He was in a bad enough mess already, without getting death threats from Rino Zena.
‘Well, if you want to kill me, go ahead and do it. What can I say …’ he murmured. ‘I was only trying to make you guys rich …’
Another nightmare appeared in his mind. The next day at noon the TV salespeople would be coming round to bring him the painting of the climbing clown.
‘What am I going to say to them? “I’m sorry, I haven’t got any money. I don’t want the picture any more. I made a mistake,”’ he recited, sitting astride the bidet.
He couldn’t let that masterpiece slip through his fingers so easily.
‘Anyway, I’m not scared of you, Rino Zena, my friend. I don’t give a shit about you …’ He curled his lip, baring his teeth like an angry wolf, and gargled with the throat mixture. ‘Don’t fuck with me, do you hear? You’ve got to be very wary about fucking with Danilo Aprea!’
He went back into the sitting room in his underpants and windcheater. A treacherous leer had formed beneath his moustache. He started cackling with laughter. ‘Who’s the drunkard? I’m the drunkard, am I? Well, what are you then, Rino Zena? A pathetic alcoholic Nazi? A failure? A piece of human trash? Which? You decide. Which name would you like to be known by? Take your pick.’ Then he started nodding his head and went on: ‘You and me are finished. I’m not scared of you. Why don’t you come round here so I can …’ he couldn’t think of the word ‘… knock your block off. You’re going to regret the mistake you’ve made, regret it bitterly. Hah! You don’t understand who you’re dealing with!’ He flopped back down on the sofa and concluded, raising his index finger towards the ceiling: ‘Don’t fuck with Danilo Aprea! I must get myself a T-shirt made, with that slogan across the chest.’
117
Beppe Trecca was sure Ida wouldn’t come now.
So much the better.
He had spent a hellish evening cooped up in that stinking camper. At least it would serve as a lesson to him – it would teach him not to fool around with his best friend’s wife.
Anyway, that was it, he must go home, get into bed and forget about this mad infatuation with Ida Lo Vino. It was only a temptation that was burning his soul and would bring him eternal damnation.
I got carried away.
He must write her a nice text message explaining that their relationship couldn’t continue, for everyone’s sake.
But how shall I put it?
“I apologise for pressing my attentions on you”? “Let’s call the whole thing off”?
No. Too cowardly. He would meet her the next day and make her see reason. Reminding her that she had children, and a husband who loved her, and that it was right that they say goodbye.
Yes, that was a test of character which would reconcile him with his conscience and with God.
But outside a car horn hooted.
Beppe dashed to the window and saw two yellow headlights in the rain.
It’s her! She’s here. Now I’ll speak to her.
Give yourself the once-over, though …
He was about to go into the bathroom to look in the mirror when he remembered what was in there.
He adjusted his tie, peering at his reflection in the rain-streaked window, and ran his fingers through his hair. Then he started jumping up and down, bending his head to the left and right and loosening up his arms, like a boxer who has just climbed into the ring.
I must find the right way of putting it, so I don’t hurt her. But he didn’t think he could even talk, he felt so excited. His stomach was tight and he had no saliva.
My breath must be bad enough to kill a rhinoceros.
With trembling hands he took out the little box of mints that he kept in his pocket, tipped the whole lot in his mouth and then started crushing them with his teeth, recalling a statement once made by Loris Reggiani, the great motorcycling champion: ‘I’ve spent most of my life on a racing bike, knowing that I would achieve the best results if I could control my emotions and my potential.’
So go for it. Don’t worry. You can do it.
He opened the door of the camper, breathing deeply in and out.
Ida Lo Vino rushed in, soaking wet. ‘What’s happening? Is this the biblical flood?’ she said, removing her sopping raincoat.
Beppe would have liked to answer her, to say anything at all, but his vocal cords had been paralysed at the sight of her standing there in front of him.
Christ, is she beautiful.
Even shrouded in the clouds of incense she was a goddess. She wore a knee-length skirt, black high-heeled shoes and a peach-coloured jacket.
And she’s come because of you.
‘Brr, it’s cold,’ she said, rubbing her arms.
All Beppe could do was pick up the bottle of melon vodka and pass it to her.
She gave him a quizzical look. ‘Aren’t you going to give me a glass?’
‘I’m sorry … You’re …’ perfectly right. He took a wine glass from the table and passed it to her.
She poured herself two fingers of alcohol, looking around.
‘Small. But well organised.’ She wrinkled up her nose. ‘You’ve lit some incense. There’s a funny smell …’
It was like being inside a tin drum, with the noise the rain was making on the roof. He shouted: ‘Yes, there is.’
He would have liked to ask her how she had managed to come without arousing Mario’s suspicions, but he didn’t.
Ida tossed off the vodka. ‘Mmm, a bit of warmth. I needed that.’
She seemed even more tense and embarrassed than him. ‘I’m dying for a pee. Is there a bathroom in here?’
He pointed to the door and wanted to tell her not to open it, that it was hell in there and that maybe she had better … But the paralysis of his vocal capabilities persisted.
‘I won’t be a minute.’ Ida opened the door and locked herself in.
The social worker, in dismay, clapped his hand to his forehead.
118
The river had broken its banks and flooded the fields and soon the narrow strip of asphalt along which Rino Zena’s van was speeding would be swamped. The headlights of the Ducato slid over the water-covered fields.
The worn blades of the windscreen wipers struggled to keep the screen clear, and on the inside the glass was misted up.
Rino wiped it with his hand and kept wondering why on earth Quattro Formaggi had gone into the woods. And why was he crying like that? Was there really something to worry about? Or was this just another crazy idea produced by that rotten brain?
Trying to penetrate the contorted mechanisms of Quattro Formaggi’s mind was a task Rino had long since given up. Getting electrocuted at the weir hadn’t helped, but even before that he hadn’t been in such wonderful shape. He hadn’t had all those tics and he hadn’t walked with a limp, but he was already as daft as a brush.
He remembered him in the children’s home. He would do crazy things like playing tennis for hours without a ball or a racket against an imaginary opponent called Aurelio.
He passed the pump of the deserted Agip filling station. From this point the road climbed up the hill, which was covered with woodland.
The headlights made the teeming raindrops glisten, but couldn’t cut through the foliage at the sides of the road.
On the phone Quattro Formaggi had whimpered that he was in a layby where there was an electricity hut.
Shortly before the uphill road began to bend Rino saw a long layby on the left. At the end, near the guardrail, was a concrete hut daubed with coloured graffiti.
This is it.
Rino pulled in, turned off the engine, opened the tool drawer, took out the torch with the headband and switched it on.
No sign of life. Maybe this wasn’t the right hut. He was about to return to the van when something gleamed behind the cabin. He went over and saw the Boxer and a Scarabeo leaned up against each other.
Whose is the other scooter?
Then he understood.
So
me bastard who had nothing better to do than fuck other people around must have met Quattro Formaggi on the road.
There had been times in the past when they had surrounded him, shoved him around, amused themselves by making him dance and sing. They picked on him because he didn’t react.
‘You bastards. If you’ve hurt him I’ll kill you.’ Rino pulled his pistol out of his belt. He returned to the van, got out the bullets and loaded it, feeling the anger warming his blood.
He pointed the light towards the trees.
119
Danilo Aprea had lain down on the bed in his underpants and windcheater, and was looking at the ceiling, gasping for air.
I feel like shit.
His armpits were ice-cold. His feet boiling hot. His guts twisted in knots. And there was a worrying pain in his chest. The classic twinge that comes just before a heart attack. The sharp claw of a falcon digging in between your ventricles.
‘Now watch me burst a vein. That’ll be the end of me. And you’ll all be happy,’ and he gave a belch that tasted of grappa.
He wished he could turn off the television, which was blaring in the sitting room. The voices of Bruno Vespa and those other arseholes blathering on about deficits, taxes and inflation made him feel terribly sick. But he was afraid of dozing off and dying in his sleep.
What a fool he’d been to drink that Cynar.
Do liqueurs have a sell-by date?
And then as soon as he closed his eyes he felt like he was falling into a bottomless pit which would take him right down to the fiery centre of the Earth.
He had to think. Though in that state and with Bruno Vespa yammering away in the other room it was really hard.
The first thing to consider was that the cash machine plan, as originally conceived, was dead in the water. The second was that he had finished for good with Rino and Quattro Formaggi.
‘But, as the proverb says, better alone than in bad company,’ he mumbled, putting one hand on his chest.
He must revive the plan of the raid. Without them. It was the best thing his mind had produced since the day he had been born. It shouldn’t just be dropped. The great thing about the plan was that you could do it any time. Any night. All you needed was the right mates, not a couple of cowards.
He would find some real professionals with whom he could start from scratch. At that moment he didn’t know who they were, or how he was going to find them, but next day, with a clear head, he would certainly think of something.
‘Albanians. Guys with balls,’ he said, panting. ‘Rino, my friend, you just don’t understand me. What a pity. What a great pity. You don’t realise who you’re dealing with. If you want to stop Danilo Aprea you’ve got to blast him with a bazooka.’
The pale blue brushstrokes of the television, through the doorway, were painting the ceiling above the bed. It was strange, but in between the light-blue patches there seemed to emerge a dark patch with a human form.
‘Is that you, my friend?’ he asked, looking at the ceiling.
(Sure it’s me.)
The climbing clown was looking down at him, stuck to the ceiling like Spiderman.
‘I was right to tell Rino where to go, wasn’t I? They mustn’t fuck with me, they just don’t understand. The only thing I’m sorry about is that tomorrow those people are bringing the picture and I won’t have the money. That I really am sorry about.’ He fumbled about on the floor for the bottle of Cynar but couldn’t find it. ‘Don’t worry, though … Trust me … I’m not chucking my life down the pan.’ He was addressing the clown above his head. ‘I won’t leave you. I’m not like some people I could mention. I swear, I swear on the head of …’
Laura.
‘… Teresa, the most important thing in my life, that you’ll be here, in this flat. Tomorrow. I’ll sell everything I own if I have to.’
Suddenly a lump of pain burst like a bubble under his sternum. He touched his eyes, his cheeks. He was crying and he hadn’t noticed.
‘I’m not well,’ he sobbed. ‘What should I do? Tell me. Please tell me.’
(Ring her. She’s the only person who understands you.) The clown smiled down at him from the ceiling.
‘No, it’s not true … She left me … It wasn’t my fault that Laura died. I know she thinks it was …’
(Tell her you’re giving up drink, as from tomorrow.)
Danilo knew there wasn’t any clown up there on the ceiling, that it was only a shadow cast by the television in the sitting room. Yet it really seemed to be talking to him.
‘Let’s not kid ourselves, I’ll never manage it.’ Another bubble of pain burst under his Adam’s apple.
(Yes you will. If she comes back to you and helps you you’ll certainly manage it … Tell her about the boutique. She’ll come back, you’ll see.)
Danilo raised his head a little and narrowed his eyes: ‘Now? Shall I call her now?
(Yes, now.)
‘What if she’s angry?’
(Why should she be angry?)
‘It’s too late. I promised not to call her at night.’
(It’s never too late to tell the truth. To tell someone you love them. Tell her what you’re doing for her. That you’ll climb the great mountain just for her. That’s the kind of thing women like to hear. Tell her about the boutique. You’ll see, you’ll see …)
Danilo lifted his head off the cushion and everything started spinning. He took a deep breath, groped for the switch and turned on the bedside lamp. The light stabbed his retinas. He put one hand over his eyes and with the other picked up the phone on the bedside table. ‘I’ll call her mobile, though.’ He dialled Teresa’s number.
The number was not obtainable.
‘There’s no answer, you see?’
(Call her landline.)
Now that would be a stupid thing to do. Especially at this time of night, when that shit of a tyre dealer would be there. And yet he had to do it, he had to hear Teresa’s voice, the only thing that would do him any good at that moment.
(Do it. If he answers, you can hang up, can’t you?)
That’s true …
Besides, this time it was different. It was to tell her he was going to put everything right. Seriously. He was at the end of the tunnel, and if he didn’t change he was finished. And she would understand. Teresa would understand how much he was suffering and she would come back home and he, next morning, would wake to find her curled up beside him wearing her eye-mask to keep out the light.
(What are you waiting for?)
His index finger slipped onto the keypad, and with surprising speed for his mental condition he tapped out her number.
120
He mistook it first for a dog, then for a wild boar and finally for a gorilla.
Rino took three steps backwards and instinctively pointed his gun at it, but as soon as the torchlight illuminated it he realised it was a human being.
There on all fours in the middle of the wood, beside the crash helmet. Soaking wet. Black hair plastered down over the skull … On one shoulder a hole from which blood was oozing. Hands immersed in the mud.
‘Quattro Formaggi? What happened to you?’
At first he didn’t even seem to hear, but then slowly he raised his head towards the light.
Rino instinctively put his hand over his mouth.
The eyes were wide open, two holes sunken in their orbits, and the jaw hung down idiotically.
‘What have they done to you?’
The face, etched by the shadows, was reduced to a skull. It was as if something inside Quattro Formaggi’s mind had short-circuited, as happens in some mental patients after a lobotomy. It didn’t even seem to be him.
‘Where are they? Where the fuck are they?’ Rino started pointing the gun around, sure they were there, hiding somewhere, in the darkness. ‘Come on out, you bastards. Fight someone your own size!’ Then he bent down, still pointing the gun forward, and grabbed Quattro Formaggi by the arm and tried to pull him up, but he seemed to be r
ooted to the earth. ‘Come on! Get up. We’ve got to get out of here.’ Finally, making a tremendous effort, he got him on his feet. ‘I’m here. Don’t worry.’ He was about to start dragging him along when he noticed that his cock was sticking out of his trousers.
‘What the f …’
‘I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t do it on purpose,’ stammered Quattro Formaggi and he started crying. ‘I’m sorry.’
Rino felt as if someone had ripped open his belly with a knife and simultaneously rammed a sock down his throat.
He let go of Quattro Formaggi, who slumped down on the ground. He took two steps backwards and realised he’d been wrong. Terribly wrong.
The Scarabeo belongs to that girl … The one that goes to Cristiano’s school … The sticker with the face on it.
He was overwhelmed by the chilling awareness that Quattro Formaggi had finally exploded. And done something really terrible.
Because Rino knew that the fairy tale the locals always repeated, that Quattro Formaggi wouldn’t hurt a fly, was as big a load of bullshit as the idea that the government was going to cut taxes.
Every day there was someone who would go out of their way to make fun of him in some way or other, who would mimic him, give him less soup in the canteen, make him feel like a fool, but he would never lose his temper, he would smile, and everyone would say Quattro Formaggi was above all that.
Above it my arse!
That half-smile he gave after someone had imitated him and called him a spastic wasn’t a sign that Quattro Formaggi was a saint, but that the insult had hit home, had pierced a sensitive part, and the pain went to swell a part of his brain where something tainted, twisted, was pulsing away. And some day, sooner or later, that festering thing would wake up.
A million times Rino had thought this, and a million times he had hoped he was wrong.
He had to summon up all his strength to be able to speak to him. It was as if he had been punched in the stomach. ‘What have you done? What the hell have you done?’ He turned on the leaf-strewn ground and walked a few steps, and the yellow beam of the torch on his brow slid over Fabiana’s body lying in the middle of the path. Her head smashed in by a rock.