Adam's Rib by Antonio Manzini Read Free Book Online Page B

wavering efforts to construct an affair with Nora looked thinner than a piece of onionskin typing paper. He missed his friends. He knew that at a time like this they’d rally to his support, and help him get over that intolerable pain in the ass. He thought of Seba, who had at least come up to see him. Furio, Brizio. Where were they now? Were they still out on the street, or had his colleagues in the Rome police sent them for an extended stay at the Hotel Roma, as the Regina Coeli prison was called? He’d have given a frostbitten finger of his hand for an ordinary Trastevere pizza, a good old cigarette at night, high atop the Janiculum Hill, or a game of poker at Stampella. Suddenly he found himself at the Porta Pretoria. At least the wind couldn’t gust so freely through those ancient Roman gates. How had he wound up there? It was on the far side of town from police headquarters. Now he’d have to retrace his steps to Piazza Chanoux and continue straight from there. He decided that he’d stop in the bar on the piazza. He slowed his pace, now that he had a destination. Then he heard Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” issuing from his overcoat pocket. It was the ringtone he’d put on his cell phone for personal calls.
    â€œWho is it?”
    â€œDarling, it’s me, Nora. Bad time?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œSo am I bothering you?”
    â€œWhy do you insist on asking questions that practically demand a rude answer?” he asked.
    â€œWhat’s going on? Something wrong?”
    â€œYou want to know? Then I’ll tell you. I’ve got a murder on my fucking hands. Satisfied?”
    Nora paused for a moment. “Why on earth would you take it out on me?”
    â€œI take it out on everyone. First and foremost myself. I’m heading back to the office. Hold on half an hour, and I’ll call you back from there.”
    â€œNo, you’ll forget to call anyway. Listen, I just want to tell you that I’ve arranged a party at my place. A few friends are coming over.”
    â€œWhy?” Rocco asked. The recent events in Via Brocherel had run over the blackboard of his memory like an eraser.
    â€œWhat do you mean, why?” asked Nora, her voice getting louder.
    The deputy police chief simply couldn’t remember.
    â€œIt’s my birthday today, Rocco!”
    Oh, shit, the gift, was the thought that flashed through his brain. “What time?” he asked.
    â€œSeven thirty. Can you make it?”
    â€œI will if I can. That’s a promise.”
    â€œDo what you like. See you later. If you can make it.”Nora hung up. The woman’s closing words had been colder than the sidewalk around Piazza Chanoux.
    It’s a chore to maintain human relations. It takes commitment, determination, and willingness: you have to face life with a smile. None of these things were in Rocco Schiavone’s toolkit. Life dragged him rudely from one day to the next, yanking him by the hair, and whatever it was that drove him to live from one day to the next, it was probably the same force that was making him put his left foot, shod in Clarks desert boots, in front of his right foot, similarly shod. One step, another step, as the Italian Alpini used to say to themselves as they marched through the Ukraine in temperatures of 40 degrees below zero in the long-ago winter of 1943. One step, another step, Deputy Police Chief Rocco Schiavone kept saying to himself—he’d been saying those words ever since that day, that distant July 7, 2007, the day his life had been snapped in half once and for all, when the boat had overturned, and he had been forced to change course.
    A hot, sticky Roman day in July, the seventh of July. A day that took Marina away from him forever. And with her, everything that was good in Rocco Schiavone. He’d spend the rest of his life with nothing to guide him but his instinct for survival.
    THE MAN WALKED UP TO THE FRONT DOOR OF THE