“Then your attempted suicide two years ago was an unsuccessful escape plan?”
“Try to be a little less simplistic, doctor. That’s not what my mother pays you for. Believe it or not, I did it for love. And I was wrong, of course. My mother had warned me. You see? I always come back to her. Sooner or later, I’ll have to kill her . . .”
Filippo twisted around to enjoy the psychiatrist’s reaction; obviously, though, he remained expressionless.
So Filippo sat up on the couch and smiled at his doctor:
“Do you want to know why I hate my mother so much? Do you really want to know the truth?”
Moroncini continued to look at him with a neutral expression. He was all too experienced with this sort of trick from his patients.
Filippo persisted. He leaned forward in a conspiratorial manner and hissed:
“My mother is a murderer.”
Filippo Calchi Renier had left his office half an hour ago. Moroncini had no more patients scheduled for that day. He was done going through the notes for his latest book, a short work on the troubled youth of the families of the Northeast. Once he had brought a monkish order to his brier-root desktop, he dialed the number of the Contessa’s cellphone. Selvaggia answered on the third ring.
“I am very worried about Filippo.”
Selvaggia was sitting next to Professor Moroncini in the back seat of her Mercedes. The Romanian chauffeur had been ordered to drive slowly along seldom-used country roads. They had both agreed not to meet at Villa Selvaggia, lest Filippo happen to see them; as for Moroncini’s office, the Contessa was reluctant to allow rumors to spread about her mental health. In this, she was still a farmer’s daughter.
“How are the sessions proceeding?” asked Selvaggia, nodding slightly toward the psychiatrist.
“Rather well, I’d say,” Moroncini replied laconically.
“It doesn’t seem like it. He’s become so . . . embarrassing.”
“That’s a phase of the therapy. They learn to express their resentments.”
“You’re the expert,” commented Selvaggia with a hint of skepticism.
“The other day, for example, he told me that he wants to kill you.”
“And you call that progress?”
“Don’t you want to know why he hates you so much?”
“That’s why I pay you, isn’t it? So you’ll violate the bond of client-doctor privilege.”
“Certainly, but I believe that information of this nature demands a considerable modification of our initial agreement.”
“That depends on the nature of the information . . .”
Moroncini paused. It was a long pause. Pauses were one of his specialties.
“Well?” Selvaggia insisted.
“Filippo is convinced that you haven’t been entirely truthful about the murder of Giovanna Barovier . . .”
“Filippo is spouting nonsense as usual!”
“That may well be, but in his state of psychological distress, he might decide to talk to the Carabinieri . . .”
Selvaggia took off the dark glasses that she wore even on the cloudiest days. She turned a savage gaze on Moroncini. That gaze was truly terrifying, and it was one of her specialties.
“Your information,” she informed him, “is of no value. Filippo’s undependability is already well known to the investigators. Whatever statement he may choose to make will never undercut my version of events. In part because I have never stated anything but the truth. I’m very sorry to have to tell you this.”
Moroncini shrugged in a sign of surrender.
But Selvaggia hadn’t finished: “Unless . . .”
The psychiatrist looked at her with interest.
“Unless you are willing to help me have Filippo declared incompetent. A detailed psychiatric report might help to get a court order blocking him from the family business. In exchange, I could provide you with some very interesting and very private information about the new investments that the Foundation is undertaking in Romania.”
“To have him declared incompetent, we would have to demonstrate a complete inability to understand or to express intention. It would be disastrous for Filippo . . .”
“Oh, Filippo hates business anyway. He can’t take the pressure of responsibility. It would be a relief for him, trust me.”
“And it would mean that you would have unlimited control of the entire Calchi Renier estate,” Moroncini insinuated.
“Write that report, Professor. In exchange, Counselor Visentin will provide you with a list of companies that will double their capital within a year. Buy a nice bundle of shares immediately, and I assure you that you’ll be able to devote yourself to poetry for the rest of your life.”
Moroncini smiled. “Not poetry. Race cars.”
* * *
The sun had just set. The darkness had suddenly taken over the house, making it even gloomier and more silent. I felt the need to get out, to fill my lungs with bracing cold air. After a short walk, I stepped into a pastry shop that served the best hot chocolate with whipped cream in town. My father had been a regular client for years, and I was served with obsequious alacrity.
It had been four days since my last meeting with Carla. I hadn’t heard from her since then, and I hadn’t called her either. When she had asked me not to mention her to my father, lest I endanger her life, it was as if she had cracked a whip in my face. When my cell phone rang and I saw her name on the caller ID, I wasn’t sure whether or not to answer. When it rang for the fifth time, I looked up and saw that everyone in the shop was looking at me. They knew who I was and now they were wondering what mysterious reason I could have for staring at my cell phone without answering. I punched the green button.
“Three trucks have pulled up; they’re loading the drums,” she alerted me.
“So they’ve decided to clean house,” I commented in a low voice.
“I think you need to come see this. The view is quite interesting.”
“Interesting how?”
“Come here, and on the double,” she said, then hung up.
Carla was right. By the light of the powerful spotlights illuminating the ground, it was possible to see quite clearly, through the binoculars, the faces of a number of people.
“Which one is Zuglio?” Carla asked.
“He’s the short guy in the beige overcoat; the one who’s talking with Trevisan and Constantin.”
“Do you know the other ones?”
“I’ve seen two of them before, here at the dump,” I answered. “But I’ve never seen the other three.”
The five thugs worked busily and with precision. Drums and jerry cans were unearthed and loaded onto the trucks. The dogs, excited at the activity, barked continuously. Carla mounted a powerful telephoto lens on her camera body and began shooting.
“I’ve spent all my savings,” she explained, as she adjusted the focus. “I need to ask you a favor,” she added, after a short pause. “I need to borrow your car. I would have some problems trying to follow the trucks on my bicycle.”
I looked down at Constantin, who had lit yet another cigarette. As he talked, he continually looked around. “I won’t let you go on your own.”
She lowered the camera and stared at me. “Are you sure? You might get in over your head . . .”
“Stop treating me like a child,” I hissed at her.
She gave me a crafty smile.
The trucks lined up, ready to pull out. Constantin, Trevisan, and Zuglio climbed into their repective automobiles and drove off toward town.
“Now it’s our turn,” I muttered, hoping that I wasn’t about to get myself into a world of trouble.
On the Mestre viaduct, the trucks blended in with the other heavy vehicles moving past slowly, under the alert gaze of the highway police. Then they merged onto the highway. Around Bolo
gna we were already certain that they were heading south. They stopped for fuel, and the drivers took advantage of the opportunity to grab a sandwich. And Carla took advantage of the opportunity to take some nice photographs of them and of the license plates of their trucks.
The drivers never went faster than fifty miles per hour. They didn’t want to run the risk of being pulled over. Something as simple as a speeding ticket could arouse the curiosity of the police. We followed them, hanging back at least two hundred yards.
“Giovanna wasn’t honest with the two of us,” Carla said, breaking a silence that had gone on for a good long while.
“I’d have to agree that she wasn’t.”
“She used me. I was just a pawn in her plan,” she added, with resentment in her voice.
“She used everyone. Even herself. And in the end she paid, with her life.”
“But we loved her. I was her best friend, you were her fiancé. She shouldn’t have treated us this way.”
“I try not to judge her. She meant to tell me everything, and that’s enough for me.”
“Even after seeing that video?”
“Yes. It’s just that now I feel a little more detached,” I replied, hestitating as I hunted for the right words. “It’s hard to explain. Giovanna seems more and more like a ghost imprisoned by a spell, who needs for her murderer to be punished before it can find peace.”
“And before it can finally free you to live your own life,” she added, sympathetically.
Silence returned. Carla fell asleep. Every so often I turned to look at her, thinking how different from Giovanna she was. I woke her when, shortly after dawn, the trucks left the provincial highway and drove deep into the countryside around Nola. Across the fields, plumes of smoke arose from numerous bonfires.
“The land of fires. The color of the smoke indicates the nature of the filth they are burning,” Carla began explaining, as she pointed in various directions. “Black: plastic wastes. Red: phosphorous substances. And the smoke down there is light blue because of the concentration of chromium.”
“How is this possible, in broad daylight?” I asked indignantly.
Carla snickered. “Here the Camorra’s in charge. Now you know what sort of people Trevisan and Zuglio do business with.”
We drove along an irrigation canal; beyond it rose billows of dense, acrid smoke.
“You see, they use bales of rags soaked in solvents or halogen compounds as a base for the fires,” she went on explaining. “They pretend they’re getting rid of rags, and instead they’re getting rid of toxic waste at a cut rate.”
We drove off and in the distance we glimpsed a farm, with water buffaloes grazing lazily. “Mozzarella with dioxin,” she said with bitter irony. “Here the people get sick and die. Liver cancer, leukemia.”
As we were talking, the trucks came to a halt and, after a while, a couple of cars joined them. Through the binoculars I saw a handshake between the drivers and the new arrivals. Carla took a series of photographs, and then she squeezed my arm, hard.
“Let’s go, Francesco. I’m afraid.”
At last, I could take full advantage of the Lancia’s powerful engine. The trip home was much quicker. Before we pulled into town, Carla asked me what I intended to do.
I felt nauseated, bitter, and indignant. My father couldn’t possibly have imagined that the Eco T.D.W. was dealing in toxic waste with the Camorra. This was no longer a simple case of small-town fraud. This was “ecomafia.” And it was no longer possible to negotiate with those people, it wasn’t possible to try to broker a solution to the matter; we had to involve the law.
“We’ll go see Mele, and we’ll give him the film.”
“What about your father?”
I shrugged resignedly. “I’ll tell him afterwards.”
Mele slammed his hand down hard on the desk. “So you decided to become junior detectives.”
“We just wanted to be sure, before we—” I took a stab at self-justification.
“Not a word from you—you’re a lawyer, and there are certain things you ought to know already,” he scolded. “You’ve undermined the investigation. They’ve already cleaned house at the local health board and on Zuglio’s land. We won’t find any usable evidence to take them to court.”
“There are the photographs; there’s our own eyewitness testimony,” Carla broke in.
“It’s not much, barely enough to justify starting an investigation. If the two of you had only been a little smarter, we could have caught them all with their hands in the cookie jar.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“I’ll make a report to Zan with your statements and the photographs of these gentlemen,” he replied. “The first thing we need to figure out is whether this toxic waste operation has anything to do with Giovanna’s murder.”
“Do you really have to hand over the evidence to Zan?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
He spread his arms in resignation. “It’s his investigation.”
Carla and I signed our statement and got up to go.
“Have you told me the whole truth, or should I expect some other surprise later on?” the inspector asked.
Neither of us answered. With a gesture of one hand, the inspector ushered us out of his office.
The secretary informed me that Papa was at the Foundation for a meeting. The Torrefranchi Group was headquartered in a large villa by the river. In the old days, the notables who traveled from the city preferred a boat to the jarring discomfort of a horse-drawn coach. The villa had been built at the orders of a descendant of a Venetian doge at the end of the seventeenth century. Two centuries later, the property had fallen into the hands of a wealthy Jewish family from Trieste. During the Second World War, the villa had been requisitioned by the local German headquarters, and the legitimate owners never returned from Dachau. I had been there on only two occasions with Papa, once for a literary awards ceremony, and once for a charity banquet to raise money to finance the pediatric ward of the new hospital.
At the front gate, I was ordered to halt by two security guards. Muscular physiques wrapped in charcoal-grey tailored suits, with crew cuts and sunglasses. My surname wasn’t enough to get me inside. They told me to wait while they requested authorization. After a couple of minutes, they waved me in. At the door, I was welcomed by a courteous secretary in a navy blue suit with a gold-plated name tag on her lapel that identified her as Mariangela. She accompanied me into a comfortable little lounge where she pointed me to a table covered with carafes, coffee pots, and trays of finger pastries. “The meeting is almost over,” she told me. “I’ve already told your father you’re here.”
About ten minutes passed and a small crowd poured into the lounge. They were too busy talking animatedly and pouring cups of coffee and serving themselves pastries to notice me. Then the Contessa swept in with Davide Trevisan at her heels. Selvaggia kissed me absent-mindedly first on one cheek, then the other. “Your father is still tied up,” she warned me in a low voice. Then he headed over to a group of men smoking in a corner.
Trevisan poured himself a glass of fruit juice. “The Contessa has forbidden alcohol,” he confided in a whisper.
I was astonished to see him at the Foundation, treated like any of the numerous partners. After his meeting with Papa, I expected to see him kicked out on his ass. But here he sat, safe and happy. He came to sit down in the office chair beside me.
“I have to thank you for your discretion in this matter of the toxic waste,” he said in a low voice. “As I explained to your father, I was deceived by several employees who kept the truth from me.”
I nodded, doing my best to stay calm. I wanted to tell him that I had photographs of him standing on Zuglio’s land as the excavator unearthed the drums, but the Carabinieri would be talking to him about it later.
“We’re packing our
bags,” he added, after biting into a pastry. “We’re all heading for Romania. Fuck the Chinese, and fuck the tax collectors.”
“Will you still be dealing in waste?”
He smiled with satisfaction. “No. I bought machinery from a bankrupt shoe factory for a song, and I shipped it to Timisoara. Next week, I’m going down to hire the workers.” He laid one hand on my arm in a conspiratorial manner. “Twenty female factory workers, all attractive and all available, obviously. In Romania, the real problem is keeping your dick in your pants.”
I wondered to myself how I’d ever managed to hang out with such a squalid creature and consider him a friend. I had even thought of asking him to be my best man. Giovanna wouldn’t let me. She had always dismissed Davide as a false and conceited fool. So I asked my father to be my best man.
I realized that Trevisan had launched into a description of the joys of Romanian sex, and I decided to put a stop to it by changing the subject. “Of course, there’ll be a lot of layoffs here after you leave.”
“We’ll take the best ones with us,” he explained. “We need specialized workers who can teach the others how to do their job. The Romanians don’t know how to do a thing.”
“What about the others?”
He shrugged. “A lot of them are third-world immigrants, and they can just go back home, because we’re sick and tired of blacks and Moroccans.” Then he lowered his voice. “And the locals will have to take care of themselves. They’ll think of something. Our people have always rolled up their sleeves when times are tough.”
Just then, I saw my father walk into the lounge. He came toward me with a smile on his face. “You forgot to shave this morning,” he scolded me good-naturedly. “What are you doing here? Did you have something urgent to tell me?”
I smiled in a reassuring manner. “No, Papa. I just wanted to say hello and ask if you’d like to have lunch with me.”
“I’m sorry, I already have plans.”
“No problem. We’ll do it another time.”
Poisonville Page 16
