Page 34 of Theta

"Oh, just that Story and I…we're not exactly strangers to guns."

Enzo nods, his expression grave. "Sì, sì, sì. I see this. You kill those three men so fast—boom-boom-boom! Each one in the head, just here." He touches his third eye. "I cannot do this so good as you."

Killian glances at me over his shoulder, and then sniffs a soft laugh. "Enzo, when it comes to that, it's her you gotta worry about."

"Veramente?" He looks at me in the rearview mirror as he navigates slowly away from the neighborhood where the flat is—I hear sirens in that direction. Not such a fast response, after all. "You are dress like a dottore?"

"I'm a nurse," I answer. "ER nurse."

"ER? What is this?"

"Emergency room."

"Oh, sì, il pronto soccorso." He glances at me again. "You save life. But he say you are more better than him at the shooting?"

I roll a shoulder and shake my head. "I don't know about that. I know my way around guns, yes, but let's just hope we don't have to find out how good I am."

"Let us hope, but I do not hold my breath. Pugli does not give up so easily, and you, he wants."

"How do you know Pugli?" I ask. "And how do you know what he wants?"

He doesn't answer right away; the windshield wipers go squee-thump, squee-thump, squee-thump while he thinks about how to answer.

Eventually, Enzo rakes a hand back through his hair, down through his beard, and then wipes his forehead and eyes with the heel of his palm before scrubbing his hand dry on his jeans. "I make a mistake. Listen, okay? I say to you the truth. I am un criminale, okay? I want to be an actor when I am young, so I move to Rome. The big city. Immediately, all is wrong. No work, nowhere to live, nothing to eat, and no one to care about me. I am proud, hey? I do not go back to my mama and my papa for help. I steal from the wrong man. But instead of killing me, he make me work. I drive a car for him. To this place, to that place. He goes in, he comes out with money, or sometimes with the fist all bloody. And then he has me go to the airport and bring some package to him. It is drugs, sì? It is so obvious, but he pays me very well, and I am a young man who likes the girls and the clubs and the drinking."

He pauses at a four-way intersection, scratching his jaw as he considers the options. "Where to go, where to go, where to go? Hmmm. We are on an island, you know."

"Wait, what?" Killian asks.

"Oh, you do not know this?" He tips his head to one side. "Si, this is Sardinia. We have to get to the mainland, or we will be found by the Carabinieri, or by Pugli's men."

"You didn't explain how you got into bed with Pugli, though," I point out.

"Into bed? No, I am not—"

I cut in over him. "No, I just meant in business with."

"Oh, yes, I see. Well, it is pretty simple. I spend my life doing boring and safe but illegal things. Drive a man to this place, pick up that package. I carry a gun, okay, but I am not shooting anyone. I do not beat up the people. I drive a car and I stand by doorways at meetings and look like a scary man. Only one time am I hurting anyone, and it is how I am here." He makes a decision. "We go this way. I know a place. We can wait for this rain to end and then find a boat to the mainland."

He makes the turn and then settles back behind the wheel, tugging open the glove box, removing a pack of cigarettes, and lighting one. He cracks his window, letting in the occasional spit of rain, smoke sucking out through the gap.

"Pugli, that fucking bastard pezzo di merda. My god, I hate him. My boss, he is a little fish, heh? In the world of…what is the word? Organizzata. Criminalità organizzata. Organized, yes. Organized crime. In this world, my boss is one of the little fishes who only swims in the shallow places."

"Minnows," Killian supplies.

"Si, sì, as you say. The minnows, he is this minnow. He is no one. So when his bosses do work for Pugli, I must do work for Pugli. And mostly, it is all the same as I am doing. Drive and look big. Is easy and I need the money. I have a daughter and her mama, she dies of a sickness. But…" he sighs. "One day, only just one year ago, my boss say to me, Enzo, you go to Croatia, you meet this driver at this place, and you drive back the truck. I am doing this before. A small truck, you say them a lorry, sì? I can drive these. I have done this. I go somewhere and drive it back for my boss."

He opens his window wider, hawks, and spits out, then rolls it back up to an inch-wide crack; the smoke, as he blows it, billows around the window in an acrid gray fog that stinks up the car before being sucked out.

"This time is different. I do not know why, at first. I…" he frowns, shrugging, and then taps his belly. "I feel it here. Si? You know this thing? You feel something is bad, but you cannot see why. I feel this. Something is bad. There are more soldiers. They stand by the door of the lorry and do not let me look in. No, they tell me. No looking. You look, you die."

"You looked," Killian guesses.

"Ah sì, sì, I look. I cannot stop myself, heh? If you see a large red button who say to you, do not push, what you gonna do? You gonna push! These bastardos, they say do not look. Of course I am gonna look. So I drive away, and I stop to pisciare. I look."

"People?" I ask.

He nods heavily. "Sì. Women. No, no—not women. Ragazze. Girls. So young. If you are in the lorry, Signorina Story, you are the old one. Little. Young. Scared. No light, no food, no water, no nothing. All push in together, like the—the arogosta in a cage." He drives with his knee for a second and mimes pincers with his hands. "You know the arogosta? In the fish tank. All together. On top, underneath. Rubber bands to stop the biting hands.” More clicking pincer-hands.