Out of Season

by Antonio Manzini

  “They poured out and were all over us! There were four of them, Dottore. And they were throwing punches and kicking us like nobody’s business.”

  “And me and D’Intino were giving as good as we got. It was total chaos. And then I threw a punch with both eyes closed. Only I hit D’Intino, right in the ribs.”

  “Which were already pretty sore.”

  “Fists were flying everywhere. I caught a punch in the face and another to the ear.”

  “And I got one in the ribs, but that was Deruta, and another in the head, and I mean right in the head!”

  “But who was hitting you?” Rocco shouted.

  “These guys in the apartment. So D’Intino and I went running out the front door into the street but those guys chased us. And D’Intino fell right into the puddle.”

  “Right, Dottore, you know those puddles they have at the side of the street? What’s the word for them. . . .”

  “Puddles,” Rocco replied.

  “Yeah, that’s right. Well, I fell right into one.”

  “Instead, they threw something at me and hit me in the head and I fell in. Then, when we came to, by the light of the streetlamps, even though it was night, those guys realized we were cops, and they apologized.”

  “That’s right, because they thought we were burglars.”

  “Burglars?” asked Italo.

  “That’s right, burglars. Because in that apartment, Viorelo lived along with four guys from Senegal, and wow, those guys from Senegal really know how to throw punches. Anyway, these four guys from Senegal with a friend of theirs from Tunisia had come home. . . .”

  “A few hours earlier. . . .”

  “That’s right, good point D’Intino, a few hours earlier, and they found the place turned upside down.”

  “It’s just that they can’t report it to the authorities because they don’t have a valid residence permit.”

  “And in fact, they pay their rent under the table, in cash.”

  “Fine. Anything else?”

  “Yes. Do you want to know what the burglars stole?”

  “What did the burglars steal?” asked Rocco.

  “Nothing,” Deruta replied.

  “What do you mean, nothing?”

  “Nothing, nothing at all.”

  “Oh, well,” Italo broke in, “it’s not as if there was cash or expensive jewelry in a wall safe, was there?”

  “No, no. There was a television set, an iPod, and a stereo. And they were all still right there. The burglars just went through all the drawers and cabinets.”

  “Anyway, all they did was turn the place upside down and nothing more.” Italo was smiling, but Rocco was thinking. “That’s strange,” he said. “A professional burglar wouldn’t go to the apartment of these poverty-stricken wretches. They’re as poor as he is, and it wouldn’t do him any good. It’s just a strange thing.”

  “That’s the same thing we thought!” D’Intino exclaimed, bursting with pride. “I mean, I would at least have taken the iPod, right?”

  “Right. Good work, men. If this were wartime, I would have nominated you for medals. But there’s no war going on.”

  “Right, damn it,” said D’Intino through clenched teeth.

  “Still, the two of you have done a fantastic job. Now you can go home. And tomorrow you can come in late, too.”

  “How late?” asked Deruta.

  “Later than usual,” said Rocco.

  “Listen, and what are we supposed to do about the fact that they’re all living here without a residence permit?”

  “What are you supposed to do? Nothing.”

  “We shouldn’t arrest them?” asked D’Intino.

  “I’d say you shouldn’t,” Rocco replied.

  “And what about the fact they’re paying their rent in cash, under the table?”

  “For now, just keep cool and collected. Go home and get some rest.” Rocco nodded to Italo and together they left the passport office. Deruta smiled at D’Intino.

  “Nice job!” he told him, and shook his colleague’s hand.

  The metal gate shivered. Enzo slowly moved away from the wall. An orange blinker flashed as a warning that the gate was opening. In the doorway of the control room, the figure of one of the two guards appeared: Paolo. Once the gate was fully open, the headlights of the little garbage truck appeared as the driver ground his gears and crept forward cautiously into the infirmary courtyard. Enzo went all in at that instant, that flash of light. He moved rapidly from the shadows of his hiding place to the back of the garbage truck as it crawled through the entrance at walking speed. He managed to get a foothold on the rear bumper, right above the license plate, and held tight with both hands to the big metal dump bed. Then, even though the truck was moving, he managed to climb up. He threw himself over the edge and slid like an eel down the side of the metal bin into the garbage. He landed on a pile of gray plastic bags that reeked of rot. He clamped one hand over mouth and nose and waited for the steel gate to close behind the trash truck.

  Half an hour of waiting. Then the trash bags collected by the janitor came flying one after the other into the big steel bed on the back of the truck, slamming down onto Enzo’s body and face. Those bags of infirmary garbage carried the stench of death. Enzo gulped a couple of times, but then lost control and vomited up his dinner. He heard the garbage truck start up again. Sprawled face-up on that horrendous mattress, his eyes turned up toward the black dome of the night sky, he saw the procession of area courtyard lights, exterior walls, and guard towers stream past. Then he felt the garbage truck speed up. Faster and faster. Faster and faster and faster. The gears ground as the driver shifted and the truck gained speed.

  Enzo Baiocchi was a free man!

  He parked a good long way from the store. Then, Rocco and Italo walked along the sidewalk. There were just two streetlights, one at the beginning of the street, the other at the curve. They weren’t enough, though. In the darkness, the air had turned chilly, Nordic, and inhospitable.

  “Do you want to let me in on what you’re planning to do?”

  But Rocco didn’t answer. When they arrived at HeyDiddleLiddles, he looked around. He walked back a few yards to a metal gate. He climbed over it easily.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Come on!” and the deputy chief made his way into the courtyard of a small apartment building. Italo, muttering phrases of hatred and resentment toward his boss, followed him.

  Primo Cuaz had no choice but to watch late-night television—not because he particularly liked it, but because ever since he was a young man he had worked only and exclusively by night and had slept during the daytime. At age eighty-four, those kind of routines were hard to break. His habits had resulted in a series of problems. His skin was pale and white, his eyesight was weak, and the schedule of his meals was deranged. He ate breakfast at two in the afternoon, lunch at nine at night, and dinner at five in the morning when truck drivers or else factory workers like his wife were just downing their first morning espresso. Often they’d sit at the table together, she with a breakfast pastry and he with a bowl of pasta with tomato sauce, respectively telling each other stories about the day they’d just finished or the one they were about to start. Since he’d retired, he’d done nothing but rattle around the apartment while Iside snored peacefully alone in their king-size bed. He’d tried to subvert that state of equilibrium with the aid of sleeping pills or by going days at a time without shutting an eye in order to shift into step with the rest of humanity. But he just couldn’t seem to do it. He went to bed at six in the morning and woke up at two in the afternoon, as punctual as a German alarm clock. During one of his solitary nights, Primo had done some calculations. He slept eight hours, so did Iside. In their sixty years of marriage, it was as if they’d only spent twenty together. The other forty years? Each of them sleeping alone. In order to make love, a habit they’d only lost in the past seven years, they met in those shadow phases between the time one of them would wake up and
the other would knock off work, between her return home and his leaving the house in his uniform. They were both convinced that it had been that very set of logistical difficulties that had kept their desire and lust for each other kindled over the long decades. Four children and six grandchildren had been the result, unmistakably visible to anyone who cared to look. At four a.m. on that dark May morning, as chilly as a slab of marble, Primo had turned off the television set as the closing credits of Stagecoach appeared on screen. He went to the window to scrutinize the sky. No stars. Clouds. In the apartment building courtyard, all the lights were out. But however weak his eyesight might be in daylight, at night it seemed to be miraculously restored. Something wasn’t right down there. He straightened his eyeglasses and squinted to see more clearly. He could have sworn that there were two shadowy shapes down there in the courtyard, moving furtively. Very furtively.

  Burglars, he decided. Fifty years of honorable service reawakened with a roar in his aging arteries, in his bones, and in his brain. He still had his pistol, in the chocolate box put away on the top shelf. Striding briskly now, he went to retrieve it. Some cans of tomatoes fell to the floor. He put them away, but when he turned around, there was his wife standing in the doorway, asking: “What’s going on?”

  “Burglars. In the apartment building.”

  “What do you care? You’re retired!”

  “Let me pass, Iside. Let me pass.”

  “Primo, please!”

  But the elderly security guard wouldn’t listen to reason. He brusquely shoved past the woman and left the apartment. Iside yawned and decided to go back to bed. “Fè tcheuca senque te vou,” she murmured. “Do what you want.” He was a grownup, with plenty of experience under his belt.

  Italo had caught up with the deputy chief outside a ground floor window in the courtyard.

  “Italo, if my calculations are correct, this is the back of the store.”

  “Maybe it is. So what?”

  “So you wait and watch.”

  “Hands up!”

  Italo and Rocco turned around. In the shadows, a figure was brandishing a revolver. “I caught you! Now I’m going to call the police.”

  Rocco smiled: “Actually, we are the police.”

  The man took a step forward into what little light there was. “Who are you?”

  “Deputy Chief Schiavone and Officer Italo Pierron.”

  The old man adjusted his eyeglasses. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Is it all right if I put my hand in my pocket?” Rocco asked. Primo nodded. The deputy chief handed over his badge to the retired security guard. But he couldn’t read it. He angled the police ID to catch a little light. “I can’t . . . I can’t read it. . . .” He tucked the pistol under his armpit and tipped the badge with both hands until he finally found the right angle. “Ah . . . all right. Yes.” He handed the badge and ID back to Rocco. “And do you mind if I ask what you’re doing at the rear of the store at this time of night?”

  “We need to get inside without being seen because we suspect there are illicit goods being moved through here.”

  “Through the children’s store?” Primo asked in astonishment.

  “That’s right. Now, if you don’t mind. . . .”

  “What are you doing?”

  Rocco heaved a sigh of annoyance. “I told you! I need to get inside.”

  He pulled his Swiss army knife out of his pocket. He chose a small file and started working on the shutters. He was scratching away chunks of wood and paint.

  “What if there’s an alarm?” Italo asked.

  “They don’t have one,” said the security guard.

  “Oh, right. The alarm will just summon the police. And all these guys want is to keep the Carabinieri and the police from setting foot in their shop,” Schiavone added.

  “But these guys who?” asked Italo.

  “Wait, are you or aren’t you a police officer? Don’t keep pestering your superior officer with questions.”

  A large chunk of wood came away. At that point, Rocco folded away the file and pulled open the knife blade.

  “It just takes a little patience,” he said, sliding it into the opening he’d just managed to make. “No good, there’s a metal reinforcement. I need a pair of pliers. Do we have a pair in the car?”

  “Stay right there. I’ll get one.” The security guard left the two policemen alone.

  “So what are we doing now?”

  “Waiting for the pliers, right?”

  “You want to try and give me a clearer explanation?”

  “All right, so what they do in here is they issue receipts without taking in cash.”

  “What are they, stupid?”

  “No, Italo, they’re not stupid. What they’re doing is laundering cash. They pretend to take in payments from customers, they even pay the taxes on them, and then they deposit clean, freshly laundered money in the bank.”

  “Just think about that . . . and who does this kind of thing?”

  “Who do you think? The Jesuits?”

  Iside could hear her husband rummaging around in the kitchen broom closet.

  “Primo, what are you doing?”

  “Nothing, you just keep sleeping.”

  It was easy for him to say that, idiot that he was, now that he’d found the Beretta and gotten it out. Iside had unloaded the gun years ago, but who knew what else he was getting up to in the kitchen. She put on her slippers and went to see. Primo had pulled out pliers, pincers, half his tool chest. “What’s all this?”

  “We need to break open a shutter.”

  Iside was baffled. “What do you mean, we? Didn’t you go out to arrest some thieves?”

  “Woman, you couldn’t possibly understand!”

  “Oh, I can understand, don’t you worry. Would you explain what’s going on?”

  “All right, but don’t breathe a word. There are two policemen out there who need to get into the HeyDiddleLiddles store, because they suspect there’s illicit traffic being conducted there.”

  Iside thought it over. “Then explain one thing to me. Why don’t they do it in the light of day with a search warrant from a judge, the way the police always do on television?”

  “Because that’s television, Iside, not real life.”

  “Still, it strikes me as odd. At four in the morning, these guys need to break into a shop by forcing open the shutters. You don’t think you might be going senile, do you, Primo?”

  Suspicious, now, the man left his apartment.

  Primo Cuaz came back with two pairs of pliers, a rubber mallet, and a hand drill.

  “Why are you trying to get in at four in the morning by breaking and entering instead of waiting for broad daylight and a warrant from a judge?” Primo asked.

  “Because the judge knows nothing about it, because the people who own this store can’t know that we went in, and because the only ones who can know about it are the three of us, and then, my good sir, because you can’t stop these people even with a warrant from a judge. These are people who’ll shoot you without even stopping to ask who you are.”

  “What kind of people are they?” the elderly security guard asked in a faint voice.

  “Very nasty people,” said Rocco. “You just think of the worst kind of people you can imagine. And you still haven’t come close.”

  “Terrorists?”

  “If only!”

  Primo held out his arms. “There, I’ve brought you some tools.”

  “Thanks. The pliers would have been enough.”

  Rocco set to work. He yanked a couple of times until he heard a loud SNAP! and the shutter swung open.

  Now he just had to deal with the window.

  “Easy. It’s wood, it’s old, and it’s single pane. Hand me your jacket.”

  Without understanding, Italo handed it over. Rocco wrapped it around his hand, and then with a short sharp blow, he shattered the glass into pieces. It made a barely audible noise.

  “Are you sure you’ve
always been a policeman, Dottore?” asked Primo.

  “Maybe not in another life.”

  “I’d say so!” tossed in the security guard, elbowing Italo in the ribs, while the deputy chief carefully extracted the shards of broken glass from the window frame. Then Rocco handed Italo’s jacket back. “Careful when you put it on. A few shards might still be stuck somewhere.”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing. . . .”

  “We need to get going now. By the way, my name’s Rocco. And you are?”

  “Primo.”

  “Thanks, Primo. You can head on home, now. I don’t need to tell you that we were never here and you never saw us.”

  “Unnecessary.”

  Italo handed the tools back to Signor Cuaz who headed back to his apartment with a spring in his step. “It was a wonderful night. Thanks, Rocco.”

  “Thank you, Primo.”

  The deputy chief stuck his hand through the freshly broken window and turned the handle. The empty window frame swung open.

  “Let’s go in and take a look around.”

  The storeroom in the back of the shop was roughly a thousand square feet in area and was stacked high with cardboard boxes. Most of the boxes were marked with Chinese ideograms. Using their cell phone flashlights to see their way, the policemen moved cautiously through that forest of stacked boxes. Rocco looked as comfortable as if he were strolling around his garage at home. Relaxed and untroubled, he read the labels on the boxes, squeezing them as if testing fruit for ripeness, practically whistling as he worked. Italo, on the other hand, was tense. He moved slowly, ears pricked up to capture the slightest suspicious sound, and was sweating copiously. In fact, he could already feel his armpits wetting his shirt, even though the room was quite chilly.

  “What are we looking for?” Italo asked in an undertone. The deputy chief didn’t answer. “Rocco, maybe we should do something in the daytime. I’m not comfortable with this,” and he turned back toward the window they’d just forced open.

  Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” rang out through the dark room.

  “What the fuck!” Rocco snapped.

  Italo’s blood ran cold. “Your phone’s ringing, idiot!” he said.