Out of Season

by Antonio Manzini

  “Oh, do I? You think? It must be because I bust my ass from dawn to dusk mopping apartment house stairs and wiping old ladies’ asses, what do you think? It might be because I don’t have money to feed the kid, and that I have Grandma to thank that I even have this rag of a home to live in.”

  Enzo shot a glance at the kitchen. There was a layer of soot and grime over the old Formica cabinets. There were two ramshackle chairs. There was an old television set propped up on wooden fruit crates. “You call this shithole a home?”

  “It’s still better than living under a bridge somewhere, no? Better than being behind bars.”

  “It’s just that you’ve never had ambitions!”

  “Not like yours, you mean? Have you taken a good hard look at yourself? If you ask me, you’ve spent more time in prison than out on the street. Or am I miscounting?”

  “That’s no dishonor, as far as I’m concerned.”

  The woman took a couple of felt tip markers and two notebooks off the kitchen table and went over to put them away in an old cabinet that had a tarnished mirror too big for the tiny front hall. “Ah, no?” she asked. “It’s no dishonor? You think it’s a good thing?” Then she went back to the kitchen, picked up a wet rag, and wiped off the table, which was covered by a plastic tablecloth with big blue flowers. “Well? How much is it going to take to get you out of this house and out of my life?”

  Enzo nodded. “You got twenty euros you can lend me?”

  Roberta scorched Enzo with a burning glance. “You want to know something? I envy my girlfriends whose fathers are dead. You want to know why? Because at least they can remember a father and maybe they have some nice things to cherish. The dead have this advantage over the living: they don’t talk, they don’t breathe, and they don’t stink.” She tossed the wet scrap of cloth into the battered marble sink, leaving her father to chew over those words.

  It was Dolores, the Filipina, who opened the door. She had deep dark circles under her eyes and a dead, sleepy gaze. She looked at Rocco without recognizing him.

  “Good morning, Dolores. Schiavone, from Aosta police headquarters.”

  The Filipina stood aside to let him in, as if she’d expected that man with the strange overcoat to come back, sooner or later.

  The house was cold. The same silence and the same scent of cinnamon reigned over everything as it had yesterday. Pietro appeared from the kitchen. He was still wearing the same suit as the day before, or else another one that looked just like it. The shirt was open at the collar, no tie, and he hadn’t shaved.

  “Dottor . . .” he began, but he didn’t remember the name.

  “Deputy Chief Schiavone.”

  “Of course, certainly, certainly. And forgive me, these are days that seem to be a little . . . do you want an espresso? Anything else? Please, be my guest,” and he waved Rocco into the living room. Rocco walked through the double doors, under the nativity that dated from the Cinquecento, and entered a room that was all gold. The walls were gold, the furniture was gold, and so were the picture and mirror frames. The valances over the windows were gold. It all looked as if it had been bombarded by bursts of sunrays. But there was no sunshine, in that apartment, or for that matter anywhere in Aosta.

  “Not even a glass of water?” asked Pietro.

  “Not even water.”

  The master of the house pointed to one of the three enormous sofas arrayed in front of a marble fireplace decorated with carved grapevines.

  Rocco sank into it.

  “Sorry my wife isn’t here, she’s still sleeping.”

  “Maybe what you meant to say is that she just went to bed?”

  Pietro looked at Rocco with a tense, fake smile on his mouth. “I don’t . . . I don’t understand.”

  “Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m here?”

  “I imagine it’s about that thing you were looking into yesterday? About the dead construction worker, no?”

  “At twenty minutes to seven in the morning?”

  Pietro looked at his watch. “True. It’s not even seven o’clock yet.” And he turned his gaze back to Rocco.

  “Berguet, let’s stop pulling each other’s leg.” The shift in tone hit Berguet like a punch to the gut. “All right then, did you talk to Chiara?”

  At the sound of his daughter’s name, Pietro turned pale. He dropped down onto the sofa and just sat there. He put both hands onto his head and burst into tears, shaking his head.

  Rocco took a deep, sorrowful breath. “So you haven’t spoken to her since she disappeared?”

  “No.”

  Dolores walked in with a tray. She stopped at the door. She looked at the master of the house bent over at the waist and, light as a feather, set the coffee down on the marble tabletop. Then she vanished.

  “Who was it?”

  Pietro sighed. He picked up the cup of espresso. He drank it. “If you know that my daughter is missing, then you probably also know who took her.”

  “Let’s not play children’s games, Pietro. What do they want?”

  “Money.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “What else do you think they might want?”

  “Something else,” Rocco said. “I’ll just summarize, and after that, shall I tell you my own best guess? I think that you and Edil.ber haven’t been flourishing lately, and that you have some serious cash-flow problems. I know that for you the upcoming bid on the regional government contract is of vital importance. I also know that you normally use the Vallée Savings Bank for your lines of credit, but that they weren’t the ones who covered you in your last crisis.”

  “Just think of all the nice things you know.”

  “I do, don’t I? All right, then. Now you’re going to tell me who Carlo Cutrì is.”

  Pietro’s head was bobbing back and forth as he looked at the marble coffee table. Just at that moment, Giuliana Berguet entered the room. Corduroy trousers and a turtleneck sweater. Eyes that had already squeezed out all their tears, with dark circles underneath them, worse than a portrait by Munch. “Deputy Chief! Are you still looking into this thing with the car?” she asked in a tone of forced enthusiasm. Rocco got up from the sofa. Then the woman looked her husband in the face.

  “Giuliana? The Commissario already knows everything.”

  “Deputy Chief. . . .”

  “Excuse me?”

  “My rank is deputy chief,” Schiavone clarified.

  As if a sledge hammer had taken her legs out from under her, Giuliana Berguet collapsed onto the armrest of the sofa, and she accompanied that collapse with a faint sound that came from somewhere in the back of her throat. She looked and sounded like a deflated air mattress at the end of the summer season.

  “Dottor Berguet, just who is Carlo Cutrì?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen him. I’ve always spoken to Michele.”

  “Then tell me all about Michele Diemoz.”

  “Yes. He’s who I’ve always talked to. A man from Cuneaz. A Valdostan.”

  “Who gave you the money?”

  “I told you already. This Michele was the intermediary, and he secured the loan for me.”

  “How much?”

  “At first, 500,000 euros. After that, another 700,000.”

  “They wanted more than three million back,” Giuliana broke in, her eyes welling over with tears.

  “They who?” Rocco shouted.

  “For fuck’s sake, I don’t know who they are!” Pietro exploded. “I’ve already told you that. People from down south I’ve never met!”

  “Down south?”

  “Cosenza,” said Giuliana. And even though she was several yards away, Rocco had the impression he could hear the woman’s bones shivering. Cosenza is home to the notorious organized-crime clan, the ’ndrangheta.

  “So what do they want know? And don’t tell me money, because I won’t believe you.”

  “They want part ownership of Edil.ber. More than half.”

  Rocco nodded. “Help me un
derstand. You’re supposed to sign over part of your shares to . . . who exactly?”

  “I still don’t know that. Whoever comes to the notary’s office so I can sign over a chunk of my company to them. The company that belonged to my father. And to my grandfather before him.”

  Rocco got to his feet. “And we’re not going to let that happen.”

  “You want to tell me how the fuck I’m supposed to stop them?”

  “Why didn’t you call us? Why didn’t you let us know what was going on?”

  “What good would it have done?” It wasn’t Pietro who’d asked the question. It was his brother, Marcello, who had just appeared in the doorway to the living room. “Would you explain that to me, Deputy Chief? What good would it have done? If you want to know what the result would have been, I can tell you. It would have guaranteed we’d never see Chiara again. And your presence in this apartment is certainly no testimonial to my niece’s health and safety!”

  “We’d have put wiretaps on the phones. We would have taken decisive action and put an end to this whole thing.”

  “We would have this, we would have that, we would have the other thing!” Pietro stood up and got dangerously close to the policeman. “And where were you or your colleagues when all the banks turned off the spigots? When my suppliers demanded payment? When my company was out of cash and I didn’t know what saint I should pray to to get out of trouble?”

  “I can’t tell you where I was when all that was going on, Dottor Berguet. All I know is that you asked the wrong people for help!”

  “Sure, easy to say, but now what are we supposed to do?” asked Giuliana. “At this point, they’ve got Chiara.”

  “Have you spoken to her?”

  “Not yet.”

  “They’ve called,” Marcello broke in, and after he spoke a graveyard silence settled over the room. “They’re going to let us speak to Chiara this afternoon.”

  “When did they call? Where?” Rocco shouted.

  “Here at home. Half an hour ago. A man’s voice. With a southern accent.”

  “Come on, let us help you, for Christ’s sake! I’m talking to you, Signora. Let us put a tap on the phone line and. . . .”

  “No!” Giuliana shouted. “No! They have my little girl, do you understand that? They have her and who knows what things they might be doing to her . . .” Then she burst into tears again. Pietro walked over to his wife. “I’m begging you, Dottor Schiavone, as a father and a husband, I’m pleading with you. I’ve already made up my mind. I’m happy to turn over the shares in the company, to retire, to travel to the farthest corner of the globe, but I want to get Chiara back. That’s all I ask.”

  Rocco walked over to the window. Outside it had started snowing again. “You can’t retire. These people need you. What are they going to do with a share of Edil.ber if they don’t know the right people? Without your skill set? No, my friend, you’re never getting out of this thing. They’re like quicksand. As long as you’re useful, they’ll keep you alive. Piece after piece, they’ll whittle away at you and only when they’ve decided that they’re done will they let you go. But by then you’ll be drained and tattered like a floor mop. Do you understand that? And you can add another factor to the mix. You’d never think it, but I have my own professional ethics. Now that I know this crime has been committed, what do you think I’m going to do? Go back to my office as if nothing had happened?”

  “This is Italy, my friend!” said Marcello.

  “This is Italy, my ass, Signor Marcello Berguet,” Rocco shouted back.

  “What’s the matter, does this somehow offend your sense of justice?”

  “Yes, it offends my sense of justice. My own personal sense of justice, let that be clear. And let me add that I don’t like being made a fool of, having the wool pulled over my eyes. When it does happen, I turn into a wild animal. Justice, with a capital J, has little or nothing to do with all this. But being made a fool of has everything to do with it. Not here, not me, and not by people like you and this motley crew of fucked-up ’ndrangheta gangsters. I hope I’ve made myself clear.”

  And he strode briskly toward the hallway, taking long steps.

  “Don’t do anything reckless, Dottore. I’m begging you. My daughter’s life is at stake.”

  “I’ve never done anything reckless in my life, Signora Giuliana, please believe me. There’s just one thing that I ask of you. I want to know when you talk with your daughter. Don’t do a thing until you’ve heard her voice, sounding healthy and happy. Have I made myself clear?”

  Pietro Berguet nodded.

  “Demand to speak with her. Otherwise, don’t budge, be stubborn. Trust me, it’s the only way to get her back alive.”

  “You know something, Deputy Chief Schiavone?” Giuliana asked, looking Rocco right in the eye. “Since the minute you entered this home, I immediately caught the whiff. The whiff of trouble and death.”

  “Death? What do you know about death?”

  She’d done it! She’d succeeded. Ravaged with pain, her eyes almost blinded with her tears, Chiara was on her feet. Clinging to the wall, but on her feet.

  She’d lunged at the dripping faucet. Every tiny step brought a stab of pain, but she felt as if she were getting used to that hellish suffering. She’d tried to open the faucet with her teeth, but she hadn’t been able. She greedily licked at the drops as they fell, one every four seconds. It tasted of rust, but it was definitely water.

  What if it isn’t drinkable? the little voice had asked.

  “Who the fuck cares.”

  The pain let her alone only when she leaned back against the wall, with all her weight on her good leg. She managed to turn her head and glimpse the broken chair leg stabbing into her muscle like a knife in butter. The blood had run down her thigh and then her calf and into her shoe. Dark and dry. But the bleeding had stopped. Chiara looked up at the small window above her. The snow had half-covered it.

  It had snowed! Very good, very good indeed. That means I’m not far from home. Only in Aosta does it snow in May. Or else on the Tofane Mountains. I’m close to home. I’m close to home. My hands. I have to get my hands free.

  She looked at the clutter on the shelves. There were old newspapers of metal and wooden crates, but nothing that could help her to saw away those plastic strips that bound her wrists to the backrest of the now-broken chair. She looked at the old wooden door.

  I can slam against it. Maybe one or two or three times and it’ll collapse and swing open.

  Maybe you’ll break your neck.

  That’s not right. That’s not right.

  She looked around the room. The column they’d tied her to was shedding chunks of concrete at the base, displaying the iron framework inside. Maybe she could do something with those iron rods?

  Like what? Scratch against them? Pointless.

  Halfway up the column the hood still hung. It had caught on a nail. And it wasn’t a hood at all. It was a burlap sack, the kind that potatoes come in. The door was about thirty feet from the sink where she had stopped to catch her breath and lick a few drops of water. The only way to safety lay through that old worm-eaten door.

  I need to get to it. But I can’t put any weight on my wounded leg. I’ll hop over to the door. I’ll hop, one step at a time. One little step at a time.

  “The way you do things is by putting one foot in front of the other, right, Stefano?” she told her ski instructor, and for the first time since she’d woken up in there, she felt like smiling. She thought about Max.

  Where is that dummy? At home? What’s he doing? What about Mamma and Papà? Are they looking for me? Is anyone searching for me? Or have they forgotten about me?

  No one’s coming, haven’t you figured it out yet? No one’s coming.

  Sure, I’ve figured it out, of course I know that.

  She looked at the door. She bit her lip. She counted to three and moved away from the wall. A first hop on her good leg, and a blade of pain sliced into her left thigh.
She clenched her fists, her teeth, and her eyes. Second leap. Second blade of pain. The pain hadn’t left, it had only taken shelter in the shadows, like a wild beast lying low, still ready to lunge and sink its fangs. Third hop on the good leg and third lightning bolt. Pain piled atop pain, multiplying exponentially. Now, a yard from the wall, far from anything she could grip, Chiara had no choice but to keep moving. She was caught midway, turning back would be every bit as painful as continuing. She’d carry on.

  Fourth leap on her good leg. Fourth devastating lightning bolt. It was too much: she collapsed. Too much even for Chiara Berguet, the tough girl, the one who never quits, who knows how to get herself out of dire straits, the girl all the boys are in love with, the girl with her hands bound to the backrest of a broken chair and a giant wooden splinter planted in her thigh, the one who lets herself drop to the floor because she’s practically blinded by the pain, because everything’s dancing and swirling around her, the girl who’s now vomiting green liquid onto the cellar floor in an isolated house on a godforsaken slope more than three thousand feet above sea level while, outside, it starts to snow again.

  “Ah, you came back for your onesie?” Melina asked with a smile.

  Rocco didn’t answer. He just kept walking straight toward the little door to the back of the shop.

  “Excuse me, Signore? Where are you going? You can’t go back there!”

  Schiavone threw the door wide open and entered the warehouse he’d visited the night before. He made his way through the cartons. Sitting at the iron table illuminated by the steel lamp was a man with a beard. The man asked, “Who are you? What do you want?”

  Rocco reached up and grabbed one of the cartons, tore the cardboard open, so that boxes containing cell phones tumbled out and onto the floor.

  “Michele Diemoz?”

  “That’s me, but what the fuck . . . ?”

  “I’m sorry.” It was Melina, who had run after Rocco. “I tried to stop him, but I couldn’t.”

  “Deputy Chief Schiavone.”

  “The police? What a coincidence. Do you know that last night someone broke the window and. . . .”