“Excuse me. I’ll be right with you,” Ivers said.
Gibbons nodded and took a seat on the other side of Ivers’s desk. He didn’t want to be here. He started bouncing his knee as he watched Ivers’s secretary, the scared little rabbit with the incurable flaking-mascara problem, dutifully standing over the assistant director in charge as he signed the stack of letters she’d just brought in.
The pink message slip in his side pocket was burning a hole in there. Tozzi had called while he was away from his desk and left a message. All it said was “You were right.” Gibbons assumed that Tozzi had checked that rug and found dope in it. But what did he do with it? Gibbons was about to go out to lunch and call his partner from a pay phone to get the details, but Ivers’s secretary called as he was going out the door and said the boss wanted to see him right away. He wondered if Ivers knew about the rug. That cop posted at the house must’ve seen Tozzi fiddling with it. Maybe he informed McCleery, and McCleery told Augustine, and Augustine called Ivers. It was possible. But were they gonna make things worse for Tozzi because he found the dope? Was Ivers gonna be clever and play dumb, wait to see if he said anything about the rug, then spring it on him that he knows all about it? Gibbons was gonna have to be careful.
Ivers handed the letters back to his secretary, who took them and promptly left his office without lifting her eyes. The boss linked his fingers on top of the desk and looked at Gibbons over his half-glasses. He waited for the door to close before he spoke. “Something has been bothering me, Gibbons. That’s why I called you in here.”
Gibbons was already suspicious of Ivers’s fireside-chat tone. It sounded like a setup.
“I just want you to know,” he continued, “that in my heart I believe that Tozzi is innocent. I want you to know that.”
Gibbons narrowed his eyes. Who the hell was he kidding? This had to be a setup. When a known asshole isn’t being an asshole, something’s got to be up.
“Why do you look so surprised, Gibbons?”
“Well, I . . . I mean, after the meeting at Tom Augustine’s office, I just assumed—”
“Assumed what? That I was on the bandwagon to hang Tozzi?”
Gibbons was bouncing his knee. He stopped and crossed his legs. “Well, Christ, you did suspend him.”
“I had no choice. He’s under criminal investigation. That’s policy.”
“But you don’t think he’s the killer?”
Ivers took off his glasses and shook his head. “He had no motive.”
No? How about a rug full of heroin? How’s that for a motive?
“What about the quote in the paper?” Gibbons asked. “Tozzi did say that he thought all the Figaro defendants and their lawyers should eat some lead. Aren’t the investigators saying that showed intention?”
“You go find me a cop or a fed who doesn’t hate mob defendants and criminal lawyers. I share those feelings. That’s not a motive for murder.”
Gibbons was suspicious. Ivers had never been so reasonable, certainly not when it concerned Tozzi. “So if you don’t think Tozzi’s guilty, why don’t you throw your weight around and intervene for him?”
“I’ve been trying to, but the U.S. Attorney’s office is stone-walling me. They won’t even discuss the issue with me. They keep saying that because Tozzi is a special agent, the Bureau can’t have any part in this.”
Ivers looked genuinely disgruntled. Gibbons wanted to believe the asshole was being sincere, but taking for the underdog had never been part of Ivers’s repertoire in the past.
Gibbons glanced out the window behind Ivers. It was a panoramic view of Federal Plaza and Foley Square beyond. “But why are they making such a big stink about it? It’s obvious that it was a mob hit to silence Giordano. No one really believes that Tozzi did it.”
Ivers took off his glasses. “That’s not really the point anymore. The remaining defense attorneys are screaming bloody murder, saying that both they and their clients are in mortal danger. They want their mistrial, and they’ve got a good chance of getting it unless a suspect is caught soon. Unfortunately, Tozzi happens to be the most convenient suspect at hand.”
“In other words, the U.S. Attorney’s office is ready to throw Tozzi into the volcano to save the trial.”
Ivers looked at him grimly. His answer was in his face.
“What the hell’s their problem over there? The U.S. Attorney’s been a real mad dog about Figaro from the very beginning.”
“It’s not the U.S. Attorney who’s the mad dog. It’s Tom Augustine.”
“Augustine?”
Ivers nodded. “Augustine was the one who kept pushing to bring this thing to trial when everyone was advising him to wait just a little longer. The DEA literally begged him to wait until they had a chance to confiscate that big heroin shipment we’d all heard about. Forty kilos. It would’ve sealed the case, but Augustine wouldn’t wait. He gave us a lot of mumbo-jumbo about the high risk of defendants fleeing the country if they waited any longer. He made it sound like the practical thing to do at the time, but in hindsight, it was a real snow job. And now in his quiet, persistent way, he’s the one holding the noose out for Tozzi. Tom used to be a real team player, but in the last year or so . . .”
Ivers swiveled his chair to the side and gazed out the window. Gibbons followed his glance. Across Federal Plaza, tucked behind the federal courthouse, you could just make out the striated cement walls on the upper stories of the building where Augustine’s office was located. Augustine could be at his desk right now, looking over at them the same way. Gibbons could hear Tozzi’s voice in his head, carping about Augustine at Uncle Pete’s house after the funeral. He’d said he wouldn’t be surprised if Augustine was trying to frame him to get some free publicity in his run for city hall. He was half serious when he’d said it. But suppose they did try Tozzi for the murders, suppose they charged him with conspiracy and interference with an ongoing trial as well and were able to drag the case into federal court. Augustine could try it himself. Coming right on the heels of a victory in the Figaro case, Augustine would look very good. People in this city are scared shitless about crime. Augustine could be swept into office on a law-and-order tidal wave. It could happen.
Ivers swiveled around in his chair and put his glasses back on. “I did call you in here for another reason.” He picked up a sheaf of stapled papers from his desk and perused them for a second. “We got a fax from the Rome office this morning. Emilio Zucchetti boarded a plane for New York late last night.”
“I’ll bet he’s not coming to see the sights.” Gibbons pictured the wizened old Sicilian boss in Bermuda shorts with a pair of cheap sunglasses perched on his big banana nose, wearing a silly sun hat with an I LOVE NY button stuck in it.
“We assume he’s coming here to confer with Salamandra. Fortunately, his plane was delayed. One of his sons waited with him at the airport. Our people over there were able to eavesdrop on some of their conversation.” Ivers flipped a page over. “It’s clear from what the son said that the Sicilians are not pleased with what’s going on in New York. It’s obvious that he’s referring to the trial. Zucchetti says that he trusted the ‘Americani’ Salamandra brought to him at the farm, but he adds that they’ve disappointed him. He repeated that twice, that they have all disappointed him. The son says that it’s unfortunate that things have gotten to the point where the capo di capi has to go straighten things out personally. The son also refers to ‘nostro patrono’ several times, our patron saint. The surveillance agent included a note that this phrase was not spoken with any kind of reverence. The tone was bitter and sarcastic.”
Gibbons sat forward. “I was just listening to a tape where Salamandra talks about a patron saint. But it’s not clear what he’s talking about.”
“Hmmm.” Ivers scrunched his mouth over to one side of his face and flipped over another page. “After the son talks about the patron saint, he says, ‘Never trust a lawyer, Papa.’” Ivers looked up from the page. “Is the patron saint a lawyer? Could they be talking about Marty Bloom?”
Gibbons shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“The son then asks his father if the Americans should get a taste of justice, Sicilian-style. He’s snickering when he says this.”
“And what does Zucchetti say to that?”
“There’s a pause, then the old man says, ‘The best lawyer is the lawyer who does not talk.’” Ivers looked up at Gibbons. “That’s all they got. Zucchetti and his son went off to get an espresso then. Our men couldn’t set up fast enough to get any more. Can you make anything out of any of this?”
Gibbons crossed his leg again and grabbed his shoe as he stared out the window. Never trust a lawyer, Papa. . . . The best lawyer is the lawyer who does not talk. . . . Our patron saint. . . . Disappointed. . . .
Gibbons focused on the upper stories of the U.S. Attorney’s building and considered Tozzi’s suspicions about Augustine. Were they suspicions or instincts?
“I said, can you make anything out of this?”
Gibbons puckered his lips and exhaled deeply. “I’m not sure yet.” He stood up and wandered to the door like a sleepwalker, his eye never leaving Augustine’s office across the plaza. His hand was in his pocket on the pink message slip. You were right.
“Where are you going?” Ivers asked.
“I gotta go check on something. I’ll get back to you on this.” He left without closing the door behind him.
The tiny office reeked of cigarette smoke. The only color in the room other than black, white, or gray came from the green characters on the computer screen. Gibbons stood in the doorway and stared at the big rat slumped down in front of his computer terminal, shirt buttons straining over his gut. A cigarette dangled under his pointy snout as he clawed at the keyboard, squinting one eye against the rising smoke. The phosphorescent green tinted his yellowish pallor. It was an improvement.
Gibbons pulled out his I.D. and held it up for the rat to see as he knocked on the open door. “Mr. Moscowitz.”
“Fuck off.”
Gibbons bared his teeth. “Moscowitz.”
The big rat raised his voice, but he didn’t look up. “I said get the fuck outta here. I’m busy.”
“So am I.” Gibbons waited for a response, but the rat was ignoring him.
Okay, fine.
Gibbons took a step into the room and kicked the gray sheet metal on the other side of the rat’s desk. A thunderous boom made the rodent jump. Gibbons smiled like a crocodile.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Gibbons shoved his I.D. in the rat’s face. The beady little eyes squinted at it. Surprisingly they weren’t pink.
“So? Whattaya want?” The rat swiveled in his chair to face Gibbons as he stuck a new cigarette in his mouth and lit it with the last one.
Gibbons noticed that he was wearing a shoulder holster over his shirt. The butt of an automatic peeked out of his armpit. Black matte finish—to go with his wardrobe, no doubt. A real tough guy. Gibbons almost laughed. Crime-beat reporters carrying guns, defending themselves against the bad guys. What a fucking joke. Who’d waste a good slug on a piece of shit like this?
“So whattaya want? Speak.” Smoke drifted out of the rat’s long nose.
“I wanna talk to you.”
“Oh, yeah? About what?”
“The Figaro trial, for starters.”
The rat snickered and held out his hand. “Lemme see your I.D. again.”
Gibbons was suspicious, but he produced his I.D. He wasn’t sure, but legally he might have to in a circumstance like this. A pain in the ass like Moscowitz would know the rule so he could get you in trouble if you didn’t oblige his request. He was that kind of asshole.
The rat squinted at Gibbons’s I.D. again, snickering the whole time. “Just a street agent, huh? Whatta I gotta talk to you for?”
Gibbons’s immediate impulse was to kick the little shit’s teeth down his throat, but he wanted something from him, so he put a lid on it and just smiled. Nicely. “Well, actually, Moscowitz, you don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to.”
“You’re damn straight I don’t have to talk to you if I don’t want to.” The rat bounced on his seat, working his rump into the cushion to get comfortable. His spine must’ve been a chiropractor’s nightmare. “Listen to me, pal. I don’t talk to little guys like you. I got access. I got contacts. I could call your boss right now and get him on the line. Ivers, right? Brad Ivers.”
“Go ahead. Call him. Tell ‘Brad’ I said hi.” Gibbons imagined pistol-whipping this little prick with his own gun.
“I got connections with law-enforcement people so high up you never even heard of ’em. Guys a lot higher up than you.” A smog bank of cigarette smoke hung over Moscowitz’s greasy head. He was like a miniature Los Angeles.
“C’mon, Moscowitz. Who could you know? I’ve been reading your coverage of Figaro. I’m not impressed. It’s all bits and pieces, leftovers. You must not have any big-time sources on that end of Foley Square.”
“Au contraire, mon flatfoot. I happen to be very tight with Tom Augustine.”
“The Assistant U.S. Attorney? Get outta here.”
The rat scratched his scrawny, concave chest. “Lemme tell you something. When Augustine wants to leak a story, he comes to me. When he’s got something to say, I get the exclusive. We have a relationship.”
“Get outta here.”
“Hey, I don’t have to impress you. I know what I know, and I know that when a story is about to break down at the trial, my man Tom gets the word to me first.”
“You’re telling me Augustine tips you off ahead of time? Get outta here.” Gibbons kept an incredulous grin plastered on his face.
“Hey, all you have to do is watch me down at the trial. You don’t see me jumping all over Augustine out in the hallway, yelling questions at him the way the other reporters do. I don’t have to scramble with those losers. D’ja ever see where I always sit? Down front, right by the prosecution table. Reserved seating, thanks to my buddy Tom. He lets me stay close so I can listen. Very discreet. That’s my style.”
Yeah, very discreet. Like the Visigoths.
Gibbons tried to recall where Moscowitz did sit in court. He’d never noticed, so he couldn’t tell how much of this bullshit really was bullshit.
“Augustine even proofs some of my stories before I turn them in.” A smug smile squiggled up the rat’s muzzle.
“Why would he do that?”
Gibbons stuck his hands in his coat pockets. What’s he do? Check your spelling?
“Hey, in case you haven’t figured it out, pal, this guy’s running for mayor next year. He wants to make sure he gets written up just right.”
“And you don’t have a problem with him reading your stuff before you hand it in? You know, journalistic ethics and all that baloney.”
“Fuck ethics. The man’s gonna be the next mayor. I want him to remember me when he’s in City Hall.” The rat blew a plume of smoke into the smog bank.
“Well, I gotta hand it to you, Moscowitz. You’re a pretty clever guy. But Augustine must be pretty upset these days. Figaro’s bogged down in all these mistrial motions. Nothing much has happened in court since Giordano was whacked. Pretty boring stuff. Guess he doesn’t have to bother proofing your stories now.”
The rat shook his head. “If it concerns him, he wants to see it first. No matter what it is.”
“Get outta here. Now I know you’re full of shit.”
“I’m telling you, he has gone over every single word I’ve written about Figaro. If a story’s got my byline, it’s truth because it comes straight from the source. I told you, me and Augustine have a relationship.”
Gibbons remained skeptical. “He’s seen every piece you’ve written about Figaro before it was printed?”
“Every one.”
Gibbons stared at the computer terminal. Every one, huh? Which would include the one with the incriminating quote attributed to Tozzi. So if Augustine saw it, why didn’t he stop it?
The rat pointed with his cigarette. “You a betting man, Gibbons? Put your money on Augustine for mayor. Take it from me.”
“What are you, for real? You don’t have to be a genius to figure that one out, Moscowitz. The way it’s lining up now, the blacks and Hispanics will split the liberal vote between Washington and Ortega. Augustine’ll veer just a little to the right and that way he’ll pick up all the whites. Augustine’s got the right image and he’s certainly got the money to spend on a campaign. The mayor’s office is his for the taking if he decides to run.”
The rat sat forward and slumped over his desk. “Listen to me now. This comes straight from the mouth of Moscowitz.”
Yuk. Gibbons’s stomach went sour. “Go ’head. I’m listening.”
“All this coy flirting Augustine is doing with the party? It’s all part of his strategy. He’s gonna run. That isn’t even a question. He just doesn’t want to declare himself and peak too soon. He wants the voters to want him, so he’s playing hard to get.”
Gibbons shrugged. “So what else is new?”
“Now you’re absolutely right about the image thing. He’s the urban crusader, Mr. Clean, a big-city crime buster, the white man’s candidate. But you’re all wrong about the money thing.”
“What’re you talking about? Augustine is old money. His old man is loaded.”
“Was loaded. The old man took a bath on the market in ‘87. Just about wiped him out.”
“Yeah, sure. Next you’re gonna be telling me Augustine’s on welfare.”
“Not quite. The old man must’ve kept some money squirreled away, but the dynasty ends with him. There won’t be any big payday for Augustine when good ol’ Dad croaks.”
“Hey, Augustine works. He must have investments of his own. He’s not poor.”
“How much do you think an Assistant U.S. Attorney makes? Not that much. Definitely not enough to bankroll a major political campaign. He must’ve been ripped when the old man lost his shirt, though. That’s why he lost to Rodriguez in the primary for Congress. Not enough cash for the TV spots. Why do you think he went to work for the government in the first place? He didn’t need the money when he first took the job. Dad still had the fortune. What Augustine needed was the prestige, the exposure. He needed a public record. Dad had just sold the family business then, and everybody figured he’d go on making good, conservative investments with the dough the way he had been. But I guess he wasn’t conservative enough. Hey, who woulda thought? Anyway, as far as Augustine is concerned, the mayor’s office is the only place an ambitious, upwardly mobile type of guy like him can go now because his boss made it pretty clear that he isn’t ready to move over for anybody. So either Augustine shoots for mayor or he resigns himself to lowering his standard of living more than he already has.”
“Tom Augustine doesn’t look like he goes wanting. Not from what I’ve seen.”
The rat skulked so far forward his chest was flat on the desktop. “Sure, Augustine’s got the family town house in the East Sixties and he belongs to all the right clubs, but I’m willing to bet his bankbook is no blockbuster. He’s just like the rest of them, one of these old-money WASPs who has real Chippendale chairs in the dining room and eats Campbell’s soup for dinner when they don’t have company.”
“Get outta here.”
“Hey, man, I know. I checked his trash.”
Gibbons could believe that. So if Augustine is strapped for cash and he does intend to run for mayor, he needs the free publicity of Figaro. Yeah, but this didn’t make sense. Why set up Tozzi for the fall? Indict an FBI agent, and the mistrial becomes a sure bet—government conspiracy and all that—and there goes all Augustine’s free publicity. Unless there’s something else going on here. Unless Augustine’s getting paid to trash Figaro. Maybe Tozzi’s big mouth gave him a golden opportunity. He gets to prosecute Tozzi, which keeps him in the news, while getting paid for wrecking the Figaro trial. It’s not impossible.
“You know, Moscowitz, you’re a regular Encyclopaedia Britannica.”
“Hey, the city is my beat. If it’s happening here, I know about it.”
Gibbons just nodded. Asshole.
“So what was it you wanted to know, Gibbons?”
“Never mind. It’s not important.”
Gibbons smiled with his teeth. You’ve already told me more than I ever expected, Rat Boy.
Before he left, Gibbons paused and stared down at the reporter.
“Whattaya looking at?”
“That thing under your arm.”
Moscowitz lifted his elbow and peeked under like a chicken. “What? This?”
“Yeah, what is it?”
“Hey, I thought you FBI guys knew all about guns. It’s a Beretta, 25 ACP.”
“Oh.” Gibbons nodded. “I thought it was one of those cigarette lighters.” He smiled like a crocodile and headed out the door. “Take it slow, Moscowitz.”
“Yeah, fuck you too. Asshole.”