Black Run. Antonio Manzini
back in his bed, eyeing the big toenail on his right foot. The nail had turned black, on account of the filing cabinet drawer that D’Intino had carelessly dropped on Schiavone’s foot while hysterically searching for a passport application. Dottor Schiavone hated Officer D’Intino. That very afternoon, after yet another idiotic move pulled by that cop, he’d sworn to himself and the entire citizenry of Aosta that he’d make sure he got that moron transferred to a godforsaken police station somewhere far from the sea, down at the opposite end of the Italian peninsula.
The deputy police chief reached out his hand and grabbed the Nokia that kept ringing and ringing. He took a look at the display. The caller number was police headquarters.
That rated an 8 on the scale of pains in the ass that ran from 1 to 10. Possibly a 9.
Rocco Schiavone had an entirely personal hierarchy up and down which he ranked the pains in the ass that life senselessly inflicted on him every day. The scale actually started at 6, which covered anything that had to do with keeping house: grocery shopping, plumbers, paying rent. The number 7 included malls, banks, medical clinics, and doctors in general, with a special bonus for dentists, and concluded with work dinners or family dinners, though all his living relatives, thank God, were down south in Rome. An 8 on the hierarchy began, first and foremost, with public speaking, followed by any and all bureaucratic procedures required for his job, going to the theater, and reporting to chiefs of police or investigating magistrates. At number 9 came tobacco shops that weren’t open when he needed a pack of cigarettes, cafés that didn’t carry Algida ice cream bars, running into anyone who wanted to talk and talk endlessly, and especially stakeouts with police officers who needed a bath.
Topping the hierarchy, the worst and the most dreaded, was a rating of 10. The top, the worst, the mother of all pains in the ass: the investigation he wasn’t expecting.
He hoisted himself to a sitting position on both elbows and pushed ANSWER.
“Now who’s busting my balls?” he barked.
“Dottore, this is Deruta.”
Special Agent Deruta. Two hundred and twenty-five pounds of useless body mass vying valiantly with D’Intino for the title of stupidest member of police headquarters staff.
“What do you want, Michele?” roared the deputy police chief.
“We have a problem. On the slopes at Champoluc.”
“And where do we have this problem?”
“At Champoluc.”
“And where is that?”
Rocco Schiavone had been shipped north to Aosta from the Cristoforo Colombo police station, in Rome, the previous September. Four months later, all he knew about the geography of the city of Aosta and its surrounding province was the locations of his apartment, police headquarters, the courthouse, and the local trattoria.
“Champoluc is in Val d’Ayas!” Deruta replied, in an almost scandalized tone of voice.
“What’s that supposed to mean? What’s Val d’Ayas?”
“Val d’Ayas, Dottore, is the valley above Verrès. Champoluc is the most famous village in that valley. People go there to ski.”
“Okay, fine, so what?”
“Well, a couple of hours ago someone found a corpse.”
A corpse.
Schiavone let the hand holding the cell phone flop onto the mattress and shut his eyes, cursing through his teeth. “A corpse …”
That was a 10 on the scale of pains in the ass. Definitely a 10. Possibly 10 with a bullet.
“Can you hear me, Dottore?” the telephone crackled.
Rocco raised the device back to his ear. He sighed. “Who’s coming with me?”
“Your choice. Me or Pierron.”
“Italo Pierron, every day for the rest of my life!” the deputy police chief responded promptly.
Deruta acknowledged the insult with a prolonged silence.
“Deruta? What, did you fall asleep?”
“No, I’m at your orders, Dottore.”
“Tell Pierron to come, and to bring the BMW.”
“Do you think the jeep might be better for high-mountain driving?”
“No. I like the BMW. It’s more comfortable, and it has better heating and a radio that works. The only people who take the jeep are those losers the forest rangers.”
“So should I tell Pierron to come get you at your apartment?”
“Yes. And tell him not to ring the bell.”
He dropped his phone on the bed and closed his eyes, laying his hand over them, palm down.
He heard the rustling whisper of Nora’s negligee. Then her weight on the mattress. Then her lips and warm breath in his ear. And finally her teeth, nibbling at his earlobe. At any other time, these were all things that would have aroused him, but right now Nora’s foreplay left him completely indifferent.
“What’s going on?” asked Nora in a faint voice.
“That was the office.”
“And?”
Rocco pulled himself up into a sitting position on the bed without even glancing at her. He slowly pulled on his socks.
“Can’t you talk?”
“I don’t feel like it. I’m working. Leave me alone.”
Nora nodded. She brushed aside a lock of hair that had fallen in front of her eyes. “So you have to go out?”
Rocco finally turned and looked at her. “Well, what do you think I’m doing?”
There Nora lay, stretched out on the bed. Her arm, thrown over her head, revealed her perfectly hairless armpit. Her crimson satin negligee caressed her body, emphasizing with an interplay of light and shadow her generous curves. Her long, smooth dark hair framed her face, white as cream. Her black eyes looked like a pair of Apulian olives freshly plucked from the tree. Her lips were thin, but she knew just how to apply the right amount of lipstick to fill them out. Nora, a magnificent specimen of womanhood, just a year over forty.
“You could be a little nicer about it, couldn’t you?”
“No,” Rocco replied. “I couldn’t. It’s late, I have to drive up into the mountains, I have to kiss the whole evening with you good-bye, and in a little while it’s probably going to start snowing, too!”
He stood up brusquely from the bed, went over to sit in an armchair, and put on his shoes: a pair of Clarks desert boots, the only type of footwear that Rocco Schiavone knew. Nora lay on the bed. She felt a little dumb, made up and dressed in satin. A table set for dinner, and no guests attending. She sat up. “What a shame. I made you raclette for dinner.”
“What’s that?” the deputy police chief asked glumly.
“Haven’t you ever had it? It’s a bowl of melted fontina cheese with artichokes, olives, and little chunks of salami.”
Rocco stood up and pulled on a crewneck sweater. “Nice and digestible, I gather.”
“Am I going to see you tomorrow?”
“How the hell would I know, Nora! I don’t even know where I’m going to be tomorrow.”
He left the bedroom. Nora sighed and stood up. She caught up with him at the front door. She whispered: “I’ll be waiting for you.”
“What am I, a bus?” Rocco shot back. Then he smiled. “Nora, forgive me, this is just a bad night. You’re an incredibly beautiful woman. You’re unquestionably the top tourist attraction in the city of Aosta.”
“After