The Pit of Retribution

Killing is a serious matter, and K42 knows it well. He's been calling himself that since he quit bank robberies to become a full-time hitman. K stands for killer.

The house sits at the end of a narrow road, paved at first before transforming into a floor of stones, potholes, and depressions. Hostile to low-chassis cars and deadly for fragile ankles. The woods shield that '70s villa from prying eyes, far enough from the provincial road to be noticed only when winter strips the trees and the low sun makes the veranda windows glitter.

He arrives by bicycle, dismounts, hides it at the bottom of the embankment, and continues on foot. The backpack weighs enough but contains nothing superfluous. The gun will stop the heart of Mario Eliani, a retired aviator who spent his life scanning the sky hoping to spot a UFO. That's what his wife had told him, and when they arranged the hit through that protected chat, she had mentioned all the flight attendants who had knelt at her husband's crotch while she spent her time raising their son straight and healthy. The last affair, with the big-breasted woman who sells fruit at the market, was the final straw.

The gate at the garden entrance is the work of an improvised blacksmith. Construction bars welded together by an imprecise hand and painted in alternating Napoli-blue and white, with the upper crossbar bearing an inscription in digit-font characters, the kind derived from the luminous diodes of old calculators. It reads: ELIANI COUPLE and celebrates the grotesque end awaiting that family, soon to be extinguished by a cynical calculation.

K42 can't hold back a bitter smile. He bends over his backpack, pulls latex gloves from the outer pocket and puts them on, then slips on the wool balaclava, pulling it down to his neck.

The client had been blunt:

"He mustn't see your face. Until the end, he'll believe it was a thief who killed him, not his poor cheated wife. They'll only reveal that detail to him in hell."

With a five-thousand-euro advance, every wish is his command.

The key is the right one.

It turns obediently in the well-lubricated lock, and the heavy door of knurled iron opens silently on its hinges. K42 crosses the cement curb and passes the evergreen bush trimmed into the shape of a flying saucer. Before the house stands half a dozen scale models of the most famous sightings. There's the cigar shape photographed everywhere, lying on the ground on a support of solid bricks, and the Roswell flying saucer, half demolished. A rather approximate reproduction of the spacecraft from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, as large as a car, shines in the twilight of electric lights stuck on with glue, and is actually half-covered by a climbing plant on the side facing the house. The garden is chaos of grass clippings, rakes, other work tools, and mole repellents planted here and there. Right next to the gate is a pit, hand-dug and at least two meters deep. There's that construction site smell that takes him back to childhood, and the shovel used for the work is planted in the mound of loose earth at the edge of the hole, just as his bricklayer father used to do before lunch break. Calluses, sweat, and fatigue.

"My husband is strong as a bull. As long as he has muscles and can get it up, he'll always cheat on me. Better he goes first, killed by a thug who wanted to steal the jewelry..."

The second key is also docile and silent. It opens a hand-crafted wooden door, and the dimness of a living room with leather sofas, solid wood furniture, and velvet curtains welcomes him into the most ordinary country house imaginable. K42 moves with light steps, avoiding tripping on the carpet under the ten-person table and bypassing the turned-off TV, then locates the safe. It's built into the wall at the beginning of the corridor, behind the framed Chagall print, and he sees it by moving the frame just slightly.

"Enter with the keys I'll get to you, and when you hear him arrive, position yourself near Dream of Love, and he'll come at you in a fury. He's always in a fury. He's big and strong, but you know what you're doing. Make sure he gets some wounds and then put a bullet in his stomach. At that point, you'll have time to ransack the house, leave, close the door behind you, and then force it with a crowbar so they'll think it was a break-in. Bring a sturdy one."

And he could feel it weighing in his backpack, but he had to bear it. It was part of the play his client had calmly architected, feeding on bitterness and humiliation, which would serve to dismiss the cops with a few condolences muttered between teeth and an offer to help if needed. That woman may be cheated on, he thinks, but she's as evil as a witch.

The mirror at the end of the corridor could be useful for anticipating movements.

At the right angle, he'll see his victim while still in the living room, and he's sure that with a decisive push, bull-strong or not, he could send the husband back toward the fireplace and finish him with the poker. Knowing about a struggle, the cops would have an easy time and a path to follow. They'd look everywhere for hair, skin fragments, and drops of saliva. The bag he keeps in his pocket contains a bit of all this, collected from the barber shop, service station napkins, and the bar. Of him, K42, paid hitman with twelve unpunished murders to his name, they would find no trace.

The stranger waits for him in the bedroom.

She sits in a rocking chair that sways noiselessly on a carpet next to the valet stand, and she's not hospitable. She points a Glock 17 with a screwed-on silencer and looks like she knows how to use it. K42, backpack over his shoulder and revolver tucked in the side pocket next to the crowbar, raises his hands and can't help noticing her wide, intelligent blue eyes and those eyelids that don't blink in unison. Her lips are slightly parted in a hint of a smile, and the hand holding the weapon is as steady as a photograph. She wears a black turtleneck and equally dark pants so tight they leave nothing to imagination. She's one of those girls who can cross a beach stopping waves and taking away the breath of onlookers. She smells good, with a faint scent of vanilla lip gloss accompanying the mint smell of her candy.

"And who are you?"

"I'm the one asking questions. You, who are you?"

K42 considers a series of more or less evasive answers and finally yields to her probing gaze. He feels naked, vulnerable. "I'm a thief."

"Right, one who enters using keys. Bullshit! Who are you?"

"If I tell you, will you shoot me?"

"Since you've fucked up my job, I'll shoot you either way."

"What job?"

"I ask the questions. Who are you, what are you doing here, and who sent you? Why do you have house keys and a balaclava on your face?"

"I said, I came to steal."

"Then why aren't you stealing? As far as I know, in this room, apart from that questionable porcelain cat, there's nothing valuable, and the safe is in the hallway, behind the Chagall print..."

K42 feels his mouth go dry, and a taste of rotten apples replaces his saliva. He's sweating from his armpits, and the balaclava weighs like a helmet. He thinks the lady of the house has screwed him, that soon she'll ask for the advance back, and that the blonde is a cop. The thought crosses his mind that the wall closet might hide a couple of reinforcements and that an entire SWAT team could arrive from the bathroom. He can already hear the prison doors creaking.

"I came to kill the master of the house..."

This time her eyelids blink, and the half-smile vanishes in an instant. If you paid attention, the silencer's tip lost its target for a split second. The blonde is a little less icy than before when she saw him enter the bedroom. Nervous, she freezes on the rocking chair, which stops swaying, and it's clear she's considering whether to shoot him. She doesn't.

"Are you a cop?"

"God forbid!"

Pause. It lasts just long enough to question the meaning of life. K42 would pray if only he knew where to start.

"So you would have come to take out the homeowner, Mr. Mario Eliani."

"Exactly, him."

"An old slight, a betrayed friend, a screwed colleague?"

"No, the cheated wife."

And if the revolver weren't in his backpack, he could grab it and aim at the blonde, who lowers her weapon toward the floor and incredulously shakes her head. But when she jumps up as if the chair were a springboard, the blonde targets him again, takes a couple of steps back, and picks up a framed photo from the marble top of the dresser, next to the life-sized porcelain cat with a pair of brilliant green stones for pupils. The Eliani couple are photographed in 13 x 19 format, by the sea, after a walk in worn-out, faded beach shoes and before a waist-high wall good for sitting and eating ice cream. He's a strapping man; she's tall and slender. They're embracing, and there's a mischievous wind that ruffles the man's few hairs and lifts his wife's skirt, revealing a pair of long, still toned legs despite her age. The husband's leather jacket seems to date back to the Happy Days era, and she carries an unfashionable purse. A couple of sailboats complete the background.

"You really have to kill the husband, this handsome gentleman?"

He had memorized his face: broad jaw, precisely trimmed goatee, healthy complexion, and small, penetrating eyes under a pair of rather anarchic gray eyebrows. Baldness flaunted with dignity. He had studied the photos the wife had provided and had learned everything needed thanks to some stakeouts, to sniff his ass like dogs do.

"That's right. It's work, after all..."

"And this meek lady, all house and family, who has the courage to walk around with that skirt and that questionable purse, would have hired you to kill him?"

He squints, but that face means nothing to him. "I've never seen her. The job came through certain dark web channels."

"And the money?"

"Bitcoin."

The Glock now aims at his head. "Off with the balaclava!"

"Wait..."

The blonde grimaces. "I don't have the time or patience to wait, and I'm in charge here. Let me see your face."

He stalls. "I don't think the Red Cross sent you. What are you doing in this house?"

Her eyes laugh, a mixture of malice and desperation. The twisted grin is frightening, and the gun is steady. No tremor or doubt, and from that distance, she would hit him without even taking aim.

"I came to kill the lady, and now I have to shoot you..."

The gesture is sudden. K42 steps back and shields himself with his hands. "No, stop. Wh...what do you mean, kill the lady?"

"I have to hide under the bed, wait until she loads up on sleeping pills like she does every night, and then suffocate her in her sleep. They'll think it was sleep apnea. The lady suffers from it, and those junk meds she takes for sleeping can cause it..."

"And how do you know that?"

"Those are the instructions the husband gave me, and I'm capable of consulting a medication leaflet online..."

"The husband, my target?"

"Apparently. Mario Eliani is worried because he suspects his wife wants to kill him." She peers through the holes in the balaclava, and K42 feels a shiver running up his back. "And look at that, he was right..."

The calculation is quick, especially when the bullet in the chamber is ready to go.

K42 knows how to handle women and knows that, even armed, they always think before acting. He controls his voice, which comes out as steady as the hand of a bomb disposal expert handling wires.

"So, if I get this straight, if I came to eliminate Mr. Mario and you're waiting for his wife to take her out, and each of them hired each of us..."

The blonde adopts a subtle sarcasm. "Good, continue. You don't seem stupid..."

"Neither of them, husband or wife, will return home tonight."

"And we'd better disappear from the radar before things go to hell."

"I think exactly like you, colleague."

Sometimes, a step forward weighs like a cast-iron pour, and the room temperature rises accordingly. The four steps the blonde takes, until bringing the silencer's tip a few centimeters from the balaclava, open a new debate.

"Except that you've seen my face, chubby, and there are two options. Either you show me your ugly mug and we're even, or I'll rearrange your features with a lead anti-wrinkle cream. I'll open a third eye in the middle of your forehead, what do you say?"

He would have preferred to remain anonymous, but so it goes. The bargaining power of a loaded gun equals the charisma of an unscrupulous businessman with his entire entourage of lawyers. He raises his hands and calmly brings his right one to grip the fabric, and slowly, as if unveiling a statue at an inauguration, the balaclava slides off. First over the chin with its distinctive dimple, then over the fleshy lips surrounded by a hint of dark mustache, and then over that slightly oversized nose that had cost him some frustration in his youth. His eyes are gray, the color of ash, and his forehead is low, with some expression lines that amplify with tension before the beginning of a head of thick, long hair. The last strands, those on top of his head, are pulled up by the wool. Finally, they fall back into the pile with a comical effect.

She studies him, focuses on the details, investigates his gaze, and with quick eye movements brings the shape of that face into focus, and finally relaxes. She lowers the Glock and sighs. "But who are you?"

K42, as mentioned, knows women well and knows how vulnerable they can be when caught in the shadow zone between distrust and trust. He knows that among the certainties of the existence he has chosen to lead, one is never to associate his face with his profession, or his voice, or that way of moving his hands, bending his neck, or simply walking.

The sudden headbutt he delivers to the blonde is so strong that her skull cracks and her upturned eyes confirm that her brain has stopped functioning, and then, as soon as the Glock with the entire silencer falls to the floor, his hands close around her slender, long neck and squeeze.

They tighten.

Surrounded by a deep wine-red hue that matches the swelling of the arteries, two taut cords beneath the skin stretch across the entire neck. The air is cut off, the beautiful lips contort into an unrecognizable shape, and saliva foams between clenched teeth, trickling down in thin, milky rivulets. Arms, legs, the entire body convulses in erratic spasms. Then the eye sockets flood with blood, and only a faint, imperceptible thread of air scrapes through the throat. Suddenly, the strength drains from the legs, and the blonde—who once made the sea waves halt and stole the breath of men on the beach—collapses onto the bedroom floor. Her legs cross over each other as if in a yoga pose, palms facing upward in silent surrender. Her final gaze locks onto the ceiling.

K42 nudges the pistol away with his foot, crouches down, and presses his ear to her lips. The last breath is trapped within her lungs.

He needs to catch his breath, wait for his heart to stop thrashing inside his ribcage. Then clean up. Scatter false clues. Disappear. A failed job is a stain not easily erased, but if his career is at risk, his life might still be salvageable.

He must take the body and hide it somewhere safe.

Even if his killer’s hands were gloved, the thousands of microscopic saliva bubbles she expelled in her struggle must have landed everywhere—in her hair, in the fibers of her clothes, on her skin. In the carpet beneath the rocking chair. The virus of murder is everywhere, ready to be placed under a microscope, ready to speak. Ready to name names.

His plan is simple. He’ll get on the bicycle, retrieve the car from the city, return, and load the body—all before one of the Elianis comes home. He’ll figure out the rest along the way.

The hallway, the mirror, the print of Chagall’s Dream of Love. The spacious living room with leather sofas and a massive table.

The twilight has melted into darkness.

The sliding door moves smoothly, and outside, the air is fresh. The garden, still in progress, is strewn with scattered tools, heaps of clippings piled here and there, and mole-repelling devices. There’s the Roswell crash UFO. The cigar-shaped one. And the moon. It casts a bluish light over the landscape, spreading like a shroud over a corpse.

He fumbles in his pocket and finds the key to the outer gate, built from construction iron. The welded inscription on the architrave reads CONIUGI ELIANI, but seen from behind, it looks like an alien mantra: INAILE IGUINOC.

And that’s when K42 feels the breath of death.

The shot comes from the spaceship in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

The bullet zips through the row of lights along the hull, strikes his ribs, tears through his back, and exits his abdomen, carrying with it a piece of him—flabby, red, and stringy. His legs give out. He falls to his knees, then crumples. His hand pressing against his stomach does nothing to stop the blood from gushing out. His curses spill out incoherent, shredded by pain.

A pair of long legs, still toned despite age, descend from the craft with practiced agility. A woman in a gray-silver tracksuit strides toward him, gripping an automatic pistol.

K42 thinks that Mrs. Eliani looks even better in person than in photographs—and that her husband is even more imposing than that burly man standing beside her in the seaside snapshot.

They both watch him writhe in the dirt. Then, without ceremony, she grabs him by the feet and drags him a few meters away. She lets him roll into the pit dug in the garden. The impact rattles his organs, and a fresh spray of blood spurts from the wound.

From down here, Mrs. Eliani looks even taller.

Two powerful floodlights mounted on the house’s facade blaze to life, cutting through the dark like a blade.

"Darling, will you take care of the sign?"

Her husband’s voice is deep, perfectly suited to his stature.

"I’ll do it after I fetch the other one," he replies, and K42 watches his shadow disappear from the edge of the pit.

His stomach acid rises, scraping his throat like a sea urchin. Mrs. Eliani conceals her sadistic grin among the folds of her wrinkles. Out of spite, she kicks dirt into the grave. He can do nothing to stop himself from swallowing it.

"Wha… what did I do?" Every word costs him agony, and the pain is unbearable. His blood has soaked his pants up to his knees. The crowbar grins its jagged teeth at his shoulder blade. The pistol lies useless and cold at the bottom of his backpack.

Another kick of dirt. This time, it clogs his nostrils.

"You pulled one heist too many, bastard!" she sneers, then walks away. Soon, the lanky shadow vanishes as well, leaving him alone to fill a grave that reeks of labor—calluses, sweat, exhaustion.

He thinks of his robberies. The boss, always in disguise, who orchestrated them. The gang that gathered in an abandoned warehouse to discuss details. They all wore masks, all used voice modulators. There was Bugs Bunny, Pluto, Popeye, and even Andreotti. He himself always wore a plastic Bill Clinton mask—the 42nd president of the United States. That’s why he had chosen the number 42 for himself.

And through all those heists, only one person had died: Ettore Foiano, a young, foolish bank clerk who had tried to play hero. He and the Queen of England had to shoot him together.

And then—

The blonde’s weight slams onto him like a meteorite, and the shock forces him to vomit blood. Darkness swallows his vision. Deafness dulls the world. A vibration of shattered bones hums through the earth.

He faints.

Then wakes immediately. But he can no longer feel his legs.

It seems as if his belly is full of liquid, sloshing like gasoline in the bottom of a canister. And then…

Mrs. Eliani reappears, this time holding a shovel.

She laughs.

"The Queen of England will keep you company."

"Bitch," he snarls, hoping to scream. But his voice is feeble, a mere shadow of a rage too weak to manifest.

"You shot her in cold blood, and now my husband and I will rewatch the video at our leisure. Remember the porcelain cat? It was a camera. Would you have ever guessed? You and that whore—what a show you put on!" she cackles as the first shovelful of dirt—heavy with sharp stones—falls over the lifeless blonde, over the Queen of England.

The second mound of earth mingles with his blood. And the robbery scene blazes before his eyes, a film projected onto the darkness.

Three customers stood in line.

One wore wide-wale corduroy pants, a little frayed. Another had on a windbreaker, too cautious for the season shifting into spring. The last—a twenty-year-old blonde, full of hope—was polished and pristine, like a mannequin in a storefront.

The guard was being held by his colleague, the one wearing a Scalfaro mask—gripping his hair, pressing a gun to his temple.

The first teller had her hands up, jeans soaked in urine. The second had shut off her emotions, a statue of salt.

Then there was Ettore Foiano.

First, he had tried to press the alarm. Then, he made the fatal mistake of reaching into his leather bag for his personal weapon. And so he—Bill Clinton—and at the same time, she—the Queen of England—had fired through the glass.

Bang—one shot to the chest.

Bang—one to the base of the neck.

Bang.

The third bullet had taken half his cheekbone.

Ettore Foiano had died a fool.

Mrs. Eliani is cruel.

She takes her time. A shovelful of dirt at a time.

And as the last red-hot iron bar completes the inscription, as the earth begins to press on his neck, K42 understands.

He doesn’t need to see Mr. Eliani forge the final letter.

He knows.

And as his breath is replaced by soil, he watches the welding sparks divide into a thousand falling stars.

And the scent of smoke, molten metal, earth, and sweat takes him back—back to when he was just a boy.

The Aspiring Writer’s Survival Guide: Spoiler—You Won’t Make It

 

So, I published my first book. The publishers were thrilled. Then came the second, the third shortly after, and the fourth in no time. No chance to catch my breath. The promotion suffered, and sales were, shall we say, disappointing.

• But were your books actually distributed?

• Oh yes, in some bookstores, of course!

• "Some" as in how many?

• More than ten, less than twenty...

• Talk about "breaking into the market."

• Yeah, but you know what? Thousands of books come out every day. And if you calculate their volume and multiply it by two thousand...

• Two thousand?

• Sadly, yes. All debut authors, all brimming with enthusiasm. An army of soldiers marching straight into machine guns...

• You mean the ever-optimistic aspiring writer?

• Exactly! The one who sulks when they’re not on the bestseller list after a week. A sort of mass-produced Arturo Bandini—except he was a charming bastard, and that was another era. Back then, they paid upfront. Anyway, we’re talking about 1.90 cubic meters of books per day. Basically, a dump truck.

• Not quite like delivering gravel to the high-speed railway construction site...

• No, it’s just the sheer volume of books churned out daily by publishing houses. And this doesn’t even include self-published books.

• Which amount to...?

• No one really knows. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions! It’s like our galaxy. For years, they’ve debated whether there are 200 or 400 billion stars, and they still haven’t figured it out. This is a nation of saints, sailors, and writers...

• All brilliant, I assume.

• Until proven otherwise, yes. But nature teaches us that when balance is lost...

• It goes without saying...

• It goes without saying that bookstores can only stock 0.4% of the books published by traditional publishers—and not a single one by self-publishing authors.

• Well, that’s something!

• If it were GDP growth, it’d be great news!

• Instead, it’s the new literature: measured in cubic meters, like natural gas.

• So, to get noticed, you hustle for book signings, chase after reviews and newspaper articles. Book signings were a godsend—before Covid. For reviews and press, you queue up and hope to charm a blogger.

• You mean, like, the Pope?

• Some bloggers act like that! I once had a spat with the editor of a top-tier blog. Actually, no, the top-tier blog.

• Why? You’re as peaceful as a sloth in summer.

• Nothing major. I asked them to review a book of mine that won a literary contest. Then another one that won a festival. And... they refused.

• What a delight. And why was that?

• Because I’m not famous.

• But famous authors don’t care about blog reviews. They go on late-night talk shows.

• Try explaining that to him

• No thanks. I’d be too blunt, and you seem hopelessly diplomatic. So, what now?

• Now, I push on social media.

• Which ones?

• Easier to say which ones I don’t use...

• Okay then, which ones don’t you use?

• Let me think... Nope, I’m on all of them.

• Even X?

• Even that cesspool!

• But X is just an insult arena! Nobody cares about novels! The only book-related hashtag is #book!

• Well, since I was at it...

• And what do authors do on all these platforms?

• It’s a charming little mess. Rarely do they encourage each other. Sometimes they read one another. More often, they despise each other, dodge each other like sidewalk dog poop, badmouth each other, reject criticism, get outraged over feedback, and desperately try to sell their books. They buy their competitor’s ebook just to slap it with a one-star review. They brag about their Amazon ratings, which for all I know, could be written by their aunt in exchange for walking her poodle to the pedicurist.

• And yet, none of these books make it to bookstore shelves because of the sheer volume...

• Exactly. Just like the cubic meters of gravel.

• No way out. You need a blog!

• Already got one.

• A blog is serious business!

• Tell me about it. High-quality content, award-winning short stories, exclusive pieces, SEO-friendly keywords blessed by Google Trends. Google Analytics as my sidekick, and relentless social media sharing.

• On which platforms?

• Practically all of them.

• Right, I forgot. Hate to break it to you, but it’s all useless.

• In what way?

• Old news. Overdone. Links are dull, they glaze over people’s eyes, pass unnoticed like yet another streaming TV series.

• So what now?

• Now, videos! Short, snappy, TikTok-style. Slogans, flashy visuals. Think ‘80s luxury ads. Words are boring, lectures are annoying. People don’t have time. You need balls of steel, a smooth pitch, a decent microphone, studio lighting like a daytime talk show, and a solid video editor. And then you. You need to flirt with the camera, seduce your followers. It’s the author that sells, not the book!

• But I’m shy!

• Then you shouldn’t have become a writer!

• But writers are supposed to be grumpy hermits, hunched over their desks like modern-day Leopardi, living on unrequited love. And besides, I’m not photogenic!

• Let me see... right profile... left... forehead...

• I just don’t have that charming, smug smile, you know? I can’t even fake it.

• Yeah, breaking the screen takes something else. Have you done the swimsuit test?

• Are you saying I should...?

• Worst-case scenario, post a shot of yourself on a rock by the sea, looking like you just wrestled an octopus barehanded. Your abs aren’t flabby, are they?

• What does this have to do with writing novels?

• Everything! Listen, I hate to be blunt, but you’ve got two choices: either you die and pray for posthumous fame, or you hit the gym... or...

• Or?

• Or cause a scandal. Get on TV and make headlines. Something harmless—like dating the heir to the throne of some irrelevant kingdom or streaking naked through the city center on a Saturday afternoon. Helicoptering, of course...

• Naturally. That’d land me a couple of months in jail.

• Exactly! You’ll become an influencer, and then—whoosh! Sky’s the limit!

• So, no more mystery, aloofness, and that touch of arrogance great authors could once afford?

• Old news. You need to sell yourself cheap: free books online, book trailers, and self-interview videos.

• I can’t do it.

• You’re obsolete, my friend. While we’re talking, let’s see... another 240 books have just been published.

• And if I go to sleep, by the time I wake up...

• Exactly! Tomorrow morning, it’ll be a thousand more. Sleep is for losers. Get to work!

• Now?

• When else? You’re already aging out of the trend! By the way, have you run a social media poll to see what people actually want to read?

• Like what?

• Like, I don’t know—do they prefer the usual girl found dead in the woods, the omnipotent serial killer, the detective with a nervous tic, or the German shepherd with Sherlockian instincts?

• But isn’t it the writer’s job to set the trend, define the style, and take risks?

• Sure, but that way you lose your target audience, botch your branding, miss your market, and fumble your communication. Think about it.

• I have. I’m starting a gardening blog.

Less is More: A Writer's Guide to Purposeful Prose

 Words belong to books; there’s no need to spare them. And we all agree on that. A medium-length novel, let’s say between fifty and a hundred thousand words, can tell even a complex story well, choosing to emphasize certain aspects over others, to describe, explain, deepen, instruct, and evoke emotion. But are we sure all these words are used in the best possible way? Are we certain that selfishness, narcissism, and sometimes the frustration of the author do not shape the story? Sometimes, they do. I read a lot, and in doing so, I often come across writers (many, to be honest) who tend to explain everything, who particularly love putting every single thought of the protagonists into words (the so-called stream of consciousness), without allowing the reader to simply grasp it. It’s an approach to writing that I do not love—in fact, I’d say that it almost always sets the stage for that inevitable drowsiness, the one that surprises you with the book slipping onto your lap and the bookmark irretrievably lost between the pages. This happens to me because I believe that readers deserve respect, that they are intelligent enough and sufficiently engaged in the story to perceive, for example, the chemistry between two lovers without the writer having to spell out every single thought, every minor doubt, and every fleeting sensation.

Take Diego and Alice, for example. They’ve just met and are about to share a night of passion. He (already head over heels, like overcooked pasta left in boiling water for twenty minutes) thinks about not revealing his excitement too much, about not embarrassing himself due to his messy house, about the many clues to his profession scattered around. In the end (because in books and films it can never go otherwise), they make love, followed by satisfaction and that wonderful post-coital tranquility that comes in such moments.

Now, certain writers—who are not exactly my reference points—would put it down like this:

“He invited her in. He was anxious. He didn’t want to expose his adolescent enthusiasm, his all-too-obvious excitement crawling under his skin. He thought about doing something different, something that might make Alice believe that he, so accustomed to women, their whims, and the discovery of all those wonderful hidden buttons that made them docile, knew how to control his senses. Love, the kind made between the sheets, would come later, slowly. He watched the fish swimming in the aquarium. The idea that she might get impatient and end up jumping on him convinced him to focus on them. He grabbed the fish food and sprinkled it in bits into the tank. He remembered his mother doing the same after wiping her hands on her apron and how his father watched her when she did. As the flakes floated on the water, reflecting the purple glow of the lamp, he suddenly thought that Alice might be offended, that turning his back to her was bad manners, and that the wallet in his jeans pocket was probably ruining his nice butt—and everyone knows how much women appreciate a nice butt. He could hear her breathing, and the atmosphere became polluted with embarrassment. He remembered that he hadn’t made his bed that morning, that he had cycled for half an hour, and that his sweaty clothes hadn’t been washed—something that could ruin the moment. Sometimes, it’s a tiny, insignificant detail that ruins the poetry. And then they began making love—at first with some squeaky gears, then with the oil of passion lubricating the driest cogs. He thought he didn’t deserve that girl, so beautiful, so passionate. She was perfect. He tried to recall others just as beautiful, but none came to mind. He convinced himself that overthinking would sap precious energy from where it mattered most, and he wanted to last, to stay in the moment, to punch a ticket to paradise, to withstand the seismic event that was shaking him to his very core… He concluded that he didn’t deserve her, but in the end, his pleasure erased all doubts. As the moment unfolded, as that fragment of life projected itself before his eyes like fireworks on an August night, memories of disappointments, failures, and days wasted in anger came rushing back. All reset, rewound like an old cassette tape with a film recorded from television. All it took was the soft, warm, and tender Alice—the most beautiful girl in town—who, on that ordinary day at the beginning of an ordinary summer in an ordinary year of an ordinary century, had crossed his path to show him the way to happiness. Overwhelmed by a storm of emotions and tossed by the immense waves of joy, he finally wept.”

Beautiful, I like it. After all, I just wrote it. :) Certainly, it’s not my style. It’s a forced exercise I undertook to demonstrate that verbose writing ultimately reveals its limitations—and sometimes, it confuses. When I wrote that scene for real in my novel One Night to Stay Alive, I put it down exactly like this:

“He invited her in and fed the fish in the aquarium; a 150-liter tank with half a dozen angelfish, four pairs of kissing gouramis, and a busy crew of bottom feeders, all immersed in an atmosphere suspended between violet and blue. He felt a little ashamed of his unmade bed, of the pair of sweaty socks forgotten at the foot of the exercise bike, and especially of those cat carriers stacked like a tower in the corner of the room. He got lost in Alice’s big, dark eyes, which she knew how to fill with passion, and then, when desire loosened the brakes, he admired the velvety skin and perfect proportions of that body, down to its most hidden details. His intention to resist was soon shattered by the seismic upheaval unleashed upon him. He was so happy he struggled to hold back tears.”

As you can see, I prefer concise writing.

And for action scenes? For violence? The same principle applies. In the genre I write, action-packed and violent scenes are quite frequent. In my thriller The Sixth Destination, for example, I developed the idea of a sniper missing his target like this:

“The wind she felt brushing her back was caused by the passage of a full metal jacket bullet. After making a small hole in the window glass, it took a fraction of a second to graze her spine, split Cinzia’s head open like a melon, and rip through the boss’s guts, sending him staggering backward until he collapsed onto the photocopier still in operation. Silvia, the girl who had spent the last ten minutes loading one sheet at a time into the machine, heard the thud of the bullet ending its run at 830 meters per second, shattering the mechanisms. And she didn’t understand. She didn’t understand because, from the corner of her eye, she had glimpsed a red stain replacing her colleague’s head, and she didn’t understand why the boss lay on the floor, doubled over and convulsing. When, along with a piece of her elbow, she saw a large bloodstain on the wall, she finally understood what was causing the excruciating pain in her arm. It was the second shot.”

Here, no one is thinking. Only instinct, fear, and blood. Yet, I swear, there are books where a similar scene would be used as an excuse to insert a philosophical reflection or, worse, a recycled aphorism. So I insist: words belong to books, but let’s not take advantage of them. The reader does not deserve to endure our narcissism at the wrong moment, nor should they have to focus on reading as if competing in the world chess championship. As I see it, writing is music. Every instrument must follow the rhythm, respect the tempo, and know when to fall silent. There are crescendos, decrescendos, and pauses. The writer has the privilege of possessing a symphony (the story), the best musicians (their talent), and the conductor’s baton to ensure a flawless execution. I would call that humility.

The Horror of Ordinary Life

"Yes, hurrah, I could write a book about zombies! I'd plunder thousands of pages of literature and cinema, so much cinema. You know, the first zombie movie dates back to nineteen hundred... Wait, let me check Google..."
"Save your fingertips! You'd only be plundering material that others have already plundered. You'd just be serving the same reheated soup."
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure!"
"So zombies are a no."
"Let them rot in peace."
"How do you feel about a detective story with an inspector?"
"You mean the usual inspector who's despised by the entire precinct, smokes without restraint, clings to the bottle like it's his mother's breast, has a wife and kids who refuse to see him, and when the case stalls, decides to take justice into his own hands?"
"An inspector like that, but without the mother's breast part. You know, it might make the whole thing slip into incest."
"Leave it alone..."
"Why?"
"Because it's a cliché – one that sells, God knows, but still a cliché."
"A pathologist then! A forensic pathologist who solves cases. I actually know a pathologist. I'm not saying he'd take me on a honeymoon to the morgue, but he could give me some tips about his profession and some gruesome details. Maybe I'll invite him to dinner..."
"But there are thousands of those!"
"Of pathologists who solve cases?"
"Who else?"
"But I'll give him a vice..."
"After Bukowski's books, there's no vice left that holds up."
"A birth defect then. I'll make him dyslexic!"
"That already exists..."
"A dyslexic pathologist?"
"Not exactly. It's a detective, but what's the difference!"
"Can I say a bad word?"
"No!"
"Shit!"
"You said it!"
"After the dyslexic inspector, I had the right. What if I switched to a serial killer?"
"Hmm, a bit overused but always interesting..."
"I'll make him special... Ah, listen to this idea... He's a serial killer who doesn't know he's one. I mean, he dissociates. He replaces his persona by imagining himself as a brute crossing the desolate countryside in an old van..."
"Already done..."
"Really?"
"Oh yes!"
"A homeless serial killer. One who hides in other people's homes and..."
"You're late to that party, my dear!"
"One who goes around unarmed and when he has to kill his victim, improvises..."
"Already done."
"And who would this genius be?"
"I'd tell you but I can't. It's the same author as this story and he'd end up being disqualified."
"I'll read something of his."
"You should, he's good."
"A serial killer who kills virgins!"
"Oh God!"
"He goes around wearing a mask!"
"Ugh!"
"He's a religious fanatic."
"Come on! Are you giving up?"
"No, damn it! I'll write a story with femmes fatales, criminals, vampires, and demons cheerfully chasing each other among city skyscrapers!"
"You forgot the werewolves..."
"It wouldn't work, would it?"
"Maybe it would, if we were in 1948, a bit before the advent of television."
"Infernal machines, lethal epidemics, interplanetary coups... A xenomorphic organism - an extraterrestrial parasite that single-handedly exterminates the entire crew of a large space cargo..."
"Who are you trying to fool?"
"Doesn't work?"
"No way, beautiful!"
"Let me think. An idea must come to me, sooner or later... I've got it. An enormous library, full of books with the names of all people who have lived and are living on this earth written in them..."
"And with their birth and death dates, perhaps..."
"Yeah, perhaps! Why are you laughing? Ah, I get it, already done. Let's try then with the story of a child who talks to the dead, an Indian cemetery that brings corpses back to life, a frustrated girl with telekinetic powers, an epidemic where everyone's dead but the people at the Arctic base don't know anything. A story with a corpse preserved in a fridge, an Amazon expedition that discovers the tree of life at the center of the ecosystem, a society where they burn books, an abandoned hotel in the mountains, someone who has a car accident and is cared for by a strange nurse... Some young fellows who venture out in search of a corpse?"
"Come on, don't let yourself go. You need to stay calm and you'll see, an idea will come. Right now you're stressed and you won't get anything out of that little head of yours. It's late now. I need to throw something together to eat and then I'm going out. I have yoga class, you know?"
"And I'm sad..."
"About this inspiration thing? Don't think about it and you'll see it'll get better. Now don't be offended, but I really have to go..."

Today my friend has been cynical, more than usual.
I leave her when she's already focused on finding something in the back of her pantry that can be ready in less than ten minutes, and in just five stirs of a spoon.
On the landing, with the door now closed behind me, I sink into the confused sounds of a couple of televisions, unwitting messengers of the same lie. I choose not to take the elevator and face the eight floors stepping on pristine steps. They seem not to have aged at all, and to have preserved in them a bit of the smell of those years, when apartment buildings replaced meadows with the same speed with which night alternated with day. I form an idea of which reheated dishes were preferred for that evening and am surprised that the tenant on the third floor is singing a song against the fragrant backdrop of sautéing.
Outside, the usual street, which seems to have not yet digested the afternoon traffic.
A procession of pedestrians defies death, heads bowed and faces barely lit by the opaque reflection of the sidewalk.
A couple of cyclists faces the green light with an underlying tension that can be felt from a distance. He, with square pedaling and curved shoulders, heads straight for the service road on the opposite side. She follows him, nervously huddled in her gray leotard.
The beggar at the corner hasn't left yet, and the homeless woman under the lamppost seems to have found company.
The businessman arrives menacingly, maintaining the exact center of the sidewalk. He brandishes his briefcase like a battering ram, and his secretary follows him with breath scraping in her throat. She's tired and walks fighting with the constraints of a too-tight skirt. She has X-shaped knees that converge inelegantly toward the center, heels dangerously seeking a manhole to slip into, and in her eyes the desire to go home, and to do it as soon as possible.
The mother struggles to keep the capricious child in check. Five years old, maybe six, and a cascade of decibels to vent into the ears of the unfortunate around them. The woman apologizes with a forced smile, placed on her face as if it were fake.
The street vendor with roasted chestnuts could still package a few more bags, but has been systematically ignored by all passersby. I move on, clearly perceiving the watershed between disappointment and anger. The girl behind me, twenty years worn poorly and an organic chemistry formula bouncing confusedly in her brain, stops in front of the roasted chestnuts, hesitates, and leaves without buying any.
I pass the newsstand with a mummy inside, the window of a stationery store that has lost faith in itself, and the dusty collection of an antique dealer.
Finally, I reach the metro stairs and catapult myself into rush hour hell.
The train has already pierced the station's saturated air with a roar and welcomes me into an atmosphere of unreal heat and brake stench.
In the car, an amorphous regiment of human beings is attracted to their phone screens. They sway, synchronized with every movement, and sometimes feel the need for support. A forest of hands projects everywhere, searching for the right hold. The man with tortoiseshell glasses misses his mark and messes up the snow-white hair of the little old lady with the dog in her arms. The exchange of apologies and pleasantries is seasoned with a nauseating blend of hypocrisy and good manners.
The girl on the other side of the car is metaphorically naked.
She's devoid of a phone or a companion to converse with. The dirty window doesn't reflect the image of her beautiful face.
We look at each other, across the few meters that divide us and the thousand life stories enclosed by zippers.
I imagine her under a straw umbrella, set in the hot white sand of a tropical beach, with the light breeze that precedes sunset, the sun's reflection on the shoreline, and a spread of red clouds on the horizon. For a moment, I perceive a breath passing through her black hair.
She hints at a smile, shy, drawn with a light stroke behind the evaporated memory of lip gloss. We seem made for each other, but we can't find the courage to speak.
When my stop arrives, too soon and suddenly, I get off with two solid certainties.
The first is that I will never see the metro girl again.
The second is that I've had an idea for a book.
It will be set in the streets of my city and it will be a horror story.

I’m not sleepy - No Rest for the Wicked. No Mercy for the Lost

 I’m not sleepy.

Let’s be clear: this is nothing new for me. I haven’t truly slept in years, and at the same time, I’m never fully awake. I live in a kind of virtual reality, as if I’m trapped in the lights of a nightclub before dawn, with the mirrored disco ball spinning and spinning, scattering a multitude of tiny bright dots across the carpet, the tables, and the empty glasses. My ears are wrecked by ringing, my eyes half-closed, as if bracing for the crash of my eyelids in a roar of iron, a cloud of dust and rust. I feel my brain turning to mush, sloshing inside my skull, and if I really pay attention, sometimes it turns liquid, threatening to trickle down my nose.

The avenue framed in the window cuts through a small grove of red maples, green acacias, and weeping willows—trees I planted myself. Now, strong and lush, they transform the lawn into a mesmerizing play of light and shadow, blending perfectly with the blue notes of John Coltrane. They come from an old Prestige Records vinyl, a slightly warped pressing that was born in a factory, made its way from New York in the mid-'50s, and—who knows after how many adventures—ended up in my hands from a secondhand stall in Turin, beneath the awnings of Piazza Madama Cristina.

The seller was a freckled Dutch guy with crane-like arms and a cigarette clamped between his lips. He wore a T-shirt with an X-ray of a skull printed on the chest, and inside the skull, there was a nail—just like the ones in The Life of Mary Magdalene by Salvador Dalí, long carpenter’s nails with broad heads. The medical report, printed right at stomach level, read: chronic obsession.

After half an hour of haggling, we settled on sixty euros and a Moroccan coffee.

Tonight, the record spins under the needle of my battered Pioneer, an orphan of a decent stylus and a belt elastic enough not to creak like a noose rope. The volume is so low that if you press your ear close, you can hear the music straight from the diamond’s friction.

But Veronica and Chicco are sleeping.

It’s not their fault that my sleep-wake cycle has gone to hell, that I’ve counted every last sheep, read through my entire bookshelf, and that TV is nothing but a parade of horrors.

Every time a leaf stirs, every time the shadows shift along the avenue, I feel that weight in my head—the one that’s been haunting me for years. It’s not a good travel companion because it has the habit of showing up when you least expect it and always in different forms. Tonight, for instance, it feels like a splinter lodged under a fingernail, or like the heat of a freshly fired bullet.

Codeine, corticosteroid, tranquilizer.

I’d like to pick one of these, but there’s never anything in the room, and my step is heavy—I limp on the right side, as if termites had gnawed through my heel. I don’t want to wake Veronica and Chicco. He’d pout and start crying, making that pain in my head throw its own personal Rio Carnival. She’d just murmur:

"Love, maybe next time wear headphones."

And she’d sign off with a lazy kiss before curling back up in bed.

Paracetamol, lysine salts, procaine.

Not even worth considering.

Whiskey.

That night, I was sipping a Rebel Yell from Kentucky while Nina Simone sang I Put a Spell on You. The deepest vibrations, the ones born from raw emotion, from the warmth of summer nights or from the sweat of long hours spent rehearsing, they reach you, massage your soul, and never disappoint. But it’s best if the lights are off.

Now, I settle for some water—and not even sparkling. I forgot to screw the cap back on the bottle, and the upside-down paper cup covering the neck let the gas escape, mixing with the musty air. I fill it to the brim and press my lips against the edge.

Better than nothing. And later, I’ll take a bite of an apple, a couple of apricots, or the speckled banana whose spots spread a little more each night. I’ve found that fruit has pain-relieving properties. When I told my doctor, he curled his lips over his crooked front teeth and laughed right in my face. Poor guy—he suffers from hyperdontia, a kind of dental overcrowding that makes him look like a shark, and he’s ugly as sin. Judging by his breath, he won’t be giving medical advice much longer.

The record ends in a soft hiss, the mechanical arm clicks up and settles precisely on its rest. And I’m still not sleepy.

I wouldn’t mind listening to some Randy Weston, because jazz is the most nocturnal music there is—and sometimes, it even helps you sleep. Or at least, it tries.

The records are lined up beneath the window sill, standing tall like dutiful soldiers, their spines worn by the years. If I remember correctly, The Modern Art of Jazz is the sixth masterpiece from the left, so I reach for it—and that’s when I see it.

A shadow, moving among the leaves.

That unsettling presence that always puts me in a foul mood.

The room is dark, but I’m careful, hiding behind the curtain. A branch of the maple quivers, as if a sparrow had just taken flight—but there are no birds in the garden, and the air is as still as a coffin’s interior. It doesn’t matter that the third streetlight’s bulb is burned out—I know for sure that someone is out there.

Whoever it is must have climbed the wall, probably using a ladder. Then an accomplice must have helped, stashing the equipment and waiting for instructions.

That night, Veronica was in the shower, and Chicco, kneeling on the living room rug, was playing with his Fabula cards, inventing stories and acting them out, switching fluidly between two or even three voices.

The next day would be Saturday, and the forecast promised summer temperatures and a sea as flat as glass.

That night, I regretted planting all those trees, because they were now shielding someone’s bad intentions.

Hunched at the base of the acacia, I had no doubt—there was a man.

The certainty that this would happen again has stolen my sleep for years. And even if some evil little gremlin is kicking my gray matter, tearing out my neurons bite by bite, even if my heart no longer beats like a metronome, even if my legs are weak and tired and my eyes have deceived me more than once—this time, I’m sure.

He’s moving along the wall, creeping closer.

And now, I have no doubt.

There is only one thing more terrifying than a loaded gun—

And that’s a loaded gun in the hands of a father who will do anything to protect his family.

It’s there, in its usual place. The cylinder is full of .357-caliber sweets, eager to spread their wings and unsheathe their blades at the first taste of gunpowder against their backs.

They are hungry.

And tonight, my Taurus Tracker is itching to take center stage.

That evening, however, the Taurus was empty, and I had to rummage through the drawer—you know how it goes. When panic takes over, your hands get tangled, objects conspire against you, and time speeds up. It feels like someone has poured a bucket of tar onto your windshield while you're rounding a curve, like someone else has shoved sea urchins into your underwear, and like—

Veronica had rushed out of the shower, screaming, because meanwhile, as I struggled with the bullets slipping from my nails cut too short, seeing the drum holes small and dark, that man was about to break into the house, and Chicco had stopped playing and was calling out loudly.

“Dad, help! Someone’s trying to get in!”

But a wise man does not repeat his mistakes, and this time, all the rounds settled neatly into the magazine, ready to fire. All that was left was to go down the stairs, in the dark, like when listening to music. Slowly, barefoot, using surprise to my advantage, I could find myself with the target perfectly framed behind the sights.

That night, fumbling with the ammunition, the revolver had slipped from my grasp, bouncing off the floor, and my sprint in slippers had echoed against the walls like a cavalry charge.

But now, I gain ground, eating up meters like a mole tunneling underground.

Veronica has locked herself in the bathroom, and Chicco must have hidden under the bed. Those are precious seconds gained, and everyone knows—the difference between life and death can fit within the beat of a wing. This time, the Taurus does not slip. The rubber grip clings to the skin of my palm, and there is a burning desire to shoot.

There is only one thing more terrifying than a loaded gun in the hands of a father determined to protect his family, and that is a loaded gun in the hands of a father willing to kill to protect his family.

There were two of them, I remember, their faces grotesquely deformed beneath the stretched nylon stockings. Their hair was plastered to their foreheads, lips smudged into ridiculous red blots, noses widened like oversized pears, and their breath struggled noisily through the tight weave of fabric. On both of them, a ridiculous apostrophe of stocking formed at the top of their heads, resembling the reservoir tip of a condom.

The first one, to the left by the door they had evidently forced open with some kind of tool, was pointing a large semi-automatic at Chicco, who was crouched between the telephone stand and the potted clivia. The other man had Veronica by the throat, pinning her between the crook of his arm and his broad chest. She was naked, desperate, trembling, with the barrel of a chrome-plated revolver pressed against her temple. Chicco had wet himself, but that wasn’t important. Later, I would have convinced him that the overfilled plant saucer had spilled over, forming a puddle, and in his fright, he had dunked his bottom in it like a biscuit in milk. His eyes were swollen with tears, and the scent of fear reached me even there, on the stair landing lined with framed paintings.

Now, I see the first man shining a flashlight as he rummages through the drawers. At the foot of the cabinet, discarded objects deemed unimportant lie scattered, trampled underfoot without care. I hear the crunch of an old watch crystal shattering beneath the intruder’s sole.

Both of them are wearing gloves. Their faces are uncovered.

The bastards aren’t afraid of justice. Or they don’t plan on leaving any witnesses.

The second man, gripping a small LED light between his teeth, fumbles anxiously with the lock on the safe.

They seem to be in a hurry.

The first time, it had been different.

The lights had been bright, and in no time, fear had transformed into rage—raw, primal aggression. The bullets had started flying. Short, one-way trips.

The man keeping Chicco in check had perforated the wall behind me, destroying a couple of paintings and hitting a third squarely on the nail holding it up. It crashed down, its fragile frame shattering into a trap of splinters. Retreating, I stumbled, and as I fell, I started firing too.

Bang: the center of the mirror shattered, a web of cracks spreading as fast as sound.

Bang: the intercom handset flew off like a venomous snake and began dangling, scraping against the wall.

Bang, and in the man’s chin—Chicco’s captor—a hole appeared, collapsing his face inward, held together only by the taut nylon of the stocking. Bang—then nothing but thick smoke filling the house. Bang—bricks pierced. Bang—splintered wood, crumbling plaster.

Bang.

A searing pain surged through my foot, as if a train had run over it, as if a bucket of gasoline had been poured onto the wound, climbing up my leg, into my groin, through my guts like a cat clawing its way up a curtain, into my heart, my throat, my chattering teeth. And bang…

A strangled scream cut through the haze, and the stench of blood seemed to float in the air. One more time: bang.

Then the lights went out. All at once.

But darkness is an ally.

I don’t let myself be distracted by the circles of light skimming over the safe’s door, dancing like club lights on a carpeted floor. I make myself small and descend the stairs on my rear, slow and deliberate. Veronica and Chicco have been through this before. They’ve learned. They breathe quietly, slowing their heartbeats, letting their blood flow gently through their veins. They blend into their surroundings like insects, hidden among the shower and the bidet, camouflaged by the floral patterns of the rug.

I approach like a submarine—deep, stealthy, silent. The noises guide me, giving me their exact coordinates. The targets are now in the crosshairs of my periscope.

One down, two down, and I’ll watch them sink.

Something crashes into me, and I squeeze the trigger.

You know, a wise man tends not to repeat his mistakes. But a flawed man? Oh, he repeats them all right. And as I recite that proverb in my mind, I realize I never took off the safety. When I try again, it’s already too late. The universe has shifted, the dealer has dealt a new hand, and this time, I’ve drawn a losing set of cards.

The first body slams into me like a steamroller. Even with the safety off now, I can’t fire. The grip is too tight—we’re practically fused into a single being. Siamese twins.

I let instinct take over. I do what I can. I smash the intruder’s head with the butt of the Taurus—once, twice, ten times—hitting so hard that I see stars, my hand aching unbearably. I think about the damn painkillers that aren’t in the bedroom.

Codeine, cortisone, sedatives.

Glue.

There’s a tube of it on the nightstand—strong stuff, good for sniffing when the pill blisters are sadly empty.

But I hold on. I endure.

I tense every muscle, turn myself into unfeeling stone, until my weapon breaks under the strain. But the satisfaction is immense when blood pours from his wounded head, dripping into my mouth.

Sweet and warm.

The second man has arms of steel. He grabs my ankles, and the pain in my foot resurfaces—horrific, just like the first time, that same furious cat climbing up, turning my testicles into minced meat.

He jerks me downward with determined yanks. I try to brace my spine against the steps, but they’re marble—unyielding, pitiless. I find myself pinned beneath the bastard I had just bludgeoned. He slides over my face until the hideous snarl of the other one comes into view.

He has rows upon rows of teeth, like a werewolf. His breath stinks like a landfill, and he growls like a monster. He wraps his hands around my neck, reigniting that excruciating migraine, and somehow, I land a punch that sends half a dozen of his teeth cascading down like gravel spilling from a truck.

But it’s too late.

The grotesque snarl plunges a blade into my jugular.

The Dutch guy who had sold me that John Coltrane record was wearing that impossible-to-find T-shirt with an X-ray print of a skull. I’ll never forget it. I admit it—I envied him for it, and all my searches to find one just like it had been useless.

When I open my eyes, the T-shirt is hanging on the wall.

The one who jumped me first is hunched over a plain desk—four machine-bent metal tubes for legs, a worn-out Formica top resting on a flimsy frame above a single drawer. He’s writing by hand, checking boxes, filling out forms with the diligence of a pensioner waiting in line at the post office. His tongue pushes against his cheek. He’s got a bruise on his temple and his hair is matted with some whitish pulp.

I was sure I’d hurt him pretty bad. And I swear, next time, I’m buying a sturdier gun.

The second guy—uglier than death itself—has his back to me, staring at the wall where something is hanging next to the used-record dealer’s T-shirt. His elbow is raised as he scratches his chin, then occasionally lets his hand slide down to his neck, massaging the nape.

I’m tied to a table that scrapes like the worn asphalt of an old road. And I let go. To hell with dignity. I care about only two things:

“What did you do to my wife? Where’s Chicco?”

He answers without turning around, while his buddy with the messy hair keeps writing.

“You’ll see them when you start behaving yourself.”

“No, I want to see them now!” My voice screeches like a seagull’s cry. “I want to know if they’re okay.”

The guy writing stops, puts on his glasses, and looks at me. Behind those thick lenses, his tired, watery eyes look like a couple of dark stones sunk in a goldfish bowl. He goes back to his work and mumbles under his breath.

“Lacerations on the head, minor. Confusion state.”

The ropes cut into my skin, and I feel the headache creeping back in. But at least I take comfort in one thing: I must have been out for a while, because it’s daylight outside. The morning light, mixing with the buzzing ceiling lamp full of dead flies, filters through the frosted glass of a high-up window, casting our shadows on the back wall and across a sturdy metal bookcase.

The man with his back to me turns around. His lip is split, smeared with some greasy ointment, swollen like a beach ball. He glares at me, then grabs an ice pack from beside the scribbler. He presses it against his wound, grimacing. His voice is thick, like he’s sucking on his own tongue.

“This can’t go on, you know that?”

“Show me your face, you bastard!”

He does. And flashes a crooked grin. His gums are covered in blood, and there’s an extra tooth that’s squeezed its way between his front teeth.

“Happy with what you did?”

I cry.

Because I’m useless. Because I didn’t have the guts to kill them. Because I have no idea where my family is. The thought hits me out of nowhere, and the image of two corpses takes shape in my mind. They could be dead because of my incompetence. And then—again—that migraine, shattering my thoughts like broken glass.

The guy with the mangled lip opens a drawer and pulls out an envelope. Pale yellow, the kind bad news comes in. Inside, what looks like a medical report. He reads the first lines under his breath, but trying to read his lips is like trying to understand a broken radio.

“The professor agrees. We’ll attempt the procedure…”

“I want to see Veronica first, and then my son. And we have to be together all day.” I scream, and a stiletto of pain pierces my skull, straight through.

Paracetamol. Lysine salts. Procaine.

Whiskey.

Glue.

I get it now—it’s not easy to talk when your face has been rearranged with punches. So I hold back a laugh as Beach Ball Lip struggles to make himself understood.

“The last time we left you alone with your wife and kid, you tried to kill them.”

I remember. But goddammit—Veronica had reptilian pupils and was flicking a forked tongue at me, not even trying to hide it. And Chicco—damn him—was speaking Aramaic!

He ignores me. “It’s a complicated and risky operation, but we have to try.”

“Why don’t you just drop dead, you filthy rat? Fucking burglar!”

“Because if I die, there won’t be anyone left here who can stand you.”

“I’m as good as gold!”

“Sure, buddy. Just look at what you did to us.”

“It’s exactly what you deserve!”

The scribbler chimes in.

“Oh, right! You tried to kill me with a banana and covered my hair in this… smoothie-looking crap!”

“It was a gun, a goddamn Brazilian revolver!”

Yeah. With spots on the peel that grow bigger every night.

“I’m never buying a Taurus again. Italian guns are way better.”

The guy with the busted lip leans in close. It’s easy to act tough when the other guy’s tied to a table. His breath reeks of stale blood, and I get the feeling no dentist will ever be able to save that canine of his.

“Last time, you wrecked the cafeteria, pal. The institute doesn’t have the budget to rebuild it every time you come down for a bite.”

All I did was flip a couple of tables and knock over a pot of vegetable soup. These guys have a funny definition of “wrecking.” I insist.

“How’s Chicco?”

He runs a hand through my hair, then takes the chance to shine a light in my eyes. The same tiny flashlight he had in his mouth while gambling on the safe’s combination.

“He’s fine—thanks to you. He’s not fine—also thanks to you.”

My heart turns to butter, and I don’t care if I cry again.

“And Veronica?”

“She’s okay. Because of you. But it won’t be long before she moves on and finds someone else.”

I know. Now everything is clear.

My lucid moments are getting fewer and shorter. Soon, they’ll abandon me for good. Now I’ve seen it—the doctor’s kind eyes. He doesn’t actually have a mouth full of teeth like IT. He just never wanted to get rid of that extra incisor that makes him stand out.

Women love him anyway. Even if, when he injects the sedative into my neck, it feels more like a stab wound.

He leaves the room, and his colleague follows. They’re both wrecked. It’s not the first time I’ve beaten the shit out of them. Night shifts at this clinic aren’t easy, and yeah, I’ve made things harder for everyone. I was the one who glued the medicine cabinet shut. Some “safe,” huh?

They leave the light on, whispering to each other even before stepping out. Once in the hallway, their voices rise. That place must know more about madness than the whole psychiatric faculty.

I look around.

The record seller’s T-shirt is gone. In its place, an X-ray of my skull, backlit just right. And damn, that bullet is crystal clear.

A nine-millimeter. Shining like a diamond.

Eight grams, wedged between my parietal bone and brain matter, nestled between my hemispheres, tight with blood vessels and neurons.

The weight in my head.

Even through the haze, the confusion, that damn thief, before I killed him, had planted it there—like he’d parked his car after carefully studying the spot.

And sure, the hole in my forehead healed perfectly, thanks to a titanium plate and a little skin grafted from my ass. But my “pet peeve,” as I like to joke, is still there, causing more short circuits than a bunch of punks pissing on a transformer.

Enough. One last round. Let’s hope the dealer hands out good cards. And let’s wait for the carpenter willing to pry this nail out.

With a good hammer, properly sterilized.

The way it went in, it has to come out.

And when it does, finally, I’ll get a good night’s sleep.

L