Gang of Lovers (16 page)

He hadn't had time to cook up the plausible lie that Max had taken for granted.

“The car is registered in my name,” I pointed out. “Not my friend's name. And yet Brigadier Stanzani extended his investigation to include him.”

Togno's face changed expression. “Well, you'll have to ask him about that.”

“We already have,” Max broke in. “He says that you specifically asked about us both.”

“It was just a misunderstanding,” the ex-carabiniere said defensively. “I offer you my apologies, I'll buy you a drink, and we can forget it ever happened.”

I threw my arms up. “There's a police investigation underway,” I lied. “I doubt that the word ‘misunderstanding' is going to persuade the police to shelve this case.”

Togno retorted in the same key. “In that case, I'll be talking about it with the police, not with you. Now, if the two of you don't mind, I'd like to go back to drinking in blessed peace.”

Unhurriedly we each sat on a stool to either side of him and ordered a couple of aperitifs, like two ordinary patrons. A few minutes later, two gentlemen in their sixties walked in the front door—they were well dressed and clearly had plenty of money. The proprietor rushed to welcome them.

“
Caro
Pellegrini, as you can see we've come back to enjoy some more of your excellent cuisine,” one of the two men said loudly, in a voice whose inflections were unmistakably Emilian.

Max's reaction was sudden and reckless. He clutched my shoulder until it hurt and said in an even louder voice: “Giorgio Pellegrini!”

The restaurateur turned around. He and Max stared at each other for a few seconds. I knew my friend and was certain that his glance contained a clear look of contempt. The fat man put down his glass and headed for the exit without another word. I paid the check and followed.

I caught up with him in the beautiful piazza not far away as he was taking a seat at a table outside another bar.

“What the fuck just came over you?”

“Giorgio Pellegrini,” he repeated the name in a grim voice. “Now I understand who he is. I've heard plenty of rumors about him.”

“Do you mind telling me too?”

Max said nothing, grabbed his phone, and pulled up train schedules. “There's a train in an hour. I've just got time to bolt a meal.”

“Where are you headed?”

“Milan.”

We were interrupted by the waitress. The fat man ordered enough food for three people his size. An obvious sign of the anxiety that was weighing him down at that moment.

“I'm going to have to dive back into the past,” he explained after devouring the first panino. “I have to go see certain people who know the owner of La Nena very well.”

“And that's the last thing you feel like doing.”

“We've never liked each other. And now less than ever.”

“No one's forcing you to do this.”

He gulped down the dark beer greedily. “But I really have to,” he retorted, but said nothing more. He shut himself up in an uneasy silence until it was time to head to the station.

“I may be gone a few days,” he said.

“You know where to find me.”

On the way to the parking lot I took the long way so I could pass by La Nena. I stopped at the entrance to peer inside. It was still warm enough out to leave the front door wide open. The restaurant was packed. Giorgio Pellegrini was fluttering from table to table with his usual charming smile. At a certain point he saw me and for a moment he was faced with my curiosity. His expression remained unchanged. Only his eyes were suddenly different. They were devoid of any trace of humanity.

T
hat asshole Buratti thought he could scare me by standing there at the entrance with his hands in his pockets. He was staring at me with that face of his, like an alcoholic bluesman's. His buddy was nowhere in sight. Maybe, after recognizing me, he went home to think back over our shared history. Max the Memory. An aging relic of those years who now must spend his Saturday nights with all the other losers, playing Risk and insulting the government. Bunch of pathetic failures.

I had to wait until I knew that all my guests had been served and satisfied before I could make my way over to the bar where that idiot Federico Togno was waiting for me, looking like a beaten dog.

“What the fuck have you done now?” I asked, keeping a lid on my urge to shout. “Why on earth did those two come into my place looking for you?”

The stooge told me the whole story, down to the smallest details. A mixture of bad luck, random chance, and sheer stupidity was now seriously threatening to focus police attention on Togno, though he knew nothing at all about what had happened to the professor. Buratti and his beer-bellied buddy, who actually were on the trail of the late academic, might suspect something, in part thanks to the bad reputation I enjoyed in certain circles.

The situation was well under control, but I had enough experience to know that underestimating what had happened might be the equivalent of handing myself over to the law. Details apparently devoid of significance can pile up on top of a mountain, until suspicions transform them into an avalanche that suddenly breaks loose and roars down into the valley. It was necessary to react promptly, with a Plan A and a Plan B. Plan A, strictly tactical, was designed to confuse the enemy and ward off suspicion. Plan B was strategic in nature, and should be implemented only if things really went south. Plan A and Plan B. That's why I never really risked having to pay the piper for my crimes.

I gestured for Togno to follow me into the little private dining room that I once used to reserve for Brianese and his herd of corrupt hangers-on. It was bug-proof.

“This is your fault, Federico,” I said, attacking him in a harsh voice.

“You're mistaken, I didn't do anything wrong.”

“Oh no? Your brigadier wound up right in the middle of a nice raid because you sent him to the wrong hotel.”

“How could I have known that was going to happen?” the idiot stammered.

“You're paid to know things like that.”

“Okay, so I made a mistake,” he said, fumbling for the right words. “But I don't see why you're so angry about it. After all, nothing serious has happened, the whole thing is going to be covered up, no one wants to get Brigadier Stanzani in trouble.”

“Then you tell me why those two assholes found out about your investigation from the police.”

“I have no idea, but I already told you: there's not going to be any investigation.”

“Maybe not, but those two aren't going to stop buzzing around you.”

“Around
me
?” he asked in surprise. “Let them. I don't have anything to hide.”

I grabbed him by the chin and forced him to look at me. “You don't have the kind of job that could explain your lifestyle, you commit illegal acts, and you've committed a murder,” I reminded him. “You need to get the fuck out from underfoot.”

“And how?”

I let go of him. “I'm thinking that over right now. When the time comes, I'll tell you what to do.”

Federico Togno, red-faced, mumbled out a farewell and hurried away. After a quick look around, I went over and took a seat at the table where Martina and Gemma were finishing their meal. My wife was looking enviously at the pudding her friend was sampling with gusto. She would have liked to order one for herself, but no waiter in the place would have dreamed of bringing her the dessert. I'd been very specific on that point, since I decided day by day exactly what my wife would be having at each meal.

“What appointments does Martina have this afternoon?” I asked Gemma.

“Pilates at 4:30 and a massage at 6.”

“Go pick her up at 4:15,” I demanded.

Gemma nodded grimly. That meant she'd be forced to wander around town until then, since I clearly wanted her to stay out of the house.

My spouse, who had understood perfectly exactly what I had in mind, objected under her breath that she had just finished eating, but faced with my complete disinterest, she gave up insisting.

I locked arms with her and we strolled home. The whole way, she wouldn't stop talking. She knew that right then she was allowed to talk all she liked and she took advantage of the opportunity to tell me all about the problems her mother was experiencing as she faced widowhood. I listened to all those trite phrases hoping that fate and old age would soon put an end to my mother-in-law's suffering.

Once we got home, Martina hurried into the bedroom, while I headed into a room that was furnished with only a beautiful armchair upholstered in oxblood-red leather and a spinning bike. I got comfortable and a few seconds later my wife came in, dressed only in a pair of gleaming white panties and climbed onto the bike, awaiting my command: “Spinning, baby, spinning.”

She started pedaling and before long she'd found the correct rhythm. I closed my eyes and, lulled by the noise of well-oiled gears, I was finally able to focus on my plans. Buratti, Max the Memory, Togno. I could see their faces clearly, I could hear their voices, and I moved them around like pawns, placing them in a given situation so I could test the results and predict any collateral damage.

The lucidity of those moments was priceless, and it allowed me to see that the whole operation had somehow been compromised and that Plan B would have to be developed much further.

I snapped my fingers and she picked up the pace. I planned my moves, I arranged them carefully. I was ready.

And I was satisfied. I opened my eyes and looked at my spouse. Sweat was streaming down her body, her hair was matted to her head. Complete physical collapse was imminent.

I helped her off the bike and laid her down on the wall-to-wall carpeting. I ripped off her panties and yanked open her legs.

Martina welcomed me gratefully.

I
gulped down a pizza with a couple of beers, well aware that digesting that mess would be no walk in the park. But I didn't feel like sitting alone in a restaurant and that had seemed like the quickest solution. On my way back from the bathroom I spotted a rumpled copy of
Il Mattino
and between bites I leafed through the newspaper's entertainment pages. That was how I found out that soon, in a local club, my old friend Maurizio Camardi, a renowned saxophonist as well as a connoisseur of beautiful women, would be performing with Marco “Ponka” Ponchiroli, a first-rate pianist I'd gone to hear many times before.

The pizzeria didn't stock Calvados so I settled for a grappa. I was worried about Max, who was rummaging around in a part of his past that, despite his efforts, he seemed incapable of letting go. The fat man had an unhappy relationship with the man he had once been. On the one hand, he tried desperately to translate those experiences into something positive in the present; on the other, he struggled to stave off the excesses and the filth that had muddied his dreams and those of many others.

It was the right night to drink more than usual but I decided to stay within the bounds of a sobriety only slightly distorted by alcohol. A formula of my own invention that corresponded to a precise number of small glasses. The fact was that, for a while now, whenever I got drunk I started thinking about Ninon and crying. I missed her and when I imagined her in another man's arms I couldn't hold back my tears.

I let my eyes range over the women sitting at the tables. I felt so alone and the yearning to love and be loved in return was so violent that I couldn't arrive at any sort of objective selection. The time had come to ask for the check.

I had to wait twenty minutes or so before I could say goodbye to Maurizio. He was busy giving advice to the umpteenth young man who just couldn't seem to win some girl's heart.

“You ought to teach a course in seduction. It would be the most popular class in town,” I said as we hugged.

“You aren't the first person to suggest this radical new direction, but I think I'll just stick to music.”

Then he asked me if was back in Padua for good. I told him that I didn't know yet. “There comes a time when it's really hard to pick where to live.”

“The secret is to never stop traveling,” he said, pointing to his sax. “This guy takes me everywhere, which makes coming home a pleasure.”

Jazz. I let the good music fill my ears. Every so often I'd check my cell phone, waiting in vain for a message or call from Max.

Around midnight I went back to the two lovers' apartment. It was quiet and it smelled good. I turned on the lights in every room so I could take a good look at the place in bright light, then I undressed and flopped down onto the sofa, ready to binge watch some television.

Those days I obsessively watched absurd programs that told the story of the financial meltdown in the United States. Pawnshops in cities that were economically fucked like Detroit, with endless lines of African-Americans trying to sell anything they could lay their hands on for a few bucks. Houses and mansions were sold off in foreclosure auctions, the dueling buyers attacking each other like sharks, and eventually becoming reality TV characters. Long lines of self-storage units whose padlocks were lopped off with metal shears. The buyers had five minutes to take a look from outside, then they squared off, bids escalating at fifty dollars a pop, vying to purchase objects that had been part of the lives of other people, people who had one day found themselves unable to pay their storage rental fees.

It was impossible not to marvel at the sheer tawdriness of the content, yet something drove me to keep watching. Especially the shows set in the pawnshop world. Women trying to raise bail money to get their men out of jail, forced to reconcile themselves to the fact that they wouldn't be able to do so because their jewelry, television sets, computers, and fur coats were valued at a pittance.

Every so often someone would come in who was just trying to pay for his medication, but that I couldn't stand to watch, so I'd change the channel.