Bad Luck by Anthony Bruno

way, she sort of reminded him of Lorraine—the way she used to be.
    Gibbons watched the blonde in the hat move down to the end of the bar to take care of a customer. He picked up his glass, went over the bar, and took the stool next to Tozzi. “Qué pasa, goombah?”
    Tozzi did a double take. He didn’t seem happy to see his old partner. Suddenly his eyes were all over the place, looking for who knows what. Tozzi had always been a paranoid bastard, but never quite this obvious about it. Gibbons wondered whether Tozzi was afraid he was compromising his cover. Or was Ivers on the money with his suspicions about Tozzi going cuckoo? Tozzi did sort of have that unpleasantly surprised expression, like reality had just dropped by for a visit without calling first.
    â€œWhat the hell you doin’ here?”
    Gibbons smiled with his teeth. “Shouldn’t use that tone of voice with the customers,” he said. In fact, Gibbons didn’t like his tone of voice at all. He’d overheard Tozzi doing the wiseass routine with the blond bartender before. He realized Tozzi was trying to stay in character, but the Nicky Newark act was a little too good. Gibbons looked down at the rock glass in Tozzi’s hand. Bourbon, no doubt. Wild Turkey. Either that or that peculiar rum he likes. But at one-thirty in the afternoon? Was that part of being in character too? Gibbons had a bad feeling.
    â€œWhat the fuck you doing here?” Tozzi repeated. Again, a little too belligerent for Gibbons’s liking.
    Gibbons nodded at the blonde in the hat pouring tomato juice into a Bloody Mary. “You boppin’ her too? What’sa matter? Can’t get enough from the boss’s wife?”
    Gibbons was guessing, but from the hateful glint in Tozzi’s eyes it looked like he’d guessed right. He’d seen Tozzi with Sydney Nashe in the parking garage last night, and even though they were in public there was something about the way she smiled at him and kept touching his sleeve that indicated a little more intimacy than there should’ve been. He’d followed them into the lobby, and when they got on the VIP elevator alone together, Gibbons caught a glimpse of her reaching up for Tozzi’s face as the doors closed. Gibbons had assumed they were going up to the seventeenth floor where Sydney kept her own private suite. He knew about Sydney’s playroom from a New Jersey State Police surveillance report that was on file with the Bureau. Tozzi had never mentioned it in any of his reports.
    The lines around Tozzi’s mouth were getting deep and mean now. Gibbons shook his head. It never fails. When it comes to women, he always leads with his dick. Of course, with this dish Sydney, Gibbons could hardly blame him. “So tell me it isn’t true.”
    Tozzi glanced down the bar to make sure the blonde was out of earshot. “What do you think? Sydney’s my best source. Also, my only source.”
    â€œSo enlighten me. What has she told you that you haven’t been telling us?”
    Tozzi’s nostrils flared when Gibbons said “us,” and Gibbons wondered why. Was Tozzi storing up some kind of resentment against the Bureau? Or was he reacting to the fact that his old partner seemed to be putting himself on Ivers’s side instead of where they usually were, out on the edge together? Tozzi looked back down the bar before he spoke. “She hasn’t told me much. She doesn’t give it away.”
    â€œSo what has she told you?”
    Tozzi leaned closer. “Nashe is in deep with the Mistrettas. Five years ago they sold him the land we’re standing on to build this place. Now his note is overdue and they want their scratch, badly. Sal Immordino has been down to make the collection himself. But as far as I can tell, the balance is still outstanding because Immordino has been back a few times.”
    Gibbons unconsciously took a sip of the German piss and