Chapter 40:: The Loose End

Months of both Wilson and her informer's efforts had managed to get them on Zabrinski's trail a couple of times. It was tough to keep, often they lost him as he slipped in and out of places cleverly to avoid any unwanted attention. He wasn’t aware of Wilson tailing him but he had enough enemies nevertheless to be careful else he risked bullets from many guns. His style had never been liked by the establishment of which, people like Blanc and he were just players.

He was sure word had already spread about Blanc’s murder. It wasn’t very long before they would trace it back to him. Till now, no one knew about Blanc’s indirect involvement in Gerd’s murder, which Marco was forced to carry out. Blanc liked to keep his brainwaves to himself - not many of his men knew about his deal with Gerd. And Gerd was a man known to be under Francesco’s wing, so his disappearance had pointed the attention towards him rather than Marco. But word never took long to spread and little details would soon begin to spill out to the other side as well. They had had valuable business from Blanc and were they to trace the murder back to Marco, and then he would have two adversaries to watch out for.

At this point, only Eva knew of Marco’s connection with Gerd and funnily enough, her own relation with Gerd had never come out. Gerd had wanted to protect her from the dirt of his business and never talked about any family he had. Marco had found out by chance that Gerd had a sister and that’s how he had come to know Eva. After Gerd's death, Marco was forced to take Eva into the business. He suspected Blanc had found out about her and may come after her assuming Eva now owned the money he had given Gerd. Eva surprisingly proved to be a useful addition - she was smart and tough, and started watching over the drugs in the basement of the nightclub supposedly owned by Francesco. It was Eva’s idea to completely clear the club of any Francesco connection. She staged a buyout of the club from Francesco, employed new staff and changed the setup to make it look like she was an independent owner. It put the place out of the picture as far as a hideout for the drugs was concerned. Neither the Polizia nor their rivals had managed to break in there simply because all connection had been cut off between her and Francesco.

Even though being in the business had made Eva understand why Gerd had had to be killed, she never quite forgave the man who had actually shoved the bullets into her brother. She thought she worked for Francesco, so her loyalty lay with only him; and if chance arose, she may consider giving Marco away. Right now, she was the only loose end of his watertight plan. That brought Marco back to the nightclub - to try and make sure she was completely on his side.

He didn't know, of course, that he had already been followed for a couple of days by an American cop posing as a journalist. He had no idea, when he got out of his car and walked into the club, that there were microphones placed at strategic points by a certain someone... and their controls were back in Wilson’s car, who could even now hear every word that he said.

‘Eva, they’re looking for Blanc's killer. They don’t know who did it, but they will if you don’t stay clear.’

‘What makes you think I’m gonna listen to you?’

‘This is no time for games; it’s serious. I know you can’t forgive me proper for that day but like I said, I had no choice. Now I’ve done what I promised and you need to support me here.’

Wilson sat listening to every word. The more she heard the clearer the picture began to get.

‘You want a favour from me. Marco Zabrinski, the right-hand man of Francesco, wants a favour from one of his minor gang members.’

‘If you want to hear it that way, then yes. I need your help here and I hope you will help me out.’
‘Why do you think that is? I’d told you I wouldn’t forget it. How’d you think now all of a sudden I am going to?’

‘Cuz I finished the man who was the reason.’

‘Don’t bullshit me... you and all your... I have to talk. He wasn’t the reason, YOU were.’

‘You are part of the business now. You very well know why I had to do it. I didn’t have any choice.’

‘Yeah well, maybe I have no choice here.’

‘This is bullshit, Eva! I need to have you on my side right now.’

A long pause made Wilson think her connection had gone faulty and she was missing the conversation. But several minutes later, she heard Eva say a disgruntled ‘Okay.'

‘Good. I’ll be going now.’

Wilson heard the sound of footsteps fade away and thought it was Zabrinski walking out of the room and away from the range of the microphone. But then the footsteps could be heard coming back. She heard Zabrinski speak again, ‘On second thoughts, Eva…’ and then the connection snapped off.

The sudden disconnection didn’t make sense to Wilson. The only possible option could have been that the bug had been found and snapped off. She didn’t know what she could do from her current position, so she remained in her car keeping watch at the door, in case Zabrinski walked out. He didn’t come out, but many others came out and drove away. She noticed one particular lady wearing a stunning red dress over an inch-perfect figure walk out of the club and drive right past her. She waited for Zabrinski to show up. He definitely had to be still inside since his car was still parked outside. But there was no sign of him.

Late at night a flock of people started coming out of the club. Wilson was sure Zabrinski would be one of men in the crowd. He had probably waited for the crowd to leave, to avoid being spotted easily. But there wasn’t a sign of him among the people who now came out of the club. People got into their cars and went away, but Zabrinski’s car remained untouched. Obviously he was still inside.

The club closed after a while. Wilson guessed Eva and Marco were still inside for some reason. She waited hours on an end, but there was no sign of him. He might have left through the back door, but his car, still left in the parking lot, kept her doubts alive.

Eventually, Wilson gave up for the night (which was already beginning to fade into daylight) and went back to the place Enzo had fixed up for her. She spent the next few days trying to re-track Zabrinski, quite in vain. But a piece of information brought in by Enzo a couple days later turned her head. Eva, the owner of the club, had gone missing and her men were looking all over for her. She had driven out of the club on the day Wilson had been tailing Zabrinski and no one had heard from her since.

Enzo had managed to procure a photograph of Eva for Wilson and when she saw it, she got even more frustrated. Eva was the very woman in the red dress she had seen coming out of the club and who had driven right past her. It was an impossible-to-ignore coincidence that the very same day Zabrinski had disappeared from her radar, so should the person he had been talking to at the club. Wilson tried to mentally work out what might have happened after her connection snapped. It was very mysterious how it had come off in the first place. She sent Enzo back to keep an ear out for anything about Zabrinski and see if he could get any word about Eva as well.