Death In Florence

by Marco Vichi

  ‘Looks like Colonel Bernacca finally got it right this time,’ he said, to change the subject.

  ‘Let’s hope it lasts,’ Fosco muttered, setting a steaming espresso cup down on the counter. Seated over in a corner and nodding off was Stecco, who by that hour had already knocked back several glasses of wine. Bordelli nodded in greeting to him and gulped down the coffee.

  ‘Got a token, Fosco?’

  ‘Go ahead and use my phone,’ said the barman, inviting him behind the counter.

  Bordelli phoned the station to find out whether there was any news. Tapinassi read him Piras’s and Rinaldi’s radio communications: the butcher had gone out at 6.30 a.m. in his Fiat 850, taking his hunting rifle with him. There was hardly anyone about at that hour on a Sunday morning, and so it hadn’t been easy trying to tail him without being noticed. Panerai had gone as far as Cintoia Bassa, not far from La Panca. He parked the car on a side path and went up the hill on foot, rifle slung over his shoulder. Piras hadn’t felt like following him into the woods; not only would he have risked being discovered, but he would have had to hide in the bushes and perhaps been shot at. He and Rinaldi had retreated a bit along the Cintoia road and stopped the unmarked car at a point from which they could see the butcher’s 850. They were still there now and would probably remain there for a few more hours. Bordelli told Tapinassi he’d come by the office a little later and then hung up. He returned to the other side of the bar.

  ‘Thanks, Fosco.’ He sighed, pulling out his wallet.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘What’ve you got to smoke?’

  ‘The usual stuff, Inspector … Rothman’s, Chesterfield, Pall Mall, Stuyvesant, Lucky Strike, Turmac …’ Needless to say, they were all contraband.27

  ‘I’ll try the Turmac, I’ve never smoked them before,’ said Bordelli, laying a one-thousand-lira note down on the counter.

  ‘Red or white?’

  ‘Red …’ said Bordelli, choosing at random. Fosco disappeared behind a little door and returned with the cigarettes.

  ‘The coffee’s on the house,’ he said, giving him the change. The inspector thanked him and went out of the bar, lighting a cigarette in the doorway. He headed off down the pavement, crushed by a feeling of resignation. The wind blew in warm gusts, bringing a vague smell of dead leaves from the hills. He was never going to find Giacomo’s killers. The butcher had lost his phone bill while searching for mushrooms or hunting. Simple as that. There was no point in tailing him any longer. The inspector had let himself be seduced by a telephone bill, pinning all his hopes on that silly piece of paper. He was in the dark again and would probably never come back out. Unless some saint interceded and gave him a hand, the boy’s killers would get off scot-free. It was a pill too bitter to swallow.

  He walked past his own block of flats and continued on as far as Borgo San Frediano. Hearing a woman call his name, he looked up. The powerful Signora Aneris was waving a large hand, holding a panino worthy of a stonemason in the other. Bordelli waved back. He’d never exchanged a single word with her, but they always said hello like old friends.

  He pushed open the glass door to the shop of Santo Novaro, the barber who never laughed. They called him the Undertaker around the neighbourhood, and he knew it and was proud of the fact. Nobody had ever seen him laugh, but his eyes burned with a harsh Sicilian irony. Proud and handsome, he looked like a miniature copy of Amedeo Nazzari at the time of ‘A plague on him!’28

  ‘Bacio le mani, Inspector.’29

  He’d come to Florence as a boy with his parents after the war, but still amused himself playing the Sicilian.

  ‘Ciao, Santo.’

  They shook hands. Santo’s was bony and as hard as an olive branch. There were no other customers in the shop, and Bordelli settled into the swivel chair. The Sicilian covered him in a light blue canvas sheet, which he tucked in round the neck, then he grabbed a pair of pointed scissors.

  ‘A little trim?’

  ‘But not too much.’

  ‘I hope you don’t want to become a hippy, Inspector,’ said Santo, taking his first snips.

  ‘I have to confess I wouldn’t mind, if only I were thirty years younger.’

  ‘Men should be men.’

  ‘In the olden days men used to wear their hair long, too,’ said Bordelli, looking at him in the mirror. Santo remained silent for a moment, contemplating the inspector’s words, but without interrupting his work. After each snip he would scissor the air emptily, making a nervous, swishing sound that was quite familiar to Bordelli’s ears and set him at ease. He was looking in the mirror and thinking of the salesgirl. If only he were thirty years younger …

  ‘I know some things I wish I didn’t,’ Santo whispered gravely.

  ‘What things?’ Bordelli asked with a shudder, as if the Sicilian were about to reveal the names of Giacomo’s killers.

  ‘Cowlicks,’ said Santo, still snipping.

  ‘Cowlicks?’

  ‘Cowlicks, Inspector. They’re passed on from father to son, like sins.’

  ‘Explain yourself, Santo.’

  ‘There are fathers who aren’t their sons’ fathers, and sons who aren’t their fathers’ sons. Cowlicks never lie. I see them, and I know.’

  ‘What do you know?’

  ‘I could give you a list of all the sons in the neighbourhood who are not in the right family.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Unfortunately, yes, though I’d rather not know.’

  ‘Tell me something, have you ever come across a son of mine?’ Bordelli asked, smiling, though waiting for the barber’s answer with a certain apprehension.

  ‘Don’t worry, Inspector, I won’t tell anyone,’ said Santo, still serious.

  ‘You’re only joking, I hope?’ said Bordelli, slightly worried.

  ‘Of course I’m joking; in fact I’m going to tell the whole neighbourhood.’

  ‘And who’s the bogus father?’ Bordelli asked, to keep the game going.

  ‘I am …’ said Santo, raising a shining scimitar. Before it came down on his head, Bordelli woke up. The barber was shaking him by the shoulder.

  ‘You snore like a tractor, Inspector.’

  ‘What’s that? …’

  ‘Put your head under the tap, I have to wash your hair.’

  ‘What? Ah, yes …’ muttered Bordelli, leaning forward as if to lay his neck down on the guillotine. Santo rubbed his soapy head hard, twice, then rinsed. He turned on the hair-dryer and two minutes later the inspector’s hair was dry. Looking at himself in the mirror, Bordelli barely recognised himself, so clean and well groomed. The barber removed the light blue sheet and brushed the hair clippings away from his neck.

  ‘Now you look like an American actor, Inspector.’

  ‘Haven’t you mocked me enough today, Santo?’ Bordelli said, standing up. At that moment a man came in, dragging behind him a little boy with a defeated expression on his face.

  ‘I want you to shear this lamb,’ the man said with a frown.

  ‘It’s not long,’ the boy muttered, pushing the hair behind his ears as if to hide it. Santo and Bordelli silently looked on.

  ‘You look like a monkey,’ the man said scornfully.

  ‘It’s not long,’ the boy repeated, huffing in frustration.

  ‘Damned Beatells …’ the man said, emphasising the last syllable.

  ‘It’s Bea-tuhls, not Bea-tells,’ the boy said, correcting him.

  ‘You make me feel ashamed.’

  ‘I don’t want a crew cut …’ The child was about to start crying.

  ‘Can’t you see how disgusting it looks?’

  ‘I like it this way,’ the boy muttered gloomily. His father cuffed him on the back of the head.

  ‘That’s enough whining, now just get over there and shut up.’ And he unceremoniously pushed his young son into the smaller chair, emitting a long sigh by way of conclusion.

  ‘Taper it high, please … the Beatles be damned.’

  T
hen he dropped on to the bench and opened the day’s edition of La Nazione.

  ‘The butcher returned home at twenty past eight with a hare and two pheasants.’

  Piras had dark circles under his eyes, which seemed to express the same feeling of resignation as Bordelli felt. The inspector ran a hand over his face, looking disconsolate.

  ‘We’re chasing shadows, Piras.’

  ‘We’re doing the right thing.’

  ‘We’ve been tailing day and night some poor idiot who cuts up meat for a living, a butcher who still knows the words to Fascist songs by heart and flirts crudely with every woman he sees …’

  ‘There’s nothing else we can do right now, sir.’

  ‘Don’t you think it’s time to forget about him?’

  ‘And do what?’

  ‘That’s not a good reason for wasting time.’

  ‘Let’s wait a few more days, Inspector.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I don’t know, but … Just think about it. If you had killed a little boy, what would you do? You’d sit tight and keep a low profile for a while, no? If in fact the butcher had anything to do with the murder, he certainly wouldn’t take the chance of doing anything out of the ordinary … even if he wasn’t aware he was being followed.’

  ‘Why, do you think he might be aware?’

  ‘You never know, sir. Maybe he’s wise to us and is playing dumb. He might not be as stupid as you think.’

  ‘We can’t go on for ever like this, Piras.’

  ‘Ten more days …’

  ‘One week, and not a day more. If nothing turns up, no more butcher. There are other things we could be doing … Probing pederast circles, for example, or plastering the boy’s picture all over town, offering a reward …’

  It would have been useless, and he knew it. He had to resign himself. Nobody was going to pay for Giacomo Pellissari’s death. He put a cigarette in his mouth but gestured to Piras to let him know that he wasn’t going to light it. The telephone rang. It was Rosa.

  ‘Hello, monkey. How are you? You have no idea how much Briciola has grown! She’s become a proper little demon, climbing up curtains, jumping on beds, getting into everything … The most lovable little pest you’ll ever see. But what a terror! Even Gideon’s afraid of her, big as he is … But what did I want to tell you? Ah, yes … I’ve decided that tonight you must invite me out to dinner … To a good restaurant, mind, the kind where they uncork the wine in front of you. Come by to get me at half past eight … And don’t be late. I hate waiting for men.’

  ‘Rosa, what’s got into you?’

  ‘Don’t tell me you won’t be here before nine …’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I’m really not up for going out tonight.’

  ‘If you’re worried about the money, I’ll pay for it myself, don’t worry.’

  ‘It’s not that …’

  ‘They really don’t make men the way they used to, dammit!’

  ‘Be a sport, Rosa.’ Bordelli sighed, chewing his unlit cigarette. Rosa unfurled her little-girl voice.

  ‘Come on, monkey, you don’t want to leave your dear Rosina alone at home, do you? The one who gives you all those nice massages and wants so badly to go and eat in a good restaurant? You’re not really so heartless, are you, you big, ugly teddy bear?’

  ‘All right, you win. I’ll ring your buzzer at half eight. But don’t take an hour to come down, I beg you. I hate waiting more than an hour for a woman …’

  ‘I’ll be right on time, ciao ciao, darling,’ said Rosa, hanging up.

  The inspector dropped the receiver into its cradle, imagining the restaurant bill, and looked at Piras in resignation. The Sardinian stood up.

  ‘I’m going to the radio room, Inspector. So you can smoke in peace.’

  ‘Do you really find it so disgusting?’

  ‘I sincerely hope that one day you’ll find it disgusting too, sir,’ said Piras, and he limped out of the room.

  Bordelli left the station on foot and went to have a bite to eat in Totò’s kitchen. Knowing he would be eating out that evening, he decided against Panerai’s steak, which was lying in the fridge. He tried to eat as lightly as possible, fighting off an insistent Totò, who wanted to stuff him as usual. He managed to avoid drinking the rue-flavoured grappa that the cook had shoved under his nose, and escaped at last from that place of perdition.

  He felt like stretching his legs a little, and instead of going straight back to the office, he went for a walk in the centre of town. After drinking another coffee in San Lorenzo, he kept wandering aimlessly about. There was a great deal of bustle at that hour on a Sunday, and as he walked amid the crowd he heard a father talking to his little boy of about ten, whom he held by the hand. The man was dressed expensively and wearing a hat, a big gold wristwatch and very shiny shoes. He spoke softly to his son, teaching him the ways of the world, and the boy listened with his mouth half open.

  ‘You mustn’t pay any attention to things that don’t concern you … Don’t worry about others, you must think only of yourself … Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘Yes, Papa.’

  ‘Other people only want to cheat you. If you’re nice, they take advantage of you, if you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile. Nobody ever does anything for nothing, remember that. You must do what’s good for you. Don’t look anyone in the eye and just go your own way … Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘Yes, Papa … Can I have those marzipan fruits now?’

  And they turned down a side street, continuing their lesson in living. Bordelli shook his head and smiled. Hearing that rich father’s words was like looking through the keyhole of the Italian bourgeoisie’s soul. It was only one more confirmation of what he had always thought. There was nothing more rotten than the Italian bourgeoisie, than the families of the upper, middle and petite bourgeoisie, steeped in the rot of Fascism and that of the Liberation. It was all quite horribly simple. The rich thought only of becoming richer and didn’t give a damn about how the rest of the world fared, so long as they could plunder it and accumulate wealth. They didn’t give a damn about Fascism or democracy. They merely wanted to be left in peace to make money. They were greedy, petty and stupid, with the sort of pettiness and stupidity that the rich are so fond of, because therein lies the strength that enables them to get richer and richer. They got rich on the backs of people they disdained, as has been the case in every other epoch and every other nation on earth. They were scornful, greedy, banal, obtuse, licked their fingers as they counted their money, locked themselves up inside their villas thinking they’d left the rest of the world outside, believed they had no connection to the world barely scraping by just outside their garden walls. They were even convinced they’d shut death out, and when one of them died, they looked at each other with terror in their eyes, shocked that so much wealth couldn’t protect them from death.

  He thought of the commendatori, oil men, lawyers, bankers, businessmen and builders who were ruining the city, and he burst out laughing. He thought of all the bourgeois who were so impressed with pomp – the pomp of the king of Italy, the military pomp of Mussolini, the decadent pomp of d’Annunzio’s Vittoriale villa, the hidden, imagined pomp of democracy – and he burst out laughing. He thought of all the drab, banal bourgeois who dragged themselves along behind the rules and customs of their fathers and grandfathers, thinking that it would go on for ever. Didn’t they look their sons and daughters in the eye? Didn’t they see the vipers in their bosoms? Didn’t they know that their children didn’t want any more rules and were itching for their own share of power, authority and money? Didn’t they understand that their children, raised in arrogance, had naturally become arrogant towards the rest of the world? Didn’t they realise that their children were only waiting to inherit their wealth, their fathers’ wealth, and had no use for their rotten rules? Didn’t they realise their children wanted to undermine their authority and have no bosses so they themselves could be the bosses? Having grown up in lu
xury, crushed by iron-clad rules, those young people had the rage of the unredeemed in their eyes, a universal disdain. All they wanted was to knock their fathers off their thrones and take their place. They were worse than their fathers and mothers, wanted to be even more rich and powerful than their parents, and the seeming hunger for freedom was nothing but a desire for power and money. But even more ridiculous was that nowadays even the workers, even the clerks, the paper pushers, wanted to be like the rich they had always served. Envy took the place of pride. They too wanted to be rich and powerful, they wanted a villa and garden to lock themselves up in and leave the world out of, with all its poverty, suffering and death, the way you leave your rubbish outside the door for collection …

  He walked slowly back to the station, hands thrust deep in his pockets. Nodding hello to Mugnai, he went upstairs to his office, dropping into his chair like an accused man taking the stand. A child had been killed, and he was getting nowhere. He was frittering away the time with outlandish and useless reflections on the disgusting human race as a way of not thinking about his failure. He even felt a little stupid, but what could he do if, even at a moment like that, he couldn’t get the pretty salesgirl in Via Pacinotti out of his head?

  Late that afternoon a jewellery-store robbery threw the police department into disarray. There was a chase up Via Bolognese, and then the burglars’ car flipped over on the curve at Pian di San Bartolo. Two men died on the spot and a third was on the way to the hospital. The jewels were recovered down to the last diamond, and they all lived happily ever after.

  At 8.30 sharp the inspector rang Rosa’s buzzer. After an eternity she poked her head out over the balcony and shouted for him to wait ‘another minute’ and she would be right down.

  When the front door finally opened, Bordelli had already smoked three cigarettes. Rosa appeared in all her splendour, teetering atop red patent-leather stilettos, eyes swollen with make-up, and wrapped in a short, scarlet cashmere coat with a fur collar. Her lips were bursting with red.