Black Run by Antonio Manzini Page B

from the heart.
    There was no body. There was just a series of shredded pieces of flesh, more or less reassembled to form an object that only remotely resembled anything human.
    â€œHow can you work with this?”
    Fumagalli cleaned his lenses. “Nice and slow. Like doing art restoration.”
    â€œSure, but those guys are fixing a masterpiece, and it’s a pleasure to look at.”
    â€œThis is a masterpiece too,” said Fumagalli. “It’s God’s handiwork, or didn’t you know?”
    In the deputy police chief’s head, the suspicion that lengthy and involuntary interactions with human corpses had finally undermined the Livornese physician’s mental equilibrium finally became a certainty.
    â€œCan I smoke in here?” asked Rocco, slipping his hand into his pocket.
    â€œOf course. You want me to get you a whiskey, or maybe something a little lighter? Shall I put on some lounge music? Would you like that? All right, let’s get to work.”
    The medical examiner pointed to a point on the corpse’s right pectoral: “He has a tattoo.”
    Some writing and signs that Rocco couldn’t decipher. “What’s it say?”
    â€œMaa vidvishhaavahai,” said Alberto. “Luckily, I was able to read it.”

    â€œBut what is it?”
    â€œIt’s a Hindu mantra. It means roughly: ‘May no obstacle arise between us.’ ”
    â€œAnd how do you know that?”
    Alberto smiled behind his thick-lensed glasses. “I’m a guy who knows how to find out things.”
    The dead man’s face was crushed. Out of the red-and-black mush, which reminded Rocco of a painting by a major Italian artist whose name he couldn’t quite recall, jutted teeth, bits of lips, yellowish filaments.
    â€œThis is the first strange thing,” Alberto began, lifting a piece of handkerchief that must once have been a bandanna.
    â€œIndeed, how very strange,” said Rocco, “a piece of handkerchief. Never seen anything like it.”
    â€œAll right, let’s cut out the cheap irony, if you don’t mind.”
    â€œOkay. But you started it when you brought up the whiskey and the lounge music.”
    â€œSo the dead man has this red handkerchief in his trachea.”
    â€œIn his what?” asked Rocco.
    â€œIn his trachea.”
    â€œIs there any way that the snowcat shoved it in when it ran over his face?” Rocco hypothesized.
    â€œNo. It was crumpled up. And when I unfolded it, look at the treat I found inside.” Alberto Fumagalli pulled out a sort of metal cup in which a slimy purple thing lay, with what appeared to be two little mints beside it.
    â€œWhat’s that? A piece of rotten eggplant?”
    â€œThe tongue.”
    â€œOh, Jesus fucking—”

    â€œAnd there were a couple of teeth to go with it. You see? They look like two Tic Tacs.” The doctor continued, “The snowcat crushed the poor man’s head, and the pressure pushed in this piece of handkerchief. It was in his mouth.”
    â€œIt made him swallow it?”
    â€œOr else he swallowed it himself.”
    â€œSure, but if he swallowed it, then he was still alive!”
    â€œMaybe so, Rocco. Maybe so.” Alberto took a deep breath. “So then I expressed the hypostases.”
    â€œTranslation, please.”
    Fumagalli rolled his eyes in annoyance.
    â€œWhy are you getting pissed off? I studied law, not medicine! As if I were to ask you to define usucaption .”
    â€œUsucaption is a Latin term for ‘acquisitive prescription,’ in which ownership of property can be gained through continuous possession thereof, beyond a specified period of time—”
    â€œEnough!” Rocco interrupted him. “Let’s get back to these hypotheses.”
    â€œHypostases,” Alberto corrected him. “Now then, hypostases form when the heart stops beating. Blood pressure drops, and the blood flows