‘I’ll go and make coffee,’ Max said.
I followed him into his kitchen. From the ceiling hung all sorts of pans and from the wall racks the strangest-looking cooking utensils. It was the only neat and tidy room in the house.
‘Have you heard from Virna?’ Max asked, lighting the ring.
‘She’s switched off her cell phone.’
‘I imagine she’ll come back with a final decision.’
‘I reckon so, too. And I’m not optimistic.’
‘It’s not as if you’ve made much of an effort to meet her halfway.’
I lit a cigarette. ‘I can drink less but I can’t just jack in this work.’
‘The club’s doing okay; you could settle for that.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Of course not. But then you have to give it to her straight. Have you ever explained to her what it really is that drives you to go getting yourself in trouble?’
‘I’m not sure I know myself.’
Max set out the coffee cups. ‘Haven’t you admitted to yourself that the reason you work as an unlicensed investigator is because you’re longing for justice, the justice the courts denied you?’
‘Give me a break, Max. Don’t play the shrink with me.’
‘Okay, Marco. But you know I’m right. And you should tell Virna, too, otherwise you’ll lose her for good.’
‘It’s a risk I have to run.’
‘Well, do as you like. It just means Old Rossini and I will have to cheer you up.’
His tone had annoyed me, making me want to pick a quarrel, but Ivaz appeared at the door. ‘We’ve nailed it,’ he said with a grin.
Antonina Gattuso was the tidy sort. She had never deleted anything, and all her emails were filed away in folders. One folder was of particular interest, since it contained all Antonina’s correspondence with a certain ‘Docile Woman,’ who, a little while after Helena’s kidnapping, had written to Barbie Slave saying: ‘I’m scared. They’re getting more and more demanding and insistent. I’m running out of excuses for my husband about being away from home. And anyway we’ve got to find out what happened to Helena. Why did they take her? And where to? This has never happened before. I’m supposed to meet them the day after tomorrow. I’ve tried postponing it but they wouldn’t let me. Master Mariano has got to intervene . . . ’
‘Have you got the replies?’
‘Sure,’ Arakno said. ‘They’re all right here.’
Barbie Slave had replied the same evening. ‘Keep calm. Master Mariano is looking for a solution and, in any case, it’s important they don’t realize that you know about Helena. It could be dangerous. Behave the same as always and nothing will happen to you.’
Docile Woman had written back a couple of days later: ‘I met up with them. I was absolutely terrified but everything was just as usual. I got home late and my husband made a scene. He suspects I have a lover. I can’t go on like this . . .’
Barbie Slave had replied: ‘This situation is difficult for all of us, and for Master Mariano more than anyone else. Like me, you’re just a slave; you count for nothing. Try to smooth things over with your husband. He mustn’t have any suspicions. Master Mariano is addressing the situation and we just have to trust him.’
Three days later Docile Woman sent another email: ‘Helena’s disappearance was on the TV. They think she’s gone back to Germany. So what did Master Mariano tell the police? What happens if the police find out whose hands she’s really in?’
Barbie Slave: ‘The police neither know nor imagine anything. Don’t panic.’
Docile Woman: ‘They’ve got back in touch. I have to meet them next week. I’m frightened.’
Barbie Slave: ‘Master Mariano has hired some people with links to organized crime to trace Helena. When they find her, all our problems will be solved. The Master of Knots will be out of our lives for good.’
I turned to look at Max. ‘The rope rose must be the handiwork of this Master of Knots. Giraldi, that piece of shit, has been taking us for idiots.’
‘Then he made a serious mistake. Beniamino warned him.’
‘Master of Knots . . . ring any bells?’
‘No. Perhaps it’s some kind of title in the S and M pecking order. Whatever it is, we’ll soon find out from Giraldi.’
‘It’ll be the first time we’ve ever had to knock a client about to obtain information.’
‘Right. He’s convinced he’s dealing with a bunch of morons. Just look at the last message his girlfriend sent; “Today I met one of the people who’s looking for Helena. He asked me a whole lot of questions. Master Mariano has a plan to lead them in the direction of the Master of Knots . . .”’
‘What a total bastard!’ I exploded.
Max asked his Sardinian friends to break into Docile Woman’s inbox. The password was straightforward and they only took a couple of minutes. There was just one message, sent by someone called Master Sade. ‘Thursday, 6 P.M., usual place.’
‘We’ll be there, too,’ Max said. ‘But right now I’d like to see Master Sade’s correspondence.’
Over an hour later, Arakno announced: ‘There’s nothing there—a total waste of time. He’s erased everything.’
I called Rossini and invited him to the cinema, our code for urgent meetings. Max paid the hackers and agreed on an arrangement whereby we could contact them for further assistance, were it to prove necessary. Then he drove them to the airport.
I went back next door to my own apartment. I had forgotten to close the shutters and the whole place was now suffocatingly hot, so I switched on the air-conditioning and poured myself two fingers of Calvados. I was furious. Giraldi had to be desperate to concoct a plan of such stupidity. His real aim was not to get his wife back but to extricate himself from the clutches of the Master of Knots and his accomplices. Otherwise, he’d have told us about the gang right away. He knew Helena would not be coming back and, after his conversation with Avvocato Bonotto, he had realized that we might be the solution to all his troubles, as well as the instrument of his vengeance. ‘People with links to organized crime,’ as Antonina Gattuso had described us in her email to Docile Woman. There was a lot that was still unclear, though. Above all, how Giraldi was planning to set us on the kidnappers’ trail and just what kind of denouement he had in mind. Maybe he was hoping we’d physically eliminate the bad guys; it was the only way he could be sure of keeping the cops off his case. I poured myself some more Calvados and stopped racking my brains. I’d have all the answers I needed soon enough.
Old Rossini smoked in silence as he listened to my account, a conceited grin playing on his lips. ‘I might remind you that I told you right at the start we shouldn’t take this case, but I don’t want to rub it in.’
‘Well, now we can drop it,’ I teased him. ‘After all, we’ve already had our fees.’
‘No, no. I warned him not to try fucking us over. I want to teach him how to behave as well as find out everything he’s been hiding from us. Then, okay, maybe we can forget about the whole thing.’
It was my turn to grin. He pretended not to notice and changed the subject, spitefully asking me if I’d heard from Virna.
‘Sure. We’re getting married next month.’
‘I get the picture. She’s dumping you again.’
‘So? Why should I worry? Max says the two of you will be on hand to cheer me up.’
‘Max made a mistake trying to speak on my behalf. I’m telling you: the instant she dumps you, I’m vanishing till you’re over it. With a broken heart, you’re downright insufferable.’
‘This whole thing is such a pain.’
‘You’re the pain. If things aren’t working out with Virna, move on and find yourself another woman. You’re not a kid anymore.’
‘That’s not how it works.’
‘Oh yes it is. The problem is, yo
u’re an entire generation of whiners. For you lot, life is just constant sorrow.’
I told him to go to hell and went and took a shower. By the time I emerged, Max had already returned and was talking the case over with Old Rossini.
‘We were thinking of leaving right away for Varese,’ Max said.
‘Yeah, I agree.’
‘Beniamino suggests we drop the case once we’ve clarified the situation with the client.’
‘And what do you think?’
Max ran a hand over his prominent paunch. ‘I don’t know. It depends what Giraldi tells us happened to his wife. As I said before, I don’t want this stuff weighing on my conscience.’
I pulled my cigarettes out of my shirt pocket. ‘Right. It’s too soon to make a decision either way.’
Halfway to Varese, Max made another attempt to draw us into a conversation about prison. ‘Looking at all those S and M websites, seeing all those photos of people strapped to their beds, I kept thinking about new prisoners just transferred from asylums for the criminally insane,’ he said. ‘Their wrists and ankles still bore the marks of the restraint-bed belts. They’d been held naked, with a hole in the mattress to shit and piss through, and administered horse injections twice a day. They had this lost look about them, and nobody wanted them in their cell. Do you remember those guys?’
Beniamino and I glanced at each other in silence. The old gangster was driving fast, never budging from the overtaking lane. I lit another cigarette while Max continued, oblivious.
‘Every jail has a couple of cells set aside for rejects: the insane, the HIV-positive, drug-addicts who are still injecting, and guys who are plain ill. Even the screws feel disgusted and don’t want to go anywhere near them. When they’re told to do a cell search, they draw straws. Now I think of it, do you guys remember the searches, when the carabinieri were sent in with shields and batons? They would cram us all in the showers so tight we couldn’t breathe, and then when we were let back to our cells we’d find all our stuff on the floor: coffee, salt, cooking oil, and jam all over our clothes, our letters and postcards all ripped up. And we had to keep quiet about it, otherwise they’d kick our heads in and we’d wind up in an isolation cell. Isolation, another fucking drag . . . When I think of all the time we spent in isolation straight after being arrested, before the investigators got around to questioning us and sending us to the main block with all the others . . .’
Rossini cleared his throat. ‘I did fifteen years in prison and Marco did seven. Of the three of us, you’ve spent the least time inside. In fact, your stay was far too brief for you to be breaking our balls with this crap.’
‘What the fuck do you mean? I’m bottom of the class and so have no right to speak?’
‘That’s right, Max. But that’s not all. You spent almost your whole time in Rebibbia, the cushiest jail in Italy. You had privileges. Me and Marco, on the other hand, were in some shitholes you can’t even begin to imagine.’
‘True enough,’ Max conceded. ‘But I’ve seen enough to know what prison is like . . .’
‘In that case, quit talking about it,’ I snapped.
‘I’ve already told you. All this S and M stuff has unlocked some memories. It’s making me feel uneasy.’
‘Your fucking problem,’ Beniamino said, closing it off.
The neighborhood dogs caught our scent and started to bark—Giraldi’s Argentine dog was the fiercest. His house was dark and silent and when I rang the doorbell, nobody answered. Giraldi’s Mercedes was missing.
‘Hurry up and get back in the car,’ Rossini said. ‘The dogs are making too much of a din; any minute now the lights will all go on.’
‘It’s two in the morning,’ I remarked. ‘Where the hell has he gone?’
‘Maybe he’s busy giving his sex slave a training session,’ Max interjected acidly. ‘Try and get him on his cell phone.’
I dialed the number. ‘Unobtainable.’
‘Get in,’ Rossini said, turning the ignition key. ‘We’ll come back later.’
We spent a couple of hours at a nightclub where Beniamino was a regular patron. While he chatted with some people he knew, Max and I sat at the bar. In a matter of seconds, two hostesses came over.
‘We’re with him,’ I said, pointing to Beniamino.
The two girls disappeared as fast as they’d arrived; there was no hope of fleecing us.
‘Nice-looking girls, though,’ I said, as I watched them walk away.
‘They’re not our type. We’re from different planets.’
‘You never know. If they find the right man and another way of living, they’re only too happy to jack it in. It’s the dream of every girl starting out in the nightclubs.’
‘Would you want to date a nightclub hostess?’
I shrugged. ‘If she was anything like Sylvie, I’d jump at the chance.’
Max smiled. ‘You’re treading on dangerous ground.’
‘Not at all. I fancy her, that’s all.’
‘More than Virna?’
‘No. Besides, I love Virna.’
‘I’ve met a woman,’ Max suddenly told me.
‘About time.’
‘I met her in Padova at a squat run by anti-globalization activists. I like her a lot, but she’s vegetarian.’
‘That’s not too serious.’
‘No, I know. I want to invite her to dinner, but I can’t work out the menu.’
‘Take her to a restaurant.’
‘I prefer playing at home.’
‘You’re a complicated man, Max.’
‘Look who’s talking.’
Beniamino walked over to us with a satisfied smile on his face. ‘Coming here was a great idea. I’ve just closed a really good deal.’
‘More lire to dig up before the euro comes in?’ I asked.
‘No, no. An old acquaintance is looking for a yacht for some Eastern European purchasers who are prepared to pay good money.’
‘And I bet you know just where to lay your hands on such a thing.’
‘Naturally. There’s this guy who’s made a packet exploiting Chinese workers in illegal sweatshops, and he’s just bought himself a yacht. I figure he’s in for a nasty surprise.’
‘Sounds risky to me.’
‘There’s no such thing as a safe job,’ he snorted. ‘A professional, like yours truly, plans things down to the millimeter. It’s the only way to avoid handcuffs. Besides, all I’ve got to do is deliver the yacht somewhere on the Croatian coast. The rest is up to the purchasers.’
‘Why don’t you go back to holding up banks?’ Max joked. ‘You could start with one that finances the arms trade—I can give you a whole list to choose from.’
‘Too many risks for too little money,’ Rossini replied seriously.
Giraldi still hadn’t arrived home, so we drove back into Varese and popped into a bar near the covered market. It was 6 A.M. and the place was full of stall keepers, hauliers, and immigrant market porters stuffing themselves with sandwiches, beer, and spiked coffee. Max was almost the only person ordering a cappuccino and a croissant. The bar was hot and reeked of smoke, sweat, and hard work. I tried again to call Giraldi but his cell phone was still switched off, so I asked the barman for the phone book. If I didn’t find Giraldi by eight, I was going to phone Antonina Gattuso. We had to force her to disclose Docile Woman’s identity so we could turn up at the appointment she had fixed with Helena’s kidnappers. As there wasn’t a single Gattuso in the book, I looked for her husband’s name, Cavedoni. Fortunately, there was just one.
‘Who knows where the hell Giraldi has got to,’ Max grumbled.
‘There’s not much we do know about the guy. Maybe he’s at his mum’s,’ Beniamino joked.
I phoned him every twenty minutes, then at eight on the dot I punched in Cavedoni’s number. Beniamino stopped me. ‘I
t would be wiser to make the call from a phone booth.’
I found one right across the street from the bar. As I inserted my phone card, I couldn’t help noticing that it carried an ad for the carabinieri, celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of the force’s foundation. On the second ring, a man’s voice answered the phone.
‘I want to speak with Antonina.’
‘Antonina? She isn’t here. She didn’t come home last night,’ the man replied, sounding worried. He then started to assail me with a string of questions. ‘Who are you, anyway? How come you’re looking for my wife at eight o’clock in the morning?’
I gently replaced the receiver on its hook. So Master Mariano and Barbie Slave had vanished. It could hardly be a coincidence. Perhaps they’d run off together. But that made no sense—Antonina had a daughter and a husband, while Giraldi had his business plus a kidnapped wife. One thing was certain. If they didn’t surface within the next few hours, the police would intervene.
‘Let’s go home,’ Rossini said. ‘There’s nothing more we can do round here.’
As we drove home to Padova, we went back over the case in some detail. Both logic and experience led us to suppose that the Master of Knots was the reason for the disappearance of Giraldi and Antonina. Giraldi must have blurted out something that had alarmed the kidnappers, and then, without wasting any time, they had moved to neutralize any danger that Master Mariano and his sex slave might represent. If this theory was right, Giraldi and Antonina might have told the kidnappers they’d engaged us to look for Helena. In which case they’d now know the address of my club, La Cuccia. We were going to have to keep our eyes open.
News of the disappearance of Antonina Gattuso, the wife of Silvio Cavedoni, appeared in the newspapers two days later. The stories reported the astonishment of her husband, close family, and work colleagues. Antonina was described as a woman devoted to her family and to her work; in an interview in a local daily paper, her parish priest praised her for her social commitment. On TV, the missing-persons slot did a long report on her disappearance and her husband appealed for witnesses. Her daughter wrote a letter with the heading ‘Mummy come home.’ The carabinieri captain heading up the investigation let it be known they were working on the theory that she had vanished deliberately. The only thing they knew for sure was that on the day of her disappearance Antonina had left work in her own car.
The Master of Knots Page 6
