Aragona put his glasses back on: “So the old witch has set aside a nice fat payout at the old cripple’s expense. Interesting. But what does that have to do with the boy? I like Scarano better: the unsuccessful painter and unrepentant gambler who can’t cover his debts. Those people will cut your throat if you try to stiff them, and fear is always an excellent motive.”
Palma scratched his head: “I don’t know. It’s also true that one last payout would mean the lady was set for the foreseeable future.”
Piras stood up: “My congratulations, I don’t think that any other investigative team could have come close. Guys, you’ve earned yourselves another day; I’ll talk to the chief of police. Keep your guard up, and in particular keep an eye on any communications between the kidnappers and old Borrelli. I don’t want any ransom being paid.”
Lojacono went over to Pisanelli: “Giorgio, I wanted to compliment you: You manage to find out more by going for a walk and buying someone a cup of coffee than would ten undercover agents infiltrating Cosa Nostra—and trust me, I’ve seen them work. I’m truly impressed.”
“Don’t mention it, Loja’. This is my neighborhood, my city: I know them well, and if you were back home, you’d do the same.”
“No, I don’t think so. People trust you, and they’re right to do so: you wouldn’t have revealed the name of your friend under torture, and he knows it, and that’s why he’ll talk to you. You really are something.”
Pisanelli slapped him on the back: “We’re all really something, we Bastards of Pizzofalcone. We should trademark the nickname. It’s been years since I’ve had so much fun coming in to the office. Though I’d love it if we could get this kid out of the kidnappers’ clutches.”
“You’re right, it’s such a nasty story that the burglary that Di Nardo and I are investigating looks like a joke in comparison. You should have seen the wife of the victim in the gym this morning; we caught her with a tattooed idiot who, by the way, actually did time for burglary. Now we need to do a little cross-referencing, but we think that this half-baked burglary might actually have been concocted up by the signora with her young lover’s help.”
Pisanelli suddenly looked interested: “Excuse me, but what’s the name of the guy who got robbed? You said he owns a gym?”
“Parascandolo is the name. He has a gym right down the hill from . . .”
“. . . from Corso Vittorio Emanuele, right. Tore. Tore Parascandolo, you mean. A guy with a face like a bulldog and a voice like a little girl’s. And his wife is all silicone and plastic surgery.”
“How do you know?”
“I know because everyone in this city knows Tore the Bulldog. He’s notorious.”
“Why?”
“He’s a loan shark, Loja’. A huge bastard of a loan shark. And the gym is his cover. We’ve been after him for a lifetime, but he’s clever. We’ve never been able to pin anything on him.”
XXXVI
Once the meeting was over, as soon as Piras had left, Palma signaled to Romano and Aragona to follow him into his office. He was reacting with unusual haste.
He closed his door and gestured for them to sit down.
“Well? What do you think of this new information? Do you have any ideas?”
“Boss,” Romano replied, “can I tell you in complete frankness what I think? Even if I don’t have the evidence to support it?”
“Certainly.”
“It’s clear that there’s someone behind the kidnapper, or the kidnappers—some kind of inside man or client. Someone who is intimately acquainted with the intricate Borrelli family dynamics, who knows that the boy lives with his mother and her boyfriend, and that they don’t keep a close eye on him.”
Aragona broke in: “And it’s clear that the people holding him prisoner are foreigners. All of them, not just the one who phoned.”
Palma and Romano turned to look at him: “Why is that?”
“Otherwise they wouldn’t have had someone with such a recognizable voice make the phone call. They’d have chosen an Italian, and that would have forced us to widen our investigation.”
Romano was impressed in spite of himself. “There’s a certain logic to that.”
Palma agreed. “Yes, there is a certain logic.”
Romano went on: “The research that Ottavia and Pisanelli have done points to two likely suspects, though I think one of them has a stronger motive than the other. Scarano really could be in deep trouble if it’s true that Borrelli has turned off the tap. That might help explain why he agreed to give the old man the news: Maybe he was hoping to get in good with him by showing how conscientious he was.”
Aragona broke in again: “I wouldn’t underestimate the witch. Maybe she wanted to take revenge for all the years spent slaving away for him without him showing the slightest gratitude in return. I’ll remind you that he treated her like crap even in front of us. Plus she didn’t like the child, she wouldn’t take care of him even when he was little. Not to mention the fact that she considers Eva . . . what did Ottavia say? . . . a selfish bitch. In other words, she strikes me as a good candidate, too.”
“Yes, we can’t rule her out,” Romano admitted. “In any case, time is tight and we need to follow whatever slender thread presents itself. Continuing to investigate haphazardly, as we have been, would amount to searching for a needle in a haystack. And in any case, we’ve delved into the boy’s daily life, and we know that he hasn’t been in recent contact with anyone unusual. His life is fairly circumscribed, at school they run a pretty tight ship and, from the descriptions everyone gives of him, he’s not the kind of kid to talk to strangers. They took him at the one possible moment, and Dodo knew the person with whom he left the museum.”
“We’ve already said these things, and I agree that we need to focus on the inside man. Let’s do this: We’ll call them all together at the old man’s place, since he can’t get around, we tell them the way things stand, and we see how they react. Sometimes, when you throw a rock in the pond, something surfaces.”
“It strikes me as a desperation move, boss,” Romano said, trying to set aside his doubts. “But I can’t think of anything else.”
Aragona massaged his temples: “If we had more time to work, we could put them all under surveillance and wait for one of them to slip up. But given the way things are, I’m with you on the family meeting.”
Palma stood up: “All right then. Make some phone calls and get a little rest. We’ll head over there tonight.”
Laura lingered in the courtyard and told her driver to wait for her. Then she went over to Guida, who was the guard on duty at the front door: “Would you do me a favor and call up to Lieutenant Lojacono?”
Guida snapped to attention, surprising Laura, and, after quickly punching in a number, handed her the receiver.
“I’m waiting for you out in the car,” Piras said tersely. “Hurry up.”
And she moved off.
A minute later, Guida saw Lojacono come downstairs, and decided to venture a knowing reference: “Lieutenant, the dottoressa drove the car around to the right, you’ll find her there.”
Lojacono stopped and looked at him with no expression. The officer, increasingly uneasy, snapped to attention and fixed his gaze on a point in space out in the courtyard. Then the Chinaman said: “Guida, when I need directions from you, I’ll ask for them. More importantly: When I need your help in my personal life, which I imagine will be never, I’ll give you written instructions. In the meanwhile, to put it very briefly, mind your own fucking business.”
“Yessir, Lieutenant.”
Laura opened the door for him and told him to get in. There was no driver.
“I told him to go get himself a cup of coffee. Weak, or he won’t be able to get to sleep tonight. He’s better behind the wheel than Aragona, but absolutely everyone who drives in this city, whatever the reason, seems crazy.”
“Agreed; today I had to drive and I still feel shaken up. Well, what’s up?”
Piras crossed her legs: “Why, now I need a specific reason to talk with you? Anyway, I wanted to hear your impression of this case, face-to-face, in private.”
“Well, time is tight: They’ve been holding the boy for three days, though I don’t think they’re interested in hurting him. I’d focus on the family; what Ottavia and Pisanelli have found looks like good stuff to me.”
Piras nodded.
“I admire the fact that Palma resisted the temptation to hand you the case; by doing that, he keeps morale high. Still, I wish it was you running the investigation; I would feel better about it.”
“Don’t worry, Romano is a tough nut, and even Aragona, you know, is much better than you’d think. He’s rough and rude, but he pays attention, and he has good hunches. Plus, like you saw, we all talk things over together. That’s the real strength of this precinct, the way we collaborate. And credit for that goes to Palma.”
“Yes, I know. You’re all doing excellent work. But work isn’t the only thing there is.”
Lojacono burst out laughing: “Wait, seriously? I can’t believe I’m hearing this from you, with the reputation for being a workaholic. You’re notorious for all but worshipping at the altar of the justice system, for having the penal code where your heart should be!”
Lojacono would long remember Piras’s reaction, because it was so surprising. Instead of laughing in turn, the woman tightened her lips, her expression one of deep suffering, and started crying. No sobbing, no moaning: just tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Laura, excuse me . . . what did I say? It was just a joke, Laura . . .”
Lojacono wished he could just dig a hole and bury himself in it. The thought that he’d somehow triggered those tears made his gut ache.
“Is that what people say about me?” She said. “Yes, I can just imagine. And it’s true. Or at least it was true, for you’d be surprised to know how long. It’s so easy to throw your life away; you can’t even imagine, Lieutenant Lojacono.”
“Laura, I . . .”
“And by the time you realize what you’ve done, you’re left empty-handed. Completely empty-handed.”
“Listen, no one knows better than I do that it’s possible to throw your life away. But then, maybe, your life comes back and brings you other opportunities. I . . . Laura, please, don’t cry. I don’t know how to talk to women when they’re crying. I just can’t do it.”
Piras took her sunglasses out of her purse, put them on, and dried her cheeks with her hands; she reminded Lojacono of a little girl.
“Listen, I can’t afford to waste time. Not anymore. I don’t know how to flirt with a man I like, and I’m no good at sitting there patiently and waiting for him, either; I’m much better at pouring buckets of cold water onto the idiots who try to bag me just so they can add another notch to their bedposts.”
Lojacono interrupted: “Excuse me, but what makes you think I don’t like you? Look, ever since the very first time I saw you . . . Fuck, I’m too old for some things, too. And I don’t want to say them to you here, in a car parked outside the precinct, while these lunatics go roaring past down the street like they’re at some grand prix.”
Piras sat motionless, looking at him. He couldn’t see her eyes, hidden as they were behind the dark lenses; but he did notice that tears were no longer streaming down her face.
In a harsh, low voice, her arms still crossed tightly, the woman said to him: “Be careful, Lojacono. Be very careful. Because if you try to break my heart I’ll remember that I’m Sardinian and I’ll cut your throat with a razor-sharp pattada. Consider yourself warned.”
“Look, Dottoressa, I’m Sicilian. I’m used to the lupara, the sawed-off shotgun. But I don’t think you’re going to need one.”
He brushed her lips in a rapid kiss and got out of the car, full of life.
XXXVII
Dodo poops in a plastic potty. A baby potty, with a handle on the side. There’s a picture of Hello Kitty on it, so it’s for girls.
At first, for several hours, he’d held it in. He’d peed in a corner, the minute day had dawned and there’d been a glimmer of light through the crack in the sheet metal, but he’d held the poop in. Then, when he couldn’t stand it anymore, he’d used the potty. He thought it was kind of nice that it had the picture of Hello Kitty on it, even though he’d never really liked her.
Along with the potty, Stromboli had given him a roll of toilet paper. He didn’t use much, for fear he wouldn’t be given any more. Once he saw a TV show where a boy was held prisoner and there was no toilet paper and the thought terrified him: Of course you can poop on the floor or the ground, but how do you clean yourself afterward if you don’t have any toilet paper?
Time passes slowly. Dodo tries to sleep, but at night, even with the blanket, he’s a little cold, and every so often he wakes up with his teeth chattering. He has a sore throat; he didn’t want to tell Lena because he didn’t want her to worry. Poor Lena. Dodo heard Stromboli shouting in his language, and Lena answering: Maybe they’re both from the same country, even though he remembers that Lena knows more than one language. She told him that when she went to school, she had to study Russian, and that she’d learned German from working in Hamburg for a year.
Sister Beatrice, in class, explained to them that these days there is a great deal of violence against women. One of his classmates, Bastiani, who’s been held back so he’s older, snickered in that annoying way of his and said that there are men who force women to have sex even though they don’t want to.
He’s not really clear on what having sex means, but it seems like it’s something pretty violent. He’s afraid that it’s what Stromboli does with Lena, and he doesn’t want to give her even more to worry about, so he says nothing to her about his throat, the poop, and the cold hot pockets that by now he’s used to eating anyway.
Dodo tells himself that when his father, leading a squad of policemen with guns, comes to rescue him, he’ll have to tell the truth and admit that Stromboli did give him food, a blanket, water, and even Coca-Cola, as well as the Hello Kitty potty. After all, he can’t be all that bad, if he let him have all these things.
He’s sleepy now, Dodo is. He feels hot but he’s shivering. He covers himself up and fantasizes about saving Stromboli’s life at the last second, when a policeman is about to shoot him in the head.
Perhaps Stromboli, Dodo thinks as he slips into a sleep made up of equal parts fever and exhaustion, has kids of his own at home. And maybe the money that he wants from his grandfather is just so he can feed those children.
His grandfather, Dodo thinks. Poor grandfather, old and sick. Maybe, now that he’s been taken, Papà and Grandpa will finally make peace.
They’re his heroes, Grandpa and Papà, Dodo thinks.
And he falls asleep, with his throat on fire.
XXXVIII
Old Borrelli’s caretaker led Palma, Romano, and Aragona down the hallway and up the stairs, both of which were still immersed in shadows. But the shadows weren’t muffled now: The place seemed to crackle with electricity.
Everyone was there in the living room. At the center, in his wheelchair, sat the patriarch, pale and expressionless; standing beside him was Peluso, rigid, erect, her gaze as fixed as that of a wax statue. Eva was sitting on one of the sofas, her face devastated by grief and lack of sleep, her fingers twisting a tear-soaked handkerchief; next to her sat Scarano, eyes downcast, one hand on her leg. Alberto Cerchia kept pacing back and forth in front of the large windows, ignoring the spectacular nighttime panorama.
The policemen understood that their arrival had interrupted a lively argument, which had left behind traces like those on a field in the aftermath of a battle.
Palma said: “We wanted to meet with you all together to report on the state of our invest
igation and the measures the magistrate has taken.”
“Commissario,” Eva asked in a trembling voice, “do you have any news? Who took my boy? It’s been three days . . . I can’t take it any more . . .”
Scarano put his arm around her shoulder. “What news do you expect them to come up with?” Cerchia roared. “They can’t even find each other in this mess of a city; no wonder they can’t find my son. All you know how to do is freeze our bank accounts: My partner called me from Bergamo and told me that we can’t make payments anymore. That’s what you know how to do. Instead of . . .”
Palma interrupted him firmly: “Dottor Cerchia, I invite you to refrain from exaggerating. I understand your state of mind, the state of mind you’re all in, but certain measures are required by law. In fact, I wanted to remind you that while your assets have been frozen, you can, on a case-by-case basis, obtain the partial release of certain sums to make payments through banking channels. Moreover, all telephone lines, including cell phones, are subject to wiretapping and recording . . .”
Cerchia snapped yet again: “What are you trying to say? It’s as if we were the criminals! You’re all worthless!”
Romano gave him a surly look: “Cerchia, watch out. Talking that way to a police commissario could very easily constitute a criminal offense.”
The man fell silent, though it took a visible effort; his face was twisted in fury. He too showed unmistakable signs—stubble; a wrinkled suit—of exhaustion; he clearly hadn’t been sleeping much. Dodo’s parents had been brought together again, but by grief and sorrow.
Old Borrelli spoke in a low voice: “Commissario, we understand. But if the reason you came here is to inform us of the restrictions you’ve imposed, which I’m sure we all expected, you could have spared yourself the trip.”
Darkness for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone Page 19
