Page 96 of Two Chances With You

Well, I’ve got to do this. I gallop up the stairs. There they are. The photographers are all sitting or, to be more accurate, sprawled on low, faded settees. They’re waiting for the diva to emerge. A strange profession.

When I arrive, they understandably give me not so much as a first, much less a second, glance. So much the better. Already, it’s a burden to be carrying these sheets of paper. No doubt the writers will have comments to share.

I look around, trying to determine where they might be.SCHIFFER. The name, perfectly printed in large letters by a LaserWriter, stands out clearly against the first door. The second door has nothing written on it. So I knock. I hear no answer. I wait a few seconds and then I open the door. Nothing. Silence. But then I notice a narrow hallway. At the end of it, another door. Same format, same color. I proceed through it, my hands full of paper. Maybe they’re down there. In that other room. Well, as long as I’m here, I might as well give it a shot.

But as I approach, I hear a sound. A strange sound. A few muffled laughs. Then a series of chaotic, dull, rebellious movements. Like the flailing kicks of a child lifted into the air, trying to kick a ball beneath its feet. So I open the door without knocking. Bad manners, plain and simple. But it just comes spontaneously to me, and what I see strikes me as surreal. Toscani is holding Gin from behind, both arms wrapped around her. Sesto is leaning on a table with the usual toothpick in his mouth and smiling in amusement at the scene, while Micheli is in front of Gin, moving to a strange tempo.

Then, all at once, I manage to focus more clearly on the scene. Gin’s blouse is torn. Her breasts are bare, uncovered by a bra twisted aside. There’s a length of packing tape covering her mouth. Toscani is licking her neck with his rough tongue. Micheli, the Serpent, has his trousers unzipped in front, his dick out, and he’s masturbating.

Gin, her hair soaked with sweat from her struggle, suddenly turns to look at me. She’s desperate. She sees me. She heaves a sigh. She seems to experience a moment of relief.

Toscani locks eyes with me and stops licking her neck. His tongue hangs out in midair, as does his sagging jaw. Sesto isn’t much better. He wears a stunned expression, and his mouth falls open too. His stupid toothpick therefore hangs dangling in midair, stuck to his lower lip.

Finally, those sheets of paper come in handy for some real purpose. It only takes a split second. I hurl the papers forcefully into Sesto’s face, the only one who might intervene quickly. I catch him full in the face. He tries to dodge the blow. He slides off the table and winds up on the floor.

Micheli, the Serpent, doesn’t have a chance to turn around fast enough. I hit him with a punch from right to left, open-handed as if trying to push him away. But I catch him right in the trachea. He flies backward, landing with both legs in the air and a strange moan. His timid little dick retracts instantly.

Toscani stops embracing Gin. In an instant, I’m on them. I free her, pulling the packing tape off her lips. “Are you okay?”

She moves her head up and down as if to say yes, with tears in her eyes and her brow furrowed. Her lips tremble in a desperate attempt to speak. “Shhh,” I tell her. I gently lead her toward the exit. I can tell that she’s putting her bra back in place and straightening her blouse. Getting her thoughts in order, to the extent that it’s possible. She’s trying to find a place for her grief and pain. She’s trying to cry. But she can’t seem to do it. In any case, she doesn’t turn around. She just walks away. Unsteady on her feet, her footsteps wandering as she walks, lost in thought about what to do next.

But as for me, I have not a shadow of a doubt. Boom. I whip around and hit Toscani with a violence I didn’t even know I possessed. I punch him full in the face from below, my fist taking in lip, nose, and forehead, basically a sliding impact, but putting all my weight and all my rage into that blow.

He slams against the wall, and no sooner does he come to that sudden halt, than I am all over him again. Straight into his belly with my right foot, taking his breath away, giving him just enough time to hit the floor before I pull that same foot back, a short windup for a powerful kick, smashing into him like a ricocheting ball. Right in the face. Like a penalty kick, like the finest work of Christian Vieri, or Giuseppe Signori, or Cristiano Ronaldo. With a bellowing shout and a threat, it’s a penalty kick I have no intention of getting wrong.

Boom. Again. Against the wall. I shatter his cheek, and there’s a spurt of blood. I climb over Micheli who’s still gasping and trying to catch his breath. I smile at him involuntarily. I’m savoring the fact that he’s starting to recover. He needs to be in better shape for what I naturally intend to save for last as the grand finale.

But now I’m on Sesto. He covers his face with both hands, hoping for a miracle that never happens. Boom! I hit him with a right straight, wide, handsome, tense, and open. From right to left with all the weight in my body. Again! Right there, on his ear, with a violence so overwhelming that I’m surprised it doesn’t pop off the side of his head. But then I quiet down. In the end, he’s bleeding. And he stupidly, in his surprise, still incredulous, takes his hands off his face and holds them out in front of his eyes. He looks at them, unable to believe it, searching for who knows what absurd explanation for that pain, that blood, and that noise.

But he’s not fast enough to realize anything. Boom! Now his face is uncovered. Boom. One after the other I land a series of blows to his face. One after the other, faster and faster, faster and faster, like a lunatic. The only thing holding him up are my fists, supporting that face as it slowly disintegrates. Boom! Boom! Boom! And I feel no pain and I feel no pity and I feel nothing at all.

I smile. I stop. I take a breath. Smash. A chair hits me from behind. It catches me in full on the back of the neck but all I hear is the blow. I turn around. Micheli is standing in front of me. He’s finally caught his breath.

I open my eyes wide, trying to regain focus after the blow I just took. And just in time, I see the chair arrive again. I bend down instinctively as it swings over my head. All it takes is just a split second and I feel a faint gust just over my hair. Dodged it.

I pop up again, blocking his arm, gripping his wrist and making him drop the chair. Then I pull him toward me, slamming my head forward to meet him. A perfect headbutt, right to his nose, breaking it.

Behind him, all those photographers have appeared. They voraciously wave their cameras in the air, inundating us with dazzling flashes. They must have seen Gin leave. They must have seen her, traumatized, her blouse torn, in tears. But they saw her. And that offers me some comfort.

Chapter 36

Idon’t have time to go downstairs. The news has arrived before I can. A strange agitation has created a feverish situation throughout the theater. It feels like being caught in an unexpected live broadcast. Everyone’s running in this direction or that. Curious, crazed, shouting, urgently demanding more information, already confident masters of some variant of the story. They color it as they best prefer, adding tidbits, blowing details out of proportion, altering the beginning or the end. “Have you heard?” “Wait what happened?” “A brawl…a security guard fired his gun.” “Is anyone hurt?” “Everyone is!”

I ask about Gin. One young woman tells me that she’s gone home. So much the better. I head for the exit. Tony comes to meet me. He seems agitated too. He must seriously be upset given that he doesn’t have the usual cigarette in his mouth.

“Get out of here, Step. The police are on their way.”

He seems to be the only one to have understood anything. “However it turns out, you did the right thing. I’ve always cordially disliked those three.”

I head for my motorcycle. I hear my name being called. “Step, Step!” It’s Marcantonio, and he’s running straight toward me. “Everything okay?” For a moment, I look at my bloodied hands, and without meaning to, I massage them. Strange. They don’t even hurt.

Marcantonio notices. I reassure him. “Yes, everything’s fine.”

“Okay. So much the better. Then you get on home. I’ll stay here. We can talk later, and I’ll fill you in on everything. Is Gin all right?”

“I don’t know. She went home.”

Then he tries to defuse the high drama. “Well, for this last episode, it can air practically without changes now, right?”

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