that gang goes to booze it up afterwards. It might just be worth your while taking a look at him.’
Zen weighed up the options. After all, what did he have to lose? The only alternative was to eat a solitary dinner and then spend a lonely evening in his hotel room watching television. He might even get desperate enough to read the copy of the file that Brunetti had given him.
‘Very well. I’m staying at the Hotel Roma, just round the corner.’
‘I’ll pick you up just before six, dottore.’
12
A blinding flash.
‘Smile, you’re on Candid Camera!’
Vincenzo straddled the doorway in an extravagantly debonair pose, one leg cocked up behind him and a tiny metallic object held to his eye. Another flash of halogen brilliance. Vincenzo laughed and tossed the object across the room to Rodolfo, who put down his book and just managed to make the catch.
‘Wicked, huh?’
Rodolfo turned the thing over. It seemed to be some sort of camera, but smaller than any he had seen, or indeed imagined possible. But Vincenzo was clearly high, so he decided to appear underwhelmed.
‘Very clever,’ he remarked coolly. ‘How much did it cost?’
Vincenzo laughed uproariously for some time.
‘Oh, I picked it up last night after the game. Along with another little toy that’s not bad either. What can I tell you? I got lucky. I finally got lucky.’
He started pacing restlessly about the room, occasionally kicking the furniture.
‘Have you been snorting Ritalin again?’ asked Rodolfo.
‘None of your fucking business. You’re not my mother.’
Rodolfo closed the book he had been leafing through and gently palpated the sturdy, plain, well-worn leather binding. He must return it today, he thought. Volumes as rare and precious as this were not supposed to be removed from the university library, but graduate students of Professor Edgardo Ugo enjoyed certain privileges.
‘I’m trying to study, Vincenzo,’ he lied.
His flatmate grinned aggressively.
‘So are you planning to just sit here all evening reading a musty old book and then scribble some shit for that cocksucking prof to sneer at? Jesus, what a pathetic life!’
‘At least I’m getting laid.’
‘Yeah, by some illegal immigrant from Christ knows where with a temporary job as a cleaner. Congratulations, terrone! You’ll make a great couple.’
Rodolfo was on his feet in a second. He grabbed Vincenzo by the shoulder and slammed him against the wall.
‘Take that back!’
Vincenzo looked stunned.
‘Fuck! Can’t you take a joke?’
Rodolfo held him pinned against the wall, staring the other intensely in the eyes until he looked away.
‘Fucking southerners,’ complained Vincenzo. ‘Bunch of freaking crazies.’
‘Quite right, my friend. And if you ever allow yourself one more insulting remark about my girlfriend, or for that matter my people, you’ll find out exactly how crazy we can be.’
Vincenzo shook his head weakly.
‘ Va bene, va bene. Basta, oh! ’
Rodolfo nodded sharply and with significance, then released the other man. Vincenzo shook himself with a certain hauteur.
‘Anyway, you’re not the only ones who can be a little crazy. It’s just that up here in the north we don’t make empty threats.’
Rodolfo went back to the sofa and opened Andrea de Jorio’s La mimica degli antichi investigata nel gestire napoletano at the illustration he had been examining earlier, marvelling at the quality and detail of the engraving.
‘Meaning what?’ he muttered through a long yawn.
‘Meaning this evening’s service of tribute down at the stadium.’
‘You speak in riddles.’
Vincenzo laughed scornfully.
‘If you ever got your head out of the library and into the real world, you’d know the answer.’
‘Unfortunately I’m not a spoilt brat like you, Vincenzo. I can’t afford to play at being the eternal student. My father has spent a lot of money sending me up here to get a degree. He naturally expects to see some return on that investment.’
And is going to be shattered and furious when he finds out that I have pissed it away, he thought.
‘All that interpretation shit you study with Ugo?’ Vincenzo retorted. ‘Well, interpret this! Someone killed Lorenzo Curti because he bought our team, with all its glorious history, for a song, then let all the best players go and was too cheap to get replacements. He’s been screwing us over for years, and last night he paid the price.’
‘They said on TV it was probably to do with his business dealings.’
Vincenzo shrugged impatiently.
‘What do those jerks know? Anyway, the important thing is the bastard’s dead, and there isn’t a true-hearted Bologna fan who isn’t totally over the moon. So of course we’re all going along to this memorial thing they’re putting on, only-get this!-we’re going to laugh all the way through it. Sure, I’m a little stoned. The others will be too. We won’t do anything outrageous, but up there in the stands we’ll be holding our own private commemorative service. And I promise you, the tone will be rather different from the official one down on the pitch. So give me that jacket of mine you stole.’
Rodolfo retrieved the battered, black leather garment and handed it to Vincenzo, who stomped out of the apartment without another word, slamming the front door behind him.
Blissfully solitary once more, Rodolfo took one last lingering look at the Disprezzo engraving that he had scanned and downloaded-using the university’s state-of-the-art technical facilities-and then forwarded to Professor Ugo. Knowledge of his email address and mobile phone number was another of the privileges that Ugo made available to graduate students.
Not that Rodolfo was one any more. His tutor had made it very clear that he had been barred from attending the seminar course and stood no chance of receiving his final degree, although like any other member of the public he was at perfect liberty to attend the professor’s celebrated weekly lectures, the next of which was tomorrow. Rodolfo smiled reflectively. Maybe he would go along and hold his own ‘private commemorative service’, just like Vincenzo and the rest of the yobs at the stadium tonight. Nothing outrageous, as Vincenzo had put it, but he might put in an appearance. He’d have to go back to the uni soon anyway, if only to return the Andrea de Jorio book and all the others that he had borrowed over the past months, most of which were long overdue.
He walked through to his bedroom and was scanning the shelves for the necessary titles when the phone rang.
‘It’s your old dad, Rodolfo. Just my usual weekly call. Like to keep in touch, you know.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘So how are things?’
‘Fine, dad. Fine.’
‘Wish I could say the same.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Oh, nothing really.’
The voice paused.
