Free The Crossroads by Niccolò Ammaniti

Euroedil’s wide gateway and into a large area of beaten earth, which that day was nothing but a quagmire, surrounded by a high fence. On one side of the yard stood the lorries, the mechanical diggers and the bulldozers, on the other the workmen’s and secretaries’ cars and the Porsche Cayenne of Max Marchetta, the owner’s son, who during the past year had taken over the running of the firm from his father.
    In the middle of the yard was a prefabricated building which contained the offices and a meeting room. Next to it, a corrugated iron shed which served as a changing room for the workmen.
    Rino parked next to a big yellow bulldozer and the three men got out of the van. The rain had stopped, but there was a cold, biting wind.
    â€˜We’re going to have to get out with the digger in a moment. Can you move your van?’ a black man in a hard hat said to Rino.
    â€˜Move it yourself!’ Rino threw him the keys and the other man, taken by surprise, dropped them and had to fish them out of the mud.
    â€˜Isn’t it amazing. They’re even giving the orders now.’ Rino smirked at Danilo as he set off towards the offices. ‘I’m going to see Marchetta. What about you two?’
    Quattro Formaggi and Danilo stopped. ‘We’ll wait for you here …’
    Rino wiped his boots on the mat, opened the glass door of the offices and entered a small square room. The floor was covered with imitation parquet. A glass-fronted noticeboard hung on a wall next to a closed door. Two shabby armchairs and a table littered with building trade magazines stood in a corner. Opposite them was a desk covered with an incredible number of little wooden Pinocchios.
    Behind a computer screen sat Rita Pirro. The secretary had always been there, at least in Rino’s memories. In her youth she hadn’t been bad looking, but age had robbed her of whatever beauty she’d had.
    Her age was impossible to determine. She might have been fifty, might have been sixty. Long years of sitting in that windowless little room suffering the cold in winter and the heat in summer had shrivelled her up like a kipper. She was tall and thin, had a thick layer of foundation cream on her face and wore a pair of red-rimmed glasses with a string of pearls dangling down from them. Behind her back, stuck to the wall, were some faded photographs of three toddlers playing on a seashore thick with beach umbrellas. Her children, probably all married by now.
    According to Rino, Rita Pirro had once been old Angelo Marchetta’s mistress. ‘A blow-job now and then. That kind of thing. Short and sweet. In the office, during the lunch hour, so as not to waste any time.’
    â€˜Hello, Zena,’ said the woman, looking up from the screen and scrutinising him, before her fingers continued tapping on the keyboard.
    For a moment Rino had an image of her giving a blow-job to that fat old letch Angelo Marchetta, and he smiled.
    â€˜Hello, beautiful. How are things?’
    The secretary didn’t even turn her head. ‘Can’t complain.’
    What a strange woman. She had always treated him like dirt. As if she was the Duchess of York and it was only by some quirk of fate that she had ended up in that dump. Hadn’t she ever looked in the mirror? Hadn’t she ever stopped to think that all she had to live for was a collection of Pinocchios, some children who didn’t give a shit about her, a husband who had died in a factory accident and that windowless little hole?
    Rino approached her desk. ‘Is Marchetta in?’
    â€˜Do you have an appointment?’ asked the secretary, her eyes still on the screen.
    â€˜An appointment? Since when has anyone had to have an appointment to speak to Marchetta?’
    â€˜New orders.’ Rita Pirro made a movement with her head, indicating Marchetta’s door. ‘I’ll fix you one if you like.’
    Rino placed his hands on the desk and said: