The television didn’t actually pass through Frosinone, because Antonio knows the guys who were transporting it on the truck, and they brought it all the way to Rome.
The lorry drivers might have been called Ernesto, or Ettore, he couldn’t remember, and the other one was Palmiro, but Antonio had been closer to Ettore.
Nothing. Colleferro ten kilometres. Fucking level crossing.
‘But I’m sure we’ll find it, Stiv. A bloody great thing like that can’t just vanish into thin air.’
‘Shut up! Shut up, do you hear me? Are you going to go on like this the whole way? I’m thinking!’
It can’t be true.
I’m going to France, Côte d’Azur.
Meeting the guys from Marseilles, for the organisation, for Don Luciano. Don Luciano thinks I’m hours ahead. Don Luciano is worried.
Meeting Lyonnese Toni. On behalf of Steve ‘Jerk-off’ Zollo, and his new colleague, Shithead, king of Agnano. My turn to buy him clothes. I couldn’t leave him on the loose. He’s fastened to me, tight.
This last spin of the ball is fucking your pension, Steve. Sorry, Toni, I’ve lost twelve kilos of pure heroin inside a television, but I’m going to get it back, you can be sure of that. I’m going to get a helping hand from Shithead, king of Agnano.
No.
I’ve got the sample. Three kilos straight away. The rest in a month, Toni. The rest when you want it, oui, avec plaisir. The rest in hell, Toni, I’m sorry. You bring the money, the stuff ’s there. In a month, oui. My pension. The stuff’s there. No funeral. In hell, Toni.
Since he’s been with the Italians, McGuffin hasn’t known peace.
Shoved about to right and left by louts, thumped and cursed at, having things thrown at him, forced to reflect fights and ignominy, stolen, scratched, violated with a screwdriver, abandoned for hours, then the scorching darkness of the canvas-covered truck, bouncing around over asphalt chasms, gravel, scorched earth, the slabs and cobbles of ancient streets, up and down, all the time, making it long for its first journey, that boy’s bike with the platform on the front, the sweltering oilskins and the stench of stables and leather.
Now he was on the move again, had been for at least an hour. He was certainly leaving Rome.
Cruel fate! Used to cheering up the public with reassuring images, mute witness to acts of squalor and violence. Nothing to fight back with. A void facing the void.
The pointless seventeen-inch screen still seemed to reflect those last scenes, performed shamelessly before its wide-open eye.
The man had lost patience. Quickly, though. Earlier than expected. Before trying him out. Before doing anything. He had come home, pointed his finger at McGuffin and exploded: ‘What the fuck’s that supposed to be?’
His wife hadn’t been able to reply, silenced as she was by the second question. ‘Who the fuck brought it?’
Ignoble fate! Used to warmer welcomes, joyful children with their hands outstretched, excited women, relations visiting to do homage to the new arrival, and what was happening now? Contempt, tools jabbing into intimate parts, punches, even spit.
‘It’s a present from Carmine,’ the woman had said sententiously.
The man had turned grey with fury. ‘A television? We haven’t even got running water, and he gives you a television! Well done!’
Oh fantastic! And where’s the harm, excuse me? If you haven’t got running water in your house, do you have to spend your whole time dwelling on the shame of it? Sooner distract yourself than fret your life away. And what better way of doing that than amusing yourself with a fine McGuffin Electric Deluxe television, which, with its naturally luminous screen, doesn’t even tire your eyes?
The car lurched to a stop. The vibrations of the engine shook McGuffin like an attack of delirium tremens.
‘He wants me to torment myself, as always, to make me feel like a jerk, eh? May his parents roast in hell, he’d have been better off paying the rent on this hole rather than chucking his money away on a pile of useless crap.’
Certainly, the discussion hadn’t got off to a terribly good start. Nonetheless, room for reasoning might yet be found. Old popular wisdom, very down to earth, something about not looking a gift horse in the mouth. But there must have been bad blood between the two of them. Something must have happened during an earlier episode: it would have been nice to have a quick résumé. But the timing of the squabble was all wrong.
The rattle of a train drowned out all other sounds. The car set off with a jerk.
‘Whose parents? Tell me again, whose?’
‘Don’t provoke me, Giulia! We’re taking this gadget back, and there’s an end to it.’
‘Whose parents are to rot in hell? Come on, let’s hear it, whose parents?’ A proud girl, no denying it. A bit short of content, but proud.
‘Be careful, Giulia, I’m warning you. Don’t make me say it again. Tell your brother to come and get it back, or I’ll go down to Porta Portese and sell it.’
The apple caught him right in the eye, along with the stream of insults.
‘Carmine’s parents are mine, too!’
Things weren’t looking good for McGuffin. Fat chance of pouring oil on troubled waters. On the other hand, always a bad idea to get between husband and wife, let alone if you’re a seventeen-inch-screen television. The man had climbed over him as the woman hurled herself towards the door.
Too late.
No American television channel would have dreamt of showing, uncensored, what came next. Enough to say that in the end four hands grabbed McGuffin, lifting him up from a cemetery of broken plates and crockery that had flown round him like shells on a battlefield.
He had a black eye, she was black and blue all over.
Derisory payoff! They gave McGuffin back without even knowing that he didn’t work.
Chapter 20
Between Grenoble and Cannes, 30 May
‘Shit! You’ve coughed up a bit of lung!’
‘What the fuck are you on about, Swede? Cough! Cough! Tell me right now if you’re planning on talking bollocks for the whole journey, and I’ll drop you off right here and you can get the bus back to Paris.’
‘I’m not talking bollocks. It’s there on the dashboard, it’s a lump of something, don’t you see it? There’s a drop of blood on it, too.’
‘That thing there? That’s nothing, cough! It’s catarrh with a bit of blood. Quick rub with a handkerchief, it’s gone. You see?’
‘Yes, but not with your handkerchief, look, it’s covered with red stripes! Don’t rub at it, you’ll leave a stain! Do we want to end up on the Côte d’Azur like this?’
‘What d’you mean, a stain, it’s easy, look!’
‘Not with your sleeve! Do you want to show up at the casino in Cannes with your clothes covered in blood? Do we want to be spotted straight away? They won’t let us in like that!’
‘Swede, you’re worse than a finger up the arse. Calm down, cough!, we still have a few hours’ driving ahead of us. For months now everybody’s been going on at me for going to the South, the sea, the mountains, because it’ll be good for my, cough! cough! cough! it’ll BE GOOD FOR MY FUCKING LUNGS and so on, but if I have to drag those lectures along with me on top of everything else, I’d as soon stay in Paris.’
‘Toni, I’m worried: one, that you’re going to die; two, that you’re going to die now, because I’ve never seen this guy Zollo; three, that we’re going to turn up looking like a dying man and his friend who’s about to call for a priest. If the guys from Marseilles find out what’s going on, they’re going to clip you, and they’re going to clip you hard. It’ll be even worse with the Zips and that fucker who sells washing machines in Naples. We’ve had enough bother with the Sicilian darkies already, let’s try not to be too conspicuous, ok? Style, that’s what we need! Like Jean Gabin in Touchez-pas au Grisbi.’