Manuela sprang up and disappeared out of the far door leading, he imagined, into the kitchen. With his arm in a sling, it took Blume so long to extricate himself from the yielding cushions of the soft armchair that the doorbell rang again before he got to it. Annoyed, he yanked it open.
An old man with no ears wearing a white linen jacket over a pink T-shirt was standing beside a young man in a half-unzipped tracksuit. He had just begun to register something funny about the old man’s face, when the young man stepped in and shoved the barrel of a small-frame pistol hard against the underside of Blume’s chin.
33
THE GUNMAN KEPT Blume’s head tilted awkwardly back, preventing him from getting a look at him. The older man, who smelled of after-shave, ran his hands expertly across Blume’s stomach and waist, up and down his side, back, and front, then patted him gently as if he was a big baby with wind. Then he hunkered down on a single knee around Blume’s calves, before standing up again, to extract Blume’s wallet and cell phone from his front trouser packet with considerably more ease and speed than Blume himself had ever managed, even when two-handed. Then he gently raised the sling holding Blume’s plastered arm, and slid his hand across the sweaty patch below on Blume’s polo shirt. Blume was fascinated by the man’s earless head.
“Clean,” he said at last.
“I don’t like that,” said his younger partner, releasing some of the pressure on Blume’s chin.
“What?”
“Clean. Don’t say clean. That’s what cops say.”
“Yeah? What do we say, then?”
The young man withdrew his tiny pistol entirely from Blume’s face to gather his thoughts and think about this.
Free to move, Blume turned his eyes to the older man. Where his ears should have been were two crumpled pieces of pink flesh that resembled the @ of an email address. They looked infantile and out of place perched behind his aged face. He wore two thin pendants around his neck, one of which, a golden horn amulet, had slipped out from below his T-shirt. Tufts of hair rose from below the neck.
“The fuck you looking at?” said the young man.
Blume ignored the question.
“I said . . .”
“Shut up, Fà,” said the older man. His overtanned face fissured into countless lines and wrinkles as he concentrated on a plasticized card in his hand.
“This is your badge?”
“Can’t you read?”
“I can read just fine.”
Blume said, “Because I thought maybe at your age, you’d need reading glasses, though I can see how wearing them might prove difficult.” Blume broke off as the young man, smelling mockery in the air, shoved his pistol back into his face.
The earless one remained calm. He was old. He must have heard them all by now, and if he was still alive in this business at this age, then he must have some self-control. At least Blume hoped so.
“Fà. Get rid of it,” he told his partner.
The young man lowered the weapon again.
“Commissioner Alexsei Blum-eh?”
“More or less.”
He slipped the card back into the wallet.
The young man made the pistol vanish into his velour top. The other handed Blume his wallet and phone back.
Blume took them wordlessly, and glanced behind him. No sign of Manuela. The dog slept on.
“Step out?”
It was phrased as a request, but the young man moved slightly behind Blume. Blume chose to step out the door, and the two followed. Neither of them had a weapon in evidence. Blume thought about making a break for it, and felt the muscles in his legs throb. He imagined hurtling down the stairs, lurching into the banisters with his sprained arm.
The young man pressed the elevator button. All three stepped in.
“I suppose ‘clean’ is all right,” he said as the doors slid shut. “I can’t think of another way of saying it.”
The older man poked Blume in the back.
“You’re really Commissioner Blume?”
“My fame precedes me.”
“You’re not a journalist?”
“No.”
“Good. There’s something I want you to know.”
“Tell me.”
“This isn’t abduction.”
Blume turned around and said, “No?”
The elevator stopped and the doors opened. A woman with a small boy and some shopping bags was waiting to get in. Blume went to help her, then remembered his arm. The youth pushed past them, then stood outside the elevator. He reminded Blume of a pouting footballer who played for Juventus. Almost good-looking, except for the mouth.
“It’s OK,” said the older man, “I got it.”
He helped the woman get the bags into the elevator. Blume feeling useless stepped out of the way and watched. Although the mother was saying thank you, Blume could see from her face she was uncomfortable with their continued presence.
Blume smiled at the boy, who was clutching a handful of small Japanese action figures. The doors slid shut just as he began to smile back.
Glistening from the effort of helping the woman with the shopping bags, the older man came up to Blume.
“This is not an abduction. I want to make that clear. Up there, in the apartment . . .”
“Yes, what shall we call that?” asked Blume.
“A precautionary search.”
“I am a police officer.”
“Yeah, we know. We had to check. Now anything you do from here on out is of your own free will.”
“Like if I walked away?”
“Even that. We might follow you.”
“If I pulled out a phone, called up a car to have you arrested for assault of a police officer with a deadly weapon, aggravated ab—” Blume stopped. He could see a look of genuine boredom in the old man’s gray eyes. “So, you want me to come with you?”
“That would be by far the best solution. But I want to emphasize that this is something you are doing of—”
“My own free will. So you said.”
The tracksuit behind him moved impatiently. “Can we get out of here? People can hear things.”
“Good point, Fà.” To Blume he said, “If you came with us, it would make things easier. You get in your own car, there’s no telling who you might call. Maybe you’d take a wrong turn, spend the next hour trying to find us again, especially since you would be driving with one arm.”
“I have an automatic transmission in that car. But you have persuaded me. Where am I voluntarily going with you?”
“Mr. Innocenzi’s.”
Blume thought about it. “OK. I wanted to talk to him anyway.”
“Happy coincidence.”
The three of them walked out under the midday sun and climbed into a double-parked Cherokee. The older man sat in the back with Blume. They drove north along the quays of the Tiber, then turned right to head into the center. A traffic policeman began flapping a red-and-white stick shaped like a lollipop at them as they entered the blue zone. They slowed down to let him see the permit on the windscreen. The traffic policeman signaled at them to go on.
They crossed the center. As they drove up Via Veneto, Blume’s reluctant captor pulled out a cell phone and told someone they were almost there.
They arrived at their destination, on Via Po, in the embassy district of the city. The driver pulled the car up to the curb.
“There. The house with the green door. Just one bell. Ring it.”
He opened the car door and Blume stepped out.
34
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 5 P.M.
PATIENCE, THOUGHT BLUME. He would take a small kudos loss on the way he had been brought here. Another youth in another velour tracksuit, zipper undone to reveal a hairless shining chest, opened the door before he rang or knocked. The youth stayed by the door as Blume walked into a hallway lined with framed motion picture stills of Alberto Sordi, a stylized picture of Mussolini, and a futurist poster of fast red cars.
; From the far end of the corridor, someone said “He was great, wasn’t he?”
Blume looked down, his eyes adjusting to the dimmer light, and saw Innocenzi. He had seen him in plenty of photos and even on TV. He was wearing a green silk shirt, white cotton pants, a pair of Chinese kung-fu slippers.
Blume said, “No. I hate Sordi. Hate his movies, hate his voice. All that Romanaccio shit.”
Innocenzi seemed taken aback. “Wow. You’re the first person I have met to take that attitude. Maybe you need to be a true- blood Roman instead of an American to appreciate the man. But he’s gone now, may his great soul rest in peace. Also, I was talking about Mussolini.”
Blume reached Innocenzi, who held out a hand in greeting. Blume thought about it, then took the proffered hand, which was as hard as a seashell.
“Great,” said Innocenzi. “In here.”
He left the door ajar as he followed Blume into the room, which was furnished as if a teenage hippie from the 1970s had moved into the drawing room of a spinster from the 1920s and simply added stuff without ever taking anything out.
A lava lamp sat on lace draped over a mahogany dresser, a huge old-fashioned stereo with yellow lights sat blinking on a polished flat-topped wooden trunk. A small shrine to the Sacred Heart was attached to the far wall. A few LPs were fanned out over the floor: Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, Cream, Lucio Battisti. Silver candlesticks, cigarette papers, a green plastic clock, and a cigarette rolling machine were reflected in the large oval mirror of a vanity to Blume’s left. Hanging on the wall behind was an old poster with a stylized dove symbol.
Slightly off-center was a square card table topped with green felt, marked with burns and with stains from the rims of glasses. Innocenzi pointed Blume into a chair, pulled one up himself, sat at the opposite end of the table and said, “You’ve been paying visits to my daughter.”
“Yes.”
“Even though you’re not on this case?”
“Yes.”
“You’re something else, know that?”
Blume didn’t feel like he had any explaining to do, so he sat silent. Innocenzi, who seemed to be lost in contemplation, did the same. Innocenzi’s breath smelled of garlic and mint. The stubble sat on his face like grains of wet black sand. His age was most visible from two creases running diagonally from his high cheekbones down the side of his face, giving a triangular and simian shape to the area between his upper lip and nose. He still had plenty of hair, but he kept it too long at the back, and too black for his sixty-eight years. It was high time, Blume felt, the Italians came up with their own word for mullet.
A chandelier with bulbs missing hung from the ceiling. The light from the window was muted by half-closed wooden shutters. A sofa made from extruded aluminium and hard plastic upholstery sat in the middle. What the hell did the boss spend his millions on?
After a while, Blume said, “If we’re not going anywhere with this, I may as well go.”
Innocenzi made a slow chopping movement with his hand. “No, no, no. Stay there. I was just getting to know you in person, and maybe I have something to tell you about your cop killers, Alleva and Massoni.”
“As you said, it’s not my case.”
“You want me to give someone else the information?” Innocenzi sounded disappointed.
“That’s not what I said.”
“Well, as it happens, I already did. I told Inspector Paoloni where to find Alleva and Massoni. I told him—let me see—on Wednesday, was it? Whatever day the funeral was. I can tell from just looking at your face that this is news to you. I can also tell that you’ve been betrayed. You know what people do when they’ve been betrayed? They wrinkle the top of their nose. And with your nose, it’s very easy to see. So Paoloni didn’t tell you?”
“What did he do to them?”
“You’re not in the picture at all, are you? Good. I like to break news. So Paoloni turns up at the address I gave him, in an unmarked car. He waits for a bit and four other cops, two from your place, two from Tor Vergata, or so I heard, meet at the bottom of the street, around one o’clock at night.”
“Have you got the names of these cops?” said Blume.
“Serenity and patience, Commissioner. I’ve got more than that, as you’ll find out if you let me finish my story.” He waited to see if Blume wanted to interrupt again, then continued: “We’ve got a few people watching. They were there because I trust them and wanted to reward them with some light entertainment. The cop from Tor Vergata had a battering ram. The others have weapons which I don’t think are standard issue for you people. Colt revolver, one had. Scared of dropping shells, I suppose. No masks or bala-clavas, just upturned collars. So they burst into this apartment and scare the living Jesus out of a foolish barman who thought he could skim on the poker machines we installed in his premises. My people said the barman and his wife squealed like two pigs when they burst in.”
“What did they do to them?”
“Your colleagues? Nothing. They wanted Alleva and Massoni, didn’t they? They just got out of there as quickly as possible. You should have seen the looks on their faces.”
“You were there?”
“No, no. I saw the video. My men were there for entertainment value, but also for a purpose. All four faces. It’s clear that Paoloni is the leader. We also have a recording of me giving him the false address.”
Blume glanced behind him. The door to the room was very slightly ajar, and he could just make out the immobile figure of someone standing outside.
“No. We’re not videoing this,” said Innocenzi. “Not that you have any reason to believe me.” He made a scissors movement with two fingers and pulled something out of his breast pocket. “Here. Have this. I am still amazed at how small these things are. Technology never stops, and, to be sincere, I cannot keep up with it. Apparently, all the footage is on this.”
It was a small memory card. Blume took it. There was no point even in asking if it was the original.
“By the way, Alec, why were you with my daughter?”
“Just some loose ends. Don’t use my first name.”
“I’ll call you what I want. Have you gathered them up yet, these loose ends?”
“Well, I was getting there. Then I got interrupted by a man with no ears and a doped-up youth who could easily have shot me by mistake.”
“Sorry about the youth. He’s an apprentice. They have to be broken in, you know? You think it’s moral to go to my daughter’s house like that, just to satisfy your curiosity?”
“She needs to be more careful. She could get herself and you into trouble. Anyhow, it was a setup. She forced me to visit, and your men were there waiting.”
“O la Madonna, listen to you and your suspicious mind. It was not like that. My daughter, she can be impulsive, but she means well. I keep an eye on her. You were seen arriving, and the decisions afterwards were mine. She likes you, Alec. She phoned me to get assurances that nothing bad would happen to you. She explained that you had a good reason to be with her. She told me about her call to that woman politician.”
He pulled out a pack of Chesterfields, lit one, dropped the pack on the table, pointed to it.
“No, thanks,” said Blume.
Innocenzi blew a stream of smoke out his nose. Blume noticed it came out of his left nostril only. A silver crucifix hung from a chain around his neck.
Innocenzi jabbed the cigarette in Blume’s direction. “OK, let’s do it like this. First thing, you’re free to walk out of here anytime you want, and you won’t get grief from me now or later. Second, I’m going to say a few things to you, then watch your face to see what effect I’m having.”
“Faces don’t tell as much as you think,” said Blume.
“You know, I think you’re wrong there, Alec. Or maybe I’m wrong. Hey, humor an old man. What happened to your nose, by the way?”
“My nose is perfectly fucking fine.”
“Aho, calm down. Are you ready or not?”
“What? Now I�
�m supposed to take on a stony expression?” Despite himself, Blume set his face to expressionless.
“Perfect. That’s the sort of face I want. Now, I think that if Alleva and Massoni were to turn up dead, you would follow another lead before coming after me.”
“That’s what you think?”
“Good. You’re not showing too much expression yet. So that’s what I think, and that is why I’m going to tell you where Alleva and Massoni’s hideout is.”
Blume felt himself tense a little.
“Fantastic!” said Innocenzi. “You can’t deny a flash of interest in your eyes there. Faces don’t lie. I’ve always been right about that.”
“You just gave me a film of Paoloni falling into the same trap.”
“Except that was Paoloni and you are you. I needed some more leverage on him, a bit of compromise power. Evidently Alleva knows compromising things about Paoloni and probably the other four policemen, or maybe they were just there to avenge a colleague. And now Paoloni is even more compromised than before. It’s divine justice, and I love it. Anyhow, here it is.
Alleva’s real hideout. It took far longer than I thought possible to find this out. Alleva’s a slippery bastard.” Innocenzi pulled a grubby piece of paper from the same pocket that had contained the memory card, and placed it on the felt between them. Blume glanced at it, saw an address.
“Not in Rome,” said Innocenzi. “Near Civitavecchia. Now all you have to do is go there, and then get an extradition warrant, because by now he’ll not be long gone. In Argentina, trying to build a new life, bless him. It will be easier for us to find him there than here. Isn’t that paradoxical?”
“Why should I believe this is the address?”
“Make an act of faith, Alec. Why should it not be the real address? I trust you not to go there with a death squad.”
“And why should I think that you haven’t already made a visit?”
“If I or someone representing my interests had visited Alleva and Massoni, it might have ended badly for them, in which case I could be giving you the address to a crime scene that points back to me, which I should never do. I want you to ascertain that Alleva has indeed gone, that I have no involvement in his actions, especially as regards the killing of the young policeman, may God grant his soul everlasting peace.”
THE DOGS of ROME Page 28
