Obediently, she slowed down.
‘What’s your friend’s name?’ he asked, nonchalantly, as if just trying to make conversation.
‘Claudino,’ she said.
‘The surname,’ he said. He didn’t like diminutives, he wanted to know the real name, not the pet name women called him.
‘Claudino Valtraga,’ she replied conscientiously: she had understood which side her bread was buttered. She smiled as she drove skilfully around the Piazza Cinque Giornate. ‘But they call him Claudino because he’s very tall and well-built, he always goes around in a car because when he’s on foot people turn to look at him. Everybody calls him Claudino.’
So Claudio Valtraga was tall and well-built: good. ‘Where is he from?’
She smiled again, extracting herself from the tangle of cars that were trying to get out of the Piazza Cinque Giornate. ‘I don’t remember, he took me to his village once, it’s not far from Brescia, somewhere up in the mountains, but I can’t remember the name, it was such a small village it only had one bar, his grandfather still lived there, as tall and well-built as he is, but his father and mother were dead, it was so cold that day.’
‘How old is he?’
‘Thirty-three,’ she said, then: ‘Can we stop at a bar? I need a pick-me-up.’
The lioness seemed to have grown weaker. ‘If you like,’ he said: he wasn’t in any hurry, it was only two minutes past eleven on a gorgeous May day, and when you came down to it he needed a pick-me-up too. ‘But don’t try anything, or it’ll be all over for you.’
In the Viale Sabotino she managed to find a cheap drinking hole, more of a tavern than a bar. Their entrance, and especially her entrance, in black and white, with those cowboy-style trousers that clung to her thighs like gloves to fingers, was greeted with a salvo of glances: even the two drunks sitting just under the television set, clearly regulars, seemed to wake from their stupor and stared with watery eyes at the brown lioness, her thighs, her eye-catching mandolin-shaped bottom, and even the young woman behind the counter stared at her, if not with envy, with nostalgia, as if there was a vague desire in her to wear those black trousers, that white jacket with the big button in the middle dividing her breasts, and those white boots. There was nothing drinkable, apart from anisette for her, and for him some kind of white wine poured from a little fountain with four spouts, and, partly because of the anisette and partly because of those itchy male eyes which swept over her like the wind and which she probably liked, she became a lioness again. ‘Even if you arrest me and Claudino, we’ll be out again in a few months, we have friends.’
He didn’t doubt that, but he was starting to track them down, these friends of friends.
‘I’d like another anisette,’ she said.
‘Another anisette,’ Duca said to the woman behind the bar.
‘Toothache?’ the woman asked her.
‘No, a punch,’ she said, touching her swollen cheek, ‘a punch from a son of a bitch.’
Ah, so they were getting back to vulgarity. ‘Drink your anisette and then let’s go,’ Duca said.
The woman behind the bar didn’t like that vulgar expression: common people are sensitive to words, they prefer posh words so that they don’t appear too common. Offended, she went to the end of the counter where the coffee machine was.
‘I want another anisette,’ Margherita said.
Now he realised what her plan was: to get so drunk that she collapsed, then she wouldn’t be able to take them to Ca’ Tarino, they’d waste a lot of time on the way there with a drunk woman on their hands, and her friend, starting to be suspicious because of the delay, would probably make good his escape. He tried to explain to her how things were, in a low voice, but clearly: ‘You’re not drinking any more. You’re taking me to your friend right now. If you try anything, I promise you I’ll smash your face in, the punch you got before will be a caress in comparison, and when your face has been smashed in’ – and he really would smash it in – ‘your powerful friends may get you out of prison, but you won’t get your face back the way it was.’ His tone was less one of threat than that of a teacher explaining the theorem of parallels.
This talk of disfiguring faces was the kind of language she understood, she could see it in his eyes that he was absolutely determined to disfigure her as he said he would. ‘Let’s go,’ she said, even with a certain politeness because of the fear.
‘And drive slowly,’ he said in the car: she might even fake an accident, knock down a passer-by, just so as not to take them to her friend.
She drove slowly, and well: he had overestimated her, he had thought she was capable of defending her friend to the end, but these weren’t the kind of people who defended their friends.
‘As far as your powerful friends are concerned, we’ve arrested more than half of them at the Binaschina.’ He told her the names of four people who had fallen into the trap laid at the Binaschina. ‘The ship is sinking fast, don’t rely on those people too much, stay with us.’
Those names had an effect on her, they seemed to sober her up, and the lioness turned into a lamb, disgustingly servile. ‘Of course I’m with you. Be careful, because he’s very big and very well-built, and he’s armed, you won’t be able to take him on if there are only two of you, he even held three men at bay once and ended up knocking them all out.’
All the better, Duca thought, all the better, he had no intention of keeping him at bay: if the man attacked them, if he fired at them, they had to defend themselves, Mascaranti had a gun, he wouldn’t let himself be killed without reacting, and the headline would read something like this: Gunman Fires at Police, and beneath, in smaller letters: He is killed in brief conflict with law enforcement officers, because however modestly, and even somewhat illegally, the two of them were still some kind of law enforcement officers.
Here was the Naviglio, and as they continued towards Corsico they every now and again came across a stretch of the canal that was like a picture postcard image of old Milan, made even more dreamlike by the wind ruffling the waters. He even saw two women washing on the bank, on special stones: they didn’t like washing machines.
‘Who told you I had that case?’ he asked, not looking at her but at the Naviglio, the wind, the spring that was still managing to display itself even in that bare suburban landscape. ‘And why did it take you so long to come and pick it up?’
‘Claudino only knew that Silvano had the case,’ she said, scared and servile, ‘and that Silvano had got it from Ulrico, so we went to Ulrico’s and he wasn’t there, he’d run away, that was when Claudino realised he’d kept the case, and we started looking for him, we went everywhere, then Claudino thought he must be hiding in one of his shops, a closed butcher’s shop is a place where nobody would think of looking for someone, but Claudino knows him and he went to Ca’ Tarino, he knocked down the door with his shoulder and Ulrico was inside, so he asked him for the case, he told him he’d given it to Giovanna and that was the last he’d heard of it, then he said Giovanna might have left it in the perfume shop in the Via Plinio, as she’d done before, so Claudino sent me straight to the perfume shop and the woman in the perfume shop told me, yes, Giovanna had left the case there, but then she’d come back to pick it up and told her she was going to a doctor in the Piazza Leonardo da Vinci and so I went to the Piazza Leonardo da Vinci.’
What idiots! So that was how they had bagged them. In the rearview mirror he looked at Mascaranti’s Simca keeping pace with him, then looked again at the wind-ruffled waters of the Naviglio, they were in Corsico, but seemed to be in an enchanted landscape of lagoons, and the servility of this false lioness made him nauseous, compared with the luminous clarity of the day.
‘So now he’s waiting for you to come back with the case?’
At the flashing traffic light just before the bridge over the Naviglio Grande, she turned left into the main street of Corsico. ‘Yes,’ she said, having executed the manoeuvre.
‘Right, now listen carefully to
what I’m about to say.’
‘Yes,’ she said, servile, then said, ‘I’m scared.’
‘Listen carefully to what I’m about to say and don’t be scared.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ever more servile, ‘but I am scared. He’ll shoot, he shoots everybody, I know what you want me to do’ – she did not realise her voice was quivering with fear – ‘but as soon as he realises I’ve grassed on him, he’ll shoot me first. Even with Silvano there was no need to shoot him, he just had to block the road, but he was angry, I told him no, no, no, but he fired and you know what he told me? “With this storm, no one will hear a thing.” ’
‘Just listen and keep calm,’ Duca said. ‘Stop the car and I’ll get in the back and hide between the seats, do you understand?’
‘Yes, yes,’ she nodded, the fear had even drained the olive colour from her vulgar face. She stopped by the last houses on the Via Dante where it met the Via Milano.
‘When we get there,’ Duca said, ‘park in front of the butcher’s shop, I’ll be hidden in the back. Stop, get out, and make him open up for you. Is there a signal you’ve agreed on?’
‘No, he just has to hear my voice.’
‘Good, get him to open up and don’t try any tricks. If you do as I say, in ten minutes you can drive away in this car.’ Duca got out, smiled at Mascaranti, who was watching him from the Simca, which had also stopped, and got in the back. ‘Go slowly and don’t think of pulling any stunts.’ Slowly, he slid between the seats: Signor Claudio Valtraga might be watching and seeing his woman arrive with a man would arouse his suspicions, that was why he hid.
In that bright midday giddy with wind, the beautiful white Opel reached Romano Banco, drove through it, entered an area that was partly built-up and partly countryside, veered slightly towards Pontirolo, and finally came to an old Roman square, a complex of four former farmhouses known as Ca’ Tarino. Her face grey with fear, she stopped the car near one of the four corners of the rectangle, where the butcher’s shop was. The snow-white marble sign said Butcher: Best Meats, and beneath it in smaller lettering were the words Proprietor Ulrico Brambilla. ‘Talk to him, but don’t stand in front of the door,’ Duca said, ‘stand to the side, so that he can’t see you when he opens the door and has to come outside.’
‘Yes,’ she said, grey and servile, and got out.
At this hour, almost lunchtime, Ca’ Tarino was deserted, but there, just next to the butcher’s shop, two little girls, maybe four or five years old, were sitting on a mound of rubbish, the way children do, because they can, holding on to a large turkey which was keeping obediently still, moving only its neck to peck at the rubbish. On the balcony of one of the four houses, a woman was beating an eye-catching yellow blanket, it was the only sound in that incredible silence that precedes mealtimes.
The entrance to the butcher’s shop was on one side, with the shutter down, and on the other side there was a back door.
She headed for the back door, but as she passed the two little girls, virtually immersed in the rubbish – hygiene is a form of superstition – and in the hard feathers of the turkey that was picking at it, a quite unforeseen impulse of female kindness, actually quite disturbing in a creature as loutish as her, led her to say in a low voice, ‘Get out of here, girls,’ and seeing that swollen, fear-ridden face, the two little girls obeyed immediately, even forgetting about the turkey, which stayed where it was, impassively searching in the rubbish.
She knocked twice at the door, which was slightly off its hinges, and said, ‘Claudino, it’s me,’ she had to raise her voice, because the woman who was beating the carpet on the rail of the balcony must have lost her temper and the thwack-thwack of the carpet beater echoed around the rectangle of Ca’ Tarino. ‘It’s me, Claudino, I have the case.’
At that moment Duca opened the car door, slipped out of the car and ran to take up his position next to the back door of the building. A moment later, he was joined by Mascaranti.
PART THREE
He was even wearing a nice sweater knitted by her, he had watched her knit it, had seen it growing day by day in her hands, with a kind of eyelet in the bottom edge in which to hide the two cyanide capsules he could use to kill himself instantaneously.
1
Claudio Valtraga was very elegant. He had taken off the white butcher’s jacket and the long apron, had taken what remained of Ulrico Brambilla into the cold room, and had carefully washed himself in the huge sink in that cold room. Unfortunately there were a few little spots of blood – Ulrico Brambilla’s blood – on the collar of his shirt, and one quite big one on the right hand cuff, but the cow would be arriving soon, that was what he – mentally, but also verbally – called his companion Margherita, and they would go home and he would change his shirt. He had also combed his hair with the little comb he had in the inside pocket of his jacket, and had even admired himself in the long mirror behind the counter, which bore the words Ulrico Brambilla – Butcher – Top Quality Meats, and then had started to smoke, sitting on the marble cash desk, waiting.
He had had time to smoke two cigarettes before he heard the sound of a car, he had a refined ear and could tell it was his Opel, and then he heard her voice, ‘Claudino, it’s me,’ and then again, over the thwack-thwack of the woman beating her blanket, ‘It’s me, Claudino, I have the case.’ He jumped down from the cash desk: this was good news. The back door was a bit shaky since he had shoved it in with his shoulder, but the iron transom was still in place, he pulled the transom and opened the door, he didn’t see anybody and instinctively stepped outside, all he could see was the turkey, by the time he saw Duca and put his hand inside his jacket to take out his gun it was too late. With a good stone in his hand, which must have weighed a couple of kilos, Duca landed the fiercest punch of his life on the right jaw, aiming just under the jaw, and when the punch arrived, Claudio Valtraga went out instantaneously like a light being switched off and collapsed to the ground, inside the shop. At that very moment, a young man on a motor scooter screeched to a halt, making as much noise as a Jaguar pulling up abruptly at a red light. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked. He had seen Duca land the punch, but he had also seen the woman, in black and white, with all that flesh bulging out from beneath her clothes.
‘Police,’ Mascaranti said. ‘Go home and mind your own business.’ In braking, the motor scooter had sent the turkey running, but the two little girls now reappeared and behind them was an old man in dark blue overalls with a bicycle pump in his hand, saying ‘Come here, come here,’ but without any anxiety.
Mascaranti entered the butcher’s shop, and dragged the bison inside and across the carpet of cigarette butts and blood, which was what the floor of the shop had become. Meanwhile, Duca went to the woman, who was standing next to the white Opel and seemed not to have yet understood what had happened, she would never have imagined that her Claudino could end up like that, and so abruptly.
‘Get in the car and go,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you three hours to leave the country, in three hours all the border posts will be informed. Go!’ he screamed. He had become a wicked person, because the woman would kill herself trying to get to the French border in three hours, and that was precisely what he wanted. ‘Go, I said!’ And as she jumped in behind the wheel and started the engine, he screamed at the young man on the motor scooter, who was still there, ‘Get out of here and leave us alone!’ And he went into the butcher’s shop, lit in the middle of the day by those six lamps as powerful as small suns, and closed the loose door against the sun and the wind and the bright spring day outside.
‘Look, Dr Lamberti,’ Mascaranti said in a weak voice, holding open the door to the cold room. There was a contraction, a twisting, in his stomach even though, as a policeman, he had seen a lot of things in his life.
Duca took two steps forward and looked: he was a doctor and had attended the required number of anatomy lessons but the inhuman mess that had been made of that body was greater than his own powers of resistance, and he clenched h
is jaws and said, ‘Close the door.’
Mascaranti closed it, then retched. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘Go and phone the house, and then the morgue.’
‘We’ll need a waterproof sheet.’
‘Yes, tell the people in the morgue. I’ll keep an eye on this fellow.’ He leaned over the unconscious Claudio Valtraga, touched him with disgust and immediately found his gun, a small but solid and efficient Beretta. In silence, he handed it to Mascaranti.
‘Keep it, Dr Lamberti,’ Mascaranti said, ‘he’ll come round in two minutes and you’ll be alone with him while I’m phoning.’
‘I don’t like guns,’ Duca said, ‘I don’t enjoy using them, I prefer my fists.’
Mascaranti refused to take the gun. ‘Dr Lamberti, the two of us couldn’t control this guy without a gun.’
‘Take the gun and go and phone!’ Duca shouted.
Shouting is a more convincing method than speaking. Reluctantly, Mascaranti took the Beretta and went out.
Duca looked at the monumental figure of Claudio Valtraga on the floor. Not with hate, Dr Duca Lamberti, not with hate, this isn’t about revenge, it’s about justice, yes, that’s understood, a man capable of doing what he had done to a fellow human being, with the help of a saw for cutting bones, arouses ill feeling, but a civilised person has to overcome this ill feeling, he has to understand he is dealing with misfits, with people who would not have reached this point if they had been properly educated.
Traitors to All Page 15
