“Hey, what are you doing there?”
Chiara turns and sees a guy up at a window, lighting a cigarette. He’s on the other side of the building, so he didn’t see her father’s car drive away.
“Talking to me?”
“Who else, girlie?”
“Minding my own business, why?”
“And I’m calling the cops, bitch.”
The guy goes inside. Great. That’s all she needs. Because then maybe they’ll catch her with her pupils still dilated and undoubtedly figure out that she smoked a joint. The station bar isn’t far. She pulls up her hood and crosses the street. Next to the pole with the “No Entry” sign, Mazzei’s disgusting dog left a ringlet of pungent shit.
A group of guys speaking a strange Eastern European language is sitting in a corner of the bar watching the game on television when she enters. There are espresso cups on the table and a bottle that looks like grappa. Their faces are red. Maybe because it’s so hot in here, or maybe because of the alcohol. Chiara finds a table away from them. All she wants to do is cry, but she can’t. Not now.
She takes out her iPhone. Opens the text app.
Everything is fucked up, I want to stay with you. Come and get me?
And she sends it to her grandmother.
Okay, now it’s easy. Come on, Sandro. Remember to leave it in reverse because the hand brake doesn’t hold. Just open the door, take a breath, wait for the wave to pass, and cross the street. Remember to put it in reverse. Then turn on the indicator signal. Remember the hand brake. There, that’s it. One big thrust, like the taipan snake’s strike. Swift and deadly. And we’re on our feet. A deep breath, that’s it. See, it’s not hard. A step. That’s right. Where the hell did Enrico’s house go? Oh, there it is. I missed it. You get distracted for one minute and they move everything around here. Another step. Thaaaat’s it. Doing great, Sandro, come on, otherwise we’ll get to that gate by tomorrow morning. And what if he isn’t home? Shit, that would be a problem. I should have called first. But the number, where the hell would I have found it?
“In the phone directory, right?”
“Dad, what are you doing here?”
Giancarlo is there, in front of him. He’s holding the hunting rifle.
“What do you think you’re going to solve?”
“I . . . I think I want to do it,” Sandro replies.
“You think you want to do it? That’s always been your problem, you think. If you’d ever been sure of anything in your life, you wouldn’t have ended up like this.”
“I’m sorry, but all those nightmares . . . I . . . I couldn’t shake them.”
“And he’ll help you do that?”
Lift your head up. It’s just bullshit, Sandro. Open your eyes, you were falling asleep again, weren’t you? Hang in there, one more step. Come on, we can do it. That’s what we came here for, don’t you see, Dad? We came here for a specific reason.
But I think I forgot to put it in reverse.
Fuck, I’m sure I forgot.
I’ll just stop here a minute. I’ll take a little breather, and then I’d better go and put it in reverse, otherwise the car will take off on me.
There, I’ll just rest a second.
See how calm everything is, quiet, nothing is moving. Feel how peaceful it is . . .
The Supremo Hot Dog: half a baguette with half a pound of hot sausage sprinkled with cheese and sauerkraut, along with spicy home fries. Mayonnaise everywhere, even on his uniform. A greasy streak right on the chest. What the fuck, Lieutenant McClane. The sandwich is just what he needed, though, on this cold, lonely night.
A call.
“Porretta.”
“Did you go by Via delle Ortiche?”
“I’m going, Central.”
“Make sure you drive by a couple of times tonight. They left me a note.”
“Roger.”
“Here we go again. Who the hell is Roger?”
“The usual, Central. It means I understood.”
“So then tell me you understood, Enzo, please. Already I’m pissed off because I have to watch the game here on this crappy TV that makes all the players look deformed. If you’re going to make it worse with your crackpot ideas, I’ll never get through it.”
“Enjoy the game, Central. I’ll see to things out here.”
“Go to hell.”
The Supremo is half gone. McClane sets it on the seat and puts the car in gear. The agency vehicle glides into the night, headed for Via delle Ortiche. Who knows what the genius who called it that was thinking. Why not number the streets, like they do in New York? It would be so much simpler than having to come up with all these idiotic names. It might make sense to name the street after a person, maybe someone who was an important figure, who did something, like Clint Eastwood, but to name it Nettles, after the dumbest plant that exists, is really stupid. At that rate, there should be a Via della Zanzara, for the mosquito. Via della Merda, for the shit you step in. He takes another bite of the Supremo.
By the time he turns onto Via delle Ortiche, a street with a slight downhill slope, there are two mayonnaise streaks on his uniform. They run parallel on his chest, like two medals of valor.
Here, though, there’s something wrong.
He plunges his hand into the bag of spicy home fries and stuffs a few in his mouth. He chews slowly.
“Oh sweet Jesus.”
He pulls the car over and climbs out.
In the middle of the street there is a man. Lying on the ground.
“Oh fucking shit.”
“Bettina.”
“Mama?”
“I spoke with Chiara.”
“What? You know that . . .”
“She came to me. She sent me a text.”
“And who gave her the number? Tell me.”
“Your daughter is a mess, she needs me.”
“No one here needs you, Mama.”
“Can you handle the situation?”
“There is no situation to handle.”
“Betti, honey, I just want to help. We have a family to think about.”
Silence.
“Mama . . .”
“I’ll bring her home.”
Enrico quit watching the tubes. He made himself a sandwich with tuna and olives, took off his shoes, poured a beer into a glass, and stretched out on the couch to watch the game. A sound. Insistent.
Enrico looks around. What was that?
Again.
The intercom.
Who can it be?
He gets up to find out. Only now does he realize that there’s a new intercom. It has video.
He’s not sure how it works, but after intuitively pressing some keys he manages to turn it on. In the monitor is a guy he doesn’t know. He looks like a traffic cop or maybe a security guard. Maybe he’s the one the agency sent.
“Yes?” he says.
“Good evening, I’m Porretta, from the security agency. There’s a problem here.”
“Excuse me, what did you say?”
“Yeah, there’s a guy, he’s on the ground, he’s injured and keeps repeating your name.”
“Whose name?”
“Yours, that is, the one that’s written outside here, I mean . . . Sarti. He keeps saying that he has to talk to Enrico Sarti.”
“But who is he? What is he saying?”
“Look, I know it seems odd, if you ask me I would advise you not to open the door because the thing reeks of a scam, if you know what I mean. But there really is a car out here, a black sedan, a Ford Focus I’d guess, that crashed into a tree, one of those out front here, maybe a pine, I’d say a big pine tree, you know the one? And in the middle of the street there’s this guy. His name is Bastiani. He’s pretty much a junkie and was already cruising around here the other night. Maybe I could explain things to you, except this guy is hurt and I have to call one-one-eight, actually I think I should already have done that, in terms of protocol, I mean, emergency procedure, or maybe I should call the carabini
eri first, right now I can’t remember exactly . . . What do you think? Can you hear me? Mr. Sarti, are you still there?”
Eight
Maurizio opens the window in the office to let out the smoke. He doesn’t even know how long he’s been there. He checks the time. Too long. There was a game tonight. He retreated here to think, but he hasn’t come up with anything. Someone, most likely Sandro, knows about him and Alice. What does that mean? Really hard to say. Still, the girl was murdered and he didn’t tell anyone about their relationship. Difficult to know what might happen if it were to come out now, but it certainly wouldn’t sound good. And the other night, on the news, there was that story about a murder case that was reopened nearly twenty years later. Simona, he needs her. He picks up the phone and sends her a text.
Can you come down for ten minutes?
He puts the phone on the table and stares at it. But if he keeps staring at it, nothing will ever come to him, that’s for sure. So he turns and goes to the bathroom. He pees with the door open behind him, a dark, blurred silhouette against the yellowish glow of the light. The phone’s display on the table is bright, and before he comes back the little balloon appears.
I’ll take Dudy out. I’ll be down in fifteen minutes.
The place where they meet when they need to see each other, even for a few minutes, even just to say good night, is always the same. It’s a secluded spot. Just turn a corner and there are only a few windows, but they are always closed at that hour. Besides, he can’t very well send her walking on the coast road like a hooker. They’re also friends and people know it, so what’s the harm if he, passing by, sees her and they stop to say hello?
Maurizio drives slowly. Unhurriedly. The first houses in town appear, it’s a quiet area. Farther on is the station bar, but you can’t see it from here. It’s only a back road that continues on to the bridge that leads to the coast road.
He stops and the engine automatically shuts down. He checks around to see if there’s anyone at the windows. All closed.
Simona comes along with Dudy on a leash. She’s wearing a light coat and little else, he knows, under it. Black stockings for sure, and a miniskirt short enough to reveal the part of her tanned thigh that arouses him uncontrollably. She’s a fantastic woman. Thirty-seven years old and a body that cries out for sex with each breath. Her husband is at least thirty years older and is a bit winded, but his bank account adequately makes up for it: he bought her the beauty salon and provides her the life she dreamed of.
When she gets to the car, she smiles in that way that changes the course of Maurizio’s blood, concentrating it in one part of his body.
She ties Dudy’s leash to the pole, because ever since the time he bit Maurizio’s ankle, he has to wait outside.
She climbs in and they kiss. They cling to one another. They kiss again.
“Ciao, little mouse,” Simona says.
“Ciao, little mouse.”
“I miss you so much, you know?”
“I miss you too . . .”
“What are you doing tonight?”
“I have a little work,” he says.
“You’re always working, poor baby.”
“How about we take a vacation?”
“Where would we go?”
“To a spa, we’ll enjoy three days of massages, hot stones, mud baths, and unbridled sex.”
“Do you mean it?”
“Sooner or later you’ll take a refresher course, right?”
“When?” she asks.
“Next week.”
“My little mouse, how I love you!”
They kiss again. They cling even tighter. She opens the coat: she’s wearing the stockings. Maurizio slips a hand between her thighs.
“If you do that, you know I won’t be able to stop,” Simona whispers in his ear.
“Then don’t stop.”
“Not here, little mouse.” She closes up the raincoat.
“You do that to me on purpose, don’t you?”
“I like to keep you revved up, you know.”
“See you tomorrow?”
“Monday, two o’clock, come and have a nude sunbath.”
Simona opens the door and gets out of the car. She kisses her fingertips—her nails are polished red—and blows the kiss to Maurizio. She unties Dudy and realizes that he has left a pile of poo. She rummages in her pocket, looking for a plastic bag, but she didn’t take any before coming down. Never mind, it’s very small. She walks off, swaying on her heels.
Maurizio starts back toward home. When he gets to the corner, however, he sees a car go by. It’s Sandro’s Focus and it’s heading toward Via delle Ortiche.
It’s an instant, just enough time to clear away Simona’s scent and be struck by a not quite fully formed thought. Without even realizing that he’s made a decision that is surely wrong for so many reasons, he follows the car.
The black Focus stops about twenty meters before Enrico’s gate, in the middle of the street. Maurizio approaches at a safe distance, but after killing the engine, he remains inside, watching. Sandro emerges from his car, staggering. He’s definitely wasted. And not just a little either. He looks around and seems to be looking for something. He takes a step, then another, and stops. He seems to be talking to someone, but there isn’t another living soul around. His head drops to his chest. He’ll fall to the ground at any moment. He recovers and takes another step, then another and another, almost all the way across the street, heading toward Enrico’s gate. Before he reaches the other side, however, he stops again. His head drops as before. He looks back, toward the car. He puts a hand to his forehead, as if trying to remember something, but his legs give way. He falls to the ground.
Is he the one who has Alice’s phone? And could he have it with him now?
Maurizio looks around. There’s nobody. He gets out of the car. He walks down the street trying to stay in the shadows, keeping to the edge of the wooded area on the right. He approaches Sandro. He seems to be asleep. More than asleep—in a coma.
Just the right time to look for that damn phone. And, if anyone were to see him there, bent over that junkie lying in the street, he can always say he was trying to help him.
He rummages through his pockets, but doesn’t find anything. Only a packet of cigarettes with a slim lighter tucked inside.
Shit.
He walks over to Sandro’s car. It’s unlocked. He climbs in, then ducks down and starts searching.
“Where did you put it, you shitty crackhead? Where do you keep it?”
It’s not in here. Maybe it’s in the back, in one of the door compartments. He gets out and slides into the back seat. He keeps looking, under the floor mats, in the pockets. Nothing. He straightens up and realizes that Sandro has gotten up. He’s standing in the street, looking toward the car.
Maurizio ducks down.
Shit again. If he comes over to the car, what the fuck will he tell him?
But while he’s crouching there, he hears something release and the car starts rolling. What’s happening? Out of the corner of his eye he sees that the hand brake is either not set or is not pulled up all the way. He reaches for the lever, but it’s stuck.
The street slopes downhill.
The car picks up speed.
He grabs the lever with two hands, pulls up as hard as he can, but the bastard won’t budge.
He tries stretching toward the pedals to press the foot brake with one hand, but they are too far away and he can’t fit through the two front seats.
Then comes the thump.
He just has time to straighten up and see, through the rearview mirror, that Sandro is on the ground again. Meanwhile the car has swerved off the road and is about to hit a tree head-on.
Maurizio bangs his head against the window. For a moment he feels as if he is going to lose consciousness, but then he comes to. He’s injured, however. Bleeding. He’s messed things up but good.
He crawls out of Sandro’s car. Goes over to the body lying on t
he ground. He hears him mumbling something.
“I don’t have the ball . . . Go away . . . Shitty hand brake . . .”
He’s still alive.
Call for help? And tell them what? That story about the phone? Say he wanted to rob the junkie and ran him over by mistake? Yeah sure, you know how long a fucked-up story like that will hold up? You know how many things will come out, one after the other? Too many. Good-bye Simona and good-bye spa and good-bye unbridled sex, which he could use badly right now. And then there’s everything else to think about. He can’t wreck it all now. And that phone isn’t even here. Is there a way to squirm out of this mess? Yes. Maurizio knows how. And he knows there’s only one way.
He runs to his car. Gets in. Looks around. Waits a few more seconds, but there’s nothing moving. Around here, at this time of year, there’s no one. The houses are all vacant. This he knows for sure: he’s the one who leases them.
The sound of his phone makes him jump. It’s Betti. The face in the photo recorded in his contacts belongs to a distant world, in which his wife was still able to smile at him. A drop of blood falls on the display. Maurizio takes the window-wiping cloth from the side pocket of the car door and dabs the blood on his head. He starts the car, puts it in gear, and drives away.
“What’s up?”
“There’s a problem with Chiara.”
“What’s the problem?”
“I don’t know, but my mother is going to look for her.”
Nine
The flashing yellow indicator lights up and the electronic gate begins to slide open. Enzo takes a step back and waits for the homeowner. Sarti, with whom he talked on the video intercom, arrives out of breath, his shoes unlaced, his shirt untucked, and his jacket thrown on hastily.
“Good evening,” he says as soon as he steps through the gate, with that overly polite manner that those who have houses around here rub your nose in.
The Night of the Moths Page 15