Day of the Dead

by Maurizio de Giovanni

  Carmen seemed to be crushed by her own thoughts.

  “It’s him: my poor mother-in-law’s son by her second marriage. She died of a broken heart because of him. He swore to me that he would have his revenge. He’d asked me for money, since I administer my husband’s fortune—after all, you’ve seen what condition the man is in. Edoardo is a dissolute wretch, wallowing in vices: easy women, gambling, horse races; all the sins a man can commit he has committed, and then some. I told him he’d had enough, giving him money was like throwing it down a well, there just was no end to it. And that’s what he said to me: I’ll take my revenge.”

  Ricciardi stared at the woman, baffled.

  “What do you think he could have done? What did Tettè have to do with it?”

  “Don’t you see, Commissario? He hurt me by taking away the one thing I loved: my little boy. In a single fell swoop he eliminated the danger of adoption and took Tettè away from me. My God, Commissario . . . if it was him, then that means that the reason the child died . . . it was my fault! It was all my fault!”

  Ricciardi stood staring at the sobbing woman as her shoulders shook, with no idea of what to say to console her.

  Outside, the rain was covering everything: people and objects.

  L

  Seven days earlier, Sunday, October 25

  As the churchgoers exit after Mass, Tettè looks up and scrutinizes the sky. It’s not raining right now, but the ground is wet and there are dark clouds in the sky overhead.

  What kind of day will this be? he wondered. Will I see my angel? Perhaps she’ll come and get me, even if she hasn’t sent word to Don Antonio; perhaps she’ll just feel like seeing me, she’ll come and I’ll be with her for an hour. We’ll go for a ride in the car, and I’ll sit in the back as if she were my chauffeur. And she’ll take me to get something yummy, and I’ll laugh, and she’ll hug me tight.

  Like a mamma with her child.

  As he thinks these thoughts, he notices the dog, curled up at the foot of the church steps. The moment the dog sees him it leaps to its feet and wags its tail. Tettè throws his arms around the dog, hastily, then heads for the corner to get out of sight. He pulls a ball of bread out of his britches pocket, and he gives it to the dog. The dog chews and swallows it almost instantly.

  Suddenly the dog starts to snarl, looking up past Tettè’s shoulders. The boy spins around and finds himself looking into Amedeo’s eyes. They’re dead eyes, expressionless. Tettè is terrified of those eyes.

  Amedeo gestures with his head, and Tettè sees that behind him are all the others, the twins, Saverio, and Cristiano. The twins step forward and grab him, one by each arm. Saverio slips a rope noose around the dog’s face and head; it has a slipknot, and Saverio tightens it with a yank. The dog snarls louder and bites Saverio’s hand, lightning quick: the hand starts bleeding. Saverio curses and hauls savagely on the rope. The dog’s eyes bug out, and it starts to cough.

  Amedeo shakes his head no, and lands a slap to Saverio’s face. Saverio loosens the noose.

  Amedeo turns and starts walking; behind him the twins drag Tettè along. The dog hesitates, then follows the little group obediently. The rope is loose, there’s no need to pull him.

  Cristiano turns to look at Tettè only once. There’s fear in his eyes, too. Tettè wishes he could scream, but he can’t: the serpent squeezes, and he can barely breathe.

  The little procession continues along until the road opens out into a tiny piazza at the foot of a double staircase, not far from the food warehouse. No one’s around. Angel, my angel, where are you?

  Saverio brings the dog around in front of Tettè. The dog whines, just once, then settles back on its haunches. It waits. The twins loosen their grasp on Tettè’s arms, without letting him go.

  Amedeo says: it’s time for breakfast, you filthy cacaglio. Don’t you remember that I promised you a nice breakfast? What did you think, that we’d make you something good to eat? Save’, out with the breakfast.

  From the pocket of his old overcoat, a coat that falls almost to his feet, Saverio pulls out the poisoned morsels. Here you go, he says. Breakfast is served. They all start snickering, except for Cristiano. Amedeo dries his tears and, laughing again, says: well, you filthy cacaglio, have you made up your mind? Who’s going to eat this breakfast, you or that bastard bag of fleas? Come on, talk. Or can’t you speak?

  Cristiano says: come on, Amede’, why don’t you drop it. This is something that’s going to cost us, every one of us. Nothing good’s going to come of it. We’ll even lose what the cacaglio brings us when the signora comes and takes him out.

  Amedeo replies: Cristia’, shut up. I’m sick of you, too, you’re afraid of your own shadow. Or do you like the cacaglio, too? Have you turned into a faggot like the sexton? If you want, I’ve got a little morsel for you too. That way it’ll look like there were two fools who didn’t know these things were full of poison, instead of just one.

  Cristiano falls silent and takes a step back. He looks down. Tettè on the other hand looks up at the sky and thinks, angel, angel of mine, forgive me, but I won’t let them poison the dog. The dog’s my friend, and I won’t let them poison my friend.

  Just as he’s about to say: me, I’ll eat the breakfast, he hears a brusque cry: hey, guagliu’, what are you doing here? Why are you holding that little boy?

  They all turn toward the sound of the voice, and they see that a tall man is standing at the entrance to the piazza, wearing a stern expression. The man walks toward them, limping. He points his cane at Saverio and says: untie that dog. Untie that dog immediately, and let it go.

  The boys exchange glances, uncertain what to do now. There are lots of them and only one of him, and there’s no one else in the piazzetta to see what’s happening. They could even make him eat the poisoned bait.

  But he has his cane, and a grim expression on his face. They realize they’d probably better do what he says. Amedeo makes a sign to Saverio, and he removes the noose from around the dog’s neck. The animal snarls, takes a few steps back, but doesn’t run away. The twins let go of Tettè’s arms and wait for instructions from Amedeo. At a certain point, one of the twins turns and runs away. The other one watches him go, looks at Amedeo, and moves off, backing away.

  Amedeo says to Tettè: cacaglio, we’re not done with you. We’ll see you later. And he walks off angrily, followed by Cristiano and Saverio, who spits on the ground.

  The man with the limp walks over to Tettè. The boys stop just beyond the piazzetta and stand there watching.

  LI

  Sheltered from the rain in a building entrance, Ricciardi waited. It might take hours, or it might take just a few minutes. His job demanded patience and a willingness to wait.

  He felt like laughing every time he was at the movie theater and he chanced to see his imaginary American counterparts leap through windows, pistols drawn, to the frantic accompaniment of an out-of-tune piano; or whenever he read cheap pulps with stories of terrible shoot-outs, or policemen laying out armies of thugs with their fists. Most of the work he did consisted of just this, waiting in the rain, often waiting for nothing, while most of the rest of it involved filling out reports that no one would ever read.

  He sneezed and then felt a stabbing pain in his temples from the sudden jerk of his head. Perhaps he should have kept the promise he’d refused to make to Maione and spent his Sunday in bed, sipping one of Rosa’s horrible steaming brews. He could have gone over to the window every now and then and looked out, and he might even have caught a fleeting glimpse of Enrica. Perhaps she would have smiled at him, and he would have known that she’d liked his most recent letter.

  Instead, his policeman’s feet had dragged him out into the rain, to Santa Lucia, to wait for a man he’d never seen and who might not even have anything to do with what he was looking for.

  Right: what was he looking for? The phantom image of a dead
boy, which might not even exist. In fact, it almost certainly didn’t exist, outside of his own diseased mind.

  My diseased mind, he thought; and the sad spectacle that he had witnessed through the peephole at poor Carmen’s apartment flashed before him: a man who’d lost his mind, a human vegetable constantly conversing with a world of ghosts that only he could see. Deep down, how was Carmen Fago di San Marcello’s husband any different from him? He wasn’t. Perhaps only to the extent that while that poor man now saw nothing but specters, Ricciardi still possessed some feeble connection to the real world.

  What would you tell me, ghost of Tettè? Would you tell me to pet your dog, so it might stop persecuting me? Would you say that you’re finally getting enough to eat? I wonder what Signor Fago’s phantoms say to him. We really ought to exchange our impressions.

  The street door that he’d been watching suddenly opened. A tall man emerged, more or less the same age as Ricciardi, perhaps a few years older. He wore a hat and an expensive overcoat, and he carried a cane. He walked with a limp.

  He looked around, cautiously. When he saw that the street was empty, he seemed to be reassured and closed the heavy door behind him.

  Before Ricciardi had a chance to move, three figures emerged from the shadows of the vicolo that ran alongside the building the man had just exited. They rapidly surrounded him. Two kept a lookout while the third pulled something out of his pocket, something that gleamed dully in the light of the rainy day. The man with the limp turned pale with terror, and lifted his arm to protect his face.

  Ricciardi snapped to and acted as fast as he could. He stepped out of the doorway and walked toward the little knot of men, shouting:

  “Halt, police! Drop your weapons!”

  The man who was standing lookout in his direction gave a cry of warning and took off running, followed by the other two. The one with the knife waved the sharp tip threateningly toward the man with the limp, as if in warning, before turning to run.

  Ricciardi approached the man, who was leaning, white as a sheet, against the jamb of the closed door.

  “You saved me. Grazie. Did you see? A knife, they had a knife.”

  “I’m Commissario Ricciardi, from police headquarters. You need a good strong drink. There’s a tavern at the corner, come along.”

  Keeping an eye on the man’s expression, Ricciardi registered only relief when he identified himself. Clearly the man had more to fear from other quarters than from the police.

  They reached the tavern; the man with the limp walked fast, even over the slippery cobblestones, leaning on his cane and shooting worried glances in the direction of the vicolo down which his three attackers had vanished. He kept muttering to himself, under his breath, “This is how far it’s come, this is how far they’re willing to take it . . . ”

  They sat down at a table. The man knew the proprietor, who greeted him affably and looked suspiciously at Ricciardi; the man must be used to Sersale’s bad company.

  “Commissario, you arrived just in the nick of time. They would have wounded me, perhaps slashed my face. Grazie again.”

  Ricciardi waved his hand dismissively.

  “This neighborhood is a mecca for armed thieves. These are hard times.”

  The man laughed bitterly.

  “Those weren’t thieves. I know who sent them. Forgive me, I haven’t introduced myself: my name is Edoardo Sersale. And I thank heaven above that you happened to walk past my building just then, otherwise I would certainly have wound up in the hospital.”

  “I didn’t just happen to walk by. I was waiting for you, Signore. Just like the three of them, though obviously with different intentions.”

  Sersale looked at him curiously. He was surprised but not frightened.

  “Really? And why would that be? The police are the only people in town I don’t owe money. And I’ve never defrauded anyone.”

  Ricciardi carefully studied the way the man reacted.

  “You said that you knew who sent those men after you. Who was it, and why do you think you know?”

  Edoardo had ordered a carafe of wine. He poured himself a glassful and downed it in a couple of gulps.

  “Well, Commissario, I’m not going to tell you that, of course. If I were interested in filing a complaint, I would have come down to police headquarters months ago; and I’d almost certainly be dead now as a result. These are nasty people, that’s all you need to know. People who want the money I owe them, and want it now. Money I don’t have.”

  “But not long ago you confided in a girl, somewhere, that you expected to come into the money soon. How do you expect to get it?”

  Sersale was increasingly curious.

  “Incredible! How do you know that? Have you been following me? How long have I been under surveillance?”

  Ricciardi decided to come clean.

  “No, you haven’t been under surveillance. I’m on a case . . . that is, I’m interested in a situation that may involve you: the death of Matteo Diotallevi, a young boy, an orphan at the parish church of Santa Maria del Soccorso in Santa Teresa. Does that sound familiar?”

  The man jumped back and recoiled as if he’d suddenly been slapped hard in the face.

  “He’s dead? Tettè is dead? But how on earth . . . That can’t be, I saw him just last week! And he was fine! It’s impossible, Commissario; if this is a joke, it’s in very poor taste.”

  “I wish it was a joke. The boy was found dead Monday morning at dawn, at the base of the monumental staircase leading up from the Tondo di Capodimonte.”

  Sersale ran a hand over his face.

  “Poor child . . . but how . . . how did he die?”

  “He seems to have accidentally ingested rat poison. But there are a few dark spots, and that’s what I’m looking into.”

  Looking him straight in the eye, Ricciardi realized that Sersale was genuinely upset.

  “At this point, I need to tell you the way things stand, Commissario. I’ve told you about my debts. I should also tell you that my family . . . ”

  Ricciardi broke in:

  “I already know about your family. I’ve seen . . . your half brother. His wife was very fond of the little boy, and I’ve talked to her a number of times. She’s the one who confirmed your identity.”

  Sersale’s face hardened in anger.

  “That harpy. She wouldn’t dream of missing the opportunity. But please bear with me, Commissario: Why don’t you listen to my version of events?”

  Ricciardi nodded his head and gestured for the man to go on.

  “I was injured in combat in the Great War, and I was left . . . like this, the way you see me now. I have to walk with a cane, and when the weather is as damp as it’s been, my wound hurts so bad it practically drives me crazy. I haven’t been able to work, or be as productive as I used to be; or maybe I’ve just taken advantage of my condition to do nothing, like my poor mother used to say. I’ll admit I like living the good life; and I like beautiful women. But that doesn’t mean I’m a gangster, and your family is supposed to help you when you fall on hard times. That woman . . . For as long as my brother’s been in this condition—and I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that she did this to him, with some spell she’s cast, witch that she is—all communications between us have ceased, because of her. All the family’s wealth, and therefore my own, remains in her hands.”

  Ricciardi listened attentively. The man continued.

  “I’d lost all my ambitions, and I went through a long and difficult time. But I’ve recently been in touch with one of my old enlisted men, who’s started a business with northern Italy that . . . in other words, I can think about my future again, if only I could wipe out the debts I’ve run up. You saw them, those three . . . they wouldn’t kill me, because if they did they’d never get their money. But hurt me, cut my face, yes, they’d do that: that’s the way they mak
e their point.”

  “So you asked your sister-in-law for the money.”

  “Who else could I go to? She’s in charge of it all, the witch. And she turned me down, said that enough was enough, that it was time for me to face up to my responsibilities, and so on and so forth. I was beside myself.”

  Ricciardi tried to bring the conversation back to what happened to the boy.

  “And how does Tettè fit into all this?”

  Sersale smiled wearily.

  “He fits in, Commissario. She told you that she’s infertile, didn’t she? That she can’t have children. That her life has been a living hell. A few months ago, by chance, while rummaging through a steamer trunk in search of a book, I stumbled upon a pack of old letters tied with a ribbon. The trunk was from my brother’s home, and it contained my mother’s clothing. That witch couldn’t wait to get rid of it, and she shipped it off before my mother’s corpse was cold. Somehow these letters, which had evidently been hidden all too well, wound up in the trunk. They were from the doctor who was in charge of my brother’s care, and they date back ten years or so, to immediately after the war. In short, he and my sister-in-law had been having an affair. It went on for years, at the same time that my poor brother was losing his mind. You see, Commissario? You see how shameful?”

  Ricciardi shrugged.

  “These things happen. It doesn’t strike me, in any case, that you’re in the best position to preach morality to others, no?”

  Sersale blanched, but recovered.

  “It’s not a matter of morals: Did she have an affair, yes or no? Was she unfaithful, yes or no? Then perhaps she has no right to grab my family’s wealth for herself. Those letters were the proof. So I started to follow her, determined to find out whether she was still having that affair with the doctor, or if she’d found herself another lover to take his place.”