Page 114 of One Minute Out

I don’t answer. I am not prepared to agree that his life and my life have any points of connection beyond this meeting.

Instead I say, “Well, since I didn’t double-cross your employer, I hope you will consider me a friend now.”

With a smile and a dramatic shrug, Ricci says, “I must confess... I am confused. They say you are invisible.” A pause as he looks me over head to toe. “But I see you.”

The man may be a mafia security chief, but he’s also hilarious.

I reply, “When I want to be seen, I can make it happen. When I want to disappear, same thing.”

Ricci nods again; he appears more relaxed now, and he motions to a chair in front of where he had been sitting when I entered. “Sí. Very good.”

We both sit while coffee is poured, and I don’t hesitate to drink down a hot gulp. Ricci makes no small talk, and I’m glad for this, because I don’t have a hell of a lot of time.

I say, “You want to know why I am here, right?”

With another flash to his security men, Ricci says, “I don’t think you are here to kill me. Most of the people who want me dead insist on trying to do it themselves. They don’t hire someone else. I have that effect on people, for some reason.” He smiled, at ease now, considering the situation. “So... yes, I want to know why you are here.”

“I need something from you.”

The man shrugged. “Maybe I need something from you, too.”

“Of course you do. I understand how this works, signore. You help me, and I help you. You will have my services at your disposal as soon as I’m done with the project I’m involved in now.”

“Who are you working with?”

I sip more coffee, and a man in a fitted blue suit refills my cup. I say, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“People lie to me all the time, so you may be right about that. But tell me anyway.”

“I am not working with anyone. I am on my own.”

“That seems hard to believe. You are one of the highest-paid assassins in the world.”

“I didn’t come here to lie to you.”

Ironically, that itself is a lie. I’ve come here to do just exactly that.

The man does not speak for several seconds. “Bene. What do you need?”

“A group of trafficked sex slaves is in town. They will be sold at a market tonight. Here, somewhere in Venice. I’d like to know where this is.”

Ricci drinks coffee, then raises an inquiring eye to me. “You are speaking of the girls from the pipeline?”

He knows, as I knew he would. Now I can only pray he’s not involved with it. If he is I’m diving out the window in front of me, or else I’ll go after the closest armed man and fight to get his weapon out of his hand.

But I know both of these options would come with a very low probability of success.

Ricci puts his cup down and leans back. “The pipeline. Are you wondering if they are us? They are not. The Consortium is aligned with Mala del Brenta here. Bad men in that organization.”

I just nod and say, “I’m not a fan of the MdB.”

He says, “They are our competitors. Disrupting their operations, as long as it can’t be tied to us, would give us pleasure.”

I start to speak again, to tell him I would be happy to fuck with the MdB on my own, if he just gives me the intel I require.

But before I can tell him this, he says, “I’d like to help you, signore, truly. But there is one problem.”

“What’s that?”

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