5 Bad Moon Read Free Page A

bounced.
    Sal moved the gun to his belly.
    “And the Son … ”
    Pfittt!
    Jerry’s whole body twitched.
    Sal put the gun to the right shoulder.
    “And the Holy … ”
    Pfittt!
    The arm shot up and flopped back.
    The left shoulder.
    “Ghost … ”
    Pfittt!
    The hand flipped open.
    “Amen.”
    “A-men.” The black guy was grinning like a chimpanzee.
    “Fucking bastard,” Sal grumbled, staring down at Jerry’s body. “I lent him twenty grand once for his daughter’s wedding, and he was gonna kill me.”
    “No, Sal … no.” Mistretta couldn’t breathe right. “You’re jumping to conclusions.”
    “This is bad. Very bad.” The whites of the little scrawny guy’s eyes flashed in the dim light as he stared at Jerry, rocking back and forth, crossing himself again and again.
    When Mistretta looked up again Sal was smiling down at him. The big jooch hunkered down and whispered in his face. “Don’t ever tell anyone I never gave you nothin’, you old fart you.”
    Mistretta narrowed his eyes and glared up at him. “You do this, Immordino, you’re gonna be sorry for the rest of your life. I’m gonna fucking haunt you. I swear to Christ I will.”
    The last thing Mistretta felt was the hot muzzle burning the skin on his forehead.
    “In the name of the Father … ”
    “NO!”
    Pfittt!

Chapter 2
    “Believe me, it’s no big deal, Tozzi.” FBI Special Agent Cuthbert Gibbons took a sip from his beer bottle. He was sitting sideways on his stool, one elbow on the bar. Gilhooley’s was hopping with the Friday happy-hour crowd. Gibbons was trying to cheer up his glum-faced partner. “It’s not the end of the world, Toz. So you’re gonna be forty. So what?”
    Special Agent Mike Tozzi stared at Gibbons, then stared at the untouched bottle of Rolling Rock on the bar in front of him. He finally took a sip. He didn’t need this shit.
    “Trust me on this one, Tozzi. Turning forty is no big deal.”
    Tozzi stared at the green bottle in his hand. “How do you know? You probably don’t even remember.”
    “Whattaya mean? It wasn’t that long ago.” Gibbons’s voice suddenly got tight. He always got touchy whenever someone brought up the issue of his age.
    Tozzi smirked at his partner and shook his head. Looking at the mirror behind the bar, he scanned the crowd. Gilhooley’s was a favorite watering hole for people who worked for the city of New York since it was only a couple of blocks from City Hall. But tonight there was a roving pack of trial lawyers of the ambulance-chaser variety working the crowd, and there were even a few Wall Street types scattered here and there ogling the female secretaries and administrators. You could tell the Wall Street guys from the lawyers because they wore better suits and looked a little healthier, but not much.
    A table of secretaries over by the wall caught Tozzi’s eye. They were laughing and clucking over a frothy pitcher of whiskey sours, having a grand old time getting loaded. A couple of them were very cute—cheerleader cute—and they were definitely on the make, checking out all the guys they hoped were single. Tozzi was single, but they weren’t looking for him. They were looking for guys in their late twenties, the guys with good suits. They sure weren’t looking for soon-to-be-forty FBI street agents from the Manhattan field office’s Organized Crime Unit.
    He refocused and took a good look at himself sitting next to Gibbons in the mirror. He wasn’t ugly, but he didn’t think he looked like anybody’s idea of a catch anymore. His dark, deep-set eyes always seemed to look tired now, even when he’d gotten enough sleep. He didn’t have sagging jowls like Gibbons—not yet—but his face seemed longer and fleshier than he liked to think of it. His hair had thinned some on top, but he still had more than most guys his age. What did bother him, though, were the silver hairs. You could spot them from ten feet away now.
    ’Course, he had a long way to go