Genzano. It was pathetic. He knew Perl, and could make the deadest Web site interactive in a few days, but no one cared about quality. They would pay him two hundred euros. The plaque on the door had cost him a hundred fifty. It was meant to be an in-joke for a planned real-life meeting at his place with two Blood Elves, but they never showed up. Both made pathetic excuses that night when he met them online.
The radio did not mention Clemente again, so it must have been a dream.
Friday had become Saturday, and Saturday had unfolded hour by tedious hour and done nothing to celebrate Pernazzo’s new status. Meanwhile Pernazzo’s Uberman sleep schedule was going to hell. It was the tension of waiting and hearing nothing. Finally, at five in the evening, the radio reported on the killing of Clemente, husband of a respected Green Party MP. He hadn’t known that bit about the wife and was pleased. It enhanced the prestige.
At half past seven, the intercom buzzed and he went to answer it.
“Pernazzo?” said the voice.
It wasn’t Massoni. He did not recognize the voice. “Yes?”
“Angelo Pernazzo?”
“Yes. What do you want?”
And then the voice said, “Police.”
40
SATURDAY, AUGUST 28, 8:50 P.M.
Angelo Pernazzo felt slippage in his stomach when the voice pronounced the word “police.” He ran to the table in the living room, where he had set down the Glock, picked it up, then ran back. But if there was more than one of them, it would be pointless trying to shoot his way out. The intercom button buzzed again, loud and long. The effect was to turn his fear into anger.
“I’m still here, fuck it,” he told the impatient cop.
“Did you hear me? I said police.”
“OK,” said Pernazzo. He buzzed open the door, and went into his bedroom and slipped the Glock and the Ka-Bar under the mattress.
The buzzer sounded again. He answered for the third time. “What!”
“Which floor?”
“Third.”
“OK. On my way,” said the voice. It was still a lone voice.
When Pernazzo opened the door, the cop was alone. “Permesso?”
Pernazzo halted his retreat down the corridor. A policeman about to arrest for murder does not come alone, then ask for permission to enter. He turned around and checked out the visitor, sizing him up, looking for his weak points.
He was a tall man, forty-ish, heavily built. Similar to Clemente, but not as soft. Except the cop seemed like he’d be more ready for an unexpected attack. He bent his face forward slightly as he examined Pernazzo.
Over the next half hour, this policeman invaded Pernazzo’s life, derided him, took over the apartment, inspected things, touched objects, expressed disgust, suspected everything, reviled him as a loser. Pernazzo felt seasick with nerves and rage. Then the cop took the peanut butter label.
He could have gone to his bedroom, returned with the knife, and stuck the fucker there and then, and he wanted to, but he remembered some words of wisdom written on a message board by a champion gamer at a guild meeting: You can never isolate and kill a cop. Like careful mountaineers, they always tell other people where they are going.
Pernazzo needed to join Alleva as quick as he could now. He needed to be part of a gang. He needed to work fast.
Before leaving, the visitor handed him a card. Commissioner Alec Blume, it said. The commissioner had laughed out loud at the underdog story, called him a dupe. Alleva used to be a con man, he said. Pernazzo had not considered this possibility.
But if it was a con… Massoni, who knew his mother had died and left him some money. The big bet on the underdog. Maybe there was no such thing. Maybe underdogs just lost.
Ten minutes after the police commissioner had left, Massoni buzzed, told him to come downstairs. They were going across town because Alleva wanted to talk.
“I’m being watched,” Pernazzo whispered into the intercom.
“What? Can’t hear you.”
“I’m being watched,” said Pernazzo. “The police are out there watching me.”
“Get down here, you paranoid little fuck,” said Massoni. “No one’s watching you. You think I don’t know how to spot a police surveillance?”
Before he left the house, Angelo stuck the Glock into the back of his pants. He put on a belt to hold it in place. It was uncomfortable, it was not easily accessible, and he had a cringing feeling in the small of his back and in his anus for fear that the weapon might go off. But he was no loser. He had demonstrated that yesterday. And he would prove himself again, as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
41
SATURDAY, AUGUST 28, 9:45 P.M.
Massoni drove a BMW X5. Everyone drove an SUV nowadays, except Pernazzo. That was something else that was going to change. Another thunderstorm rolled down from Palestrina and burst as they climbed into the car. Massoni drove fast over the wet roads, one hand on the steering wheel. He seemed to be trying to send a text from his phone. At San Camillo Hospital, he did something that must have canceled all the hard work of the last few kilometers, because he braked, cursed, and hurled his phone on the floor in front of Pernazzo.
As the phone hit the floor it flashed and began to vibrate, and Antonello Venditti started singing “Quanto sei bella Roma.”
Massoni held out his right hand. “Give it back.”
Pernazzo stole a look at the screen before placing the phone in Massoni’s palm, but all he saw was a number.
Massoni flipped open the phone, cutting off Venditti’s anthem. “Yeah?” he said.
Massoni knew how not to reveal too much on a cell phone. After a series of monosyllables, he snapped the phone closed and announced, “We’re not going to Alleva.”
“What?”
“We’re not going. He says he doesn’t even want to see me, not till things have calmed down. He told me to take you home.”
Pernazzo mustered all the authority he could and said, “Keep driving in the direction you were going.”
Massoni ignored him.
“He’s fucking us over, that’s what he’s doing,” said Pernazzo.
“What’s with this ‘us’? He’s not meeting you, is all.”
“Think about it, Massoni. He wants you to stay with me while he gets away. You got to learn to think for yourself. Make him need-Brake!”
Massoni had already slammed his foot onto the brake pedal half a second before Pernazzo managed to shout. Pernazzo could feel a shuddering from beneath his feet as the antilock braking system locked and released the wheels in rapid cycles, and he could hear the wash of the rainwater spinning from the tires.
Massoni bashed the horn with his fist at the stationary car in front. They were going to make it.
