Read Let the Games Begin for Free Online Page B

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    â€˜Enotrebor, who's in charge of Southern Italy, has done some remarkable stuff in Basilicata and Molise . . .’
    An Alka-Seltzer, a Coke . . .
    â€˜Mantos? Mantos, are you there?’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Can you hear me?’
    â€˜Yes . . . of course . . .’
    â€˜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?’
    â€˜No money for another one. This one not good enough for you? What's the matter with it?’
    â€˜Nothing . . . But how will you get to the factory?’
    His father had shrugged his shoulders. ‘Public transport. Nothing wrong with that.’
    â€˜But you'll have to wake up one hour earlier.’
    â€˜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 to go without.
    It had nothing to do with all of this and yet he felt he had done something worthwhile with the Beasts. And he owed part of it to that group of losers that followed him. He couldn't let them down.
    Kurtz wanted to trick him. Just like his father had tricked him with the scooter. And the old man as well, when he said that he wanted to give him an important role within the company. Just like Serena had tricked him when she said she wanted to be his geisha, and that the twins, in the end, were just like one baby.
    That's why he had become a Satanist. Because everyone tricked him.
    What sort of a gift is a gift that every time you use it your father is forced to take the bus ?
    Saverio Moneta hated them all. Every single one of them. The whole of humanity who moved forward through trickery and exploitation of their peers. Sheltered by his hate, he had fed, he had regained his strength, he had shielded himself. Hate had given him the strength to endure. And in the end, Saverio had made it his religion. And Satan his god.
    And Kurtz was just like all the others. Who the fuck does he think he is, saying that the Wilde Beasts of Abaddon are an insignificant blip ?
    â€˜No,’ he said.
    â€˜No what?’
    â€˜No. I'm not interested. Thank you, but I'll stay on as the leader of the Wilde Beasts of Abaddon.’
    Kurtz was surprised. ‘Are you sure you know what you're saying? Think about it. I won't make the same offer twice.’
    â€˜I don't care. The Wilde Beasts of Abaddon may very well be an insignificant blip, as you said. But even a tumour is only a single cell at the beginning, then it grows, it multiplies and it kills you. The Beasts will become a blip that everyone will have to contend with. Just wait and see.’
    Kurtz burst into laughter. ‘You're pathetic. You're over.’
    Saverio put his seat belt on. ‘Maybe. But as you well know, it's not certain. It's not certain at all. And