Kill the Father

by Sandrone Dazieri

  But that’s not it either, and the sergeant tells him so, short little Calabrian that he is, standing a yard and pocket change tall at most, with eyes that look like a pair of dead flies. In his fractured, ungrammatical Italian, half dialect actually, he says there’s a delivery to be made and they need only six men. And that, seeing as it’s a miserable piece-of-shit job, he’s going to pick the ones who’ve gotten on his nerves the most in the past few days. The ones he picks are the guy who hasn’t been there even a week and might have opened his mouth twice in all; Stankfoot; the ones they call the Twin Brothers because they’re always together; Pharmacist, who’s always half-stoned; and, of course, him.

  When he picks him, the sergeant looks him in the eyes and flashes him a bastard little grin. Fabrizio is immediately tempted to go for his throat. But he holds himself back, because it was exactly that kind of dumb move that got him sent to the military prison of Peschiera in the first place. Another sergeant, another bastard little grin. That first sergeant had reported him for having dirty boots. And they weren’t even dirty. It was just that he’d forgotten to put polish on the stitching with a toothbrush, which was such a stupid thing to expect anyone to do that Fabrizio always forgot. So that other sergeant with that other bastard little grin had given him a serious dressing-down. Told him that he could forget about going out that night, and the whole weekend, too. And that he was getting off easy, because the sergeant had been keeping his eye on him, he’d spotted him for the slacker that he was. And that’s when Fabrizio took off his right boot and pounded the sergeant’s face with it until the sergeant hit the floor. And when the sergeant was sprawled out on the floor, he’d told him that he was getting off easy, too, because Fabrizio had had his eye on him for a while, too.

  Of course they had come for him. And of course he’d spent the year and a half since then cursing his fucked-up personality, while doing his best to keep from being beaten to death by the guards or eaten alive by the insects. Because what they all said was true, that a military brig was a filthier shithole than a regular prison and that the worst bunk in the worst barracks was far preferable to the nicest cell.

  So this time Fabrizio doesn’t react. In fact, he remains standing to attention and snaps out something that sounds more or less like “Sir, yes sir,” which, coming from him, is practically a joke. And in fact the sergeant doesn’t bother to listen.

  The lucky ones get back into their cots, while the six men pulled out of the deck of cards are given ten minutes to get dressed. When they get out into the yard, there’s already a canvas-top truck waiting for them. And when they get in, ready to be carted off who knows where in the middle of the night, they have the happy surprise of finding a carton full of mini-liqueurs in a bag. Someone must have left it behind by mistake, Fabrizio thinks, even if Pharmacist says that they left the box there on purpose. They polish off half the box as the truck jerks and jolts along the country roads leading away from Mezzanone di Zerbio. Mezzanone, near Caorso, is the place they’d built the “powder keg” military prison. There are just fifty prisoners, with an officer and two NCOs; it’s a place built especially to contain troops of their kind, the soldiers they don’t want anywhere else.

  The trips lasts maybe half an hour, what with the jolting and the drinking. Everyone’s cheerful from the alcohol, except for Stankfoot, who complains as always about his boots and his blisters. He says that by the time he gets out, he won’t be able to walk anymore and he’ll find a lawyer and he’ll sue until he’s reimbursed for every penny, as if there were lawyers out there willing to listen to losers like him. As if he didn’t know that when you do your military service you take what you get, if you’re not smart or skillful enough to get out of it entirely. Especially if you snap and wind up in a punishment barracks, as all of them had.

  The truck comes to a halt, and the sergeant yells for them to dismount. They’re parked in front of a hangar made of cement and sheet metal, about sixty feet long. The hangar is in the middle of a fenced-in area, and the fenced-in area is in the middle of a nowhere made up of trees and darkness. Fabrizio guesses it must be a military storage area, even though there are no indications, aside from the sign, that it belongs to any specific barracks or unit. There’s a dump truck parked next to the industrial shed, with civilian plates, and standing next to the truck are four soldiers in camo, who aren’t members of their unit. Fabrizio tries to figure out what company they might belong to, but they don’t have insignia of any kind. Aside from one of them, that is, who’s wearing the bars of a corporal and is ordering the others around with brusque gestures. He has an average physique, but Fabrizio understands immediately that he needs to steer clear of that corporal. It’s as if he has an aura around him like saints are supposed to have. Except that his aura is black as pitch.

  The sergeant climbs back aboard the canvas-top truck and drives away without a single fucking word. The six of them exchange astonished glances: What the fuck is happening? One of the soldiers in camo explains it to him in a few words, without a smile. They have to go in and empty out the warehouse. There will be trucks coming and going; they just need to load them and be done before dawn.

  The soldiers without insignia are just finishing loading an assortment of metal drums onto the dump truck; they look like diesel fuel drums. They’re full and they’re heavy, but the men do it all by hand, without a forklift. Fabrizio hopes that the things they’ll be loading aren’t all that heavy; otherwise he’ll just run away, and the corporal with the face of a murderer can go fuck himself. He’s in luck: inside the shed, there are several hundred trash bags sealed with packing tape and a lot of old furniture; it looks like office furniture. It looks like the stuff was shoved into the shed in a hurry and piled up at random.

  The soldier without insignia explains to them where they can find more packing tape to seal up the torn bags and tells them that they can smoke if they want, and also to go on drinking, because he’s noticed that the Twin Brothers are passing the liqueur back and forth furtively. The main thing is that the work can’t stop. While he’s speaking, no one even thinks of contradicting him; everyone just nods his head. And Fabrizio, who has been tormented by a vague memory from the very start, suddenly remembers where he’s seen him before. The soldier without insignia is from his town. He didn’t recognize him right away because the last time he saw him they were still going to the local parish recreational club to play soccer and trade dirty comic books. Emilio, that’s his name, Emilio. While the others start loading, Fabrizio goes over and introduces himself. They slap each other on the back, but Emilio doesn’t answer his questions about that place and about what company he belongs to. He just tells him to get moving, that this corporal isn’t fooling around. Emilio, too, seems to be afraid of this corporal with the vicious eyes, so much so that when he sees him come into the shed, he immediately stops talking.

  Fabrizio, too, acts as if nothing had happened and bends over one of the first sacks. It’s soft and light; maybe it’s full of rags.

  Then one of the sacks splits open, and Fabrizio sees what’s inside.

  He’ll have nightmares about it for the rest of his life.

  - VIII -

  FOLLOW THE COMPASS

  1

  Everyone responded. Firemen and ambulances, the bomb squad and the military corps of engineers. Patrol cars and armored cars, cranes, hook-and-ladder trucks. The mayor showed up, and so did the prefect; the chief of police came, accompanied by the deputy chief; the president of the Chamber of Deputies, along with a handful of parliamentarians. Reporters and photographers showed up, as did an onslaught of rubberneckers, news vans from the leading national TV networks, correspondents from the ANSA wire service, a crew from a Japanese television network, and the Rome correspondent for CNN. Chief Inspector Infanti showed up, as did Lieutenant Anzelmo from the Ministry of Justice, commanding officers of the Mobile Squad not currently engaged on calls, and all of Colomba’s former colleagues.

  She didn’t see any of them,
just as she didn’t see the arrival of Santini and De Angelis, because she’d already been rushed to the emergency room with a concussion and a series of bruises and abrasions. For many hours, she let herself be moved like a doll, aware only in stretches of where she was. She frequently got mixed up and thought she was back on the day of the Disaster. The same white noise in the ears, the same taste of ash and plaster in her mouth, the same burnt stench.

  Meanwhile, Dante was being picked up by detectives from the CIS and transported to police headquarters. In spite of his loud objections, he was locked up in an office, handcuffed to a chair, and left alone with just one guard, who ignored his requests to be moved to an open area. He immediately started feeling sick, and his condition was made even worse by the effort he’d made in the burning building just a couple of hours earlier. He yelled until he was blue in the face, he stamped his feet. When his guard hauled off and smacked him in the face, he tumbled to the floor and broke his chair. He leapt quickly to his feet and held the guard at bay, in spite of his attempts to grab him, by whirling the broken armrest handcuffed to his wrist through the air. Three more officers rushed in and crushed him to the floor. Short of breath, he passed out.

  When he came to, he was handcuffed to a balcony railing, while Santini was berating the uniformed officers for having kept him in a confined space. Dante’s mouth was dry and he was having a hard time focusing, and only the pain in his stomach brought him back to the present. Down below, Via San Vitale was blocked by police barriers and squad cars.

  “They’re holding me prisoner against my will and torturing me!” he shouted loud enough to be heard from the street. “Someone alert my lawyer! His name is Roberto Minutillo, you can find him online.”

  Santini came running. “Shut that trap, or I’ll have you dragged back inside. And I’ll make sure that wherever they put you, there’ll be no windows.”

  “And if it kills me? Will you dispose of my dead body?”

  Santini leaned over him. “A ranking police official has been murdered. How worried do you think I’m likely to be about what might happen to you?”

  “I was there, or have you forgotten?”

  “Which is why we brought you in.” Santini pulled a wheeled stool over to him. Half a dozen officers, uniformed and in plain clothes, crowded into the French doors and watched the scene on the balcony. “Let me make the situation clear to you. There’s been a bombing. There are people calling for martial law, there are others talking about the resurgence of the Red Brigades. It’s the duty of people like me to figure out what happened. And we have very little patience with people who refuse to cooperate.”

  “No one has asked me a single question yet.”

  “But I’m about to start. On behalf of the investigating magistrate.”

  “Let me guess, De Angelis?”

  “That’s no concern of yours. You’ll meet him afterward for the formal drafting of the deposition.”

  “That is, if I’m a good boy; otherwise you’ll throw me off this balcony.”

  Santini clenched his jaw. “Why are you trying to make me lose my temper?”

  Dante decided that Santini really was in an uncontrollable rage. Was he about to beat him? He didn’t think so. As much as he might want to, the eyes of the nation were trained on police headquarters right now. If Santini thought that Dante had had something to do with it, he might have thrown caution to the winds. But just then, Santini was confused. Dante could see it clearly in the line of his shoulders, the way they bore the weight of all that had happened; the way he constantly touched his face and imperceptibly licked his lips, betraying confusion and fear. Santini was raising his voice, but he didn’t understand what was happening. Or else—another hypothesis—Santini knew exactly what was going on but still didn’t know what move to make. That was more worrisome.

  Until that moment, Dante had thought of Santini as a brainless brute, a dime-store cop who was capable of stamping all over the evidence with his size 12 flat feet and creating nothing but confusion. But Rovere’s last words meant that the Father wasn’t working alone, and Dante very much doubted that he had been referring to some henchman pressed into service when needed, which was all Bodini had been. Rovere feared that there were other accomplices. Who could they be? A CIS officer, by any chance? The same one Colomba was supposed to look out for?

  Dante sensed that the truth was almost within reach but still just out of his grasp. He needed to get out of there, and if Santini really was involved, the only way he could do so was to pass himself off as a fool. He thought all this in just a couple of seconds, while Santini scrutinized him suspiciously. Remember that he’s a cop, that he’s used to people telling him lies, Dante said to himself. And if he was involved, then he wasn’t half the fool he seemed.

  “Ask me what you want to know,” he said, dropping his eyes in a plausible imitation of humility. “But first, sir, please tell me how Deputy Captain Caselli is doing.”

  “I don’t have any news from the hospital, but she didn’t seem to be in serious condition,” Santini replied, still studying him. “Are you very close?”

  “No.”

  “You certainly seemed close.”

  “Is that what you wanted to know, whether we’re close?” said Dante, forgetting the part he was supposed to play.

  “It’s one thing.”

  “No, we’re not. We just spent some time together in the past week.”

  “Is that why you’ve been living together in a hotel?”

  Fuck, so they knew. “We don’t live together. I live there,” Dante replied. “She came to see me a few times. Ask the desk clerk if you don’t believe me.”

  “Right now, I don’t care. What were you doing in Captain Rovere’s apartment house during the explosion?”

  “I came in after the explosion.”

  Santini moved even closer. “After? Are you trying to tell me that you went into the building after the explosion? You, who can’t even sit in an ordinary room, went in like a firefighter?”

  Dante pulled his legs up, pretending to be more frightened than he was. He needed to make Santini think that he was in control of the situation. “I was in shock,” he murmured.

  “I didn’t hear you,” Santini barked.

  “I was in shock. I don’t really know what I did.”

  Santini nodded with satisfaction, like a dog owner after his pet has rolled over on command. “So why were you there?”

  “I’d accompanied Deputy Captain Caselli to meet Captain Rovere,” said Dante in a louder tone, faking a slight quaver in his voice.

  “And just why were they meeting?”

  Santini had plenty of experience and had conducted thousands of interrogations. Dante couldn’t lie openly. He had to limit himself to twisting the truth, conceding what little Santini had already guessed. “The Luca Maugeri kidnapping.”

  Santini nodded. “So Deputy Captain Caselli was still looking into it?”

  “Yes.”

  “For what reason?”

  Here, too, it did no good to lie. “At Captain Rovere’s request. He had his doubts about how you were conducting the investigation.”

  “We, meaning the CIS?”

  “Yes. And he didn’t think much of the magistrate either. He said he was a cretin.” The last thing he’d said was a complete lie, but he figured it would pass. Someone like Rovere might have said it, even if only to reassure Dante about his objectives. Concealing his real purpose.

  He’s not alone.

  Santini made a face. “Maybe we shouldn’t make that a part of the deposition transcript, eh? Let’s not make the dead look bad.”

  “That’s up to you.”

  “Was it Captain Rovere who asked for you to consult on the investigation?” He said “consult” as if it were a dirty word.

  “Yes.”

  “And what were you going to see Rovere about last night?”

  “We were going to tell him we needed more time.”

  “Was it Rovere�
�s idea to have you check the lists of children who’d been killed in the last several years?”

  Infanti had sung like a canary, and immediately. Colomba needed to get herself some better friends. “No, that was one of my ideas. I was looking for details that might fit with what happened up at the Vivaro mountain meadows.”

  Santini narrowed his eyes. Genuine interest or fear? And if it was fear, was it fear of being made to look like a fool or for some other reason?

  He’s not alone.

  “And did you find any?”

  Dante needed to play this next move as well as he knew how. And he did it by protesting. “I need more time, damn it!” he said. “There are thousands of cases that might be connected.” He intentionally exaggerated the number.

  Santini couldn’t repress a smile. Derision or relief? Dante hated being left in doubt. “Thousands?”

  Dante lunged again, aggressively. “The Father has been lurking in the shadows, spinning his webs for more than thirty years! Do you know how many kids he might have grabbed?” He’d basically just spoken the truth, but anyone else would have assumed he was crazy as a loon.

  “So the Father is your kidnapper, is that right? Come back from the afterlife.”

  Dante ventured a faint retort. If he acted completely submissive, Santini would start to become suspicious. “You’re making fun of me.”

  “Absolutely not,” said Santini with a slightly broader smile. “And the proof is the whistle that you found nearly a mile away. Right?”

  “If that’s how you want to put it.”

  “Right?”

  “Yes,” said Dante, humbly.

  Someone in the background murmured in disbelief, and to Dante it was like the first round of applause for his performance.

  “And Caselli believes you?”

  Careful. “She was starting to come around,” he replied, clearly conveying the opposite.

  “ ‘She was starting.’ I understand. And did you give her any other proof”—he leaned on the word—“aside from the whistle?”