In a Heartbeat (29 page)

We passed a glass building: the cafeteria, still half-full of people dining. My guide pointed to a cubic building at the end of the path that vaguely resembled an American town hall decorated with stars. The inside looked like my old secondary school but this place was so clean you could see your reflection in the floors. A pair of teens with buckets and brushes were washing the tiles. My guide reprimanded one of them, a yellow
,
for missing a spot in the corner. His face was expressionless and his eyes half-closed. Every movement seemed to require superhuman strength. He raised the brush slowly and slid it along the pavement at a centimetre an hour.

The girl knocked on the office door that was painted white like everything else. She poked her head in. ‘Marta’s not there,’ she said. ‘Can I can help you?’

‘Thanks.’

The girl came in and closed the door behind me. She threw her arms around my neck. ‘But you have to kiss me first. Don’t worry, no one will be around for another half-hour.’ She thrust her tongue into my mouth, tasting of mint. I kissed her for about thirty seconds, luckily without any wave of memory. She unzipped her jacket, and I saw that she was wearing a T-shirt with a name tag.

‘You told me that you were going to come and see me, it’s been almost a month.’ She slipped her hands down my pants. I grabbed her wrist; she didn’t move her hand. ‘C’mon, five minutes.’

‘First give me what I need, please,’ I read her tag, ‘
Giovanna.
’

‘Then take me to the pigsties like the last time.’

The pigsties? What fun. ‘Sure.’

She let go. ‘What do you need?’

I gave her Max’s full name.

‘I think I know who you’re talking about. Wait while I check, I have to be fast, I don’t want to get into trouble.’ She sat down behind the desk. ‘Marta always changes her password but she leaves it written somewhere.’ She hit the keys. ‘Come and see, is this him?’

A grainy image appeared on the screen. It seemed to be taken from a driver’s license. Max from around our time. That prick.

‘Yeah, that’s him.’ My voice trembled a little.

‘He doesn’t look like the picture anymore. He’s lost weight as well as his hair. He is getting treatment but his liver is in bad condition, poor thing. I wasn’t sure if this was the man that you were looking for because here everyone just called him Max.’ She leaned back against the chair, pushing out her tits. ‘There are only about two thousand five hundred of us living here so we know everything. What do you want to know?’

‘Is he still here?’

‘No. He was released two months ago.’

Max was back in the city just in time to start trouble for the Ad Exec. I could see him showing up randomly and unnoticed at Oreste’s, the Ad Exec not recognising him on account of the years that had gone by. From Oreste he got to Spillo and from Spillo to Roveda; that shouldn’t have taken long. Max’s first move was to tell Roveda that his old friend Trafficante was spying on him. Second move was to help Roveda find something against him. Third move: use the photos of Salima to blackmail me. When the old queen Roveda decided to rebel against Max’s double dealing he compromised the balance between the two blades, and Max killed Roveda. He wanted his piece. That dirty bastard did nothing but cause trouble, but why the hell was he trying to kill me instead of making a run for it with the cash?

‘Do you think he’s still in Milan?’ I asked.

Giovanna moved the mouse and read. ‘I’m positive. He’s out on house arrest. He can’t leave his residence and he has to sign in three times a week at the police station for at least another couple of years.’

There’s the explanation. Max couldn’t run away, so he had to get rid of the evidence. Now he was scared that I’d tell the cops everything I knew. That would wind him back in prison, where he would spend the rest of his miserable life. Maybe the Ad Exec knew Max was behind all this from the start. Too bad he didn’t write it down somewhere.

‘Do you have the new address?’

‘Here it says that he’s in a halfway house.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s a place where people out of prison or rehab go to if they don’t have family to stay with until they find a job and a place to live.’ She gave me the street address.

It was outside Milan, near Viale Ortles next to the homeless shelter. That’s why I hadn’t been able to find him on the internet.

‘How many years did he do?’

‘Four inside and two here with us.’

‘That’s not a lot.’

‘Manslaughter.’

‘The last chemist?’

‘Yes. They gave him a lighter sentence because he was strung out just like everyone else who’s here.’

‘You too.’

‘Do you want to see my sheet?’

‘No, that’s OK.’

‘C’mon, why not? It’ll be fun.’ She clicked then turned the monitor towards me.
International narcotics trafficking and aggravated assault. Sentence completed.
She was there as a volunteer.
Job: teacher.

‘Congratulations.’ I said.

‘Are you scared?’

‘You wouldn’t believe it, but that’s what I usually ask other people.’

‘I’d love to see your bio but it’s not here.’ She smiled licking her lips. ‘Are you happy now? You’ve got a promise to keep. Did you read
aggravated assault
? You don’t want to upset me.’

‘Oh yeah. The pigsties?’

She pounced on me. ‘There is a cosy place where you don’t smell the stink as much.’

‘Never break a promise.’ In the end, willingly or unwillingly, my hormones were leading me.

She unlocked the door and just as we were leaving a woman in her forties with curly hair came in. The tag on her green jacket read
Marta
. ‘Signor Denti! Did you come to pay us a visit?’

‘Just a quick one. I’m going to walk around and then go home.’

‘I’ll take him around.’ Giovanna said.

Marta nodded. ‘Sure, make yourself at home. If you have time come by for a coffee before you leave.’ Before turning into her office she winked at me.’

I was taken aback. Hey, Ad Exec, you really couldn’t keep it in, could you?

‘Like a bitch in heat,’ Giovanna said, catching the gesture.

‘No shame at all.’

We were on the main path, walking toward the outer circle of the community. Who knows which dormitory Max lived in while he planned his return to greatness?

‘What are you thinking about, Signor Denti?’ she asked. ‘Is it what I’m thinking?’

‘You bet it is.’

‘You seem less horny, if I can be cheeky.’

‘You cheeky? When?’

The pigsties were in sight when my pocket vibrated. The phone display read
Serena.
Oh no, another lover? I answered only because I saw that it was the third time that she had called in twenty minutes. Strangely, the voice that answered was male. He asked if it was me.

‘Depends on who you are.’

‘I’m Dr … ’ he said a name that I didn’t catch. ‘From Villa Serena.’

So Serena was a place.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

It was about my father. He was dying.

2

The room stank and I was still in the doorway, unable to make myself go in. I expected to see doctors and nurses yelling and running around. The reality was much worse.

There was an old skeleton in bed barely breathing with an oxygen mask and two IV lines that dripped into his black veins. The last time that I saw my old man, he’d weighed eighty kilos and could do a hundred push-ups. He wasn’t in a camper van on some trip through Europe, but in room number twelve of the terminal ward in Villa Serena. It was an ugly brown building with a row of drab leafless trees behind it.

The doctor who met me was pleasant and in a hurry. ‘What would you like me to say? Last night your father almost died.’

Almost died. It was inevitable considering the pancreatic cancer that had spread. Only one lung worked, and about a fourth of his liver. He was attached to oxygen. His moments of consciousness were rare.

‘Can’t you take him to a hospital and operate on him? Can you do anything?’

‘You can only wait,’ the doctor said before returning to his rounds.’ He was the only doctor for about a hundred old and dying patients. He was in a hurry.

I went in. On the nightstand were a pair of sunglasses on top of a dusty magazine, a bottle of water, and an empty glass. In the wardrobe a pair of clean pyjamas lay folded on a shelf and a dressing gown hung from a hook. The face under the mask was a skull with eyes shut and a two-day-old beard. Its hair was like strands of thin cotton and its thin neck disappeared into the pillow. Its lips were gone.

I took the only chair in the room, and I slid it towards the bed and sat down.

‘Hello, Piero,’ I said.

‘The skull blinked and moved its mouth. ‘Ssssss.’

‘Santo. Yeah, it’s me. Do you want anything? Water?’

He tried to shake his head.

‘Good.’

‘You … came here to see me.’ He raised his right hand, trying to touch my face. His dry fingers caressed me. ‘My … son … The Director.’

He pointed to the nightstand. ‘Take it … take it.’

‘What, the glass?’ No. ‘The newspaper?’ Yes. ‘You want me to open it? Where?’ There was a bookmark. ‘VIP News.’ One title was
Who’s in and Who isn’t?
There was a party in Sardinia during the holiday month of August. Whores and dancers. There was a leggy black model and a man with a pimp face and sunglasses. They were arm in arm. Some idiot had stuck his head between them for the picture. It was the Ad Exec with a silly-ass smile.

‘You’re … an … important man.’

‘It’s not true. Your son isn’t worth a damn, Piero.’

He closed his eyes. ‘I’m very happy.’

I placed the magazine near his mask. ‘My name isn’t even in the caption. I just stuck my head in the shot.’

A nun walked in. ‘How are we doing today? Are you being good?’ She bent down over my father and adjusted his pillow. He pointed to me with his arm punctured with the IV line.

‘My … son.’

‘I see, your son. He’s very handsome, and every now and then he comes to visit. Did you tell him the prayer?’

‘Ye-sss.’

‘Good, because the Virgin Mary has to give you lots of strength.’

‘The priest is ready, whenever you are,’ she said to me.

‘The priest?’

‘To administer the Last Rites,’ she whispered. She took a card out with a sacred image and kissed it, then placed it under my father’s pillow. ‘Please, Lord, give him strength.’

‘Get rid of that.’ I said.

‘What?’

I got up. ‘You heard me, get that out of here!’ I grabbed the card. The Sacred Heart of Jesus. I ripped it and threw it on the ground. ‘Get out!’

‘Are you mad?’

‘Get the hell out.’

She picked up the pieces and left, shaking her head.

My father was making strange noises. I got scared, but he was only laughing.

‘You’ve never liked that nun,’ I said to him.

He laughed again, sounding like a bag of nuts being shaken. ‘I’m sorry … that I don’t see … you often … I know why … you have … to work.’

I sat back down. He had a string of drool on his chin and I dried it off with a tissue that I found in the drawer of his nightstand. ‘Piero, I don’t come here because I’m an arsehole. I dumped you here so I could do whatever the hell I wanted.’

‘No … it’s not true.’

‘It is, but what did you expect? It isn’t like we got along anyway. Remember the arguments?’ Why didn’t we see each other anymore? What had happened to me? ‘I’m sorry anyway, Piero. Really. You lived a crappy life. I wanted for you to get at least one of the things you wanted … the beach house … ’ I dried my tears, hoping he didn’t notice. I coughed to clear my voice. ‘Do you want water?’

‘No. Your friend tells me … all the time … that you’re very busy … ’

‘What friend?’

‘He told me … just … this … morning.’

‘What friend?’

‘Giovanni. No, Franco. No … Marco … ’

‘Who?’

‘Max.’

‘What did you say?’

‘My father closed his eyes. I shook him. ‘What did you say?’

He opened his eyes again. ‘Hey … you came.’

‘Did you say Max? Did you say Max?’

‘Take it … take it … ’ he pointed to the nightstand.

‘Enough with the newspaper!’

‘You … make me so … proud.’

I jumped to my feet; I couldn’t breathe. I opened the window and stuck my head outside. It couldn’t be real. My father couldn’t distinguish reality anymore. Who knows where he got that name from, especially
that
name? The room was on the ground floor in front of the pavement that went around the property and further towards a bare park where an octogenarian was doing light exercises. I lit a cigarette and after two drags, my eyes focused on the street that I had taken to get here from Porta Romana. A police car stopped. Two, then three, as well as an unmarked car with its lights flashing.