Luckily, he did not have long to wait.
Blume looked in dismay at the animal that stood in front of him. Somehow, being cleaned up made its head and shoulders seem even larger than it had last night when, with the dire warnings of the ASL unit, he had transported it back in his car.
“He’s unusually small for that breed,” said the vet. “A bit of a failure as a Cane Corso, really. When I first saw him, I thought he was young and had more to grow. But he’s fully mature. You can see that from his teeth. Some are loose, by the way. Let’s hope he doesn’t lose them. He is undernourished, and suffered dehydration. But he must have got food from somewhere. Perhaps there was some available in the place you found him?”
“There seemed to be some scraps of meat near the cages,” said Blume.
“I hope that’s what he was eating. I do not like the idea that he might have eaten other dogs.”
“Not this guy,” said the vet. “Look at him. Does he look like a cannibal to you?”
Blume said he could not tell.
“Exactly,” said the vet. He touched the animal on the side. “Bruising on the flank shows that some bastard gave the poor thing a kicking very recently, and he cows easily, which suggests he was regularly beaten in the past. But basically, he’s in good shape. Probably got worms from polluted water sources, though. He seems to be good-tempered. Definitely a quiet dog. Don’t leave him unattended with children, though. In fact, don’t let him off a leash, and just be careful. He could change. You need to feed him small meals four times a day for the next month. Plenty of phosphorous, potassium. Let me see . . . magnesium, Omega-3 and-6 fatty acid supplements. You look bewildered.”
“I’m supposed to do all this?”
“Someone has to do it. Big dog, big responsibility. Don’t worry about the diet, I’ll write it all down for you. You’ll need to walk him a lot, too. Make a return appointment for next week, then every two weeks after that for the next two months. You can pay by check if you like.”
Blume had planned to leave the creature there for a few days, but when he learned that the vet charged more for overnight stays than the hotels Blume went to on holiday, he changed his mind.
The dog sat in the back, its breath on Blume’s neck, eyeing his driving.
Blume made a visit to a pet shop for a collar, a retractable leash, a food bowl, vitamin supplements, cereal, assorted cans, and antiparasite powders. It came to €112.15. He was shocked at the total. The store owner asked him if he had €2.15 in change, and Blume conducted an awkward one-handed search through the coins in his wallet. Sitting in the middle of them was the tiny memory card Innocenzi had given him. He had still not watched the video.
His computer didn’t have the right kind of reader, anyhow. He balanced it on his finger, almost flicked it away, then returned it to his wallet.
When he got back to the car, an attractive young woman seemed to be waiting for him, hands on hips.
“What sort of a monster are you?” she demanded.
Blume felt this was a bit strong. “Sorry. I don’t usually double-park.”
“What are you talking about? Open the windows of that car immediately. That creature could die in there. Have you any idea how hot it gets inside a car? An animal that size uses up all the oxygen. Open, damn it!”
Blume did as he was told. He explained to her that he was new to this, that it wasn’t his dog. She gave him a lecture on animal welfare and let him go on to his second appointment.
Blume drove over to the Brocca house hold. He put the collar on the dog, which seemed none the worse for having been baked in the car, then spent a while fitting the leash to it. Then they both got out and went up to the apartment.
Giulia’s mother answered. She looked better than before, and managed a weak smile, which vanished when she saw the dog. She seemed to be on the point of saying something when her daughter appeared behind her.
“Alec! You have a dog,” said the girl. “What’s his name?” Her mother stood aside to let them in.
“He doesn’t have a name, Giulia, and he’s not my dog,” said Blume. “It’s a temporary thing. Look, he hasn’t even got a tag.”
Blume looked around the living room. It was tidier than when he had been there last. Giulia’s mother sat down in an armchair and motioned Blume to sit on the sofa opposite. He sat down without relinquishing the leash. Giulia sat near Blume on the sofa. The dog stood between them, and blocked their view. He yanked on the lead a few times, but the dog tautened its neck and threw him a bored-walrus look.
“Is your son here, Mrs. Brocca?” inquired Blume, leaning his head back to see over the dog.
“No, he’s with his grandmother. I don’t want him to have to listen to this, even if nothing will be worse than what he saw.”
“Did forensics send your car back?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Sit!” shouted Giulia suddenly, but the dog remained where he was. She stood up and walked over to it, and Blume tightened his hold on the leash. The girl was only a little taller than the animal. Her whole head could fit in its mouth. “Lie down!” She pointed to the floor. The dog lay down.
Blume showed them pictures of Pernazzo, whom they identified immediately. He showed them pictures of Alleva and Massoni. Giulia remembered Massoni, her mother did not. Then he began by telling them that the man who had killed their father and husband was dead. They nodded. They knew this already.
He stumbled over a few condolences, not sure where to begin the narrative they were waiting for because it really began the day he walked into Pernazzo’s apartment and failed to arrest him.
Not only had he not arrested Pernazzo, he had insulted and goaded him, then rushed off to meet Kristin, leaving Pernazzo to reassert his virility by killing Enrico Brocca and ruining this family. He quickly glossed over the details.
But Giulia was ready for him. She pulled up her legs onto the cushion, turned to face him better, and said, “When you first saw Pernazzo, did you get a bad feeling about him?”
“Yes.” He would not lie to her.
“But you couldn’t arrest him then? You can’t arrest people just because you don’t like them. Right?”
“Right,” said Blume. “I can’t do that.” He noticed the dog was drooling on the carpet.
Twenty minutes later, Blume concluded his version of events with the news that Pernazzo had been assassinated in a house in the country and that inquiries were continuing, but again Giulia was waiting for him.
“Who killed Pernazzo?”
“We don’t know.”
“Liar,” said Giulia. “When you tell the truth you say ‘I’ and when you’re lying, you try to spread the blame and say ‘we.’ ”
“Giulia, you mustn’t,” said her mother, but her voice lacked all conviction.
“We have a right to know,” said Giulia, looking straight at Blume.
“I think it was a woman called Manuela Innocenzi, but it is not likely to be proved.” Blume realized he was going to have to explain who Manuela was, which meant filling in more details.
When he had finished again, Giulia said, “So my father was Pernazzo’s second victim after Clemente? I think that was important enough for you to tell me right away.”
“It didn’t seem relevant to your case,” said Blume. “Also, I suspect he might have killed his mother, too. It was probably what set him off, but none of that can be proved now. So your father would have been the third.”
They sat there in silence for a while. The dog seemed to have fallen asleep.
Finally, Giulia said, “I don’t feel anything. No, that’s not right. I don’t feel any different now that I know who did it and that he’s dead.”
“I think I do,” said her mother. They both turned to look at her. Tears were flowing freely from her eyes, but her face seemed strangely composed, as if she was unaware that she was crying.
“I think I feel better,” she said. “I have something to tell myself. I can say this thing to myse
lf now, and . . . I can’t explain. It’s like I haven’t been talking to myself. But this is something I can say to myself. You mustn’t mind me, Giulia, when I say this, but I wish I had killed him. I wish I had strangled him with these hands.” She held up her hands, which were small and finely shaped.
As Blume and his dog took their leave, Giulia followed them to the door and said, “Are you coming back?”
“Do I need to?”
“No. I don’t think so.” She held out her hand, but Blume brushed his hand over her hair instead.
“Bye, Giulia. Look after your mother and brother, but don’t get trapped. You are still a child. Make sure you get looked after, too.”
On the way back to the car, Blume sent a text message to Paoloni asking to meet. The dog whined and looked at him.
“You’re hungry? That must be it. Are you planning on being hungry often?”
Blume went home to feed the dog. Paoloni had yet to reply to the text. The longer he took to reply, thought Blume, the easier it would be to withhold sympathy.
When he opened a can of meat and cereal and put them in the new bowl, the dog barked, nearly causing Blume to hurl something at it.
“Your bark is far too large for my apartment,” he told the dog, which barked again, hurting his ears. Blume put the bowl on the floor. He had forgotten to buy a water bowl, so he filled up a shallow saucepan. When he bent down to put the water next to the food, the food was gone. The dog then lapped up the water in twenty seconds. Blume filled it twice more before the dog had enough.
He left the house at five, far too early for his date with Kristin. It would be his first visit to her place, and she was cooking. Blume had a strong suspicion that she would not be much good, but he was not visiting for the food.
There was no question of leaving the dog at home. It was just too big and too strange, and it had somehow sensed that he was leaving and placed itself by the door.
No sooner were they down in the street than the dog squatted and relieved itself, right in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” said Blume, revolted. He remembered again how much he hated dogs.
“Hey!”
Blume turned around. Another outraged woman, older this time. She pointed to the mess. Blume apologized, but it wasn’t good enough. After a while, he lost patience. “This entire city is covered in dog crap, litter, and graffiti. You Romans are the dirtiest people on the planet. So don’t come on to me like we’re living in Switzerland or something. You live here, deal with it.”
He walked away, feeling bad. The woman was right, of course. There should be more like her. And what was all that about “you Romans”? It must be the prospect of meeting Kristin that was making him feel like an outsider again.
“As for you,” he told the dog, “clean up your act.”
58
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 5 P.M.
BLUME MADE ONE more attempt to contact Paoloni, and this time the phone was answered.
“I’ve been avoiding you,” said Paoloni. “But I’ve been doing some thinking, too. We need to talk.”
“I know,” said Blume. “But let’s put it off until tomorrow morning. I’ll call, you answer this time.”
“OK, but call as soon as you can. I want to get this over with.”
Blume thought he’d give Kristin a surprise and wait outside the embassy on Via Veneto for her. It took all of three minutes of standing outside the gates of the embassy with the dog before a car with three men inside pulled up and he was asked what he thought he was doing. Blume showed some identification, which they passed among them, looking at it carefully. One of them keyed the details into an onboard computer. Blume waited to be validated, and explained he had a girlfriend who worked in the embassy.
The man in the backseat said something, and the driver looked at Blume. “You’re an American,” he said in English.
“Yes,” said Blume. “Originally.”
“But you’re an Italian police commissioner, too. How does that work?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I bet. What’s your girlfriend’s name, by the way?”
“Kristin Holmquist.”
“Kristin? I know Kristin.” He gave him a big smile, and suggested he wait for her across the road at the Palace.
“Too plush for me,” said Blume. “But I’ll get out of your way.”
“Spoken like a real colleague. Nice dog, by the way.”
In the end, he called Kristin, told her to meet him at a place he knew on Via Crispi. A small bar five minutes away that didn’t mind his dog and charged the same for sitting as for standing.
“Alec! What a beautiful dog!” said Kristin as she walked up half an hour later. “That’s a Cane Corso, isn’t it? The Romans used them in battle. Did you know that? Who are you keeping it for? What are we doing here?”
“Change of plans. You like this dog?”
“I love him! He’s not mature yet, is he? What’s his name? I hope it’s something totally Roman, like Pertinax, or Pugnax or—I can’t think of any more, Domitian, Nerva, Aureliano.” She sat down and crossed her legs.
“Those are all good names,” said Blume. “Choose one.”
“You mean he hasn’t got a name yet?”
“No, no name. Perhaps you might give him one?”
“What do you mean?” said Kristin.
“I mean, you can have him. As a gift. You said you liked dogs.”
Kristin slowly closed her eyes, then opened them and seemed disappointed to see him still sitting there. “I don’t believe you just said that.”
“It was a joke,” said Blume. “I was just kidding. Hey, c’mon, really. Would I try to hand a dog off on you like that?”
“It was a joke?”
“Sure it was.”
“So what are you really going to do with the dog?”
Blume thought, blinked a few times, then said, “I had not really gotten around to—”
She interrupted him. “You weren’t joking at all, were you? You really thought I’d take the dog just like that.”
“Half-joking wholly in earnest. No, not even that. I mean, if you had said yes, that would have been cool . . . no, it wouldn’t have. OK, let me tell you about how I found him,” said Blume.
“I am not interested in that right now.” Kristin was standing glaring down at him, her face too bright in the sunlight for him to see, her hair a fiery red. “You just thought you could dump an unwanted dog on me like that. Like I have nothing better to do? By the way, apart from the fact you already know I’m going to the States in a few days, how often do you think I have to travel there?”
“I don’t know,” said Blume, who had not been there in ten years. “Three times a year? Four?”
“I go back once a month. Just how in the hell did you think I was going to deal with having a dog . . . I don’t even know where to start with this. You hate dogs. Right?”
“Well . . . Hate is a bit extreme.”
“You hate them. It was practically the first thing you said to me. So now you are trying to offload something that is hateful to you on me.”
Blume wished he understood his own psychology better.
“A dog is a living being, a responsibility, a thing you give in love, a sign of a long-term commitment. I was not even so sure about inviting you to dinner. I thought maybe it was too . . . domestic. That it might signal too much. Then you do something like this.”
What he saw as a miscalculation of timing and tone was turning out to be a big mistake, one of those blunders he made that told women things about him that he didn’t even know about himself. Blume had been here before, only with a different girl and no dog.
“Maybe you’d like to hear how I got this dog?” he tried.
No, it turned out she did not. Few things could interest her less. She brought up the subject of his parents’ mummifying study, his immobility, his depressing home and whole attitude. “I think we’re going to have to press the re
set button, Alec. Keep it strictly professional.”
Then she walked away, leaving Blume blinking blindly in the sudden sunlight.
59
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 10:30 A.M.
IF KRISTIN THOUGHT his apartment was depressing, thought Blume, she should see Paoloni’s. In six or seven years, Paoloni had yet to find time to unpack the boxes he had brought with him when his wife threw him out, and he had rented a place two hundred meters down the street, convinced she’d soon see the error of her ways. Paoloni’s wooden chairs had once been used as weapons during a fight in a pizzeria. The owner donated them as a gesture of deep gratitude for Paoloni’s help in restoring peace. The room also contained a heavy leather armchair of the type to be found in the waiting rooms of certain government ministries.
“That’s a nice TV,” said Blume.
“Yeah, thanks. It’s full HD. You’re supposed to be able to see the sweat on players’ faces, the mud on the football, even the individual blades of grass,” said Paoloni. “Except the screen’s too big or my chair’s too close, so you get a bit seasick watching it. To see it properly you have to stand at the front door, where you are.”
“Right,” said Blume.
“I was thinking,” said Paoloni. “Let’s go out. There’s a sort of park and playing fields behind the church. We could go there.”
“Sure.” Blume had no problem leaving Paoloni’s apartment, but if he had known they were going to a park, he’d have brought the dog. He’d closed it in his bedroom, but the beast could probably break down walls with its forehead.
Paoloni chose to sit on a bench near a chain-link fence behind which two teams of kids were playing football on synthetic grass. A few fathers were shouting instructions from the sidelines.
“Would you have killed them?” asked Blume, getting straight to the worst point first.
“I don’t know. Probably. But I can’t be sure. See, I know Alleva. He’d probably have surrendered immediately when he saw us come in. That would have made it hard to do.”
THE DOGS of ROME Page 42
