en tables. But, he wasn’t there. Antonio wondered if the man was sicker than he’d made out. Perhaps he was still sick in the toilets.
Antonio started to head back when a group of new fans approached him. They wanted to do a selfie with him. He obliged them, keeping an eye on the bathroom door.
He was just about to excuse himself from the excited fans, when the door opened. But, instead of his money lender, two men came out of the bathroom, breathing hard.
They looked like rugby players, thick-necked and tough, and their faces were flushed.
Antonio had a wild and brief thought that the two men might have just had sex. He wasn’t judging them, he’d had plenty of sex in bathroom stalls, but with females only of course.
As the two men approached, Antonio decided to go check on his money source. Before he could take two steps, he was grabbed, and one of the men shoved something cold and metallic into his ribs. “Camminare,” said the man, and Antonio’s pulse quickened. was Italian.
Sweat broke out on his brow and he allowed the men to steer him out of the café, and then onto the street. These men had to work for his bookie, the notorious Dante Bissacco.
They guided him to a side street, then into a limousine. He got inside, expecting to see his bookie, but instead he saw one of Biassacco’s lieutenants. Carlo Minetti was a weasel-faced man who sneered at Antonio with distaste as he was pushed roughly into the car.
The two got in as well, sitting one on each side, and the one with the gun aimed it at his chest. Antonio found his words and he tried to act surprised, yes, but not afraid. “Carlo, what’s this all about? My payment’s not due until Monday.”
“Mr. Bissacco just wanted to know why you’d decided to leave Milan without telling him. He just wants to make sure that you’re not trying to weasel out of your payment, like last time.”
“I didn’t weasel out last time. I was only one day late; I explained what happened, there were extenuating circumstances.”
Minetti’s face darkened.
“Honest, you’ve got to believe me. I’ll have the money on Monday, I swear it.” Antonio hated the desperation in his voice, but he had to convince this man that he would make his next payment.
Minetti sat back in the leather seat, unbuttoning his cashmere coat as he pondered Antonio’s words. He pulled a nail file out of an inside pocket and began filing a nail.
Antonio felt sweat beading on his forehead and resisted an urge to swipe it away. He sat up and tried to look confident, brave. These men could smell fear and weakness, and they’d exploit it every time.
Finally, Minetti stopped smoothing out his fingernails and spoke, his voice calm and in control. “You weren’t thinking of borrowing the money, were you?”
Antonio’s chest tightened. That was exactly what he’d intended to do. His attempts to gamble to win the money he’d need to pay off the entire debt instead of just the next payment, hadn’t gone well, and there was no way he’d make the Monday payment unless he found someone to lend him the money, someone like Senor Gracile.
“You see, the boss, Mr. Biassacco, he doesn’t like it when his clients get overextended, see.”
“Borrow the money? No, no, of course not,” Antonio said, trying to laugh off the thought as if it were absurd, ridiculous, the last thing he’d ever do.
“So, the little weasel we just beat up in the bathroom wasn’t planning on lending you money?”
“No, no. I was thinking about selling my car, he was interested, but that wasn’t the main reason I came to Barcelona, I’m here for a family wedding.”
“Well, then, I guess we owe that man back in the café an apology for beating him up for no reason,” said Minetti. “But, maybe it’s you who should be apologizing. It’s your fault.”
Antonio dared to hope that his dressing down would soon be over. He looked at the door, willing one of the men to open it and let him out, but, instead, Minetti whispered something to the driver and the car moved out into traffic.
“Where are you taking me?” Antonio asked, as his throat tightened and his body tensed in fear.
“Back to your car,” said Minetti. Antonio didn’t like the menacing grin on his face. Antonio slumped back in his seat. He knew they weren’t taking him to his car. They were going in the opposite direction. Sweat dripped down his neck and his heart raced as the car drove further into the industrial part of the city. When the car stopped next to an empty lot, scattered with weeds and debris, between what looked to be two vacant, abandoned warehouses, Antonio’s heart hammered in his chest, and he tried to think what to do.
“Get out,” ordered the talking thug. Antonio spoke to the two men with guns, hoping to talk himself out of the situation, as he reluctantly stepped out of the car. “What are you doing? I’ll pay the man, I can get the money, I swear. You can’t kill me.”
The thug with a scar, and no verbal skills, let out a derisive snort.
The talking thug stepped forward. Antonio threw up his fists for protection.
“Relax,” he said, “We’re not going to kill you. Unless you try to resist us. Move,” he said, as he shoved Antonio into the center of the vacant lot.
Antonio’s pulse raced. “You screwed up by leaving Milan,” he said after they’d stopped. “You need to be punished. Take it. Take it like a man. Take it like the star you used to believe you were.”
The thugs roared with laughter at those words, reminding Antonio of the biggest mistake of his life. Whatever pain they would inflict on him now, couldn’t compare to that.
Antonio dropped his hands to his sides and sucked in his breath. He wasn’t sure what hurt more; the beatings, or the reminder that he’d screwed up his career, perhaps for good. These men and, more importantly, their boss had the evidence which could keep him from playing soccer for life. They had him by the short hairs.
The first few punches he did take like a man, keeping his hands at his sides, but after the third vicious hit knocked him onto the ground he couldn’t help trying to protect himself. It only made the thugs madder, and they began to kick him with their steel toed boots. Antonio felt something crack. He screamed in pain.
“Enough,” shouted the spokesthug, but his quiet partner had to put in one last blow.
Antonio rolled on the ground, bracing for more, but the men had backed off. He knew they’d cracked a rib. He gingerly lifted his hand to his face. For some reason, they hadn’t touched his face.
“Clean him off before you put him back in the car,” said the talking thug to the quiet thug. Antonio was yanked up to his feet and bit back the cry of pain. The talking thug eyed him with disgust, and then he spat on the ground.
“I’ll clean off myself,” he gasped, not wanting to be touched again. He wiped the dirt off his pants and walked back carefully to the car. He let himself inside and pressed close to the window, grateful to still be alive.
The two thugs got back into the front of the car, and the thug with the vocal skills, called in to the boss. He listened, then responded in Italian, which Antonio understood since he himself was Italian. “Oh, he understands, boss. We gave him a good working over. I have no doubt, that he’ll do whatever he must, to get you your money by the deadline.”
Antonio tried to cope with the pain as they drove back towards where he’d left his car. He kept his mouth shut, hoping for the best, and felt his spirits rise when the car pulled up behind his own. One of the thugs came around and shoved him into the street. He could hear the men laughing as they drove away and when he got to his car, he understood why. He’d parked in a no parking zone, and there was a bright yellow boot on his car.
“Fanculo!” swore Antonio.
Antonio extracted his luggage from the trunk of his car and, body aching with every step and a hand pressed tight against his shattered ribs, he began the slow walk into the city. He kept an eye out for a taxi, but one never came.
When he made it to his hotel he regretted the price of the room he’d booked. He tried to downgrade into something le
ss expensive, but the hotel desk clerk insisted that the hotel was fully booked and he could give it up if he wanted to, but he couldn’t get a different room. The pain in his ribs was making his eyes water. He was exhausted, heartsick, and he just wanted to sleep.
“Fine,” he said.
A bellboy took his bag away from him, and he took the elevator to his room. He tipped the bellboy more frugally than he usually did and felt guilty about it, but he had to start cutting corners somewhere. When the door clicked shut, he used the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face, then lifted his shirt. Black and blue, with some contusions and some dried splashes of blood. The bastards.
He went back into the room and pulled out his laptop. Firing it up, he accessed the hotel’s Wi-Fi and did the search he’d been meaning to do for some time. This gambling was screwing up his life; he needed to get help.
He saw that there was a gambler’s anonymous meeting at a nearby church that would start in just over an hour. He set the alarm for a thirty-minute nap, but after five minutes of trying he couldn’t sleep because he was in too much pain. He called room service and ordered two beers and a bottle of ibuprofen. By the time the beers and the pills arrived, he’d showered, shaved and changed into clean clothes. He didn’t bother tipping the bellboy this time – he was out of time and didn’t know if he had any cash left anyways. He downed four pills and both beers as fast as he could, then headed to the lobby and out to the cathedral where the meeting was to take place.
He’d put on his incognito outfit, his long curls tied up and under a hat, and a pair of large sunglasses that hid most of his face. He wore a long coat that made him look portly instead of lean and athletic, and it was just ragged enough not to be mistaken as belonging to a famous and wealthy soccer star. He’d left Milan in haste so he hadn’t packed his raggedy shoes, but thanks to the incident with the thugs in the dirt lot his Italian loafers looked worse for wear.
When he made it to the stairs of the church, his ribs ached. He leaned over and held his side for a moment, tried to catch his breath and deal with the pain. The pain pills were working, and the beer had him calmed down, but the walk reminded him that he probably had some shattered bone that would need down time to heal. He decided that he’d spring for a taxi for the trip back, then order more beer, take more pain pills and try and sleep the rest of the day. Tomorrow he’d figure out how the hell he was going to find a buyer for his car, or how he would deal with the fine to get it out of impound? His head was down as shame washed over him. Had it come to this?