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Cymbeline
When I arrived in town, an unfamiliar car was parked in the lot behind the doctor's office. My heart skipped a beat when I saw the inhabitants. Rossi and Chetta lounged in the front seat as if they were on a Sunday drive and had stopped to eat a sandwich.
With shaking legs, I got out of my own car, determined to confront them. It was the perfect opportunity to set their trap. I came to a halt beside the car. My heart beat as fast as a hummingbird's wings. I prayed for my angels. Protect me and give me courage.
Rossi turned his head. When he saw it was me, one eyebrow shot up over his button-like eye. He stepped out of the car and leaned his backside against the door. “Well, if it isn’t the enchanting sister.”
I shivered under my coat and felt the immediate need to wash my hands. “Good afternoon, Mr. Rossi.”
Chetta had lumbered out of the other side and come around to stand next to Rossi. The man was like a tree. Not many men were wider or taller than the Olofsson boys, but this Chetta had them beat.
“You here to see your brother?” Rossi said. “We hear he got shot. Almost didn’t make it.”
“You know very well he was shot since it was you who did it.” My voice was remarkably calm. Fortunately, he couldn’t see how my legs trembled under my dress.
Rossi put a hand over his chest, as if I’d hurt his feelings. “Whatever makes you think it was us?”
“What do you want?” I asked.
“We made it clear to your brother how this was going to work. It’s simple.” Rossi smiled, revealing remarkably straight white teeth for a mobster. Not that I’d seen a mobster before now. Maybe they all had white teeth? His smile didn’t change the glittery danger that emanated from his dark eyes.
“My brother may not have wanted to do business with you,” I said, thinking fast. “But our family disagrees. We have a proposition for you.”
“We make the propositions. Not your family.” Chetta spoke for the first time. His voice was so low he could have been cousins with a grizzly.
Stay polite, I told myself. “Proposition may have been the wrong word.” Never in my life had a I used my womanly charms to get what I wanted. I was starting to regret that decision because right now I could use a little charm, and I had nothing from which to conjure anything close. “We’re prepared to give you all the inventory and our word we’ll not make or distribute more. In exchange, we’d like you to take it and leave us be. This town doesn’t want any trouble with you or whomever you work for.”
Chetta spat out a wad of tobacco onto a snowdrift. I pushed back a wave of nausea. The scent of their hair tonic mixed with stale cigarette smoke made me feel even sicker.
“That won’t work for us, I’m afraid,” Rossi said.
“You can take the equipment too,” I said. “Whatever you want is yours.”
“Who are you to be making these offers?” Rossi said. “You’re nothing but a girl. What if your brother won’t abide by our agreement?”
“He will,” I said. “Almost dying has a way of changing a man’s mind.”
“Boss won’t like it,” Chetta said. “He wants it all.”
Rossi nodded. “Yeah, here’s the thing, miss. We don’t make the decisions. There’s someone we answer to, and he wants the factory.”
“But why? We’re between mountains. It’s impossible to get here.”
“Not anymore,” Rossi said.
“This is a family community,” I said. “Can’t you just take what you want and go?”
“What we want is your brother’s operation. We ain’t seen nothing like it anywhere,” Chetta said.
“But think about how hard it’ll be to get all of it out of here in the dead of winter. The roads are terrible.”
The men exchanged a glance. That told me something. They agreed with me. It was whomever they worked for that did not.
“What’s so special about Flynn’s way of doing it?” I asked.
“His brew’s better than any we’ve found. It passes for the good stuff we had before Prohibition,” Rossi said. “The man we work for wants it for himself.”
All right, I told myself. He’s made himself clear. That made the decision. We would have to do this with our guns and pitchforks.
“I’ll give your message to my father,” I said. “There’s a dance tonight at the schoolhouse. Meet him around eight tonight and he’ll give you the keys. We don’t want further trouble.”
“Who made you in charge of your family’s business?” Rossi glared at me with a mixture of irritation and admiration.
“I’m not in charge, but I can assure you we all want the same thing, and that’s for you to not hurt any of the rest of us.” I glared back at him, hoping to God I appeared a lot braver than my shaking legs indicated. “Please, gentlemen, we’re God-fearing people. Family people. Flynn’s wife’s having a baby as we speak.”
“All he had to do was hand over the keys in the first place,” Rossi said in a tone that implied this was actually our fault.
“You tell your dandy of a pop to meet us there at eight and no one else gets hurt.” Rossi reached into the inside of his coat and came out with a pack of cigarettes. He took one out and dangled it in front of him. Chetta scrambled for his lighter.
The end of the cigarette flamed red. After taking a drag and letting it out slowly, Rossi pointed at me with his chin. “You ever thought about a job? A way out of here?”
“I don’t want out of here.” What was he talking about?
“A brave girl like you—we could use you in our line of work,” Rossi said.
“A pretty girl gets what she wants,” Chetta said. “Sometimes, anyway.”
“What exactly is this work you do?” I asked. “Terrorize decent people? Kill a man in front of his family?”
“He’s not dead,” Chetta said.
“Not for want of trying,” I said.
“We had to send a message.” Rossi lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Nothing personal.”
“Will you bring people with you to work at the distillery?” I asked.
“Depends,” Rossi said.
“What about the trucks? Will they destroy our roads and our forests?” I asked.
