Read My Mother-in-Law Drinks for Free Online Page B

to look at me, flashing me a mocking smile that more or less translated as: “You hear this guy?”
    Why the hell he kept shooting me those looks of connivance was beyond me; and aside from being intrinsically objectionable, it was starting to worry me, because the last thing I needed was for Matrix to think that I was in cahoots on this thing and come looking for me once the whole business was over.
    â€œTell me,” Matrix went on, “are you by any chance hoping that this will get you a promotion?”
    Short pause, after which he got to the point, lowering his voice slightly and putting on a friendly smile.
    â€œTomorrow morning I’ll get out of jail, then I’ll come find you, wherever you might be, and first I’ll shoot you in both hands, and then in the face, you can count on it . . .” But he said it in the tone of voice of an old uncle who, upon running into the little nephew he hasn’t seen in forever, crouches down and says, “You’ve gotten so tall!”
    Now then. I don’t know what sort of impression words like these make when they’re written down on a sheet of paper; but I guarantee that when you hear them live they induce the same kind of nausea that would beset you if, without any advance notice, they were to take you away and force you to witness an autopsy. Because they do more than just promise death: they give it shape and presence; they bring it close; they show it to you.
    â€œAnd remember,” Matrix added, just to make sure he’d covered all his bases, accompanying his words with an obscene leer, “I’ll make sure and come personally; that way you’ll be able to introduce me to your family.”
    It was after this abominable kicker that I felt certain that Matrix must be a camorrista: and not just a two-bit gangster, a heavy hitter. Not so much because of the tone of voice but because of the expressive power of his words, their ability to conjure up such frighteningly vivid images.
    Camorristi
 
are past masters of the art of ambiguity, expert communicators, ideal ad men. The messages they send do much more than merely intimidate their recipients: they take them straight out of a state of law. Their messages suggest a throwback to an earlier society, where justice has no power because the strongest make the rules. It is this authoritarian subtext that offends us so intimately, because it turns back the clock with such rude certainty that we question what century we’re in. It’s the possibility of going so far back in time that throws us off balance.
    The Camorrese language is a reactionary form of Latin, as in ancient Rome, that sends us back to a world that we thought we’d left behind us forever.
    I had a hunch that this threat of a transversal vendetta would send Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo over the edge. And so it did, in fact. Don’t ask me why, I couldn’t say. Sometimes you just get lucky and nail it, right when you’re on the precipice of a world of pain. As if the motives that two or more people might have for slaughtering each other, when it comes down to it, had somehow acquired an aesthetic all their own.
    When Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo lunged at Matrix I almost missed it; that’s how fast he was. He grabbed him by the hair and yanked him to his feet, jamming the pistol in his face again with such fury that I was afraid that I was about to see Matrix’s head turn into a New Year’s Eve fireworks display any second now. In the scuffle a half-liter bottle of yogurt tumbled off a shelf, cracking open on the floor and whitewashing a section of tile. The old lady once again dug her talons into my arm. Matrix was unable to keep his balance on his knees and instinctively pulled up his right leg so that he could brace himself against the floor with one foot. Interpreting that move as a potential attempt to fight back, Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo slammed his knee into