Let the Games Begin. Niccolo Ammaniti

better than pissing in front of this panorama. Look down there, it looks like a storm.’ Gianni leaned over the terrace and looked down into the darkness of the bushes. ‘Can you check to make sure no one can see me? Actually, if anyone comes this way, stop them.’

      ‘What should I say?’ Pennacchini murmured, uncertain.

      ‘To whom?’

      ‘To whomever comes by this way.’

      Gianni thought about it for a second. ‘What do I know . . .? Entertain them, stop them.’

      The managing director walked down the steps that led to the garden, unzipping his trousers. Pennacchini took position, like a Swiss Guard, at the top of the stairs.

      13

      Larita.

      She was the chosen one. They would sacrifice the singer from Chieti Scalo to the Lord of Evil. During the party, Mantos would decapitate her with the Durendal.

      ‘Beats a nun any day . . . I'll show you, Kurtz,’ Saverio sniggered while he started jumping around the living room.

      What would happen once everyone knew that the singer who had sold ten million copies across Europe and Latin America, and had sung in front of the Pope on Christmas Day, had been decapitated by the Wilde Beasts of Abaddon? The news would be printed on the front page of newspapers across the globe. It was would rank there with John Lennon and Janis Joplin . . .

      Saverio hesitated. Was Janis Joplin actually assassinated?

      Who cares. All he cared about at that moment was that, with such a deed, he'd be remembered for ever. Websites, forums and blogs would be dedicated to him. His face would be printed on thousands of young boys’ t-shirts. And Satanist groups for generations and generations would be inspired by the figure of Mantos, and they would be charmed by his charismatic and psychotic personality, just like Charles Manson.

      Saverio grabbed Serena's iPod from the credenza next to the front door. He was sure that his wife had something by the singer. And in fact she did. He pressed play. The artist began singing in her melodious voice, rich with octaves, about a love story between two teenagers.

       Disgusting!

      That disgusting woman had brought together the two things he hated most in the world: love and teenagers.

      From the drinks cabinet he pulled out a bottle of Jägermeister and had a suck.

      It was so bitter.

      14

      The marble bench was not exactly comfortable. Fabrizio Ciba and Alice Tyler were entwined around each other while puffs of the Western wind shook the bamboo forest. The writer had one hand against the cement wall and the other on the translator's tit. The translator had one of hers shoved in behind his back and the other inside the writer's pants. His belt was stopping, like a tourniquet, the flow of blood to her hand, and so the only thing she could do with her numb fingers was squeeze his dick. Fabrizio was panting in her ear while trying to free her tit from the imprisonment of her bra but, having no luck, he decided that he would explore her intimate areas.

      They didn't notice the managing director, who, just ten metres away, was having a piss until they heard him sigh. ‘Ahhh! I really needed that. What a feeling of freedom!’

      The two of them froze like sole fish, and if they could have, like the Solea solea, they would have changed colour, camouflaging themselves with their surroundings. Fabrizio whispered: ‘Shush, someone's here . . . Shush, please. Don't breathe.’ They turned to stone, like two calchi from Pompeii. Both of them with their hands on the other's genitals.

      Another voice. Far off. ‘Ciba was good this evening.’

      How many of them are there?

      The voice nearest-by answered: ‘You have to admit that our Ciba is the best at this sort of thing!’

      ‘It's Gianni! The managing director!’ Ciba explained, in a whisper.

      ‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,’ she said. ‘What if they see us?’

      ‘Shush. Don't say anything.’ Fabrizio raised his head. Gianni's silhouette stretched upwards from behind the hydrangea bush. Ciba lowered down again. ‘He's having a piss. He can't see us. He'll go away now.’

      But the managing director, who suffered from prostate trouble, kept shaking his thing in the hope of further downfalls.

      ‘Not bad, that idea of the story of the fire! Total crap, but effective nevertheless. We should call on him more often for this sort of thing, he's magnetic.’

      Fabrizio smiled, satisfied, and looked at Alice, who huffed, amused. What more could he want? He was snogging a sort of intellectual, mixed-race model, and at the same time he was being complimented with high praise from the king of his publishing house.

      He touched Alice's clitoris. She shivered and sighed in his ear. ‘Gently . . . gently . . . Otherwise I'll start screaaaaahhhh-ming . . .’

      His dick had become a block of steel.

      ‘Now, getting down to business . . . How far is Ciba into his new novel?’

      ‘It's hard to understand . . . From what little I've read . . .’ Pennacchini was speechless. It often happened that he would stop talking, as if someone had unplugged him.

      ‘What, Pennacchini? What have you read?’

      ‘I feel . . . Well, it's unfocused . . . More . . . How can I explain it . . .? Like a series of clumsy attempts rather than an actual story . . .’

      Fabrizio, who was working at undoing his belt, came stock-still. ‘

      It's crap, I get it. Like his last one, what was it . . .? Nestor's Dream. I'm not at all satisfied . . . And it's only selling so-so. From someone who has sold a million and a half copies, I expected, frankly speaking, a lot more. With all that advertising we bought for him. Have you seen the quarterly returns? If it weren't for The Lion's Den . . .’

      Alice, with a masterly sleight of hand, had finally freed his erection and began masturbating him.

      ‘We need to discuss the contract for his next book. His agent is out of her mind. She demanded too high a sum. Before we sign, we have to think things through properly. We can't be strangled by someone who sells as much as Adele Raffo, at the end of the day, but she gets exactly half as much as him.’

      Ciba thought he would faint. That son of a bitch was comparing him to an obese nun who wrote recipe books! And what was this story about renegotiating the contract? Pennacchini was nothing but a big fat fake . . . He had told Fabrizio that Nestor's Dream was a necessary book, the novel of his coming-of-age.

      Alice, in the meantime, all fired up, wasn't listening and continued to massage him with a precise anti-clockwise movement of the wrist. However, to her great surprise, this wasn't getting the desired result in the least. His dick was literally shrivelling up in her hand. She looked at him, embarrassed. The writer was floored. ‘What's happening? Is he coming here?’

      ‘Please . . . Just a moment. Be quiet for just a moment.’

      Alice heard a broken note in Fabrizio's voice. She dropped his flaccid appendage and started listening.

      ‘Anyway, he's not going anywhere! Where could he go? No other publishing house is prepared to give him as much as we do. Not even half. Who does he think he is? Grisham? And what's more, I've heard that his show hasn't been confirmed for next year either. If they shut it down, Ciba will sink like a rock. We have to get him to lower his crest. In fact, next week, Achille, I want to meet with Modica and Malagò so we can work out how to proceed . . . He hasn't got another book in him. He's washed up.’ A moment of silence. ‘Ahhh!! I've finished. I'd been holding it in since the plane.’ Then the sound of footsteps on the gravel.

      Ciba was floating half off the ground, unable