The social worker took a box of Xanax tablets out of the inside pocket of his jacket and held it close to the candle as if it was a magic amulet.
He had already taken two. Would a third make him as brain-dead as a lichen?
On the internet he had read that the usual effect of tranquillisers on sexual activity was to inhibit the orgasmic reflex, which might lead to a slowing down in the process of reaching a climax. This had various consequences, one of which was a significant improvement in the quality of intercourse for both the man and his partner, should there be a pre-existing tendency to rapid ejaculation.
And a pre-existing bloody tendency to rapid ejaculation had indeed afflicted Beppe since the far-off years of his adolescence. He had carried it with him through four miserable years of Sociology at the University of Rome.
Now, being a good manager of himself, he decided to assess the various effects that the taking of a further tablet might have.
He could only think of two, both of them unpleasant:
1) Despite the massive presence of benzodiazepine in his body he would still come in the time it took a sprinter to do the hundred metres.
2) He wouldn’t be able to get it up at all.
He wasn’t sure which of the two options he preferred.
He stroked his chin in the manner of Rodin’s thinker. Yes, perhaps not being able to have an erection would be preferable. I’d still look a twat, but not quite such a stupid one. And I might even find an excuse to back out. But if I come straight away she’ll think I’m pathetic.
Then a further possibility flashed through his mind: Suppose I legged it? If I just wasn’t here when she arrived?
Disconsolate and undecided, he took another sip of vodka.
78
Fabiana Ponticelli, on the saddle of her scooter, was frozen stiff. The pudding-basin helmet on her head was completely useless. The rain got into her eyes and ran down her neck and froze the tip of her nose. Her ears had gone numb. In the attempt to see something she had tried putting on her sunglasses, but that had only made things worse. Her trousers were soaked and she was now beginning to feel her feet floating in her trainers.
Since leaving Esmeralda’s house she hadn’t passed a single car or human being.
Everything was closed. All the lights were out. The place was deserted. Fallen trees lay in the middle of the road. Cars had been crushed. Fabiana felt like the sole survivor of a catastrophe that had exterminated the human race.
But if it goes on like this the river will overflow and flood the road … so my appointment with the dentist will be cancelled. Great!
That thought was enough to put a little warmth back into her limbs and improve her mood.
And if I got flu as well … she said to herself, trying to zip her jacket up more tightly. It would be the icing on the cake.
That way she wouldn’t have to go to school for a few days either.
At home. Without a care in the world. MTV. Charin doing the cooking … And Esme out of my hair for a while. Esmeralda hated going round to her house anyway. She said it was too neat and tidy and ‘too much tidiness smacks of madness to me’. According to her the Ponticelli family was the classic perfect family where the father comes home from work, kills his wife and children and puts a bullet in his head.
She thinks she can say anything she likes to me.
Perhaps she ought to keep away from her for a while. She was beginning to get a bit fed up with her. She was a petty dictator. In order to be her friend she had changed her life. Because if you’re with Esmeralda Guerra either you do what she wants or you don’t exist. In order to be her friend she had stopped seeing Anna and Alessandra.
Maybe they’re not very cool, but I used to enjoy hanging out with them.
And she had practically thrown her into Tekken’s arms.
Esmeralda had slept with him a couple of times and had insisted that she do the same. She kept saying it had been a wonderful fuck, that she’d had three orgasms, one after the other, like she’d had a thousand men. But if it had been so divine, why, all of a sudden, had she stopped?
Simple: Tekken was about as romantic as a pig on a dunghill. He had screwed Esmeralda and then given her the boot. And she had been devastated. Hence her eagerness for Fabiana to sleep with him too. That way at least both of them would have been deflowered and dumped.
The only time Fabiana had been on a date with Tekken they had gone to the cinema and his hands had been all over her. And while he was taking her home they had stopped at the public gardens and he had pulled out his erect cock, as proud as could be, and had practically forced her to give him a hand-job twenty metres from the newsagent’s kiosk. And if she hadn’t threatened to scream he would have screwed her there in the gardens, in front of everyone.
The deafening roar of a broken exhaust pipe made her jump. Fabiana turned her head and saw in the outside lane a man, covered in a yellow cape and a full-face helmet, on the saddle of an old green Boxer.
So I’m not alone in the world. I’ve seen that scooter somewhere before …
It only took her a moment to connect it with that tramp-like guy who looked as if he was breakdancing when he walked, and whom she had often seen with Cristiano Zena’s father.
But where was he going in this weather?
79
Impossible!
It couldn’t be true.
The little blonde who was a dead ringer for Ramona!
That was her scooter. Her yellow sticker. Her helmet.
What was she doing out in this downpour?
And yet it was definitely her, in the flesh, dripping wet.
Quattro Formaggi could see her in the public gardens, that summer night, standing there with her hand around …
Up and down. Up …
The vision of that little girl holding the biker’s cock in her hand blinded him and evoked a guttural moan. A thrill of pleasure ran up his spine, jumping from one vertebra to another, and Quattro Formaggi suddenly felt his arms and legs go as limp as a jellyfish’s tentacles and had to grip the handlebar tightly to stay in the saddle.
Ramona comes out of the house and says to the lumberjack with a smile: “Get out your little joystick and let’s have some fun.”
Up and down. Up …
Quattro Formaggi felt his blood seething as it circulated in his ears, his bowels, between his legs.
He gave himself a few thumps on the thigh. Then he put his hand under his windcheater and dug his fingernails into his ribs.
‘You whore. You damned whore,’ he grunted, enclosed within his helmet. ‘Why? Why do you like doing these things? Why don’t you leave me in peace?’
She did it against him. To make him feel bad.
(Go on! Stop her.) The voice of Bob the lumberjack spoke out, powerful and decisive. (Go on, what are you waiting for?)
I can’t.
(You’ll never have another opportunity like this. Don’t you realise what a stroke of luck it is? She’ll be happy to do it to you as well.)
No, she won’t.
(Yes, she will.)
I can’t. I can’t do it.
(You’re just a poor fool, an idiot, a cre …)
Quattro Formaggi shut his eyes, trying not to listen. He was breathing with his mouth open and the visor of his helmet was misted over.
(Her hands will be cold and wet. And she’ll smile.)
No. I can’t … What if she doesn’t want to?
(Of course she’ll want to. Look, let’s say this. If she takes the bypass, it means she doesn’t want to. But if she takes the road through the woods, that settles it …)
He was right. The road through the woods was deserted. If she didn’t want to be stopped she would never take it, so if she did go that way, it would mean …
(Bravo! You finally understood.)
… she wanted to, so he would stop her.
He didn’t know how, but he would stop her.
80
The tramp was now travelling at th
e same speed as her, behind her but on the wrong side of the road. At one point Fabiana Ponticelli had seen him thumping himself on the leg.
Better accelerate.
With that clapped-out scooter the loony wouldn’t have much chance of keeping up with her.
Fabiana turned the throttle and gradually drew away from him.
She must be careful – at that speed if she saw a rut she wouldn’t have time to brake. She looked in the rear-view mirror.
The Boxer was still behind her. But further back.
She gave a sigh and realised that she had hardly breathed since the guy had materialised alongside her.
81
Sleep had eventually prevailed over the Zena family.
Cristiano had collapsed after a desperate struggle to stay awake until Danilo and Quattro Formaggi arrived, and downstairs Rino was snoring in front of the TV, which was still on.
82
Beppe Trecca, too, with three Xanaxes and half a bottle of melon vodka inside him, was snoring, with his forehead resting on the table between the foil dishes of the Chinese meal.
83
‘I could have found anyone I liked to join me on this job, Rino Zena, my friend. Who do you think you are? Do you think you’re the only person who can do it? And what was that you said? “We must talk.” What the fuck have we got to talk about? Has somebody made you our leader? I’m the leader, till I see any proof to the contrary. Do you know how many better men than you I could have found if I’d wanted?’ Danilo Aprea was talking out loud, gesticulating and raising his shoulders. ‘Who thought up the plan? Who did all the work? Who spent a month sitting opposite the bank watching every movement? Who found the tractor? Me! Me! And me! I did it all! I’m going to make you both rich. I …’ He was addressing the sofa, as if Rino and Quattro Formaggi were sitting on it. ‘Shall I be honest, really brutally honest? No beating about the bush? I should have had fifty per cent and you two twenty-five. That would have been fair. But since I’m a gentleman, a great gentleman …’ He looked at the bottle of grappa on the table. He needed another drop. He raised it.
Empty.
After the phone conversation with Rino he had told himself a drop would help to soothe his anger and he had drained the whole bottle without even realising it.
I’m fine. Nothing to worry about. There’s no problem. He shook his head like a cocker spaniel after its bath. I’ll be better in a minute.
He took three unsteady paces. In fact he was a bit tipsy, but as soon as Quattro Formaggi arrived he would leave, and outside, in the wind and rain, he would recover in no time.
84
(She turned her head. Don’t you see that she’s calling you? You stupid fool) Bob explained to him.
Why did she accelerate, then?
Quattro Formaggi decelerated even more, though still keeping close enough not to lose sight of the scooter.
(Turn off your headlight. She’ll think you’ve taken another road.)
He would be able to catch up with her again immediately. The Boxer’s engine was souped up, it had an expansion exhaust and when he took up an aerodynamic position, on a downward slope, he could do as much as eighty kilometres an hour.
The little blonde would soon reach the fork.
It was up to her. If she took the road through the woods he would stop her.
Please take the bypass. Please.
(You fool.)
85
Fabiana Ponticelli looked in the rear-view mirror.
The Boxer’s headlight wasn’t there any more. The tramp must have turned off down another road.
A classic case of pot-induced paranoia.
My God, though, what a fright he gave me.
Meanwhile in front of her the road, with the rain beating down on it, widened out and a hundred metres further on divided into two.
To the left was the narrow road that passed through the San Rocco woods and led straight home, to the right you went onto the bypass, which ran all the way round the hill, and which was wide and brightly lit but never-ending.
She heard her father’s voice. Like Little Red Riding Hood’s mother, he was saying:
(Fabiana, remember, never go along the road through the woods at night.)
Yes, maybe I’d better take the bypass. I’m soaked to the skin as it is anyway.
But at the last moment she changed her mind – in this weather the big bad wolf will stay in his lair – and swerved sharply, taking the little road that burrowed into the woods.
86
When Quattro Formaggi had seen Ramona heading decisively towards the bypass his heart had filled with disappointment and happiness.
You see? I told you she doesn’t want me. Now leave me alone.
But then, at the last moment, as if the Eternal Father himself had commanded the girl to take the road through the woods, she had swerved.
(Now you’ve got no more excuses.)
But how was he going to stop her? He couldn’t very well just go up and say, ‘Excuse me, would you mind stopping, please?’ …
I’m shy.
(If you don’t stop her you’re a coward. You’ll regret it for the rest of your life. She’s dying for you to do it.)
This was true, but he had to think. He must try to find a way of stopping her and asking her.
(If you don’t get moving you’ll never catch her.)
Quattro Formaggi began to accelerate.
87
The trees bent down over the narrow road, stretching out their branches as if they were trying to grab Fabiana Ponticelli.
The rain, under the roof of foliage, was not so heavy, and there was a smell of wet earth and rotting vegetation.
The Scarabeo’s headlight threw a weak cone of light on the leaf-strewn, muddy asphalt.
The girl rode, following, with intense concentration, the white line in the middle of the road. The game was to keep the wheels on the line, because there were bottomless pits on either side and if she went off the white she would go hurtling down for the rest of her life.
But suddenly the road curved sharply, following the line of the hill, and Fabiana failed to keep the tyre on the white line.
You’d be dead. Okay, the first time doesn’t count. You don’t fall into the pit till your third mistake.
She was so absorbed in the game that she didn’t notice that behind her, fifty metres back, a Boxer was following her.
88
Now he knew what to do.
Quattro Formaggi had racked his brains, and finally Bob the lumberjack had come to his aid. A brilliant idea, as if by magic, had materialised in his brain.
He turned on the headlight and accelerated. The engine began to roar in protest and gradually the Boxer gathered speed.
The little red dot of the Scarabeo’s rear light drew nearer at every bend. After about two hundred metres, if he remembered the road correctly, the descent would begin and at that point he would overtake her.
89
Fabiana Ponticelli, riding on the centre line, concentrating all her attention on not falling into a bottomless pit, almost fell off the saddle when out of the darkness, hunched up like a vulture on its perch, emerged the loony on the Boxer. He held his head at the level of the handlebars and his elbows splayed like wings.
The girl clutched the handlebars and stiffened.
Before she even had time to decide whether to speed up or slow down, he overtook her, charging on down the slope at a maniacal speed. She saw him take the bend leaning steeply over to one side, without braking.
Fabiana shut her eyes, certain she was going to hear the sound of a crash, but when she opened them again there was only a curtain of white smoke and the roar of the now distant exhaust pipe.
He’s completely crazy, that guy.
What on earth was he doing? Did he want to get himself killed? Who did he think he was – Valentino Rossi?
She couldn’t make out whether he was interested in her or if he was just a poor lunatic who liked racing in storms.
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90
After overtaking her, Quattro Formaggi had nearly crashed into the guardrail. He had done well – when he was already practically down on the ground he had stuck out one leg and with a kick had managed to straighten up, but now, after taking another three bends at the risk of breaking his neck, he decided to slow down. Another bend like that, on the slippery asphalt, and he would be a goner.
He pulled the brake levers gently, not trusting the drums, especially now that they were full of water. The front shock absorber started juddering like a pneumatic drill and the back wheel began thrashing about like a fish caught on a hook.
He came to a stop fifty metres further on, at a point where the road through the woods widened out into a layby with a concrete electricity hut.
Quattro Formaggi quickly dismounted from the Boxer and laid it down on the asphalt, taking care not to turn off the engine, right in the middle of the road. He took off his gloves and lay face down on the ground, arms and legs outspread.
91
Fabiana Ponticelli rounded the last bend and entered the long descent that ran straight down the hill to the plain. She was almost there. She had to go past the service station and turn along a road that cut across the fields for about a kilometre, and she would be home. In her mind she was already in bed under the duvet, she had already had a boiling hot shower and what was left of the strudel in the oven. The rain and the cold wind had washed away her torpor, so if she did happen to find her parents still awake she wouldn’t start giggling like an idiot.
I could tell them I was late because my scooter broke down and there was no one around. And that the battery of my mobile had run down. I coul …
She didn’t finish the thought because she saw in front of her a red glow in the middle of the road. As she got nearer she noticed that there was also a pool of white light on the asphalt. She slowed down and heard the metallic gurgle of the exhaust of the loony’s scooter, and realised at once that the idiot had crashed on the final slope.