WHILE THE MEETING WAS GOING ON, Benedetti remained alert at his post, like trained dogs that never lose their attention. He was happy to have found a last pack of cigarettes in his jacket and was now feeling his pockets for a lighter, until he heard a strange noise, along with the sound of children playing and shouting in Spanish and the various televisions broadcasting nighttime talk shows. It sounded like a gunshot, and he knew better than anyone else how to recognize one, but it was very thin and muffled.
Maybe it was a silencer, he thought.
Along with the noise, there were also some low murmurs. He promptly took out one of his beloved Colts and crept along the walls until he reached the corner of the hallway that led to the building's exit.
To his surprise, he came face to face with an armed man!
In an almost instinctive impulse, both of them shot each other, but Benedetti was faster, he fired while he was still aiming, hitting him in the abdomen at point-blank range. He quickly returned to take cover at the corner of the corridor. The man fired too late, hitting the wall as he fell. Benedetti heard the groan of the enemy who was now on the ground and a few footsteps right after him. There must have been one, two, three other accomplices... he calculated. It was an ambush, it had to be! He then took out his twin revolver and prepared for the fight.
The darkness of the corridor benefited him, the lighting was practically only the beams of light coming from the street, which was an advantage for him, since he could see the shadows of his enemies and they would not be able to know where he was. Noticing that their shadows were getting closer to the walls, he concluded that they were trying to protect themselves too, although it was useless to do so there.
Without fear, he ducked around the corner until he reached the other hallway and fired a few shots; another one fell. The bandits tried not to give away where they were, avoiding noise, but the place became deadly silent after the first shots, the children stopped screaming and the televisions turned down their volume.
Nervous about the situation, they were breathing heavily and the two now hit were still groaning, lying on the floor. Even so, the situation was still difficult for Benedetti, alone and cornered. He even remembered Tom throwing the grenade at the mobsters the night before and thought about how useful that would be at that moment.