Free Bad Business by Anthony Bruno Page B

the nobody, the one they don’t care about. Even though I’m the one who came up with the idea in the first place, made all the connections with the Colombians, then went to Nemo with it. But I’m the nobody, the one they can afford to lose. Zucchetti as much as said it at the farm. I had to get outta that fucking courtroom before Augustine crucified me. But now what? Now Salamandra’s gonna crucify me. Sure as shit, his people are gonna find me. Oh, man, I’m fucking dead .
    His heart started thumping. The room was hot and it smelled of mold. He couldn’t breathe. He unbuttoned his shirt. The light was too bright. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to move. He was trapped. His heart wouldn’t stop pounding. He was gonna die. There wasn’t enough air in the room. He felt like he was going to pass out. He sat down on the edge of the tub, stared glassy-eyed at all the shit piled up in there: a spaghetti pot, one of those huge flashlights with the big square batteries, a couple of crushed lampshades, a pipe wrench. . . .
    The wrench made him think of tools, tools like a file hidden in a cake, tools he could use to escape. He started pawing through the junk, not thinking straight, with no idea what he was looking for, just looking, hoping there’d be something here he could use, something that would help him. He moved the lampshades and started pushing things out of the way, digging deeper, sweating, hoping, his heart pounding hard, like a gavel. He found a pillow. A cloud of dust and mildew rose from it when he moved it, and he held his breath. There was a phone book underneath. He picked it up to shove it aside and saw that there was something else under it. Giordano stared at the thing on the white porcelain floor of the tub, not comprehending right away, not believingit was what it was. A telephone, one of those little cordless jobs. Holy Christ!
    He was afraid to pick it up, afraid it was a trap. Fucking feds would do something like that. But this was stupid, he thought. He was being paranoid. This was all junk in here. The old man, Tozzi’s uncle, he was a fucking junk collector. This thing can’t work. But then he noticed a thin gray wire coming out of the tub, going behind the pile of National Geographics under the sink. He got on his knees and jammed his head behind the toilet. There was a ragged hole in the wall, the kind of hole you’d make with a hammer. The wire went through that hole.
    He went back to the edge of the tub and stared at the phone again. The gray wire was connected to the base. This thing couldn’t work, no way. He picked up the receiver and listened. His heart was slamming. There was a dial tone.
    He sat there, frozen, the dial tone in his ear. Was this a trap? The feds trying to set him up? Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Tozzi was outside, waiting for him. What if it wasn’t a trap? They’d find this phone eventually. First guy who comes in here to take a crap is gonna see the wire. He wouldn’t get a second chance. If he was gonna do something, he had to do it now. Now .
    Morgenroth was banging his gavel inside Giordano’s chest, the judge’s little shriveled face red and mean. Order in the court! I want order, or I’ll clear this court . He suddenly remembered the old movie, The Fly , the black-and-white version with Vincent Price, the guy who shrinks down and gets stuck with the body of a fly and the head of a man. That’s how he imagined the judge’s face inside his chest, and it spooked him. Giordano punched out the numbers fast, before he changed his mind.
    It rang. Once. Twice. Three times. Come on, pick it up. Four times. Tozzi was out there, waiting for him to come out. Five times. C’mon. Six. Answer, goddammit! Seven—
    â€œJimbo’s Gym.”
    â€œIs Nemo around?” he whispered into the phone. “Tell him it’s Vin.”
    â€œHang on.”
    He waited forever, his heart going nuts in his