Chapter 71: Mafia Kings: Massimo: Chapter 71

We were stumbling towards the bedroom, laughing and pulling at each other’s clothes –

When there was a distant crack and the crystalline sound of glass breaking.

I froze for a millisecond –

Then forced Lucia to the floor.

“Get down!” I whispered harshly.

She looked at me in terror as I dropped down beside her and pulled my Beretta from the back of my jeans. I’d learned my lesson since the barn and never went anywhere without a gun within reach.

I went down a mental checklist.

Like always, I’d barred the doors with pieces of furniture: a small table wedged against the back door and a heavy bureau against the front. It wouldn’t stop a determined person from getting in, but it would slow them down – and give me enough time to shoot them.

“Stay here,” I whispered to Lucia.

“Massimo – ”

“It’s gonna be alright,” I promised. “I just have to check it out.”

I crawled across the floor into the den and immediately saw what I was looking for.

A pane in one of the windows had been shot out. Broken glass littered the floor.

Idiot, I thought.

Whoever the shooter was, he’d given away the element of surprise.

It didn’t even seem like he’d been aiming at us when he fired.

For a second, I was worried that they would pitch a Molotov cocktail through the broken pane and try to burn us out –

But they didn’t need to break a window to do that. The entire fucking house was made of wood. All they had to do was throw the firebomb on the roof and let nature take its course.

My hunting rifle was propped up in the corner. I crawled over to it, grabbed it, and then checked to make sure the magazine had five bullets inside. I clacked the first round into the chamber, then held up the gun by the wooden stock and used the sight on the end of the barrel to turn off the switch on the wall.

The lights went off, and we were plunged into complete darkness – which was good. Now the shooter couldn’t see us.

Outside, it was extremely dark because the rain clouds were blocking out most of the moonlight. The shadows between the trees were black as India ink.

I was trying to determine my next move when a voice called out from the woods.

“Herr Rosolini! Can you hear me?”

I froze.

What the hell?

It was a man’s voice – not deep, but not too high.

The Herr part – pronounced like ‘hair’ in English – was German for ‘Mister,’ and the Italian words had a distinct German accent.

Maybe he was Swiss. Switzerland bordered Italy to the northwest, about 300 miles away from Padola. And Switzerland had four official languages – two of which were Italian and German.

But the really odd thing was that the speaker sounded… pleasant.

Chipper, even.

I looked over at Lucia lying in the doorway. Her bewildered expression mirrored my own thoughts:

What the fuck kind of assassin lets you know he’s THERE, then calls out like a friendly neighbor?!

Maybe not an assassin…

But a bounty hunter.

A very strange one.

“Herr Rosolini, I won’t hurt you or the Fräulein, I give you my word – but we really should speak,” the voice called out cheerfully. “Ja?”

Frow-line. German for a young unmarried woman.

Yah – German for ‘yes.’

“The fuck?!” Lucia whispered. “He sounds like Hans Landa!”

“Who?” I whispered back.

“The Nazi in Inglorious Basterds! The same guy was in Django Unchained!”

She meant the actor Christoph Waltz.

I had to admit, the two men did sound incredibly similar.

“Herr Rosoliniiiiiiiii…” the voice called out. “I know you can heeeaaaar meeeeeee…”

“Who are you?” I shouted from the floor.

“Ah – hello, there! Allow me to introduce myself!” he said as though he was addressing a local chapter of a men’s charity. “My name is Friedrich Zollner. Professionally I am known as der Jäger – the Hunter.”

He pronounced it ‘yay-ger,’ like the liqueur Jägermeister.

“Perhaps you have heard of me?” he called out hopefully.

“No.”

“…oh,” he said, sounding a bit crestfallen.

The strangeness of the situation was beyond absurd.

A man who called himself ‘the Hunter’ was tracking me, and he was disappointed that I didn’t know who he was.

But then he rebounded with renewed optimism in his voice. “Well, that is perhaps to be expected. I don’t really run in your circles, after all. In fact, this is the first time anyone from the Cosa Nostra has ever hired me. Normally I work with… well, for the sake of discretion, let us say ‘other parties’ and leave it at that.”

I tried to figure out who those ‘other parties’ might be.

There was no German equivalent of the mafia –

Perhaps the Russian Bratva?

Probably not. I doubted the Russians could stomach his cheerfulness.

The Swiss banking industry was known for its stiff formality – but they could be as ruthless as gangsters when someone crossed them.

“Who hired you?” I shouted. “Fausto?”

“No – actually, your cousin Aurelio. I don’t think he would mind you knowing that.”

Aurelio.

It lent credence to the theory that Aurelio had gone rogue and plotted the Venice caper himself.

Though surely Fausto would have intervened by now, three weeks after the fact…

Zollner continued. “I have no reason to harm you, as you can tell from my announcing my presence so dramatically by shooting out the – how do you say it – Fensterscheibe – ah, the pane of the window. You see, Aurelio is not paying me to kill you – not even to apprehend you. All he wants is Fräulein Fioretti.”

“Too bad,” I shouted.

He sighed theatrically. “Unfortunately, I thought you might say that. By the way, congratulations on your engagement!”

My guts twisted inside me.

“Yes, I had a nice little chat with the store owner after you left. He told me all about the giant man who proposed to the tiny little woman! Herzlichen Glückwunsch – my heartfelt congratulations, truly! But… considering the situation… could I suggest that you rethink your position on the matter? I really don’t want to hurt either of you, especially on such a blessed day – but I will… if forced.”

His voice took on a dark, menacing quality when he said if forced.

The contrast with his previous tone was chilling, even to me.

“I’ll kill you or any of your men who try to come in here,” I snarled.

“Oh, I’m quite alone, Herr Rosolini. After the rather ghastly scene you left behind, the local amateurs Aurelio hired staged something of a revolt. They refused to continue after you unless Aurelio quadrupled their pay. Your cousin decided, why pay amateurs a king’s ransom – when you can get the best in the world for half the total price, ja? The ‘best in the world’ being me, of course.” Zollner chuckled with false modesty. “By the way, I commend you on your brilliant dispatching of the two unfortunate men! From my analysis of the scene, it would appear that you killed one with the ax – and Fräulein Fioretti took out the other with the shotgun. Oh, I’m being so rude! Continually referring to you in the third person – are you there, Fräulein?”

“Yeah, I am,” Lucia shouted. “And you can go fuck yourself.”

“Hahaha – they told me you were a feisty one! I can see they were not wrong!”

“Come on in and find out how feisty I am, motherfucker!”

“Noooo, I think not. I am more than content to wait you out. You didn’t bring many provisions from town… and I know you have a rendezvous planned for 6 PM tomorrow, ja? Either you’ll make a break for it, or I’ll just starve you out. I have plenty of rations to keep up my strength… unlike you.”

My heart dropped.

Somehow he knew about my conversation with Niccolo. He’d probably bugged the goddamn phone –

“Yes, I installed a listening device in the phone booth,” Zollner said cheerfully, as though he’d read my thoughts. “I wasn’t hired until three days after you killed the men at the barn, so you had quite a substantial head start on me – and it was exceedingly difficult to track you. My compliments on your strategy, Massimo. May I call you Massimo? We’re being so formal. Feel free to call me Friedrich.”

I scrunched up my face in disbelief at how strange this guy was.

“You obviously learned from your mistakes,” he continued, “never staying more than one night in a single place… not using the fireplace… well done! That forced me to track you like I might any other wild game. It was quite entertaining, to tell the truth – but I realized you weren’t going to be able to survive forever on the supplies you were finding in these cabins. At some point, like a thirsty animal, you would be forced to leave cover and approach the pond for a drink. I would merely have to lie in wait for it to happen.

“All of this is a roundabout way of saying that I bugged the telephones and waited for you to show yourself in town… like an animal at the water’s edge, you might say… and from there, I tracked you to your new lair. And here we are.”

As ridiculous as Zollner was, I had to admit I was unnerved.

When a man shows you all his cards, he’s either supremely confident in his abilities to beat you no matter what…

Or there’s another card he’s not showing you.

Or maybe a pistol under the table he’s pointing at your balls.

“Now that I’ve found you, Massimo, I would like to make a proposition. You send out Fräulein Fioretti to me… I will escort her back to your cousin… and neither of you will be harmed.”

“No,” I said.

“I will be taking her one way or another, Massimo. I would prefer not to kill you when I do it.”

I would prefer not to kill you when I do it.

Again, that chilling slip of the cheerful mask revealing the sociopath underneath.

“No deal,” I called out.

“And you can go stick your offer up your ass,” Lucia yelled.

Zollner chuckled. “Stick my offer up my ass… well, I don’t think I’ll be doing that, but I will stay out here and let the two of you make the first move. If you change your mind, do let me know before the shooting starts. I am – unfortunately for you both – an excellent shot.

“Gute Nacht! I WOULD say schlafen Sie gut – sleep well – but I don’t think any of us will be sleeping tonight.”

After that, Zollner went silent…

And there was only the drip drip drip of the rain from the trees.