Pronto

  Raylan bent forward a moment, brought his right hand up from his boot, and laid his 357 snub-nose on the table. He watched Nicky's eyes lock on the gun and stare like he might never look away.

  "In other words," Raylan said, "if I see you've come to do me harm, I'll shoot you through the heart before you can clear your weapon. Do we have an understanding here?"

  Chapter Sixteen.

  Fabrizio watched Nicky walk away from the cowboy, out to the sidewalk. Now he was coming this way, toward them. He saw Tommy at the next table watching Nicky, Benno watching, everybody watching and wondering what Nicky was going to say to Tommy. The kid wasn't looking this way or showing any kind of expression on his face. Tommy wasn't either. Tommy showed pleasure, anger, contempt, all the same way.

  Nicky -- wait a minute -- was walking past them, going past the cafe.

  Tommy turned his head this way and said, "Where's he going?"

  So Fabrizio called to him, "Hey, Nicky, where you going, man?"

  Tommy said, "Get him."

  Fabrizio saw Tommy turn his head to look back at the cowboy, who was standing now, walking away from his table at the Gran Caffe, and Tommy said it again, "Get him," louder this time, still meaning Nicky.

  So Fabrizio got up from the table and went after him, because the cowboy was his and Nicky's responsibility. Only it was getting to be tiresome. If Nicky didn't take the cowboy this time, Fabrizio believed he would have to. Man, to get it over with.

  Raylan's idea was to have them in view but looking the other way when he made his move. He left money on the table, picked up his revolver and his postcards, and got out of there, over Via Veneto to the corner and then up to where his car was parked off the Piazza Cavour. He drove through downtown streets in light traffic, working his way around buses, hoping to get some space between him and them, sure they'd be on his tail in a matter of a few minutes. He found the road that curved around the perimeter of the city and the turnoff where the sign pointed to Maurizio di Monti and Montallegro. A guy wearing sunglasses, his arms folded, leaned against his car at the side of the road. Raylan watched him in his rearview mirror, expecting to see the guy jump in the car and come after him, but pretty soon he was out of sight and the road remained clear. Raylan felt somewhat relieved, but not much.

  Coming up out of the plain the hill became steeper and the switchbacks longer, straightaways that extended close to a quarter of a mile between curves: different from eastern Kentucky, though it was still mountain driving and Raylan had done enough of it to last him. The trees were different too: there weren't any cypress that he knew of in eastern Kentucky, or olive trees. They made the land here seem older, from an ancient time, a way he had never looked at the land back home.

  There was hardly any traffic in either direction, letting him get a good look up and down on the straightaways. Some of the homes were right smack on the road or behind low stone fences. Get through the curve to the next straight section of road and he would be looking down at the same houses and see farmyards and outbuildings. Going through Maurizio di Monti he passed a cluster of houses built close to the road and came to a car parked at an intersection, another one with the guy standing outside, watching the world go by, this one smoking a cigarette. Raylan passed him. Then in the rearview mirror saw the guy throw away his cigarette and reach into the car through the window. Now he saw the guy with a hand radio, speaking into it, telling somebody about the blue Fiat he'd just seen whiz by, the guy getting smaller and smaller in the mirror. It reminded Raylan of an old Waylon Jennings number, "When You See Me Getting Smaller." One of his favorites when he was still home in Kentucky. On the same record as "You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille," the one he thought of right after Winona told him she was getting a divorce and he was alone in Miami Beach without his family. Without his boys anyway; the real estate guy could have Winona. He thought of Waylon and wondered if there was such a thing as Italian country music. He remembered reading somewhere that Clint Black was half Italian, his mother being full-blooded.

  Raylan kept glancing at his mirror, but nothing seemed to be coming after him. Somebody would, though, before too long. Right now he'd concentrate on locating Harry's villa. Somewhere, the hotel bartender said, between Maurizio di Monti, which he'd just passed, and the church at the end of this road, the Sanctuary of the Holy Virgin of Montallegro. Driving north on straight stretches of road, he'd look for houses above him. Then around a curve and driving south, he'd try to look down the slope, at places directly below him, without going off the road. There weren't any guardrails to speak of. Seeing vegetable patches cut out of the slope reminded him of home, people scratching to have enough to eat. He wondered if they had food stamps here.

  The thought vanished from his mind as he jammed on his brakes and the Fiat skidded to a stop close to the shoulder. Raylan backed up until he was looking directly at the villa, a plain square structure, kind of a dirty yellow in color, a gravel drive that needed to be weeded leading up to it. He backed up some more and now had a view of the garden behind the villa with its hedges, its plants in concrete pots, orange trees, four of them, and a persimmon tree. Raylan put the car in drive and crept past the house, noting a building, back and to the side, with wooden doors that might be a garage. Out beyond were a couple more farm buildings, all the structures with red tile roofs. Raylan glanced at his mirror and right away pressed his foot down on the accelerator. A car flashing red in the sunlight was coming fast out of the hairpin behind him.

  "As I pass his car," Fabrizio said, "you shoot him. How does that sound? Stick your gun out the window and pop him. Where's he going to hide? You have him."

  Nicky had his Beretta in his hands, ready. He'd already racked the slide. All he had to do was put the gun on the marshal and pull the trigger. He liked what Fabrizio said about where was he going to hide. He liked it when he could see ahead of time what was going to happen. Where's he going to go? Nowhere. He'll see the gun pointing at him and try to duck. Guess when the piece was about to go off and then duck, try to, keep from getting shot and the car from going off the road. So the guy would duck -- okay, wait for him to come up and bam.

  He said to Fabrizio, "Hurry up if you're gonna get next to him. Goose it."

  "After the turn coming up. We get through, I'm going to put it on the floor. Come up on him, he'll be two feet away. You think you can take him?"

  Fucking Fabrizio having a good time. All of them, the genuine Italians, thinking they were pretty funny, the things they said about him. Asking if they could watch and learn something. Nicky held on going through the hairpin curve and still got bounced around. They came out on the straight and ... Shit, where was he?

  "Where'd he go?"

  Fabrizio didn't answer, looking around and then looking at his rearview mirror.

  "Could he have gotten behind us?"

  Fabrizio still didn't answer. It meant he didn't know. They both kept quiet now, looking around. No sign of the blue Fiat. They kept going. Two more turns and a long stretch with only a few bends in it and they were approaching the Sanctuary of Montallegro, a pretty big church.

  "You know why they built this?" Fabrizio said. "Four hundred years ago the Virgin Mary appeared to a man who lived here, a poor man. She told him she would grant favors to the people who came here and prayed to her. You know, to ask for different things, money, a husband... All the cars, it means a service is being held in there. You want to go in?"

  "Yeah, light a candle," Nicky said.

  "No, I mean it," Fabrizio said. "Ask the Virgin Mary to help you find the cowboy. And then if you do, grant the miracle that you shoot him and don't think of an excuse why you can't."

  "Fucking comedian," Nicky said.

  Fabrizio drove past the parking area so they could look over the cars, then stopped and got his radio off the top of the instrument panel. He spoke into it in Italian and a voice in Italian came back to them.

  When he was finished, Fabrizio said, "That was the man in Maurizio
di Monti. He says the cowboy didn't come back that way. It means he has to be still up here somewhere. Maybe turned off one of the roads that don't go nowhere, waiting for us to leave. So, we go back that way and sniff, uh? See if we can smell him, this cowboy."

  They had gone no more than a half mile when Nicky said, "There he is," excited now, seeing the blue Fiat standing a short distance up a side road, pointing away from them. They came to the road and turned in and the Fiat took off, topped a rise, and was gone.

  Fabrizio said, "Now what's he doing?" sounding puzzled. "He was waiting for us."

  "We had him set up for a drive-by," Nicky said. "Now he's thought of something and he's setting us up."

  "How does he do that?" Fabrizio said, hunched over the wheel now. "There two of us, one of him."

  "I don't know," Nicky said, "but I'm telling you that's what he's doing, setting us up."

  "I better do this one," Fabrizio said. "I think you starting to come apart again."

  Raylan brought them to high ground, an open field of scrub on what he would call a hogback ridge that sloped to valleys choked with brush. He turned the car around to be facing them when they came over the rise, took out his revolver, and checked the loads, spinning the cylinder to hear the sound of it, Raylan getting the feel of the weapon again in his hands. Nicky hadn't seen this one yet, his Smith & Wesson 357 Combat Mag, stainless steel with a six-inch barrel. He watched for them now, expecting the red Fiat to come flying over the crest of the ridge, then brake hard and fishtail as they saw him waiting, and that was how it was. The car stopped about a hundred feet away, maybe a little less, and sat there.

  Deciding how to do it, Raylan thought. You go at him from over there and I'll go at him from over here. Why didn't he drive up close?

  'Cause it's show-off time, Raylan thought. The Italian gun thug is going to show the boy how it's done. What do you bet?

  "We're going to walk up to him," Fabrizio said. "You leave the car and walk toward him, but out that way. You understand? I do the same on this side. Go toward him but out, so he has to turn from me to you. You understand? We have our guns in our hands. No cowboy stuff. Okay? But don't say nothing to him."

  "You gonna say something?"

  "As we going toward him, yeah, keep him busy."

  "What're you gonna say?"

  "Don't worry about it. It's not important what I say. But you keep quiet. And don't shoot till I do, when I see we close enough. You understand? Then you can shoot all you want."

  "He's an expert with a gun," Nicky said, "a dead shot."

  "Yeah, who told you that," Fabrizio said, getting out of the car, "him?"

  Raylan watched them come out of the red car, both with pistols in their hands, making their intentions fairly clear. Fine. If they didn't have them out now they would soon enough, the fat guy having decided, Raylan believed, to have this business done.

  See? You could tell by the way he moved. Confident, running the show now, Nicky along to help out. Pick up the body after and chuck it down the slope. Raylan asked himself if he was sure of that, the fat guy running the show. Yes, he was. He slid out of the Fiat and stepped one stride away from the door, leaving it open. The fat guy, the real Italian, was almost directly in front of him but moving a little to his right, while Nicky was over to the left. Their plan, to spread out as they came for him. What other way was there, outside of stay in the car and drive up to him?

  When they were about eighty feet away Raylan said, "That's good, right there."

  He saw Nicky look over at the fat guy, who kept coming, so Nicky did, too, until Raylan raised his left hand to point it at Nicky. He said, "I'll take you first," and Nicky stopped. The fat guy, looking over, stopped too.

  He said to Nicky, "You listen to him or me?"

  It seemed a hard question. Raylan saw the boy didn't know what to do, even with those big arms and shoulders on him and a pistol in his hand.

  Now the fat guy waved his pistol at Nicky, saying, "Come on," and started toward Raylan again, getting a sincere look on his face as he said, "We want to talk to you, man. Get a little closer, that's all, so I don't have to shout."

  "I can hear you," Raylan said.

  The fat guy said, "Listen, it's okay. I don't mean real close. Just a little closer, uh? It's okay?"

  Getting within his range, Raylan thought. If he knows what it is. The guy was confident, you could say that for him. Raylan raised his left hand, this time toward the fat guy.

  Then lowered it saying, "I wouldn't come any closer'n right there. You want to talk, go ahead and talk."

  The fat guy kept coming anyway, saying, "It's okay. Don't worry about it."

  "You take one more step," Raylan said, "I'll shoot you. That's all I'm gonna say."

  This time the fat guy stopped and grinned, shaking his head, about sixty feet away now. He said, "Listen, I want to tell you something, okay? That you should know." He took a step. He started to take another one.

  And Raylan shot him. Put the 357 Mag on him, fired once, and hit him high in the gut. Raylan glanced at Nicky standing way over to his left, Nicky with his pistol about waist high. Raylan put the Mag on the fat guy again, the guy with his hand on his gut now, looking down like he couldn't believe there was a hole in him before looking at Raylan again, saying something in Italian that had a surprised sound to it. When the guy raised his pistol and had it out in front of him, Raylan shot him again, higher this time, in the chest, and this one put him down.

  The sound echoed and faded.

  Raylan turned his head.

  Nicky stood facing him, holding his pistol in both hands in a stiff-armed pose the way Raylan used to teach it -- sort of; his feet weren't right -- and the way they did it in movies. He looked frozen, like a plastic toy figure, G. I. Joe. There were G. I. Joes all over the house in Brunswick.

  Raylan said, "Use it or throw it away." Watched and saw the boy didn't want options, he needed to be told what to do. So Raylan told him to toss his gun aside; go on, do it. Then go over and kick the fat guy's out of the way. He said, "Then I want you to pick him up -- you can do that, huh? You're a weight lifter, aren't you? Think of your friend there as a big dumbbell, 'cause that's what he was. Wouldn't listen. Okay, so pick him up and put him in your car. Take him to where you all're staying and ask Mr. Zip what he wants done with him. Can you remember all that?"

  Raylan had his supper at the hotel, went back to his room, and called Buck Torres. Torres said he was waiting to hear from a cop friend of his in Rome who was checking with the Rapallo police for him.

  "You tell them it's urgent?"

  "Call me tomorrow," Torres said.

  "I'm checking out in the next ten minutes," Raylan said. "If all goes well I'll call you from Harry's villa."

  Chapter Seventeen.

  Benno and some others hanging around the apartment came down to look in the car at Fabrizio sitting in the front seat, his head against the window. They'd hunch down and stare at his eyes and ask Nicky why he hadn't closed them. He said, "You want to, go ahead." But no one did. They'd hunch in close with their hands in their pockets. It was getting cold again as the sun went down. Benno asked what happened. Nicky told him the version he'd made up and Benno said not to bother Tommy, he was in his room with a woman, relaxing.

  Nicky stood by the car to wait. He didn't know what else to do.

  On his twenty-first birthday he drew two years at La Tuna Correctional in Texas on a drug-related concealed weapon charge. This was while he was trying to work his way into the Atlantic City crew, hanging out at the social club, packing a gun for somebody when he was asked to. A guy he met at La Tuna was with Jimmy Cap's crew in Miami Beach. Nicky looked him up after doing his time and that was how he got to meet Jimmy Cap and went to work for him: picking up Chinese takeout, lighting his cigars, getting him young girls, generally serving on an ass-kissing basis at first. Until one time: Jimmy Cap in the backseat of his Cadillac, Nicky in front with the driver, at a service station getting the tank fil
led with free gas, Jimmy said, "The schmuck owns this place is two weeks behind in his payments." He said to Nicky, "How would you get him to pay up?" Nicky said, "You mean the guy pumping gas?" A Cuban. Jimmy said no, the Cuban worked for the guy owned the station. Nicky got out of the car, took the gas nozzle away from the Cuban guy, and hosed him down with super unleaded. Jimmy liked it, his eyes lighting up as Nicky took out his Bic, the one he lit Jimmy's cigars with, and held it ready to flick and set the Cuban guy on fire. Jimmy asked him, "You'd do it?" Nicky said, "You want me to?" He said, "You can't do it to the guy owns the place. How's he gonna pay you if he's dead? But you light this guy up, the one owes you money will see what can happen to him." He said, "You want this guy lit up or not?" Jimmy Cap hesitated, then shook his head and told Nicky, "Not this time." His smoke-glass window slid closed and the show was over. Later on Nicky asked himself if he would've set the guy on fire if Jimmy wanted him to. The answer was yes, without giving it another thought. You saw a chance to step up, you took it.

  What happened, he became Jimmy Cap's bodyguard as the tough kid from Atlantic City without ever having beat up, set on fire, or shot anybody. All he had to do was get a certain look in his eyes and walk around with his shirt off.