Game for Five Read Online Free Page A

say nothing while the doctor wiped his glasses for what must have been the fiftieth time. The doctor was in his early fifties, very tall, about six and a half feet, with an easy-going face and graying hair, and looked exactly what he was: a doctor at a crime scene. He had a vague resemblance to the singer Francesco Guccini, and seemed as much at ease in that parking lot as Francesco did on stage. He had dressed in great haste as usual: in addition, he had arrived home late from a reception and couldn’t have gotten much sleep.
    â€œNo, but if
I
don’t tell her . . . Poor thing. Poor things, both of them.”
    He seemed more concerned about the mother than the daughter. That was only natural: the mother was an old friend of his, who always spent at least a couple of weeks in Pineta every year. He probably hadn’t seen the daughter much, just enough to recognize her. Whenever they went out together, the children (Arianna’s daughter, Dr. Carli’s son, and other young people from the area) went out separately.
    Massimo was released from his predicament by the stentorian voice of Inspector Fusco, about whom he had decidedly mixed feelings.
    He had talked about him once with Dr. Carli, as it happened, and they had found themselves in agreement that it wasn’t humanly possible to find anything in Inspector Fusco (or Dr. Fusco as he liked to be called, being a graduate) that inspired the slightest sympathy. After the two men had concluded that Vinicio Fusco was prickly, arrogant, pig-headed, conceited and vain, the doctor had passed judgment:
    â€œThe man is like a book of jokes about Calabrians.”
    And whenever Massimo, who had entirely approved of this conclusion, thought about Fusco he couldn’t help wondering if, thanks to rubbing shoulders with Rimediotti, he wasn’t becoming a bit of a racist. He consoled himself with the thought that when he was at university in Pisa, a Sicilian friend of his, who could be accused of everything except making racial distinctions, had in a drunken moment drawn up “a profile of the perfect idiot”: and among various other basic characteristics that Massimo couldn’t remember, this person had to be an engineer, a supporter of Juventus, and a Calabrian.
    Anyway, Inspector—or Dr.—Fusco had arrived just at the right moment. In a good mood, because he loved his work and liked doing it in front of an audience, he had come up behind the two of them, taking them by surprise, and boomed cheerfully, “So, Walter, tell me everything: age, sex, time, cause, any other business.”
    The doctor looked down at the tips of his shoes, put his hands together behind his back, and said, “Age nineteen, sex female, as if you needed a doctor to tell you that, time of death between two and five hours ago, no more, no less. Cause of death, strangulation. Any other business, the world is full of assholes.”
    Fusco took this full on. He had almost certainly forgotten that Carli knew her. He stood there for a moment, with his jaw jutting forward and his hands on his hips, then he resolved to get on with things to cancel out the fact that he’d made a fool of himself. He immediately began by screaming at the photographers that he wanted the prints before the morning was over, then focused his attention on a dark green Clio parked nearby, with its right-side wheels stuck in the mud.
    â€œWhat about that?”
    He went to the car, looked through the window, and assumed the expression of someone who understands everything. Then he pointed at one of the officers and beckoned him to approach.
    Massimo watched in amusement as the officer, a young man as tall as a beanpole, strode up to the diminutive Fusco and stood to attention to receive his orders.
    â€œAt ease, Pardini,” Fusco said, addressing the officer’s chest. “That’s the car belonging to the young man who found the body. The keys are still on the dashboard.