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Though Vittorio was my only friend, he instead had more than one, even it they were not as close. Evaristo Sordi could also call himself one of Vittorio’s friends despite not having frequented him socially. Years before, he had been his side-kick in the Homicide Section of the Squadra Mobile after I, his predecessor and part-time writer, had tendered my resignation to devote myself entirely to writing. Evaristo had arrived at the highest career level for a non-graduate and was a senior inspector of sUPS (sostituto Ufficiale di Pubblica Sicurezza, meaning deputy Public Security Officer), commonly called "deputy commissioner" and performing those duties. Not much younger than I, and not far off retirement, the man sported an impressive grey mustache for a long time and despite his age still had a lot of hair, which was salt-and-pepper too. He was a robust figure, just like my friend Vittorio who, unlike Evaristo, was not a very tall man. I was the tallest of the three by quite a bit, almost six feet two, and I had always been very thin although, unfortunately, in recent years I had become a little hunched because of my bad habit, common in tall people, of bending down to the many interlocutors of lesser stature, starting with Vittorio himself.