In a Heartbeat by Sandrone Dazieri Read Free Book Online

my mind.
    A tag on the intercom was printed with the outline of a guy with a magnifying glass, made by some novice: Poirot Detective Agency . A private detective. Poirot? It would’ve been funny had I not been so scared.
    I peeked while the detective punched in the code on the panel to disengage the alarm: 0000 . The door opened to a small room that smelt of dirty socks, with two desks and a computer that was old even during my time. He was packing. There was a pile of papers and folders on the floor, apparently taken randomly from the shelves.
    He made me sit in a squeaky chair in front of one of the desks. Dressed in a tacky pinstripe suit, he looked me over. His expression reminded me of a dog that I used to have called Spillo. Spillo came into my life one spring evening, following me home like we were old friends. He was a mutt, a little bigger than the dogs that you’d see in the old portraits you find in museums. The crossbreeding had given him short legs and a sausage shape. The dog was covered with long dirty white hair. He was missing half an ear. The wound didn’t seem to be from a fight; more likely the cause was a crap vet or a psycho who wanted to have some warped fun. He didn’t have a collar and there was no one around looking for him. So I took him home on a whim even though I’d never owned a dog before. I would never own another one afterwards.
    Spillo’s main attribute was that he was an expert on the human soul and he knew instantly if he liked someone or not. For some reason, the people he didn’t like, I didn’t like either. For example, he hated cops. He barked even if he saw them passing out of the window. Spillo lasted only a year. I found him one morning under my bed, where he’d gone to pass his last moments in silence.
    This guy’s expression was the same as Spillo’s on one of those rare occasions where he couldn’t decide whether to growl or wag his tail. I had no other name to give the guy, so I called him Spillo.
    ‘Do you have your chequebook on you?’ Spillo said.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Make two out to yourself and endorse them to me.’ I’ll use them to cover debts with these people who also appreciate discretion. If anyone asks, tell them that you blew it at the roulette table at the Casinò di Campione.’
    ‘How much did I lose?’
    ‘Ten thousand, as we agreed.’
    ‘Ten thousand euros ?’
    ‘It’s a little late to negotiate. The job is done, and I’ve been waiting to collect for a month.’
    Whatever he did for me had to have been demanding … or illegal.
    ‘Just to let you know that as of tomorrow I won’t be here,’ he continued, ‘and I won’t answer the numbers that you know. If there’s an emergency, pass by Esposito’s just like the last time. He’ll know how to find me but it’s better if we avoid one another.’
    I didn’t understand a thing, but I preferred not to let on and look confused. The name Esposito was familiar, but it was also a name that was everywhere in Italy, so I didn’t think much about it. I took out the chequebook. I twisted the cap off the Mont Blanc pen with some difficulty. Maybe the Ad Exec just kept it for show and somehow it had rusted shut. It wrote badly, and I used it to write the first cheques of my life. Spillo looked at them then put them in his pocket. Then he got up and took a painting of a lake surrounded by trees from the wall, revealing a hidden combination safe. He opened the door, then threw an envelope at me. ‘Even if you said that you didn’t want them anymore, you paid for them, and they’re yours.’
    I opened the envelope expecting something interesting but the surprise was, at best, modest. It contained about ten standard A4 sheets of paper with four columns of numbers. They were phone numbers with strange area codes. For every number there was the date, time and duration of the call.
    A private eye, a list of telephone calls.
    From what I gathered the Ad Exec had put someone under surveillance and paid