“I brought you a coffee,” Kinney said as he set down the chair.
“You know what you can do with it, don't you?”
Kinney shrugged and sat down backward on the chair. As he carefully pried the lid off the cup, Gibbons considered the distances and decided that he was too far away to get a decent shot at him.
“Where's Tozzi?”
Kinney ignored the question and sipped gingerly. The garnet in his college ring sparkled brilliantly in the sunlight.
“You planning on cutting my head off too?”
Kinney frowned. “We haven't decided yet, Bert.” This was the public Kinney talking, the future Special Agent in Charge. The Hun had gone back into his coffin for the night. Gibbons had to marvel at how different this Kinney was from the animal who'd savaged him last night.
“Tell me why,” Gibbons said, squinting at him.
“Why what? Why I went over to the mob? Or why I killed Lando, Blaney, and Novick?” Kinney smiled brightly.
Gibbons's stomach was burning with pure hate. “Both.”
Kinney closed his eyes and laughed. “What do you want me to tell you? How about âlove'? That's always a good one. I did it for love.”
“I think you did it because you're a fucking wack. You get off on killing. You're sick.”
“Much too simple, Bert. The insanity defense is overused. It's what they say when they've got nothing else to blame. You know that.”
“Then why?”
“Why do people do anything these days, Bert? For money. Pure and simple.”
“Is that how Varga converted you? Just with money?”
Kinney stared at Gibbons for a long moment before he answered. “When I was undercover in the Philly mob, Richie Varga and I sort of naturally gravitated toward each other. He wanted to be made in the worse way, but he knew it would never happen in the Philadelphia family because they thought he was a little jerk who just happened to be Jules Collesano's son-in-law. Richie had a lot of good ideas, though, and I was impressed with him. He asked me if I'd support him. I said yes, but I didn't tell him I was a fed until after he'd screwed his father-in-law. I wanted to be sure he really was a rising star before I committed myself.”
“Why the hell would he trust you after you told him you were a fed?”
“As I said, we're kindred spirits. As a matter of fact, I gave him the original idea for turning on the New York bosses. The heads were my idea too. But you have to understand something, Bert. Richie and I fit each other's needs. He wanted power, and I wanted money. Together, we got what we wanted.”
Gibbons scowled. “You're full of shit. It wasn't just the money.”
Kinney sipped his coffee. “You wouldn't understand, Bert. You live like a monk, you clearly don't like material things, and most importantly, you don't have kids. Money doesn't mean the same thing to you that it means to me.”
“Yeah, right. And your mother needs an operation.”
“College costs are soaring, Bert. Right now it costs about sixty thousand dollars for a decent college education, and that's just for a bachelor's degree. Given inflation and the ages of my children, I figure I'll need at least six hundred and fifty thousand to send them all to school. You know what a special agent makes, Bert. Even if they made me director tomorrow, I'd never be able to afford it.”
“Send 'em to tech school. The girls can be hairdressers.” He just said that to get back at Kinney.
Kinney grinned. “Not my kids, Bert. No, I want my kids to have at the very least what I had. Because, face it, the world just gets harder all the time, and the competition they'll have to face will be enormous.”
Gibbons just shook his head. He refused to credit this shit with a response. It was unbelievable how guys like this could rationalize anything, even murder, for their own benefit. Not only rationalize it, but make it seem as natural and logical as getting in out of the rain. Damn him.
“Believe me,” Kinney said, “I tried to figure out another way, but Varga presented me with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as they say. I saw it as a workable solution to my financial dilemma. I had no other choice, really. You sure you don't want a coffee? There's an extra one.”
Gibbons looked at his feet. Kinney was making him sick.
Kinney exhaled loudly and stood up. “Well, if it's any consolation to you, I've instructed the boys to leave you alone for the time being. We won't do anything until we have your friend Tozzi. Then I'll just have to figure out who gets to watch the other one die. Of course, maybe by then I'll have thought of something simultaneous so you can both watch.” He took another sip. “Later, Bert.”
Gibbons listened to his footsteps as he walked the length of the big room, hating that bastard more than he'd ever hated anyone in his entire life.
Tozzi peered through a row of hemlock bushes, his feet sinking in the soft soil, his back up against the stockade fence. He could see the whole house from here. Chrissie was downstairs watching TV. The other kids were probably in bed; it was almost eleven. Mrs. Kinney was upstairs doing something in the bedroom, walking around the room in her bathrobe. Kinney was in his study, sitting at his desk. He'd been on the phone for the past half hour.
Tozzi felt the scratch on his cheek where the low branch of a short-needled spruce tree had caught him as he was hopping a fence a few doors down. He'd been thinking about dogs at the time and he wasn't paying attention. The lawn in that yard was bare and there was a dog run attached to the back of the house. He was afraid some goddamn dog would come charging out and wake up the whole neighborhood. The dog must've been inside, though, because he crossed that yard with no trouble. Sneaking through the backyards was the only way he could get to Kinney's house unnoticed, he'd decided. In fact, he hadn't even bothered to check out Kinney's street. He was certain there'd be a couple of Varga's men sitting in a car out front waiting for him. He'd counted on there not being anyone covering the backyard or stationed inside the house. If Kinney invited the heavies inside, he'd have a lot of explaining to do to his wife. Conducting business at home was strongly discouraged by the BureauâMrs. Kinney probably knew thatâand if Varga's muscle all looked like the pair of greaseballs Tozzi spotted that morning, Kinney would have a hard time convincing his wife that these guys were FBI colleagues.
Watching Kinney through the window, Tozzi assumed that some of these phone calls he'd been making had to do with him. Probably ordering up more torpedoes to go out looking for “the other one.”
Tozzi was weary and worried about Gibbons. He wanted to put a bullet between Kinney's eyes so bad. He'd spent the whole night and day plotting and planning, trying to outpsych this son-of-a-bitch, and now he was just sick and tired of thinking about him.
It had been a frantic twenty-four hours. After the pizza had arrived at Gibbons's apartment, Tozzi had wasted no time getting out of there. He figured he was being watched, but he had a gut feeling that they wouldn't try to take him. Not yet. The situation was too perfect for Kinney to pass up. Tozzi was a wanted man and Gibbons was supposed to be hunting him down. If Kinney's thugs could corner Tozzi somewhere where there wouldn't be any witnesses, they could take Tozzi down, then bring Gibbons along later and shoot him with one of Tozzi's guns to make it all look like a shoot-out, the good agent taking a fatal bullet while trying to apprehend the renegade. Kinney, of course, would claim to be the only witness, which would make him the hero who finally succeeded in neutralizing the maniac renegade. It was perfect. Not only would Kinney eliminate the threat of exposure, he'd pick up a gold star in the process and go to the head of the class, the son-of-a-bitch.
After Tozzi had left Gibbons's place, he'd stashed Excalibur in the trunk of the Buick with his other guns and took off, heading north along the river, taking local roads so he could spot a tail. By the time he'd reached the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, he was pretty certain no one was following him, but that's when he panicked. He suddenly realized he had nothing that could lead him to Gibbons, and he couldn't stop thinking about what Kinney might be doing to him. Kinney was insane, he was a butcher. That's when Tozzi started to doubt his theory about Kinney's plan for staging a shoot-out. Maybe Kinney had already sliced up Gibbons, pulled another Lando, Blaney, and Novick. Maybe he didn't care how much Tozzi knew about him because he figured no one who mattered would listen to a renegade agent. Maybe Kinney figured it was better to get rid of Gibbons right away and worry about Tozzi later.
Gunning the Buick south down the Turnpike Extension, Tozzi had broken out into a cold sweat thinking about all this. He had to find Gibbons, fast. It occurred to him that maybe Kinney had someone staked out at the motel in Secaucus where he'd been staying. He hoped
to God Kinney did have someone there. Even if it was all part of Kinney's plan to use Gibbons as bait to nail him, Tozzi didn't care. He had to risk it to get a lead on Gibbons's location before Kinney went blade-crazy again.
When he'd gotten to Secaucus, he pulled into the Exxon station next to the EZ Rest Motel and told the attendant to fill it. That's when he spotted them. He was looking right at them, not thirty yards away. Two slimy-looking disco retreads sitting in a navy-blue T-bird with an orangy-tan vinyl roof parked on the side of the motel, waiting. He had no way of knowing for sure who they were, but instinctively he knew. He could read their stories in their weaselly facesâtwo young torpedoes eager to make an impression with the big boss and increase their chances of getting made in Varga's family. They were yakking away at each other like two old ladies at the old-age home. The sight of them made him crazy. He wondered if these two assholes would really know where Gibbons was. Doubtful, he decided. Shaking them down probably wouldn't be worth the risk. Tozzi pounded the steering wheel with his fist in frustration. He had to do something, though.
The attendant reappeared at his window and he paid for the gas with a twenty. As the man counted out his change, it suddenly came to Tozzi. Not a plan or a strategy, just something he could do right now that would send Kinney a message. He wanted Kinney to know that he may be running, but he wasn't hiding.
It had appeared in his mind full-blown, as if he were seeing it in a movie; then he just followed through and repeated what he saw, not really thinking about it. He guided the Buick around the back of the gas station, crossed over a mound of burnt-out grass into the motel's back lot, pulled up behind the building, put it in reverse, and backed into the narrow drive nice and easy until he was about twenty-five feet from the two gabbing torpedoes. Then he floored it and rammed the T-bird. He kept his foot on the gas, pushing their car out into highway traffic. He heard the torpedoes yelling, the bumpers crunching, their tires screeching, then felt the tremendous crash vibrate his wheel as a U-Haul van plowed into the T-bird and dragged it all the way to the motel sign at the other end of the lot. Tozzi spun the steering wheel, turned around, and tore out into the highway, veering around the wreckage of the demolished T-bird pinned between the van and the steel uprights of the neon EZ Rest sign.
Driving away, Tozzi couldn't believe he did that. It was crazy. Innocent people could've been hurt in that crash. It was a stupid thing
to do. He'd heard on the radio later that no one had been seriously hurt. The radio announcer made a joke of the torpedoes' claim that they were deliberately pushed out into the middle of Route 3. The police reported that a quantity of an unidentified white powder was found in their car. Tozzi hoped the radio announcer's skepticism reflected the police's feelings about their story and that no one was looking for a 1977 copper-brown Buick LeSabre with a mangled rear bumper.
After the motel incident, Tozzi just drove. He drove so he could think, sort things out, put together some kind of plan. First thing, he knew he needed a place to stay, at least for the night, and Joanne seemed to be the logical solution, but as he drove out to her place, he began to have doubts about her. It was possible that she wasn't entirely on the up-and-up, he'd thought. She'd been married to Varga, and despite all that she'd said about him, they were never formally divorced. Maybe she was cooperating with Varga, maybe she was just keeping him busy that first night they spent together so that Varga's people could put the bomb in his cousin's car. It was possible. He changed his mind and decided not to go to Joanne's. He ended up spending the night in the Buick parked at the Vince Lombardi Service Exit off the Turnpike. But before he dozed off in the front seat, he changed his mind about her again. He was just being paranoid again, he'd decided. He'd seen her plenty of times in the past few weeks. There were more than enough opportunities for Varga to take him out when he was with her. She was really all right after all. He was just being paranoid about her, that's all. And as it was, he was paranoid enough about everything else.
He stood there in the shadows behind the hemlocks now, watching Kinney with the phone to his face. Kinney was burning the midnight oil, and Tozzi knew it wasn't for the FBI. If only he had a tap on that phone, he thought. If only. Tozzi moved quietly behind the hemlocks, walking along the perimeter of the yard through the neglected vegetable garden. So who needs a tap? he thought.