Let the Games Begin (11 page)

Beneath him, Serena was wriggling around like the tail cut off a lizard.

He grabbed her by the hair again and squeezed her tit. ‘You love it. Say it!'

‘No. No. I don't love it. It makes me sick.' And yet, she didn't look as if it made her sick. ‘Arsehole. You're a disgusting arsehole.' She slapped the mattress and hit the clock radio, which awoke from its slumber and began singing ‘She's Always A Woman' by Billy Joel.

Another unmistakable sign that Satan was on his side. Saverio told his disciples that he loved Sepultura and Metallica, but he secretly adored old Billy Joel. Nobody else wrote songs as romantic as his.

He squeezed his teeth and, with renewed vigour, began hammering her again. ‘I'm going to snap you in two. I swear, I'm going to snap you. Cop this, you tart.' And he stuck a finger in her ass.

Serena's whole body stiffened. She stretched out her legs and arms, and lifted her head, looking at him with a pained expression. And then she gave in, sighing, and whispered: ‘I'm coming . . . I'm coming, you fuck. Fuck you, arsehole.'

Saverio finally let himself go. He relaxed his thighs and came with his mouth open. Exhausted by the effort, sweating all over, he flopped onto Serena's neck and stuck his mouth in her hair. ‘Now tell me you love me,' he sighed.

‘Yes. I love you. Now let me sleep.'

 

20

Fabrizio Ciba had given up looking for a taxi on Corso Vittorio Emanuele. The long boulevard was packed with cars. The bass from woofers made the cars pulse. In a corner he saw a bar with lights on. He catapulted himself inside.

A suffocating heat. A head-spinning stink of sweat. People everywhere pushing each other in the narrow space. And they were dancing. On the bar. On the tables. An orchestra made up of wild Caribbeans was playing a crappy ear-piercing salsa.

A short guy with blond fringe and wearing a wrestling vest pulled up in front of him. He was wearing a sort of cowboy belt tied around his waist, loaded with shot glasses instead of bullets. He was holding a bottle in his hand. ‘You look like crap. Have a tequila boom-boom. It'll do you good.'

Fabrizio necked it. The alcohol warmed his frozen innards. ‘Again.'

The guy poured him another.

He necked this one two. ‘Ahhhh! Better. Another!'

‘Are you sure?'

Fabrizio nodded. He placed a soaking wet fifty-euro bank note on the bar. ‘Pour and don't ask questions.'

The waiter shook his head, but obeyed.

Fabrizio made a disgusted face as he threw the shot into his stomach. Then he looked at the young man. ‘Listen, my name's Fabrizio Ciba, and I have a . . .' He stopped. The short-arse's eyes showed only a glacial emptiness. He didn't have the vaguest idea who Fabrizio Ciba was. He was looking at him as if he was a hobo. ‘Is there a phone I can use?'

‘No. There should be a phone box in Piazza Venezia.'

Fine, the writer said to himself, he'd have to fall back on the usual method he used with idiots like this guy. ‘Listen, I'll you give another hundred euro if you take me to Via Mecenate. It's not far from here, it's behind the Colosseum.'

The fringe-haired guy shrugged. ‘I wish! But I've gotta work.'

‘You can't do this to me! Fucking hell, I didn't ask you for the moon.'

The waiter poured a shot and slammed it down on the counter. ‘Here, this one's on me, but then you piss off. That's a good boy.'

Fabrizio threw the tequila down in one go and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. ‘If you're in trouble, no one helps you out, right?' He took two steps backwards and ended up on someone's feet.

A female voice complained. ‘Ouch! This wanker smashed my big toe!'

He tried to look her in the eye, but the lights from the bar were pointed right in his face. He lifted his hand in apology, but a male voice barked at him: ‘Listen . . . We've had enough of you. Look what you did to her!'

‘So what? I don't get it . . . She's about as good-looking as a clam . . . Don't shellfish have a higher level of pain
tolerance?' He closed his eyes and noticed that the music had stopped. ‘I bet that none of these gentlemen . . .' He was unable to go on. He had to take a seat. He opened his eyes again and the room with all those fuzzy faces began spinning above him. ‘What a terrible world yours is . . .' he slurred and tried to grab on to the short-arse, but instead collapsed on the floor amidst people's legs.

‘Kick him out!' ‘We've had enough!' ‘It's always the same story round here.'

‘All right . . .' He got up, with the help of someone.

And before he realised he was back outside, beneath the downpour. The cold and the rain were like the crack of a whip, and he felt a little more lucid. He'd cover the last one and a half kilometres home on foot in the rain.

He made it to Piazza Venezia with his eyes closed and his legs trembling, the cars honking at him. Via dei Fori Imperiali appeared before his eyes. It looked never ending. Off in the distance, like a mirage, the Colosseum glittered, shrouded in water. The rain struck hard on the sampietrini, which shone in the light of car headlights.

All he needed to do was walk with his head down.

I've gotta throw up, though
.

He kept thinking back to that arsehole Gianni as he stabbed him in the back, that bitch his agent who hadn't let him in, and those pieces of shit in the bar.

Tomorrow . . . I'll get . . . a new agent . . . and I'll send a tough email . . . to Martinelli
.

The Colosseum was getting closer. Lit up, it looked like an Italian Christmas cake.

Fabrizio was bushed, but he accelerated the pace using his last bit of energy.

I'll leave Martinelli
.

He realised he was out of breath and that a frozen claw was ripping open his heart.

Oh God
. . .

He lifted his gaze skywards and reached out his hand as if to hold himself steady with something. Then he tripped and the footpath bent in two and came up at him, hitting him on the cheekbone.

He registered that he was now lying on the ground and was falling unconscious. He vomited something acid and alcoholic, which diluted in a puddle.

Heart attack
.

His head had transformed into a fiery ball. His ears housed a jet motor. The Colosseum, the road, the lights, the rain span around him, melting into shiny coils.

He tried to stand, but his legs couldn't hold his weight. He fell again. He began dragging himself towards the street on his arms, while cars drove past without even slowing. He lifted a hand and murmured:

‘Help! Help! Please . . . Help me!'

Fabrizio Ciba, the international bestselling writer of
The
Lion's Den
, the presenter of the culture programme
Crime and Punishment
, the third-sexiest man in Italy according to the weekly magazine
Yes
, understood that nobody was going to stop and help him, and that he would die in his own vomit opposite the Fori Imperiali. He could see the photo of his body melted on the ground. In the background, the Roman ruins.

It will be in all the newspapers. What will they write? Like Janis Joplin
.

His arm flopped back down. He lay there wondering why, why did this have to happen to him?

I haven't done anything wrong
.

Everything was turning hazy. All he could see were purple dots.

He leaned his head on the ground and closed his eyes.

 

21

Mr and Mrs Moneta were lying on the bed. Outside, the storm was beginning to die down.

Saverio looked at his wife. She was sleeping facing the other way, a mask over her eyes.

Just after they had finished making love, Serena told him that she loved him. He shouldn't believe her. Serena was as treacherous as a scorpion. To get her to say it to him, he'd been forced to rape her.

But in the end she came
.

A weakness of Serena's that would cost him dearly.

Tomorrow, when she thinks about what happened, she'll go crazy. She'll be even more selfish, overbearing and insensitive than ever. She might even tell her old man about it
.

He was unable to hate her, in spite of everything. He'd had to stop himself from saying: ‘Me, too. You don't know how much. More than anything else in the world.'

But now, with a clearer head, he felt differently. That word no kept buzzing around in his head. The gutless cockroach phase was over. The metamorphosis had ended, and now all he needed to do was take flight and disappear.

He'd made a promise to the Beasts, and he would keep it. He would sacrifice Larita to Satan and they would become the world's most famous sect. Saverio Moneta would prove to the world how sick they were in the head.

The police would catch them. That was certain. And the idea of spending the rest of his days in jail terrified him. There were
really nasty people in there. Killers, mafia, real psychopaths. Of course, if he went to jail as Mantos, the Lord of Evil, the monster who had decapitated the singer Larita and bathed in her blood, they might all be afraid of him. And they would leave him alone.

Maybe . . . Maybe not . . . Maybe they're Larita fans. And they'll kill me like they did with that poor fellow Jeffrey Dahmer
.

This whole jail thing was a real nuisance.

Unless
. . .

He smiled in the dark. There was a way.

He got up from the bed. He opened the wardrobe. He took out a black tracksuit that he had bought with the idea of using it to go jogging, something he had ended up never doing. He slipped it on and pulled the hood over his head. He was walking out of the room when Serena mumbled: ‘Where are you going?'

‘Just go back to sleep.'

 

22

‘Do you need a hand?'

What
?

‘Can you hear me? Can you hear me?'

What? Who
?

Are you all right?

A voice. A woman
.

Fabrizio Ciba squeezed opened his eyes. ‘I'm not well . . . Help me . . . Please.' He grabbed the ankle of the black figure standing in front of him.

‘Oh my God, but you . . . You're the writer . . . Of course, you are Fabrizio Ciba! What are you doing lying on the ground? I'm so excited to meet you.'

‘Yes . . . Ciba . . . That's me . . . I'm Fabrizio Ciba! Please, help me, take me to . . .'

With the little clearheadedness he had left, Fabrizio realised that if he went to the hospital it would end up in the papers. And they would write that he was an alcoholic, or worse. ‘No. Home. Take me home . . . Via Mecenate . . .'

‘Of course, of course. I'll take you straight home. Did you know, you are my favourite writer? Much better than Saporelli. I've read all of your books. I loved
The Lion's Den
. Would it be indiscreet for me to ask you for your autograph? I don't have your book with me, though.'

Fabrizio smiled. He loved his readers.

‘Now I'm going to get you into the car.'

He felt himself being lifted by the armpits. He saw a car with the doors open. The woman dragged him over and helped him into the back seat.

I'm still the best, I'm not all washed up
. . ., he said as he fainted.

 

23

Zombie, Murder and Silvietta were enjoying a good chat about films.

They were spread out across a couch and they were passing around a homemade chillum made from a bottle of Rocchetta water. A grey-coloured mix of vodka and smoke sat on the bottom. The plastic sleeve of a Bic pen, which held a double-paper joint, stuck out of a hole. They'd just finished watching
Blackwater Valley Exorcism
. All three of them were enthusiastic about the film and had agreed that it was better than the much-acclaimed
The Exorcist
. For a start, everything was based on
a true story and, according to their criteria, true stories are better than invented stories. Also, the first scene was unbelievable: Isabel, the daughter of a poor family of Texan farmers, ate a live rabbit. It was a fresh, uncontrived film, and you could see that the director and the actors had given it their all, despite the low budget.

Silvietta began rolling another joint. She was the group's official roller.

‘What do you reckon, Zombie, is
Blackwater
better than
Omen
?'

Zombie yawned. ‘Good question . . . I don't know.'

Silvietta yawned, too. ‘I'm stuffed. This Moroccan is brutal.'

Murder lifted his back off the couch and stretched his arms. ‘What about if we went to bed?'

The Vestal passed her tongue over the glue on the paper and, with a technical move, sealed the joint and lit it up. ‘All right, let's smoke our goodnight joint.' Then she began tidying the heavy metal CDs, the tattoo magazines and the greasy bags from the fried courgette flowers and ascolane olives spread across the floor. When she overdid the grass, she got an attack of housewife syndrome. ‘Zombie, why don't you sleep here?'

‘Well . . . I don't know . . . Better not,' said Zombie as he searched for his army boots. ‘Tomorrow morning I've gotta take my mum for some medical tests at Formello.'

It wasn't true, but the springs in the couch where they let him sleep were broken. And he hated always looking like he didn't have any women friends, which was true, by the way.

Also, those two swore that they hated couples in love, those lovey-dovey sorts and romantic crap like Valentine's Day, and yet as soon as they got the chance they would go off by themselves, as if he didn't exist.

What harm would it do them to sleep all three of them
together in the big bed? Not that he wanted to have group sex (even if, in fact, he wouldn't have minded), but hadn't they taken the Satanic oath of brotherhood? He just couldn't understand what Silvietta found so endearing in that hick, Murder. Zombie was a thousand times better. Agreed, he did have that problem with the gastric oesophagitis, but with the medicine he'd almost got it under control.

Zombie picked up a shoe off the floor. ‘No . . . I'll go home. I prefer to.'