MEET ME AT THE GALLIANO CLUB
This is an excerpt from my current work-in-progress.
MEET ME AT THE GALLIANO CLUB is the prequel to the Galliano Club thriller series and tells the backstories of bartender Luca Lombardo and dancer Ruth Cross.
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“Hey, Luca.” Ettore Scarpa was the same age as Luca’s cousin Enzo. With his slick pompadour and a pock-marked face, Ettore was well known in Serra San Bruno. Girls were attracted to his bold talk and pockets full of lira, but mothers pulled their daughters inside when he passed. The older men grumbled about Ettore and his gang but there
was jealousy in their voices.
The Scarpa men were smugglers, dealing in anything that was taxed by the government in Rome. If a man in Serra San Bruno needed a prostitute, a smoke or a loan, he went to a Scarpa. A few times a year, Luca’s grandfather sold his cheese to Ettore’s father and was paid in cigarettes.
None were smoked. They were too valuable as currency to pay off the tax collector.
Gossips lowered their voices when they said that the Scarpas even did business with Sicilians. The island perpetually kicked by Calabria into the Mediterranean, Sicily was loaded with criminals and scoundrels. Joseph Petrosino, a famous policeman from America, was gunned down in Palermo not so many years ago, blackening the island’s eye
for all time.
“Can I talk to you?” Luca murmured to Ettore.
“Sure, sure.”
“Not here.”
Ettore shrugged. “Sure.”
Luca followed him out of the trattoria and down a skinny alley. Ettore stopped at a house on the southern side of the village and climbed a crude ladder braced against the wall. One hand at his waistband, Luca pulled himself up the ladder to find himself on the flat roof, part of which was covered by a canvas canopy to create a
shelter from the sun. At night, the effect was of a subterranean cave suspended in the sky.
Luca slowly drew out his father’s revolver. “How much will you give me for this?”
Ettore took the gun and walked to the overhanging edge of the canopy. Moonlight played over the smooth metal. “Where did you get it?”
“It was my father’s.”
Ettore let out a low whistle. “A genuine Army pistol.”
“It’s for sale,” Luca said.
“But it’s a deserter’s gun.” Ettore hefted the revolver and his teeth flashed white with a grin. “Okay, Luca. I like you. Six hundred lira.’
“A thousand,” Luca countered.
“A thousand?” Ettore gave a low laugh but he didn’t give the gun back. “What does a priest need with a thousand lira? I’ll pay you seven hundred.”
Luca knew Ettore wanted the gun. “Nine hundred fifty.”
“Seven hundred.”
Luca dug the bullets out of his pocket, knowing that it was harder to find ammunition than to find weapons. He hefted the six brass-jacketed rounds, letting the moonlight polish the metal.
Five from his father’s gun. One from Orsini’s.
“Maybe you want these, too,” Luca suggested.
Surprise flashed across Ettore’s face.
