[UNKNOWN]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_00]: The American, chapter forty-eight, a short-hand missile tail by Matthew C. McLean. [SPEAKER_00]: The trouble with idiots, part three. [SPEAKER_00]: To allow Thump from upstairs faded into smaller phantom noises, I lowered my eyes back to my own nest. [SPEAKER_00]: You live alone? [SPEAKER_00]: He grinned, roofful and honest, knowing that the noise already told me the answer.
[SPEAKER_00]: I walked over to him, putting my bulk close enough that I could make a grab if he tried to run or hobble away, as the case may be, is Lanzo upstairs. [SPEAKER_00]: Murrow lit the cigarette before answering. [SPEAKER_00]: I sure assigned he was buying time. [SPEAKER_00]: Rather than wait to that, I moved him aside and tent on the garage's back entrance. [SPEAKER_00]: It was the only exit I couldn't see.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to strike a balance between quick and quiet, but found myself halted by Maro's hand on my elbow. [SPEAKER_00]: While the rest of him might be a creaking mess, his hand was like iron. [SPEAKER_00]: Grasping me by the crook of my arm hard enough to cause pain, even through the trench coat. [SPEAKER_00]: Where do you sink y'all going? [SPEAKER_00]: Maro tried to keep the smile on his face. [SPEAKER_00]: Another indication he was now engaged in the delaying action.
[SPEAKER_00]: With more effort than I'd like to admit, I shook Moro off and dash for the garage's back door. [SPEAKER_00]: I pulled it open to see a short haul with a set of stairs going up to the second floor with a rear exit beyond that. [SPEAKER_00]: Only feet from the back door was Lanzo, leather jacket hastily pulled over a white shirt holding his boots in his hands. [SPEAKER_00]: Surprise, dendifraid, his eyes bulged so that I thought they might pop out past the shovel of his nose.
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew I should become. [SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to become, but when the mero's laying hands on me and the surprise effort it took to break free, I found my breathing slightly accelerated, steaming through my nose like a cartoon ball. [SPEAKER_00]: I began to say, I just want to talk or wait. [SPEAKER_00]: Something equally useless. [SPEAKER_00]: Lanzo saw my whole came frame though, and I probably looked a lot like the first time we met with no gas bar there to restrain me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it shouldn't have surprised me that he ran. [SPEAKER_00]: It did, but it shouldn't have. [SPEAKER_00]: Bare feet or no, Lanzo bolted to the back door, leaving it swinging in his wake. [SPEAKER_00]: I wasted a second with a curse and tore after him. [SPEAKER_00]: While the alleys of Old Town might have been neat and narrow, the alley behind the scooter shop was just narrow.
[SPEAKER_00]: The concrete was pitted in the backs of the shops that made its walls were piled high with an impossibly varied amount of junk that had all of the orderliness of a caber tossing contest. [SPEAKER_00]: I jumped over, pushed past anything between me and Lanzo, including the boxes and cansy through back me. [SPEAKER_00]: I do it. [SPEAKER_00]: I do admire the jelly, but as bare feet were just too much of a disadvantage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even shoeless he was managing to gain his lead until he turned a corner and I heard a yell. [SPEAKER_00]: I followed stopping to see him on the ground, it doesn't yards beyond the turn, clutching his foot. [SPEAKER_00]: I kept my distance catching my breath, moving to hold my hands up in what I hoped would be a gesture of peace. [SPEAKER_00]: My hands went up higher when ones up pulled out the revolver. [SPEAKER_00]: And pain as he was, he released his foot to whip out the pistol.
[SPEAKER_00]: He aimed at my general direction if not reliably at me. [SPEAKER_00]: The unsteadiness of his hand didn't reassure me though, as the bore of the barrel was white enough to hold its own special darkness. [SPEAKER_00]: Hey now, where the words I managed to get out with the course again pointing his pistol at me. [SPEAKER_00]: When there wasn't the roar of gunpowder I continued, you don't want to pull that trigger.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're close enough to the station that if you do, the gerendom will come running. [SPEAKER_00]: The revolver was big enough that I wasn't sure how Lanzo had headed till then. [SPEAKER_00]: It looked old, probably from a police unit before they switched to semi-automatics, but it was clean of rust or any other sign that it might not be reliable.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever Lanzo had stepped on caused his foot to start bleeding, despite that a maneuvered to stand while studying his aim at me. [SPEAKER_00]: behind the barrel as I held the indecision of a man who wasn't accustomed to having the upper hand. [SPEAKER_00]: I just tried to keep his gaze and not stare at the muzzle of the pistol. [SPEAKER_00]: Eventually he waved it at me, gesturing for me to stay where I was. [SPEAKER_00]: I just nodded and did what he told me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lanzo grimaced and picked up his boots in one hand. [SPEAKER_00]: Hand still in the air, I bent one at the wrist to point at his foot. [SPEAKER_00]: I can help with that. [SPEAKER_00]: He growled to me to shut up and glance down the alley. [SPEAKER_00]: His eyes flittered around all of his different options. [SPEAKER_00]: None of them good, but one of them having to be chosen.
[SPEAKER_00]: After several moments in which he struggled to stay on his feet while keeping the revolver level, he settled down the direction he had been heading before his injury. [SPEAKER_00]: He waved the pistol at me again, causing both my heart rate and hands to go further. [SPEAKER_00]: With the barrel, he indicated me, then the ground. [SPEAKER_00]: Get on your knees. [SPEAKER_00]: I did as he said, moving slowly.
[SPEAKER_00]: After I settled, the lungs have began to move away from me into God knows where. [SPEAKER_00]: Use Stizzza? [SPEAKER_00]: A part of me was grateful, he wasn't stupid enough to pull the trigger. [SPEAKER_00]: But the rest, the bigger part, was just watching him slip away. [SPEAKER_00]: I had no idea how I was going to find him again. [SPEAKER_00]: On one willing to let him escape, I said the only thing that I thought might stop him without earning a bullet in return.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know your friends want to kidnap her, right? [SPEAKER_00]: That stopped him. [SPEAKER_00]: But it turned to me an angry glare that made me think I had miscalculated that I was going to die in that narrow alley. [SPEAKER_00]: And a small alley in a country no bigger than Texas. [SPEAKER_00]: I breathe deep into that. [SPEAKER_00]: He only replied with a denial. [SPEAKER_00]: I do not know what you are talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: The girl, Nika, your friends, Max, the Algerian, and the fat one, they want a kidnapper, ransom or back to midnight. [SPEAKER_00]: I thought about it for a moment and inexplicably added the beard. [SPEAKER_00]: The Russian, he's from Belarus. [SPEAKER_00]: Not a great time to issue a correction, but for some reason I couldn't help myself. [SPEAKER_00]: Lanzo spit out the next rush of words, cruising in a language I didn't understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: He concluded with a predictable, you're lying. [SPEAKER_00]: I found myself almost saying, no, he's really from Belarus, but I decided against it. [SPEAKER_00]: Instead I went with, hey, I get it. [SPEAKER_00]: Max and the other idiots, they're your boys. [SPEAKER_00]: I found myself slipping into American slang, hoping I might play Kate Lanzo as it did some Frenchmen that I worked with.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to remember he was Corsican though, a different beast and one I wasn't familiar with. [SPEAKER_00]: And they told you that they just want to help you rescue her right. [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know if Max had gotten around to telling Lanzo that particular lie, but judging by the quick darting of his eyes, I'd hit somewhere near the truth. [SPEAKER_00]: But why would they do that? [SPEAKER_00]: Other than earning a death sentence, what would helping you rescue her get them?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that a half protection from Satre? [SPEAKER_00]: Even as long as it was said, I could tell he had his doubts. [SPEAKER_00]: They have protection from soundtrack because I got it for them. [SPEAKER_00]: Max told you that. [SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't sure where I was on the map of Max's falsehoods, but he jancer from Lanzo gave me a little more to work with. [SPEAKER_00]: Gagnier, with that dismissal of Lanzo, remember the pistol and leveled its drifting barrel at me.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, bullshit, I replied calmly and quickly, the images of every man I'd ever seen bleed out running through my mind. [SPEAKER_00]: You know I work at the casino. [SPEAKER_00]: Satray owns the casino. [SPEAKER_00]: I work for Satray. [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't usually work in cellulagesms, but I thought I was doing a pretty good job given the circumstances. [SPEAKER_00]: You protected Mitnick.
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't blame Lanzo for thinking my shakedown of him in the holding, so I'd been to protect Mitnick, even if it was wrong. [SPEAKER_00]: Only because you fucked with him in the casino, I replied. [SPEAKER_00]: How stupid that had been flew in the statement. [SPEAKER_00]: If you had waited a day, Satchari would have done it for you. [SPEAKER_00]: I added indicating the altercation between the crime bosses, knowing Lanzo must have heard of it by now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Satchari doesn't want ransom money. [SPEAKER_00]: McNick is trying to muscle in on his territory. [SPEAKER_00]: Satchari just wants to fuck with him. [SPEAKER_00]: The girl, Nika, she's important to McNick, so Satchari sent me here. [SPEAKER_00]: But your friends, they don't want her free. [SPEAKER_00]: They want money. [SPEAKER_00]: If you're your enough money and eventually you'll forgive them for whatever happens to Nika.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lons of blinked sweat out of his eyes, but rather than issuing another denial he asked, why do you cut her? [SPEAKER_00]: I felt my hands lower under the weight of the question. [SPEAKER_00]: How is I to explain the strange obsessions that had led me to this place? [SPEAKER_00]: That the men who ruled over Lonso and Nika's tiny lives weren't any different than the other monsters I'd seen walking mirrors.
[SPEAKER_00]: that maybe they deserve something more to be bargaining chips between men who would never have enough to satisfy them. [SPEAKER_00]: That if I shook this town hard enough, maybe it blew up like a bottle of nature glycerine. [SPEAKER_00]: Instead of trying to explain any of that, I replied, I know what it's like to be in love. [SPEAKER_00]: What I didn't say was twice, in fact, which made me half as lucky as most.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lanzo shifted his weight in a way that maybe worried he was going to buckle, but he only lowered the pistol a bit and wondered at me. [SPEAKER_00]: After a few moments he asks an exploratory, what would you have us do? [SPEAKER_00]: And still up I held them forward in treatment. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's go talk to them. [SPEAKER_00]: Your boy is max in the rest. [SPEAKER_00]: They already approached me about Nika so that you'll see they know me.
[SPEAKER_00]: You and me, we pretend that we've already talked about the ransom and you're okay with it. [SPEAKER_00]: I pointed at Lanzo. [SPEAKER_00]: You'll hear from them what they planned all along. [SPEAKER_00]: And when we learn you are wrong. [SPEAKER_00]: Then I fix up your foot and I go the fuck home. [SPEAKER_00]: Londo, I'd let the pistol drift entirely away from me, so I risked. [SPEAKER_00]: But you've got to ask yourself what you're going to do when you learn that I'm right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Londo's expression froze into an angry glare, making me wonder if he had his own suspicions about his friends all along. [SPEAKER_00]: He just stood down the alley with a pistol indicating the direction he'd been going. [SPEAKER_00]: You go first. [SPEAKER_00]: Sure, I nodded. [SPEAKER_00]: I headed that way, not looking back. [SPEAKER_00]: I listened to the lawns of limp long though, trying to keep an ear open for the sound of a pistol being cocked.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not entirely certain you wouldn't change his mind about shooting me. [SPEAKER_00]: It was a short distance where the alley led out, opening up to a perpendicular cobblestone street. [SPEAKER_00]: I stopped hearing lines so I continued to walk for a few steps beyond that. [SPEAKER_00]: I sure sawing that the pain of his foot was distracting him. [SPEAKER_00]: I rotated slightly so Lanzo could see both my face and the street ahead.
[SPEAKER_00]: I pointed pistol that he still held in his hand. [SPEAKER_00]: You're not going to keep that out the entire time, are you? [SPEAKER_00]: I flew my finger back and forth indicating the weapon and the public thoroughfare. [SPEAKER_00]: I was glad to see that Lanzo wasn't leaving an overtly bloody trail of footboats behind. [SPEAKER_00]: but he still seemed paler than before. [SPEAKER_00]: His dog had expression broke with a relief at seeing the cobblestones on the road.
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't smile, but slipped the revolver into his jacket, tucking it into the back of his waistband. [SPEAKER_00]: Next, my eyes dropped to his still bare feet. [SPEAKER_00]: I stared down as foot long enough to make sure he saw what I was looking at the nest. [SPEAKER_00]: You sure you don't want to cab or something? [SPEAKER_00]: You shook his head. [SPEAKER_00]: I knew that our current wounded pace would take a very long time to get anywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: With that in mind, I sat down on a nearby stoop and took off one of my own shoes. [SPEAKER_00]: Lons of darted is eyes between the street and the alley, uncertain of what I was doing and uncomfortable with my odd behavior. [SPEAKER_00]: I ignored him and removed a sock and held it out to him. [SPEAKER_00]: Stunch the bleeding. [SPEAKER_00]: I waved a sock at his foot, then put your boots on. [SPEAKER_00]: He glared at the sock as if, finally, my dastardly plan had come to fruition.
[SPEAKER_00]: Feeling tired as the adrenaline and nearly being shot drained away, I just waved the fabric at him some more and added, it's that or I carry you. [SPEAKER_00]: Lons was snorted, but snatched the sock, and set down on the stoop several feet away from me. [SPEAKER_00]: I stood and used my whip to block the view of anyone who might be curious about what this unlikely pair was doing out on a beautiful Mediterranean day.
[SPEAKER_00]: While we weren't doing anything illegal, I preferred not to have anyone notice the blood or give any reason to remember us. [SPEAKER_00]: Lons wrapped the fabric around his foot and put on his boot. [SPEAKER_00]: I nodded and courageously, and stepped out of the alley. [SPEAKER_00]: The stones, the road, had been laid long before the fast cars that sometimes used them or made. [SPEAKER_00]: So, like any good boy scout, I glanced up and down the street.
[SPEAKER_00]: Satisfied there wasn't anything, vehicular or otherwise. [SPEAKER_00]: That might be as a prize. [SPEAKER_00]: I stepped out and waited for Lanzo. [SPEAKER_00]: Keeping as much distance as the narrow street would allow, he hopped up next to me and performed the same perfunctory scanning of our environment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Confident that I hadn't laid out some elaborate ambush for him indicated direction with a hand that I was relieved didn't still have the revolver in it He was limping, but we made better time than we were before Eventually we walked down the street side by side as if we weren't strangers [SPEAKER_00]: I was glad to see when we weren't headed back in the direction of renewable station, but I wasn't sure of anything beyond that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were definitely headed towards the river and away from whatever vestiges of civilization that the fringe neighborhood contained. [SPEAKER_00]: I kept moving, slowing my pace to match lawns of those, but never asking about our destination. [SPEAKER_00]: When the river came inside, I judge we must be south of the factory, closer to the ocean.
[SPEAKER_00]: Between us and the Gorge was the same north-south road, the Satraya parked to show me where Sergei was, and the road I had driven down after leaving the burning Russian behind. [SPEAKER_00]: Walking over to the ballad and chain border, I could see you. [SPEAKER_00]: We were high enough that the sidewalk offered a view of the river, placidly letting out into the blue, Mediterranean sea far below. [SPEAKER_00]: The stones of the embankment, the only gray in the warm sun.
[SPEAKER_00]: The rest was covered in the green, the spring vegetation, and the wind carried the scent of honey, succulent eucalyptus. [SPEAKER_00]: Despite his wounded foot, Lanzo went over the chain one leg after the other with the ease of habit. [SPEAKER_00]: I found my curiosity over road my good sense and I followed. [SPEAKER_00]: Here there was a narrow, smooth path leveled into the embankment and it led down in long switchbacks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fortunately, the warm afternoon's sudden had dried the stone, so the chances of slipping were less, but I still moved along in careful steps, not wanting to take the long slide down to the river. [SPEAKER_00]: The trickiest part was moving past the storm drains. [SPEAKER_00]: Nearly big enough to let a man walk in without hunching, there's cement lips projected out of the embankment like massive canons.
[SPEAKER_00]: Each led into the darkness under the city, and as we passed, I couldn't help but see the specter of Sergei linger in those shadows. [SPEAKER_00]: I just gripped the hard room like it was a lot of wrong and swung past, trying to ignore Sergei's secrets. [SPEAKER_00]: With the smell of trash and human waste washing out of each tunnel, [SPEAKER_00]: I was oddly grateful that Lanzo had put his boots back on. [SPEAKER_00]: Every drain was probably a wonderful source for infection.
[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't pass too many of those barriers before I spotted a small gray hutch that jetted out from the slope. [SPEAKER_00]: The same gray as the stones of the embankment. [SPEAKER_00]: It hung onto the cliff like a venerable lighthouse keeper, alone and happy to be ignored. [SPEAKER_00]: It was flat topped with no windows, a piece of utility construction that was probably a part of the original flood controls.
[SPEAKER_00]: A door faced out onto the path, rusted red with age, nothing more than a broken padlock hanging off its staple. [SPEAKER_00]: This far down, I doubt the building was visible from the road even if you need to look for it. [SPEAKER_00]: Lanzo hopped towards the door and popped off the lock, didn't bother with the secret knock I have expected. [SPEAKER_00]: He swerved his head indicating for me to follow.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hesitated, but decided to show the same faith in him that he was showing in me, and went inside.