Let the Games Begin (19 page)

Murder and Silvietta were behind the camp toilet, getting into their waiter uniforms.

‘Guys, I found . . .' he said, and then fell silent.

The two of them, while they got dressed, were having an argument. Actually, it seemed they were really fighting. They were so caught up that they didn't even notice him. Zombie moved closer slowly, without giving himself away, and he hid behind the Land-Rover to hear better.

‘You suck! You didn't tell him, again,' Silvietta was saying.

‘I know . . . But I told him a little bit. It's just that I got stuck. This is not an easy situation, you know,' Murder huffed.

‘Sure, that's why you were supposed to tell him this morning in Oriolo. Then you said you'd tell him in the car . . . And now what are we supposed to do?'

Murder stiffened, visibly annoyed. ‘Excuse me, but why don't you tell him? I don't get why I have to be the one to tell him.'

‘Are you mental? You were the one who told me that it was best if you spoke to him. That you've known Saverio for ages and you know how to handle him.'

He sweetened his voice. ‘It's just not easy, honey bun. It's delicate stuff, you know that even better than I do.'

The Beast heard Silvietta snort. ‘How hard can it be? You go and you say to him: “Listen, we're sorry, but Silvietta and I have decided to get married, so we can't commit suicide.” Full stop. Does it sound hard to you?'

The poultry shears fell out of Zombie's hand.

In the former residence of the Royal Family, Mantos, with a case of wine in his arms, walked through the service entrance
and found himself in the living room. His mouth dropped. No comparison with that crap from the Furniture Store of the Thyrolean Masters of the Axe. The mix between antique and modern was of very fine taste. This was what he was talking about when, during the brainstorming sessions with old Mastrodomenico, he tried to soften his roughness and bring him closer to the world of interior decoration. He walked through a vestibule and found himself in a studio full of super-tall bookcases.

All of the volumes had been covered in packing paper and the titles written in beautiful handwriting. The effect was that of a light-brown room. In the middle of the room was a single block of solid wood, so big that it had to be from a baobab or a redwood. Atop, a black telephone.

He looked at it.

Don't do it
.

He put down the case and picked up the receiver.

I'm about to fuck-up big-time
.

It didn't matter. Before throwing himself into this suicide mission, he had to hear his wife's voice one more time.

Holding his breath, he dialled Serena's mobile number.

‘Honey . . . It's me . . .'

The answer was: ‘Where the fuck are you?'

‘Darling, wait . . . Let me explain . . .'

‘What have you got to explain? That you're a poor old fuckwit?' Serena attacked him.

Saverio sat down on the armchair. He leaned his elbows on the table.

She had forgotten everything. As if the events of the night before had never happened. She had gone back to being Cruel Serena.

Who knows what I was expecting? That she would change
?

No one changes. And Serena was exactly the way she was when she was born. The mirage that over time she would soften had trapped him in a marriage with a witch. This perverse mechanism had kept them tied together. And she had taken advantage of it, making him feel like a gutless halfwit.

With a lump in his throat, he held the receiver away from his ear; but even so, he could still hear her barking.

‘Have you lost your fucking mind? I've been calling your mobile for hours. Papa is going mad. He wants to sack you. Today is the first day of Kids' Bedroom Week. There are two thousand kids here, screaming their heads off. And where are you? With those four imbeciles. As God is my witness, I'll make you pay dearly for this . . .'

Saverio was looking out the window. A robin redbreast was cleaning its feathers as it sat on a cherry tree. The image went out of focus, hidden by his tears.

To gain that woman's respect, he'd have to rape her every night. Kick her like a dog. But that was not his idea of love.

At least now I know I've made the right choice
.

A strange feeling of calm took hold of Saverio. He felt peaceful. He had no more doubts.

He put the receiver near his mouth. ‘Serena, listen to me carefully. I have always loved you. I have tried to make you happy, but you are a bad person, and you make everything around you turn bad.'

Serena's voice was husky, as if possessed. ‘How dare you! Where the hell are you? I'm gonna come and get you and punch your face in. Saverio, I swear on my father's head, I'll do it.'

The leader of the Wilde Beasts of Abaddon filled his ribcage with air, and in a clear voice said: ‘My name is not Saverio, it's Mantos.' And then he hung up.

‘What the hell are you doing here? Who told you to get the poultry shears?'

Zombie didn't have time to turn around and understand, before he was grabbed by the ear and dragged into the middle of the courtyard. He began to scream in an attempt to free himself of that vice-like grip. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Antonio crushing his auricle.

The veins on the head waiter's neck were puffed and his eyes bloodshot as he spluttered and screamed at Murder and Silvietta: ‘Hey! Hey! You two! Why are you dressed like waiters?'

Zombie managed to free himself and rubbed his burning ear.

‘You must be out of your minds. Did you by chance think you were at the town festival for the common whitefish at Capodimonte? I'll set you straight.' Antonio shoved Murder. ‘Tell me why you're dressed as waiters.'

‘We thought we could make ourselves useful. There's not much to do here . . .' Murder suggested.

Antonio got to within an inch of his nose. His breath smelt of menthol.

‘“Useful”? Do you think this is a game? And what game would that be? Statues? Tig? You have just come along and decided you wanted to be waiters? You muck around and I lose my job. Have you not understood where we are? In there, are waiters from Harry's Bar, from Hotel de Russie, people who studied hospitality. I turned down people from the Caffé Greco.' Antonio was blue in the face. He had to stop for a second to regain his breath. ‘Now, you'll do the right thing. Take off those clothes and get out of here. I won't pay you a lira and that dickhead Saverio will get out of here along with you! Never trust your relatives. Speaking of Saverio, where is that . . .?'

Antonio slapped his neck like he'd been bitten by a horsefly. He ripped something off of his neck just above the collar and opened his hand.

In his palm he found a paper cone with a pin at the tip.

‘But what . . .?' was all he managed to say, then his eyeballs rolled back in his head, showing the white sclera, and his mouth was paralysed in a sneer. He took one step backwards and, stiff as a statue, fell to the ground.

The Beasts looked at him in astonishment, then Mantos and his blowpipe appeared from a bush.

‘He was being a pain in the arse, eh? You can't imagine how much of pain he was at school . . .'

Murder gave his boss a high five. ‘You knocked him out. That Sedaron stuff is the bomb.'

‘I told you. Well done, Zombie, you found the poultry shears.'

‘And him?' Silvietta bent down over Antonio's body. ‘What will we do with him?'

‘We'll tie and gag him. And then we'll hide him somewhere.'

 

32

As he followed the waiter towards the Royal Villa, Fabrizio cursed to himself. He didn't have time to waste. He had a plane to catch, and the idea that he had to speak to Sasà Chiatti bothered him. It was ridiculous. He'd been in the presence of Sarwar Sawhney, a Noble Prize winner, without feeling any sort of particular emotions, and now that he was about to meet an insignificant fellow like Chiatti his heart was racing? The truth was that rich and powerful men made him feel insecure.

He walked into the Villa and was surprised. He had expected
anything except that the residence would be furnished in minimalist style. The big living area was a simple cement floor. In a fireplace made of uncut stone burned a big block of wood. Nearby, four armchairs in seventies style and a ten-metre-long solid-steel table with an antique lampshade hanging overhead. Two thin Giacometti statues. In another corner, as if they had been forgotten, were four Fontana eggs, and on the whitewashed walls some Cretti by Burri.

‘This way . . .' The waiter pointed towards a long corridor. He led him into a kitchen covered in Morrocan majolicas. A Bang & Olufsen stereo was playing the romantic notes of Michael Nyman's
The Piano
.

A big stocky woman, with a mahogany-coloured helmet of hair, was juggling saucepans over the stove. In the centre of the room, sitting around a rough wooden table, were Salvatore Chiatti, an albino sylph, a decrepit old man wearing a moth-eaten old colonial outfit, a monk and Larita the singer.

They were eating what appeared to be
rigatoni all'amatriciana
, with heaps of pecorino cheese grated over the top.

Fabrizio had the presence of mind to say: ‘Hello, everyone.'

Chiatti was wearing a beige velvet jacket with patches on the elbows, a checked flannel shirt and a red handkerchief tied around that limited the length of neck that nature had granted him. He wiped his mouth and threw his arms open as if he had known Fabrizio for a hundred years.

‘Here he is, that wonderful writer! What a pleasure to have you here. Please join us. We're eating something simple. I hope you didn't eat anything from the buffet? We'll leave that junk for the VIP guests, right, Mum?'

He turned towards the barge-arse at the stove. The woman, feeling awkward, cleaned her hands on her apron and nodded hello.

‘We're simple people. And we eat pasta. Take a seat. What are you waiting for?'

Fabrizio's first impression of Chiatti was that he was affable, with a big jovial smile; but he was also aware that he was giving orders, and he didn't like being disobeyed.

The writer pulled up a chair from next to the wall and sat in a corner between the old man and the monk, who made room for him.

‘Mum, fill a plate as God commands for Mr Ciba. He looks a little ruffled to me.'

A second later Fabrizio found a gigantic serving of smoking rigatoni in front of him.

Chiatti grabbed a flask of wine and poured Ciba a glass.

‘Let's get the introductions out of the way. He . . .' He pointed at the shrivelled old guy. ‘ . . . is the great white hunter, Corman Sullivan. Did you know that this man met the writer . . . what's his name?'

‘Hemingway . . .' said Sullivan, and began coughing and shaking all over. Clouds of dust rose up from his clothes. When he recovered, he squeezed Fabrizio's hand weakly. He had long fingers, covered in depigmented spots.

The white hunter reminded Ciba of someone. Of course! He was the spitting image of Ötzi, the Similaun Man, the hunter found frozen in a glacier of the Alps.

Chiatti pointed at the sylph. ‘This is my girlfriend, Ecaterina.' The girl tilted her head, in greeting. She looked like the Snow Queen in a Scandinavian saga. She was so white she looked as if she'd been dead for three days. Through her skin you could see the blood running dark in her veins. Her hair, fiery red, was a mane around her flat face. She didn't have eyebrows and her throat was as thin as a greyhound's. She must have weighed about twenty kilos.

When Fabrizio heard her name, he remembered. She was the famous albino model Ecaterina Danielsson. She was on the covers of fashion magazines the world over. She was undoubtedly the most morphologically different human being compared to Chiatti that nature had ever created.

‘And this here . . .' He pointed at the monk. ‘You should recognise him. It's Zóltan Patrovic!'

Of course Fabrizio recognised him. Who didn't know the unpredictable Bulgarian chef, owner of the restaurant Le Regioni
? But he'd never seen him up close.

Who did he remind him of? Yes, Mefisto, Tex Willer's sworn enemy.

Fabrizio had to lower his gaze. The chef's eyes seemed to sink inside him and sneak into his thoughts.

‘And last but not least, our Larita, who will do us the great honour of singing for us this evening.'

Finally Ciba found himself looking at a human being.

She's pretty
, he said to himself as he shook her hand.

Chiatti pointed at Ciba: ‘And do you all know who he is?'

Fabrizio was about to say that he was nobody, when Larita smiled, showing her slightly separated incisors, and said: ‘He's the greatest. He wrote
The Lion's Den
. I loved it. But my favourite is
Nestor's Dream
. I've read it three times. And each time I cried like a little girl.'

A dart had hit a bullseye in the middle of Fabrizio's chest. His legs, for an instant, gave way, and he almost collapsed on the Similaun man's shoulder.

Finally, someone who understood him. That was his best work. He'd squeezed himself like a lemon to finish it. Every single word, every comma, had been painstakingly extracted from him. Whenever he thought of
Nestor's Dream
, an image came to mind. It was as if an aeroplane had exploded in flight
and the remains of the aircraft had been spread across a radius of thousands of kilometres over a flat and sterile desert. It was up to him to find the pieces and put the aircraft's fuselage back together. The complete opposite of
The Lion's Den
, which had come out painlessly, as if it had written itself. He was convinced that
Nestor's Dream
was his most mature and complete work. And yet its reception by his readers had been, to put it mildly, lukewarm, and the critics had torn him to shreds. So when he heard the singer say those things, he couldn't help but feel a deep sense of gratitude.

‘That's very kind of you. I'm pleased to hear that. Thanks,' he said to her, feeling almost embarrassed.

If you walked past Larita in the street, you would hardly notice her, but if you looked at her carefully you would see that she was very pretty. Each part of her body was well proportioned. Her neck, her shoulders neither too wide nor too narrow, her thin wrists, her slim, elegant hands. Her black bob hid her forehead. Her small nose and that mouth – just a tad too wide for her oval-shaped face – expressed a shy, sincere likeability. But what stood out were her big, hazelnut-colored eyes, with gold flecks that in the moment seemed a little lost.