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the loan shark’s right-hand man, and he was friendly enough, considering that his primary function was collection agent, which meant legbreaker. Tozzi had first met him last summer at a picnic Bells had thrown for a few of his associates, and Stanley had been wearing a T-shirt he said his daughter had given him for his birthday. It had a big picture of the Tazmanian Devil on the front, that hairy evil-looking cartoon charcter with the teeth and the big slathering jaws who was always trying to eat Bugs Bunny. Stanley, with his pronounced underbite, nonexistent neck, and squat build, actually looked quite a bit like theTazmanian Devil, Tozzi had thought at the time, and now he always thought of that T-shirt whenever he saw Stanley.
    Tozzi nodded at Stanley, who nodded back, and wondered where the hell his “partner,” Mr. Fuckhead DeFresco, had gone. Bobby “Freshy” DeFresco and he were supposedly in the porno distribution business. Freshy knew Bells from their old neighborhood in Bayonne, and he was the one who was going to get them their “business loan” from Tony Bells. It was all “in the bag,” Freshy kept saying. “In . . . the . . . bag.”
    In the bag, my ass, Tozzi thought. Nothing was in the bag. Bells didn’t know shit about “Mike Santoro,” Tozzi’s undercover name, and the loan shark must’ve had some doubts about him, otherwise he wouldn’t be having this meeting with Buddha. They were asking to borrow $150,000 at a point and a half a week, which was not the preferred bad-guy rate. What Tozzi couldn’t figure out was why Bells needed Buddha Stanzione’s okay on this. As far as Tozzi knew, Bells had a free hand to loan money as he saw fit. Why all of a sudden was this case different?
    Either Bells was nervous about lending to a partnership where he really didn’t know one of the partners, or he felt that Freshy, the other partner, was such a fuck-up, he couldn’t be trusted with that much money. But that was why Tozzi was sitting here, drinking a drink he didn’t need, waiting for the dawn’s early light. He was waiting to hear what Buddha Stanzione’s decision would be. If they said yes, Operation Shark Bite would be one notch closer to hauling in a big one, a capo in the Luccarelli family. If they said no, Tozzi will have wasted a lot of time for nothing.
    Staring into the gloom, cradling his face in his palm, Tozzi let out a tired sigh. This was really fucking nuts when you thought about it. Going undercover was nuts. Who in his right mind would ever depend on a screwball like Freshy DeFresco for anything?Who in his right mind would play around with someone as violent and short-tempered as Buddha Stanzione? Who in his right mind would come within fifty feet of that nut Bells? Who in his right mind would go undercover inside the Mafia, intending to borrow money from them and not pay it back, hoping that they would threaten to shoot out his kneecaps? He had to be nuts. That’s all there was to it. He was nuts.
    His eyes drooped, and he almost started to doze. This was crazy. He needed to get some sleep. Maybe “Mike Santoro” the pornmeister could stay up all night waiting for a couple of wiseguys to make up their goddamn minds, but Mike Tozzi had another life, a real life, and he needed to get some sleep. That night, just about sixteen hours from now, he was finally going to be testing for his black belt in aikido, and he’d be damned if he was going to miss it this time. The last time Sensei came over from Japan to preside over testing, Tozzi had been limping around on a cane after having been shot in the leg in the line of duty. That was eight months ago. After five and a half years of martial arts training, working his way up through the ranks, kyu by kyu , Tozzi had had to wait eight more months before Sensei came back and he could test for his black belt. Eight more months. It wasn’t the