “the Hun.” Gibbons wondered if Lando, Blaney, and Novick were treated to this kind of torture before Kinney cut them up. A sickening hollowness opened up in the pit of his stomach as he remembered the coroner's report on those three. He was lucky he still had his eyes.
“Hey, you 'wake, ole man?”
Gibbons looked up. Someone was standing over him. He had a metal folding chair in his hand. Instinctively Gibbons grabbed his head.
“Take it easy, man, take it easy. I'm not gonna hit you with it.” He unfolded the chair and set it down next to Gibbons. “I already hit you once today. That's enough.”
Gibbons leaned on the chair and painfully hauled himself up and into the seat. In the dim light he focused on the face that went with the heavily accented voice. He was short, dark, and wiry with a razor-trimmed mustache and glittering eyes. A tight muscle T-shirt showed off well-developed arms, and there was an automatic in the waistband of his pants, right above the fly. The pants were shiny and green, and he wore them with pale yellow suspenders. Spic chic.
“E-man! What the fuck're you doin' over there?”
Gibbons followed the new voice to the other side of the long room where two figures sat hunched over a table. There was a stand-up lamp with a battered shade next to the table. Gibbons felt like he was in a dark cave looking out.
“He's up, man,” E-man called back. “What're we supposed to do with him?”
“Nothin'.”
E-man crossed his arms over his chest and nodded. “You don't remember me, do you, man?”
“Should I?” He had an overwhelming urge to kick this little asshole's teeth in.
“So you didn't see me at all? Not even in your side mirror when you got out of the car?”
“What're you talking about?”
“I was in your trunk, man. After you parked in that alley I got out nice and quiet, came up behind you, and
wham!
took you down with my sap. Pretty slick, huh?”
“You want a merit badge?”
“A what?” E-man's smile faded. “What's that you said?”
Gibbons didn't answer. He knew it drove Latins wild when they thought they were being made fun of but didn't know enough English to be sure.
“Hey, what're you two yakking about over here?” The other two sauntered up and stood over Gibbons. One was tall, lean, and full of nervous energy; he bounced on the balls of his feet like Jimmy Cagney. The other was broader and slower. They both had the same shanty-Irish face, though. Long bony head, beady eyes, and pig nostrils. Gibbons assumed they were brothers.
“He thinks he's real bad for an old dude.” The little muscle man sneered. “How 'bout it, Feeney? Can I show him how bad I am?”
The lean one smiled with a mouthful of horse teeth and kept bouncing. “Not yet. Mr. K said to chill out until he gets back.”
The little man shrugged his shoulders and shuffled his feet in place. “Yeah? When's that gonna be?”
Feeney shrugged. “He said he'd be back before morning. Louis, what time is it?”
Gibbons noticed that the broad-shouldered mick had one of those tiny three-inch televisions in the palm of his hand. “Must be five o'clock.
Here's Lucy
just went on.” Light from the little screen flashed eerily across his face and lit up the inside of Louis's nose.
“He should be here soon,” Feeney said. “Come on.” He headed back to the table, and the other two followed loyally.
Assholes, Gibbons thought angrily, but his anger only made his headache worse. He tried to sit quietly, hoping to make the pain subside. Whatever they were doing over there, the three punks were quiet, and the quiet helped his head. After a while he realized that the night had turned to gray dawn, and he stared out at a black-and-white world, enveloped in his thoughts. He wondered if they'd gotten Tozzi too.
Sometime later Gibbons was pulled out of his trance by the sound of a bell ringing. He immediately pictured those cheap electric bells
kids hook up to twelve-volt batteries for school science projects. Across the room, E-man and Louis jumped up and rushed to the freight elevator. Feeney, the leader, strolled over. When the slow elevator finally arrived, E-man lifted the gate and out walked the bastard himself.
Kinney was carrying Dunkin' Donuts bags, which Louis immediately took from him. E-man and Louis clustered around Kinney like kids around their dad just home from work. Feeney kept a respectable distance. He was the head of this crew after all.
Gibbons overheard Kinney telling them to take their breakfasts and go downstairs for some air. Feeney huddled with his boss for a second before he joined Louis and E-man in the elevator.
When they were gone, Kinney turned toward Gibbons. The morning light from the windows above Gibbons's head highlighted the golden boy, who was wearing a crisp tan suit today. “Morning, Bert,” he called affably as he picked up a folding chair and walked toward the sunlight. He was carrying a Dunkin' Donuts cup in his other hand.
If Kinney got close enough, Gibbons swore he'd stick his fingers in the bastard's eyes and rip his fucking face off.