Black Run by Antonio Manzini Read Free Book Online Page A

snow. He wasn’t actually lying underneath Eva Mendes, and she wasn’t actually wearing nothing but a pair of dizzyingly high stiletto heels and dancing like a sinuous serpent, tossing her hair to and fro. That image was nothing but a cobweb that the telephone had scorched with its deranged shrieks.
    â€œWho’s busting my balls at seven in the morning?”
    â€œMe.”
    â€œMe who?”
    â€œSebastiano!”
    Rocco smiled as he ran one hand over his face. “Sebastiano! How you doing?”
    â€œFine, fine.” And now his friend’s croupy voice had become recognizable. “Sorry if I woke you up.”

    â€œI haven’t heard from you in months!”
    â€œFour months and ten days, but who’s counting?”
    â€œHow are you doing?”
    â€œFine, fine.”
    â€œWhat are you up to?”
    â€œI’m coming up north.”
    Rocco shifted comfortably on the memory foam mattress. “You’re coming up? When?”
    â€œTomorrow night. I’ll be on the seven o’clock train from Turin. Are you going to be around?”
    â€œOf course I will. I’ll meet you at the station.”
    â€œExcellent. Will it be cold up there?”
    â€œWhat can I tell you, Seba? Bone-chilling cold.”
    â€œAll right, then I’ll wear a down jacket.”
    â€œAnd insulated shoes—take my word for it,” Rocco added.
    â€œI don’t have those. What kind of shoes do you wear up there?”
    â€œA pair of Clarks desert boots.”
    â€œAre they insulated?”
    â€œNo. Which is why I’m telling you to wear a pair of insulated shoes. My feet are like a couple of ice cubes.”
    â€œThen why don’t you get yourself a pair?”
    â€œI can’t stand the things.”
    â€œWell, you do what you like. I’m going to swing by Decathlon and get a pair. So—see you tomorrow?”
    â€œSee you tomorrow.”
    And Sebastiano hung up the phone.
    Rocco dropped his cell phone on his down jacket. If Sebastiano Cecchetti, known to his friends as Seba, was coming to Aosta, then matters were becoming distinctly interesting.

    When Rocco walked into police headquarters at 8:15 A.M., Special Agent Michele Deruta walked up to him immediately. He was moving his tiny feet as fast as his two-hundred-plus pounds allowed him, and he was panting like an old steam locomotive. His chin was sweaty and his thinning white hair, combed specially to conceal his bald spot, was glittering, oiled by who-knows-what pomade.
    â€œDottore?”
    Rocco stopped suddenly in the middle of the hallway. “Your face and hair are damp. Why damp, Deruta? Did you stick your face into a barrel of oil?”
    Deruta pulled out his handkerchief and tried to dry himself off. “I wouldn’t know, Dottore.”
    â€œBut still, you’re damp. Do you take a shower in the morning?”
    â€œYes, of course.”
    â€œBut you don’t dry off.”
    â€œNo, it’s just that before coming to work, I help my wife at her bakery.”
    Officer Deruta, getting close to retirement age, started talking about his wife’s bakery just outside of town, the work in the predawn hours, the yeast and the flour. Rocco Schiavone paid no attention to a word he said. He just watched his damp, loose lips, his hair streaked with white, and his bovine, bulging eyes.
    â€œWhat’s surprising,” said the deputy police chief, interrupting his special agent’s monologue, “is not that you work at your wife’s bakery, Deruta. It’s that you have a wife at all—that’s what’s truly extraordinary.”

    Deruta fell silent. It wasn’t as if he expected special praise for his daily sacrifice of working a double job, but a kind word, something like “You’re wearing yourself out, Deruta. What a good man you are,” or, “If only there were more people like you.” Instead he got nothing. A scornful