Pronto (23 page)

The Zip said, "Don't tell him nothing."

Nicky went back to the phone and told him the Zip didn't want to talk to him.

The cowboy said, "Tell him I'll trade him Benno and Marco for Robert Gee. Two for one."

Nicky went back down the hall and told the Zip, who stood in the doorway of his apartment wearing a bathrobe and it looked like nothing under it.

The Zip said, "Tell him he can keep Benno and Marco. He wants to trade Harry he's got a deal. Tell him I been waiting for him to come around. He wants to talk to me, okay, be at that cafe he goes to and you meet him there. Tell him he can see the colored guy."

"Then what?" Nicky said.

"Bring him here."

The Zip closed the door. He had the whore with the white shoes in there with him.

Raylan had the windshield wipers on low speed, taking off the mist that would collect. The pavement looked dry. He came along Via Veneto to Nicky standing by the curb in the dark, cafe tables stacked up behind him, Nicky hunching his big shoulders in the leather jacket, stooping to see inside the car. Raylan imagined he'd be grouchy from waiting, standing out in the weather. Even on a good day he was the kind had an ugly disposition.

He opened the door, the first thing he said was, "Where you been? You know how long I've been standing here?" See? Like Raylan cared. Like his purpose in life was to make this asshole happy. Nicky wanted to know where he got this car and whose was it, but didn't wait for an answer. He said he was driving so come on, park it someplace and hurry up. All that bile coming out of him.

Raylan raised the sawed-off shotgun off the seat next to him and said, "Nicky, get in the car."

Nicky stood there, then eased himself in like there might be snakes inside. He closed the door and Raylan threw the shotgun over his shoulder, onto the backseat. Nicky didn't seem to know what to make of that. They were moving now. Raylan said, "All you have to do is tell me how to get where we're going. Can you do that?"

It turned out to be an apartment building up above town, newer than most, with balconies, but small, only three stories; across the street from red clay tennis courts. They got out of the Fiat and Raylan said, "Just a minute." Walked back to the trunk and opened it. The guy climbed out looking around, maybe not sure where he was. Raylan asked if he was okay, but didn't get anything from the guy except a bewildered look. About the same as Nicky's, watching him.

Two other guys came out. They took Raylan's guns and brought him down a hall through the ground floor to the back of the building, unlocked a door and shoved him into what looked like a utility room, bare except for storage lockers and a single light in the ceiling.

Robert Gee sat on the floor with his legs stretched out, his back against the concrete wall.

"They haven't touched you?"

"They haven't even looked mean at me."

"Or asked you anything?"

"Nothing."

"Where'd they get you, on the road?"

"I never got in the car."

"Brought you here.... They feed you?"

"Some pasta. It wasn't bad."

"Let you out to go to the bathroom?"

"Have my own. That door over there."

"Nobody else's around? Other people?"

"I haven't seen nobody else."

"What's his game?"

"Man, I'd like to know."

"I thought by now they asked and you told."

"I would've too."

"I know, and I wouldn't blame you."

"But they never gave me the chance. You understand? I even said to the man, 'Hey, ain't there something you want to ask me?' I don't know as maybe they gonna hurt me first, you understand? And then ask. I said, 'Listen, you don't have to rough me up any, pull my fingernails out, I'll tell you anything you want to know.' Trying to explain this ain't any of my business. The man walks out. This is when they had me upstairs. I only saw him a minute, he walks out. Dude type of man, had a sharp suit on, but kind of old-timey."

"That's the Zip. Tommy Bucks. The other one has a leather coat on, Nicky, the one I spoke to on the phone. He said either he knew I was going to call or I was going to get in touch with them. But I think it was the Zip knew it, or had a hunch. See, Nicky's the kind I believe likes to brag on himself. Or he'll tell you something another person said and make you think it was his idea. I know he don't have a say in this deal. The Zip's the one decides things."

"And he knew you were coming."

"Or thought I might."

"The man knew."

"Well, if you didn't get back..."

"You'd have come looking for me."

"I was going to say, I'd have thought of some way, I suppose, to get in touch."

"And the man knew that, is what I'm saying. So what does that tell you?"

"If it's true? Then I think he wants to ask me the question," Raylan said, "instead of you. Wants me to be the one tell him where Harry is. Like it's a personal thing between us."

Robert Gee said, "So, you going to do it?"

Raylan stood up when they came in, not out of any kind of regard, but so the Zip and Nicky wouldn't be towering over him. As soon as the two were in the room, someone outside in the hall closed the door. Robert Gee stayed where he was until the Zip looked at him and said, "Get up."

He did, taking his time, Raylan hearing him groan as he pushed himself up, stiff from sitting on the floor.

The Zip said to Nicky, "Watch him," before turning to Raylan. "I been waiting for you. I know, soon as you figure out I got this guy, you're gonna come try and make a deal, give me Benno and Marco. Where are they?"

"Locked up in a garage."

"Yeah? Where Harry is?"

"At his house."

"And Harry's there?"

"He left," Raylan said.

"Yeah? Where'd he go?"

"He went home."

The Zip kept staring at him.

Raylan heard Nicky say, "Lemme have him," and looked over to see Nicky holding a gun now, some kind of automatic. "Come on," Nicky said, "just me and him in here."

The Zip raised his hand as if to shut Nicky up without looking at him. He said to Raylan, "When was this Harry went home?"

Robert Gee answered. He said, "While you're fooling around waiting for Raylan. You could've asked me where Harry lived. Man, I'd have told you in a second. But you rather wait and have him tell you. Well, that's what he's doing, he's telling you."

Robert Gee getting a kick out of this.

The Zip's face, listening to him, was made of stone. He didn't take his eyes off Raylan. When there was a silence he said, "Harry left when you did."

Raylan didn't say anything.

"That wasn't too long ago. You come here in the car belongs to the guy we put by the autostrada. But no one's seen Harry's car or the one you had. So you came down in Benno's car, uh? And that's the one Harry's driving. Okay, that gives them a jump on us, but not much of one. Where'd he go?"

Raylan didn't answer.

"He go to Genova with that woman?"

They stared at each other.

"Or to Milano. Or south, to Roma?"

"How about Turin," Raylan said. "Or maybe Bologna."

That stone face stared at him.

The Zip said, "Okay, tell me."

Raylan shook his head. "I don't know."

The Zip said to Nicky, "Put your gun on the jig."

Nicky glanced over. "I got it on him."

The Zip said to Raylan, "Where did he go? Tell me, or in three seconds this guy is dead."

Robert said, "Hey, come on. I'm not in this."

"He went to Genoa," Raylan said. "You're too late."

"I don't believe it. Where did he go?"

"To Genoa, whether you believe it or not."

The Zip said to Nicky, "Shoot him."

Nicky looked over, frowning. "What?"

Raylan said, "I'm telling you the truth!"

The Zip's hand slipped into his suit coat.

"I said shoot him. Do it."

The hand came out holding a Beretta auto, the same one Raylan had at home. It came up in his face and stayed there. He heard Robert say, "I don't have no part in this, man. It ain't any of my business."

The Zip stared at Raylan as he said to Nicky, "You going to shoot him or not?"

Nicky said, "Jesus Christ, right here?"

The Zip said, "Right here, right now," swung the Beretta from Raylan to Robert Gee and shot him and shot him again, and swung it back in Raylan's face before he could move, the sound of the gunshots ringing in the concrete room.

The stone face stared from behind the muzzle.

The Zip said, "Where did he go?"

Raylan said, "He went to Genoa."

Chapter
Twenty-Three.

Buck Torres sat listening to Harry tell how overnight the Zip had more people working for him in Rapallo than he did here, real honest-to-God Mafia types. Harry said, "Like the Zip and these guys are the original cast and Jimmy Cap's bozos are the road company. I mean there's no comparison."

Harry trying to be himself again, the authority, in his rooms on the third floor of the Delia Robbia, but moving to the window to look down at the street as he made his observations.

"I saw it was time to get out, so we left. You want to know the truth? I was ready to go anyway."

Torres said, "What about Raylan Givens?"

"Yeah, he was there."

"I mean, didn't he help you?"

"Me personally? He had this idea he could help Robert. I said, 'You crazy? Robert don't need any help. Robert's told them by now everything he knows about me, what I had for breakfast, and they've let him go.' Raylan and Joyce want to know, well, where is he then? Like he's going to come back to the villa after finking on me."

"You expected him," Torres said, "to keep his mouth shut? Maybe die for you?"

"He knew the score, who those guys are. If I'm paying him I expect some loyalty."

Torres let that one go. He said, "So Raylan drove you down to the, what do you call it, the autostrada?"

"Yeah, the freeway, and we took off. I thought he'd be right behind us, at least by the next day."

"You didn't make any kind of arrangement for him to get in touch with you?"

"I figured he'd be okay," Harry said, "because he wouldn't have to lie. Where am I? Gone. Where'd I go? To Genoa. We're on a flight to Rome that same evening and left there yesterday morning. We haven't even been home twenty-four hours yet." Harry reached the window and turned. "Give him time, he'll be along."

"Joyce called me," Torres said. "She's worried about him."

"I'm the one they're after. She mention she's worried at all about me?"

"Don't you want to know where he is?"

"I'm telling you, he'll show up."

"You know he went over there on his own."

"After I walked away from him not just once but twice. This time he's thinking, I'm gonna bring that son of a bitch home in chains if I have to."

"Why do I get the feeling," Torres said, "you wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Raylan?"

"I told you, I was ready to leave anyway."

"That isn't what I mean."

Harry wasn't listening. He said, "I'd be at a sidewalk cafe watching the scene, trying to soak up the atmosphere... I don't know why but it was different this time. The weather was depressing, that was part of it."

"You don't have an audience over there," Torres said, "anybody to bullshit with."

"I didn't before, the other times I went. But those trips, I never stayed more than a few days, a week at the most. This time I'm there close to a month and I'm thinking, Wait a minute. I'm going to live here? It was different." Harry stood at the window. He made his turn and started to grin. "These two guys come in the house, Benno and Marco. I'm telling you, real honest-to-God Mafioso, right out of The Godfather, Part Two. They come in the bedroom, they see me sitting there..."

Torres said, "By yourself?"

"It's a setup. They walk in the room, they see me -- what is this? They look around. One of the guys, Marco's got a sawed-off shotgun. Not a pump, a regular double-barrel shotgun cut down. The other guy, Benno, sees me sitting there relaxed, he puts his gun back in his pants, in his waist. Marco says something in Italian; the other one, Benno, says, 'Who're you? What's your name?' I say to him, 'You walk in my house and you want to know who I am? Who the fuck're you? You understand, I'm the bait. I distract them. Raylan's across the hall with Joyce. He comes up behind them while I'm talking and I take the shotgun away from Marco."

Torres said, "They don't know who you are?"

Harry shook his head. "For all I know they still don't, they're back in Italy locked in the garage." Harry was smiling almost to himself. "Maybe I'll go back there sometime when the weather's nice. You know, like spend the winter here and the summer over there."