Free The Living Death by Nick Carter Page B

catapulted myself forward, head-on, into someone's mid-section, carrying him backwards with me. Managing to avoid flailing arms and wild swings, I grabbed the one I had knocked backwards by the arm, lifting him in a judo move and sidearmed him through the window of a bakery. I heard his yell amid the sound of the shattering glass. Still fighting more out of training and instinct than clear-headedness, I swung at a face that appeared before me, heard the satisfying crunch of my knuckles into a cheekbone, and the face disappeared. But now it was my turn to be tackled. It was a good, hard one from behind and I went down. A hard object crashed down on my skull almost at the same instant a heavy-soled shoe got me in the temple. I heard Amoretta's voice before the lights went out, damn her black heart. She'd figured I'd go after her. She'd led me right into it. I tried to lift my head to shake it but it wouldn't respond. Another blow crashed down on me. This one didn't hurt as much. It just rang the curtain down.
* * *
    I don't know how long it was before I woke up but from the condition of my head I guessed it was a good while. I moved my neck slowly in a circular motion and the fuzzy cobwebs started to tear loose in my head. A tight sharp pain in my wrists told me that my hands were tied behind my back. A terrible bouncing and jouncing wasn't helping the throb of my head any, but I managed to focus on the surroundings. I wasn't alone. Four other men sat inside what was obviously the interior of a closed panel truck. I was against the driver's partition, the others sat in pairs on each side of the truck. They were stocky, hard-faced, black-eyed men wearing work clothes and heavy, peasant's shoes, their hands heavy, gnarled, thick-fingered. I noted that three of them sported cut faces and bruised cheekbones. One of them called out to the driver in Italian.
    "The
Americano
is awake," he said.
    "Si, be careful," the voice came back. "Watch him"
    Then I heard Amoretta's voice. "Take no chances " she said.
    They could all relax. This wasn't the time or place to act up. Besides, I wanted to find out more about where I was being taken. From the steep incline of the truck, we were going up into the mountains. The men spoke to each other in short, curt asides but enough for me to pick up the dialect as Calabrese. It wasn't hard to figure the rest. Amoretta was taking me up into the hills of her home. If I'd been out as long as I thought, chances were we were almost there. How she and the peasants of Calabria fitted into this dirty business was something else again. It was sure as hell an unexpected turn. But then, this whole thing had been weird from the very start. The road was getting rougher and the truck bouncier. I tested my wrist bonds. They were well knotted. They had taken Wilhelmina from me, but I could feel Hugo in his sheath around my forearm. They'd been in too much of a hurry to get me off the street and into the truck, and they plainly weren't professionals. I knew that from the way they'd been falling all over each other to get at me in that narrow street. If that first blow hadn't taken the edge off my reflexes, they'd be still back there putting themselves together.
    The truck slowed and my muscles tensed automatically. I counted two more curves before it stopped and the rear doors were opened. I was pulled out and exchanged glances with Amoretta, looking intense and throbbing in the blouse and the tight jeans.
    "Nice friends you've got," I said casually.
    "These are my brothers," she said, gesturing to three of the men. "And the other two are my cousins."
    "A family enterprise," I commented.
    "When I heard you were returning to make sure of your work, I brought them with me," she snapped. "Now we are going to find out what you did to
Zio
Enrico and why."
    "What the hell are you talking about?" I said frowning. She slapped me across the face. Hard.
    "Take him inside," she said. "Enough of his lies."
    I was still frowning as