also developing a half-yearly illustrated magazine called Satanic Family.’ His voice had changed, it was becoming more animated. He must have given this speech a number of times. ‘Our followers are spread out like leopard spots all across the peninsula. Our head office is still in Pavia, but at this point, given the situation, we have decided to expand and take a step forward. And here you come into play, Mantos.’
Saverio undid the button on his collar. ‘Me? What do you mean, me?’
‘Yes, you. I know that you have been having some organisational problems with your Wilde Beasts of Abaddon. It's a predicament familiar to a lot of small sects. The Reaper told me that you've had a number of deserters over the last season and there are only three of you left.’
‘Well . . . To be honest, if you include me, there are actually four of us.’
‘Furthermore, you still haven't done anything noteworthy except for, as I see on the forum, some graffiti worshipping the Devil on the viaducts of Anguillara Sabazia.
‘Ah, you'd heard about that?’ Saverio asked proudly.
‘At this moment in time your sect is seriously ailing. And as you well know, with today's crisis there's not much hope you'll survive another year. Forgive me being frank, but you are an insignificant blip in the hard panorama of real Italian Satanism.’
Saverio undid his seat belt. ‘We're trying hard. We're planning to recruit new adepts and carry out some plans of action that'll really put us on the map of today's Satanism. We're a small group, but we're really tight.’
In the meantime, Kurtz carried on all by himself. ‘What I want to propose to you is that you disband the Wilde Beasts and join the cursed band of the Children of the Apocalypse. What I'm offering is for you to be in charge of Central Italy.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You will be the managing director of the branch for Central Italy and Sardinia of the Children of the Apocalypse.’
‘Me?’ Saverio's heart swelled with pride. ‘Why me?’
‘The Reaper has told me good things about you. He told me that you've got charisma, willpower, and you are a fervent believer in Satan. And as you well know, to be the leader of a Satanic sect you need to love the forces of Evil more than your own self.’
‘Really, did he say that?’ Saverio couldn't believe it. He was convinced that Paolo hated him. ‘All right. I'm in.’
‘Wonderful. We'll organise an orgy in your honour at Terracina, where we've got a number of novices from the Agro Pontino . . .’
Mantos relaxed against the head rest. ‘Murder, Zombie and Silvietta will be so happy to hear about this offer.’
‘Hold it. The offer only applies to you. Your adepts will have to complete the application forms, which they can download from our website and send in to us. We will evaluate them case by case.’
‘Of course.’
Kurtz's voice was flat again. ‘As you well know, favouritism is the death of every business.’
‘Right.’
‘You'll have to come up to Pavia for a brief orientation, where we'll give you the basic notions of the liturgy we've adopted.’
Saverio looked out the window. The cars were still banked up. On the other side of the road, on some landfill covered in billboards, the local train to Rome whizzed past. It looked like a glowing snake. In front of an SMA supermarket people were crowding around with their trolleys. The moon, above the rooftops, looked like a ripe grapefruit and the Northern Star, the one that guided the sailors . . . That one there was the Northern Star, wasn't it?
I don't feel very well.
The pappardelle in hare sauce were to blame; they'd given him indigestion. He could feel an unpleasant pressure pushing up at the mouth of his oesophagus. He widened his jaw as if he was about to yawn, but instead produced a sort of gurgle, which he plugged with one hand.
Kurtz was still explaining: ‘To begin with, you could share the responsibility with the Reaper . . .’
It's too hot in here . . . He couldn't keep track of the conversation. He pressed the button to open the window.
‘You're a little behind in that area, but I'll give them to you, don't worry about it and then . . .’
A waft of air that tasted like chips and kebab from the kiosk in front of the shopping centre slid into the car. The rancid smell made him nauseous. He curved his back and held back a burp.
‘We'll set up a series of Satanic masses around the Castelli Romani area, naturally under your direct control, and then you'll need . . .’
He tried to concentrate on Kurtz's monologue, but he felt as if he'd just swallowed a kilo of mouldy tripe. He undid the top button of his trousers and felt his stomach swell.
‘Enotrebor, who's in charge of Southern Italy, has done some remarkable stuff in Basilicata and Molise . . .’
An Alka-Seltzer, a Coke . . .
‘Mantos? Mantos, are you there?’
‘What?’
‘Can you hear me?’
‘Yes . . . of course . . .’
‘So, what do you say? Would next week work for you, if we meet and start drawing up a work plan?’
Saverio Moneta would have liked to say yes, that it was an honour, that he was happy to be in charge of Central Italy and Sardinia, and yet . . . And yet he didn't feel like it. He couldn't help but remember when his father had given him as a present a Malaguti 50. Saverio had wanted a scooter all through his high-school years and his father had promised him that if he got sixty out of sixty on his final exams, then he would give him one. In his last year Saverio studied his backside off and in the end he'd done it. Sixty out of sixty. And his father had come from work and shown him his old smelly Malaguti. ‘Here you go. It's yours. I keep my promises.’
Saverio had expected to get a new scooter. ‘But what do you mean? You're giving me yours?’
‘No money for another one. This one not good enough for you? What's the matter with it?’
‘Nothing . . . But how will you get to the factory?’
His father had shrugged his shoulders. ‘Public transport. Nothing wrong with that.’
‘But you'll have to wake up one hour earlier.’
‘A promise is a promise.’
His mother didn't let him get away with it: ‘How can you live with yourself, letting your father go without his scooter?’
In the following months Saverio had tried to use the Malaguti, but every time he hopped on it the image of his father walking out of their apartment building at five o'clock in the morning, bundled up in his overcoat, would appear before him. He started to get anxious, and in the end he had left it in the courtyard and someone stole it. So both he and his father had had
