From the entrance, he went to the living room full of carpets and antique furniture. The man passed it and reached a door to the bottom of the room.
“Come.”
He found himself in a vast room, with shelves high until the ceiling and overflowing with books. There was also a desk with stacks of books from each side, and a chair right in front.
“Sit down.”
Nico obeyed, he was anxious. The man turned around the desk and opened one of the drawers.
“How much do you need?”
Nico jumped.
“What?” he stammered.
“Five hundred may be enough? No, it’s better one thousand. Are enough one thousand? I can give you more if you need it.”
All the calm he had simulated had evaporated. Nico suddenly found that room overwhelming and felt the air was missing. He had already regretted; he just wanted to run away.
“Why? What do you want from me?”
“It seems to me quite the opposite. You want something from me, not the other way round.”
“I did not ask for anything!”
“Well, if you’re here, there can be only one reason, don’t you think?”
Nico shook his head, although it was the truth.
“What you’d be willing to do?”
Nico himself did not know. He only knew he was in trouble, he and his mother, and they desperately needed money. He had to find it somehow at any price.
“What do you want in return?”
“Did I ask you anything?”
“It’s just a loan! I will return them!”
He betrayed his intentions; now he no longer displayed indifference. Even that statement was absurd; both knew that he couldn’t return it.
“A thousand, then, or do you want more?”
“Why?”
The man laughed. “I am the observer. I am the one who read in people’s mind, not you. Don’t try to figure out how I am.”
“Why should you give me some money? You don’t even know me. And don’t say it’s not true, you don’t know anything about me!”
He shrugged. “And I don’t even want to know. You want this money because you have a mother dying at the hospital and a little sister who is starving. Or you need to buy a scooter. Or you are going to spend them at slot machines. I’m not interested. Do you want them or not?”
Was it a pact with the devil? What would become of him if he had accepted? His mother had already made thousands of those pacts, he had done nothing but sell himself.
“Yes,” he murmured.
The man’s smile remained unchanged. “So one thousand is enough or do you want more? Be sincere.”
How long would they go on for one thousand euros? As long as his mother would be able to work again? He knew her well; she would have thrown them away in a couple of days, spending them on useless things.
“More?” Asked the man. “How much more?”
The man was reading really inside him.
“I am willing to do…”
“I do not care what you’re ready to do. How much more, I asked you.”
“You… how much can you give me?”
He laughed again. “You do want to know how much I value you. How much value I think you’re worth?”
Nico shivered, as if he was going to sell his soul. Or maybe something worse. Instead, the men continued to laugh.
“Stop talking nonsense; I’m not asking anything. You want something; I’m willing to give it to you.”
Nico lunged, before changing his mind. “Five thousand!”
The man did not move a muscle; he took only other banknotes from the drawer. Then he put them in front of him and counted them. Fifty-one hundred notes. Nico did not dare to move. He already knew that if he tried to take them the man’s hand would snap, it would close on his own, and that would be just the beginning.
Instead, the man came around the desk and passed near him. “Come see me when you finish up.”
He left him alone, and only then did Nico dared to get the money. He did not count them, he just put them in his pockets, handfuls of them, and when he had finished his eyes looked the desk. They came from a drawer, and who knows how much more contained. He looked at him, but the man was gone. He stood contemplating the desk still for a moment, before turning to the man in the living room.
The man had already poured a drink.
“For you an orange soda, you’re still too young,” he said, handing him the glass.
He sipped his brandy, sitting in an armchair.
“Upstairs there is room for you.”
Nico nearly dropped his glass and looked at him scared. Was he wrong about him? Was that what he wanted, just this? More than disgust, it was the feeling of disappointment.
The man continued quiet, without even looking at him.
“I want you to know. That room is yours. I don’t want you to spend your nights out on the town, know that there will always be a bed waiting for you.” Then he saw his expression and burst out laughing. “It’s not like that.”
Nico had to put his glass down; his hand was shaking, and he was afraid to pour it. He sat down too.
“What do you want? Why are you playing with me?”
“You must learn to overcome your fears if you want to have a normal life. It’s not enough to pretend you have overcome them. Why are you so convinced that I want something from you? So far, it’s just the opposite, don’t you think?”
“Everybody wants something.”
“Is that what they taught you?”
“That’s how it is. It is the reality.”
“Perhaps. But often what a person wants is not so terrible. You have only met the wrong people so far.”
“You’re different?”
He smiled at him through the glass. “I don’t know; you have to decide.”
“What should I do?”
He raised his glass, simulating a toast. “Go to spend that money, of course! What else?”
3
“What does that mean?”
“Five hundred euros. I only found these.”
Katia handled them again, turning them and counting them. “They’re in one hundred banknotes.”
“So?”
She shook her head. “Nobody uses one hundred banknotes,” she looked at him in the eye. “What have you done?”
Nico did not expect such an interrogation. She never cared how he was going to get the money.
“Why do you care? I came with them, right?”
“You haven’t sold yourself right?”
Nico hid his discomfort because it was what he felt. The fact that he did not have to give anything in return for the money did not calm him at all.
“I do not do some things; I’m not like you! I don’t like it, and you know it!”
He did not convince her.
“You can’t have them stolen. Nobody walks around with one hundred euros banknotes. There were just these?”
“Why did you ask so many questions now?”
Katia recoiled slightly. “I don’t like it when you do that.”
Nico felt the anger grow. He felt guilty, and that was the natural reaction. “Bitch!” he hissed.
The slap came, this time, and this brought back everything to normal. Was something tangible, that he could understand? Maybe he deserved it as well.
“I don’t want you to get into trouble. You’re going to get busted again! It wasn’t enough reformatories, would you go again?”
“Do you care!” he shouted. “An annoyance in less for you, isn’t it?”
Katia had not yet finished. “I am the one who makes shit; I don’t want you to start too.”
He made a mistake, Nico realized that. He had to change that money into smaller cuts, at the cost of putting hours. And he did not have to give her such an amount together. But he would not make the same mistake again.
Katia kept looking at that money, almost caressing them, and Nico’s concern rose.
“No, mom, please.”
She rolled her eyes because he rarely called her that way.
“Don’t start that again, please.” And he cursed himself because he gave her that. Those banknotes would only bring them problems.
Katia was offended. “You don’t think…”
Nico was sure. With that money, you could buy drugs, lots of drugs, as it once was. Once she was more beautiful, she earned well, but that was how all her earnings ended, in drugs and men. Now she could not afford them anymore.
“Let’s eat, instead. Let’s go to a restaurant, a real restaurant. We can afford it.”
Katia seemed to weigh the proposal and almost said in a trance. “I’m a monster.”
Nico smiled at her. “With makeup, you can do miracles; I am sure you will be able to hide those bruises very well. No one will notice anything.”
The mirror attracted Katia’s gaze, and she began to study her face.
“Do you think so?”
Nico realized he had won and his smile widened.
“As soon as I get some money, we’ll retake a car, I promise you.”
Nico did not care. For once, she was happy to be out with him, walking to his side. He had chosen the dress she was wearing, and it was not sexy at all. It had been easy; with the bruises, she was supposed to hide, every sexy dress was not a good option. Now she looked like an ordinary woman, not younger anymore but still very beautiful, a mother with a son next to her.
The makeup perhaps hadn’t done miracles. However, it could hide pretty well the bruises. Katia looked around because she did not even know how to juggle in that unknown city.
Nico pointed out: “The center is over there.”
They could afford it, he repeated to her. He had even let her know that he could find others, just where he had found these, and the money never go missing. Katia had not made him more questions.
And Nico wished to spend them, just as the man had told him, and sooner it would have been the better, with fewer temptations for his mother. From now on, he would not have given her more than a hundred at a time, all small banknotes.
Where they were heading the shops were more elegant, and Katia sat watching the clothes on display. Now and then she cried out in front of a signed dress or a jewel with a prohibitive price. Nico came to relax because for once everything was as it should have been.
When they arrived in the main square, they faced a mastodontic fountain. All around, protected by arches, restaurants and the most luxurious venues in the city.
“Where do you want to go?” Katia asked.
Nico didn’t want to overdo, even if it was a special occasion he didn’t want to spend all the money at one time.
“Let’s take a ride,” he said, as he was going to look at price lists.
They wandered slowly, peering inside the places. Nico had almost decided to stop when a voice froze him.
“Nico!”
His mother frowned. “He’s calling you?”
Nico did not dare to turn, for he had recognized the voice.
He heard it closer.
“What a pleasant surprise!”
“Who is it?” whispered Katia.
The man was there, elegant and refined, and bowed slightly with his head.
“This must be your mother, I guess.”
What was happening? Did he follow them? It was not important, even if it was a casualty he was now in trouble. The man handed his hand to introduce himself.
“Massimiliano Foschi.”
Finally a name. Nico forced himself to speak. “My mother… Katia.” The last name was not necessary. Then he added, “We must go.” But he said it so softly that nobody heard him.
Katia shook hands. “Do you know my son?”
Nico sank, but the man remained unmoved.
“A superficial knowledge. He made a commission for me.”
Katia’s curiosity grew. “What Commission?”
The man circumvented the question. “You won’t have had lunch yet, I hope. I would be happy if you would be my guests.”
The restaurant from which the man came out was the most expensive and luxurious of all, Nico had run away after seeing the prices displayed. He felt trapped because every hope of dragging his mother away was blurred. Katia’s eyes twinkled.
“You’ll have to tell me how you met Nico. I am very curious.”
“Everything,” promised the man with a big smile. “But please take a seat now. We will talk on that having dinner.”
Nico recited. He still managed to do so despite the tension. He pretended to laugh at jokes and responded by monosyllables. He paid considerable attention to the dishes served and almost did not touch them. But nobody noticed anything.
The man spoke of everything, except about himself. He had an innate ability to ask questions and drive the conversation. He was fizzy. Katia felt flattered: that was the kind of life she was born for, and she felt deserved. But she was also embarrassed to be there, fearful of not being at that level, so she drank too much and laughed too loud.
Halfway through lunch she was already drunk but was far from stop drinking. Nico’s discomfort grew more and more. After the initial meeting, that man had never talked to him, he seemed to have forgotten him, but this did not make him any better. He felt maneuvered; he even wondered if it was not all planned if that man had not used him to get to his mother, but seeing them together was a crazy idea. Indeed, his mother was still beautiful, she was only thirty-six years old, but the dissolute life she had left a mark on her. She was not up to him, she was often vulgar, and she was not fit near that man so elegant, elegant and educated. There was nothing to say, Foschi, as he had introduced himself, showed a confidence that only a particular education and some bank account could justify.
He wondered why, then, a man would waste time with them. Katia was a whore, though he probably did not understand it. She wasn’t the woman for him; he could easily find a better one. She was loud, her laughs were shaky, and other customers at the nearby table turned to look at her.
Nico tried to sidestep; he hoped only that that torture would end soon. Then, when the man told an amusing anecdote, and his mother laughed almost to be eyes moist with tears, he jumped up, muttered an excuse and ran to lock himself in the bathroom.
He tried to stay in there as long as possible.
“I can do it alone! I still walk with my legs!”
But it wasn’t true. Nico was forced to let her go to close the door, and she staggered up to bed, crashing over giggling.
“Your friend is funny!” she drawled. “Where did you find him?”
“I’ve done a commission for him, he told you.”
“What commission?”
“I bought him some books.”
She looked at him in disbelief. “Books?”
“They were antique books. Very old, very valuable.”
“And he paid you?”
Nico nodded.
“Certainly not five hundred euros. Where did you get that money? Did you steal it from him?”
Nico shook his head. It was the truth, after all.
Maybe Katia thought so too because the story was pretty absurd to be real. Nico had never had a fantasy that was his problem.
“He’s nice,” she said as she tried to lie down better. Nico did not come near to help her.
“You got drunk.”
“I’m not drunk!” she shouted with plaintive voice. “Are you afraid that I made you look bad? He liked that, he had fun with me!” She chuckled. “He wants to fuck me! I saw in his eyes.”
She continued to laugh as his body relaxed.
Nico was staring at her, as the torpor took over her. What was happening? Worse, what would happen now?
“What are you doing?”
Katia was sitting in front of the mirror, and she was putting on makeup. There was one of her most provocative clothes on the bed. Nico looked at it worried.
“Do you already want to work? You said…”
“No work. I’m just going for a ride.”
Nico shook his head. It was crazy; Katia was not in the position to go out. She had not yet wholly recovered from the hangover, even though she’d slept like a rock all afternoon, and the bruises on her body were extensive, now they were all black. “It’s dangerous.”
She looked at him playfully. “Since when do you worry about me? I thought that nothing mattered to you. I cannot see you crying on my grave.”
“Where would you go?”
“It’s my business.”
“What about me? What should I do?”
“The room is all yours. Do what you want. For the dinner suit yourself, I know that you are full of money. You would never have given me everything you had.”
Nico preferred to remain silent.
Katia watched her image in the mirror, and then went to wear the dress. The makeup was not enough to hide his worn out appearance, and the dress too vulgar made she just look older.
“Where are you going like this? Are you looking for more trouble?”
“I am going to enjoy myself! You think I don’t deserve to have some fun once in a while?”
“With my money!” Nico murmured.
She burst out laughing, angrily. “Your money! You say your money! Are you telling that to me, to me that I kept you for all your life! Your money!”
Then she grabbed her purse and rummaged inside. They had already spent something, but not much. She tossed on the bed four banknotes of one hundred euros.
“Here, keep it! I do not need them! I do not need these to have fun; I have those who pay for me!”
Nico looked at the money thrown on the bed and felt the fear growing.
“Do you think I’m just a whore? That I should go away? Do you think no one cares more about me?”
Nico almost dared not to ask. “You’ll go… with him?”
Katia sneered. “Yes, I go out with your friend, do you have a problem with that? He invited me. He invited me, do you understand? He likes me. He wants me. We will have sex; we will fuck!”
Her look became mischievous. “Does it bother you?”
He had seen so many men go to her bed, yet he believed that man was different. He forced himself to shake his head.
The Prison Page 3