The Winner Takes It All

The soaked girl enters the bar and closes the door behind her. The wind, swollen with rain, charges the door with the force of an explosion and the effort to close it is doubled. She pushes, leans with all her weight and finally the lock clicks shut, keeping out the deluge. She's ashamed of her hair plastered to her face, of the dirty white raincoat reduced to a rag and of her makeup gone to hell. She's ashamed of the puddle next to the doormat, which she fed upon entering and which now spreads toward the center of the small establishment and up to the floral-patterned curtain covering the niche in the old wall. It's soaked half a meter high and the sawdust, which should have absorbed the water, has gathered into many soggy little heaps scattered everywhere.

The barmaid behind the counter, under thirty, with dark and unruly hair gathered with a scarf around her forehead, flashy ceramic earrings and intelligent eyes enhanced by a pair of thick, bushy eyebrows, is rinsing dried chocolate from the rim of a cup. Steam rises from the sink and fogs the glass of the liquor display case. The smell of coffee, cookies and hot punch reaches the tables and the customers, all of them, are soaked like wet chicks. There's a chilled pharmaceutical rep with the face of a defeated man and his leather briefcase set to dry next to the radiator, an elderly couple in their bare feet, huddled in their jackets waiting for their shoes to warm up again, and a hunter in full camouflage with his cap pulled down over his forehead. The rifle, dark green and apparently heavy as a hoe, rests on the table next to a cup of tea accompanied by a small plate of assorted cookies, and the two things clash like a drag queen at a nursery school party. The barrel's bore, large and dark, is pointed toward the window that frames the few parked cars and the courtyard turned into a lake. The girl, worried, looks at the weapon with a grimace of disgust. It's kept outside its case, abandoned on the bench, and it's so, so menacing. She can't censor the expression between indignation and fear.

The television, a large Samsung that occupies a third of the ochre-colored wall opposite the one with the niche and soaked curtain, broadcasts the local news. It talks about the bad weather, about the water bomb that unleashed without warning over half the province, bringing traffic to its knees. A reporter, under an orange raincoat and the feeble shelter of a small umbrella, no longer trusts his low shoes. He tries, together with his faithful cameraman, to frame what remains of the Roman bridge that for two thousand years, until just a few minutes before, had arched like a cat's back over the stream. You can make out a shapeless mass of uprooted stones and a waterfall of water and mud conquering the meadows. It slides out of the riverbed like lava from a volcano. The girl in the raincoat points to the screen and turns pale. Her voice, unlike the raging river, comes out in a thread.

"I... I crossed that bridge less than twenty minutes ago."

"It was predictable," comments the hunter while chewing a cookie. "That bridge is older than my mother-in-law and that stream doesn't know middle ground. We knew it would soon get a kick in the ass."

The girl in the raincoat remembers it. It reduced the roadway to a single lane and she, disciplined as always, had approached the sign at the beginning of the span to interpret the right of way. It was raining with such violence that the windshield wipers, at maximum speed, hadn't managed to keep the windshield clean. She had passed and heard the roar of the water and the stones crackling in the rushing current. She thought she saw a large tree floating. She thought she saw a dead, bloated animal rolling among the waves. All the customers are convinced she was lucky to have found that lost bar at the roadside. The elderly woman takes the words from her husband's mouth, rubs her hands and asks.

"But why did you arrive on foot, miss?"

She feels the cold in her back. "The car stopped suddenly and fortunately I wasn't far from here!"

The barmaid approaches. She takes off her raincoat and hangs it up. A clean towel is ready for her and the complicity between women is put into practice in the best way.

"Thank you!"

"Don't mention it," she says, while taking charge of the purse with the intention of hanging it on the radiator. "What happened to your car?"

The question is interesting and the pharmaceutical rep stops scrolling on his phone screen and waits.

"I don't know. I don't understand anything about it but the engine stopped suddenly and now it's parked in a clearing by the roadside, a place so hidden that I hope to find it still there when..."

The barmaid laughs. She has white, clean teeth that enhance the healthy color of her complexion. "When engines stop suddenly, it often means you're broke."

She laughs. "You're not wrong. I'm almost penniless..."

The elderly gentleman gets up to stretch his legs constrained in wet pants. He helps himself by placing his open palms on his lower back and walks limping to the wet curtain. He still wears those pants with an exaggeratedly high waist. "And it stopped just like that, without warning?"

"Without warning," she confirms.

She's beautiful, her regular face welcomes well the curve of her nose and even better the thin lips above the delicate chin. She has a long neck and the natural blonde of her hair, which is drying, intersects with a piece of costume jewelry, sober but elegant. She has the air of being a gentle person. The hunter leans over the rifle and shows he knows what he's talking about.

"Old car?"

She blushes. That old wreck from the '80s always embarrasses her. "A blue UNO, but a faded blue, by now..."

"Fire engine, then?"

"I... I wouldn't know."

It seems the rep wants to have his say but the hunter anticipates him. He's one of those bullies who starts the conversation, finishes it and in the spare time shoots deer. "The distributor cap..."

"I don't know anything about..."

The hunter gesticulates as if he wants to screw on the lid of a jam jar. "Engines of that type have a distributor cap that's not very waterproof and when you go through too many puddles you end up stranded." he pronounces, while the rep nods. "To start again, miss, whether you like it or not, you'll have to dry the cap with a rag."

The girl thanks him for the advice and turns to the television, where a worried-looking meteorologist lingers with his pointer on a black vortex. "Then I'll have to wait quite a while. I'll take... I'll take a cappuccino with a cannolo." she forces herself to smile. "Do you have the ones with zabaglione?"

"A cappuccino for me too," adds the rep.

The barmaid opens the pastry container and lingers for a few seconds, focusing her eyes on the bottom, after the sugar-dusted croissants on the surface. The cannolo is lying right there, soft and sinful. Her smile is reassuring. "Here it is, I had one left." She takes it, helping herself with a paper napkin, looks behind her for a small plate next to the coffee machine and organizes herself to prepare the cappuccino. While she fidgets with knobs and levers, the news continues from the studio. The guest, a state official in jacket and tie, says that the alert level is at maximum and that in the entire area around provincial road 23, only one bridge remains passable but that as a precaution it will be open only to rescue services and law enforcement. He expresses himself in cold, technical bureaucratese.

The elderly woman addresses the hunter. "Is this provincial road 23?"

"I don't know the area like the back of my hand, madam, but in this valley there's room for only one road, and it must be provincial road 23. Like you, I ended up here to escape the deluge and I'm stuck inside to avoid drowning and indeed, I see our barmaid is busy with cappuccinos and almost, if I were in time..."

The barmaid puts down the milk carton and lingers on the steam indicator. The display of white, perfect teeth is one of those that embarrasses men. "As soon as this contraption decides to get up to speed..."

"I have to warn my wife," blurts out the rep who's careful not to go outside and goes to make a phone call in the bathroom, taking his briefcase with the samples with him. The old lady feels her feet and resigns herself to waiting much longer before they dry. "Just think that we had gone out for a mountain trip and look at this disaster. We were smart to understand in time that those dark clouds brought misfortune and nothing, Gerlando drove as long as he could but in the end it seemed like being under a waterfall. Right, love?"

He huffs. Gerlando huffs and doesn't want to answer. His mood is bad because his hearing aid has batteries that are about to die and he won't be home for the game and for all those bad news that television doesn't stop giving. This time the scenario is blood and desperation. There are corpses covered with sheets that under the livid light of neon appear like piles of dirty laundry. The police wander nervously through the premises while a crowd of photographers pushes against the windows.

"Oh my Lord! But what happened?" exclaims the elderly woman while her husband begs her not to get agitated. "Lucia, my dear," he whispers to her. "You know the doctor recommended..."

The cappuccinos arrive for the girl and for the rep and the same service is for the hunter, who shows he has an extra gear and surprises everyone. "What happened? Easy. This morning there was a bank robbery in the town up there and things got out of hand. A hell of a shitty day for this area."

"You mean hostages died?" asks the pharmaceutical rep as he returns from the bathroom with his leather bag tucked under his arm.

"I mean a couple of crazy people improvised as gunmen and pulled out weapons when they shouldn't have and the robber reacted badly. He was alone and apparently very clever. He had his face covered with a Jimmy Carter mask, just like the one they used in that old movie."

"Point Break?" asks the blonde, though sure she hadn't made a mistake.

"Right, I don't watch that nonsense but I remember the title well and yes, it seems that son of a bitch was faster than Sundance Kid." he mimics a pistol with his large, hairy hand "He took down two plus one on the house, just to make things clear and they say he got away with six hundred thousand bills."

"And how did you know?" asks the barmaid, who's gotten into it and behind the counter is preparing a cappuccino for herself too.

"Fresh news, on the radio. I was listening to it in the car while coming down and having trouble distinguishing the curves and then I saw the bar and decided that today, I'd had enough troubles." he taps on the rifle that wobbles on the table. "Now you understand why he's ready to have his say, since on the radio they also said that the bandit and his accomplice who was waiting outside squealed away with a black Bravo and that a security guard put a bullet in the windshield. It seems he didn't hit anyone, since there's no more news of that car."

Lucia, the elderly lady, is scandalized like a novice in the stadium curve. "And he thinks..."

"He thinks they might need hostages to cover their escape and maybe look for them in an isolated bar."

"Good, what's your name?"

"Antonio," answers the rep, proud of his intuition, while running his hand through his hair that the rain has made wavy. He knows he's a good salesman, he's used to running around and visiting many doctors and many pharmacists for each trip. He has to earn as much as possible because his wife is pregnant with their second child and there are the car tires to change and the house roof that demands a touch-up. He'd be tempted to leave, to hit the road to get back to work while the rain is thick as a cement pour but then he reflects. "They said we're isolated, that the bridge downstream is closed and only cops, firefighters and ambulances pass through. It would be stupid to leave now. Do you think like me?"

The blonde shrugs and takes a sip. "With such good cappuccino I can stay for dinner... By the way, my name is Gisella."

"I'm Marta," intervenes the barmaid after raising her hand like a schoolgirl.

The lightning that no one expects splits the sky in two and Gisella, frightened, crashes into the wet curtain. Embarrassed, she struggles free, apologizing, and takes two steps forward, careful to avoid the usual puddle.

"If you want to stay for dinner, make yourself comfortable," says the barmaid indicating the stool at the counter. It's one of those minimalist pieces of furniture, with red padding over a chrome steel frame. Gisella obeys. She drags it toward herself, sits down and shows off a nice pair of legs.

The hunter consolidates his position as alpha male. "You like mountain walking, I see..."

"No, not in the mountains. I like running in the park."

"The reason?"

"I hate wild boars and I'm afraid some hunter might mistake me for one of them."

The barmaid's crooked grin is reflected in the glass behind the liquors.

---

The black Bravo, with the fake flashing light on the roof and shock absorbers tired like old wrecks, crosses the courtyard with wheels half-submerged and splashes water on the window without regard. Inside it feels like receiving a slap and Gerlando and Lucia jump to their feet.

The two who get out don't care about etiquette: one is tall and hunched and the other short, short-legged, thick-wristed and elegant as a ram at a fashion show. Both wear black windbreakers and dark caps that brush their eyebrows. They enter the establishment dripping and displaying police badges even before greeting. The short one presents the show with an unexpectedly effeminate voice. "No panic, we're patrolling the area to get our hands on some criminals."

"The ones from the bank robbery?" asks Antonio while pulling his precious sample case toward himself, but gets no answer. Gisella, on the stool, presses her thighs together and turns pale. Marta places her open hands on the counter. "Well, friends, you've got the wrong address. This is the last meeting of the wet feet, a tribe on the verge of extinction that bad pale faces persecute even in its natural habitat. Would you like something hot?"

The tall cop steps forward and Marta instinctively raises her hands. Unlike his stocky colleague, he displays a tenor voice. "We're not here to joke around. Documents, miss!"

"Okay," Marta responds, wiggling her fingers. "Okay. Can I lower these to my purse?"

"Well, we have things to do, we're not here to primp dolls or exchange compliments. Mario, go take a look at the john..." The short policeman shuffles to the bathroom door, looks inside and while he's at it, goes in for a piss.

"As we were saying, miss. Documents..." then he surveys the horizon, draws his pistol from the holster and raises it so everyone can see it. "You too. All of you, come on!"

Lucia trembles while rummaging in her purse and the rep Antonio does the same, working on the lock of his precious bag. It's at that point that the hunter's rifle rises and aims straight at the cop's stomach.

"No, no documents. I don't even know what he's called, he entered without wiping his shoes and didn't ask me if weapons make me nervous. I'd say first of all you two should introduce yourselves." a brief glance at the television and then again as before, ready to shoot. "The reporter up there said the bandits escaped aboard a black Bravo and if I'm not mistaken." he glances at Gerlando. "Move the curtain so we can see better. If I'm not mistaken, I was saying, you two just arrived with a beautiful, let me see, a beautiful black Bravo, 2005 I'd say. Those are the combinations that make you tighten your finger on the trigger, a bit like a column with ten nice fat deer."

When he comes out of the bathroom, the short agent already has his pistol drawn and that's when a Glock 17 emerges from the rep's briefcase, weathered enough to suggest the owner has learned to shoot. Marta's laughter is sincere. "Mexican standoff! I've been waiting my whole life to see one live..."

The tall cop, who meanwhile has put the hunter's heart in his sights, gathers saliva in his mouth and spits in the puddle. "Then enjoy it..."

"Then guns down, otherwise we all go to shit!" shouts the agent with the eunuch voice but the beauty comes when Marta uses Gisella's shoulder to rest the sawed-off shotgun that appeared from under the counter like a magic trick, and aims at the nearby target. The tall cop, now, is held at gunpoint by two weapons. He doesn't lose his cool and indeed, since his bargaining power has collapsed, he tries to retract.

"Well, at this point in the movie we all have a laugh and friends like before, agreed?"

The hunter won't have it. His face is carved with wrinkles and his skin rough and thick like an elephant's. His eyes express tension and fierce determination. "I instead say that my friend Gerlando puts on his shoes to avoid a toothache, takes an umbrella and goes to see if the windshield of your beautiful car is pierced by a bullet, just to get an idea of the cards we have on the table." he doesn't turn and seems to speak only with the corner of his mouth. "Do you agree, Gerlando?"

As before, Gerlando gets up helping himself with his arms that he immediately presses on his aching back. The still wet shoes are at the foot of the table. He taps on the hearing aid that's starting to malfunction and presses his wrinkled lips in a grimace. "It's good that this story ends soon and if getting rheumatism will help end it, then I'll get it."

"Oh my God, Gerlando, be careful!"

He puts on his shoes without lacing them, crosses the establishment with his soul on his shoulder and opens the door that lets in a gust of wind truck-sized with trailer. Before going out, he fishes an umbrella at random from those leaning against the wall, looks at his wife and reassures her with a kiss with a smack, something he must have learned when young. "I'm going, dear. I'm going and coming back."

Marta, without lowering the rifle, winks at the tall cop and with her head, insistently, indicates the curtain in front of the niche. She looks at the hunter and does the same with the other policeman and the ritual is repeated also with the rep. Lip reading is easy to interpret and those kissable lips, trust me, help pay attention.

They whisper: "The bandit is behind the curtain."

And after a gesture of understanding with the hunter, the tall cop tears the curtain with a decisive blow and he appears: Jimmy Carter.

He's broad-shouldered, robust, steady on his shapely legs that the jeans wet to the waist make appear in all their power. The mask has that forced smile that arouses nervousness, the empty eye sockets, the whitened sideburns and the abundant, soft cheeks. In the rush everyone recoils and the fat agent is the first to notice that black pistol sticking out of the pants pocket and shouts with all the breath he has in his throat and his voice comes out like a child's again.

"Hands up, bastard! Don't try to touch the weapon or I'll put a hole in your face!"

But Jimmy Carter is cold as a statue. Masks, you know, have that fixed, inscrutable expression that can make a poker player's fortune but irritates half of humanity. Impossible to interpret his intentions from body movements, indeed, to tell the truth he's motionless as a statue. At the bank, after all, he proved to be a purebred killer and an infallible shooter and that's when his hand approaches the pistol and then the establishment transforms into a shooting range.

The skinny cop shoots, the fat cop shoots. The pharmaceutical rep shoots and the hunter shoots, who with too much zeal hits the thin one in the neck who vainly tries to contain the jet of blood from his carotid. The bullet, which continues its ignorant course, plunges into the stacked plates on the shelves behind Jimmy Carter who at that point flips over like a foosball player and falls to the ground dead, in a din of shattered ceramics, screams, shots and curses. He remains there, to match the agent who spurts blood like the fountain in the square.

The stocky policeman has seen everything, and understands. The hunter must be one of the bandits because he shot his colleague aiming at his head. He took advantage of the confusion and now only waits for the right moment to turn around and stick some lead in his stomach and so he decides. Blinded by panic, he crosses the room and sees flowing with the corner of his eye the protagonists of the shootout: the man with the leather bag who dropped his Glock on the ground, the old lady hungry for air and pale, and the hunter. From behind he's just a mass of camouflage green and now dead flesh. Before shooting him in the neck, he notices the tuft of sparse, greasy hair sticking out from under the cap.

The bullet exits through his mouth and embeds in the table. The hunter remains still, with his head bowed, the rifle still shouldered and a jet of blood gushing from his nose that seems never to end. The detail that brings him back to reality is that pair of incisors, shot onto the chair back and stuck there together with a piece of gum.

He realizes too late about the sawed-off shotgun attached to his ear and when he turns to understand who it is, the cartridge explodes in his face.

"Sorry for the mess."

Says Gisella, who has taken the double-barrel from Marta and who now is sorry for the offal that has invaded the wall and for that butcher shop smell that has taken possession of the establishment.

Marta is cold as a pair of feet in winter. She grips a revolver, keeps the rep under fire and immediately understands he has no intention of picking up his Glock. Gerlando, hard of hearing for quite a while, enters the bar as if nothing happened and pronounces:

"There's no hole in the windshield."

---

"How many are there?"

"Well, four hundred and fifty thousand..." and she smiles while, under the car's courtesy light, she's committed to keeping the bundles balanced on her legs. Gisella has that naive girl look that helps her camouflage herself, to get away with it every time. No one ever suspects her and thanks to her pretty face she's always managed to get by well in the underworld.

Marta took a good breath once past the roadblock and crossed the only passable bridge under that cataclysm of water and wind that exhausted men and things. The police, as soon as they saw one of their cars with the flashing light on the roof, let her pass without even looking inside, exactly as they had predicted. Now she's light as a sparrow in spring and a bit richer than before.

They would have avoided killing the bartender and hanging him in the niche with the coat hanger hook planted in his back. They would have avoided it if only he hadn't welcomed them shouldering the sawed-off shotgun. That news about the black Bravo with the pierced windshield must have reached his ears listening to the same radio news that had informed the hunter.

Spontaneous streams descend from the slopes dragging grass, leaves and earth with them and the water has transformed the road into a torrent. At the first darkness of evening, the increasingly close lightning paints specters everywhere. Gisella, who has just put the money back in the bag, fears she left too many traces.

"Will they believe the story that the bartender went crazy and redid the cop's features? That there was one rifle too many and too much tension to manage, too much for a hunter without cold blood used to crouching among mushrooms?"

"Until they have a better story to believe..."

"Will those three keep the secret?"

Marta rubs her eyes. "We'll find out soon but what did you want, to kill them too?"

Gisella gets impatient. Her killer's composure is crumbling. The day has been heavy and she not only had to shoot at the bank because those customers wanted to play gunmen but also get soaked to the bone to make the car disappear. She had driven it to the slippery river bank to push it in, and it had been a struggle. At best they would have found it after months, it and its hole in the windshield. Marta reassures her. "We left them fifty thousand each and all of them, trust me, gave the impression of needing it badly, especially that guy with the briefcase and the Glock."

"Yes, that rep made me feel sorry for him, a pathetic little man!"

"To tell the truth, the Glock became mine," Marta responds amused, waving the rep's pistol. "The winner takes all."

Gisella makes a face of disappointment. That worn-out nine caliber would have pleased her, who after all had taken charge of the most unpleasant tasks. "Who said that?"

"What, that the winner takes all?"

"Yes..."

"Ah, a bunch of people. ABBA even sang it..."

Gisella remembers seeing the movie with Meryl Streep and tries to bring the tune to mind but it slips away like a live fish in wet hands. "And the two old folks?"

"The lady's heart didn't explode and he remained standing without even getting sick to his stomach. They'll go home happy to be alive and proud to have told all those lies to the cops. They'll say some prayers to be forgiven and then off, they'll change the battery in the hearing aid and leave for a nice seaside vacation without spending their entire pension."

The mountains with their destructive load of rain are behind them. The black Bravo, their special passport, foreseen in their cold criminal calculations and stolen from the agents, is anonymous as a worm in wet clods. Gisella has those mood swings that jump like the electrocardiogram of a sick heart.

"Will they find my DNA on Jimmy's mask and maybe some of my hair around?"

Marta is concentrated on driving. She nods her head. "It's very likely."

"And fingerprints. And then I drank the cappuccino you made for me." she darkens. "In the rush we didn't even wash the cups."

Marta slows down. It's strange, because after hours the rain is thinning and the road appears clear beyond the dry windshield. Come to think of it, she had her hair gathered in a scarf and had rinsed the cup carefully.

Gisella darkens.

It won't be possible to make other hits and not even hope for good luck anymore. The money obtained is little and in a few years she and Marta will have to reinvent themselves to survive, or...

"The winner takes all," says Marta as the car stops at the roadside. She hums in tune that piece that ABBA had brought to success so many years before. It spoke of a separation, hard but inevitable. It's incredible how sometimes melodies disappear from the mind without apparent remedy, to return forcefully like a record at maximum volume as soon as the first notes are hinted at:

"I apologize If it makes you feel bad Seeing me so tense No self-confidence But you see The winner takes it all"

The Glock, resting on her ribs, trembles, and Gisella this time, understands. The money is too little for both of them.

Her last look at the world is a blood-red sunset that elbows its way through the exhausted clouds.

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