I waited for him to start walking away. “Of course, you’re also going to be holding a tasting party every three months in my restaurant, which starting today you’ll be supplying gratis.”
“Don’t overdo it,” he implored. “My children aren’t idiots, after all.”
I feigned astonishment. “I’m just trying to help you out, Pierluigi, and take my advice: if you want young girls, look east.”
Zettina was the first and also the easiest. But he was the least satisfying, too. I’d behaved like a bully who steals the other kids’ lunches. I’d reaped a considerable profit, but I hadn’t managed to submerge him in that despair made up of shame, fear, and humiliation, the kind of despair that never really goes away. The kind that burrows deep in your heart and can’t be uprooted. Pierluigi would learn his lesson, become cannier. But I should have used Virginia, ruined her for good, drowned her in a sea of nightmares. The problem was that I don’t like little girls. I like women in their forties. I can make exceptions, of course, but in that case there has to be something special about the woman. Or else she has to be a professional whore, fully trained and just tough enough, convinced that there’s nothing worse in this world than what she’s already experienced. To snap that kind of girl like a dry branch is something that demands both determination and imagination. Both qualities I’ve never lacked.
The couples I was interested in were those who had not “something” but everything to hide. The couples that, once they were found out, would lose every last thing they possessed, the ones who truly couldn’t afford it. They were hard to flush out, and for the most part they were a waste of time. I’d follow them, gathering information, and then I’d look for a way to enter into their lives with all the delicacy of a medieval condottiere taking an enemy castle.
Sometimes blackmail wasn’t enough. Then it became necessary to resort to threats, depriving the half of the couple who had the money of the company of the other half. I had put together a little gang. Two brothers, Furio and Toni Centra, failed dental technicians who had gone out of business not only because of the larger financial crisis but also because of their general lack of interest in hard work, held my guests hostage for a reasonable fee in the cellar of their now defunct company. These were very short periods of captivity and none of my targets were taken by force. They all believed that they were going to an appointment where they would finally be able to resolve this extremely unpleasant episode, and instead they soon found themselves bound and gagged. They were treated well, all things considered. The Centra brothers had only gone overboard once, with a woman who owned a perfumery, the wife of a well-known chief physician with outsized ambitions; she was having an affair with another woman who was prominent in hard-right Catholic circles.
Certain that they’d be curing her of her homosexuality, they’d gotten a shade too enthusiastic and it hadn’t been easy to hush the matter up.
In spite of the fact that we were able to act with impunity, a product of our victims’ guaranteed silence, I’d decided that the Swiss woman and her professor would be our last marks, reasoning that any criminal activity tends to have a short shelf life. And also because, as Italian children like to say, “il gioco è bello se dura poco”—“the best games don’t last too long.” And I was already getting sick of this one. I wanted to move on to something else, though exactly what I wasn’t sure. My comfortable economic position allowed me to take my time looking around.
The two of them had come in one night and I’d immediately taken a shine to them. She belonged to that slice of the upper class almost entirely unknown in Veneto. There were just the few prominent families that had controlled most of the land since the time of the Venetian Doges, and eventually ended up in industry, but you’d never find any of them in my restaurant. They knew all about my troubles with Brianese and avoided me. They considered me well beneath their notice.
He, on the other hand, was truly insignificant. He was unassuming in his appearance, dress, and tastes. Once, pouring him a glass of wine from a hundred-euro bottle she had obviously chosen, I’d caught the scent of a cologne he’d applied liberally and which I knew cost half that much. The two of them came from distant universes, fate had brought them together and then set in motion that strange alchemy that made them fall in love and then walk into my restaurant.
Because between the two of them it was true love. Without a doubt. An island of sincere feeling in a dining room full of people who didn’t know the meaning of either of those words. Including—especially—me. So I decided that this couple would be the perfect capstone to my brief foray into crimes against illicit lovers.
Two months to gather the necessary information. The weak link was undoubtedly Guido Di Lello.
He surrendered immediately and unconditionally. I intercepted him as he was leaving the university in Venice and showed him, on my cell phone, a picture I’d taken at La Nena.
I invited him to come have an espresso with me, and he followed me like a steer to the slaughter. When I told him that my goal was to relieve his lover of a little of her cash, he heaved a sigh of relief. He was willing to do anything I asked in order to get off scot-free. I had a little fun humiliating him, making him tell me every detail of their relationship, even the most intimate ones.
It was easy to get him to go along with a fake kidnapping. Half a day, at the very most. Oriana would get out her jewels, cross the border, and once she’d handed over the “ransom,” he’d go back to living his life.
“Here’s a piece of advice,” I said as I drove him over to the Centra brothers, who would host him for as long as it would take—obviously much longer than I had promised him. “Forget about secret affairs. You’re not built for this kind of complicated relationship, you’re too weak and cowardly.”
He burst into tears, and I pretended to be surprised.
The plan that I’d considered conceptually perfect was flawlessly implemented, and still it turned into a resounding defeat thanks to one simple fact: the wealthy matron refused to pay the ransom. She simply cut all ties and vanished. She abandoned the man of her dreams to his fate. Those two really were hilarious. They’d sworn undying love, and then each had betrayed the other in the worst possible way without batting an eyelash.
That big Swiss slut needed to be punished. I could have done it by making public her affair with the professor, but that would have attracted the attention of the cops.
Instead I went to see the Centra brothers and ordered them to kill the hostage. A job that was handsomely paid, of course. Furio and Toni were a pair of thoroughly debauched individuals. They had both reached their forties without being able to construct any lasting personal relationships. They devoted their emotional lives to whores, whores they paid for with the cash they always seemed in desperate need of, seeing as they’d never been able to make good use of their skills. Coarse and ignorant, they hated all that was different, all that was foreign to the Venetian boondocks where they lived. Like Guido Di Lello: an intellectual, a Roman, a musician on the side, who didn’t even understand dialect and only spoke in proper Italian. The idea of rubbing out this parasite excited them.
I just loved the Centra brothers, monsters who escaped all suspicion, waiting to be shaped and pushed toward unimaginable excesses. Tools as useful as they were expendable. I had met them through an old partner of mine in the prostitution business; she used to arrange for them to enjoy a girl’s company once a month. None of the girls wanted to make herself available to those two, and I had to remind them more than once of the rules of their employment. Intrigued by their reputations as filthy swine, one time I accompanied a recalcitrant Dominican prostitute who was going to meet them and instantly sniffed out the rot at their core. I only had to pretend to like them a little, and Furio and Toni soon threw open the abyss of their hearts and minds to me.
Even though more than a year had passed, I still couldn’t find the words to describe the way
in which the professor had faced his death. He was certainly terrified but there was something in his eyes that suggested he was somehow too dismayed to beg for pity. He was tortured until I finally grew bored with his screams and his suffering. Then they hammered him to death. I convinced the two brothers to bury the corpse in the garden behind the building that had once housed their little operation as dental technicians; that meant I’d have one more chip to bargain with if and when relations between us went south.
I repaid Signora Oriana Pozzi Vitali in the same currency: silence. I was hoping that uncertainty over her lover’s fate and a sense of guilt would turn her life into a living hell. Instead, she managed to surprise me a second time by hiring two mercenaries to find out who’d kidnapped and murdered her professor.
I wasn’t afraid of them. There was just one thing. After a long search, I’d finally found one last pair of lovers who could adequately make up for the slap in the face I’d taken from that Swiss woman, and before I could move forward I’d have to make sure those two amateur sleuths surrendered, confronted with the fact that there was no way to get to the bottom of what had happened.
Federico Togno showed up around lunchtime. I didn’t have any empty tables, so I seated him at the bar. I took care of my customers while he chowed down on tagliatelle ai funghi, noodles in a nice mushroom sauce.
A building contractor who wanted to make a good impression on a few clients he’d invited to lunch took me aside and asked me to pick the wines to accompany the meal; money was no object. I took a quick look at what they had ordered so I could get an idea of what would go with what. “It’ll cost you about a thousand euros,” I informed him, aiming high.
“That’s fine. The main thing is I want to make sure that my guests know it.”
“Leave that to me.”
Once I was done playing the part of a sommelier overjoyed at the chance to finally serve such fine vintages, I managed to get over to my trusted snoop.
“Well?”
“Marco Buratti and Max the Memory. They used to work as unlicensed private detectives,” he said, handing me a file folder. “But no one’s seen them around here in years. At a certain point they sold off everything they owned and disappeared. Brigadier Stanzani says they’re harmless.”
As I skimmed the Carabinieri reports I glimpsed a name that gave me a shock: Beniamino Rossini. People who had made an enemy of that man had lived to bitterly regret ever tangling with him.
“Has Rossini been spotted?”
“No. Apparently he lives in Lebanon.”
I nodded with satisfaction. Just as well. I could handle those two assholes but their badass friend would be a tough nut to crack even for someone of my caliber.
“Keep following them.”
He made a face. “It’s Maria José’s birthday.”
“This is an emergency and it’s not as if you’re doing me a favor, since I give you a paycheck every month.”
“You’re right, it’s just that my wife was really counting on it and she’s going to hold a grudge. You know yourself what women are like.”
I smiled. “Put the blame on that heartless bastard of a boss of yours. You’ll see, she won’t bust your chops.”
The phone rang. I immediately recognized the voice that wished to reserve a table. It was the woman of the couple I had in my sights.
“For you, there’s always a table, Signora Moscati,” I chirped. And then I wondered how she’d come up with that surname as an alibi. Perhaps it was the name of an old schoolmate or a neighbor. I couldn’t wait to get the chance to ask.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Three more restaurants and we’d be done with the list the Swiss lady had given us.
“I’m not going to remind you that I warned you,” Max said. “In terms of food and wine it’s been interesting, but personally I can’t wait to get back into the kitchen.”
“You’re getting old.”
He waved his forefinger in my face vehemently. “No. I’ve reached a degree of maturity in my work at the stove, both theoretically and in practice, so that I feel the need to express myself in my own medium, just as any other artist would.”
“You’re getting old,” I reiterated firmly. “Left-wing radicals in their fifties like you, left behind by history, have all been infected with the cooking virus; it’s an epidemic that’s spreading faster than Ebola because it’s hitting even greater numbers. In fact, like any epidemic, it’s cutting across class lines throughout society. Old and young, left-wing and right-wing, women and men, straight and gay, atheists and believers.”
“So what?”
I shrugged. “I was just venting,” I explained. “After all the crap they’ve been stuffing us with in these restaurants, I’m feeling a little bloated. Every trend has its observant orthodox ballbusters.”
He laid a hand on my shoulder with an affectionate gesture. “To tell the truth, some of them were pretty heavy-handed, trying to palm pompous names, fashionable chefs, over-adventurous wine lists off on us,” he whispered, his eyes gleaming. “Luckily you can count on me and my cuisine, in which the concepts of the regional and the seasonal merge with a bioethical vision of globalization.”
I pulled out my cell phone.
“What are you doing?” asked the fat man.
“Making a reservation at Alberto all’Anfora.”
My partner raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Whatever you say. Let’s make it at eight, so we have time to drink a spritz together in the piazza.”
Actually, Max went to have a spritz in the piazza alone, because he categorically refused to go with me to meet Campagna in a bar just outside of town that was popular with retirees. The furnishings hadn’t been replaced since the seventies, and neither had the bartender behind the bar.
“The white wine’s decent here,” the cop recommended.
“I don’t think you invited me to this out-of-the-way little dive just so I could sample the wine.”
“I bought five euros’ worth of Indian jujubes and they were soft. This time of the year they ought to be hard and crunchy. The fact is that the heat isn’t letting up,” he told me, without bothering to reply. “Then the cold air pours down from the north and we get hit with hurricanes, cyclones, and all the crops are ruined. It’s always the countryside that pays the price.”
“Should I be noticing the pun on your surname, because la campagna means the countryside?”
“Certainly. Giulio Campagna, country cop, at your service,” he hissed sarcastically.
I stood up. “You certainly know how to try my patience.”
At that point he grabbed my arm. “Sit down, Buratti. I need to talk to you.”
“As long as you’ve exhausted your store of bullshit.”
He told me to go to hell, waving one hand in the air dismissively. “The other night there was a pretty decent little raid in a local hotel,” he began to explain. “My colleagues had come to learn that there was an arrangement between the owners and a ring of escorts who used a certain number of hotel rooms without registering the IDs of the guests. One of these young ladies has a long-standing relationship with a drug dealer who’s on the run from the law, so they understandably figured that he too might be making use of this facility to see her.
“No such luck. The woman was there with a traveling salesman from Varese who had made a reservation with her through a website two weeks previous. Now, I ask you: how does a guy know so far ahead and with such precision that fourteen days from now he’s going to feel like fucking a professional? Does he have preprogrammed erections?”
I snorted. “I’m not sure I want to investigate the matter.”
“You’re right, I digress,” he admitted as he gestured for another glass of wine. “But in another room we found a young housewife with no criminal record who was entertaining a brigadier with the Carabinieri, a certa
in Stanzani.”
“Should I be shocked?”
“Not so much at the fact that he was with a whore, but maybe at the fact that he conducted an unauthorized background check on you and Max the Memory.”
“Are you certain?” I asked, aghast.
“The detective in charge of the operation, who smelled a rat, talked to the brigadier’s superior officers and after a quick investigation, it turned out that he had the bad habit of sticking his nose in places it didn’t belong, probably on behalf of insurance companies and private investigative agencies. That little unauthorized investigation on you two was the last in a long series.”
I took a sip. “Private investigative agencies?”
“The ones that are legit are run by former law enforcement officers who have wisely kept on good terms with their former colleagues,” he replied. “But in this case we have no idea who was involved because the carabiniere refuses to talk. He’s openly denying concrete facts, just to limit the damage.”
I felt the urge for a cigarette and walked outside. It’s never a good feeling to find out that someone’s been tailing you, but if it turned out that the officer’s curiosity was somehow connected to the case of the missing professor, it could still end up being to our advantage.
Campagna tagged after me with a couple of full glasses. “I know what you’re thinking. If we can find out who’s paying the brigadier, then maybe we can find a connection to the Di Lello kidnapping.”
“That’s right. We haven’t been here long. We’ve been careful and discreet. We’ve worked exclusively on this case,” I said. “I doubt there are any other explanations.”
“And I doubt that a gang at that level would turn to a private detective to find out who you are.”
“Then we need to find out who hired the carabiniere.”
Campagna snickered. “So are you going to go ask him? Or are you going to send that fat friend of yours?”
“No. That’s your job. After all, you’re both cops.”
Gang of Lovers Page 11
