Selma paused to shake her head and sigh again. “There it was, ten to twelve, and I'm watching the two of them get into our Chryslerâwhich, by the way, had just seven payments left on it, most of which was paid for by yours trulyâand I see them drive off, heading for who the hell knows where. Never saw them again, the both of them. The car either. And it was a nice car, too. I hope she made his life miserable.” She sighed again and stared off into space.
“That's awful,” Tozzi said. He looked uncomfortable. Probably felt guilty for bothering a woman with such troubles for something as trivial as Russian dressing. The sap.
Gibbons bit into his pastrami and stared at her as he chewed. “How long ago did that happen, Selma?”
She focused her eyes on Gibbons's and narrowed them with vengeance. “I'll never forget. It was a nice sunny Friday in April. Nineteen-seventy-two.”
Gibbons nodded. “Life is tough, Selma.” He still had a hairline in '72. So did Rudy, probably. He glanced over at Tozzi who was trying to look sympathetic when he was really wishing she'd just go away and let them eat. You satisfied, asshole?
“Rudy never got over it, huh?” Tozzi's concern sounded lame.
Selma suddenly whipped her head around and nearly put Tozzi's eye out with one of her pencils. “Could
you
get over something like that?” she said. “How could you? My brother deserved better than her. He was a good-looking man. He could've done better.”
“Say, Selma,” Gibbons said, finally fed up with the soap opera, “how about a refill on the coffee when you get a chance?”
Suddenly she seemed to come back to her senses. “Oh, sure, hon, I'm sorry. It's just that I get carried away when I talk aboutâ”
“Yeah, I know.” He cut her off before she got started again.
She struggled out of the brown vinyl-upholstered booth and stood up, patting the back of her hairdo. “I'll be right back with a fresh pot.”
“And will you bring this guy some Russian for his sandwich?” Gibbons called after her. “Before he has a conniption fit,” he added under his breath.
“You're a real sweet guy, Gib. The lady's pouring her heart out and all you're worried about is your coffee.”
“I've heard the story before. Anyway you're the one who called her over because you didn't get your goddamn Russian.”
Selma returned then with a Pyrex pot of coffee and a paper cup of Russian dressing for Tozzi. “There you go, boys. Everything hunky-dory now?”
Gibbons looked up at her. “Yeah, hunky-dory.”
“Thanks, Selma,” Tozzi said nicely, trying to make up for his partner's rude behavior.
“Okee-doke.” She turned and waddled down to the next booth to peddle her refills.
“Now,” Gibbons said, tearing the foil off a little plastic cup of half and half and dumping it into his cup, “fly that cock-and-bull story by me once more, the one you were trying to sell me before you had to have your little Russian incident.”
Tozzi frowned. “Look, I know you think this is bullshit, but I heard them talking about it. I was right there lying on my stomach under the shrubs. D'Urso is importing slaves from Japan.”
Gibbons sipped his coffee. “I don't buy it, Toz.”
“Why not? Christ, I saw Japanese nannies all over Milburn. Roxanne Eastlake, the woman at the nanny agency I told you about, told me it's D'Urso's wife who's handling them. Also, I overheard them talking about the âyaks.' They could've been referring to the yakuza, the Japanese Mafia.”
Gibbons closed his eyes and shook his head. Here he goes again. First it's a devil cult, then it's a karate killer, now it's the yakuza. Gibbons decided not even to comment on it. “I still don't buy this Japanese slave-trade shit. It doesn't make sense.”
“Why not?”
“Because Japan is a rich country and everything is expensive over there. If you were gonna buy slaves, you'd buy them cheap, right?
Get them from some dirt-poor third-world country, right? Not from a country where a steak costs you eighty bucks. Am I right?”
Tozzi rubbed his mouth. He was getting frustrated. Logic that didn't jibe with his version of reality had a way of doing that to him. “All I know is what I heard.”
“So why don't you go tell Ivers.”
Tozzi was glaring at him now. Gibbons smiled like a crocodile. He knew why. “Well, you can't say the man didn't warn you, Toz. If you had reason to believe there was something going on at D'Urso's house, why didn't you ask for a wiretap? He's gonna be real happy to hear about you sneaking through the bushes, eavesdropping on D'Urso with nothing on tape, nothing we can use against him in court. I swear to God, Tozzi, you get smarter everyday.”
“Okay, fine. Now that we've established that I'm the fuckup here, and you've gotten your licks in, how about if we decide how we're gonna proceed with this?”
“What do you mean âwe'?”
“We're partners on this case. Remember?”
“Unfortunately, I do.”
“Good, I'm glad to see the Alzheimer's hasn't set in too badly yet.”
Gibbons sipped his coffee and ignored the comment. “What have you got in mind, Sherlock? I can't wait to hear.”
“I want you to go to D'Urso's chicken processing plant in Harrison and check it out. It's called Farm-Fresh Poultry, and it's supposed to be one of his legit fronts, but from what they were saying on his deck the other day, I have a feeling he may be using slave workers there.”
“So why don't
you
go? You got something against chickens?”
“His brother-in-law knows my face. He thinks I work for the gardener.”
“Who the hell is this brother-in-law? What are you worrying about him for?”
“His name is Bobby Francione. He's on file in the computer. Just got out of Rahway a little while ago. He was into stealing cars for a high-ticket chop shop up in Bergen County. Only German carsâMercedes, Audis, and BMWs. His file says he was little more than a gofer, but I have a feeling he's got big ambitions now. He seems pretty tight with D'Urso.”
Gibbons propped his face on his hand and looked at Tozzi sideways. “Why should
I
have to go to Harrison? Why not get someone from the Newark office to check out the chickens?”
“You know why. Because I'd have to go through Ivers who would want to know why I suspect D'Urso and how I arrived at those suspicions, et cetera, et cetera.”
“And you don't want to tell him you've been moonlighting with a gardener for purposes of unlawful surveillance.”
Tozzi nodded as he finally took a big bite out of his sandwich. The coleslaw inside dripped out the bottom and through his fingers. He seemed satisfied. Gibbons wondered if this was what they meant by “hog heaven.”
“Besides,” Tozzi said with his mouth full, “Newark operates like the Keystone Kops. They think they're the Untouchables over there. Very unsubtle.”
“I've never heard that.” In fact, he had.
“Come on, Gib. I was hoping you could get in and out of there without showing your ID. Just look around, see how many slanty eyes you can count. If you find a few, then we'll have something to work with, something we can go to Ivers with.”
“And what will I tell him when he asks what the hell I was doing out of our jurisdiction?”
“Don't worry about it. We'll cook something up. Just go check out the chicken shack. Please.”
Gibbons rubbed his nose with the back of his finger. Goddamn Tozzi. Always had to go through the back door first. Slaves. From Japan. With the yakuza. He was fucking crazy. How about a simple, illegal alien shakedown, just like the kind of shit that goes down every day on the Mexican border? Someone knew those two kids were sneaking into the country. They were easy prey. They were probably robbed and killed for whatever money they had on them. Simple as that. The only twist was that they came from Japan, not Central America, and it happened somewhere in New York Harbor, not down in Texas or out in California. That's what
he
thought this was all about. But Tozzi didn't want to hear about that. It was too logical.
“So will you do it?” Tozzi persisted. “Will you check out the chicken shack?”
Gibbons just stared at him. If he didn't go, Tozzi wouldn't stop
bothering him with this slave shit. He might even go over there himself, risk being recognized by this brother-in-law and getting his head blown off. He was that stupid. It would be easier to just go, prove him wrong, and get this stupidity over with. Then maybe they could get down to a more realistic investigation.
“Are you going to do it or not?” Tozzi insisted as he stuffed his face. “Tell me now.”
Gibbons reached over and stole the pickle from Tozzi's plate. They were the kind he likedâcrunchy, not too sour. He bit off half of it and chewed slowly. “I'll think about it.”
Tozzi looked disgruntled. Gibbons knew he liked these kind of pickles, too. “I didn't say you could have that.”
Gibbons took another bite. “Sorry.”
This was damn weird. Gibbons hated to admit that Tozzi might be right, but something was very wrong here. He was standing in the middle of the processing floor at the Farm-Fresh Poultry factory, watching chicken carcasses hung on a conveyer line shuttling from station to station. One after another, they were submerged in big vats of bloody water, then some were detoured to stainless-steel tables where they were cut into parts, others sent whole to a machine that wrapped them in plastic and spit them out onto a conveyer belt. The clack and rumble of the machines was the only noise in the place because the people who worked here didn't say “boo,” not to him, not to each other. They worked fast and steady, like the rest of the machinery, eyes down, no expression on their faces whatsoever. And goddamn it, there wasn't a round eye in the house. Every last one of them was Oriental.
Whether they were Japanese or not, he had no idea. And if they were slaves, they sure as hell weren't saying. They sure worked like slaves, but the doors weren't locked. He'd walked right in. But if these guys were slaves, where were the overseers? Who was in charge here? There were no cars in the front lot, and aside from a few trucks at the loading dock, there was just a sad-looking white Dodge parked out back, a traveling salesman's kind of car, definitely not the kind of vehicle Mafia guys like.
Gibbons walked over to one of the vats where six of these young guys, three on each side, were washing chickens. One of them had a nasty black-and-blue mark on the side of his face. Globs of chicken
fat floated on the briny pink water, and it smelled worse than it looked. How could you ever eat chicken again after smelling this?
“Hey, fellas, where can I find the boss?”
They kept scrubbing those damn chickens, eyes down.
“The boss,” he repeated, raising his voice over the noise. “Where's the boss?”
It was as if he wasn't there.
“Anybody speak English? Do you understand me? English?”
He stared into each face one by one, trying to make some eye contact. Nothing.
He didn't like this at all. Even if they'd been warned not to talk to strangers, these poor schlumps wouldn't even look at him, didn't acknowledge his presence in any way. Other than retards and robots, only people with something serious to fear behave this way. It made Gibbons nervous.
“Okay, this is your last chance, boys.” He pulled out his ID and waved it at them, hoping something that looked official might goose them a little. “Special Agent Gibbons of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Like the police but better. Savvy? So if any of you knows English, speak now or forever hold your peace.”
The one with the bruised face looked up, then looked away quickly when Gibbons made eye contact. “You got something to tell me?”
No response.
Gibbons put his ID back into his pocket. “Thanks a lot,” he muttered as he turned away and walked toward the iron grid-work stairs that led to the second floor. The offices must be up there, he figured.
Gibbons started to mount the steps when he noticed a couple of guys at another vat staring at something on the other side of the room. He turned around and saw another Oriental guy standing in the doorway by the front entrance, just standing there staring at him. The guy was as wide as he was tall. He looked like a beetle standing up on its hind legs, wearing a loud black-and-white houndstooth sports jacket.
“You in charge here?” Gibbons called over to him.
The beetle nodded and started walking toward him, no expression on his face.
“I want to ask you a few questions,” Gibbons said. He came down off the steps to meet the nodding beetle. “Listen, Iâ”
Suddenly the beetle took a giant leap and was airborne, one foot extended, aimed directly at Gibbons's face. Gibbons tried to get out of the way, but there was no time. The foot caught him in the shoulder. He fell flat on his back, hit hard, and slid a few feet on the wet sawdust that littered the tile floor. The fall knocked the wind out of him, but he managed to reach into his jacket and pull his gun. He held it on the big beetle who was standing over him, staring down at Excalibur with contempt.