Pronto (21 page)

She should be back any minute.

Raylan looked from the doorway out into the front hall to the window again and saw the dark-colored Mercedes coming from the other direction, from Montallegro, creeping along. He thought it was going to stop, but it turned in the drive and was coming toward the house now. Dark blue, like the one those guys drove.

Chapter
Twenty.

The time Robert Gee quit working for the Kuwaiti sheik they were in Cannes during the Film Festival, the sheik looking to meet movie stars. Robert Gee finally had enough of the man's shit and left him sitting in his stretch in the middle of traffic: said fuck it, got out and walked away, the sheik calling him nasty names as he joined the crowd that was causing the traffic jam, everybody wanting to see the starlet who'd taken her shirt off. It was the sheik telling him how to drive that got to him. To do what the man said Robert Gee would've had to kill people walking in the street. He looked at the rearview mirror thinking, You want to drive, raghead? But only said "Fuck it" out loud before he quit. The man was abusive: treated Asian girls working for him like slaves, liked to beat up on them. Robert Gee was afraid he might let go and deck the man sometime and end up in a Kuwaiti prison. So he'd walked away and felt good, even though it was dumb to leave without getting paid first.

This time he had money, he had Harry's Visa card, and if he walked away it would serve the man right for acting nasty to him. If it was just Harry up there in the villa he might even consider doing it, but not with Joyce and Raylan there, they never did anything to him. He didn't owe them his life, though, if it came to that. Like, tell us where they're at or we'll kill you. That kind of situation. He wasn't going to die for them. They wouldn't expect him to anyway. Raylan would know that if he wasn't back by dark, then something had happened to him and they had better move their asses out of that house quick.

Robert Gee settled all that in his mind riding down from Montallegro in the funivia, getting an aerial view of the town and then some close looks into apartment windows as the cable car neared the station. The room he rented was on this side of town. He thought of looking in to check on his umbrellas and jewelry and shit, stuff he'd bought off a Tunisian leaving the wannabuy business, going home. And then thought, Check on it for what? It was still there or it wasn't, all that junky stuff. Selling it was more something to do than a way to make a living. He sure couldn't live off the proceeds like the African dudes did, happy to have a chunk of hash to smoke and that sticky sweet tea they drank. Maybe give all the wannabuy shit away and go home, back to Houston, Texas, where all the northern people had left when the oil business went to hell and the ones that stayed were living under overpasses in cardboard boxes.

He thought of that riding across town in a taxicab, over to the Avis office on della Liberta.

Kiss his mama, hang around the house awhile and be gone before she got used to him, off across some ocean to offer his experience. He could drill to French with a German accent and field-strip Belgian FNs, Austrian Steyrs, versions of the AR15, both the Soviet and Chinese AK47s, the Valmet, the Sterling -- name an automatic weapon -- and was certain he could find a war somewhere that would accept him.

Two Avis men behind the counter, Robert Gee their only customer, and it took them close to a half hour to get a contract ready for him to sign. They said they weren't sure they had a Mercedes. Robert Gee said, what was that out front, the white one? They had to make a phone call in the office, they said to check on the credit card, Robert Gee hoping to God the man wasn't talking to who Robert Gee suspected he might be talking to. By the time he walked outside with the keys, ready to go, two guys were leaning against the car with their arms folded, trying to act cool. Robert Gee said, "Shit," as the one unfolded his arms to show the pistol he was holding and the other one said to the Avis guys, "Grazie."

Raylan stood by the front door putting his hat on, getting it to sit lightly where it felt good, down some on his right eye. He put his hand on the doorknob, still not sure if he wanted to meet them outside or in the house, and heard Joyce in that same moment call to him.

"Raylan?" From the front stairs. She was about halfway up. "A car just pulled in the yard."

Raylan nodded. "I saw it."

"You're going out?"

"I was thinking about it." He wanted her to stay calm. So far she sounded more surprised than excited. "Where's Harry?"

"He's asleep." She said, "Raylan, if we're quiet they won't know we're here."

"No, 'less they come in."

She said, "Stay with us," and it sounded like a better idea than going outside.

He watched her rear end go up the stairs ahead of him in blue jeans, a nice compact one, he had noticed before. Upstairs in the hall she said, "You were really going out there?" Still having trouble accepting it.

"Try to come up behind them," Raylan said. "I think since we're going to have words, it would be good to get a position on them. Some kind of advantage."

She stopped at an open doorway.

"Have words?"

"Show 'em they can't win."

"Or shoot them?"

"I don't know."

She said, "I have to get my gun," and went into her bedroom.

Raylan went on to Harry's room. He was stretched out on the bed with his mouth open, not exactly snoring, making a wheezing sound. Harry's pistol was on the night table next to the bed. Raylan moved to a window.

They were in the side yard, out of the Mercedes now, going toward the garage, the structure with the three heavy wooden doors, all padlocked. He watched the two guys pull on the locks and then look this way, toward the house.

Joyce came in saying, "There're fifteen shots in this?"

Making it sound like a simple question. He glanced over his shoulder at Joyce holding the Beretta he'd given her, Nicky's or Fabrizio's, inspecting it closely: a foreign object to someone who'd never fired a gun.

"Fifteen in the magazine and one in the throat, that's sixteen," Raylan said. "When it's empty the slide opens and that's it, you're done. But I doubt you'll have to shoot. Don't, okay? 'Less you have no other choice."

"How do I know when that is?"

"You see if you don't shoot you're gonna die. Then, squeeze the trigger. Don't yank on it."

"Take a breath first and let some of it out," Joyce said.

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't try to remember everything I told you. Just make sure the safety's off and hold the weapon in two hands."

Raylan turned to the window again.

"It looks like they're trying to find a rock, something they can bust those locks with and take a look in the garage. The one's the same guy that was driving the Mercedes the other day. Had on a white shirt? He's wearing a striped one today. No coat. The other one's wearing a suit coat that looks too small for him." Raylan didn't mention the guy's cut-down double-barreled shotgun. He said, "I guess you better wake Harry up," and heard her then as he looked out the window.

Her voice sounding calm as she said, "Harry? There's someone here."

Like friends come to pay a visit. Raylan half turned to look past his shoulder. He saw Harry pushing himself up, eyes wide open, Harry in a tan sweater and white socks, Joyce bent over helping him, aiming her good-looking rear end this way -- not anywhere near the size of Winona's. It was funny, the things you thought of when you'd never think you would. He watched Joyce straighten and stand with one hand on her hip, the gun in the other, like she knew she had a good-looking behind. Harry reached for his gun on the night table and Joyce told him to put his shoes on first. Raylan liked the sound of that, her voice still calm. Harry looked bewildered, maybe from the Galliano and wine and just waking up. Twice, though, he'd shot a man dead coming at him. One more than you have, Raylan thought. Harry could do it again if he had to.

But then had to ask him, "Harry, you okay?"

"I'm fine."

Raylan looked out the window and turned back to them. "They're coming toward the house." He looked again and said, "Now they're out of sight. I imagine going around back. All the doors are locked..."

He stopped as they heard the sound of glass breaking. A window, or one of the French doors.

"I was going to say, but if they want to come in, they will. Without bothering to knock."

"As soon as they look in the kitchen," Joyce said, "they'll know we're here."

"We could've left," Raylan said, "but you're right, they'll have to search the house."

Both Joyce and Harry were looking at him. Joyce said, "So what do we do?"

They came in through the library and strolled from room to room. The one with the shotgun was called Marco. Like Benno he was from Naples; he didn't think much of the north and had never been to Rapallo before. He thought the sea in the north looked different, a gray color without life in it; the food was bland and the houses were dark, the ones they had searched.

He said to Benno, "There's no one here."

But then had to change his mind when they strolled into the kitchen and saw the bottles on the table, plates in the sink. The stainless coffeemaker was unplugged. But when Benno touched it he jerked his hand away. So, if the people weren't here they had just left. Harry Arno and his people, Benno believed, because the woman in the real estate office said the villa Sr. Arno leased was on this road near Maurizio di Monti and showed them a photograph, an old one, of the place when it was a farm and this could be it. The reason they weren't entirely sure, they didn't have the photograph with them.

Benno had phoned from the car, after passing the villa twice, to say he believed he had found the right one, and was told the African had been taken, the one who drove for Harry Arno. They said to Benno wait and they would find out the location of the house and call him back. But Benno had a feeling this was the one, so they came inside.

Once they left the kitchen they no longer strolled but moved carefully now, thinking of the one in the cowboy hat and remembering Fabrizio sitting in the car with his head against the window, his eyes open, two bullet holes in him. It was Benno who said, "The one with the cowboy hat..."

Marco said, "If he's here I have something for him."

So when they came to the front hall Benno motioned to the stairway and Marco, with his double-barreled shotgun, went up ahead of him.

Joyce heard the floor creak and knew they were in the hall now approaching Harry's bedroom. The door was open so they'd look in there first. Look in and see Harry sitting in a chair waiting.

There. It was happening. One of them speaking Italian, surprised. Then silence.

"It has to be Harry sitting there," Raylan had said, "because these two have never seen him before and won't know it's Harry." They'd look in and it would stop them, hold their attention. See, Raylan said, then he'd come from across the hall -- where he and Joyce were now -- the room with the door closed, creep up behind the two guys talking to Harry, wanting to know who he was, and disarm them.

Getting their attention and holding it, Raylan had said, was the key. Otherwise, where were they going to hide?

Raylan opened the door and Joyce heard the voice again speaking Italian. Now another one, in English with an accent: the two guys talking to Harry as Raylan crossed the hall, stepping over the board that creaked. Joyce stayed close behind him, entered the room with him, and stopped as Raylan said, "Put the gun on the floor. Right now." Joyce moved to the side, holding the Beretta extended in both hands, the way he had shown her.

The one with the shotgun, the short barrel across his forearm, didn't move. The one in the striped shirt turned enough to see them pointing guns at him from about ten feet away. Raylan approached him and took the automatic the man had stuck in his waist. Raylan said to the one with the shotgun, "You hear me? Put it on the floor. Now."

He still didn't move. The one in the striped shirt said, "Marco don't speak English."

Raylan reached over with his Combat Mag, held the revolver pointed at Marco's ear and cocked it.

"He understand that?"

Marco stooped and placed the shotgun on the floor as the one in the striped shirt said, "He knows a few words."

Harry picked up the shotgun, dug his pistol out of the chair cushions, and came around past the two guys. Joyce thought he looked a little sweaty. But he was still Harry: glancing out the window at the Mercedes and saying, "I see we've got a car."

Joyce said right away, "We have to wait for Robert," and looked at Raylan.

He didn't say anything.

The one in the striped shirt said to Joyce, "You mean his driver, the African? The one brought you here from Milano? You waiting for him, you going to wait a long time."

Joyce looked at Raylan again, expecting him to say something. All he did was stare at the one in the striped shirt, who stared back at him and seemed at ease, as though he had the advantage now.

He said, "I hear on the telephone in my car, they find the African. Looking for a Mercedes, uh? Like the one I drive. So I hear they take him someplace."

Telling it in a casual way, acting almost indifferent now. It got to Joyce. She said, "What do you mean take him someplace?"