Fantasy Whatever Gets You through the Night by TMaskedWriter

[Ramesh_Rocky]

The two of them sat at a table in the Taverna afterwards. Mander got his pint and to tell La Policia to go fuck themselves. Helen didn't come here often, so she didn't expect the bartender to keep cocoa on hand just for her. She settled for "Screwdriver, hold the vodka."

"Well," Mander said now that the cops had gone about fucking off and joining the paramedics in hauling Marco away. "We now know that Dietz bought his ammo from Marco and that he's spending the bankroll like water, so either it's massive or nearly gone. In short, everything we knew back when Marco still had teeth."

"Oh, we accomplished something." Helen said with a drink of her own. The rest of the Taverna gave them their privacy. "Marco Santori will be Word on the Street by the time we finish our drinks. And that word is 'La Contessa is looking for a Nazi named Heinrich Dietz. And if you know something and don't come to her with it right away, she'll make you into even BIGGER Word on the Street than Marco!' Our Universal Health Care will replace Marco's teeth. Getting that message out there and seeing you doing a bit of the old ultraviolence? Priceless! Do you channel Michael Caine in those moments?"

"Maybe a little. 'Get Carter, at least. Your Countessness absolutely knows more about mass communication than me. So, why not go to the top and shake down Don Nessuno?"

"I kinda OWED Marco's dad that one. I wish I'd thought to put 'The Thieving Magpie' on my phone before we set out this morning. The Don wouldn't deal with fascists. Ramirez is right on that one. He plays by my rules, shows me respect, and gets that if he doesn't, I'll make him eat Spaghetti and His-Balls. With store-bought sauce and no garlic bread. White wine only; no red."

Mander agreed, not thinking she was getting mean about it until she got to the no garlic bread and wine-pairing part. He contributed his own thoughts to the de-beating; a word La Contessa made up earlier in the conversation to describe "this little post-beating de-briefing. Hey,' de-beating!'"

"Guess we learned how Scott got some of his hardware and knew who to send 'em to. With everything he was doing for Dietz, he wouldn't have time to make a proper intro; just 'Go to the Taverna, ask for Marco, tell him I sent ya.'"

Helen lit a cigarette. It was allowed in the Taverna, but if it hadn't been, that wasn't going to affect her decision just now.

"Dietz wouldn't have met Marco himself. His face had just been seen and he's still worried about that; he would've sent a flunky. Probably Bad Red Rug but he didn't bother wearing the rug that time. They might only have brought the one wig and they're passing it around. We're still a step behind him, but we're catching up."

Mander finished his pint.

"So, where to next? Got someone else ya want me to do that to?"

"Not just yet. And by the way, thanks for bringing the Cockney, that was some Guy Ritchie stuff out there." Mander accepted the compliment. "Next, we take the Aston-Martin back up to the castle; probably get Bessie while someone washes the blood off and beats Marco's face-dents out of the hood before Troy sees it. The President should've had a reaction by now, so I should go see what it is and... probably, knowing me, start a flame war with the President to keep him too distracted to do any real damage on top of everything else right now. After that, we should go check out the set. LeGrasse has some people on the director, but I can't help thinking that there's something there that we're not seeing and want to take another look with you because you give me good ideas. THEN, if no one's tried to get word to me; I know a couple other small fry like Marco who could ALSO use a reputation upgrade!"

"I KNEW there was a reason everyone comes here for holiday!" Mander said, overturning his glass. Helen downed her orange juice and did the same. They began to walk out.

"Aren't you worried some of them'll tell someone about all this?" The tall man asked the woman who was just at the low-end of average height.

"Tourists don't find the Taverna until nightfall. Who're THESE people gonna tell? Batman? Let 'em. HE might wanna beat some Nazis too."

"I don't need that kind of competition." Mander replied as they left.

* * *

Prefect of security officer Martin LeGrasse sat at his desk with printouts of the information that Luc had been able to pull from Silverman and Scott's computers. He read Luc's findings at the top of the stack. The report of La Contessa and her giant's altercation with Marco Santori went into a basket on his desk labeled with the abbreviation N.S.L.C.F.; for the French phrase that meant "We Already Know La Contessa Did It."

There was little unexpected on Silverman's computer. Nothing particularly shocking in the way of pornography or dirty private online chats. His browser history was primarily devoted to social media, research on the film, other items of interest to film students, and eBay searches for Indiana Jones action figures and playsets. He'd spent a good amount of time on the Simon Wiesenthal Center's website, which raised LeGrasse's eyebrow. A call to them got someone checking their records, but no one he could reach on the phone was able to confirm or deny whether an Eliot Silverman, from Los Angeles or San Finzione, had contacted them or requested information. He made a note to have someone check Eliot's mail in case he'd reached out by post.

But it was an itch LeGrasse couldn't scratch. Meeting Luc via the Generalissimo and working with him in the past through Ramirez meant that he didn't feel any professional jealousy toward the man. He admired Luc's ability to consider the perspectives of others and was trying to apply it himself as he went over what they had and considered the "why" of the crimes that Heinrich Dietz's gang was committing. Thinking of them as "another gang causing trouble in his city" rather than "The Third Reich returned to San Finzione" was helping Martin approach the case objectively.

The motive seemed obvious: Stop the film from being made. And with the arsenal they had, there were many more bloody and violent ways that they could have and still might go about it than a carefully planned hit like Silverman, followed by a hasty plan to steal a tank, trash the set, and kill Lady Maria. Thinking about things from that angle, trashing the set may have been, if not their objective, an opportunity that arose in the process.

Or was it vice versa? Had the goal been to destroy the set and Lady Maria was the target of opportunity? If stopping the movie was the objective, her loss would be more likely to cause La Contessa to abandon the project than wrecking a set that can be rebuilt with money and a couple of days. The possibility also existed that they'd seen Contessa-In-Reggenza Maria's portrait and presumed that she was Contessa, but that stupidity seemed beyond even them.

He'd quit smoking long ago but spending so much time around La Contessa and the others lately and thinking this over made him miss them. He picked up a pen, twirled it, and stuck it in his mouth as he stared at a wall kept blank for this express purpose.

The "why" of it all was what weighed on his brain. Luc seemed to have the understanding of human nature covered, but what could Nazis gain from sabotaging a movie about the late Count? After "because the director was a Jew," there was no clear motive and that hardly seemed enough. Or why continue once you've made that point? The new director was not Jewish; if the motive had been Racism As Its Own Reward, that mission was accomplished. No, the motive needed its own motive, and that was the one he pondered.