“Excuse me,” Wolf said. “Do you have a lighter?” He flicked his thumb.
The shorter guy on the right took the lead, skipping in front of the other guy. “No, no, no, no.” He shook a finger, walking up fast.
Wolf took his left hand out of his pocket and cigarette out of his mouth with his right, hands out in a defenseless gesture. “No, sorry, I’m just looking for a lighter!” He pointed wildly to his cigarette.
The small guy put his right hand on Wolf’s chest and pushed gently.
Wolf kept his hands up and shuffled backwards, a look of horror now displayed on his face, out into the center of the alleyway.
The short guy kept his hand on Wolf’s chest and began chuckling. He patted Wolf a couple times hard, pushing Wolf back further with each smack. The guy looked Wolf up and down, like he was creepily sizing up a woman, then launched into an amused conversation, looking over his left shoulder to speak.
Wolf knocked the guy out with a hard left knuckle punch to the right temple, following with a massive right elbow to the middle of the face.
The taller guy spit out his cigarette with wide eyes and ripped his hands from his pockets.
Wolf stepped over the still crumpling body straight towards him. He could see that fight or flight instinct was being weighed against each other in the tall guy’s eyes. Flight won out. He turned around and bolted to the pub door.
Wolf was in full stride the second the guy turned, catching up to him immediately. He put his shoulder down and tackled him from behind, just underneath the waist, landing on him hard, driving chest and face into the smooth concrete floor with a slap. Wolf bounced up onto his knees, grabbed two fists of greasy hair and slammed the man’s head down face first. The guy went limp beneath him. Wolf shot a look to the guy in the alley, who still lay motionless.
Wolf got up and pulled the man underneath him into the dark, leaving a red smear. When he reached the rougher alley surface, he flipped him over onto his back, feeling a slight twinge of pity for man’s face.
Within a minute he had both guys stowed up against a dark doorway in the alley.
He hurried back into the open garage and began rummaging. Boxes, some open, some shut, were filled with electronics. A stack of the white EAC logo boxes were piled along the right wall. He lifted one quickly. The contents felt the same as the night before — heavy and packed densely.
Clipboards hung on the wall with official looking shipment papers. He pulled down the first one — an original Bill of Lading from an Italian shipping company. It was in Italian making it almost one hundred percent illegible to Wolf, except one line that said Genoa, Liguria, Italia. The line before it Tenes, Algeria.
A shipment from Algeria? North Africa?
Sheet after sheet was the same. Genoa, Liguria, Italia and Tenes, Algeria. Another line stood out to him, being that it was the same on each and every sheet — Fratelli Importatori.
A loud clang of a pot or pan from inside the door jolted him into quick action. He set the clipboards back on their hooks and ran out of the garage, careful to step over the darkening blood streak on his way out.
As he turned the corner he heard the door inside the garage open with a squeak.
He ran quietly down the road and around the bend.
Chapter 41
Wolf ran down the alley, back to the right, and out to the front of the pub once again. He walked inside, past the resentful eye of the man he bummed a light from earlier, who was now sucking on a new cigarette.
The thick necked, heavily muscled, and tattooed guy was alone behind the bar. He nodded to Wolf and leaned forward with an ear, looking at him sideways with beady pollution-brown eyes.
“Stella Artois,” said Wolf over the thumping music.
The man twisted to the glasses and swiftly poured him a beer from the tap.
Wolf took a sip, paid the behemoth, and sauntered to the drinker’s side of the bar, which gave him the best view into the back hallway. The hallway ended in a kitchen where two employees paced back and forth. Beyond them was a brightly lit doorway, wide open to the rear garage.
Cezar appeared in it, striding into the kitchen. He closed the door hard and leaned against it, then turned and marched through the kitchen towards the bar. He was gritting his teeth and flexing both fists.
Wolf grabbed his beer and walked through the standing patrons, wincing at the various cheap colognes and bodily emissions as he weaved his way through the loud room. There was an open small table in the corner, so he took it.
The waitress was quick to the table. She had a half circle piercing dangling from the center of her nose, a couple lip rings, and three neck tattoos that he could see. Her blue spiky hair was shaved in a stylistic side wall configuration, like an eighties NFL football player.
She asked something he didn’t understand, then looked at the dumb expression on his face and smiled. “Would you like a menu?”
“Yeah, that would be great.”
She looked him all the way down and up, then left with an evil smile.
He watched her shapely body go for a second, then brought the beer up to his lips. From behind the glass he watched Cezar, who was bending in towards the thick necked guy’s ear, whispering with sharp head snaps.
The bartender nodded towards the front window, just to Wolf’s left. Cezar stood up straight and looked, eyes hardening. Wolf froze, the beer pouring down his throat slowly. He stopped drinking, letting the beer rest up against his closed mouth, breathing out his nose. Then he realized they were looking at the front door as a warm, smoky breeze hit his face — a fully clad Caribinieri walking in.
Wolf set the beer down on the table and bent down to his boot. He fondled his laces and looked sidelong towards the red stripe of the Caribinieri uniform pants. They were poised right inside the door for a few seconds, then turned, stepping away from him.
Wolf straightened in his seat and strained to see through the patrons. He spied Cezar, who was wide eyed and turning pale. His Adam’s apple traveled up and down fast as he swallowed dryly.
He seemed to be shitting himself, and he should have been with the stuff he had sitting twenty feet directly behind the thin wood and concrete at his back.
Wolf stood and shuffled through the crowd to a more central locale, his curiosity peaked. Had the Caribinieri begun their investigation into the shady dealings of the Albastru Pub?
The girl with the piercings cut him off. “You not going to eat after all?” Her bottom lip was out with a pouty look.
“Uh, yeah, sorry. I think I’m just going to go up to the bar.” He pointed past her, then stopped dead in his tracks, accidentally juking the waitress into bumping straight into him. His eyes narrowed.
The waitress laughed excitedly, placing her tiny hand on the small of his back.
“Oh, sorry!” she giggled.
He didn’t notice her. He was still looking hard at Cezar, who had made a subtle move that didn’t make sense — a nod of his head towards the end of the bar.
Wolf looked to the Carabinieri officer, who changed the direction of his approach to the bar, following the nod.
It was an odd interaction. It was like Cezar was calling the location of the conversation, which he was, or else he wouldn’t have nodded his head. It didn’t make sense. It was a very familiar gesture, as if they were friends.
The officer reached the end of the bar, plopped his hat down and leaned over onto his elbows.
Cezar reached him and immediately leaned down, launching into a conversation in his left ear. The Carabinieri officer turned his head to his right, revealing the unmistakeable profile of Detective Valerio Rossi. Cezar was gesturing behind himself with a thumb, then also sat his elbows on the counter.