Black Run. Antonio Manzini

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      “And?”

      Rocco pulled himself up into a sitting position on the bed without even glancing at her. He slowly pulled on his socks.

      “Can’t you talk?”

      “I don’t feel like it. I’m working. Leave me alone.”

      Nora nodded. She brushed aside a lock of hair that had fallen in front of her eyes. “So you have to go out?”

      Rocco finally turned and looked at her. “Well, what do you think I’m doing?”

      There Nora lay, stretched out on the bed. Her arm, thrown over her head, revealed her perfectly hairless armpit. Her crimson satin negligee caressed her body, emphasizing with an interplay of light and shadow her generous curves. Her long, smooth dark hair framed her face, white as cream. Her black eyes looked like a pair of Apulian olives freshly plucked from the tree. Her lips were thin, but she knew just how to apply the right amount of lipstick to fill them out. Nora, a magnificent specimen of womanhood, just a year over forty.

      “You could be a little nicer about it, couldn’t you?”

      “No,” Rocco replied. “I couldn’t. It’s late, I have to drive up into the mountains, I have to kiss the whole evening with you good-­bye, and in a little while it’s probably going to start snowing, too!”

      He stood up brusquely from the bed, went over to sit in an armchair, and put on his shoes: a pair of Clarks desert boots, the only type of footwear that Rocco Schiavone knew. Nora lay on the bed. She felt a little dumb, made up and dressed in satin. A table set for dinner, and no guests attending. She sat up. “What a shame. I made you raclette for dinner.”

      “What’s that?” the deputy police chief asked glumly.

      “Haven’t you ever had it? It’s a bowl of melted fontina cheese with artichokes, olives, and little chunks of salami.”

      Rocco stood up and pulled on a crewneck sweater. “Nice and digestible, I gather.”

      “Am I going to see you tomorrow?”

      “How the hell would I know, Nora! I don’t even know where I’m going to be tomorrow.”

      He left the bedroom. Nora sighed and stood up. She caught up with him at the front door. She whispered: “I’ll be waiting for you.”

      “What am I, a bus?” Rocco shot back. Then he smiled. “Nora, forgive me, this is just a bad night. You’re an incredibly beautiful woman. You’re unquestionably the top tourist attraction in the city of Aosta.”

      “After the Roman arch.”

      “I’m sick and tired of Roman rubble. But not of you.”

      He kissed her hastily on the lips and pulled the door shut behind him.

      Nora felt like laughing. That’s just how Rocco Schiavone was. Take him or leave him. She looked at the pendulum clock that hung by the front door. She still had plenty of time to call Sofia and go see a movie. Then maybe they could get a pizza together.

      Rocco stepped out of the downstairs door, and an icy hand seized his throat.

      “Fucking cold out here!”

      He’d left the car a hundred yards from the front entrance. His feet, in the pair of Clarks desert boots he was wearing, had frozen immediately upon contact with the sidewalk, frosted with a white covering of goddamned snow. A cutting wind was blowing, and there was no one out on the streets. The first thing he did when he got into his Volvo was turn on the heat. He blew on his hands. A hundred yards was all the distance it took to freeze them solid. “Fucking cold out here!” he said again, obsessively, like a mantra, and the words, along with the condensation from his breath, flew up against the windshield, fogging it white. He started the diesel engine, punched the defrost button, and sat there staring at a metal streetlamp tossing in the wind. Grains of snow fell through the cone of light, sifting through the darkness like stardust.

      “It’s snowing! I knew it!”

      He put the car in reverse and drove out of Duvet.

      When he parked outside his apartment building on Rue Piave, the BMW with Pierron behind the wheel was already there with the engine running. Rocco leaped into the car, which the officer had already heated to a toasty seventy-­three degrees. An agreeable feeling of well-­being enveloped him like a woolen blanket.

      “Italo, I’m hoping you didn’t ring the buzzer to my apartment.”

      Pierron put the car in gear. “I’m not an idiot, Commissario.”

      “Good. But you have to lose this habit. The rank of commissario has been abolished.”

      The windshield wipers were clearing snowflakes off the glass.

      “If it’s snowing here, I can just imagine up at Champoluc,” said Pierron.

      “Is it up high?”

      “Five thousand feet.”

      “That’s insane!” The greatest elevation Rocco Schiavone had ever attained in his life was 450 feet above sea level at Rome’s Monte Mario. That is, of course, if you left out the past four months in Aosta, at 1,895 feet above sea level. He couldn’t even imagine someone living at 5,000 feet above sea level. It made his head spin just to think about it.

      “What do ­people do at five thousand feet above sea level?”

      “They ski. They climb ice. In summer, they go hiking.”

      “Just think.” The deputy police chief pulled a Chesterfield out of the policeman’s pack. “I prefer Camels.”

      Italo smiled.

      “Chesterfields taste of iron. Buy Camels, Italo.” He lit it and took a drag. “Not even stars in the sky,” he said, looking out the car window.

      Pierron was focused on driving. He knew that he was about to be treated to a serenade of nostalgia for Rome. And sure enough.

      “In Rome this time of year, it’s cold, but often there’s a north wind that clears away the clouds. And then the sun comes out. It’s sunny and cold. The city’s all red and orange, the sky is blue, and it’s great to stroll down those cobblestone streets. All the colors are brighter when the north wind blows. It’s like a rag taking the dust off an antique painting.”

      Pierron looked up at the sky. He’d been to Rome once in his life, five years ago, and it smelled so bad that he’d thrown up for three days running.

      “And the pussy. You have no idea of the sheer quantity of pussy in Rome. I’m telling you, maybe only in Milan will you find anything comparable. You ever been to Milan?”

      “No.”

      “You don’t know what you’re missing. Go there. It’s a wonderful city. You just have to understand how it works.”

      Pierron was a good listener. He was a mountain man, and he knew how to stay silent when silence СКАЧАТЬ