The checked Moon

by Quelli di ZEd

he said, raising his voice to overcome those of the kids who, judging by the catcalls, had found a missing sticker. He called one with a whistle.

  The boy pointed to his chest, Oscar nodded and he rose from the curb to approach the table. Holding it between two fingers, Oscar waved the sticker before his eyes. The boy opened his mouth so much as to dislocate his jaw. Alida looked at him curiously.

  "It's yours if you convince your friends to move a few yards or shut up until the bus comes. We need to talk about more important things than a sticker album and you're making more noise than a stadium."

  The boy nodded and ran towards the gang that had not stopped looking at him the whole time. He pointed to the table where Oscar, with a smile that flashed the gold in his mouth, proudly showed the treasure he had in his hands.

  "Eugenio Francardi" he said, showing the sticker to Alida and Riccardo. "A last-minute purchase of Inter. It’s been printed in limited edition. Virtually impossible to find."

  "It seems Francardi worked," Alida said. Until then she had opened her mouth only to say her name in front of the subway.

  Oscar turned to the group of boys who did not take their eyes off him. They had moved a dozen yards and did not dare open their mouths. Oscar made the thumbs-up sign, put the sticker on the table, and struck it firmly with the palm of his hand a couple of times.

  "Do we order? I’m thirsty."

  "I am under the impression that table service is not taken into account in Monti Tiburtini" Alida said.

  "I’ll go in, what do you want?" Riccardo asked, rising from his chair.

  "A big Peroni and a sandwich with sausage and artichokes," Oscar said.

  Alida ordered a cold coffee and, when she was alone with Oscar, waited for him to break the ice.

  "I've been knowing Riccardo for over ten years," he said, tapping the base of the packet to make a cigarette jump out "and if what he told me is true, I know that you managed to make him fall worse than ice on the road."

  "What did he say?" Alida asked, trying not to be too exalted.

  "That the lights are on, but there is one last job to do."

  "The lights are on?"

  "Yeah, just like when a party ends, you know? There’s always the last one to leave, who keeps drinking the bottoms of the glasses of those who have gone and picks up the peanuts off the floor. That would be me. Then there are those who suddenly decide to say goodbye to everyone and go out to sober up and tidy up their minds. Riccardo."

  "And what are you waiting for to go out?"

  "I don’t remember where I left my coat," Oscar replied with a bitter smile.

  "Another aphorism of the Pelican’s gardener?" Riccardo asked, leaving the bar with a metal tray laden with glasses, a bottle of beer and a couple of sandwiches.

  "No, it's mine this time, but much deeper than it seems, isn’t it, Alida?" he finally managed to make her smile.

  Oscar poured the beer and drank the first glass in a gulp. He virtually devoured the sandwich in just one bite as well.

  "Is this for you?" he asked, pointing to the other with his mouth full.

  "Yes, do you mind?" Riccardo said, grabbing it before Oscar could get his hands on it.

  "Sir, the bus is coming!"

  Oscar turned.

  The boy, who had suddenly appeared, could not take his eyes off the sticker of Francardi. It had ended next to the Peroni bottle, from which large drops of water were trickling, and eventually would wet and ruin that valuable collectors item. The boy looked really worried. He would do anything to save Francardi from the condensation of the beer, but he didn’t dare to move. Not as long as that sticker was still property of the biggest man he had ever seen. Oscar shielded his eyes with his hand as if he was on lookout duty on a patrol boat. "You're right, boy, here it is!"

  For a moment Alida feared that Oscar would make the sticker disappear in his wallet and tell the boy to beat it, but that didn’t happen, and she no longer felt so incredible that such character with a mastiff neck, gold teeth and a past in prison was the person to whom Riccardo had addressed to lift the lid off her husband’s coffin. When the sticker passed from the giant hands of Oscar to those of the boy, she was not able to decide whose smile was the broader.

  "Everybody is willing to do anything," Oscar said, "but everyone has his price."

  "And what would yours be?" Alida asked without much preamble.

  "The one Riccardo told you a few days ago. Ten."

  "Tell her about the guarantee," Riccardo said to Oscar, he grimaced like a salesman who forgot to give you your change.

  "Of course, this is a concession I never do, especially these days, when no one knows a good deal from a finger in the ass, but it seems to me that this is a special job, isn’t it? Behold!" He spread his arms as if to consolidate in a great hug the union between Alida and Riccardo "I have here the old Ricky Lionheart and one of the most beautiful women in Rome, who I hope someday will become for him something more than a friend. How could I not meet you halfway?" he winked at Riccardo who ran a hand over his face to induce him not to tarry any longer. Alida looked at him questioningly, he reciprocated with a smile that seemed etched into leather.

  "Our friendship is only our concern and I’d rather not have to return on this matter," Alida said, not taking her eyes off Riccardo. "You were talking about a guarantee, what is it?"

  "Nothing in advance. The ten thousand after the work is done and you’ll no longer have the pleasure to see this ugly face, unless you want to invite me over for dinner sometime."

  "And if for some problems we can’t do what I’m paying you for?"

  "I won’t ask for a penny, of course." Then he frowned and turned to his friend. "It seems to me that the lady has some doubts; she just said the word problems. Riccardo, did you tell her about me a little?"

  "Yes, he told me about you," Alida answered first. "It seemed to me like I was at the cinema watching a crime movie by Umberto Lenzi."

  "I prefer Corbucci, I like to grin. If it was about taking your child to school or pay a visit to the tobacconist to pay a bill I would be the first to tell you to find someone else, but when it comes to jobs for which you need more than a drop of blood in the brain, there’s no better artist than Oscar."

  "Artist?" Alida asked, frowning.

  "You don’t have to listen to everything he says," Riccardo said.

  "You mean I’m not an artist of crime? In my veins runs the blood of Pretty Boy Floyd or Dillinger or, what the fuck do I know?, Lupin!"

  "Oscar, fuck you, cut it short, we have to put the pieces together to get everything organized perfectly, don’t go talking about criminals dead in the thirties and cartoons, otherwise we leave immediately and thank you very much for your fucking useless help!"

  "All right, as you like, but then don’t ask me to stop and sign autographs when you realize that you can be an artist without knowing how to use a chisel or a fucking brush."

  "When do we start?" Alida asked to put an end to the pantomime.

  Riccardo folded his arms across his chest and let Oscar speak.

  "The perfect day would be Friday."

  Alida leaped from her chair as if struck by a shock. She looked first at one, then at the other man. "Friday? We said we would go before the end of the month."

  Oscar rolled his eyes and glanced at Riccardo as if to say "is she always like this?"

  "The perfect day would be Friday," Oscar repeated slowly, hinting that there was more coming, "because there will be a full moon and we could go without flashlights and without running the risk of being caught, but on my classy jaguar-faux-leather organizer the only white page is the day before, Thursday, after which I will be abroad for a bargain for the Pelican, and I don’t know how long it will take."

  Alida seemed relieved. "Thursday is perfect." she turned to Riccardo with eyes as bright as drops of resin.

  "We’ll meet in Piazzale del Verano, in front of the Basilica of San Lorenzo, at midnight. Walk, taking the car would be too risky an
d the area is well connected by night buses." Oscar had shed all traces of Neapolitan accent and his tone had become at once practical and professional. "You can also use the subway. It closes a few minutes before midnight. Get down at Policlinico stop. It is close to Verano, but if you get out on Viale Regina Margherita you’ll be there in fifteen minutes top. I am going to be already there. Dress in black."

  "What about the money?" Alida asked.

  "We’ll think about that after the work is done, but it must be in cash, so I suggest you start to withdraw it already."

  Oscar got up from his chair, grabbed the empty beer bottle and disappeared into the bar, announcing that he was thirsty again.

  Suddenly Alida felt her stomach shrink like a dead flower. She had no fear for what she was about to do, but for how she would react if she found out that the certainties of Cesare Seda were futile ravings. She winced when Riccardo put a hand on her leg. She felt a little shock, similar to the one she had experienced on the bus when Luca was hanging on her arm.

  Impossible.

  I'd have already noticed.

  How many chances are there to meet another of my species?

  It must have been a simple electrostatic shock, there was no other explanation. Fate had already complied once.

  Oscar came back with a new bottle of beer and three clean glasses. He sat down, filled them, raised his and improvised a strange tribal dance that made his belly shake.

  Riccardo, bumping against Oscar’s glass, exclaimed in a perfect Neapolitan that surprised Alida: "Amma sperà ca nu chiov!"

  August 12 – 23:02

  It rained for three days in a row.

  The temperatures touched 19° and Rome was hammered by hail. The water mixed with hard ice beads flowed through the streets, clogging sewers and manholes. It hailed on the bridges of lungotevere, on the streets of Pigneto, where pushers and drunkards found shelter in Indian takeaways, on the churchyard of St. Peter, turned into a dismal pool, in front of cinemas, in front of closed schools and on Corso Francia, where only SUV drove at more than thirty mph.

  Alida found Luca’s black oilcloth coat bundled up in the cabinet of the closet. She donned it. It was slightly too long. She considered whether to take an umbrella and decided to do without it; it would have been a hindrance. She only took the keys of the house and those of the burial chapel that the Menozzatti had left her. Unfortunately she forgot the scissors she had prepared on the kitchen table.

  The hail had given way to a greasy rain that would have filled a bucket in ten minutes, and the windshield wipers of cars looked like grasshoppers legs kicking to break free from the trap of a spider.

  It was cold as in November.

  Alida waited for the bus at the stop on Viale Liegi with a scanty group of people hidden by large umbrellas they oriented depending on the wind. The rain was beating them up, down, right, left. She might as well sit still, close her eyes and patiently wait for the clouds to empty themselves altogether.

  Piazzale del Verano was poorly lit, as usual.

  The car slowed on the slippery cobblestones, and when Alida reached the clearing it seemed to her to be walking on the dark side of a mountain lake; the asphalt looked like an expanse of liquid tar.

  Two motionless figures without umbrellas, wrapped in long raincoats, braved the rain, leaning against the iron gate of the cemetery. Alida crossed the yard, harbouring the hope that those dripping hoods were hiding the faces of Riccardo and Oscar. It was the latter who looked up, allowing her to recognize him. She was relieved, but when the other showed his identity she had to squeeze Oscar’s arm not to let a cry escape her mouth.

  It wasn’t Riccardo, but an old man with an almost lipless mouth and a shrunken, perhaps blind eye, considerably smaller than the other. His protruding nose, from which water dripped like from a stalactite, was like the beak of a bird. Drops of rain were trapped in the wrinkles of his cheeks, making his face look like a drenched rubber mask.

  "This is Victor, he works at the cemetery and will give us a hand," Oscar said.

  Victor did not speak, he put his hood back on and looked back down at the tip of his rubber boots. Alida assessed that it must not be the first time that he lent itself to that kind of work. She was annoyed for not having been informed of the addition of a new element.

  "Where is Riccardo?" she asked Oscar.

  "Here," a voice muffled by the roar of the rain replied.

  Alida turned and Riccardo smiled, slipping for a moment from under the rain jacket.

  "I was behind you in Viale Regina Margherita, but I didn’t run to reach you for fear of breaking a leg. We must be careful, it's worse than walking on ice."

  "Come on, the earlier we go in, the earlier we come out," Oscar said. "This way. From now on utter silence."

  They slipped into the darkness along the perimeter of the walls of Verano.

  On Via Tiburtina cars sped like speedboats, splashing water that forced them to walk one behind the other. Alida wanted to pick up the pace, get a move. The three men, on the other hand, showed a calm and confidence she did not dare to break.

  The old man stopped in front of an iron door in a niche on the wall. He opened it and they found themselves in a vast area of the cemetery with no lighting.

  "Menozzatti chapel is on the other side, near the entrance of Scalo San Lorenzo. It is almost impossible to enter from there, so we have to get through from inside, until we reach the wall of Pincetto." Victor spoke in a low, hoarse voice, with a strong Roman accent. He was born and lived at Garbatella, where most likely he would die as well.

  "First we stop at the tool shed," Oscar said. Victor started walking and Oscar approached Alida and whispered in her ear, "That man is indispensable, he knows the alleys of Verano like his own house. He wouldn’t get lost with his eyes closed. He’s been the undertaker for thirty years."

  "And for how many years has he been rounding his salary by promoting crime?" Alida asked.

  "From the day you were born," Oscar replied quietly.

  "Watch your steps," the old man croaked.

  The water had dug large grooves in the ground.

  "Need help?" Riccardo asked, holding out his arm.

  "No, don’t worry."

  The tin shed was engulfed in darkness. The rain hit the roof making a deafening, tribal noise. Oscar and the old man entered the shed and came out with a heavy tool box, a canvas cloth and a couple of flashlights they did not light immediately.

  They resumed their march and Alida turned to check that Riccardo was behind her.

  "Look out!" he cried, seeing her stumble on the stone edge of a flooded flowerbed. He grabbed her by the arm with wonderful reflexes, transmitting a new shock through the synthetic fabric of the k-way.

  "Silence!" Oscar grunted, spouting water from his mouths.

  "Calm down, who are you afraid of waking up?" Alida grew nervous.

  Victor, his face hidden by the hood and the blanket of rain that enveloped him like vapour, stifled a chilling laugh. "She thinks there's just us here." He chuckled again. A clot of phlegm obstructed his throat, he spat it on the ground and the rain washed it away.

  "You can’t see them, but there are people who pray," he added, pointing to the entrance of the columbarium, a circular building where coffins were stored one on top of another.

  The columbarium was not dark like the rest of the cemetery. The light came from a torch, illuminating a tomb in front of which a dark figure stood, topped by a big black umbrella. Impossible to understand whether it was a man or a woman.

  "The pain drives people to hide behind the boulders of the shrines or in the bushes of the older graves. They await the final round of the guards, and when the cemetery closes they wriggle out like earthworms to spend the night with the dead."

  Alida had read that the columbarium was the area of the Verano with the highest number of buried children. Maybe that was the mother of one of them.

  "Chilling, huh?" Oscar whispered with a lopsided grin on his b
earish face.

  The light in the columbarium went out, the figure was swallowed by the darkness and Alida was sure she heard a faint cry, a soft weep. The idea that other people were praying and crying in the rain froze the blood in her veins.

  "Come on, we’re almost there," Vittorio said, moving on. "There are some stairs, I’m turning on the flashlight, stay close to me."

  The marble steps had been smoothed by time and the water formed a succession of small waterfalls. The old man wrapped the flashlight in a strip of cloth, and lit it, producing a cool glow that barely showed the steps. Alida, leaning on Riccardo’s arm, started to go down slowly, and it was at the foot of the stairs that she felt less disoriented.

  She had visited that part of Verano the day of Luca’s funeral and, if she remembered correctly, the elegant building in front of them was the tomb of the Capuchins.

  Menozzatti chapel was two steps from there. It could be reached walking on a path that ran along one of the two sides of the large tomb.

  Victor walked to the east side of the tomb, disappearing around a stone corner.

  The darkness was more dense and Oscar also turned on his flashlight, shielding it with his oilcloth raincoat.

  "Go ahead, I’ll light you from behind," he said, approaching the wall of the tomb, allowing Alida and Riccardo to go past it. They emerged into a clearing that Alida, during the funeral, had reached from another path.

  That of the old man had been another shortcut.

  She had been wrong in recognizing the facade of the tomb, because they had bypassed it, coming from behind.

  Without Victor it would have taken one more day to reach the tomb of the Menozzatti family.

  "Give me the keys," Oscar said in front of the grave.

  Alida slipped two fingers into the pocket of her jeans, pulled out a large metal key and gave it to Oscar, then she looked at the sky.

  No trace of the moon.

  The rain created a blanket of water that would hide from view the second floor of a building.

  Alida approached Oscar, who fitted the key into the lock of the tomb.

  August 13 – 00:16

  "Inspector, we lost her" agent Iamiglio announced as he got back in the car, tuning the radio on the police frequency.

  "What do you mean you lost her? Where are you?" the metallic voice of Brembati asked from the district in Via Guido d'Arezzo.

  Before answering, Iamiglio waited for Mancuso, a taciturn cop who would have benefited from a couple of months at the gym and a few less mugs of beer, to shelter in the car as well. He was soaked. Water dripped from the brim of his hat, wetting the leather seat.

  "We are in Piazzale del Verano" said Iamiglio, watching Mancuso who was wiping his face with the back of his hand.

  "Have you followed her?"

  "As you ordered inspector, to the entrance. When we approached, however, she was gone. Maybe she had an appointment with someone. From a distance it seemed to us there were other people, but there's a storm, even the lampposts burnt out."

  "Iamiglio, you said Piazzale del Verano?" the inspector croaked from the apparatus set in the dashboard of the patrol car.

  "Affirmative. We are outside the main entrance, where