As God Commands (25 page)

Since leaving Esmeralda's house she hadn't passed a single car or
human being.

Everything was closed. All the lights were out. The place was
deserted. Fallen trees lay in the middle of the road. Cars had been
crushed. Fabiana felt like the sole survivor of a catastrophe that had
exterminated the human race.

But if it goes on like this the river will overflow and flood the
road... so my appointment with the dentist will be cancelled.
Great!

That thought was enough to put a little warmth back into her
limbs and improve her mood.

And if I got the flu as well... she said to herself, trying to zip her
jacket up more tightly. It would be the icing on the cake.

That way she wouldn't have to go to school for a few days either.

At home. Without a care in the world. MTV Charin doing the
cooking ... And Esme out of my hair for a while. Esmeralda hated
going around to her house anyway. She said it was too neat and
tidy and "too much tidiness smacks of madness to me." According
to her the Ponticelli family was the classic perfect family where the
father comes home from work, kills his wife and children and puts
a bullet in his head.

She thinks she can say anything she likes to me.

Perhaps she ought to keep away from her for a while. She was
beginning to get a bit fed up with her. She was a petty dictator. In
order to be her friend she had changed her life. Because if you're
with Esmeralda Guerra either you do what she wants or you don't
exist. In order to be her friend she had stopped seeing Anna and
Alessandra.

Maybe they're not very cool, but I used to enjoy hanging out
with them.

And she had practically thrown her into Tekken's arms.

Esmeralda had slept with him a couple of times and had insisted
that she do the same. She kept saying it had been a wonderful fuck,
that she'd had three orgasms, one after the other, like she'd had a
thousand men. But if it had been so divine, why, all of a sudden,
had she stopped?

Simple: Tekken was about as romantic as a pig on a dunghill. He
had screwed Esmeralda and then given her the boot. And she had been devastated. Hence her eagerness for Fabiana to sleep with him
too. That way at least both of them would have been deflowered
and dumped.

The only time Fabiana had been on a date with Tekken they had
gone to the cinema and his hands had been all over her. And while
he was taking her home they had stopped at the public gardens and
he had pulled out his erect cock, as proud as could be, and had
practically forced her to give him a hand-job twenty yards from the
newspaper kiosk. And if she hadn't threatened to scream he would
have screwed her there in the gardens, in front of everyone.

The deafening roar of a broken exhaust pipe made her jump.
Fabiana turned her head and saw in the outside lane a man,
covered in a yellow poncho and a full-face helmet, on the seat of
an old green Boxer.

So I'm not alone in the world. I've seen that scooter somewhere
before...

It only took her a moment to connect it with that tramp-like guy
who looked as if he was breakdancing when he walked, and whom
she had often seen with Cristiano Zena's father.

But where was he going in this weather?

Impossible!

It couldn't be true.

The girl who looked exactly like Ramona!

That was her scooter. Her yellow sticker. Her helmet.

What was she doing out in this downpour?

And yet it was definitely her, in the flesh, dripping wet.

Quattro Formaggi could see her in the public gardens, that summer
night, standing there with her hand around ...

Up and down. Up ...

The vision of that little girl holding the biker's cock in her hand
blinded him and evoked a guttural moan. A thrill of pleasure ran
up his spine, jumping from one vertebra to another, and Quattro
Formaggi suddenly felt his arms and legs go as limp as a jelly fish's tentacles and had to grip the handlebar tightly to stay in
the seat.

Ramona comes out of the house and says to the lumberjack with
a smile: "Get out your little joystick and let's have some fun. "

Up and down. Up...

Quattro Formaggi felt his blood seething as it circulated in his
ears, his bowels, between his legs.

He gave himself a few thumps on the thigh. Then he put his hand
under his windbreaker and dug his fingernails into his ribs.

"You whore. You damned whore," he grunted, enclosed within
his helmet. "Why? Why do you like doing these things? Why don't
you leave me in peace?"

She did it against him. To make him feel bad.

(Go on! Stop her.) The voice of Bob the lumberjack spoke out,
powerful and decisive. (Go on, what are you waiting for?)

I can't.

(You'll never have another opportunity like this. Don't you realize
what a stroke of luck it is? She'll be happy to do it to you as well.)

No, she won't.

(Yes, she will.)

I can't. I can't do it.

(You're just a poor fool, an idiot, a cre...)

Quattro Formaggi shut his eyes, trying not to listen. He was
breathing with his mouth open and the visor of his helmet was
misted over.

(Her hands will be cold and wet. And she'll smile.)

No. I can't ... What if she doesn't want to?

(Of course she'll want to. Look, let's say this. If she takes the
bypass, it means she doesn't want to. But if she takes the road
through the woods, that settles it ...)

He was right. The road through the woods was deserted. If she
didn't want to be stopped she would never take it, so if she did go
that way, it would mean ...

(Bravo! You finally understood.)

... she wanted to, so he would stop her.

He didn't know how, but he would stop her.

The tramp was now travelling at the same speed as her, behind her
but on the wrong side of the road. At one point Fabiana Ponticelli
had seen him thumping himself on the leg.

Better accelerate.

With that worn out scooter the loony wouldn't have much chance
of keeping up with her.

Fabiana turned the throttle and gradually drew away from him.

She must be careful-at that speed if she saw a rut she wouldn't
have time to brake. She looked in the rear-view mirror.

The Boxer was still behind her. But further back.

She gave a sigh and realized that she had hardly breathed since
the guy had materialized alongside her.

Sleep had eventually prevailed over the Zena family.

Cristiano had collapsed after a desperate struggle to stay awake
until Danilo and Quattro Formaggi arrived, and downstairs Rino
was snoring in front of the TV, which was still on.

Beppe Trecca, too, with three Xanaxes and half a bottle of melon
vodka inside him, was snoring, with his forehead resting on the table
between the foil dishes of the Chinese meal.

"I could have found anyone I liked to join me on this job, Rino Zena,
my friend. Who do you think you are? Do you think you're the only
person who can do it? And what was that you said? `We must talk.'
What the fuck have we got to talk about? Has somebody made you
our leader? I'm the leader, till I see any proof to the contrary. Do you
know how many better men than you I could have found if I'd
wanted?" Danilo Aprea was talking out loud, gesticulating and raising
his shoulders. "Who thought up the plan? Who did all the work?
Who spent a month sitting opposite the bank watching every movement? Who found the tractor? Me! Me! And me! I did it all! I'm
going to make you both rich. I..." He was addressing the sofa, as if
Rino and Quattro Formaggi were sitting on it. "Shall I be honest,
really brutally honest? No beating about the bush? I should have had
fifty percent and you two twenty-five. That would have been fair. But
since I'm a gentleman, a great gentleman..." He looked at the bottle
of grappa on the table. He needed another drop. He raised it.

Empty.

After the phone conversation with Rino he had told himself a
drop would help to soothe his anger and he had drained the whole
bottle without even realizing it.

I'm fine. Nothing to worry about. There's no problem. He shook
his head like a cocker spaniel after its bath. I'll be better in a minute.

He took three unsteady paces. In fact he was a bit tipsy, but as
soon as Quattro Formaggi arrived he would leave, and outside, in
the wind and rain, he would recover in no time.

(She turned her head. Don't you see that she's calling you? You
stupid fool). Bob explained to him.

Why did she accelerate, then?

Quattro Formaggi decelerated even more, though still keeping
close enough not to lose sight of the scooter.

(Turn off your headlight. She'll think you've taken another road.)

He would be able to catch up with her again immediately. The
Boxer's engine was souped up, it had an expansion exhaust and
when he took up an aerodynamic position, on a downward slope,
he could do as much as fifty miles an hour.

The little blonde would soon reach the fork.

It was up to her. If she took the road through the woods he would
stop her.

Please take the bypass. Please.

(You fool.)

Fabiana Ponticelli looked in the rear-view mirror.

The Boxer's headlight wasn't there any more. The tramp must
have turned off down another road.

A classic case of pot-induced paranoia.

My God, though, what a fright he gave me.

Meanwhile in front of her the road, with the rain beating down
on it, widened out and a hundred yards further on divided into two.

To the left was the narrow road that passed through the San
Rocco woods and led straight home, to the right you went onto the
bypass, which ran all the way around the hill, and which was wide
and brightly lit but never-ending.

She heard her father's voice. Like Little Red Riding Hood's
mother, he was saying:

(Fabiana, remember, never go along the road through the woods
at night.)

Yes, maybe I'd better take the bypass. I'm soaked to the skin as
it is anyway.

But at the last moment she changed her mind-in this weather
the big bad wolf will stay in his lair-and swerved sharply, taking
the little road that burrowed into the woods.

When Quattro Formaggi had seen Ramona heading decisively toward
the bypass his heart had filled with disappointment and happiness.

You see? I told you she doesn't want me. Now leave me alone.

But then, at the last moment, as if the Eternal Father himself had
commanded the girl to take the road through the woods, she had
swerved.

(Now you've got no more excuses.)

But how was he going to stop her? He couldn't very well just go
up and say, "Excuse me, would you mind stopping, please?"...

I'm shy.

(If you don't stop her you're a coward. You'll regret it for the
rest of your life. She's dying for you to do it.)

This was true, but he had to think. He must try to find a way
of stopping her and asking her.

(If you don't get moving you'll never catch her. )

Quattro Formaggi began to accelerate.

The trees bent down over the narrow road, stretching out their
branches as if they were trying to grab Fabiana Ponticelli.

The rain, under the roof of foliage, was not so heavy, and there
was a smell of wet earth and rotting vegetation.

The Scarabeo's headlight threw a weak cone of light on the leafstrewn, muddy asphalt.

The girl rode, following, with intense concentration, the white
line in the middle of the road. The game was to keep the wheels
on the line, because there were bottomless pits on either side and
if she went off the white she would go hurtling down for the rest
of her life.

But suddenly the road curved sharply, following the line of the
hill, and Fabiana failed to keep the tire on the white line.

You'd be dead. Okay, the first time doesn't count. You don't fall
into the pit till your third mistake.

She was so absorbed in the game that she didn't notice that behind
her, fifty yards back, a Boxer was following her.

Now he knew what to do.

Quattro Formaggi had racked his brains, and finally Bob the lumberjack had come to his aid. A brilliant idea, as if by magic, had
materialized in his brain.

He turned on the headlight and accelerated. The engine began to
roar in protest and gradually the Boxer gathered speed.

The little red dot of the Scarabeo's rear light drew nearer at every
bend. After about two hundred yards, if he remembered the road
correctly, the descent would begin and at that point he would overtake her.

Fabiana Ponticelli, riding on the center line, concentrating all her
attention on not falling into a bottomless pit, almost fell off the seat
when, out of the darkness, hunched up like a vulture on its perch,
emerged the loony on the Boxer. He held his head at the level of
the handlebars and his elbows splayed like wings.

The girl clutched the handlebars and stiffened.

Before she even had time to decide whether to speed up or slow
down, he overtook her, charging on down the slope at a maniacal
speed. She saw him take the bend leaning steeply over to one side,
without braking.

Fabiana shut her eyes, certain she was going to hear the sound
of a crash, but when she opened them again there was only a curtain of white smoke and the roar of the now distant exhaust pipe.

He's completely crazy, that guy.

What on earth was he doing? Did he want to get himself killed?
Who did he think he was-Valentino Rossi?

She couldn't make out whether he was interested in her or if he
was just a poor lunatic who liked racing in storms.

After overtaking her, Quattro Formaggi had nearly crashed into the
guardrail. He had done well-when he was already practically down
on the ground he had stuck out one leg and with a kick had managed to straighten up, but now, after taking another three bends at
the risk of breaking his neck, he decided to slow down. Another
bend like that, on the slippery asphalt, and he would be a goner.