I look at Finch. He frowns.
“You all stay here,” I tell them. “The West Coasters are in the stairwell picking off guys as they come down. They want you dead, so make it hard for them.”
“You find me a gun, Morelli,” Rossi says darkly, “and we might have a chance. It sounds like those men are coming back up the stairs.”
Another guard pushes past me on his way out of the room, and I stop him, pulling his gun out of his holster. He tries to grab it back, and I give him a right hook to the jaw. That ends our little argument, and I pass the firearm to Rossi.
“You make sure Finch is safe, and I'll get your ass out of here.”
He checks the bullets with satisfaction, then looks up at me. “I never really had a problem with you two, you know. Clemenza did, though. Itwouldbe easier for him to die in there.”
“That's the thing,” I tell him. “I don'twantit to be easy for him.”
“Hm,” Rossi grunts. “You know, Morelli, if we get out of here, maybe we could do business together.”
Finch, while not taking his eyes off the stairwell door, manages to roll them.
I make my way back into the room, which is filling rapidly with smoke, and make my way fast to where I think Clemenza must be. He’s flat on his belly on the ground, but his hands are still clawing as he tries to move away from the fire behind him, which is picking up in heat and size. I have no idea where a fire extinguisher might be, and my guess is that Lombardo would have removed it anyway. Lombardo has to be in on this. He knew just when to slink out of the room.
I grab Clemenza under the armpits but he slaps me away when he realizes who it is. I crouch down next to his head.
“I can get you out of here, or I can leave you to die. It's up to you.”
He hates me, that much is true, but he hates the idea of death even more. “Help me,” he croaks at last.
That will have to do. There's no time to sit here wringing an apology out of him. The fire is climbing the walls and smoke has begun to roll across the ceiling in billowy black clouds. I turn him over and pick him up under the arms, trying to drag him to safety. He's just about a dead weight, and he screams with every jolt. His torso is covered in blood, and I'm beginning to think that most of it is his own. Even if I get him out of here, he could bleed out.
I get him out of the room finally, and he’s on the verge of passing out. Finch is staring unwaveringly at the stairwell door, and Rossi is blinking blood out of his eyes. He seems to have taken some shrapnel in the face, but the cut doesn't look that deep.
“You get me out of here, Morelli,” Clemenza gasps, “and I’ll call it quits between us.”
I ignore him, step over the insensate Alessi, and put a hand on Finch’s shoulder. It startles him, and I give him a reassuring smile.
“They’re coming up. We’re not going to get out of this,” he says, sounding calm, but I hear the fear in his voice.
“Of course we are,” I say confidently. “We’ll take the fight to them. We’ll have the higher ground in the stairwell; we can clear them out.”
“If you say so,” he says dubiously.
“You come with me, baby bird, and you stay the hell out of my line of fire. Understood?”
“Understood.”
I want to kiss him as I watch determination make his mouth firm. And hell, we probablyaregoing to die, so I grab him by the back of the neck and pull him in for a deep, soul-sharing kiss. When we break it, Rossi is resolutely staring at the stairwell door, exasperation on his face. Alessi and Clemenza have both passed out.
“You heard me, Rossi? We’re going to clean out the stairwell.”
“Might as well stay here and let the cops handle it,” he points out.
“I have no interest in being detained in Chicago. You stay; I’ll make sure none of those West Coasters get back up here to kill you.”
“Deal,” he says. “And I mean it. Back in New York, let’s do lunch.” He hands over his gun to me.
“Sure.” Bygones, and all. “Let's go,” I say to Finch, who gives a firm nod.
The constant shooting in the stairwell has stopped now, but I can hear someone moving around when I crack the door open, maybe two floors below. I slide into the stairwell, Finch behind me, and push him back against the door to keep him clear. Then I lean quickly over the railing, trying to get a sense of what's below.
“This is Don Luciano Morelli,” I shout down. My own voice echoes back at me. “I'm coming down, and I'm going to kill any man who tries to stop me.”
