In a Heartbeat (13 page)

On the first page there was a design of a woman in a bikini riding something invisible. The slogan said
RRRRoar
. On the next page she was doing a wheelie on the invisible bike.
RRRRoam.
One by one I passed the pages to Monica, who looked at them without saying a word. The fat guy, on the other hand, continued to blab about how much work they had put into the project. He loved this project more than he loved his kids.

The woman appeared in different poses
RRRRecognisable.
RRRRapid. RRRRelaxing.
Finally, on the last page the woman had disappeared into thin air and in her place was the scooter. In the background were nuclear explosions, flames and lightning. I actually hadn’t seen anything like it before. It had three wheels, two in front and one in the back. Like a genetic hybrid.
RRRRepulsive!
I thought. I looked at Monica and raised an eyebrow. She slightly raised her shoulders.

‘Excuse me, what the hell is the third wheel for?’ I asked. As soon as I finished I knew that I had screwed up. It was obvious that I should have known the answer.

The fat guy looked at me in shock. ‘What do you mean what is it for?’

The art director seemed thunderstruck. ‘You’re a stupid shit, you know.’

‘What did you say?’ Monica asked coldly.

‘No, no, wait, sorry. I wasn’t talking to Santo. I wouldn’t even dream of it. I was talking to this dickhead here! Hey, Ric, wake up! Can’t you see that it’s a suggestion?’

Riccardino got up, foaming with anger, ‘What did you call me?’

Pippo smiled, ‘Wow, aren’t we touchy?’

‘I want an apology now!’

‘C’mon, guys,’ I said. I didn’t want them to end up fighting.

Pippo shrugged his shoulders. ‘OK, I’m sorry.’

Riccardino sat back down. He wiped the sweat from his brow. ‘We were talking about the third wheel. Ah! Right, right!’

The art director took a pen and paper. ‘We can start with a background full of circles.’

‘No,’ said Alessandra. ‘Let’s show that in nature there are only animals with two or four legs.’

‘Actually there are also animals with six legs,’ the fat guy said. ‘Also eight.’

‘But no one cares about eight legs anyway,’ she snapped back.

‘What do you mean, no one cares?’ the fat guy said, groaning.

I expected another scene, but he sounded tired.

‘They’ll love it for sure,’ said the art director, who had already filled two pages of sketches.

‘OK, I think that we can stop here,’ Monica said. ‘Keep working on this idea, and give me something by … do you think that by the end of the week is fine, Santo?’

‘Sure, sure.’ I was still amazed by the whole thing. I got up.

‘Thank you. It’s always a pleasure working with you. It’s good to have some fresh ideas for a change,’ said Pippo.

Alessandra called me while I had my hand on the doorknob. ‘Excuse me, Santo, did you want us to put the word
hell
in the slogan as well, or was it just to give us an idea of what you wanted?’

*

We let them celebrate amongst themselves and walked back to my office.

‘What if I had asked what the handlebar was for?’

‘Don’t joke around; you had a good idea,’ Monica said proudly. ‘You seemed like your old self again.’

‘If you say so.’

Rina jumped out of her seat when we came into range.

‘Signor Denti, there’s a woman who wants to meet you. She doesn’t have an appointment, but she was very insistent.’ She lowered her voice. ‘She doesn’t want to leave.’

Monica and I looked over the cubicle wall. The woman in question looked like an Arab model. Tall and thin, with black, wavy hair that fell down her back. She wore jeans and a red windcheater. She waited with her arms crossed, standing in front of my desk.

‘Do you know her?’ I asked Monica.

‘I’ve never seen her before in my life.’

‘What’s her name, Rina?’

Rina read from a piece of paper that had bar codes across it. It must have been a visitor’s pass issued by the guards at the entrance.

‘Salima Fares.’

‘OK, I’ll talk to her.’

‘Are you sure?’ Monica asked. ‘I can ask her to leave.’

‘No, why?’

I’d rather have met her than another employee in need of creative approval. I walked around and said
hello,
stretching out my hand.

‘How are you?’

She looked at my hand then she looked at me. Her eyes were filled with anger and hate.

‘You son of a bitch,’ she said.

Then she spat in my face.

3

It was a shame no one had taken a picture with their phone. It was a sight to see. We all froze for a moment. The woman was leaning forward, and I stood back with spit on my eyelid. Rina’s mouth was open,
oh my …
Monica finished with
God
while the mail guy who just happened to be passing by said
holy shit!

‘I only wanted you to know what I think of you,’ she said. ‘I hope you die.’

She pushed Monica out of the way and marched into the hallway.

‘Saint, what just happened?’

‘Signor Denti!’

‘Holy shit!’

I didn’t listen. I ran after the woman, cleaning my face with my sleeve. I got to her about halfway down the hallway then grabbed her by the wrist.

‘Wait a minute, let’s talk … ’

I didn’t have time to finish because the woman did something that took me completely by surprise. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, then twisted her wrist in my hand, freeing herself. She then grabbed my wrist in one fluid movement. She jerked away, and I fell flat onto the dirt-coloured carpeted floor. I managed to fall on my side rather than my face. The same side where the bullet was.
Now that hurt!

I got back up. Everybody on the floor was looking at me, and the office chatter had stopped. The woman disappeared behind the corner that led to the elevators. When I got there the doors were already closed. I pushed the button. Nothing.
The stairs, the stairs …

There were two metal doors on the other side. I opened the first and a piercing alarm went off.
No Entry.
There was a balcony behind the door. I closed the door, and the alarm stopped. I slipped through the other door. The stairs. A guy tossed his cigarette out the window; he looked like a kid caught cheating in an exam. I shot down the stairs four at a time. My shoulder hurt. I was slow. When I got to the ground floor the woman was gone. I jumped over the turnstile; the guards looked at me, perplexed, as I shot out into the street. Crowds walked by; she was gone.

Huff. Gasp. I have to quit smoking
, I thought. Then I remembered that I already had and it hadn’t done anything for me. I leant against the wall and lit a cigarette while my heartbeat lowered to a hundred beats per minute. I put the fag out before going back inside. There was a
No Smoking
sign written in every language. I walked over to the surveillance booth and knocked on the glass. The guard rolled his seat to the window. ‘What can I do for you, sir?’

‘There was a woman that came out just now. Did you make a copy of her ID? ‘

‘Of course.’

‘Can you tell me where she lives?’

He scratched his head under his hat. ‘Signor Denti, I’m sorry but I can’t. We keep the data in our records, but we’re not authorised to give it out. There are privacy laws.’

‘How long have you been working here, buddy?’

‘One year, sir.’

‘Do you like it here? You’re not tired of being here, are you, or perhaps you’d like to consider finding employment elsewhere?’

‘I’m very happy here, sir,’ he said, changing his tone. ‘I understand.’

‘Bravo.’

‘Please don’t let this get around.’ He looked back at the screen. ‘Would you like me to print up a copy of her ID?

‘Yes.’

Zap!
The wonders of modern technology.
Salima Fares, born in Algiers, 1982. Nationality: Algerian. Residence: Via Marozzi 3/A, Milan.
The photo didn’t do her justice. I got back in the lift with the paper folded in my jacket pocket. On the second floor a guy in his thirties with a short-sleeved shirt got in. He had a huge plastic folder with the company logo on it. ‘Santo, I was just coming to see you. Do you have a minute?’

‘No, but you’ve got one floor.’

‘That’s just enough, thanks so much.’

He took out two colour photocopies from the folder. There were two models, a blonde and a brunette, covered in foam and lying in an oversized dish. Dishwashing liquid. The slogan:
Delicate on the skin.

‘Blonde or brunette?’ he asked.

I got out on my floor. ‘Redhead.’

‘Redhead?’ he swallowed. ‘OK, no problem, we’ll do it again.’

‘Good.’

The doors were closing when he blocked them.

‘Dark red or light red?’

‘I want every tone and curly too, curly like a Brillo pad. Get moving dammit!’ I gently pushed him into the lift.

*

Rina tried her best to pretend that nothing had happened. Monica was on the other side of the partition biting her nails. She turned and looked at me cruelly. ‘Who was that woman?’

‘You’re asking me? Maybe she mistook me for someone else?’

‘Bullshit, she knew exactly who you were.’

‘If anything comes to mind, I’ll let you know.’

‘Signor Denti, your lunch is ready.’ Rina left a Styrofoam container on my desk with
SuperBio Express
written on it as well as a bottle of Evian.

‘Damn, I’m hungry.’

I sat down and opened it. Salad with white beans. I tasted one with a plastic fork that had
100% Biodegradable
written across it. Broad beans, no dressing.

‘A question,’ I asked Monica, who lingered over the partition. ‘How do I manage to stay so fat?’

‘You get up in the middle of the night and raid the fridge’

‘Which is full of this stuff anyway. Look, there’s some seaweed as well.’

‘You can’t keep pretending that nothing’s happened.’

‘Sure I can.’

Grunt. Grunt.
‘Tomorrow you have the new presentation for the Ustoni campaign.’

‘Another campaign?’

‘Ustoni is one of our most important clients. You pulled all-nighters at your house with the team. I don’t want to exaggerate, but it makes the agency a tenth of its yearly turnover. Old Man Ustoni will be there in person.’

‘It seems complicated. You go.’

‘I can’t go. First, it’s your campaign. Second, all the directors will be there.’

‘I thought that I was the only director.’

I was wrong. I was only the creative director. There were also the business director, the administrative director, the marketing director, the human resources director, the communications director, and so on. Monica read me the list, including the names.

‘Is there a director of the directors?’

‘That was Mariano. He was the CEO. The corporate senior vice president will also be there. You have to handle that guy with tongs. Maybe they’ll give him the position now, I don’t know.’

‘OK. I’ll need a crash course on Ustoni.’

‘I’ll send you an email with the details.’

‘It’ll be faster if you explain it to me in person.’

‘I’LL SEND YOU AN EMAIL.’

‘All right.’

After lunch I smoked a cigarette in the toilet. Then I spent two hours studying the various directors on the company website. Multiple degrees, master’s from Oxford, superhuman corporate experience. The corporate senior VP was called Matteo Bianchi. He was about sixty with a protruding jawline and steely grey eyes. A tough son of a bitch. Neither he nor the others looked like they were part of The Flock.

Every now and then someone would pop in and ask me something. The technique was to come in and talk with Rina until I noticed them. Then they would ask, ‘Do you have a minute?’ And then they would show me photos, clips of
spots
on DVD (Learn:
DVD
) or they’d simply explain how much trouble they were having with this or that. The first time I was tense as hell but I soon discovered that they didn’t expect me to know what they were talking about. Even better, they couldn’t wait to tell me everything from the beginning. Monica whispered their names and titles from behind. It wasn’t that difficult making them happy. They didn’t really need advice or suggestions; they only wanted to be reassured that they were doing a good job and that I liked them. I gave them what they wanted: a nice pat on the head. They left satisfied.