“I can’t. I already tried once and the big boss ordered me to stay away from him, in person.”
“We don’t have any other leads to follow up right now.”
The cop emptied his glass and clicked his tongue. “This lead is mine and I just told you it doesn’t go anywhere at all,” he hissed. “You need to earn your keep, Buratti, see if you can’t move your ass for a change.”
He must have already tossed back three or four glasses of white wine. “Are you drinking on an empty stomach?” I asked, trying to make him feel like an asshole. “Do you want me to order you a panino, to soak up some of the alcohol?”
“How much is the wealthy Swiss matron paying you?”
“Help me understand—is this about money?”
He grabbed my wrist. “Don’t you dare. I’ve never taken so much as a penny in my life.”
“Then I don’t understand why you keep circling back to the same subject,” I retorted, twisting out of his grip. “This is how I make a living and my rates are none of your business.”
Campagna changed the subject and his attitude. By now I’d figured out that this was his way of placating the deep-seated anger that tormented him when he felt frustrated.
“There’s no sign of any new gangs,” he informed me. “I also went back over all the reports from the day of the kidnapping, I’ve pestered taxi and bus drivers. I’m seriously starting to believe that Di Lello went willingly to the appointment with his kidnappers.”
I pulled my wallet out of my jacket pocket. “You need anything else?”
He shook his head. “This case is starting to piss me off,” he said. “I don’t want to wind up with an unsolved murder, drinking ombre of white wine with you, trying to figure out where we went wrong.”
He pointed his finger toward the city. “I can’t stand the idea that someone’s taking advantage like this. It’s one thing to get away with a burglary, a little dope dealing, but we can’t let a gang get away with kidnapping and murder. I need to catch them, do you understand that?”
“If you were in my shoes, how would you approach Brigadier Stanzani?”
“They’re already selling chestnuts,” he snorted in annoyance. “How are you supposed to eat chestnuts in this heat? It really is true what I heard some guy say: ‘There’s no more spring or fall and Europe died in Sarajevo.’”
I told him to go to hell and paid the tab. When I walked past him he said: “Stanzani isn’t corrupt, at least not in the classic sense. He does favors for people he knows, people who stay on the right side of the law, you get me? He’d never go to work for organized crime.”
Campagna really was a complicated man.
“I don’t follow. What do you mean?”
“If I were in your shoes, which I never would be, I’d tread carefully—but at the same time I’d use a heavy hand.”
Tread carefully? Heavy hand? I took a deep breath in order to avoid saying something insulting, and got up to leave without saying goodbye.
“His wife!” he said in a loud voice. “Threaten to tell her everything. I could never pull such a nasty trick on a fellow cop but you’re a pretty ruthless guy.”
I retraced my steps. “You think that might work?”
“No cop alive is capable of tolerating hell at home, I know that from experience. It’s too tough of a job already not to be able to depend on a solid emotional life,” he confided, handing me a sheet of paper with all the brigadier’s personal information. “When they took Stanzani in, the only thing he asked was that his spouse not be allowed to know a thing. He was more worried about what she might think than about his superior officers.”
I drove toward the center of town musing about the best way to break down the carabiniere’s defenses without incurring consequences. I didn’t want to wind up in an interrogation room facing the third degree for harassing him.
Max was there, in the piazza, sitting at a tableful of fifty-year-olds talking animatedly about politics, cigarettes and drinks in hand. I came up behind him just as he was saying: “We’ve always been right, but we’ve always lost. Why?”
I know that phrase like the back of my hand and I knew it was going to lead to an endless and melancholy discussion, whose empty weight was all too familiar to me.
“I’m hungry,” I announced, knowing that I was bringing up a valid point. “And our table awaits.”
The fat man got to his feet, pulled a rumpled banknote out of his pocket, and slipped it under his empty glass. “I’m going to keep this guy company, he gets depressed when he eats alone.”
“Thank God you came along,” he whispered the minute we’d moved a safe distance away. “The ineluctable drift of the same old talk was sweeping us inexorably toward a pointless moment of self-awareness.”
“Shameless. You were the one directing the choir.”
He smiled. “I never can seem to resist the temptation. Though to tell the truth, I can’t stop asking myself the same questions, having given so much to the cause.”
I thought to myself that the cause had ransacked his life and now no one cared because it was all part of the past.
“What did Campagna tell you?” he asked, lighting himself a cigarette.
I brought him up-to-date, omitting some of the man’s more demented tangents to avoid giving him an excuse to speak ill of the police officer.
“That carabiniere is going to get us into deep shit,” Max retorted, clearly worried. “We definitely can’t just stop him in the street and threaten to get him into trouble with his wife.”
“No, you’re right, but we can be a little more devious and a little more cunning.”
“How?”
“By treading carefully and using a heavy hand, obviously.”
Max shot me a stern glare. “Hanging out with that cop is seriously compromising your sanity.”
The next morning Signora Mariangela Crema Stanzani went out to the market to do her grocery shopping. We’d been tailing her since she’d left her apartment building and, thanks to the photograph on her Facebook page, we were positive that this was indeed the carabiniere’s spouse. A physically robust woman who wasn’t averse to taking fashion risks, especially as far as the length of her skirt was concerned.
“She goes to the same boutiques as Campagna,” Max joked.
The time had come to see whether the plan I’d worked out had even a ghost of chance. I’d have preferred to call from a phone booth, but these days phone booths were on the verge of extinction and I had to settle for my cell phone.
“Buongiorno, Brigadier.”
“Who’s calling?”
“It’s Buratti. You recently conducted an unauthorized background check on me and of a friend of mine.”
“And how the fuck do you know about it?” he asked, after a moment’s silence.
“From a trusted source: the police,” I replied with sincerity. “I’m not interested in getting you into trouble but I do need to know who commissioned your investigation.”
“You have no authority to ask me a fucking thing,” he snarled nastily. “You and your friend are both ex-convicts, you’re jailbirds, you’re dangers to society. And don’t you ever dare to call me back, or I’ll paint your ass black and blue. I’ll send you back behind bars so fast . . .”
I decided to cut off that flood of threats and insults. “Your wife is out doing a little grocery shopping. I’ll just go over, tap her on the shoulder, and tell her that the cops caught you in bed with a hooker and that you weren’t using a condom.”
“You’d better stay away from her, plus she’d never believe you.”
It only took a few strides for me to reach the woman. “Signora Stanzani.”
She turned around, surprised. “Do I know you?”
“No,” I replied, handing her the cell phone. “But I just happened to be talking to your husband
and I thought you’d like to say hi.”
The woman didn’t stop at hi; in fact she dragged her husband into a discussion, as grueling as it was pointless, on the need to modify the menu for their Sunday dinner.
“Let’s hope that the brigadier gives us the name and that you’re not forced to rat him out, because it’s a mathematical certainty that that woman will go after you with her purse if you do,” Max decreed sagely.
The woman scolded her husband for taking up so much of her time and finally handed my cell phone back to me.
“Buratti?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t think you’ll get away with this. You can’t begin to imagine the mess you’ve gotten yourself into.”
“Are you telling me I need to have a heart-to-heart with your wife?”
“No. I was just trying to give you a glimpse of your future,” he explained, his voice shaking with fury.
“The name.”
He heaved a sigh. “Federico Togno.”
“Who’s that?” I asked, surprised. The name meant nothing to me.
“You can find that out on your own, dickhead.”
“Your wife is still dangerously within reach.”
“He’s a former colleague, an ex-cop, you can always find him at La Nena. And anyway, he didn’t have it in for you, he just came in to run a license plate and your name popped up.”
I hung up. I brought Max up to speed.
“The license plate of the jalopy you just bought,” he said.
“Right.”
“La Nena?”
“Right.”
“Martina and Gemma.”
“And Giorgio, the proprietor.”
We exchanged a long, hard glance as we both reached the same conclusion. For the first time since we’d taken the case, we could say we’d found a clue. Tenuous, sure, but a clue that nevertheless bore further investigation.
“Are you going to tell Campagna?”
“Not right away. Maybe later.”
“He’s able to get information much more easily than we can.”
“True. But if it turns out to be a solid lead, he’ll just take the case away from us,” I pointed out.
“So what do we do now?” asked the fat man.
“Let’s go get to know this guy Togno.”
“We can take it for granted that the carabiniere is going to warn him; when we come face to face with him he’ll stick us with some believable whopper.”
“Which we’re not going to believe, unless we can check it out for ourselves,” I concluded in a professional tone of voice.
The ex-carabiniere too had posted his picture on his Facebook page. When you’re looking for someone these days, your first stop has to be the social networks. Even a few fugitives from justice who must have been tiring of their precarious freedom couldn’t resist finding old and new friends online, and the law had taken advantage to yank them out of circulation.
Max used a fake account, I didn’t even want to consider the idea. Not because I was opposed to it on principle or suspicious of the medium for some reason, but simply because I had nothing to share or post. And that wasn’t a bad thing.
Togno was at the bar in La Nena, sipping an aperitif. A Negroni, I guessed from the color. Instead of potato chips or peanuts, he was spearing chunks of octopus dripping olive oil and lemon juice. An unusual combination. Giorgio, the proprietor, was chatting with him, but he walked away the moment he saw us enter the restaurant. The ex-carabiniere must have been about forty-five but he looked good for his age; he liked to dress well, though his shoes needed a new pair of heels. His watchful gaze roved the room, searching. Just some guy, or so you’d say if it wasn’t for the son-of-a-bitch expression stamped on his face, a snarl that became a smile when I went over and introduced myself.
“Why, of course, Marco Buratti,” he repeated, vigorously gripping my hand. “And you must be Max,” he added, grabbing the fat man’s right hand. “I owe you an apology. I mixed up the first two numbers of the license plate I was interested in, that’s all. Can I get you both something?”
He hadn’t had time to cook up the plausible lie that Max had taken for granted.
“The car is registered in my name,” I pointed out. “Not my friend’s name. And yet Brigadier Stanzani extended his investigation to include him.”
Togno’s face changed expression. “Well, you’ll have to ask him about that.”
“We already have,” Max broke in. “He says that you specifically asked about us both.”
“It was just a misunderstanding,” the ex-carabiniere said defensively. “I offer you my apologies, I’ll buy you a drink, and we can forget it ever happened.”
I threw my arms up. “There’s a police investigation underway,” I lied. “I doubt that the word ‘misunderstanding’ is going to persuade the police to shelve this case.”
Togno retorted in the same key. “In that case, I’ll be talking about it with the police, not with you. Now, if the two of you don’t mind, I’d like to go back to drinking in blessed peace.”
Unhurriedly we each sat on a stool to either side of him and ordered a couple of aperitifs, like two ordinary patrons. A few minutes later, two gentlemen in their sixties walked in the front door—they were well dressed and clearly had plenty of money. The proprietor rushed to welcome them.
“Caro Pellegrini, as you can see we’ve come back to enjoy some more of your excellent cuisine,” one of the two men said loudly, in a voice whose inflections were unmistakably Emilian.
Max’s reaction was sudden and reckless. He clutched my shoulder until it hurt and said in an even louder voice: “Giorgio Pellegrini!”
The restaurateur turned around. He and Max stared at each other for a few seconds. I knew my friend and was certain that his glance contained a clear look of contempt. The fat man put down his glass and headed for the exit without another word. I paid the check and followed.
I caught up with him in the beautiful piazza not far away as he was taking a seat at a table outside another bar.
“What the fuck just came over you?”
“Giorgio Pellegrini,” he repeated the name in a grim voice. “Now I understand who he is. I’ve heard plenty of rumors about him.”
“Do you mind telling me too?”
Max said nothing, grabbed his phone, and pulled up train schedules. “There’s a train in an hour. I’ve just got time to bolt a meal.”
“Where are you headed?”
“Milan.”
We were interrupted by the waitress. The fat man ordered enough food for three people his size. An obvious sign of the anxiety that was weighing him down at that moment.
“I’m going to have to dive back into the past,” he explained after devouring the first panino. “I have to go see certain people who know the owner of La Nena very well.”
“And that’s the last thing you feel like doing.”
“We’ve never liked each other. And now less than ever.”
“No one’s forcing you to do this.”
He gulped down the dark beer greedily. “But I really have to,” he retorted, but said nothing more. He shut himself up in an uneasy silence until it was time to head to the station.
“I may be gone a few days,” he said.
“You know where to find me.”
On the way to the parking lot I took the long way so I could pass by La Nena. I stopped at the entrance to peer inside. It was still warm enough out to leave the front door wide open. The restaurant was packed. Giorgio Pellegrini was fluttering from table to table with his usual charming smile. At a certain point he saw me and for a moment he was faced with my curiosity. His expression remained unchanged. Only his eyes were suddenly different. They were devoid of any trace of humanity.
CHAPTER EIGHT
That asshole Buratti tho
ught he could scare me by standing there at the entrance with his hands in his pockets. He was staring at me with that face of his, like an alcoholic bluesman’s. His buddy was nowhere in sight. Maybe, after recognizing me, he went home to think back over our shared history. Max the Memory. An aging relic of those years who now must spend his Saturday nights with all the other losers, playing Risk and insulting the government. Bunch of pathetic failures.
I had to wait until I knew that all my guests had been served and satisfied before I could make my way over to the bar where that idiot Federico Togno was waiting for me, looking like a beaten dog.
“What the fuck have you done now?” I asked, keeping a lid on my urge to shout. “Why on earth did those two come into my place looking for you?”
The stooge told me the whole story, down to the smallest details. A mixture of bad luck, random chance, and sheer stupidity was now seriously threatening to focus police attention on Togno, though he knew nothing at all about what had happened to the professor. Buratti and his beer-bellied buddy, who actually were on the trail of the late academic, might suspect something, in part thanks to the bad reputation I enjoyed in certain circles.
The situation was well under control, but I had enough experience to know that underestimating what had happened might be the equivalent of handing myself over to the law. Details apparently devoid of significance can pile up on top of a mountain, until suspicions transform them into an avalanche that suddenly breaks loose and roars down into the valley. It was necessary to react promptly, with a Plan A and a Plan B. Plan A, strictly tactical, was designed to confuse the enemy and ward off suspicion. Plan B was strategic in nature, and should be implemented only if things really went south. Plan A and Plan B. That’s why I never really risked having to pay the piper for my crimes.
I gestured for Togno to follow me into the little private dining room that I once used to reserve for Brianese and his herd of corrupt hangers-on. It was bug-proof.
“This is your fault, Federico,” I said, attacking him in a harsh voice.
“You’re mistaken, I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Gang of Lovers Page 12
