She exhaled loud, crackling the speaker in Wolf’s ear.
“Look, I need to meet with you,” he said. “I’ve figured everything out. I need to meet with you and Rossi. Get hold of him, and you two meet me at my apartment in one hour. Okay?”
She paused a beat. “What’s going on David?”
“I’ll tell you when you show up, all right? All I ask is make sure you answer each and every phone call you get tonight, all right? It’s important.”
He hung up and headed back down the street and around the corner, straight into a pistol pointed at his face.
Chapter 44
Behind the sound suppressed pistol was the now familiar tiny smiling mouth of the man he’d come to know as Cezar. “Don’t move.”
Wolf didn’t move, nor did he put his hands up in a defenseless gesture. He was studying the pistol in front of him. It didn’t waver a centimeter, the knuckle white with tension on the trigger.
“I said don’t move,” he repeated, reading Wolf’s thoughts.
Wolf slowly raised his hands out to his sides. Just then a shuffling came up behind him, and hands dug into his waistband, pulling out the Beretta tucked into the back of his jeans.
“Ciao.” Rossi was behind him. “Let’s go,” he said giving a sharp shove on Wolf’s back.
They walked quietly for three or four minutes. Wolf could hear Cezar’s long stride and his energetic throat clearing, and Rossi’s shorter stride, breathing heavily from his mouth, maybe to withstand the pungent sewage smell that seeped from every other drain.
Down and down they continued along twisting and turning narrow streets. Of the few patrons they saw, only a few noticed what was happening as they passed. Those that did let out hushed whispers and turned with interest to watch the strange procession.
They came around a slight bend to Rossi’s Caribinieri Alpha Romeo.
They reached the door and Rossi turned to Wolf, “Put your hands behind your back.”
Wolf stopped and looked around, putting his hands on his hips.
Rossi raised his hand in a fluid motion, pointing his suppressed Beretta at the side of Wolf’s face. “I said put your hands behind your back.”
Wolf narrowed his eyes. “It was you who killed my brother.”
Two gargantuan hands gripped his wrists and shoved him up against the side of the car. Steel handcuffs clamped hard and tight.
Wolf lashed his right heel up and back with as much strength as he could muster, then turned around.
Cezar was doubled over on the ground grabbing both hands at his crotch.
Wolf smiled, and all went black.
Chapter 45
Cold water slammed his face, forcing underneath his eyelids. He sat up straight, sucking in a hard breath, blinking and wincing in pain.
“Ancora!”
Another cold explosion hit his face, forcing him upward into a wide mouthed inhale. He shook the water away and opened his eyes in hard blinks.
A bright halogen light on a pole was set up in front of him, shining directly in his face. He squinted hard, turning his head back and forth hard, desperately trying to figure out what was happening. There was a guy sitting cross-legged against a wall to his immediate right. He lowered a bloody towel that was pressed against his nose, revealing a rueful grin.
Wolf nodded with furrowed brow. It was the guy he tackled in the garage earlier.
He looked to the right of the strange sitting man, recognizing the clipboards on the wall, and the door. He was back in the Albastru Pub garage.
The light shifted upwards towards the ceiling, allowing him to look straight ahead. Rossi was lounging on a chair with crossed legs, smoking a cigarette.
Wolf coughed lightly, lungs itching from the smoke. “Jesus, everyone’s always smoking in this country.”
Rossi took a long drag and smiled, but it was different than Wolf was accustomed to. His face had changed, a relaxed malicious look replacing the friendly disposition.
“You should have stayed home, Officer Wolf.” He didn’t blink.
Wolf did a double take to his left. A dead guy’s body lay on a sprawled out piece of clear plastic. Nose to chest, he was caked with dark maroon dried blood stains. There was a neat hole in his head, and he lay in a large pool of brighter red blood. A pool that, upon closer study, was still spreading slowly. Wolf recognized the man, but couldn’t place where he knew him from.
His head pounded. Wolf furrowed his brow and looked back at Rossi, a movement that sent a sharp pain through his head. “It’s Sergeant Wolf, dickhead.”
Rossi was still looking at Wolf, now with wide-eyed amusement. “Oh. I am sorry.” He pointed to the body on the floor. “The man you murdered tonight.”
Wolf looked again at the body, then back to Rossi.
“The man who also murdered you, I’m sorry to say.” He took another drag of his cigarette.
Wolf’s head pounded. Leaning forward to shake the cobwebs, a dizzy spell hit him hard, and he began to free fall forward. Subconsciously Wolf assumed he was somehow fastened to the chair, but there was just a pair of steel cuffs on his wrists.
Rossi caught him. “Whoa, attento, Officer Wolf!” He helped him back into the chair with a lift. “I guess I should not have hit you so hard, you are not doing so well.”
Wolf remembered the pistol in his face. The side street. Being escorted out at gunpoint by Cezar. The walk. Kicking Cezar in the balls. The phone calls. Wolf smiled at the memory of Cezar buckled over on his side on the damp alley street.
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…”