Black Run. Antonio Manzini

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СКАЧАТЬ that Marina chose, or opening the drawers of the Indian credenzas that we bought years ago in Viterbo. To say nothing of the bathrooms. Strangers’ asses planted on my toilet, in my bath, strange faces admiring their reflections in my Mexican mirrors. It’s out of the question. I get myself a bottle of cool water. Otherwise I’ll wake up in the middle of the night with a throat and tongue that resemble two pieces of sandpaper.

       Marina is under the blankets. As always, she’s reading the dictionary.

       “Isn’t it a little late for reading?”

       “It’s the only way I can get to sleep.”

       “What’s the new word for today?”

       Marina has a little black notebook that she keeps in her lap with a pencil. She opens to her bookmark and reads. “Stitch—­transitive verb: To sew or embroider something. It can also be used of one who sews with no particular enthusiasm.” She sets down her notebook.

       The mattress is comfortable. It’s called memory foam. A material developed by NASA for astronauts in the sixties. It envelops you like a glove because it remembers the shape of your body. That’s what it says in the pamphlet that came with it.

       “Could you say that I’m stitching in Aosta?” I ask Marina.

       “No. You’re not a tailor. I’m the one who knows how to sew.”

       The mattress is comfortable. But the bed is cold as ice. I wrap myself around Marina. Looking for a little heat. But her side is as cold as mine.

       I close my eyes.

       And I finally put an end to this shitty day.

FRIDAY

      The telephone drilled through the silence that double-­pane windows and the absence of traffic gave to Deputy Police Chief Schia­vone’s apartment on Rue Piave. Rocco leaped like a hooked bass and opened his eyes wide. Despite the scream of the cell phone on his nightstand, he was still able to gather his thoughts: it was morning, he was at home, in his own bed after spending the night out in the snow. He wasn’t actually lying underneath Eva Mendes, and she wasn’t actually wearing nothing but a pair of dizzyingly high stiletto heels and dancing like a sinuous serpent, tossing her hair to and fro. That image was nothing but a cobweb that the telephone had scorched with its deranged shrieks.

      “Who’s busting my balls at seven in the morning?”

      “Me.”

      “Me who?”

      “Sebastiano!”

      Rocco smiled as he ran one hand over his face. “Sebastiano! How you doing?”

      “Fine, fine.” And now his friend’s croupy voice had become recognizable. “Sorry if I woke you up.”

      “I haven’t heard from you in months!”

      “Four months and ten days, but who’s counting?”

      “How are you doing?”

      “Fine, fine.”

      “What are you up to?”

      “I’m coming up north.”

      Rocco shifted comfortably on the memory foam mattress. “You’re coming up? When?”

      “Tomorrow night. I’ll be on the seven o’clock train from Turin. Are you going to be around?”

      “Of course I will. I’ll meet you at the station.”

      “Excellent. Will it be cold up there?”

      “What can I tell you, Seba? Bone-­chilling cold.”

      “All right, then I’ll wear a down jacket.”

      “And insulated shoes—­take my word for it,” Rocco added.

      “I don’t have those. What kind of shoes do you wear up there?”

      “A pair of Clarks desert boots.”

      “Are they insulated?”

      “No. Which is why I’m telling you to wear a pair of insulated shoes. My feet are like a ­couple of ice cubes.”

      “Then why don’t you get yourself a pair?”

      “I can’t stand the things.”

      “Well, you do what you like. I’m going to swing by Decathlon and get a pair. So—­see you tomorrow?”

      “See you tomorrow.”

      And Sebastiano hung up the phone.

      Rocco dropped his cell phone on his down jacket. If Sebastiano Cecchetti, known to his friends as Seba, was coming to Aosta, then matters were becoming distinctly interesting.

      When Rocco walked into police headquarters at 8:15 a.m., Special Agent Michele Deruta walked up to him immediately. He was moving his tiny feet as fast as his two-­hundred-­plus pounds allowed him, and he was panting like an old steam locomotive. His chin was sweaty and his thinning white hair, combed specially to conceal his bald spot, was glittering, oiled by who-­knows-­what pomade.

      “Dottore?”

      Rocco stopped suddenly in the middle of the hallway. “Your face and hair are damp. Why damp, Deruta? Did you stick your face into a barrel of oil?”

      Deruta pulled out his handkerchief and tried to dry himself off. “I wouldn’t know, Dottore.”

      “But still, you’re damp. Do you take a shower in the morning?”

      “Yes, of course.”

      “But you don’t dry off.”

      “No, it’s just that before coming to work, I help my wife at her bakery.”

      Officer Deruta, getting close to retirement age, started talking about his wife’s bakery just outside of town, the work in the predawn hours, the yeast and the flour. Rocco Schiavone paid no attention to a word he said. He just watched his damp, loose lips, his hair streaked with white, and his bovine, bulging eyes.

      “What’s surprising,” said the deputy police chief, interrupting his special agent’s monologue, “is not that you work at your wife’s bakery, Deruta. It’s that you have a wife at all—­that’s what’s truly extraordinary.”

      Deruta fell silent. It wasn’t as if he expected special praise for his daily sacrifice of working a double job, but a kind word, something like “You’re wearing yourself out, Deruta. What a good man you are,” or, “If only there were more ­people like you.” Instead he got nothing. A scornful lack of consideration was all his superior officer СКАЧАТЬ