Free Black Run by Antonio Manzini Page B

buttocks of the young police functionary.
    He’d have to find out if she had a boyfriend. He hoped she did. Fewer headaches that way.
    Sitting at the bar and sipping an espresso, Rocco Schiavone heard a church bell ring the hour of noon. He didn’t feel like going home. He wasn’t hungry. He limited himself to watching the gray sky where the clouds raced after one another in layers, in a competition without meaning.
    â€œDottore, do you want something to eat?” Ugo, the proprietor of the bar across from police headquarters, asked him. Rocco shook his head no. He just sat there, looking up at the sky.
    How much longer could he stand living in this city? There was nothing familiar here. Everything about Rocco Schiavone was in Rome. And had been for forty-six years.
    A handkerchief in the mouth , he thought.
    The last thing they needed was a settling of accounts among Sicilian families at the foot of Monte Rosa.

    â€œCan a guy surrender?” Rocco asked the glass pane of the window overlooking the street.
    But it was Ugo’s voice that answered him. “Of course he can. But I’d rather go on fighting than let myself be taken prisoner.”
    Rocco smiled. And at that very moment, a piercing, unpleasant sound from his cell phone informed him that he’d just received a text.
    You going to come see me?
    It was Nora. He’d forgotten about her.
    He had a choice between going to her apartment in Duvet and going to Champoluc to start doing his job.
    He opted for the first choice.
    â€œCan I make a phone call?” Rocco asked as he got up from the bed.
    Nora watched his ass. It was a nice ass. Muscular, firm, round. A little less nice where the legs were concerned. Too skinny for a man, they would have been nicer on a young lady. But at least they were straight. Perhaps Rocco Schiavone would benefit from a little diet and some exercise. Not so much for the love handles—Nora knew that after a certain age you just can’t get rid of them, and also, according to a study done by one of the usual American universities somewhere in the Ohio hinterland, it was also a genetic issue if a man couldn’t achieve a sculpted six-pack. And the biceps weren’t bad, either. But a diet and the occasional workout would have toned him up nicely, along with his chest muscles. They were starting to droop. “Why don’t you go to the gym every once in a while?” she asked him.
    Rocco looked himself over. “I never have before. Why should I start now?”

    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œSo can I make this phone call, yes or no?”
    â€œYou know that you have a nice nose?” Nora asked, pulling the blankets up to cover her breasts. “It’s long and pointy. Funny. And look at all that hair! How did that song go?” Nora started singing: “Gimme a head with hair. Long, beautiful hair. Shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen . . . Hair. ”
    â€œOh! I’m standing here freezing to death! Can I or can’t I make this phone call?”
    â€œCertainly, you can make a phone call,” Nora replied. Rocco yanked the quilt off the bed, leaving Nora covered with nothing but sheets, wrapped the quilt around himself, and headed off to the living room.
    â€œUgh!” Nora cried.
    Rocco turned around and looked at her, baffled.
    â€œWith that blanket on, you look like an Apache.”
    The deputy police chief caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror next to the door. He smiled. He brushed back his hair. “More like a Huron, actually.”
    Then, without another word, he vanished through the bedroom door, the Ikea quilt trailing after him.
    That’s the way it always was. After sex, Rocco Schiavone’s mood always turned blacker than a cave’s mouth. After four months of going out with him, Nora understood that. What she hadn’t yet figured out was that man’s timing: before making love, he was intractable.