I wanted to close the deal that same evening, but his presence was keeping me from doing so. I tactfully tried to make him understand that I would have preferred for him to leave. Never discuss money in front of strangers. Not only is it in poor taste, but it would have obliged me to show an aspect of my personality that I preferred to keep hidden because money should be spent, not wasted. Investing in art means paying as little as possible, especially when the economy is flagging. The dealer knew that I was going to drive a hard bargain and, when it became clear that the stranger wasn’t going to get out from underfoot, he spared me any further embarrassment by suggesting we talk again the next day by phone.
Guido, who at that point was still just Professor Di Lello to me, asked whether I was headed for the station or whether I was planning to stay the night, in which case he would be exceptionally pleased to invite me to dinner.
I replied that we weren’t sufficiently close for him to dare ask me such questions. He said that he agreed. He muttered an embarrassed farewell and turned to go, but before he’d taken three steps he turned back to ask my forgiveness. I’ve never met anyone as talented as he when it comes to slipping talk of unrelated matters between an excuse and an apology. He freely ransacked the archives of literature, proving to me with a slew of poetic citations that there was absolutely no harm in his desire to get to know me better. He anticipated every objection I might have raised, first and foremost the question of whether or not I might be interested in him as a person.
Five minutes. Not a minute more. And I surrendered. I was flattered that a professor in his mid-thirties, instead of chasing after co-eds, promising them good grades, should choose to court me. But I was also uncomfortable because I’d never before had a relationship with a man who lacked all familiarity with those material considerations against which I measured my very existence.
He insisted we go to a restaurant that a couple of his colleagues had recommended to him. I was sufficiently familiar with Venice to know that the place was nothing special. The chef was a trattoria cook who had renovated the place and then started wearing an immaculate chef’s uniform, and the wine list was frankly abysmal. But I thought it would be tactless for me to point this out and I told him I would be delighted to go.
Guido had understood me to be a woman who cares about tradition, etiquette, and that old-fashioned formality that is nothing other than a shell of armor that protects you from other people. He forced me to yield by making me laugh. Jokes, anecdotes, funny stories. Refined ones, obviously, nothing vulgar. I never heard a dirty word slip out of Guido’s lips, not even one of those that has by now entered the common parlance.
When I realized that I desired him, a sense of fair play and sound reason demanded that I point out that I was older than him. That was an unpleasant interlude that dissolved in a split second the amusing atmosphere that had prevailed all evening.
Guido took my hand and confessed with disarming sincerity that I represented the pinnacle of his fantasies. That I was perfect.
I suddenly leapt to my feet and rushed to the restroom. And not out of embarrassment, but because of the excitement that those words had triggered in my mind. And in my body.
When I returned to the table I energetically played the part of the matron with a good head on her shoulders, pointing out that we had barely just met, hoping with all my heart that his answers to my objections would be persuasive enough to leave me with no avenue of escape.
All he had to do was reference a couple of novels. At that point I reasoned that even if we wanted to, and the desire was all too evident, we wouldn’t be able to spend the night together because we certainly couldn’t register together in a hotel. Certainly not in mine, where I was a familiar guest.
Guido suggested we go to his, which wasn’t much more than a glorified pensione. At night there was no desk clerk and therefore the guests were simply given keys to the front door.
I hesitated for a moment. I wasn’t all that certain that I wanted to go to bed with a man in a dump. Sex, no matter what people say, isn’t something you can just do any old place. But then and there I couldn’t seem to find a way to bring this up and so, as silently as a pair of cat burglars, we slipped into an unspeakably bleak hotel room that was, fortunately, quite clean.
Guido was delicate and careful. I found myself nude, in his arms, and it was as if he’d known me forever. He knew how, he knew where . . .
When I fled at five in the morning, he was fast asleep. I didn’t want to be found out and treated like a stowaway. I hurried back to my hotel and slipped into bed. Happily topsy-turvy. Guido phoned at nine. I thought I was going to faint when the reception desk called to say that a certain Di Lello wanted to speak to me on the phone. I treated him sternly and arranged to meet him in a café.
I told him in no uncertain terms that if he ever hoped to see me again he was going to have to learn some basic rules of secrecy. While I laid out the ground rules, the astonishment on his face shifted into a smirk that turned him a little ugly.
He nibbled at a croissant and sipped his cappuccino in absolute silence.
Finally he said that he understood my need for secrecy, but that what he wanted to talk about just then was us. An urgent need dictated by the sheer beauty of the night before. He sang the praises of my body and said a thousand other things, each of which left indelible traces deep in my heart.
My husband and the few lovers I’d allowed myself over the years seemed like mere primates compared with him. That morning, in that café, I fell in love. Love. True love.
In a couple of months I had set up our parallel lives as a pair of clandestine lovers. I chose the Veneto because we both had interests in Venice so our travels were amply justified. But we couldn’t be seen together in that city because the risk of being noticed was too great. And so, making use of a rather complicated series of financial machinations, I bought an apartment in the center of Padua.
One year, six months, and eleven days of happiness. Until the day that Guido failed to keep an appointment. It was the very first time. The cell phone with a Swiss service provider that he’d given me for our communications was turned off.
Disappointed, wounded, and terribly annoyed, I decided to leave, but while I was waiting for my train, my cell phone rang. I recognized the number. It was Guido.
The voice, however, belonged to a stranger, who informed me that my lover was in their hands and that unless I “coughed up” three hundred thousand euros inside of a week, they were going to kill him.
He put Guido on the line; sobbing, Guido begged me to pay.
The situation was too absurd to be real. It had to be a prank in very poor taste, and I hung up.
The stranger called right back. He told me that he knew that I couldn’t lay my hands on that kind of money in cash, otherwise my husband would find out about it. He’d be willing to settle for some portion of my jewelry. He described the items and I realized that he must have seen them in photographs published in newspapers and magazines. A ribbon-cutting at a shopping mall, a few weddings, art openings, and the usual social occasions where people put themselves on display.
I objected that Ugo would find out anyway. The man shot back that I’d have plenty of time to dream up an appropriate excuse and what mattered most was that I’d have Guido back. He ordered me to keep my phone turned on and said that he’d call back in a couple of days with the details of the exchange.
I got onto the train and found a seat, moving automatically. The blood ran so cold in my veins that I could barely move my arms and legs. By the time I got off the train in Milan I’d made an irrevocable decision. I turned off my cell phone. And I used three different trash cans to get rid of the parts.
None of it concerned me anymore. Guido must have made some mistakes and broken the rules I had imposed. He had only himself to blame . . .
You think you know people, but you can never rea
lly trust them completely. Perhaps my lover had debts, and he was in cahoots with someone to get my money.
In any case, one reason kept me from involving myself in any way. And that reason was my husband. If Ugo ever found out about what happened, he’d throw me out of the house, and I’d lose everything, including my daughter.
Turning to the police would have meant attracting the interest of the media. I’d wind up in the news and our beautiful love story would be transformed into a squalid affair, just sex and betrayal. Even my own family would repudiate me, and I’d be forced to flee Switzerland.
No. It made no sense to ruin my life just to save Guido. That is, if it even was an actual kidnapping.
I went back to Massagno and waited for Guido to turn up, a corpse in a ditch somewhere, once the deadline had passed. But more than anything, I feared the criminals might take revenge by publicizing my illicit love affair. Instead, nothing happened at all.
Professor Di Lello was officially reported a missing person. The Italian press talked about it at length and even now, more than a year later, every so often that show on the RAI brings the case back up. His fiancée, Enrica, can’t seem to let it go. Nor can his family and his colleagues at the university. They can’t figure out why he would have decided to abandon his loved ones and his profession. Police investigations have produced no results. They’ve only ascertained one fact, through security camera recordings: the man boarded a train from Rome and got off in Padua.
He’d told Enrica that he had to go to Venice to meet a few of his students, but there is no evidence that this appointment ever existed. And so the question that torments her is this: why Padua? Was he planning to meet someone?
The only one who knows the truth is me. Guido was kidnapped by one or more criminals who wanted to extort three hundred thousand euros’ worth of jewels out of me. I had no alternative but to protect myself and remain silent. I lived the first few months in terror. Then, once I realized I was safe, I could no longer stave off the desire to know the truth. I have to know what happened to Guido. If he’s still alive. I want to know the names of the criminals who’ve stormed into my life. I don’t feel the slightest sense of guilt, but the anxiety is eating at me. I’ve started to punish myself, displaying a weakness that I’ve never had before, allowing others, and in particular Ugo, to take advantage of me.
I can’t go on living like this, you understand? You have to help me, Signor Buratti. I’ll pay you well. Extremely well. The first real lesson I’ve learned from all this is that you can never rely entirely on family wealth, life is full of surprises and personal assets that no one knows about are precious, fundamental. And now I possess them.
I hope I’ve been clear. If I could, I’d use threats to force you to carry out this investigation. I don’t like you, I suspect you’re a criminal no different from the ones who tried to blackmail me, but I trust Giannella blindly.
How much do you want as a retainer? I imagine that asking for an estimate is foreign to your professional ethics, but in any case, the hotel safe contains enough cash to satisfy even your wildest dreams.
“Your beloved Guido is dead. There’s no point in continuing to use the present tense when you talk about him,” was the first thing that came out of my mouth.
The Swiss woman glared at me, full of hatred. “How can you be so sure of that?”
“You know it perfectly well yourself. Or do you think that the gang that kidnapped him decided to adopt him?”
“It’s unnecessary for you to be so unpleasant.”
“Signora, you need help,” I said. “You can’t hold out for long like this; you’ll collapse and no one will be able to save you then.”
“You just think about doing your job.”
“Fine, I’ll take the case, but on one condition: that you agree to take care of yourself. Take a vacation, sign in to a nice clinic for rich people, and get back on your feet.”
“Are you trying to blackmail me too, Signor Buratti?”
I huffed in annoyance. “Call Giannella and give me the phone.”
“Don’t you know how to be courteous and polite?”
I shook my head. “No, Oriana. Just get used to it.”
She pulled out her cell phone, spoke in an undertone with her old classmate, and then finally I was able to hear her voice myself.
“Ciao, attorney.”
“So now you’ve heard the story, eh?”
“I’m going to repeat to you what I’ve already told this woman: I’m willing to investigate on one condition only, that a qualified shrink assume responsibility for arranging to get her put away for a while. And you’ve got to guarantee that this will happen very quickly; tomorrow morning I’m going to put her on the first plane and the minute she’s back in Lugano she has to start a cure.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“No, you have to give me your word right now,” I shot back sternly. “Don’t you see that she’s undergone a trauma so powerful that not even her wealthy, old-fashioned, bourgeois defenses are enough to keep everything under control? There are cracks in her mind and her heart, she’s a ticking time bomb, and if we aren’t careful she’ll take us all down with her.”
“All right. Let me talk to her now.”
Once again the cell phone changed hands. I caught the waitress’s eye for another aperitif. And another bowl of peanuts. That day I would gladly have eaten a bucketful.
About twenty minutes later she returned to her seat. Her shoulders were slumped. “I’m not crazy, Signor Buratti.”
“Of course you’re not. You just need a complete overhaul.”
“There is a note of hostility in your voice. Do you judge me for the way I behaved with Guido?”
“I have my opinions on the subject,” I replied. “But you’re a client and I’ll keep them to myself. As you can see, I’m even pretending not to be offended by your insults.”
“Then why did you accept?”
“Because two people who are secretly in love should be left alone. Instead, a man was kidnapped and murdered and the woman he loved has been blackmailed. In my world, these crimes are unacceptable, but that’s something you wouldn’t understand.”
“No,” she admitted. “And to tell the truth, the circles you move in don’t interest me. They only scare me.”
I thought to myself that I’d never encountered a bigger bitch in my life. I moved onto practical details. “Does the apartment in Padua still belong to you?”
“Let’s just say that I still have access to it.”
“Fine, and now I have access to it. And I’d say that fifty thousand euros would be an acceptable down payment.”
“Actually, I was thinking of a smaller sum.”
“And you were wrong. Another fifty thousand if I solve the case. Plus expenses, obviously.”
She stood up. “I’m tired, I’m going to get some rest. Tonight at dinner, I’ll give you the money and the keys. I always have them with me, in case Guido comes back and wants to see me.”
I paid the check and started walking back to my hotel. What I’d told the Swiss woman was only a half-truth. The real reason that was driving me to hunt down this gang of kidnappers was that it would keep my mind off my own problems for who knows how long. And the same went for Max. Investigating means starting down a tunnel where the darkness keeps you from looking around. Figuring out the truth about things that had nothing to do with me was a remedy for the emotional collapse I’d slid into after Sylvie’s suicide. Actually, it had always been this way. From the first case I’d taken after getting out of prison. The problem was that I was accumulating stories I’d have to settle accounts with someday, when the past decided that those bills had come due. Just not today, and not tomorrow either. Before then, I needed to solve the mysterious disappearance of Professor Di Lello.
I phoned the fat man. “We have a client,
” I began.
“Partners again,” he said promptly, making no secret of his relief. “Is it routine or an ugly mess?”
“It’s a gigantic ugly mess. Nasty and foul.”
“What kind of trouble has the lady gotten herself into?”
“You can’t even begin to imagine. I’ll tell you all about it when I get there, tomorrow or the day after, at the latest.”
“Marco . . .”
“Yes?”
“Thanks.”
“For what? Before I called you I was just thinking that we needed something to take our minds off our nightmares. And luck stepped in. That’s all.”
I stopped in a Chinese-run shop and bought a pen and a notepad. While I was paying for it, I ripped off the cover. It had a picture of such a sad-looking panda that it made you imagine all sorts of mistreatment.
I wasn’t in the habit of taking notes. That smacked of TV detectives; but Oriana wasn’t going to be around in the near future and I needed to be sure I was familiar with all the details.
Stretched out on the bed, I started jotting down the most important questions but by the time I got to the eleventh, I’d nodded off.
I woke up to the ringing of the phone in the room. The shrew informed me that Signora Pozzi Vitali would be expecting me at 8 P.M. at the restaurant Lo Zodiaco on Via Sassari.
“She was very clear: be on time!” she told me, before slamming down the receiver.
I showed up twenty minutes late. I hadn’t done it on purpose. I’d just lingered too long in the shower. The signora was turning a glass of white wine slowly in her hands with an absent expression. As I sat down I noticed she was sweaty: the hair at her temples was matted down.
“Hot out this evening, isn’t it?” I said. “Luckily, there’s a breath of fresh air out here in the garden.”
“Well, if nothing else it’s not raining,” she retorted in a flat voice. “This summer it’s done nothing but rain in Lugano, and lakes and rain don’t go very well together.”
Gang of Lovers Page 6
