Jeff Carson - Foreign Deceit

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.

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.

Cezar was looking at Rossi with raised eyebrows, looking like he was waiting for some kind of an answer from Rossi.

Rossi stood slowly and stared at his hat on the counter, contemplating. He began looking around, down the length of the bar, then at the patrons who watched the television.

Wolf’s heart skipped. Something wasn’t right.

He looked down at the waitress who was pulling her hand back and moving on with her life. She began shuffling past, and he twisted away from the bar following her, then he gently pulled on her arm. Turning back, she had a puppy dog look of curiosity. He bent and kissed her. She returned the gesture eagerly, a clicking tongue piercing bouncing off his teeth. Wolf opened his eyes and searched the reflection in the front window while they kissed. Rossi was walking straight towards him.

He stopped kissing her and breathed in her ear. “Sorry, no. I won’t be eating tonight after all.”

“That’s too bad.” Her breath was hot, her lips flicking his earlobe. “Well, we could always eat together later.”

“What’s that?” He said pointing at his ear, keeping his head down. She repeated herself as Rossi pushed past Wolf’s right shoulder, brushing up against him, and out the front door.

Wolf stood and watched him leave out the door and down the road to his left.

Looking in the window reflection again, he saw Cezar turning the corner back into the rear of the pub.

Wolf walked out the front.

“Fucking American piece of sh-” the waitress’ voice was snuffed out by the shutting door.

“Later asshole,” the soccer fan guy raised his beer as Wolf walked past.

He walked to the scooter, but not before glancing back to Rossi, who was hanging a left — towards the alley Wolf had just come from.

The officer on Wolf’s brother’s balcony looked to the northwest corner of the piazza, then, raising a radio to his mouth, turned to look directly at him.

Static erupted, followed by a tinny voice, no more than five feet to Wolf’s right. Wolf flinched, ducking fast to his left, suddenly very conscious of his conspicuous height compared to the people around him.

He slalomed through the piazza crowd and made his way to the side shops, then ducked into a narrow side street. He bummed a light from a teenager and puffed hard on a cigarette, surveying the piazza from behind the thin smokescreen.

Wolf was on the west side of the piazza, looking up at the northeast corner. The figure left the balcony and ducked inside to the fully lit apartment. It was an officer he’d never seen. Obviously the rest of the piazza was crawling with Caribinieri, though he had yet to see any.

Meanwhile, pieces of a jigsaw puzzle in his mind were being shuffled and fitted together, his brain beginning to see the clear picture.

Rossi was everything. And if Wolf didn’t act fast, he’d be spending the rest of his life in an Italian prison. Either that, or going home in a box right behind his brother.

Wolf dropped the cigarette and walked down the side street, working his way right, then right again, into a pulsing artery of people that flowed into the piazza.