But he acted like a Great White getting challenged by a scuba diver:
He backed away as I headed straight for him.
“Hey –hey –” he said, panicked, and nearly tripped over his own feet.
As soon as I reached the alleyway, I looked over to my left.
There was another ugly-ass motherfucker by the wall. He was about my age, with close-cropped hair and a thick black beard. He wore jeans and a black hoodie –
And he was handing over a little plastic baggie of white powder to a streetwalker.
She was one of the lost causes I’d seen around the neighborhood. Track marks on her arms, dark circles under her eyes, yellow teeth with a couple missing. She was one of the women who had begged for the five grand. I knew she’d be dead within a week if I gave it to her.
She looked at me with anOh shit!expression, grabbed the bag of drugs, and ran as fast as she could down the alleyway.
The bearded guy looked over at me belligerently. “What the fuck’syourproblem?”
I kept one eye on Soccer Jersey but headed for the bearded guy. “YOU are. Who the fuck do you work for?”
The bearded guy looked past me and jerked his head likeTake care of him.
I saw Soccer Jersey approach in my peripheral vision –
And all of Lars’s training kicked in.
I crooked my arm and jerked it back –
And slammed my elbow right into Soccer Jersey’s nose.
“FUCK!” he screamed as he staggered backwards, his hands over his face as blood gushed down his chin.
“I’ll ask you again,” I snarled as I walked towards the bearded guy. “Who the fuck do you work for?”
Bearded Guy looked a little shocked by what I’d done to his lookout –
But then he got pissed and reached inside his jacket.
The instant he did, I drew from my shoulder harness.
It was like a Hollywood Western: two gunfighters on a dusty street at high noon. The kind of tough-guy movie shit I’d dreamed of when I started working for the Rosolinis.
Except that a split second later, I was pointing a pistol at his head –
And he was standing there with a switchblade.
The very definition of bringing a knife to a gunfight.
His eyes went wide with fear as he stared down the barrel of my Glock.
Pistols were not common in Italy. Gun laws were strict, and there were harsh penalties for unregistered weapons.
The guns thatdidmake their way to the street were usually pieces of shit that were more likely to jam than work correctly.
If you saw someone carrying a quality gun, you knew you weren’t dealing with a low-life nobody, but a dangerous gangster.
The bearded guy was just now realizing that.
He looked like he was about to piss his pants.
