Wu Ming - 54

Come on. Don’t make me nervous. Be on your best behaviour.

Moby Dick was wearing his white suit, as he always did. The two bodyguards were dressed in black from head to toe. They looked like the keys of a piano.

Zollo stepped forward. Moby Dick was clutching a holdall.

The shots came from the roof of the restaurant.

The great white whale and the two sharks fell almost in an instant. Zollo didn’t throw himself to the ground in time. The bullet struck his right arm. He felt the bone crack. He went down. He crept through the dust as another two shots shattered the earth. He reached the Frenchmen’s car. Slipped inside. His arm was saying goodbye to him. He slipped the bag under his belly and gripped the gun with his left hand.

They’re shooting from up above. From the roof.

Like the Germans and the Black Brigades.

Like at Porta Lame.

Open up a gap. Evacuate the wounded. To do that: kill the snipers. To kill the snipers: see them. To see them: light them up. The flaregun. Gift from the cross-border guys, for use in emergencies. Use it. Stoompf! Fiiiiiiiiiiiii .

The firework comes down and lights up two startled faces: Germans posted on the sloping roof, tiles fall, a helmet, one of the two is tied to the chimney pot with an improvised sling. The other gets to his feet, stumbles and slips sideways, shouts, dazzled, raises his arms to cover his face. The other tries to climb back up towards the chimney-pot, skids, more tiles fall. You shoulder the Thompson gun and fire. Got him. He tumbles clumsily, the shots deflect his fall. Crash . The sound of bones splintering. You shoot again. Got him. A head exploding. Corpse hanging from the rope. Throw yourself to the ground.

More gunfire, from beyond the low wall at the edge of the car park. Right at the back, invisible except in the flashes of machinegun fire. Black Brigades. Three, maybe four. The torturers of Irma Bandiera, Stenio Polischi and many other patriots. Traitors and murderers, they must die.

The wounded comrade is alive, he’s returning fire. But now it’s me they’re after. Holes in one of the lorry doors. It’s going to take pluck. It’s going to take courage.

We were criticised for always going on the attack. Lupo was made that way, he took risks, he raised the level of the challenge to the Germans, he made incursions that struck other people as foolhardy.

I must take risks too, or we’ll never get out of this. Defend my comrades. Avenge the fallen. Myself. Give a meaning to all this. If necessary, die.

Stiv is still alive. I saw him firing. What’ll I do now, Christ I’m scared! They’re all firing. Is this a film too? They’re slogging their guts out. These are Don Luciano’s goons.

Christ alive, Stiv, shoot, shoot! Now they’re firing at the Bolognese guy. He’s raising hell like no

one else. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. What the fuck am I supposed to do with this gun? Do I shoot? I

can’t see a fucking thing from here. Nothing but big black bogeymen. Get it to Stiv? How? Bastards, villains, murderers, Stiv, let’s get out of here! I start to crawl. The Bolognese is a raging demon. Kill them. Kill them all.

Pierre had stretched out on the seats, and every now and again he

peered out over the dashboard. You can’t be a match for any situation. The windscreen had exploded. A splinter had grazed his leg. They were firing at him again, and he had no idea who the fuck

they were.

He couldn’t breathe properly. He swallowed irregular mouthfuls of air. Acid throat. A chasm in his stomach. Guts under pressure. He felt he was sweating shit.

He raised his head. He peered through the shattered glass. He saw Ettore come out into the open. He saw Ettore running like mad. He heard the shots. He felt fear twisting his guts.

‘Red Star to viiiictoreeeeeee!’ Major Mario, look at me now. Fuck, if you were here to see me!

The shout and the running take them more by surprise than the rocket. They wonder what the fuck I’m doing. A few seconds. The two seconds I need.

Pullthepinfromthegrenadeonetwothrowandhurlmyselftotheground-BOOOOM!

Fragments of brick, blood, a pair of glasses falls on my hand.

Now they’re firing from somewhere else, to the right. I roll forwards. The Black Brigade comes out into the open, bang! He’s down. The injured comrade shot him, or maybe one of the boys.

Excited whispers, footsteps running in the dark. I must act first. Red Star to victory. I pull out the pin, rise on to my knees, onetwothrow-BOOOM! I hear them screaming.

Ettore was hit in the back by a hail of gunfire. Zollo saw him falling heavily and crouched there waiting for the bastards to come into the open.

Ettore had one set of balls, thought Zollo. He had had fist-fights, he’d killed people, but he’d never fought a war. The influence of the Anastasia family had kept him out of that. Ettore, on the other hand, had been there, he’d told him. One hell of a guy. He’d never seen a guy like him among the wiseguys.

He had saved his life, with the bright idea of the rocket.

He had to kill the bastards.

Not just to save his skin.

Pierre raised his head after the two explosions. His ears weren’t working. The muscles in his back were so tense they hurt. He noticed that his fists were clenched, his teeth gritted.

He looked at the car park in front of him. Ettore was no longer there.

He lowered his head, took a breath, and looked again.

Ettore was on the ground. Motionless. The dust all around was clogged with blood.

Pierre’s skin crawled. He succumbed to a fit of the shakes, unable to contain them. His teeth chattered like castanets.

He saw two men coming out of a shattered glass door behind Ettore.

One of them stretched out his arm and shot him in the head. The other one walked cautiously towards the Frenchmen’s car.

Pierre gripped the gun. He crouched down, took a breath and tried to aim. He was trembling. He was terrified. He had never fired a gun in

his life. He wouldn’t be able to hit his target even at a third of the distance. Not with a pistol. He put down the Luger, slipped into the driver’s seat and turned

on the engine. He lowered himself to one side, his cheek against the steering wheel, and put his foot down. The lorry jerked forwards in a cloud of dust. Skidded to the right. Skidded to the left.

Pierre felt the impact against the mudguard, a dark mass was thrown beyond the front of the lorry. Pierre heard at least four shots being fired. He ran on and stopped beside the Frenchmen’s car.

Pagano heard the lorry setting off. He took advantage of the dust and the confusion and made his

mind up. In his hand, the pistol was no use to anybody. In Stiv’s, that was a different matter. Stiv might have run out of

bullets. He hadn’t heard him shoot for a while. Maybe he was dead. No, he didn’t even want to think about that. He knocked over a drum, jumped out and ran, his back almost

parallel to the ground. He lost his balance. Rolled the last five metres. Stiv wasn’t dead. Not bloody likely. He was Cement. ‘Here you are, Stiv.’

The boy. The Luger. You grip the pistol. A moment later the fucker stops shooting. The last one. The lorry pulls up beside you. The other boy offers you his hand. ‘Come on, get in, we’re going!’

Zollo said nothing. Zollo just waited. Zollo listened to the silence. Was that really the last of the fuckers? ‘Help me get in, Salvatore.’

Zollo clutched the door. ‘Go and get the Frenchman’s holdall,

now. Quickly.’ The boy ran off. The other man helped Zollo into the lorry. ‘Turn round and drive slowly towards the exit.’ In the wing mirror Zollo checked the recovery of the booty. Pagano picked up the holdall. Ran back to the lorry. Threw it in,