I fly out of the stall. Without my gun. Without my hat. A cop without a gun and without a hat. I have to find the whore. The. Fucking. Charm. Of. The. Uniform. I look around to see if Giordano is there, he could help me. But he isn’t. The guy behind the bar says I still haven’t paid for my spiked coffee. I pull out a five but he says he doesn’t have change. I tell him to keep his fucking change. He says that it’s too much for a tip and asks me to wait. I leave but he blocks the door and tells me to wait, I tell him to fuckoff asshole and he asks where I’m going without my hat. I push him and he says three months. I ask him what the fuck he means by three months. He answers that it is the suspension period for those who lose part of their service uniform. He seems like an ex-cop, the asshole. Or an ex-junky. Or both. But anyway: he’s blackmailing me. I stop and wait, I want to understand what he wants. He goes into the back of the bar. My cell rings and Sebastiano leaves a message to call him back. I think fuck off and hang up. The guy comes back with the change. Three euro seventy-five. I put it in my pocket, the son of a bitch goes back to the register and sits back down. He knows something. I decide to wait for now and come back by tonight. I wave and leave.
[ Angello Petrella, Cane rabbioso, 2006 ]
