The Master of Knots

by Massimo Carlotto

  Max burst out laughing. ‘You’re telling me that this year you’ll be spending Ferragosto with the two of us?’

  ‘Not if you keep up your wisecracks.’

  But Max had turned serious. ‘Take a look at this. There’s a whole series of messages from Ivaz and Arakno,’ he announced. ‘Using their university intranet, they’ve discovered that Sherazade, the slave who was advertising for work as an S and M model, has been contacted by a guy using the nickname Docktorramino, an anagram of Rock Dominator, one of the nicknames on the list that Docile Woman gave us.’

  ‘Ah, come on. There are hundreds of thousands of nicknames,’ I said. ‘Coincidences like that must be pretty common.’

  ‘But not in an environment as restricted as the S and M scene,’ Max replied. ‘It was the k in docktor that made Arakno and Ivaz suspicious—it just looked like a deliberate error made to fit an anagram. But then, surprise surprise, the message is addressed to the only S and M model who has posted an advert since Helena.’

  ‘I don’t remember the ad,’ Beniamino said.

  Max reached for a sheet of paper and read out the contents.

  I feel deep down I’m really a slave and dream of being dominated, but don’t have any experience. I’m looking for expert masters willing to train me gradually in obedience. I’m afraid of physical pain even if I desire it, so for the time being I’m only making myself available as a model for photo shoots, during which I’m prepared to be tied up and penetrated. Write to Sherazade . . .

  ‘Can we take a look at the guy’s mail?’ Rossini asked.

  ‘Sure. Arakno and Ivaz have cracked his password.’

  The inbox was empty. There was no new mail and nothing in the folders, just like the other email addresses the gang used. Sherazade’s folders and inbox, on the other hand, were overflowing. A lot of her clients were previous clients of Helena. She had even received a couple of messages asking if she hadn’t in fact just switched her nickname and email address. We examined all her correspondence and discovered she had already met two clients, the first in a hotel in Alessandria and the second in a hotel in Turin. She had charged a fee of two million lire up front and had proceeded with caution, following all the safety guidelines. She had not yet replied to the email from Docktorramino, presumably because, as she had informed both him and a number of other potential clients, she was away on holiday and wouldn’t be back till August 17.

  Max glanced at the calendar hanging on the wall behind him. ‘Today’s the twelfth.’

  ‘We’ve got to hook her before they get to her. We need her as bait,’ Rossini said.

  ‘She answers her emails in the order in which they arrive so we’ll have to wait our turn.’

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ I said. ‘Did you notice that neither of the two clients she met have sent her any more emails?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I figure they no longer need to because she’s given them her cell phone number.’

  ‘Could be,’ Max said, stroking his belly. ‘Maybe she’s a professional, just interested in building up a good client base.’

  ‘We could get the customers’ details from the hotel records and find out their cell phone numbers that way.’

  ‘And a couple of photographs,’ I added. ‘We’ll need them to identify her by.’

  Max pulled a face. ‘We’ve already tried that trick and it didn’t exactly work.’

  ‘Because we were dealing with the Master of Knots’ gang. These guys are presumably normal clients who would have used their true identities.’

  Rossini looked at his watch. ‘We could leave this evening after dinner and get to Turin just in time to have a word with the night porter.’

  ‘We’re going to have to leave you on your own,’ I said to Max.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I’m much better now and if I need anything I’ll call Rudy. Or Virna . . .’

  I gave him a poisonous look but he just smiled at me and winked. ‘You can be such a jerk, Marco.’

  ‘I know,’ I said with a shrug. ‘But I can’t help it.’

  In Turin we drew a blank. The night porter turned out to be a retired carabiniere officer. He needed only a glance at us to see we weren’t looking for a room and when I showed him the money he picked up the phone and called the cops, forcing us to make an extremely hasty exit. Rossini was pissed because I had failed to notice the Carabiniere Association badge the guy was wearing on his lapel. It was true; I had completely missed it. Bribery had become a habit. It was just so unusual for anyone to turn down money nowadays. Furnishing information in exchange for a couple of crisp, fresh banknotes was no big deal anymore.

  We headed for Alessandria, a small town halfway between Turin and Genoa. I’d never been there before, but at the end of the seventies Beniamino had done a short stretch in the town’s prison. We had trouble locating the hotel so late at night, but obtaining the information we wanted turned out to be easy. There was a student on reception using the night shift to cram for his exams. From the title of the textbook he laid face down on the desk, we inferred he was studying for an exam in criminal law. The kid showed promise. He demanded an astronomical sum of money and we handed over a fistful of banknotes from Jacovone’s stash.

  The client who had rented the room was a man called Romano Erba, born in Turin fifty-eight years earlier and currently living in Via Colombo, in the chic and central La Crocetta district of the city. We returned to the autostrada, drove till we came to a services area, then stopped and slept a few hours. At seven in the morning, a guy tapped on the car window.

  ‘What do you want?’ my associate asked.

  ‘Zigarette,’ the guy replied with a heavy foreign accent.

  He must have been about forty, and his face was criss-crossed with deep lines, suggesting a life of rural poverty. He said he was Bulgarian. He stank of sweat and illegality. My associate gave him thirty thousand lire. ‘Don’t get caught,’ he said.

  ‘I could have slept another hour,’ I muttered.

  We went and had our first coffee of the day. It was going to be scorching hot yet again. A pig of a summer. I’d never liked hot weather and preferred the winter. I’d always preferred the winter. When I was at secondary school, if it was foggy when I stepped out into the street in the morning, I’d go straight to the station and catch a train to Venice. I loved to wander through the calli wrapped in a mass of dense white fleecy vapors. My associate also had a fondness for fog, but for less poetic reasons. It was the smuggler’s best friend.

  Beniamino bit into a croissant. ‘I hope Max gets better quickly. He took one blow to the head too many.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry too much.’

  ‘He’s burning up with anger, and his type don’t know how to handle it. They turn it all into politics and land themselves in the shit.’

  ‘Max is too intelligent not to have grasped which way the wind is blowing.’

  ‘That’s not going to be enough to keep him out of trouble.’

  When I rang Romano Erba’s doorbell, the janitor came out of her cubicle and told me that Erba was on holiday with his family in Alassio, on the Ligurian coast. We could have guessed. Most Italians were away right now, either at the sea or in the mountains and the cities were half empty. Turin was no exception. On the spur of the moment I came up with a tolerably credible story about some legal deed for the sale of an apartment requiring Erba’s signature and the lady gave me the name of the hotel he was staying in. She said he had been taking his family to the same place every summer for years. Rossini groaned. He was tired of driving, but there was still no way he was going to let me get behind the wheel of his smart new car; he said I drove like a pensioner. My view had always been that cars were necessary but dangerous. I would much rather use public transport, but in our line of work it was rarely practical. After Savona, the motorway snaked along the coast, with tunnel after tunnel.
In one of the longest, we overtook a group of Dutch motorcyclists on Harley-Davidsons. The roar of the bikes was deafening. A girl waved to us.

  Alassio was crawling with tourists. There was a row of English-style houses overlooking a strip of sand bristling with beach umbrellas. Erba’s hotel was a four-star job patronized by people with money. A pretty blonde in a rather austere suit informed me that Signor Erba was having lunch.

  ‘Tell him I’m waiting in the foyer.’

  ‘Who shall I announce?’ she enquired.

  ‘Say I’m a friend of Sherazade.’

  Within minutes, a worried-looking man was walking towards me, glancing around. He was pudgy, medium height, with a receding hairline and a pair of slender-framed glasses straddling an impressive nose. He was wearing a designer-initialed striped shirt and a pair of blue linen trousers.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked, trying to display confidence. But there was nothing behind his aggressive manner except a terror of being unmasked or blackmailed.

  ‘Doesn’t matter who I am,’ I said quietly. The blonde on the desk was watching us. ‘I just want to know how to contact Sherazade.’

  ‘I don’t know her.’

  ‘Would you like me to tell your wife that last month you met with an S and M model in a hotel in Alessandria?’

  Erba went white. ‘What do you want from me? Money?’

  ‘Calm down. I already told you, I want to meet Sherazade.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he stammered. ‘How come you know me? How did you know where I was?’

  ‘That’s none of your business. You tell me what I want to know and you’ll never hear from me again.’

  He wiped a hand across his forehead, undecided. I started walking towards the restaurant.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To have a chat with your lady wife.’

  ‘Stop,’ he said, taking a wallet from his hip pocket. He removed a business card from one of its compartments. ‘Now leave me in peace,’ he rasped.

  ‘I could do with a photo of the model.’

  ‘You’ve got to be joking. Do you really imagine I bring photos of her away with me on holiday?’

  I looked him straight in the eye. He was lying. ‘Yes, I do,’ I said. ‘You’re the kind of guy who keeps his photos close by, because without them you can’t get it up,’ I replied.

  Romano Erba was doubtless unaccustomed to such uncouth manners but he was quick to realize that I wasn’t about to drop the matter. He gestured for me to follow, and we went down to the hotel garage. He pressed his remote key, unlocking a shiny white BMW, then, with trembling hands, he rummaged around in the glove compartment till he found the user’s manual. Tucked between the pages were a couple of Polaroids. They showed a beautiful, shapely brunette with a wicked little smile, tied down on a bed. He handed them over with a grunt.

  ‘Where does she live?’

  ‘Turin.’

  ‘Do you know the address?’

  ‘No. I met her just once,’ he replied, clearly exasperated.

  ‘You can go back to your din-din,’ I said. ‘And don’t worry. You won’t see me again.’

  I stopped at reception and asked the blonde for the Turin phone book. I checked for the name on the business card. It wasn’t listed. I hadn’t expected it to be, but I still had to make sure. Sometimes you can get lucky.

  I returned to the car feeling pretty pleased with myself and handed Rossini the photos and business card.

  ‘Donatella Morganti, model and hostess,’ he read out. ‘It even gives her cell phone number.’

  ‘A true professional,’ I remarked.

  ‘No doubt about that.’ Rossini examined the pictures. ‘Nice-looking, too.’

  I dialed the number but got unobtainable. ‘If she’s on holiday like she told her clients, she’ll be keeping it switched off to stop people pestering her.’

  ‘You could well be right. All we can do now is wait for her to get back.’

  ‘I’ve got an idea.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘You won’t like it.’

  ‘Then I don’t want to know about it.’

  ‘Remember Flavio Guarnero, the cop that killed Jacovone?’

  ‘You’re out of your mind.’

  ‘Think about it. He works at police headquarters in Turin. He’s got access to police computers. And if this lady’s on the game, they’ll have a file on her.’

  ‘The man’s mad. He can’t be trusted.’

  ‘Well, I reckon he can. If we tell him we need the information to get at the Master of Knots, he’ll help us.’

  Old Rossini switched on the engine. ‘Let’s find a restaurant. I can’t think straight on an empty stomach.’

  It was an uphill struggle, but by the time the coffees came I had talked him round. All the way to Turin he assailed me with advice, as well as with his usual rant on how much things had changed since the old days. There was a time, he told me, when we would never have stooped so low as to ask a cop for help.

  I called Max. He was getting better day by day and had now got his focus back on the case. I was tempted to ask after Virna, but decided against it, not wanting to make myself look ridiculous yet again. We reached Turin late afternoon. People were already trickling out of their homes, thronging the bars and cafés, knocking back iced aperitifs. Guarnero lived in the Barriera di Milano district in Corso Giulio Cesare. We found his block of apartments and I tried calling him from a phone booth. His wife told me he was still on duty but would be home in time for dinner.

  We recognized his mustard-colored Fiat Punto as soon as it turned into the road and by the time he got out of his car we were right behind him.

  ‘Ciao, Flavio,’ I said.

  He spun around and his hand shot to the belt-holster where cops keep their guns in the summer, when they’ve no jacket to hide them.

  Rossini spread his arms. ‘I’m not armed.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘We may have come up with something that could lead us to the Master of Knots, but we need your help.’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t want anything more to do with it.’

  ‘And your sister?’

  ‘I killed a man.’

  ‘Jacovone was a piece of shit.’

  ‘I’m leaving the force. I’m going to move down to Calabria. I’ve got a job lined up working with my father-in-law.’

  I held the photo of Donatella under his nose. ‘You’re looking at the next victim. You want another person on your conscience?’

  He knocked my hand away angrily. ‘What would I have to do?’

  ‘Check a name.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘The name’s Donatella Morganti. We think she’s a professional who’s moved into the S and M scene to broaden her customer base.’

  ‘Okay. Call me tomorrow morning on this cell phone number.’

  We grabbed a bite to eat then went straight to a hotel, as we were both tired and in need of sleep. As always, we found a place willing to give us a couple of rooms free of charge and not ask for ID—Old Rossini knew one such hotel in every town. I lay down on the bed with a glass of Calvados and my cigarettes within arm’s reach. The TV was still carrying reports on the previous month’s events in Genoa. The other side of the story, the victims’ accounts, was now beginning to surface. There had been large numbers of film crews and cameras in circulation, and the thousands of photos and kilometers of film made it possible to reconstruct minute by minute precisely what had happened. Not that it changed anything. All those people earnestly mouthing words like justice and truth were going to achieve nothing for their pains. Nobody would be made to pay. Even the evidence would get buried under a mountain of bullshit. In the end, some expert would get wheeled out to support the most palatable version of events, and forens
ic pathology would demonstrate that the young man had been killed by a bullet fired into the air that, as fate would have it, hit him on its way back down. A police association was up in arms about the use of a new type of tear gas with serious health risks; the cops, too, had inhaled a lot of the stuff. I switched to a shopping channel. There was nothing better for sending me to sleep.

  I called Guarnero at eleven on the dot, using a public phone at the Porta Nuova train station in Turin. I didn’t want any trace of our conversation hanging around on my cell phone. Guarnero informed me that the police had Donatella Morganti on file as a prostitute. They had hauled her in after a raid on an upmarket brothel that fronted as a beauty parlor and was used mainly by company executives and footballers. That was the last time she had been stopped. She lived in Via Cavour, in a house that belonged to her father.

  I wished him the very best of luck and put the phone down. Rossini glanced skywards. It had come naturally, spontaneously. If one disregarded the uniform he wore, Guarnero was an ordinary guy who had broken the rules of the world in which he lived in order to try and obtain some justice. And I was sure he would be hounded by remorse for the rest of his days.

  We drove to Via Cavour, where Donatella lived on the third floor of a swanky apartment building. There was a sign saying that the janitor’s lodge closed at 6 P.M. We made a note of that and returned to Padova.

  Max’s condition and general mood had continued to improve; he had started cooking again and listening to music. When we arrived, an old Beatles record was playing. Personally, I’d never much liked them. I grew up listening to Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, and the Rolling Stones, then one night I’d heard the voice of Janis Joplin and the blues had gone straight to my heart. Max announced that his convalescence was over and that he was intending to accompany us to Turin to take part in our investigations.

  ‘On one condition,’ Rossini insisted. ‘That you don’t start breaking our balls all over again about prison and police beatings.’

  Max beamed in amusement and unwrapped a milk chocolate. He was unlikely to stick to any such condition. Besides, there was no avoiding the issue. What had happened in Genoa was all people were talking about, and the press and TV were busy stoking up a controversy.