White Death (2011)

by Jones, Tobias

  We stared through the trees at the encroaching city. It felt like a vertical tidal wave that was about to crash down on us.

  It was dark and cold by the time I got back to my place. I was walking towards my flat when I saw a young woman hanging around under the arches. She looked more like a young man from a distance: wide shoulders, short hair, but she was dressed elegantly, as if she had been out to dinner. She was looking around for someone, and it was obvious, when our eyes met, that I was the person. She smiled faintly from a distance and raised a hand as if I should recognise her. I did, but I wasn’t sure where from.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Disturbing you.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  She looked at me and smiled bashfully. I looked at her more closely, but still couldn’t place her. I must have seen her in another context but I couldn’t work it out.

  ‘I’m Amedeo Masi’s daughter,’ she said quietly, clearly seeing my confusion.

  I nodded, recalling the young woman on the front desk at the man’s office. She looked different now, dolled up for a night out but shivering slightly from the cold.

  ‘You been waiting long?’

  She smiled slightly. ‘An hour or so.’

  ‘Come on, come and have a drink.’

  We walked towards the bar on the corner. She looked round as she went in, as if checking to see if there was anyone she knew.

  ‘Soft or hard?’ I asked her.

  ‘Hard,’ she said.

  I got a couple of malts and we retreated to a table in the corner. It was a losco sort of bar: young men hanging around outside like they couldn’t afford the drinks, but wanted to hear the music, or tap the passing trade, or try their luck with the women walking home.

  ‘How did you find me?’

  She reached into her handbag and pulled out one of my cards. I looked at her again: she had the same determined face as her father, a stare that told you she meant business.

  ‘I know what you’re trying to do,’ she said with a trace of accusation in her voice.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You want to ruin my father.’

  I laughed unintentionally and she looked at me fiercely. We sat there uneasily and stared at our drinks.

  ‘I have no intention of ruining your father,’ I said gently. ‘I’m trying to solve a crime, nothing more.’

  ‘He’s committed no crime.’

  ‘Maybe not, but the evidence doesn’t look good.’

  ‘The evidence?’ She looked at me with disdain, shaking her head. ‘You know nothing about it.’

  ‘Isn’t that why you came to see me, to put me right?’

  She rolled her eyes, as if it were useless.

  ‘I have nothing against your father. If anything, I rather admire him. But I’m trying to work out why his company is the beneficiary of these fires, and he hasn’t explained himself.’

  ‘Because he’s too proud,’ she shot back.

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘He’s too proud to admit to you what’s really going on. He still thinks the company belongs to him, but it doesn’t. His is just the name on the door.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She looked around before answering and then leant forward. ‘A few years ago my father was the victim of fires just like the ones you’re investigating. Car set alight at night, bricks thrown through the windows of the offices. Equipment stolen, stores burgled. It was happening once or twice a week.’

  She was speaking quickly, with the same urgent passion as her father had. It was as if they both considered themselves misunderstood victims.

  ‘Did they ever catch the vandals?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course not. But it wasn’t just hooliganism. It felt coordinated, like someone was deliberately making trouble for us. Everything was happening all at once. Even reliable suppliers started messing us around, workers walked out, there were unannounced inspections. In the middle of it all, my father met a man who offered to sort everything out. Presented himself like some kind of troubleshooter, a fixer who could smooth out all the hassles. He was so desperate by then that he was ready to take any help going.’

  ‘What kind of help was he offering?’

  ‘He said he could step up security, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Protection?’

  ‘That wasn’t the word he used, and my father didn’t even realise that’s what was on offer. He just saw someone offering private security and he jumped at the chance.’

  ‘What was the man’s name?’

  ‘Moroni. Giulio Moroni.’

  I shrugged. The name meant nothing to me. ‘Does he still work for your father?’

  She sighed. ‘It’s more the other way round.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It doesn’t feel like my father’s in charge any more. It’s …’ she twisted her head sideways and looked at the ceiling, ‘it’s like Moroni’s taken over.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t understand it. It’s like he’s the boss.’ She shook her head and corrected herself. ‘He is the boss.’

  It was a word that had echoes of the criminal underworld. I looked at her to see if her use of that word was casual, but she was nodding her head, sure of what she was saying. ‘He pays all the workers in cash,’ she said as if to underline the point. ‘Pays everyone in cash. He’s like a parasite gorging on my father’s company, taking it over bit by bit.’

  ‘And your father realises that?’

  ‘He’s in denial. Still pretends to himself that the company is his, that he’s the man in charge.’

  She put her head to one side, placed an index finger inside her fringe and pushed the short hair from her forehead. She looked at me meaningfully, though I wasn’t sure what she meant. I assumed she wanted my help in ridding her father’s company of the unwanted Moroni. She had come here in the dark and cold to tell me the lie of the land, and now she wanted me to do something about it.

  ‘Where’s your father now?’ I asked.

  ‘Why?’ She frowned.

  ‘I’ll talk to him before I talk to Moroni. Where is he? At home?’

  She stared at me like I had disappointed her. ‘He’ll be asleep.’

  ‘Then I’ll wake him up.’

  She was shaking her head. ‘Don’t tell him I spoke to you.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  She sighed, staring blankly at the table as if she thought she had made a mistake. ‘At home. Via Solferino.’

  ‘What number?’

  ‘37.’

  We stared at each other for an instant. I remembered her saying she lived with her father, so I offered to drop her back. She said she would walk. Said it like it was an expression of independence or disappointment or something. It was late by now, so I offered again and she stared at me, her face changing as she did so. She seemed to let go of some tension. It looked as if she were about to break down and she looked away, biting her lower lip. We sat like that for a few minutes.

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ I said quietly as she blew her nose.

  She sighed again, shaking her head. ‘My father gets accused of everything. His name is only ever in the papers when he’s suspected of corruption or whatever. And every time it’s nothing to do with him. It’s like Moroni makes the money and my father takes the blame. That’s why when you came in this morning, and I heard you talking about arson attacks, I just knew it was to do with Moroni. That’s the way he works.’

  ‘Where does he operate from, this Moroni?’

  ‘He works out of a portakabin in Via Pordenone.’

  ‘He’s the one I met this morning? The foreman?’

  ‘That’s him. Some foreman,’ she spat with contempt.

  We walked to my car and drove through the city in silence. I parked outside the block and opened my door, but she sat where she was, not moving.

  ‘Allora?’ I said.

  ‘If we come in togeth
er he’ll know it was me that told you. I’ll just sit here and listen to the radio for a while.’ She saw me looking at her. ‘If that’s OK,’ she said.

  ‘You sure?’

  She nodded.

  I left her the keys, walked up to the front of the house and rang the bell. There were no lights on and I assumed Masi must have gone to bed already. I held the buzzer again, pushing it harder than necessary so that the end of my finger went white.

  ‘Chi è?’ said a sleepy, irritated female voice.

  ‘My name’s Castagnetti. I’m looking for Masi.’

  The line went dead. A minute later he picked up. ‘Chi è?’

  ‘Let me in. I want to know about Giulio Moroni.’

  There was silence and then he clicked me in. He was standing there in a dressing gown, looking smaller somehow. His gingerish hair was all ruffled. He snarled and nodded his head to the right. I followed him into an ornate room crammed with cheap antiques: semicircular lampshades on top of woodworm-eaten lamps. On the walls were imposing, gold-framed pictures of women looking wanly upwards. The domed ceiling had crumbling cherubs, the twirling garlands losing their gold-leaf. A black spider’s thread hung from the ceiling, wafting left and right. A forest of photo frames was reclining on a chest of drawers.

  He stood in the centre of the room, his fists in his dressing-gown pockets.

  ‘Tell me about Giulio Moroni,’ I said.

  He shot me a stare as if I had just named his wife’s lover. He was about to say something, but then put his mouth back together.

  ‘Go on,’ I nudged.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘I heard he’s the real power behind the throne. He’s the one who really controls your company.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘I hear all your suppliers get paid in cash straight from Moroni’s personal safe.’

  ‘He deals with invoices, certainly. That’s his job.’

  ‘In cash?’

  ‘I don’t know how he pays them.’

  ‘How do you pay him?’

  ‘Eh?’ He was stalling.

  ‘He pays your workers,’ I said. ‘Pays all the electricians and plumbers and plasterers and carpenters. So you and your company end up having to reimburse a lot of money. So how do you reimburse him?’

  He stared at me, snarling and breathing heavily. ‘Why do you want to know about Giulio Moroni?’

  ‘I’m investigating a case of arson. I told you that this morning.’

  ‘Why do you think he’s got anything to do with it?’

  I lowered my chin and looked at him as if to tell him I wasn’t stupid.

  He growled and shook his head. ‘He gets the end product.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Units.’

  ‘What units?’

  ‘Flats.’

  I frowned and Masi looked at me like maybe I was stupid. ‘He wanted to buy up what we were building,’ he said. ‘Offered to pay for them in advance. Pay wages, suppliers and so on out of his own pocket as a down-payment on the flats of the future. It all sounded perfectly reasonable at first. It meant I couldn’t lose. It meant I wasn’t having to go to banks for loans and that I had guaranteed sales at the end.’ He put his chin on his shoulder, staring down to the right and smiling bitterly at the memory. ‘It was too good to be true.’

  ‘It wasn’t true?

  He rolled his eyes. ‘It was true all right. He paid suppliers and he got the flats. It’s just that what seemed perfect to start with became something else altogether. I thought it meant I couldn’t lose. What it really meant was I couldn’t win. I didn’t even need to be there any more. It was like he had become the company, he was running the whole operation. Sometimes a project would take eighteen months from plans to completion, and all I would have left to show for it were a couple of flats. The rest were his.’

  ‘A couple of flats?’ I repeated. ‘That’s an OK profit for eighteen months.’

  He shook his head impatiently. ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘I thought profit was always the point.’

  ‘You thought wrong.’ He stared at me. ‘There are many things more important than profit. If you lose money one year, you can find it the next. But lose your reputation, you might never get it back. I care about my name, about the name I pass on to my children and they pass on to theirs.’

  ‘What’s wrong with your name?’

  He stared at me with anger for my faked naivety. ‘You know full well. Everyone repeats the same bull. About my links to politicians, allegations of corruption and so on. You knew all about my reputation before you met me. You had already judged me before you set eyes on me.’

  It was true. I had heard the usual gossip and had assumed the worst. I wasn’t sure if Masi was really the victim in all this, or if he was just good at playing the victim. But for the first time I felt sorry for him. I didn’t need him to spell out what was happening in his company. He had accepted protection from the worst kind of person and had ended up becoming just a figurehead, a front for a sophisticated mechanism to turn cash into accommodation. Masi had become little more than a launderette for dirty money.

  ‘Where does he get all his cash?’ I asked.

  He shrugged, closing his eyes and shaking his head. ‘I don’t ask, but I can guess.’

  ‘What kind of sums?’

  ‘The costs of building a block of flats run into the millions. Every payment he makes is in cash.’ He paused, to check I was listening. ‘And we build more than one block a year.’

  ‘That’s a lot of paper.’

  We looked at each other as if we were about to seal some sort of alliance.

  ‘You want shot of him?’

  He snorted derisively. ‘I don’t think it’s that easy.’

  ‘Just tell me what I need to know. Who decided that the contract to sell the flats in Via Pordenone should be given to Marina Vanoli?’

  His barrel chest rose and fell as he prepared to betray his enemy. ‘He did.’

  ‘He who? Moroni?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Do you know why?’

  He didn’t even reply, just flashed me a false smile.

  ‘You mean Moroni was thanking his political contacts?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘And that case a few years ago of one of your company cars being driven by a senator.’ He snarled at the memory. ‘That was Moroni too was it?’

  ‘I didn’t even know the senator. I’ve never had anything to do with politicians. And then suddenly I see my name being dragged through the mud as if I had been paying bribes all my professional life.’

  ‘Didn’t you confront Moroni about it?’

  ‘It was the first time I realised quite who I was dealing with. He said things to me then that I’ve never forgotten.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Told me what would happen if I ever interfered in his business.’

  ‘His business?’

  ‘That’s what it was by then.’ He was staring into the distance, focusing on nothing but his own demise.

  ‘And what did he say would happen?’

  ‘You can guess,’ he said, still staring into the abyss.

  I looked at him. He was his old, abrasive self, but he looked tired and defeated, as if he had finally confessed to himself that he was no longer in charge. His secret was out.

  ‘So you let it lie, let him take over the business?’

  ‘It was booming,’ he said quickly. ‘We were flying. Every time something went out to tender, we won the contract. Why wouldn’t I let it lie?’

  ‘Did you ask yourself why you were winning contracts?’

  ‘It was obvious. The company was looking after the right people.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Politicians are always thirsty.’

  ‘And you were quenching their thirst?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘You said they were always thirsty. You were buying them drinks so to speak?�
�

  He stared at me through a frown. ‘I don’t know any politicians. Not one. I’ve never been someone who moves in the right salons. But Moroni did. Knew everyone. He used to say that you can’t build a sandcastle in this city unless you contribute to politicians.’

  ‘In return for what?’

  ‘For goodwill, a kindly disposition,’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know how it is. We needed work, planning permission, building permits. They needed funds to fight elections. We helped each other out. That’s democracy.’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘That’s how it works in this country. Always has and always will.’

  I shrugged, like I wasn’t sure.

  ‘That’s how it is, believe me.’

  ‘I thought all that stopped with Tangentopoli.’

  He snorted. ‘That’s the biggest charade this country has ever seen. Contagious self-righteousness, an acute case of the indignations. It happens every two or three decades or so, makes people feel better about themselves. Then it goes back to how it was before. Maybe different methods, but basically just the same. If you want a contract you’ve got to grease it, believe me.’

  ‘And how did Moroni grease it?’

  ‘The usual. Asked a politician if they knew any electricians. So we employed the person they recommended. Asked them to recommend an architect, and they had someone in mind. Always the same story. Overpriced and incompetent. We were employing people who barely knew their left from their right. Half the time we had to employ a second workman to correct what they had done wrong. But that’s the way it worked. We just kept employing their friends and family and they kept giving us the permits. Mutual back-scratching, that’s all.’

  ‘Is that what happened to Luciano Tosti as well?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Luciano Tosti.’

  He frowned and looked cross, like he didn’t enjoy wasting time on incomprehension. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘He’s the person who bought the prosciuttificio on Via Pordenone. You bought the place from him a few months later.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He was murdered.’

  I watched him closely. For all his faults, Masi was an honest man. He didn’t fake shock and horror, but nodded slowly with his eyes closed.