Well, dickhead, are you coming to pick me up or not? Or, Hey, cop… I thought you said you were… Or maybe he could be ironic-formal. Am I speaking to the commissioner who paid an invasive visit…?
At three o’clock, he reevaluated the evidence against himself and decided that, as long as they didn’t take DNA samples, it didn’t amount to much. He had no idea what his rights were regarding the surrender of fingerprints. Nor could he work out how the cop came to him so quickly.
Maybe he needed a lawyer. He could phone the notary who had handled the transfer of the property deeds from his mother to him. Maybe the notary knew a lawyer.
At four o’clock, he was listening to Radio DeeJay and heard about an incident in which a policeman had been killed and two others injured. They gave the name of the dead policeman, but not the injured ones.
On the six o’clock bulletin, they gave the names of the suspects as Alleva and Massoni. They warned that both men were armed and dangerous and asked the public to keep a lookout. There was no further mention of Clemente, already yesterday’s news. Later, on RAI 1 television news at eight, the two cases were linked. The fugitive cop-killers were wanted for questioning in connection with the murder of an animal rights activist. A magistrate standing on a flight of steps refused to comment on any of the cases. Pernazzo boiled himself another two hot dogs, opened a can of tuna, and drank some long-life milk. It looked as if he was not a suspect, after all. Part of him felt some disappointment.
He put aside his anxiety and enjoyed a good night’s gaming, faction versus faction. He outfought and outplayed everyone, and a few players remarked on his phenomenal stamina and gameplay. The only bad moment came when one of his so-called companions disagreed with him about the value of an Arcanum of Focus.
“You pull down way too much hate, you die overmuch, and your mana pool is the smallest,” Pernazzo warned him.
“Dont knock js cuz u so stoopid u dont get it.”
Pernazzo stayed calm, gave the kid some sound advice. “Smooth it out with stat gear and balance your pve. You need hp REAL bad as a +dmg lock whos thrown out most of their stm gear that +200 is total worth it. Evrybdy know +dmg tunnelvision instead than stats is unkorrect if u R planning high-end attx.”
But the crackhead wouldn’t listen. Pernazzo almost logged out in his frustration. The policeman did not come that day.
43
MONDAY, AUGUST 30, 8:55 A.M.
Just before nine o’clock on Monday morning, Pernazzo was sitting on the toilet playing white-water rafting on his cell phone when he received a text message from an unknown number.
Change SIM call bk now.
Pernazzo was so excited he forgot to flush.
He went straight out to his local Vodafone center, and bought himself a new SIM card. He produced ID, showed it to the teenager in the red jacket behind the counter, then filled in the forms using an invented name and address. The youth didn’t even glance at what he had written, just gave him the SIM. Pernazzo put it in his phone and called the mystery number back.
It was Massoni. Pernazzo felt a thrill that went from the back of his throat to his balls. A wanted man calling him. A RL cop-killer. But no sooner had the thrill run through him than it began to fade, and the disappointment that had been sitting at the base of his stomach rose up and flooded his mind. He was disappointed at the sheer inevitability of it. Who else was it going to be?
Massoni began their conversation by unravelling a long string of obscenities. Eventually, Pernazzo began to pick out other words but he could not make sense of them. Massoni was talking about standing in the sun, dying of thirst and being eaten to death by insects.
Finally, he made sense. “I need you here now, as quick as possible. But you need to make sure you’re not being followed. Go to where we held the last dog show. Go past the prefabricated huts and across a field to where there are dog cages. You can’t see them till the last moment. If anyone is following you, they’ll have to come across that field and you’ll see them. There is a white Renault Kangoo there, with the keys lodged under the back left wheel. You can get there by taxi, then take the Renault, come out here.”
“Why should I do this for you?”
Massoni paused, then said, in the calmest tone he had used yet, “There’s a lot of money in it. Alleva is doing bank transfers. I need someone who knows about computers. Besides, he sent me to get you.”
“Get me?”
“Bring you to Innocenzi, have you explain yourself.”
“Who’s Innocenzi?”
Massoni couldn’t fucking believe this and said so. Not only had Pernazzo killed the man Innocenzi’s daughter was sleeping with and sent shit flying in all directions, he didn’t even know he’d done it.
When Pernazzo finally understood, he felt powered up. “So why didn’t you do as Alleva said and bring me to this Innocenzi person?”
“Drive into Rome with every cop and Carabinieri looking out for me? I would never have made it as far as your house. It was a set up. Alleva must think I am really stupid. What he needs is to buy time so he can get away, and he was going to buy that time with me.”
“You mean he’ll have told the police you were coming in?”
“Sure.”
“Wow. That’s so sneaky.”
Massoni told Pernazzo how to reach the dog cages. It took him some time to explain it to his and Pernazzo’s satisfaction.
Pernazzo went home, picked up his portable, two USB keys, and his Glock. He dropped them all into Clemente’s backpack, then called a taxi from his mobile as he came down the stairs onto the street, and the taxi picked him up just a few minutes later.
Pernazzo told the driver to head down the Via della Magliana. The taxi driver, unlike the ones Pernazzo had seen in films, was not happy just to drive: he wanted to know the exact destination.
“I’ll know it when I see it,” said Pernazzo, which was the truth. The taxi driver muttered something about time-wasters, but drove. When, on the city outskirts, Pernazzo told the driver to stop where there were no buildings, signposts, or intersections, the driver continued on for two hundred meters, until Pernazzo had had to raise his voice: “Stop right here!”
Yeah, in the middle of nowhere, he told the disbelieving taxi driver.
Yeah, he knew what he was doing. Yeah, yeah. He thought of pulling out his Glock and shooting the driver in the face. Instead, he didn’t tip, and the driver burnt rubber as he took off, cursing.
Pernazzo now stood in an open field, phone in hand. Massoni was on the line.
“There’s hornets everywhere here,” said Massoni. “Big black and yellow bastards. And I’m thirsty.”
Pernazzo reached over and stripped a handful of bay leaves off a bush and crushed them. It was nearly lunchtime, and their fragrance reminded him he was hungry. He was sweating as he crossed the field. He could see a white vehicle in the distance. “You said the van was white?”
“Yes. You there yet?” asked Massoni.
“No. Not yet. So Alleva is trying to betray you,” said Pernazzo. “Told you he would. How far are you from the house?”
“About half a kilometer.”
“He can’t see you, can he?”
“No, he thinks I’m on my way into Rome to you.”
Pernazzo tried to picture the scene. “Alleva’s in the house now, with no transport?”
“I’ve got the only car,” confirmed Massoni.
“It said on the news you made a getaway on motorbike.”
“We changed for a car. Dumped the bike.”
