Giorgio Faletti: I Kill

‘How promising? Like a thirty-two or a twenty-seven?’

‘Fuck off, cheapskate,’ retorted Laurent, only half-joking.

‘Like the man said, I don’t need advice. I need addresses.’

‘Stop talking shit and hurry up.’

‘Got it. I’m heading into the tunnel now,’ Jean-Loup lied.

They were cut off. Jean-Loup smiled. That was how Laurent always defined his new ideas: promising. Jean-Loup had to admit that they almost always were. But unfortunately for Laurent, that was how he also defined the numbers he hoped would turn up on the roulette wheel, and that almost never happened.

He turned left on to Avenue des Spelugues and glanced at the reflection of the lights in the square, the Hôtel de Paris and the Café de Paris like sentinels on either side of the casino. The barricades and bleachers set up for the Grand Prix had been taken down in record time. Nothing was allowed to obstruct the sacred cult of gambling, money and superficiality in Monte Carlo for too long.

The square receded behind him, and he drove at a gentle pace down the hill on which Ferraris, Williamses and McLarens had raced at unbelievable speed just days before. After the curve of the Virage du Portier, the sea breeze caressed his face. He drove through the tunnel and out into the harbour, where 100 million euros’ worth of boats were illuminated. Above, to the left, the castle, swathed in a soft glow, seemed to guarantee that the Prince and his family would sleep undisturbed.

Though he was used to the view, Jean-Loup couldn’t help admiring it. He could understand the effect it had on tourists from Osaka, Austin or Johannesburg: it took their breath away and left them with an amateur photographer’s case of tennis elbow.

By then, he was practically there. He drove past the harbour, the Piscine and then the Rascasse, turned left and drove down the ramp to the underground car park, three levels deep, directly under the plaza in front of the radio station.

He parked in the first empty spot and went up the stairs and outside. Music reached him through the open doors of Stars’N’Bars, a mandatory stop for habitués of Monaco’s nightlife. A bar where you could grab a beer or some Tex-Mex while waiting for the night to go by, before heading off to the discos and nightclubs along the coast.

The huge building in which Radio Monte Carlo was located, right in front of the quay, housed a random assortment of establishments: restaurants, yacht showrooms and art galleries, as well as the studios of Télé Monte Carlo. Jean-Loup rang the video intercom and stood directly in front of the camera so that it shot a close-up of his right eyeball.

The brusque voice of Raquel, the receptionist and secretary, emerged. ‘Who is it?’

‘Good evening. This is Mr Eye for an Eye. Open up, will you? I’m wearing contacts, so the retina print won’t work.’

He stepped back so that the girl could see him. There was a soft laugh from the intercom. ‘Come on up, Mr Eye for an Eye,’ she said, warmly.

‘Thanks. I was coming to sell you a set of encyclopedias, but I think I need some eye drops now.’

There was a loud click as the door unlocked. When the lift door slid aside on the fourth floor, he found himself nose to nose with the chubby face of Pierrot, standing with a pile of CDs in his hands.

Pierrot was the station mascot. He was twenty-two but had the mind of a child. He was shorter than average, with a round face and hair that stood straight up, which made him always look to Jean-Loup like a smiling pineapple. Pierrot was a very pure soul. He had the gift, which only simple people have, of making everyone like him at first glance. He himself liked only those he thought deserved it, and his instinct was rarely wrong.

Pierrot adored music. He became confused when confronted with the most basic reasoning, but he would be suddenly analytical and linear when it came to his favourite subject. He had a computer-like memory for the vast radio archives and for music in general. All you had to do was mention a title or the tune of a song and he would dash off, soon to return with the record or CD. He was an absolute obsessive – people at the radio station called him ‘Rain Boy’.

‘Hi, Jean-Loup.’

‘Pierrot, what are you still doing here at this hour?’

‘Mother’s working late tonight. The big guys are giving a dinner. She’s coming to pick me up when it’s a little more later.’

Jean-Loup smiled to himself. Pierrot had his own special way of expressing himself, a different language that was often the butt of jokes. His mother, the woman who was coming to get him when it’s a little more later, worked as a cleaner for an Italian family in Monte Carlo.

Jean-Loup had met Pierrot and his mum a couple of years earlier, when they had been standing in front of the radio station. He’d paid almost no attention to this strange couple until the woman had come up to him and spoke timidly, with the air of someone always apologizing to the world for her presence. She had clearly been waiting for him.

‘Excuse me. Are you Jean-Loup Verdier? I’m sorry to bother you, but could I have your autograph for my son? Pierrot always listens to the radio and you’re his favourite.’

Jean-Loup had looked at her modest clothing and her hair that had gone prematurely grey. She was probably younger than she looked.

He had smiled. ‘Of course, madame. That’s the least I can do for such a faithful listener.’

As he took the paper and pen, Pierrot had come up to them. ‘You’re just the same.’

Jean-Loup had shrugged. ‘Just the same as what?’

‘The same as in the radio .’

Jean-Loup had turned to the woman, puzzled. She had lowered her gaze and voice. ‘My son, you know, is…’

She had stopped, as if she couldn’t think of the right word. Jean-Loup had looked at Pierrot carefully and felt a stab of pity for the boy and his mother.

The same as in the radio.

Jean-Loup had realized that what Pierrot meant to say, in his own way, was that he was just as he’d imagined him. Pierrot had smiled, and at that moment Jean-Loup was smitten with the immediate, instinctive liking that the boy always inspired.

‘All right, young man. Now that I know you listen to me, the least I can do is sign an autograph. Hold this for me a minute?’

He had handed the boy the pile of papers and postcards under his arm so that his hands were free to write. As Jean-Loup signed the autograph, Pierrot had glanced at the paper on top of the pile. He had raised his head with a satisfied air. ‘Three Dog Night,’ he said, calmly.

‘What?’

‘Three Dog Night. The answer to the first question is Three Dog Night. And the second is Allan Allsworth and Ollie Alsall,’ continued Pierrot with his own very unique English pronunciation of Allan Holdsworth and Ollie Halsall.

Jean-Loup had remembered that the paper on top of the pile contained a list of questions for a pop quiz scheduled for that afternoon’s show. He’d written it a couple of hours before. The first question was ‘What group from the seventies sang the song “Celebrate”?’ And the second was ‘Who were the guitarists in the group Tempest?’

Pierrot’s answers were spot on. Jean-Loup had stared at the mother in astonishment. She could only shrug her shoulders as if apologizing for him. ‘Pierrot loves music. If I listened to him, I’d be buying records instead of food. He’s… well… he is what he is. But with music, he remembers almost everything he reads and hears on the radio.’

‘Try answering the other questions too, Pierrot,’ Jean-Loup had said, pointing to the paper the boy was still holding.

One by one, without any hesitation, Pierrot had gone through the fifteen questions, answering each one correctly as soon as he read it. And they weren’t easy by any means. Jean-Loup was astonished.