He smiles. It’s a twisted grimace I would have been just as happy not to see.
“Nothing’s going to happen to that deal. You’re going to write down the name and the address of that guy, I’m going to take the paper you write it on to Tano, and everything’s going to be fine.”
“Now why would I do that? No matter what I do, you’re going to kill me anyway.”
“I’ll tell you why. You can avoid dying in a pretty unpleasant manner. I’ve got plenty of time. I can shoot you in the knee and wait. Then I can shoot you in the other knee, and then in the shoulder, and so on. Or else with a single shot blow off all your equipment. I’ve heard that it hurts like hell to be shot in the balls.”
I sit in silence. My thoughts wander off in another direction. Now I’m no longer in the car, I’m elsewhere, with other men like Tulip, men with the same intentions, men with the same indifference.
A long long time ago.
“Too bad, boy, that you don’t seem to know how to keep your dick in your pants. Sometimes when you zip up afterward you could get it caught: accidents will happen…”
Tulip’s voice brings me back to the car. He thinks that I’m dreaming up a way of screwing him and he decides to share the possible consequences.
“Let’s say by chance you were to decide to give me the wrong name and address, well, you’d better not. I’ll find out if you have a girlfriend, a buddy, or a dog. Any creature on this earth that you care about. And then I’ll kill them too.”
I don’t have the slightest doubt that he’ll keep his word. Which persuades me once and for all that Salvatore Menno is a psychopath. My mind plays Laura’s face back to me as she gazes entranced at Giorgio Fieschi; Lucio’s expression, perennially rapt in his blindness; the cryptic clue that I left for him before leaving—I’ll never know if he solved it.
In the meantime, as we continue along Via Lorenteggio, we’ve passed the intersection with Via Primaticcio. The road widens into the Vigevanese, with two lanes running in each direction. Along the highway are all-night gas stations, two-bit whores, industrial sheds, cars parked along the service road. A young man is standing next to the service window of an all-night pharmacy. No question: he’s a junkie buying a syringe to shoot up. But at this particular instant, the fate of some drug addict is the least of my concerns, if I might ever have cared. At least he has the good luck to have a choice in how he dies.
“Keep going straight through Trezzano, then I’ll tell you.”
The car travels on. The handgun is still aimed straight at my belly. I keep my eyes on the road; Tulip watches me and smiles. We pass through the Quartiere Tessera. This is a departure without a return trip, and I’m surprised to find that I feel no nostalgia whatsoever. Doubt floats spontaneously to the surface: Is that all there is? Nothing more? Are these the wonders that we were promised, is this the beauty of the world, is this the life that was worth living? I struggle to find a meaning to things, any meaning at all, as I pass one nameless place where I live and continue on to another nameless place where I’m going to take a gunshot to the head.
Trezzano streams past in a flash, like all moments just before dying. Now we’re out in the country and the streetlights are just a memory. Out here there are no concessions. The open road accepts only the beams of the headlights.
“Turn right.”
The muzzle of the pistol points me toward a secondary road. I slow down and steer the car down a strip of asphalt running through the countryside. I keep driving until it turns into a dirt lane. We continue along it, skirting a quarry at a certain point, until we reach a wide place in the road, surrounded by trees and bushes.
“Stop here and get out.”
I stop the car and swing the door open. The ground underfoot is hard and uneven. The air is damp and I can smell wet grass. This would have been the perfect night to be alone, and I was in the mood for it, too. But there’s no time. There’s never enough time. And now Tulip is already on my side of the car, surrounded by the reddish halo of the taillights. The handgun hasn’t shifted a millimeter. Nor have his intentions, I decide. He takes a few steps back and points to the car.
“Open the trunk.”
I do as he says. Inside, amid the clutter, is a shovel. For a fraction of a second I tell myself to go for it. But the son of a bitch has more experience in this kind of thing than I do. In my life, I’ve always been on the wrong end of the gun or the knife.
Which teaches you nothing, except to be afraid.
His voice erases any clever ideas before they have a chance to take shape.
“Pick it up and step away.”
I take two steps backward, pathetic with my shovel in my hand. I watch as he steps over to the trunk and rummages around inside. When he pulls out his hand it’s holding a flashlight.
“Turn off the headlights.”
A few seconds later we’re in the dark, with the luminous beam of the flashlight as the only barrier between us and the night. I see the beam move and uncover a path through the greenery.
“Over that way.”
I start walking. I don’t know where we are, but my captor looks like he feels right at home here. I can imagine that all around us, under a yard or so of dirt, there must be buried any number of bodies that experienced a journey just like my own. I walk as best I can, feeling the bushes cut my hands, with nothing to guide me but the flashlight beam, flattening my shadow over the underbrush.
At last we come to a point that Tulip must have defined in his head with a single word: here. There’s a little grass clearing, just big enough for the purpose he has in mind. I see the light move away and shift to my left. The voice emerges from the darkness immediately behind it. There’s an unmistakable note of derision dripping from the words now.
“Dig. Even though your nice suit will get a little wrinkled. If you want, when you’re done, I’ll send it to the cleaners.”
I start digging so I don’t have to hear him laugh. And so I can think. I know that where my hopes for survival are concerned there’s a big fat zero. All the same, I don’t want to let this asshole just win without putting up a fight. It can’t be a jerk like Tulip who finally rubs me off the list. The only opportunity I’ll have to try anything will be when he asks me to write down a name and an address. Maybe he’ll be distracted or maybe he might slip and fall, maybe …
Or maybe what I learned in school is true. Hope is just the last item in Pandora’s box, all I have left.
Little by little, my legs are standing in a hole that grows steadily deeper. The sweat pours off my forehead and trickles down my back. My hands start to hurt. I stand up and lean on the shovel, gripping the handle tightly.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you have the strength? You already tired, jerk-off?”
I’m about to tell him to go fuck himself. I’m about to lift the shovel and lunge at him, because by now the anger is more powerful than any instinct for self-preservation. Then something happens.
In the silence, one after another, three smothered noises, in rapid succession.
Pfft … pfft … pfft …
The flashlight suddenly jumps into the air, spinning around in a couple of luminous somersaults before falling to earth. I hear the sound of branches rustling as a body falls into the bushes. I think I hear light footsteps. But that must be nothing more than an impression because they vanish immediately.
Then silence.
Time keelhauls me and what happens meanwhile is: nothing. No more voice, no more orders. Only the half-beam of the flashlight on the ground where it’s fallen, illuminating the base of a shrub. I walk over, pick it up, and swing the shaft of light around me.
Tulip is flat on his back, as if nailed to a cross, a short distance away. His eyes are open, staring straight up. He seems to be looking at the hole that just opened up in the middle of his forehead. There are two other holes in his chest, from which a bloodstain is beginning to spread.
It dawns on me what’s happened. I instinctively take a step backward and I
switch off the flashlight. If whoever shot that son of a bitch decides that I’m just as much of a son of a bitch, I have no desire to help them shoot me by offering a light source. That is, if they intend to do any more shooting. I wait a little longer, and then I decide that it’s time to leave. I turn the flashlight back on, I pick up the shovel, and I retrace my route along the trail, doing my best not to lose my way. After a while, I see the beam reflected off the hood of the CX. I decide the best thing I can do is put a little distance between me and this fucked-up place. I get in the car, start the engine, do a three-point turn, and drive back to the main road. I meet no cars coming in the opposite direction along the way. Now that the the worst is over, an anxiety attack sweeps over me. My hands start trembling and no matter how hard I try, I can’t master the shaking. I don’t waste a lot of time trying to figure out what just happened. For now, I’m just happy to be alive. Thanks to someone I don’t know, the man who was about to kill me can be buried in my place in the hole I dug for him.
But I won’t be doing the burying, that’s for sure.
I drive back onto the road, take a left, and drive calmly back to Milan. I have to get rid of this car as quickly as I can. I wouldn’t want to run into a police car, the kind that’s never around when you need them, and have the cops stop me driving a car I could never explain away. A car that belongs to a man who’s going to be found, sooner or later, with three bullet holes in his body.
I reach Piazza Frattini and dump the CX in a cross street of Via d’Alviano. It’s at a decent distance from the Ascot but still close enough that I can walk to the club without having to catch a taxi. It’s just incredible what good memories certain taxi drivers who work the night shift seem to have. Before I leave, I carefully wipe off all the parts that I’ve touched. The steering wheel, the gearshift, the door, the shovel, the trunk.
Then I start walking.
My sense of agitation has subsided, but the danger that I just narrowly escaped has sapped all my energy. I suddenly feel exhausted. As if for my entire life up till now I had done hard physical labor without ever being able to rest. I keep walking at the pace that I’m able to keep up, mulling over the events that have brought me here, walking alone through the streets of Milan dressed in dirt-caked clothing. I keep asking myself questions and I can’t come up with a satisfactory answer to any of them. I don’t keep count of the steps, or the time. Only the exhaustion. And I’ve even lost track of that when I turn the corner of Via Tempesta and find myself outside the Ascot Club. It’s locked up tight and all the lights are out, but to my eyes it’s as spectacularly glorious as all of Las Vegas.
I head for the Mini. Standing next to the car is a woman, her back turned toward me. She’s smoking a cigarette and looks familiar. I stop to look at her, thinking that it’s too late even for a poor and obstinate streetwalker. Just then, she turns around and I recognize her.
It’s Carla.
My surprise manages to overcome the exhaustion that’s twisting my shoulders, legs, and stomach.
I walk over to her. She sees me, throws the cigarette butt to the ground, and launches the last puff of smoke out into the night. She comes toward me. Her face is as beautiful as I remembered it. She’s wearing a short jacket over a light dress and she moves with the natural elegance of a feline.
I hadn’t noticed her walk the other time. Or maybe I was too busy trying to show off in front of Daytona to notice it. Step by step, her eyes emerge from the dim light. She holds them level, meeting my gaze, even though when she finally speaks there’s a note of embarrassment in her voice. And an exquisitely feminine form of caution and shame at being in my presence, at a place like that at that hour of the morning.
“Ciao.”
“Ciao. What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
“You’ve been waiting for me?”
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
She tosses her head in the direction of the office building where, behind the lit-up windows, her coworkers are laboring with mops and rags.
“I was at work. When I got here I saw your car. Then I kept watching it out the window, hoping that you’d come get it. At a certain point I couldn’t help it anymore. I took off my smock, I walked out of there, and I came down here.”
I’m having a hard time focusing on her face. My stomach feels as if it’s full of sawdust and my body by this point is just a pile of firewood. And yet, all the same, what strikes me about her is a form of womanliness I’ve never encountered before.
I feel bad and I feel as if I’m being attacked. So I’m a little harsh with her.
“What do you want from me?”
She looks away as she talks to me.
“I’m sick of my life. I’m sick of breaking my back for a couple of lire. I’m sick of seeing women all around me who’ve grown old without ever being young. I’m sick of having to fuck my boss to keep my job or having to fuck my landlord to cover the rent.”
I take a deep breath. This confession falls onto the pavement with the sound of tinkling coins. I don’t know why, but I know that this is an important moment. Our two lives are intertwining and I feel like an idiot because I’m so tired that I can hardly utter anything more than monosyllabic grunts.
“And so?”
She looks me straight in the eye again. Her embarrassment and caution have vanished.
“Your proposition yesterday morning…”
A short pause, as if to give me time to remember.
“Yes?”
“Your friend told me that you’re someone who knows what he’s doing. That you have a nice network. I’d like you to make me part of the network and help me to make a lot of money.”
I’m standing in front of her and it’s as if I’m slowly watching her vanish into the distance. My head is exploding and I feel as if my legs are hollow inside. The question that I ask may come as a surprise to her.
“Do you have a driver’s license?”
“Yes.”
I stick my hands into my pockets and then I hold out my car keys to her. I can’t imagine what my face looks like as I tell her, with the thin thread of a voice that I can still muster, what I want from her.
“Drive me home, please. I don’t want to faint behind the wheel.”
7
The last thing I see are headlights.
The light disappears suddenly, along with my breath. Then a rough canvas bag over my head, shoving, yanking, a callused hand pushing me into a car. From then on it’s only sounds. Bumping and jouncing, the clicking of vibrations and the roar of the engine in the dark. The heavy breathing of more than one man. Then the car stops and the whole thing happens in reverse. This time it’s to get out of the car, but it’s still yanking and jerking and shoving and a callused hand
the same one?
pulling me out and I’m unable to breathe because now two hands
the same ones?
are throttling my neck and forcing me down onto my knees. And the voice comes out of the void and …
I wake up with a jolt.
I’m in bed, naked, and I can feel that the sheets are drenched with sweat. Maybe it’s not only sweat, but I pay no attention to that detail. My head is doing its best to get my thoughts into some kind of order. Unfortunately, with the return of some semblance of order comes memory as well. Tulip, the trip to the outskirts of the city, those three pistol shots smothered by the silencer, the bloodstain on his shirt, his eyes staring glassy in the darkness. And after that, Carla’s eyes, docile while she looked at me, rebellious while she was speaking to me, and careful while she was driving and listening to the directions to my house.
I can’t imagine what her eyes were like as she watched me emerge from my clothing.
As soon as we got home, walking as best I could, I went into my bedroom and collapsed onto the bed, fully dressed. I fell asleep instantly. She must have undressed me. I can well imagine her surprise. Maybe she leaped backward whe
n she slipped off my underwear. A reflexive act of horror, a switchblade jab to the stomach, the kind of thing that the mind combines to form a new memory.
I stand up, yank the sheet off the bed, and wrap myself in it like a toga, ready for my twenty-three stab wounds. I walk into the bathroom, lock the door behind me, lower myself onto the pot, and let go of everything I’ve got inside. When I think of the fact that right now I ought to be lying motionless a yard deep in the ground with a bullet lodged in my head, even pissing and shitting can become a hymn to life.
I step into the shower and carefully soap every square inch of my body to remove all traces of last night. I don’t know who shot Tulip and I don’t even bother to venture a name. I’d need to search through too long a list of people who might have it in for that murderous psychotic. The thing I can’t figure out, no matter how hard I try, is why the same guy didn’t shoot me too.
I slip into my bathrobe and notice as I step out of the shower that my clothing is piled in a heap next to the laundry hamper. I’ll have to get rid of it. Washing it might be enough, but it’s a risk I’d rather avoid. I don’t want to be found walking around in clothes that might contain traces of dirt from a place where the police have just found a dead body with three bullet holes in it.
I step out of the bathroom with my hair still wet, walk up the hallway, and emerge into the living room. Carla’s on my right, lying down on the sofa. She’s asleep, fully dressed, her legs tucked up, one arm wedged under one of the little throw pillows. She’s removed her jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders as a blanket. Her shoes lie neatly on the floor. She’s breathing lightly, despite her uncomfortable position. Her face is beautiful; her complexion is fair, even without her eyes to illuminate it.
I run my gaze around the room.
On the chest of drawers next to the television set is everything I had in my pockets. Cigarettes, lighter, wallet, money clip and wad of bills, pager—almost exactly the way I arrange them before I undress, in practically the same order. The wall clock says it’s noon. The red light on the phone is blinking to tell me there are messages on my answering machine.