Black Run by Antonio Manzini

out, pleased that he hadn’t felt even a hint of vertigo.
    Outside the cableway station, the snow was deep, and the sun had melted it a little. Skiers dressed in a dizzying array of colors, so that they resembled a cluster of carnival masks, were sprawled out at the tables of a chalet bar, drinking in the day’s last rays of light, sipping foamy goblets of beer. Others headed down to the slopes with skis, snowshoes, and helmets thrown over their shoulders, walking like so many golems in large, noisy snowboots. Rocco was reminded of the damned souls in some Dantean circle of hell.
    â€œAre you saying they pay for all this?” he asked Italo.

    â€œDeputy Police Chief Schiavone,” said Pierron, unbelievably nailing Rocco’s correct rank, “have you ever tried skiing?”
    â€œNever.”
    â€œThen take it from me that if you tried even once, you’d understand. Just like a little while ago on the cableway. Did you see? Suddenly sun and sky and snow. The same thing on skis. The same sensation.”
    But Rocco wasn’t listening anymore. He was comparing the snow on the ground with his shoes, so ill suited to the situation.
    â€œDon’t worry, Dottore, we only have to walk about a hundred yards. Luigi is waiting for us.”
    â€œWho’s Luigi?”
    â€œThe head snowcat operator. The one who took us up last night. Luigi Bionaz. He’s going to take us to Cuneaz. You see that valley down there?”
    Rocco looked. Four hundred yards ahead, in the midst of runs busy with overjoyed skiers, there was a collection of snow-covered humps. “Yes, I see. What of it?”
    â€œCuneaz is down there, behind those rises in the slope. In the summer, you can walk it. But in the winter you’d need snowshoes.”
    â€œYou’d need what?”
    â€œSnowshoes . . . those rackets on your feet. You know what I mean?”
    â€œAh. Like Umberto Nobile?”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œForget about it, Italo. Let’s go see Luigi.”

    Barely fifty feet outside the cableway station, there was an enormous rock-and-timber structure off to one side. This was the snowcat garage. In the distance, outside a glass door with the ski school logo, the instructors were loitering on wooden benches in the sun, all of them wearing red jackets and black pants. Italo raised one hand to catch someone’s attention. Rocco, on the other hand, looked down at his Clarks desert boots, which resembled two waterlogged sewer rats.
    â€œHey there!” shouted someone Rocco couldn’t really see because of the glare.
    â€œLook, there’s Luigi. Let’s go,” said Italo, “he’s waiting for us.”
    Walking laboriously through the deep snow, dressed in his loden green overcoat and gray corduroy trousers, under the inquisitive gazes of the skiers, Rocco finally made it to the door of the garage. Luigi Bionaz was there, waiting for them.
    â€œBuon giorno , Commissario, don’t you remember me?”
    The night before, Luigi’s face had been nothing but an indistinct mass beneath a heavy cap with earflaps. Now, in the light of day, Rocco was finally able to make out his features. The first thing Rocco noticed was his eyes, such a pale blue that they looked like those of a sled dog, a husky. High cheekbones, a strong jaw, and clean white teeth that seemed to be reflecting the surrounding snow. If Luigi Bionaz had been born in America, he could have become an action movie star. He had the face and he had the body—everything necessary to drive the women of half a hemisphere mad with desire.
    â€œI heard. Leone. I’m so sorry. Was it an accident?” he asked as he rolled himself a cigarette.
    Rocco didn’t say a word, and Luigi understood that this was not the time to ask any other questions. So he smiled and slapped his hand down twice on the seat of a 4x4 all-terrain vehicle. “No snowcat today. We’re going on this.”

    It was a