In a Heartbeat (18 page)

‘What man are you talking about?’

‘That man … that man … ’

‘Signora, did you remember to take your medicine today? You didn’t?’

I got out of there and dumped the blade in a bin on my way to the Metro. It was the first time that I had taken it since I’d woken up here and I was happy to discover that it hadn’t changed much. Apart from the signs for a new railway link and a few new stations it was pretty much the same. Milan doesn’t have that many lines anyway, and the few that there are are in the same area.

The accident left me in a state of incredible anxiety. The adrenaline had receded and I could barely stand. I bought a ticket at a machine and I looked at my reflection in its metal surface. I was as white as a corpse and, even worse, I had forgotten my emergency disguise: the hat with the heart on it and my sunglasses that I had bought earlier in Piazza del Duomo. Maybe if I had been wearing it, the rider wouldn’t have noticed me but most likely he would have anyway. He obviously knew where I worked and if it was him that had put the bomb in my house, he also knew where I lived. He would’ve been able to recognise me with the simple disguise. Maybe I should have bought a balaclava instead?

I waited for the train a good distance behind the yellow line, afraid that someone would push me under it. I kept looking over my shoulder thinking that someone would jump out at me again with another knife. When you’re scared you feel like everyone’s out to get you. When someone brushed against me with a backpack I almost went at his throat. It was just a kid looking at something on his phone. I got into the crowded carriage that was as hot as hell, which seemed impossible considering that it was just above zero on the platform.

I hung on a strap near a shoeless bum who everyone was avoiding like the plague; a flyer dangled in front of my nose. It was of a woman caressing and sipping from a bottle of water with a headline written above her head:
I Want It Pure.
I thought that I had seen it somewhere before, then it occurred to me. I’d made that ad.

I changed trains then got out at Porta Venezia; it was still the same, clogged with trams and hotels. Bastoni’s office was only a five-minute walk from there but it was just far enough for me to get out of breath. Again I told myself that it was time to go on a diet, hit the gym and get a
personal trainer
, whatever that was (
learn the term
). When I rang the doorbell a young woman with tattoos on the backs of her hands and a bandana around her neck answered the door. Even though I wasn’t familiar with legal offices she seemed a little out of place. She checked my appointment at the reception desk. ‘Valentina is waiting for you,’ she said. ‘It’s the last office on the right. You can leave your coat on the coat rack.’

I was drenched in sweat again and had to peel it off my back. I also discovered there was a tear on its back. Clean clothes didn’t last too long on this body. The hallway was narrow; dusty floor-to-ceiling bookcases on either side ended only at each closed, nameless door. I let a guy who couldn’t have been more than a metre tall walking with a crutch pass by. The tattooed woman said, ‘Goodbye, Avvocato.’ I knocked on the wooden door and expected to see something else strange. Instead I found Valentina Trevi, the lawyer. She was a curvy redhead of about thirty-five, tanned with freckles. There was just enough space in the office for her desk, more bookcases and file cabinets. A huge poster of a tropical island was on the only free wall. The window behind her seemed bricked-in; little light came through.

When she saw me she smiled. ‘Wow! Look who’s here!’

I was a little taken aback. Are all lawyers like this? ‘Hey there.’

‘Why didn’t you call me directly instead of going through Mirko?’ she asked. ‘Was this a tactic or something or were you just afraid that I would’ve said no?’

‘A tactic?’

She got up to hug me and kiss me on my cheek. ‘They beat you, huh?’ I smelled her sandalwood perfume, then began to drift.

*

I’m in a hotel room; from the window I can see the Alps. Valentina is naked on the bed and I am on top of her, massaging her back. Her body is warm and I am thinking about ordering room service. I feel like drinking something fresh and cold and …

*

I came back to the present. I blinked. ‘We know each other, right?’ I said to the lawyer.

And how.

3

‘I need a coffee,’ Valentina said after a while. ‘I don’t think that we have any barley tea.’

‘Coffee’s fine.’

‘Even that’s changed.’ Valentina wasn’t smiling anymore after hearing my story. Valentina — Vale — immediately believed me. My expression from before was convincing enough.

She took me to a room across from her office, even smaller than hers, where a giant man with a red beard and messy hair was working on a computer. He had the expression of a man who was forced to touch faeces with his bare hands. When we walked in, he barely raised his eyes. ‘You should update your programmes every now and then,’ he said. ‘You still use Windows 98. It’s too slow.’

‘New programmes are expensive,’ Valentina said, clearly with her mind elsewhere. ‘Marco, this is Santo.’

‘A pleasure,’ grumbled the giant. ‘There are viruses on this computer that I thought were extinct during the Cretaceous period. Maybe I should copy them for old times’ sake. If I were you I’d put a
firewall
in.’

‘Whatever it is, you’d be the only one able to use it so don’t.’

‘You don’t have to know how to use it … ’

‘I said no.’

Valentina put a plastic cup under the snout of the coffee machine and pressed a button but nothing happened. She fumbled with the machine and lifted the lid. ‘Doesn’t anyone ever remember to put water in?’

‘There’s a bottle on the floor,’ said the giant and then said to me, ‘are you Vale’s new client?’

‘Mind your own business Elef,’ she said severely. ‘This thing isn’t even plugged in!’ The water began to boil and the aroma of coffee filled the air. Then the light cut off together with the computer, as well as the light bulb that hung from the ceiling.

‘Dammit!’ the giant said.

‘The electricity!’ yelled a female voice from the hallway.

‘So that’s why it was unplugged,’ said the lawyer.

‘OK, Santo, forget about it. I don’t feel like going to the café.’

I nodded.

The voice from the hallway yelled again. ‘I just lost two hours’ worth of work! Elephant, I’m going to kill you!’

The giant: ‘It wasn’t me!’

We went back into the office and sat down while the tattooed woman stomped through the hallway. I could hear fighting and screaming in the next room.

‘I said that it wasn’t me! Oi, get off of me! You should always save every now and then anyway!’

‘Turn it back on! Turn it back on now!’

‘These two are a pain in the arse,’ Vale mumbled. ‘Santo, I didn’t expect this kind of thing from you. I just thought that you were ambitious and a little narrow-minded and with the kind of job that I do, no one surprises me anymore.’ She grimaced. ‘Before you ask, let’s get this out of the way. We were together only for one nice weekend in the mountains. You and Salima weren’t serious at the time, I mean as serious as someone who already has an official girlfriend could be. So with this, let’s move on and I don’t want to talk about it again. Agreed?’

‘Of course. I hope to remember that weekend sooner or later.’

‘Too bad for you if you can’t.’

‘What’s the next move?’

‘I’ll help you write a report of everything that’s happened to you, including your amnesia, the private investigator that you hired and the person that tried to kill you. Then you’ll explain everything to the magistrate.’

‘This will keep me out of jail?’

‘If you believe in fairy tales. It’ll help along the investigation.’

‘That was my first thought. What’s the second option?’

‘You let them question you and you keep your mouth shut.’ She sighed. She didn’t like the situation at all. ‘The judge has got something against you; I don’t know what it is.’ An office argument isn’t motive enough for a serious suspect and you weren’t the only suspect from what I could tell.’

‘Roveda was on everybody’s shit list.’

‘That’s the point. Let’s hope that by tomorrow they’ll find the real killer.’

‘That would be this week’s first stroke of luck.’

‘No honey, you got lucky when you came to me and I didn’t kick you out like you deserved. Now you have to sign the paperwork. They’ll do a background check to see if there aren’t any outstanding warrants.’

‘I have a clean record.’

‘You mean you’ve never been arrested after everything that you’ve done?’

‘I was careful and I flew under the radar.’

‘You can’t know that for sure if you can’t remember.’

‘You’re right.’

‘I want to know where you were Saturday. Ask your friends, your Catholic comrades or whoever you want but find out. They are going to ask you tomorrow.’

‘Can I refuse to respond?’

‘No. You have to cooperate with the investigation. “I don’t remember” is always suspicious. Is everything clear?’

‘More or less … ’

‘Then there’s another problem. You have to go back to your house. Maybe you can even take a shower.’

‘And get blown up.’

‘You can even roam for the rest of your life and let the next tenants worry about it but if something goes wrong when they search your house … There are two things that we don’t want: a policeman being blown up while searching through your stuff or they find something that we don’t want them to find.’

‘Like the phone records.’

‘Like the phone records. If there’s anything suspect in the house I want to be the first to know.’ She grew more irritated and I could understand why. ‘If your mysterious assailant tried to kill you, provided that it’s the same guy, then there’s probably nothing to worry about at home.’

‘
Probably
isn’t good enough for me.’

‘It’s not enough for me either but I could call the bomb squad.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Let’s see if Elephant has any suggestions.’

She knocked on the wall. ‘Elef, can you come here for a second please.’

‘Him?’

‘It’s his field. Land reclamation as well as electronic surveillance. He was one of the best in Milan.’

‘I would have never expected it. Why did he stop?’

‘He was shot in the stomach. Elef, please sit down.’

The giant pushed a pile of documents onto the floor and sat down on an armchair. Delicate hands. I could see him doing delicate work. He sat and the chair squeaked.

‘Elef, what would you do if you knew that you had a bomb hidden somewhere in your house?’

‘I would call the bomb squad.’

‘And what if you couldn’t.’

‘I’d move.’

‘C’mon Elef.’

He changed the look on his face. ‘I’d get a
sniffer
and a metal detector.’

‘What’s a
sniffer
?’ I asked.

‘Explosives leave two kinds of traces, particles or vapours. The sniffer sniffs, that’s where the name comes from.’

‘It’s clear now.’

‘Usually airports use industrial-size sniffers but they also have smaller ones for emergencies.’

‘Where do I get these two things? I don’t think that they sell them at the African Bazaar.’

‘You can easily get them cheap on the internet.’

‘Can anyone use them?’ Valentina asked.

‘To search someone yes, but to clear an apartment … ’

‘I’ll take that risk.’

‘There’s another possibility,’ the giant said. ‘I don’t like these guys but there are professionals who know how to handle explosives. They can get rid of this problem. They’re people that sometimes work abroad doing this kind of job, I don’t know if you follow me.’

‘
Contractors,
’ said the lawyer, and translated for me. ‘Mercenaries.’

‘Are they discreet?’ I asked.

‘Very discreet considering their work is barely legal on Italian soil. Abroad is another story. They’re very expensive. The more discreet, the more expensive.’ He patted me on the back; it hurt like hell. ‘You’re paying anyway.’

*

The giant would arrange the meeting with the contractors as soon as possible, maybe even the next day. I left at two in the afternoon, starving. I went to a café close by. I said to hell with the diet and ordered the typical take-away Milanese meal: a grilled sandwich.

Whilst eating, I found out that there were five messages on my answering machine. The first one was from Rina: ‘Bianchi is looking for you.’ Then there was one from a guy babbling in English. I only got my name. And one from Bianchi: ‘Where the hell are you? Get your arse here.’ Then another from the same English guy again, of which I understood only my name. One from Monica: ‘Call me.’