Rossi sat back and returned the smile with a tilt of his head. “What is it…Sergeant Wolf?”
Wolf’s smile vanished. “I’m going to kill you, Rossi,” he said. “You were the one who killed my brother. I’m going to kill you.”
Rossi inhaled sharply and sat back, launching into a lazy overhead stretch with his arms. “I don’t think so, Officer Wolf. Just a few more minutes now, and you’ll be dead.” He smacked his lips and crossed his arms.
Bouncing light was coming from beyond Rossi, and Wolf realized the door to the garage was wide open.
“Well, you should have killed me earlier.”
Rossi got up slowly, turned around and poked his head out the garage, “Ah, here is your ride right now.”
A white truck emblazoned with a blue
Albastru Shipping Co
logo slowed at the door then rumbled past. Reverse lights lit the rear of the truck and a loud continuous beep split the air.
Rossi slapped the back of the truck. It stopped, and he lifted the rear door.
Wolf noticed the metal patchwork on the door of the truck, covering the bullet holes from the night before.
Cezar stepped into view from the driver’s side of the truck, and the thick necked rhino of a guy stepped into view from the other side.
Rossi launched into a speech, gesturing to the guy on the floor, Wolf, and the other guy sitting against the wall. Cezar and Thick Neck were nodding their heads, and then sprung into action, laying out a fresh sheet of plastic, moving the dead guy onto it, then wrapping him up like a burrito. They carefully picked up the old blood soaked sheet of plastic from each corner.
Cezar and the bartender moved the body and plastic into the back of the open truck, and then unfurled a fresh piece. Rossi leaned against the wall and lit another cigarette, watching.
Wolf flexed his feet up and down. Blood was circulating poorly in his legs. Through the numb tingling, he suddenly realized he could still feel the pressure on his inner calf muscles in the tight socks.
Wolf eyed the plastic sheet with indifference. “So, don’t you want to know why you should have killed me earlier, Rossi?”
Rossi took the cigarette out of his mouth and narrowed his eyes at Wolf. He had his attention.
Wolf raised his eyebrows and nodded his head. “I know about your dad.”
His eyes rolled and head whipped back. “Please, Officer Wolf. Die with dignity, why don’t you. Your brother did, you know. I won’t lie to you. He died with dignity. Of course, he was unconscious when I strangled him, but…”
“In fact, I’ve already told other people about your dad,” Wolf said. “People in the Caribinieri. Your days are numbered. Hell, your
hours
are numbered.”
Panic flickered for a tiny moment in Rossi’s face, and Wolf knew he’d hit home.
Cezar saw it too, pausing while cutting the sheet of plastic, he looked imploringly at Rossi.
Rossi gave him a sideways glance and narrowed his eyes at Wolf.
“What exactly are you talking about, Officer Wolf? What do you
think
you know?”
“It’s over Rossi. It’s just a matter of time before they tie you and your brother with the activities going on here. I’m sure there’s some good forensic accountants that you and your brother haven’t paid off.”
Rossi stared hard for ten full seconds, then shook his head laughing. “You don’t know what you are talking about, Officer Wolf.”
“You’re laughing, but you’re going down, and you know it. It’s over. Your life is over. I know that your father didn’t leave you an inheritance three years ago. And now other people, people in your force do too. Tomorrow your job isn’t waiting for you, Rossi. A jail cell is.”
Rossi nodded his head and turned quickly.
“And a pine box is waiting for you, Officer Wolf. Goodbye.” Detective Rossi walked out of the garage.
Chapter 46
Cezar and the bartender followed Rossi out the door and out of site.
Wolf didn’t take any time to consider what just happened. Instead, he looked to his right. The guy whose face he smashed into the floor earlier was just a few feet from him, still slumped against the wall, sitting cross legged. He was looking eagerly towards the garage door, gently patting the bloodied towel against his face.
As Wolf leaned forward, slid off the chair, twisted one hundred eighty degrees, and rolled along his back to his shoulders, he wondered what the guy was all about. Was he not in any better position than him right now? Was he going to be shot in the head like his buddy in the plastic wrapping? Why wasn’t he helping the others? Was he a captive?
The guy looked to Wolf with confusion as he brought the handcuffs over his feet in a swift soundless move.
Wolf never took his eyes off the guy for a second as he rolled back down his back, planted his feet, twisted left, straightened his legs, pulled up his pant legs and pulled out two three inch kitchen blades.
The guy dropped his towel and widened his eyes, hands spreading in the air next to his face. He paused a beat, then shut his gaping mouth.
Wolf stood up silently, nodding his head, then kicked him in the temple with his right steel-toed boot.
The guy slumped over, out cold.
Wolf snuck to the garage door, sticking to the wall to minimize his shadow outside. He listened hard. Two men spoke in the guttural tones of eastern European, not the staccato of Italian. Rossi was gone.
He wanted Rossi. That was the only objective he cared about. There was no sense flicking the ear of fate with two very big guys. The Caribinieri, the real ones, could bust this place wide later.
But fate had other plans.
Just as he began making his way to the door to the kitchen, it swung inward. Nose ring waitress stuck her head out, asking a loud question in her native tongue. She was looking straight ahead to a blank spot on the garage wall, as if consciously averting her eyes to any goings-on.
Wolf froze.
She turned, saw him, looked at the unconscious figure on the floor, then back to Wolf who stood with his two knives pointing at her.
He raised his eye brows. “Ciao.”
“Cezar?” She panicked hard. “Cezar!”
Wolf turned away from her, rushed to the edge of the garage and backed up against the inside right wall.
Wolf tensed, relaxed his face, widened his eyes, and listened for footsteps. The bartender flew into the garage first with animal athleticism.
Wolf jumped out an instant later with arms chest high, blades sticking out from the pinky side of his fists, thumbs hooked on each knife handle. Cezar didn’t have time to stop or put his hands up as Wolf planted his feet and drove his arms hard forward, both blades piercing the chest plate, the right plunging directly into a chamber of Cezar’s heart.
Two hundred pounds of dead weight smashed into Wolf, along with a warm spray of blood, pushing him back into an uncontrolled fall. Bracing for impact, he looked right, just catching a glimpse of the bartender pulling a pistol from his waistband. Wolf hit the floor hard and frantically tried to get under the falling body for protection. A warm gush from Cezar’s chest pulsed on his face relentlessly. The last thing he saw was the bartender bending toward him close with pistol extended.
Three deafening pops filled his ears, and he went still.
Suddenly the weight of Cezar’s body lifted off him. He sat up blowing air out his mouth hard, spitting wildly to get a breath. He held the knives in front of him and shook his head back and forth, flinging the blood off his face.
“David, it’s me! It’s me!” It was a female voice.
“Lia?”
“Yes, it’s me! Put down the knives!”
He dropped the knives and wiped his face hard with his hands.
“Careful, that girl in the door. Where did she go?”
Lia stood and turned. Finally getting focus back into his eyes, he realized she wasn’t in her Caribinieri uniform. She was in civilian clothes, jeans and a sweatshirt. No wonder he hadn’t seen her in the piazza.
She walked low with her pistol aimed at the door.
“Wait a second,” he said. “Unlock me here.”
Lia took out her handcuff’s key and unlocked him.
Wolf pulled the pistol from the bartender’s stubby hands — a CZ-99. Wolf didn’t have much experience with the weapon, but it was ready to go, safety off and round in the chamber.
Wolf turned the knob, opened it a centimeter, then gently let go, careful to not let it slide closed. He kicked and aimed his gun forward, the door opening and banging against the inner wall.
No one
.
Entering fast, he pushed aside the rebounding door, Lia right on his heels. The kitchen lights were turned low with no burners on the stove going. It was closed, but hastily so. Pasta sat cold in dishes, bread and salami slices were strewn on cutting boards.
Commotion and mayhem resonated from down the hallway. The bar was going nuts — people screaming, glasses breaking, wood chairs bouncing off hard floors.
Wolf continued fast down the hallway, and cautiously looked around the corner, then lowered his gun and walked out.
None of the employees were in sight. People were lined up, pushing hard out the door, now with renewed fervor with the sudden appearance of a man drenched in blood holding a gun with a gun-toting woman close behind.
Wolf went to the stereo on the wall and turned down the music.
The faulty pub door slammed shut hard, sleigh bell bouncing with a jingle, as the last patron got out with his life. They were now in dead silence behind the bar, commotion retreating outside. Wolf took a look at himself in the mirror behind the scotch bottles and saw his bright red face.
He put his gun down, grabbed a wet bleach towel from the bar back sink and began wiping his face. He dug into the crevices of his eyes, blew his nose, threw the towel in the sink, and got another one and repeated it.
“Lascia! Lascia!” a voice boomed from feet away.
Wolf turned just as a pistol clanked on the floor next to his foot.
Chapter 47
Wolf turned to Lia. She stood dead still, a Beretta pointed at her from the other side of the bar. She had her hands up in a simultaneous defenseless and
what the hell
gesture.
“What are you two doing here?” Rossi said, shifting the Beretta to Wolf. “You’re wanted for murder, Officer Wolf. Officer Parente, what are you doing? Are you helping him right now? What is going on?”
Wolf shook his head. “You going to play that angle, Rossi?”
“Get your hands in the air and come out here!” Rossi waved the gun to Wolf. “Now!”
“I know the truth about your dad,” Lia said quietly.
Rossi gave a quick dismissive look to Lia, then inhaled sharply, looking again.
Her eyes were wet, her lower lip quivering.
Rossi shouted loud to her in Italian, thrusting the gun in her direction.
She shook her head. “He never left you an inheritance,” she continued in English, obviously for Wolf’s benefit. “Paulo just told me your dad was killed twenty five years ago in Sicily. He checked thoroughly. You’ve been lying this whole time?”
Rossi shouted in Italian again, this time with flying spittle.
“Rossi, you don’t want to do this,” Wolf said quietly. “It’s over. We know about you and your brother smuggling drugs in from Africa. Obviously he didn’t get a big inheritance either. We know you two have been leveraging his position in the Guarda Di Finanza. In Liguria. In Genoa, the place where these shipments are coming in.”
Rossi shifted, twitching as his eyes went unfocused and calculating. He seemed to come to a conclusion looking at Lia, gun still on Wolf.
“Killing us both won’t change anything,” Wolf said quickly. “Paulo knows everything. I’ve told him everything I knew on the phone earlier. He checked out your father, and now it’s just a simple task of looking into finances to prove what you’ve been up to.” Wolf shook his head slow. “It’s all over. It’s all out in the open. There’s nothing you can do to cover it up now. Killing us both won’t help.”
Rossi looked at Wolf with hatred, then tracked his gun to Lia. He was as unstable looking as it gets, sweat beading on his forehead to add to the rest of the fluids emanating from his wobbling face.
Suddenly he stepped back, and dropped his arm to his side, looking down. It was a decisive move. The decision made, however, wasn’t clear to Wolf.
Wolf and Lia glanced at each other briefly. Rossi’s finger was still tense on the trigger.
The CZ-99 Wolf took from the bartender lay too far away, a good foot beyond his arm reach and on his left hand side. Wolf stepped forward six inches, stopping as Rossi’s head jerked up.
“Is that what you were doing with these guys here in the pub, Valerio?” she asked. “Did you kill John Wolf? Did you kill David’s brother?”
Rossi sniffed hard and went perfectly still as he looked at Lia. A quick smile quivered on his face, then disappeared.
“Did you?” Her look of disappointment deepened.
“Yes, he did,” Wolf said. “He was there that night at the observatory. With Vlad. He killed Matthew Rosenwald and my brother.”
Rossi turned his unblinking eyes to Wolf, still motionless, arms still hanging, finger still tense on the trigger.