At the End of a Dull Day Read Online Free PDF

replied in a paternal tone of voice. “Sometimes you make more money, sometimes you make less, and sometimes things turn sour and you lose everything. Just deal with it and think about the future.”
    He went on yakking and stuffing his face with food and wine, as if I was just the least of his many voters or one of his idiot clients to whom he was explaining that it wasn’t his fault that the case went against them. I earned that money by risking my neck in an armed robbery where I was the sole survivor and in a number of other deals that could easily have cost me prison time. The lawyer and parliamentarian Sante Brianese had simply kept the money that I’d lost and distributed it to himself and his friends, gobbling it up along with the contracts, the bribes, the stock swaps, the illicit favors, the fake consulting fees, in other words, all the best aspects of modern politics in Italy.
    I’d figured out the way it worked some time ago, ever since the days when he’d convinced me to invest in loan sharking, a sector that the Counselor had abandoned once his political successes catapulted him into the paradise of public works contracts, projects that became bigger and more expensive every year. The Veneto region had become one enormous construction site and the river of cash flowing across the countryside was so immense that at a certain point it became necessary to invest the money outside of the country. In Croatia and Dubai, for instance. Brianese didn’t manage those investments personally. His role was to find the money. Then he entrusted it to certain experts whose names he’d always taken great care not to reveal.
    And the experts can go fuck themselves too, I thought to myself.
    â€œCounselor, please forgive me, but you’ve got it wrong,” I interrupted in a placid tone of voice. “I can meet you partway on this and give you your usual commission of 200,000 euros, but the rest of my capital has to come back to me.”
    â€œOh, then, you really are an idiot!”
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œYou heard me loud and clear,” he hissed furiously. “If you’re anybody at all today the credit is all mine. I cleared your criminal record, I got you out of hot water when they were trying to send you to jail for Roberta’s death, I arranged for you to buy this restaurant, I honored you by appearing as your best man at your wedding, I’ve helped you make excellent investments year after year, and now you dare to speak to me in this fashion?”
    I took a deep breath. This wasn’t the time to lose my temper. “I certainly had a great debt of gratitude to you, Counselor. You did a lot for me over the years, but I always paid you back. And I’m not just talking about the money I paid you. What with your fees and the commissions that you took on my investments, it comes to a considerable sum. There was a time when I worked as an enforcer for you and your friends. I broke bones and silenced people who could have gotten you into some deep trouble.”
    He swept his hand through the air with dismissive anger. “That’s yesterday’s news,” he shouted. “We were younger then, more reckless and less powerful.”
    I ignored his bullshit response. “I put together a ring of prostitutes that I ought to patent, it’s so foolproof, and we both know how much trouble you’re causing yourself by this idea of yours of putting pussy on the top of the maypole. And La Nena has always been at your complete disposal: dinners, campaign parties, aperitif parties to introduce the candidates, and you never paid a cent. I’d like to know how much money you’ve made doing business in this back room that I have swept every week at my own expense . . . ”
    He grabbed my wrist to stop me and changed his tone of voice.
    â€œYou’re right, I apologize. In all these years we’ve helped each other out and we both benefited