“That’s not good?”
“You don’t even notice that in all the ads they give you the length, which certainly counts when it comes to parking or prestige, but they rarely give the width, which is pretty important if you have a small garage or a parking space that’s even narrower, not to mention how many times you have to go around before you find a space wide enough for you to park. Width is fundamental. You’ve got to aim somewhere under a hundred and seventy centimeters.”
“You can find them, I suppose.”
“Sure, but you’re cramped in a car that’s a hundred and seventy centimeters if there’s someone next to you and you don’t have enough space for your right elbow. And then you don’t have all those conveniences of the wider cars that have a whole range of controls available for the right hand, just by the gears.”
“And so?”
“You’ve got to make sure the instrument panel is fairly generous and there are controls on the steering wheel, so you don’t have to fumble around with your right hand. And that’s how I came up with the Saab Nine Hundred turbo, one hundred and sixty-eight centimeters, maximum speed two hundred and thirty, and we’re down to fifty million.”
“That’s your car.”
“Yes, but only in one little corner do they tell you it has an acceleration to eight-fifty, whereas ideally it should be at least seven, like in the Rover Two Twenty turbo, forty million, width a hundred and sixty-eight, maximum speed two hundred and thirty-five, and acceleration at six point six, a thunderbolt.”
“And so that’s where you ought to be going...”
“No, because it’s only at the bottom of the specifications they tell you it has a height of a hundred and thirty-seven centimeters. Too low for a well-built individual like me, almost like a racer for young sporty types, whereas the Lancia is a hundred and forty-three high and the Saab a hundred and forty-four and you fit in there like a lord. And that’s fine — if you’re one of those sporty types, you don’t go looking at the specifications, which are like the side effects of drugs, written so small on the information slips you don’t notice that if you take them, you’re going to die the next day. The Rover Two Twenty-five weighs only one thousand one hundred and eighty-five kilos — that’s not much, if you run into a truck, it will rip you apart like nothing, whereas you need to look toward heavier cars with steel strengthening. I don’t say a Volvo, which is built like a tank only too slow, but at least a Rover Eight Twenty TI, around fifty million, two hundred and thirty an hour, and one thousand four hundred and twenty kilos.”
“But I imagine you ruled it out because...” I commented, now as paranoid as him.
“Because it has an acceleration of eight point two, it’s a tortoise, it has no sprint. Like the Mercedes Two Eighty C, which might be a hundred and seventy-two wide but, apart from costing seventy-seven million, it has an acceleration of eight point eight. And then they tell you it’s five months’ delivery. Something else to bear in mind if you reckon that some of those I’ve mentioned say it’s two months’ wait, and others are ready right away. And why ready right away? Because no one wants them. Always beware. It seems as though right away they’ll give you the Calibra turbo sixteen-valve, two hundred and forty-five kilometers an hour, full traction, acceleration six point eight, one hundred and sixty-nine wide, and little more than fifty million.”
“Excellent, I’d say.”
“No, because it weighs only one thousand one hundred and thirty-five, too light, and only one hundred and thirty-two high, worse than all the others, for a customer with loads of money but who’s a dwarf. As if these were the only problems. What about luggage space? The roomiest is the Thema sixteen-valve turbo, but it’s a hundred and seventy-five wide. Among the narrower ones, I looked at the Dedra Two Point Zero XL, with plenty of luggage space, but not only does it have an acceleration of nine point four, it weighs little more than one thousand two hundred kilos and does only two hundred and ten an hour.”
“And so?”
“And so I don’t know which way to turn. I’m busy thinking about the investigation, but I wake up at night comparing cars.”
“And you know everything by heart?”
“I’ve drawn up charts. The trouble is, I’ve memorized them, but it becomes unbearable. I think cars have been designed so I can’t buy them.”
“Isn’t that going a bit far?”
“Suspicions never go too far. Suspect, always suspect, that’s the only way you get to the truth. Isn’t that what science says?”
“That’s what it says, and that’s what it does.”
“Bullshit, even science lies. Look at the story of cold fusion. They lied to us for months and then it was found to be total nonsense.”
“But it was discovered.”
“By who? The Pentagon, who may have wanted to cover up an embarrassing incident. Perhaps the cold-fusion people were right and those who lied were the ones who say the others have lied.”
“And that’s fine for the Pentagon and the CIA, but you’re not trying to tell me that all car magazines are in the hands of the secret services of the demoplutojudeocracy who are out to get you.” I was trying to bring back a note of common sense.
“Oh yes?” he said with a bitter smile. “Those people have links to big American industry, to the Seven Sisters of petroleum. They are the ones who assassinated Enrico Mattei, something I really couldn’t care less about, except that they’re the very same people who had my grandfather shot by funding the partisans. You see how it’s all linked together?”
The waiters were now putting on the tablecloths and giving us to understand that the moment had passed for anyone drinking just two glasses.
“There was a time when with two glasses you could stay till two in the morning,” sighed Braggadocio, “but now even here they’re only interested in customers with money. Perhaps one day they’ll turn the place into a discotheque with strobe lights. Here it’s all still real — don’t get me wrong — but it’s already reeking as if fake. Would you believe it, this place in the heart of Milan has been run for the past few years by Tuscans, so I’m told. I’ve nothing against Tuscans, they’re probably quite decent people, but I always remember, when I was a child, someone mentioned the daughter of friends who had made a bad marriage, and one of our cousins exclaimed, ‘They ought to put a wall up from coast to coast just below Florence.’ ‘Below Florence?’ my mother retorted. ‘Farther north! Farther north!’”
As we were waiting for the bill, Braggadocio asked, almost in a whisper, “You couldn’t do me a loan? I’ll pay you back in two months.”
“Me? But I’m broke, like you.”
“Really? I’ve no idea what Simei pays you and I’ve no right to know. Anyway, no harm asking. But you’ll pay the bill?”
That’s how I got to know Braggadocio.
4
Wednesday, April 8
Next day we had our first real editorial meeting. “Let’s start,” said Simei. “Let’s start with the newspaper for February 18 of this year.”
“Why February 18?” asked Cambria, who would distinguish himself from then on as always asking the most ridiculous questions.
“Because this winter, on February 17, the police raided the office of Mario Chiesa, president of the Pio Albergo Trivulzio and a leading figure in Milan’s Socialist Party. I’m sure you all recall this: Chiesa had asked for bribes on a contract given to a cleaning company from Monza, a deal worth a hundred and forty million lire, on which he was demanding ten percent. You see how even an old people’s home makes a pretty fine cow to milk. And it could hardly have been the first time; the cleaning company was tired of coughing up and reported Chiesa to the police. So the person who went to deliver the first installment of the agreed fourteen million arrived with a hidden camera and a microphone. The moment Chiesa had taken the money, the police burst into his office. In terror, he went to the drawer, grabbed another, larger bundle he’d already collected from someone else, and rushed to the bathroom to flush the banknotes down the toilet, but it was no use, he was in handcuffs before he could get rid of the cash. This is the story, as you all remember. So now, Cambria, you know what we have to report in our newspaper for the day after. Go to the archive, read up on the news for that day, and give us an opening column. Or rather, no — write us a nice little article, since, as I recall, there was no mention of this story on the television news that evening.”