It looked like the two cops didn’t have anything else to add. Not forgetting to throw another suspicious look around, they upped and left.
“Thanks,” Francesco said as soon as they were gone.
“Nothing to thank me for, boy,” his boss said. “These pigs think they own the fucking town.”
It looked like his boss had some bone to pick with the police. Maybe that was why he didn’t mind having an ex-con as his employee. Francesco was grateful for it, but he couldn’t stop thinking about what the hell that was all about, though.
***
He had barely slept for two hours when his phone rang. For a few moments, he wanted to let it ring and get back to sleep, but something of how the police had looked for him today rattled him.
It was his mother.
“Hi,” he said curtly, while trying to wipe away the sleep from his eyelids with the back of one hand.
“Francesco,” she said and began sobbing.
“What’s the matter?” The prickling sensation that somehow, something was happening and it concerned him assaulted him once more. “What happened?”
“Your father–” she started.
“He’s not my father,” Francesco said cuttingly.
“He’s in the hospital, again,” his mother said and sobbed some more.
“That bottle finally caught up with him?”
“No, he got beaten,” his mother replied.
“Well, I didn’t put him in the hospital if that’s what you’re thinking,” Francesco replied. Not this time.
“No, no, I’m not thinking…”
That had to be why the police had come around. Good thing he had been stuck with his boss at the shop, or else he would be one night short of an alibi since he lived alone. “What happened?” he asked again, seeing how his mother was only busy crying.
“Some people jumped him. They broke his bones, so many of his bones,” she said like she couldn’t believe it was possible for anyone to hate on that asshole so much as to give him a solid beating. “And they counted while they did it, like it was some sick joke,” she added.
Francesco felt the blood in his veins halting with a curdling stop. “Like how many bones?” he asked, trying to sound neutral.
He wasn’t in the least surprised to hear the answer. He dropped the phone on the bed after reciting some lame comforting words meant for his mother, and then stood there, in absolute stunned silence.
That was a message to him. Loud and clear.
tbc