Foreign Deceit

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.

“They saw something they shouldn’t have. And you killed them. You killed them both. Isn’t that right?”

Rossi’s lip curled into a snarl.

“Then he couldn’t trust Vlad anymore,” Wolf continued. “You weren’t roughing him up the other day. You were warning him, goading him into saying what you wanted him to. You must not have liked the way he was acting.” Wolf turned his head to Lia, keeping his eyes trained on Rossi. “So he killed him, in a way that would implicate me. But even that wasn’t enough. I was getting too close. He knew I knew too much and needed to be killed.”

Rossi looked back to Lia.

Wolf flicked his eyes back to the CZ-99. With a full stretch, it was now in reach of his left arm. But it lay on its left side, pointing forward. It would be an awkward move picking it up, repositioning it, pointing it, and firing, even if he was left handed. Which he wasn’t.

Suddenly Rossi’s face twisted in agony, mouth moving silently and rapidly as if saying a well practiced prayer. Then he slowly and steadily lifted his gun.

Wolf reached fast with his right hand, gripping Lia’s sweatshirt, ripping her behind him to the ground while picking up the pistol with his left.

Rossi’s eyes streamed, “Non avevo scelta! Prenditi cura di loro per me!”

Eyes open wide, Wolf saw exactly what Rossi was doing. Looking at the CZ pistol for a brief instant as he transferred it to his right, wanting every single movement to count, his right palm smacked against the grip, index finger threading the trigger guard. He aimed true.

One deafening pop reverberated as two muzzle flashes lit the barroom, Rossi’s and Wolf’s rounds discharging simultaneously. Rossi’s head exploded into a red twist of expanding skull and hair. What was left flopped sideways, dangling from his still standing body, which propped motionless for two full seconds before buckling down to the hard barroom floor with a thump.

Wolf set the smoking CZ down and looked to a wide eyed Lia sprawled on her back. He raised his eyebrows, and she nodded. Satisfied she was okay, he walked through the open bar gap to Rossi’s lifeless body. He stepped directly into the expanding crimson, bent close, and spit hard.

Chapter 48

The Saturday lunch crowd in the piazza was the largest he’d seen yet. Day trippers from Milan, Lia had told him. It was warm, and the gentle breeze carrying the scent of coffee felt good.

Wolf shook his head and took his first bite of yet another pizza. “How the heck were you there last night at the pub?”

“The whole thing was actually very lucky,” she said. “I saw Cezar in the piazza just a few minutes before we talked on the phone, and thought it odd to spot him there, so I was watching him the whole time. He kept stopping and looking around, like he was searching hard for someone. Then he got a phone call and left the piazza in a flash, and I watched him go out of site down an alley.”

“And you followed him?”

“No. After he left I got the call from you, then I got a call from Paulo no more than a minute later. He told me Valerio’s dad wasn’t buried in Lecco, so I couldn’t send flowers. And that I had the time of his death completely wrong. I was puzzled to say the least. I didn’t even know what he was talking about. Then he said that Valerio’s dad had been killed twenty five years ago in Sicily, something to do with the mafioso.

“I asked him what the hell he was talking about, and he said that you called saying that I was the one requesting the information. I hung up, and remembered what you said on the phone, and figured you were trying to tell me something — obviously about Valerio.

“From that second on, all I could think about was Cezar in the piazza. And I realized he had been looking up at your apartment also. I wondered if maybe he was looking for you. Since he ran off, and you said you called from near the piazza, I decided to leave and follow his trail.”

“They caught me seconds after our phone call,” Wolf said with creased brow. “I was pretty far away from the piazza. How did you find us?”

She shrugged. “I went down, and down, and wound my way towards the lake. Then I saw Valerio and Cezar loading you in the back of Valerio’s Gazella. You were out cold, which was shocking to see. Then of course, there was no call on the radios from Valerio that he’d caught you, so I just ran to my car and went to the only place I could think they’d be taking you, the Albastru Pub.” She gave another shrug and dove back into her pizza.

“Jesus.” He stared at her.

She smiled and took a sip of Coke.

“Jesus.”

“You said that.”

“Have I thanked you for saving my life last night?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said laughing, “you have. Last night.” She took another sip. “So my question for you. How did you get the idea to have Paulo look into Valerio’s father’s death?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Everything came to a head when I saw Vlad’s dead body. I knew someone was trying to set me up, and doing a damn good job of it. And there were only a few people who could have been doing it — you, Rossi, or Cezar.” He shrugged. “That’s basically everyone I know in this country. Well, there’s Cristina, but I was with her. And Colonnello Marino or Tito? Nah.

“Then after I saw a few things, well, it was obviously Rossi. Firstly, the shipping documents. I couldn’t read anything but the ports — the destination port was Genoa, Liguria, Italy and the source port Tenes, Algeria. The only other thing I could gather from them was the shipping company name, which was Fratello Importing or something like that.

“What caught my eye was Liguria. I read it, and remembered that as the place Valerio said his brother lives, working for the Guarda Di Finanza. Remember he said his brother bought a nice house in Liguria with his inheritance money?”

“Yes,” she nodded. “That’s where he lives. Liguria is the region. Genoa is the capital, where the port is. In fact, his brother lives minutes from Genoa.” She shook her head. “It was called Fratello Importers?”

“Yeah.”

She looked at him expectantly.

“What?”

“Fratello means brother in Italian.”

“Huh. That would have been nice to know at the time.” He stared for a beat at the ground, then snapped out of it. “But it was seeing Rossi talking to Cezar in the pub that clicked everything into place in my mind.

“And I thought, that could be a great cover story for a pair of brothers who were involved in smuggling drugs and actually wanted to enjoy spending the money they earned. ‘Our father died. It was an inheritance.’ Who’s going to call them out on that? Nobody.