Rogue Asset (Rogue Warrior Thrillers Book 11), page 10
After another hour, they were halfway through the courses, and it occurred to Bob that there was no way the meal was going to take any less than three hours to complete.
As if sensing his calculation, Alessandra caught his attention. “We eat properly here, Bob, a sincere gathering of family, a sharing of our lives. I can see you glancing at the clock, and I would say that while you are here, scheduling at least two to three hours for dinner and ninety minutes for lunch will hold you in good stead.”
“How anyone can stand hours with this lot of rabble is beyond me,” a man’s voice boomed from the entrance in a basso profundo growl, like an off-hours soul singer. “But my daughter has evidently decided to prove me wrong whilst simultaneously breaking my heart.”
Bob turned in his chair.
“Gah!” Don Vito spat. “Why now?” he quietly added. But he didn’t look up or stop eating, as if the interruption had disappeared as quickly as it appeared.
“Father,” Alessandra said, “we were not expecting you.”
Giacomo was short and stocky, with slicked-back black hair and a bushy mustache. His suit looked simple and reserved, Bob thought, the kind of gear he’d see back home on an Amish or Mennonite man. He had a three-man entourage with him, the man beside him looking close enough to be his son, the two behind them both man mountains.
“Because I was not invited,” he said grimly. “As usual, Vito continues to act like the dog given leftovers at the back door, who will not share with others.”
Vito did not look up from his pork marsala. Instead, he raised his voice slightly. “Alessandra, is someone talking, or did an ill wind simply blow open the front door?”
Bob had that queasy feeling the two men would be fighting all week.
“A true host invites all of the guests at his son’s wedding to all of the events,” Giacomo continued. “Unless, of course, he wishes private discussion.”
Vito slurped back some fettuccini noodles. He sniffed once and said, “Alessandra, ask the ill wind to which business it refers? As all of my dealings are well above its pitiful social standing, I am sure there will be no conflict at all. But I am curious as to what makes it bloviate like so much hot air.”
Is he really going to only talk to Giacomo through a third party? All week? Bob wondered. How was it possible the two families planned to work together when the two men at the top clearly couldn’t bear to be in the same room?
“You are not fooling anyone with this laissez-faire, uncaring attitude,” Giacomo spat. “For one, maybe I should also demand of you who this man is?” He turned and pointed directly at Bob. “My men tell me he is here working on your behalf, but he is an American. They say from what they have been able to gather so far, he has contacts with the police and federals. Why? Why would you bring such a man to such a sacred day for my daughter?”
Vito took a sip of wine, then set his glass down, still without turning to even acknowledge the other man’s presence. “Alessandra, inform the ill wind that whatever its worries are, they are its problems, not mine. My business is my business.”
Alessandra rose from her chair at that. “ENOUGH!” she barked. “Both of you… you are both ruining the most important week of my life! Father, this is Bob Singleton, a friend of Johnny’s who specializes in security. He has nothing to do with you, our family or business. He is an extra pair of eyes because of the threats. That is all.”
“Huh,” Giacomo groused.
“Don Vito, I will be proud to be called your daughter-in-law,” she said. “But your open contempt for my father hurts my soul, when your son and I are supposed to be ecstatically happy. I implore you, as a personal favor to me, please try to get along. Please.”
The young man next to Giacomo had a wispy beard and broad shoulders, perhaps an inch taller. He nodded his head towards Alessandra. “Why do you take this son of a bitch’s side? What kind of daughter—”
Giacomo waved a thick-wristed hand in front of the man and shushed him. “Roberto, be kind to your sister in her big week. Think, boy!” Then he turned back to Vito. “But the question stands: what makes this one so special?”
Roberto looked high, Bob thought, the repeated sniffing and red nostrils suggesting he’d done a little cocaine before attending. He was shuffling in place, eager to ignore instructions. “Maybe I take him outside, show him how we can take care of our business, eh?” He nodded towards Bob. “What do you think, American? You got any balls in those trousers, or did Giovanni already cut them off?”
Bob laid his left hand on his own chest. “Me? From one Bob to another… I’m just here for the great food and some good company.”
“Heh.” Vito chuckled.
Roberto wasn’t satisfied. If anything, the rejection fueled his mania. “You think that’s funny, to call me by your name? You think you’re a funny man, eh? Well, why don’t we go out behind this place, and I show you how fucking funny you are, funny man. Maybe after I beat your ass, you go back to America and tell everyone not to laugh when it is impolite, eh?”
“Not interested,” Bob said. He gestured to the table. “There’s a hell of a meal on the table, though. I’m sure we could squeeze in two more, this table’s so long.”
“Ptth!” Roberto spat. This time, he gestured at Don Vito. “You hire a coward, old man, someone not fit—”
Vito rose suddenly, his napkin hurled at the table. “YOU WILL NOT SPEAK DIRECTLY TO ME, YOU COMPLETE PIECE OF SHIT!” Then he took in a deep breath to curb his rage. “Giacomo, put your arse-sniffing dog to heel NOW before I cut his fucking nose off!”
Around the room, the other men were getting nervous, eyes darting from person to person as everyone tried to figure out who was or wasn’t on-side, hands beginning to hover near holster bulges.
Ah, shit, Bob thought. This could all go sideways really quickly.
As if sensing how close to the edge they were, Giacomo took a literal half-step backwards. “Roberto, shut up. I have not asked for your advice, and I do not wish to make an example of my youngest child this week.”
“But, Papa—”
Giacomo didn’t add a word. He took a quarter turn and stared into his son’s face, unblinking and largely expressionless.
Roberto shut up.
Giacomo turned back to Vito. The need to save face radiated off him. “Maybe my son touches a sore point for you, yeah? Maybe you also think my daughter’s points foolish. Maybe we should see how capable this American is.”
Vito could sense the underlying challenge. He wasn’t going to shrink from it, Bob knew. “What do you propose?”
Giacomo turned his head. “Goran,” he said simply.
The man who stepped forward must’ve been six feet five, pushing two hundred and fifty-plus pounds, Bob estimated. He had a long, square chin, thick cheekbones, dark inset eyes and a buzz cut.
Big dude. If he has an ounce of fat on him, it’s hidden behind his ears or something.
“Yeah, boss?”
“Goran was a boxer when younger, in Serbia,” he said. “If he knocks your man down, we end this farce and get rid of him, yes?”
Bob wondered whether “get rid of him” meant sending him home or something more immediate. Buy the ticket; take the ride, I guess.
Vito sighed. The men in the room looked fascinated, temperatures high, bloodlust suggesting a fight might satisfy some base need. “Bob… you have any objection to a fistfight with this man? You do not work for me, after all. I cannot command it.”
Bob shrugged. “Not my favorite way to spend a Tuesday night. But if it’ll make everyone behave civilly to each other, it’s fine with me.”
Goran grinned at that.
He clearly liked his chances.
16
They took the matter out behind the restaurant, to a cobbled twenty-by-thirty-foot courtyard, the kind of place that in the modern world would have been a gathering spot for smokers. Windows looked down on it from the surrounding buildings, but that didn’t seem to bother the locals, Bob noted.
Roberto and another man dragged the two picnic benches with their Peroni umbrellas out of the way.
The other men formed a circle around the clearing. Goran stepped into it and dropped into… something. His hands were high, but not high enough. His body was completely square, as if his only interest was trading blows toe-to-toe. As soon as Bob saw what passed for his fighting stance, he stopped worrying.
He squared up to the man and raised his guard. “You sure you want to do this, big guy? I’ve got a feeling I have a little more experience than you’re accustomed to, so—”
“Just shut up and get ready for beating,” the Serb snapped. He shuffled forward. Bob gauged the man’s footwork, the too-short spread between each foot that would affect his balance when turning or trying to circle.
The Serb threw a jab. Surprisingly quick for his size, Bob thought as he let it bang off his forearms. He threw another, then another, both guarded off.
“Come on, hit me!” Goran demanded. He measured Bob with another short jab, trying to load up a big right hand at the same time. Bob saw him begin to cock it even as the jab bounced off his right forearm. He swung the left hook from his shoulder, without repeating the man’s mistake – the same mistake he’d taught a group of bored teenagers to avoid just days earlier.
His fist crashed into the side of Goran’s jaw, just missing the mental nerve but knocking teeth loose.
The Serbian stumbled sideways. He leaned over slightly and spat pieces of molar and blood. “U picku materinu!” he raged. He ran at Bob, trying to throw a big overhand right using his momentum. Bob stepped adroitly to one side, the punch whistling past. Bob waited until the Serb’s right shoulder had passed his face, then reached out gently and pushed him over. The big man fell face-first to the cobblestones.
Now he was really angry. He picked himself up, screaming epithets in Serbian, charging at Bob in the hope of overwhelming him physically. He reached out, but Bob stepped between the arms, keeping his body profile side-turned and narrow, throwing the left jab from his shoulder, connecting once, twice, three times in rapid succession, squared knuckles smacking against skin, smashing the Serb’s nose, fattening his lip, the third punch finding him square on the button.
His legs turned to rubber, and he collapsed onto his backside as Bob danced away. He tried to recover, but was dazed, his legs not co-operating.
“Just… sit for a minute,” Bob cautioned, bouncing in place, staying on the balls of his feet in case the man recovered more quickly than expected. “Even if you make it right back up, you won’t have enough leg strength to take any more, and I’ll just knock you down again.”
But the big man wasn’t having that. He used both palms to push himself up to his knees first, then his feet. He looked unsteady, like his inner-ear balance was off slightly.
Bob looked over at Giacomo. “Really? Does this have to continue, or have I made my point?”
“He ain’t out yet,” Giacomo replied in English. “You ain’t won nothing yet, American.”
“Okay then,” Bob said, hoping he’d put enough resignation into it to make it clear he wasn’t enjoying embarrassing the man.
Goran shook his head like a pup trying to dry off, some of the mental cobwebs driven loose. He shuffled forward, more cautious, this time in a proper side-on stance, his left foot leading, his eyes watering from the other punches. He kept both his hands high, his head bobbing behind them as he approached, looking for an opening.
But his guard’s all wrong, too low. His right hand was fully beneath his chin line, either careless or arrogantly assuming he could raise it in that split second. At least his arms are in tight now. Wait a second… is this what coaching children has done to me? I’m critiquing this dude even as I beat his unfortunate ass?
Goran threw two quick jabs, Bob’s guard absorbing both, the quick, short right cross follow-up properly thrown from in close. It slipped by Bob’s forearm, but he moved his head in time, the punch grazing the outside of his neck.
Nevertheless, the big Serb got excited at the prospect. “See? You are not so perfect fighter. Anyone can hit any—”
Bob snapped a quick jab, catching the Serb in the bridge of the nose again, the bone snapping, a streak of red blood spraying sideways. Goran tried to raise his guard, but Bob slipped under it with a short uppercut, the force enough to make his opponent stumble a half-step backwards. Bob threw the rear right hook from his hip, timing it absolutely perfectly, adrenaline kicking him into the zone, their movements seeming to slow right down so that his fist met Goran’s chin perfectly square, the mental nerve utterly crushed, Goran’s head snapping a half turn down and around, spittle and blood flying from the corner of his mouth in a torrent.
The big man stumbled backwards two steps, in time with his knees folding, took a quarter turn in confusion, then collapsed flat onto his back. Bob saw the fall coming and leaped forward, sticking out his right shoe to catch Goran’s head before it smacked against the ground.
The crowd began to murmur.
Vito leaned into the “ring.” “That was generous,” he said. “You could have let him hit the stone, and I don’t think no one would complain.”
Two of Goran’s colleagues crouched beside him, trying to revive him.
Giacomo ambled over. He looked embarrassed. “Why you do that at the end? Why you cradle his head like that with your foot? Let him fall, like a man. Maybe he gets a bump, so what?”
Bob shrugged. “Every year in America, people die in consensual fights from hitting the ground with their head. It’s not the fight that kills them, it’s the impact on an extremely hard surface from six-plus feet. He can’t beat me, but I didn’t get the sense you wanted him dead.”
Alessandra’s father seemed to like that. For the first time since arriving in a huff, he nodded a few times in approval, rubbing his white chin stubble with a free hand. “Okay. So if I say let him fall…”
“I’d have caught his head with my foot… I work for your daughter, not you. And” – he leaned around the man to be sure he could see Don Vito’s face – “I don’t work for you, either. I don’t work for either of you. I’m here employed by Alessandra.”
She beamed at that. “And I am very glad you did. I have known Goran since he was eighteen years old. I would rather he not die in a sleazy fistfight the week of my wedding.” She glared at her father and Don Vito. “Something both of you would perhaps consider the next time you decide to show each other how tough you are.”
Bob moved over to the two colleagues and offered them a hand getting Goran up. Bob stretched a hand out, and the big man took it. Bob leaned backwards, using his weight to pull him to his feet. “You all right?”
Goran looked embarrassed, averting his gaze. But he mumbled, “I am okay. You ring my bell a little, is all.” He held his hand up to his nose, which was still bleeding. “Broke my nose again. Is third time.”
“You’re out of practice,” Bob said, offering him an out. “But I could see the skill in the combo you tagged me with. You could have been a good fighter.”
Goran sighed a little, and his expression said he knew he was being flattered. “You are twice my age, and you knock me down easy. You ARE good fighter. Someday maybe you explain me that.”
“Perhaps,” Bob said.
“In the meantime,” Don Vito interrupted, “we have many desserts yet and more wine, and it is” – he checked his platinum Rolex – “only eleven o’clock. Early! Come! We go back inside and have good time instead of fighting. Someone get Goran a bandage and a trip to Doc Mocenigo.” Then he turned directly to Giacomo instead of Alessandra. “Yes?”
“Sure,” Giacomo said. “We go relax.”
But he didn’t look that relaxed, Bob figured. He looked like a man who knew he’d just lost something and would eventually want it back.
17
The fifteen-foot floor-to-ceiling windows in Corrado Caruso’s townhouse suite gave him a stunning view of Padova. Standing in front of them, in a rare moment of silence, he felt unburdened.
It lasted all of two minutes.
His earpiece buzzed. “Go ahead.”
“Sir, your brother is here.”
“Send him up.”
Caruso knew he was an intimidating man. The head of the Padova SCO was stocky and pugnacious, five feet seven inches tall with broad shoulders and python-thick arms, a barrel chest. He knew he looked the part, too, because his nose had been broken repeatedly and was permanently crooked, the first thing people noticed other than his icy, pale blue eyes. His chin looked like it had been cut from a slab of square granite, his pale gray suit immaculate, his shirt open at the neck, his stoic gaze betraying nothing.
On this day, he knew, the object of his antipathy would not be intimidated. His brother was far too privileged, annoying and self-centered to wither in his presence.
He heard the door open on the other side of the room, forty feet away.
“Brother.”
He turned. Raffi was slovenly dressed, as usual, in jeans and a T-shirt, his sunglasses hanging from its front, his wavy hair collar length. He was rakishly skinny despite his terrible diet, something Corrado had always envied. “You weren’t working tonight?” Caruso asked.
“Yeah, I told you earlier I was going to the bordello… Vanya’s sleazy casino in Tencarola.”
“But you are dressed like an American tourist, not a workingman.”
Raffi’s posture shifted to a sullen slump. “Do we have to do this again?”
As good a time to tell him as any. “Not so often, no. That’s why I asked you to come over.”
Raffi folded his arms. There must’ve been something in his tone to put the younger man on edge, Caruso knew. “What? What now?”
“I’m stripping you of your position as a boss,” Caruso said. “I know about your gambling debts, the stupid payments you’ve been making to that sleazy pimp to avoid word getting out.”
