A Slow Death (Max Drescher Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

his voice as neutral as possible. 
    Barbolini’s eyes narrowed. ‘I thought that you were going to get some local guys to do it?’
    Fei gave a snort of derision. ‘Those Turkish kids you hooked me up with? They’re just hooligans. They’d piss their pants before pulling the trigger. The job wouldn’t get done.’
    ‘They know the city.’
    ‘We didn’t need a tour guide,’ Fei mocked, gesturing towards Kooy. ‘My guy, he’s reliable, he’s professional . And we can always do with new people coming through, especially given some of the problems we’ve encountered recently.’
    Barbolini folded her arms, a clear signal that she wasn’t buying his argument. ‘Was he,’ she asked quietly, ‘the guy responsible for what happened to Carl Beerfeldt and his family?’
    ‘I, myself, take full responsibility for what happened there,’ Fei replied indignantly, ‘I’ve already told you that.’
    ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ said Barbolini, irritated, ‘but did –’
    ‘Kooy.’
    ‘Kooy. Did he pull the trigger on that job?’
    Irritated, Fei tried to hold his ground. ‘Does it matter?’
    ‘Of course it matters,’ she swept away his mumbling with an imperious wave of her hand. ‘Was it him?’
    Grasping the rail, Fei took a step back down the stairs in case she decided to give him a slap. ‘Yes, it was him.’
    Barbolini sighed. ‘I want you to get rid of him,’ the words came out slow and measured but, inside, she was seething. ‘The massacre of Beerfeldt’s family was an unnecessary mess. Unbelievably stupid, not to mention unnecessary.’
    ‘But –’
    ‘We have standards,’ she continued, talking straight over him. ‘Killing those children was an outrage.’
    ‘At least he didn’t leave them orphans.’ Fei immediately regretted the quip. For a second, it looked like Barbolini would indeed hit him.
    ‘They were children,’ she repeated. ‘We do not harm children.’
    With a shake of his head, Fei played his final card. ‘Cesare would take a different view.’
    ‘Leave my father out of this,’ she snapped. ‘He would agree with me on this. We are not animals.’ Although sometimes I wonder.
    Head bowed, Fei nodded. ‘Look,’ he said, shifting his ground, trying to sound as genuine and conciliatory as possible, ‘I know that it didn’t look good, but I was expressly told not to leave any loose ends.’ He gestured towards Kooy, lowering his voice. ‘And he only did what I told him to do. You have to remember that. It seemed a reasonable course of action, under the circumstances.’
    ‘And what precisely did it achieve?’ Barbolini demanded. ‘The Berlin police will be all over this, sticking their noses into everything for the next few weeks. Killing a child is the worst thing you can do. You’ve energised them. They will not stop. They will be like men possessed.’
    Fei shrugged. ‘With the riots, the cops have got plenty of other things to worry about. Every moron within a thousand kilometres is coming here to join in the fun.’
    Barbolini shook her head. ‘Even so, we’re not at home now, you know. This isn’t Italy. They won’t just pocket our cash and look the other way.’
    ‘Bloody Germans.’
    ‘They will keep coming. Even if not for these killings, there will be something else. We are on their radar now and it is our own fault. Once all the anarchists and squatters are behind bars they’ll get bored and come after us.’
    ‘Let them come.’
    ‘For God’s sake, Dante, we didn’t come here to pick a fight. We came here to make money – build up our business before anyone even realised we were here. We have always had a limited window of opportunity in this city. Killing those kids has just made it smaller. It was stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.’
    Keeping a straight face, Fei nodded. It was a familiar mantra. Window of opportunity. Where did such phrases come from? His boss thought too much about things. Then again, she was a woman.
    ‘And, in the meantime, you