Bad Apple by Anthony Bruno Read Free Book Online Page B

breakfast. The milk he’d poured down the sink was almost cottage cheese, and Tozzi was drinking his coffee black, waiting for Freshy to get out of the goddamn shower and get dressed so they could go find a diner.
    Sitting at the kitchen table, he sipped from a New Jersey Devils mug and made a face. He hated his coffee black, but he needed the caffeine. He was fixated on one of those nice big Greek diners where he could have all the milk he wanted in his coffee, eggs over easy, and a pile of hash browns. Yeah, a mountain of crispy-edged home fries would really fill that hole in themiddle of his gut right now. And toast, too. Buttered rye toast. If friggin’ Freshy would only get out of the goddamn shower.
    Tozzi arched his back and rolled his head on his shoulders. He felt like a bag of shit. He’d ended up sleeping on that lumpy old couch in the living room here. Last night he’d thought about going back to his own place in Hoboken since Joey’s Starlight Lounge was just on the other side of town, but that wouldn’t have been smart. Mike Santoro lived down the shore, an hour away. Someone could’ve followed him home, his real home, and that could’ve led to his cover being blown. So instead of going back to his own apartment and getting eight hours of sleep so he would be rested for his black-belt test tonight, he’d left the bar as Mike Santoro and gone back to Freshy’s parents’ house in Bayonne, crashed on the couch for five hours, and wrecked his back. But that was okay. Better this than having Bells and Buddha know where he really lived. But as soon as he got a decent cup of coffee and that mountain of home fries so that he could carb up for the test, he intended to go home, crawl into bed, and get a few more hours. Good hours. If Freshy would only shut up about shaking his goddamn body and get out of the friggin’ shower.
    He rubbed the back of his neck and wished he’d taken a shower himself. He felt pretty scuzzy, and he’d do anything for a fresh pair of underwear. He looked up at the ceiling toward the sound of the running water. C’mon, goddamn it.
    Unconsciously he reached for the mug of coffee and brought it to his lips, then frowned and put it back down. Without milk, it was like battery acid. He gazed out the sunny window, about to dump the rest of the cup down the sink, when suddenly he thought he heard something outside. Footsteps coming up the wooden steps that led to the kitchen entrance. Instinctively he turned in his seat so he’d have quicker access to the gun in hisankle holster. Then he remembered that he wasn’t wearing his gun. He had decided not to bring a gun to the meeting last night. One of Buddha’s gorillas could’ve frisked him, and they would’ve taken the gun as a sign of bad faith.
    A key slipped into the lock from the outside. Through the opaque curtains on the door window, Tozzi could see that whoever it was was carrying two grocery bags. Tozzi figured it must be Freshy’s mother, back from the shore.
    The door swung open and banged against the kitchen counter.
    â€œWhat the hell’re you doing here?”
    It wasn’t Freshy’s mother. It was his sister, Gina.
    Tozzi just stared at her, wondering whether that look of disgust on her face was for the smelly garbage or for him. He reminded himself that he was Mike Santoro, not Mike Tozzi, and the hots he had for her weren’t supposed to be any different from the hots he had for every other good-looking babe he saw in the course of an average day. Except for Mike Tozzi, that wasn’t the case. Gina was special. She was real. She was the Italian-American girl from the neighborhood he’d always wanted.
    Gina set down the grocery bags on the counter and pushed her glasses up her nose. The glasses were round with thin purple metal rims, and on her they were sexy. She had soft brown hair that fanned out just below her shoulders, light brown