Let the Games Begin (37 page)

He almost skipped down the hill. If he didn't remember wrongly, the exit was in that direction. He found a path and began to descend the staircase, two steps at a time, that led across the woods towards the lake.

There was something, a strange object, right in the middle of the path. He slowed down. It looked like it was made of metal and had wheels. He moved a little closer until he realised what it was.

A wheelchair.

It was knocked over onto its side. As well as the chair, there was also a body lying across the steps. Fabrizio, holding his breath, moved closer.

At first he didn't recognise him, but then he saw the bald head, the ears that stuck out. The Vuitton fecal-collection sack.

He put his hands through his hair.
Oh God, it's Umberto Cruciani
.

The old master, on the ground and without his chair. He looked like a soldier crab that had its shell removed.

Fabrizio didn't need to touch him to understand that he was dead. His eyes were wide open beneath his thick eyebrows. His toothless mouth was agape. His hands curled up.

He must have fallen down the stairs.

Fabrizio bent over the cadaver of the great writer and closed his eyes.

Another great had departed the earth. The author of
Western Wall
and
Bread and Nails
, the masterpieces of 1970s Italian literature, had departed, leaving the world a poorer, sadder place.

Fabrizio Ciba was shaken by a sob, by another and by another again. He hadn't cried once during that whole crazy night, but now he burst into tears like a little boy.

He wasn't crying for the suffering, but for the joy.

He dried his tears, caressed the bony face and with a flick of his wrist he ripped the 40Gb USB key from around Cruciani's neck.

He smiled as he sniffed. ‘Thank you, Master. You saved me.'

And he kissed him on the lips.

 

77

Larita had managed to emerge from the well. The roots had helped her to clamber up to the top.

Now she was walking, with her head lowered, across the field where gnus, buffalo and kangaroos calmly grazed.

She couldn't stop thinking about the image of Mantos's hand brushing against hers as he gave her a letter before disappearing into the black waters.

She pulled the saturated piece of paper from her pocket.

There was something written in faded but legible handwriting.

‘For Silvietta.'

Who was Silvietta? And, above all, who was Mantos?

A hero who had appeared from nowhere and had sacrificed himself to save her.

Maybe Silvietta was his sweetheart.

The singer was about to open the note, when she heard police sirens.

With the piece of paper in her hand, she began to run.

Croissants

78

The fire brigade, after many hours' work, had finally managed to breach the wall surrounding the Villa. It was easier than knocking down the solid steel gates. They had sealed off the zone, which had filled with onlookers, police cars, dozens of ambulances, journalists and photographers. The guests were coming out in dribs and drabs. Many of them were only just able to stand and were greeted by medical teams, who laid them down on stretchers. Corman Sullivan had been wrapped in an inflatable hyperbaric chamber. Antonio, Saverio's cousin, his head bandaged in a huge gauze turban, was sipping hot tea. Paco Jimenez de la Frontera and Milo Serinov were talking on their mobiles. Cristina Lotto was hugging her husband. Magic Daniel was down to his underpants, and was arguing with old Cinelli and a Chinese dressed up as an acrobat.

Larita pushed her way through the people. Her heart was beating loudly and her hands were trembling with excitement.

A young nurse came up to her with a blanket. ‘Come with me.'

The singer gestured to her that she was fine. ‘One moment, just one moment.'

Where was he?
And if
. . . She didn't even want to finish that thought. Too sad to think.

She couldn't see him anywhere. Then she noticed a knot of journalists pushing to get closer to someone. Fabrizio was there, answering the interviewers' questions. Even though he was enveloped in a grey blanket, he looked in great shape.

A burden was lifted from Larita's heart. She moved closer to get a better look at him.

Oh man, I like him so much
.

Luckily, he hadn't seen her. She would surprise him as soon as he'd finished talking to the journalists.

 

79

‘So, tell us . . . What happened?' asked Rita Baudo from
TG4
.

Fabrizio Ciba had decided not to talk to the press, to be cranky and stand-offish as always, but when he had seen the journalists running towards him, forgetting about all the other VIPs, he had given in to the temptation to bask in the attention. And then there was the fact that the hand he had in his pocket was holding a USB key that instilled him with 40Gb of strength and courage. With the other hand he touched the lobe of his ear and put on the expression of a survivor.

‘There's not much to say. We ended up at the party of a psychopathic megalomaniac. This is a sad parable of a presumptuous and proud human being who believed that he was Caesar. In a certain sense a tragic hero, a figure from another age . . .' He could have gone on pontificating for the rest of the day, but decided to cut it short. ‘I will soon write the chronicle of this night of horror.' When a photographer focused on him, he brushed back the tuft of rebellious hair that fell in front of his teary eyes.

Rita Baudo wasn't satisfied, though. ‘But what do you mean? Can't you tell us anything more?'

Fabrizio waved at them with his hand, as if to say that although he was emotionally unsettled, he'd had the decency to speak to the press, but now he needed some privacy. ‘Please forgive me, I'm very tired.'

Just then, with the tact of a prop in a rugby match, Simona Somaini burst in amidst the journalists.

The blonde actress was wrapped up in a microscopic Red Cross blanket that strategically revealed her flat tummy, a tiny thong covered in mud, and her amazing tits with nipples as big as thimbles hidden beneath her tattered bra.

‘Fabri! There you are! I was afraid . . .' she said, kissing him on the mouth.

Ciba's green eyes flew open, and for a tenth of a second they expressed a doubt, then closed again whilst the two of them remained entwined, amidst an explosion of flashes.

Right then Simona, as if it was a curtain on a stage, let the blanket fall to her feet, showing off her 40-26-36 figure.

When they ran out of oxygen, she laid her head, with its savannah-coloured hair, against his neck and dried her sparkling eyes for the cameras.

‘During this terrible night, despite everything, we have found out . . .' She turned to Fabrizio. ‘Do you want to tell them?'

Fabrizio raised an eyebrow, looking perplexed. ‘What, Simona?'

The actress paused, but then she recovered, bent her head to one side and whispered in embarrassment. ‘Go on, let's tell them. For once, let's not hide. We are human beings, after all . . . especially today. After this terrible adventure.'

‘Can you be more explicit?' the journalist from
Rendez-vous
asked.

‘Well, I don't know whether I can say.'

The correspondent for
Festa Italiana
pushed a microphone in her face. ‘Please, Simona, speak up.'

Fabrizio realised that Somaini was a genius. He squeezed the USB key in his pocket, and knew that he loved her. That was the final
coup de theatre
, the just conclusion that would
make him the most important man at the party, the most envied of them all. He breathed in deeply and said: ‘We've decided to get engaged.'

The journalists, paramedics and the onlookers behind the barriers started clapping enthusiastically.

Simona tickled her nose against his neck like a pussycat. ‘I'll be his Marilyn.'

Fabrizio asked for a moment of silence. ‘And I wanted to celebrate by giving you an exclusive preview. I have finally finished my new novel.' And he added: ‘And I won't be publishing it with Martinelli.'

Somaini hugged him tightly, lifting up her delicious ankle. ‘Darling, what wonderful news! I can't wait to read it. I'm sure it's a masterpiece.'

A big Porsche Cayenne now came into sight, honking its horn. The fat head of Paolo Bocchi popped out of the window. His face was still flushed. Sitting in the passenger seat was Matteo Saporelli, snoring away. ‘What a fantastic party! The best I've been to in the last few years! Guys, do you want a lift?'

Fabrizio took Simona's hand. ‘Yes, to the airport.'

‘No worries!' said the plastic surgeon.

‘Where are you taking me, darling?' asked Simona, all excited.

‘To Majorca.'

 

80

Larita had watched the scene up until the two of them kissed.

Then she had slipped on a tracksuit, hidden beneath the hood and managed to slip away from the circus before anyone could recognise her.

She had had the same bad luck as ever. That night she had met another arsehole. But luckily he had disappeared from her life before he could do any real damage.

In the palm of her hand she still had the note that Mantos had given her. She opened it carefully, so as not to tear it. Smudged, but still legible, was written:

I FELL IN LOVE
WITHOUT KNOWING WHAT LOVE IS
AND I LOSE MY LIFE
WITHOUT HAVING EVER LIVED IT.
EDO AKA ZOMBIE

The End

 

 

PART FOUR

Four Years Later

Villa Ada, following the terrible night of the big party and Sasà Chiatti's death, had returned to local council ownership. And Romans began to hang out there again as if the Chiatti era had never existed.

To be honest, very little was left of all that splendour. A memorial plaque at the entrance from Via Panama with the names of the VIPs who'd died. The train tracks already bound in the branches of the ivy.

A couple of warthogs and a pair of vultures called Gino and Nunzia, both as fat as turkeys from scavenging around the rubbish bins. All the other animals had ended up in bioparks around the peninsula.

Everything else had returned to being the same old Villa Ada. Immense, tangled, dirty, thorny, dusty, a hideout for stray dogs, sewage rats and non-European citizens without residency permits. The hundred-year-old pine trees, sick to their core, continued to fall on passers-by. The fields were once again overrun by thorn bushes. The green smelly lakes nests for tiger mosquitoes, coypus and turtles. Dogs had reappeared without their muzzles, policemen flirted with au pairs, cyclists dressed in reflective clothing, bongo-players, joint-smokers, and old men sitting on park benches.

But on the 29th of April, exactly four years from the night of the party, on a sunny but chilly Roman day, Murder and Silvietta were there.

Lying on a tartan blanket, they were having a picnic with maccheroni omelette, supplí and mushroom pizza.

For the last three years they had decided that that day
would be dedicated to the memory of Mantos and Zombie.

Not that they did much to honour their friends, but they were happy like that. They took a day off work (they had opened a family business for treating terracotta tiling in Oriolo), hopped into the Ford Ka and headed to Rome. And if the weather was nice, like today, they had their picnic, read a bit and sometimes even squeezed in a nap in the open air.

That's how they remembered their friends.

This year was special, though. They had brought along Bruce, their two-year-old son, who was now able to walk and, if you didn't keep an eye on him, could take off on those shaky legs and end up who knows where.

Silvietta glanced up from her book. ‘Go on, go and get him . . .' she said to her husband.

Murder stood up and yawned. ‘You really like that book, don't you?'

‘
A Light in the Fog
is fantastic. I can't stop reading. I reckon it's even better than
The Lion's Den
. Ciba has become a much more mature writer. And these stories about the farmers from lower Padania are so touching.'

Murder bit into his pizza. ‘How does he know so much about those people? He's always lived in Rome.'

‘He's a genius. Talent, pure and simple. I remember when he read that poem at the party. He's such a special person.' Silvietta looked around. ‘Go on, get going. Be a daddy. Go and get Bruce.'

Murder stretched his arms above his head. ‘All right, my queen, I will return your child to you.' He gave her a kiss and walked off to the rides, where the baby had headed.

Silvietta stared after her husband, for a second, as he wandered away. She really needed to sew the hem of his torn jeans. Then she dived back into the novel. She was fifty pages
from the end. But not even three minutes later, she heard Murder calling her.

‘Honey . . . Honey . . . Come quickly.'

Silvietta closed the book and left it on the blanket. She found her husband and son next to a German Shepherd puppy. The little boy kept stretching out his hand towards the animal, which was running around him, wagging his tail.

Bruce wasn't afraid. The opposite. He was giggling and trying to catch him.

Silvietta moved closer to her son. ‘It's nice, isn't it, honey?'

Murder patted the puppy and it threw itself tummy-up, ready for a proper scratch. ‘Maybe we could get one for him. Look how much he's enjoying it.'

‘Who'd take it out?'

Murder shrugged. ‘Me. No worries.'

‘I don't think so.' Silvietta gave her husband an affectionate punch on the shoulder.

Murder picked up Bruce, who immediately started whining. ‘Come on, let's go and eat before it all gets cold.'

But when they got back, the picnic had been plundered. Someone had taken the bag with the supplí, and the omelette had disappeared, too.

Murder put his hands on his hips and set his legs apart.

‘Sons of bitches! You can't leave anything alone for a minute . . .'

Silvietta grabbed her bag. ‘They didn't even touch my money, though.'