Glass Souls

by Maurizio de Giovanni

  Maione nodded, disconsolately.

  “Yes. And I’m pretty sure I know exactly who’s sending me this message. Anyway, come on, out with it.”

  The boy took a deep breath and declaimed: “My dear Brigadier, you-know-who wishes to see you in the place that you know. Which would be, not the same place as the last time, where there was a waiter who’s not on duty now, but that other place, where the two of you once met that time when it was raining. It will be easy for you to recognize you-know-who immediately, because as usual she’ll be the loveliest of them all. She awaits you anxiously. But, take my advice, if there’s someone with her, pretend you don’t know her, or you’ll both be in trouble deep.”

  The singsong litany had been recited as if it were a Christmas poem, in a high, precise voice. The boy had been instructed well.

  Amitrano, pondering the thought that his superior officer might be arranging some romantic tryst, put on an expression of cunning innuendo; then, in view of the brigadier’s undisguised determination to slaughter him, he gulped, turned his gaze to the wall, and kept it there.

  Maione recovered from his surprise.

  “Guaglio’, I have no idea who sent you or why, and I haven’t understood a single word that you said. What I can guarantee to you is that Amitrano, here, is going to hold you until I get back, and if I don’t like what I find when I get to where I’m going, and I have a pretty good idea that I’m not going to like it one bit, then you’re going to experience such an unhappy fifteen minutes that for the rest of your life, whenever you happened to be in the neighborhood, make sure you take the long way round so you don’t even clap eyes on the front entrance. Do you understand me loud and clear?”

  The boy executed a perfect military salute, stamping the sole of his bare foot, hard as tanned leather, on the floor.

  “Yessir, Commandant, sir!” he said and then, twisting around with lightning agility, he left the room, whipping under and between Amitrano’s legs. Meanwhile, Amitrano had still been focusing on a section of the wall that was entirely blank.

  “What are you doing, you idiot?” Maione shouted at the officer. “Catch him, why don’t you?”

  Amitrano snapped to and lumbered off in pointless pursuit, awkwardly overturning the side table upon which stood the pitcher of ersatz coffee, which shattered onto the floor, in a spreading puddle.

  A voice floated up clearly from the courtyard.

  “Brigadier Raffaele Maione!”

  What followed was a long, strong, and skillfully modulated Bronx cheer that split the early evening air.

  Maione ran a hand over his face and murmured: “Sweet Virgin Mary, how I hate this city. How I hate it.”

  Then, wearily, he headed toward the place that he knew, which wasn’t the same place as the last time.

  The tiny café at the corner of the vicolo that twisted and turned up the steep side of the Spanish Quarter had, as every policeman knew, a private room in the back. There the bar’s proprietor, whom everyone called Peppe but whose real first and last name no one knew, was willing to accommodate any sort of activity that he was best advised to keep concealed from open view.

  Sometimes people played cards there, other times they played craps; from time to time people slept there who didn’t want to show their faces out on the street, and others met their lovers there if they couldn’t, for whatever reasons, make use of any of the many small pensiones in the center of town. Others went there to get drunk in privacy, only to throw up in the internal courtyard and fall asleep on the cot. Peppe allowed the place to be used freely because he was a good-hearted person, and he made quite sure that nothing dangerous or criminally punishable took place in there. His coffee was first-rate and in his back room you could argue until all hours of the night about the exploits and achievements of the city’s soccer team, only recently founded but followed with spasmodic fanaticism by ever broader swaths of the population.

  Maione had immediately understood that the scugnizzo, in his obscure rigmarole, had been referring to this place; this was where the person he believed must be the sender of the message had waited for him in the rain the previous fall, when he was investigating the murder of a poor orphan boy, immediately prior to the car crash in which Ricciardi had been injured.

  The memory brought Signora Rosa back into his mind. It was incredible how, even though he had only met her a couple of times, he now missed her too; he didn’t dare to imagine what kind of constant suffering must be tormenting his superior officer, who was so disinclined to share his feelings.

  As he walked into the café, he shot a questioning glance at the proprietor, who was busy behind the bar drying coffee cups with a rag. The man shrugged his shoulders with a comical expression of bafflement and tilted his head toward the door that gave onto the famous back room. Maione looked around somewhat furtively and slipped through the door, shutting it behind him.

  The room was barren, with a small table, four chairs, a straw pallet, and a few wooden crates stacked up by the wall. At the center, dressed in a long black dress, with a hat of the same color, and a veil covering his face, was Bambinella. The brigadier’s astonished gaze was captured by a pair of cowhide shoes, with stiletto heels and of such a vivid red that they seemed lit from within.

  “I knew it was you all along. But what the hell is this getup?”

  Bambinella lifted the veil with an exaggeratedly graceful gesture of his large begloved hands.

  “The shoes, eh, Brigadie’? They give me away, don’t they? I know, I ought to have put on a more understated pair, but what am I supposed to do, I just don’t own any sensible shoes, and then, I simply couldn’t resist: the black dress with the red shoes is entirely too cunning! And I’m wearing some undergarments that . . . ”

  “I’m going to go ahead and strangle you right here and now,” Maione interrupted him, “and that way we can get it taken care of once and for all, go ahead and shut down this bar where too many strange things happen, and put up a plaque out front in memory of the wonderful day that that saint, Maione, throttled Bambinella to death! In other words, are you saying you’ve taken me for one of those cops who take a bribe to let you keep working? Do you or don’t you know that I have a reputation? You send a miserable little urchin to get me, and he razzes me openly inside police headquarters, you tell me to come to this filthy dive, and then you tell me all about the horrible dreck you dress up in?”

  Bambinella let loose with a coquettish, gurgling giggle.

  “Oooh, did Gioacchiniello behave like a scamp? I’m so sorry, Brigadie’, but that little boy certainly has his reasons for being mischievous with you, after all, you’ve arrested his father, three brothers, and even his grandpa, so you can understand those are the kinds of things that will put you in a mood with someone.”

  “Well, when you see him, tell him that it’s my intention to arrange for a family reunion just as soon as I can: happy and cozy all together, sheltered from the rain and the scorching sun, and all at taxpayers’ expense. Now tell me what it is you want, and don’t waste any time, because who knows what people might think if they saw us all alone in here together.”

  Bambinella put a hand to his chest.

  “It’s true, how exciting, it’s our very first love nest, Brigadie’! Darn it all, if I wasn’t already going steady I’d suggest we do things that would justify exactly what they . . . ”

  Maione let himself fall onto a chair, disconsolately.

  “You know something? You’ve convinced me, Bambine’. Now it’s time for me to shoot myself. I can’t go on like this, and if you ask me, even if I did go ahead and murder you, you’d find some way to go on persecuting me, maybe by appearing in my dreams.”

  “Why, how romantic you are, so you dream of me! But what nasty thoughts, though, Brigadie’. Life is so lovely, so full of love and happiness, believe me, don’t shoot yourself. No, listen, instead I have some fairly
interesting news for you, that’s why I thought it was best for me to come see you rather than making you climb all the way up to where I live, which is bound to be dangerous because my sweetheart, I don’t know if I told you this, is quite jealous and . . . ”

  “Oh, lord above, yes, you told me that. So what news do you have for me, if I may ask?”

  In his turn, Bambinella took a chair and sat facing Maione, crossing his legs with an exaggeratedly graceful motion.

  “Now then, listen carefully: this Roccaspina, the count who confessed to the murder, isn’t a bad person. Yes, he has a bad gambling habit and he’s run through his entire fortune and estate, and he’s practically enriched every owner of a gambling den in the city as well as all the bookmakers working the racetracks, and he owes a great deal of money to a great many people, but it’s not like he has any other bad habits.”

  Maione made a face.

  “That already strikes me as a pretty bad habit, no? What else would a man have to do, to say he has bad habits?”

  “Oh no you don’t, Brigadie’, you of all people can’t get this kind of thing so wrong. Normally people who have one bad habit have lots of others, either because they don’t have principles in the first place or else because they don’t have a lot of trouble getting around them. And so they run to women, they drink, they smoke opium, and so on. For instance, when I was still a working girl, I had lots of customers who came to me after getting out of the gambling dens either because they wanted consolation for the money they’d lost or else because they wanted to spend the money they’d won. But this Roccaspina, on the other hand, once he’d run out of money, which happened quite frequently, would go straight home. And that’s where things get interesting.”

  “How so?”

  “At home is his wife, a beautiful woman who was once famous throughout the city because she was, in her circle, the most desired of them all. A serious woman, though, never a lover, and believe me when I tell you that if she had had one, I would have known about it. Now a girlfriend of mine who works for a doctor near them is a friend of this lady’s housekeeper, and even though they haven’t paid her for years, she still stays with them because she doesn’t know where else to go; she’s elderly and then she’s fond of the lady because she raised her from a child. Just think that . . . ”

  Maione emitted a low growl that Bambinella interpreted correctly.

  “In other words, she has a suitor. An important man who is driven everywhere he goes in a great big car with a chauffeur, a certain Duke Marangolo of I-Don’t-Know-Where, who shows up every so often, dumps off a ton or so of flowers, and waits in the front hall until she sends her housekeeper to tell him that she has a headache; then he heads off with his tail between his legs. Apparently he was there the very same evening as the murder; now I couldn’t say whether this information can be useful to you, but it’s the only somewhat strange thing I’ve learned about that household. Aside from the fact that Roccaspina, for a while now, had been leaving home every morning at 7:30; when his housekeeper asked him where he was going, he replied that he was going to Mass to ask for the grace to win a nice round sum to take care of his money problems. The housekeeper thinks it must be true, because she says that he believes firmly in the evil eye and good and bad luck, people who have the bad habit of gambling always believe fervently in those things.”

  Maione listened with great concentration.

  “What about Piro, did you find out anything about him?”

  Bambinella interlaced his long fingers.

  “There things were simpler, in Santa Lucia there are lots of old girlfriends of mine, working as housekeepers. And then in the palazzo next door to Piro’s building there’s a private brothel where seven girls work, and even a couple of members of the competition: you no doubt know that they come in handy because there are some clients who like to get under the bed while . . . Hey, okay, what kind of manners are these, Brigadie’, you’re breaking my arm, and I’m a delicate girl! And anyway, he was a moneylender. His office was just full of high-society types who were constantly coming and going, unsuspectable people. One of the whores has a client who’s one of them: she says that Piro threatened to let everyone know what kind of financial shape they were in. In other words, he was blackmailing them.”

  “And in personal terms, do we know anything? I don’t know, relationships, lovers . . . ”

  Bambinella shook his head.

  “No, no. That man was someone who only thought about money, Brigadie’. His wife is a sad one, with a long face on her that her husband’s death didn’t even really change at all, while his daughter is a young woman who’s growing up, a little livelier than her mother, and the two of them fight occasionally, but still, she’s a good girl from a respectable family; the son, on the other hand, is just a toddler, a child. A respectable household, but there aren’t many people in this city who shed a single tear when Piro died, because he really was just a stinker.”

  The brigadier thought it over. He was comparing the information Bambinella had just given him with the impressions he’d garnered during his time in the victim’s home.

  “If they’re such respectable people, then why is there all this talk about them? Who told you what kind of people the wife or the daughter or . . . ”

  “Let’s just say that that was luck. One of the girls who works in the brothel had an understanding with the chauffeur. Free of charge, because he didn’t have a penny to his name and couldn’t afford certain fees. At any rate, this chauffeur was telling stories to this girlfriend of mine, that’s all. But now though, he can’t tell her anything else, because they let him go.”

  “What do you mean, they let him go?”

  Bambinella shrugged his shoulders.

  “Well, Brigadie’, in the first place the loan shark lawyer is dead and so they really don’t need the chauffeur anymore all that much. And then they told him that what they need most right now is money, and that they can’t afford to keep him on anymore, but according to him they’re still filthy rich and they didn’t sell the car, which means they still need a chauffeur. In other words, he has nothing but bad things to say about them, in part because he no longer has any excuses with his wife and he can’t see my girlfriend anymore. And she’s sorry about it too, because she says that he, the ex chauffeur, has a nice big . . . ”

  Maione leapt to his feet.

  “All right then, Bambine’, if there’s nothing else, it’s time for me to go. Do me a favor and continue to keep your ears open for anything else concerning this story.”

  Bambinella stood up, smoothing his dress.

  “Yes, but eventually we’ll have to stop meeting here, Brigadie’. My boyfriend has a lot of friends, and if they see me come out of this bar together with you looking all rumpled like this, who knows what they’ll go tell him. The one time I get a straight razor taken to my face, shouldn’t it at least be for something that actually happened?”

  And he laughed his usual neighing laugh.

  XXVIII

  He had thought it over at considerable length before taking the initiative. He knew he was taking responsibility for a major risk, and risk, he had always been told, was something he should avoid. At all costs.

  All the same, he really was worried. After all, he considered, the job he’d been assigned was quite precise. To whatever extent possible and, of course, while maintaining absolute secrecy, he was to ensure that Signora Livia Vezzi Lucani be put in no danger and live contentedly.

  This wasn’t an assignment like the others, and Falco was well aware of the fact. He generally spied on individuals suspected of being subversives or criminals, or both things. And when he did, that meant long stakeouts on a bench with a newspaper in his hands, in the bright sun; or at the corner of a narrow vicolo with an open umbrella under the pouring rain; on a bridge, holding his hat with both hands to keep the wind from carrying it away. Waiting the whole t
ime for a street door to open and someone to come out so he could jot down a time in his notebook and finally go home, cursing the day he had accepted a certain change of headquarters or job title.

  A job like any other, Falco told himself. He knew perfectly well how untrue that was, in his case, merely a pat phrase, and yet he liked to imagine he could say it. No, this wasn’t a job like any other, and the more the days, months, and years went by, the less true it was.

  Looking after Livia had been strange from the very beginning. When his superior officer had summoned him to give him the assignment, he had seemed almost embarrassed. He had gone into the office—a nondescript, anonymous room in the back of a shop, which ostensibly sold baskets and hampers, though the merchandise changed every day—believing that he was about to be sent to keep an eye on a group of activists who’d been sent into internal exile and who were suspected of wanting to form an association opposed to the Fascist party. Falco was well aware that he was one of the best agents: he was admired and respected, all his previous missions had been carried out with absolute precision and punctuality, without overdoing things, and above all, while preserving complete secrecy. Falco was reliable, people said in the business—reliable, discreet, and invisible. The last case he had worked on had culminated with the arrests of eight people who seemed to have no connections, but who were actually writing each other and who were even meeting, leaving the small towns where they lived to assemble in the city. A success of a certain prominence, at the end of a painstaking campaign of stakeouts and shoe-leather that lasted a year and a half. He therefore expected that the nameless, ageless little man, anonymous and laconic, perfectly forgettable if it weren’t for a scar on his forehead that looked like a comma and small, bright eyes that darted constantly from one side of the room to the other, had something important in store for him, something very important.

  He remembered that evening. He had received the note summoning him via the established dropbox, a strolling candy vendor in the Villa, whom he had asked for a colored balloon and had received in reply nothing but an intense glance and fleeting gesture of acknowledgment, after which he had found himself alone in the presence of the man with no name. Without any preamble, and never once looking him in the eye, the nameless man had briefly apprised him of Rome’s satisfaction for the excellent work he had done.