The lanky one, the marionette, leaned as before, standing in the same spot, as if he were a permanent fixture, a lamppost, his long shadow etched forever onto the walk. Lodovico remained at the stoop, hunched and smoking, talking to the burly man who’d done with his urinating but had failed to negotiate his way behind the cyclone gate. From the looks of things, Lodovico was put out with the man. He gestured, spinning his finger in a circle, as if to send him around the block one more time. The marionette raised his fingers to his teeth and whistled.

They came toward me, all three. They came with their sly grins and their cocked heads. I stayed as I was, on the balcony looking down, despite the risk. The front door below was still locked and barred, so they couldn’t get in that way.  Meanwhile I wanted them away from the stoop so they wouldn’t catch a glimpse of Dazio and his girl on the other side of that gate, headed down the alley toward the Avenue of the Sacred Queen.

I had the revolver with me but held it low. In the five chambers, I had one bullet remaining. No doubt they had guns more accurate and deadly than the pistola para mujer.

“Ah,” said Lodovico. “Mia bella.”

Likely they had an assortment of weapons. Lodovico could have shot me from where he stood if that’s what he wanted. But no. He might be a hired hand, but he hadn’t come all this way to gun a woman down. He wanted something more intimate.

He made a gesture, a hand to his lips, blowing me a kiss.

Then he showed me the blade.

I stepped back through the balcony doors.

––––––––

Inside, my brother lay as before. Zanche was on her hands and knees, struggling to get up. Whether or not she’d betrayed us, it didn’t matter. She would never make it. She had lost her love, her Gasparo. I felt sorry for her, but the truth was she needed kindness, not pity. I put the gun to her temple.

I pulled the trigger.

I got on the floor and curled myself around my dying brother.

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