The Master of Knots

by Massimo Carlotto

  For Ferragosto, Italy’s August public holiday, Beniamino took Max and me out on his motorboat. We were both as white as mozzarellas and had to smear dollops of sunscreen all over our bodies. The sea was calm and we stopped for lunch at an expensive restaurant on the island of Torcello—a pleasant day spent among friends. Rossini told smuggling stories and Max recounted the first time he ever went camping in the mountains as a boy scout, while I kept quiet and listened. Whatever past I’d had before going to prison was well buried in some corner of my memory and I was in no mood to go digging around. The present was all that interested me.

  The next day we left for Turin. Our plan was simple: we would wait for Donatella Morganti in her apartment. Rossini had brought with him his set of picklocks, as well as a handgun fitted with a silencer, concealed in a compartment that an auto-body specialist he knew and trusted had created in the boot of his Chrysler.

  We took turns watching the street and the building where the woman lived. Quite a few of the apartments were empty, as a lot of people were still away on holiday. This could be either a good or a bad thing. On the one hand, there was less risk of attracting attention. But, on the other, janitors were extra vigilant, on the lookout for summer-season cat burglars.

  We waited till mid-evening, then Beniamino used one of his picklocks on the block’s main-entrance door. We slowly climbed the stairs to the third floor and found that the apartment adjacent to Donatella’s was conveniently empty. Her door was fitted with a double lock. The security lock, worked by a butterfly key was the main problem, and getting it open without damaging it took about twenty minutes. It was a good thing there were no alarms.

  The apartment was in total darkness and stank of old air. We turned on our torches and quickly searched the place. There was a living room, two bedrooms, one of which was used as a study, a bathroom, and a kitchen. Max switched on the computer and started to go through the files. Rossini and I went into the kitchen and checked out the fridge. There were a couple of yogurts past their best-by dates and some packets of low-calorie cheese—there was nothing of any interest. Rossini found a bottle of wine, a tin of tuna, and some crackers and improvised a snack. I kept him company, sipping from a bottle of Calvados I’d had the foresight to bring along with me. I listened to the messages on the answering machine. There was one from her sister and one from her financial adviser—when it came to investments, Donatella knew exactly what she wanted. Next I took a look at her bedroom. She had good taste and enjoyed spending money on shoes and clothes; nothing flashy, not even in her underwear drawer. There wasn’t anything in her entire wardrobe to connect her with her line of work. It seemed like the home of a woman with a good job who had decided to live alone. On her bedside cabinet and chest of drawers, next to some bottles of perfume and a couple of cheap romantic novels, there were several framed photos of her surrounded by her family. Donatella Morganti was evidently a very private person. The other tenants in the block were no doubt quite unaware of the fact that the good-looking young woman who lived on the third floor was a hooker enmeshed in S and M.

  I lit a cigarette and stretched out on the bed. Max came into the room. ‘There’s absolutely nothing on that computer,’ he whispered. ‘She only uses it to go on the Internet. Judging by her browsing history, she’s a regular visitor to porn sites.’

  I pointed my torch at the photographs. ‘She’s better-looking than I thought. Signor Erba’s Polaroids don’t do her justice.’

  ‘She’s on her own and wide open to blackmail: the perfect victim for the Master of Knots and his gang.’

  ‘And we’re not going to be very nice to her either.’

  ‘We have no choice. Let’s just hope that Arakno’s and Ivaz’s intuition is right.’

  Hanging around in that apartment in the dark, without making a sound, was totally exasperating, especially in that heat. Luckily, Donatella Morganti arrived in the early afternoon of the following day.

  We heard the key turn in the lock and the woman mutter in astonishment, ‘Hell, the place reeks of smoke,’ as she put her suitcase and bag on the floor. Switching on the light, she saw three strangers observing her with interest. She opened her mouth to let out a scream but Rossini’s hand stopped it just in time.

  ‘Shut your mouth,’ he whispered, waving the silenced gun at her.

  Rossini forced her to sit down on an armchair and issued one of his classic threats before letting her speak. She really was a fine-looking woman. About thirty-five, tall, slim, yet curvy in all the right places, and with long black shoulder-length hair worn loose, she had an impertinent little face, large dark eyes, and well-drawn lips. She was wearing a short, floral-pattern dress, which showed off her long, bronzed legs, and on her feet a pair of simple but elegant sandals. She wasn’t wearing any showy jewellery, just a string of pearls round her neck, gold earrings, and a couple of rings on her fingers. In another situation, I mused, I might have hit on her. The thought only lasted a second; the moment she opened her mouth, I changed my mind.

  ‘All I’ve got is a little money and not much jewelery,’ she began in a shrill, unpleasant voice. ‘If you just want to fuck me there’s no need to hurt me.’ This woman was tough all right. Despite the surprise and the fear she had to be feeling, she still managed to keep calm and look for the least damaging way out.

  Beniamino chuckled. ‘Shit, she sounds just like the witch in Snow White.’

  ‘We’re not interested in robbing or raping you,’ I told her. ‘Quite the opposite. In fact, Sherazade, we’re here to save your ass.’

  The sound of the nickname she used as an S and M model undermined her confidence somewhat. ‘Are you from the police?’

  Max pulled up a chair and sat down facing her, then explained the danger she had been getting herself into and told her precisely what we wanted her to do.

  ‘No way I’m doing that,’ she squawked. ‘I got into this scene to build up a clientele of wealthy older men. That’s my target. They pay well for special services and that’s all there is to it. If you think you can use me as bait to attract a bunch of dangerous perverts, you’re out of your heads.’

  ‘The way I see it, you have no option,’ I said. ‘Besides, nothing ever happens at a first meeting.’

  ‘If you do not cooperate you are dead,’ Rossini added slowly, separating the words out for the sake of clarity. It always fell to him to play the bad guy.

  ‘Listen, you guys, there’s nothing I can do to help you,’ Donatella said, sounding reasonable. ‘I’m new to this scene. I only got into it because business is slow right now in Turin for freelancers like me.’

  Rossini raised his gun and pulled the trigger. The bullet lodged itself in the upholstery of Donatella’s armchair, a couple of centimeters from her right ear. All we had heard was a brief click and then the tinkling sound of the bullet case as it hit the floor tiles. The room filled with the smell of cordite.

  ‘The next one won’t miss,’ Beniamino muttered.

  Donatella Morganti had turned as white as a marble tombstone. She threw her arms out wide. ‘All right, put that thing away.’

  Max nodded towards the study. ‘Go to your computer and send this Docktorramino a message.’

  Donatella wanted to obey, but when she tried to stand up her legs folded beneath her and she fell back into the armchair. I went to the kitchen and got her a glass of water, which she drank straight down. I offered her a cigarette but she waved it away.

  By this time Max had connected her computer to the Inter­net. She took his place. ‘What do I have to write?’

  ‘Just that you want to meet him but that tomorrow is the only time you’re free,’ Max explained. ‘And preferably not too far from Turin.’

  Donatella tapped in the message. ‘It won’t work,’ she muttered. ‘There isn’t enough time to organize a meeting.’

  ‘In that case,’ I snapped, ‘you’re going to have to put
up with our company a while longer.’ I was beginning to find her downright disagreeable.

  We let her take a shower and go to the toilet but otherwise never let her out of our sight. To avoid any hassle, we ordered her to turn off her cell phone and not to answer her home phone. Max kept an eye on her inbox.

  Docktorramino sent his reply just before midnight. He said he would very much like to meet her and suggested a luxury hotel in the center of Turin not far from Porta Nuova station. He’d wait for her in the hotel bar at 10 P.M. Then he gave her a cell phone number and asked her to ring the following morning to confirm.

  ‘That’s odd,’ Max said. ‘As far as we know, the Bang Gang has only ever communicated by email until now.’

  I screwed up the empty cigarette packet. ‘Maybe they’re in a hurry to put together another network of victims they can blackmail.’

  ‘I reckon they find our bait’s incautious haste a little suspicious,’ Beniamino said. ‘They want to make quite certain it’s not a setup.’

  We debated the situation for another couple of minutes, until Donatella interrupted us. ‘I’m hungry,’ she said.

  ‘The cupboard’s empty.’

  ‘I know. It’s my apartment.’

  ‘Maybe there are some crackers left,’ Max said.

  ‘There’s a pizzeria on the corner. It’s open late.’

  We looked at one another. I felt like stretching my legs. ‘I’ll go.’

  ‘Better not,’ Rossini said. ‘Someone might notice you.’

  ‘I could have them delivered,’ Donatella suggested. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time—the manager has a soft spot for me.’

  ‘You might be planning some dumb trick,’ Old Rossini said.

  ‘I’m hungry, that’s all,’ Donatella snapped.

  ‘You’ve been warned.’

  She dialed the pizzeria number from memory and a quarter of an hour later a delivery boy showed up with pizzas and cans of beer. She paid him at the door, preventing him from stepping over the threshold, while Rossini kept his weapon trained on her. We had a feast of a meal. Donatella relaxed and started chatting, telling us about the holiday she had just had on the island of Panarea, off the coast of Sicily. She had been the guest of an ageing industrialist from the Le Marche region of Central Italy who had never got used to spending his holidays alone after the death of his wife. He liked to be seen with a good-looking brunette on his arm. They had been to bed once or twice but mostly they just talked. The job had netted her a million lire a day.

  ‘Anyway, who are you guys?’ she then asked point-blank.

  None of us said a word. She had another go, running through a number of hypotheses, but after a while she gave up and went off to bed in a sulk.

  She woke up around 8 a.m, while I was on guard duty, made coffee, and brought me a cup. I told her there was a message on her answering machine from her financial adviser. I only mentioned it out of idle curiosity but she was happy to tell me all about her plans. Donatella Morganti had the same dream as every other hooker: to stay on the game a few more years and invest her hard-earned money in some highly profitable business or other. I was tempted to say it was a dream that rarely came true, but refrained. It would have been a waste of breath. Besides, I didn’t much care what happened to her.

  A couple of hours later she rang the cell phone number that Docktorramino had given her. Beniamino had guessed right. He bombarded her with questions, trying to make quite sure she really was an S and M model. She answered skillfully—we had coached her on how to get him to believe what was in fact the truth, that she was a professional hooker. Docktorramino then probed carefully to see if she had a pimp, a worry she dispelled at once. Finally, she provided a description of herself and the clothes she would be wearing when they met.

  When she put the phone down, Old Rossini took hold of her chin and forced her to look him in the eye. ‘I won’t be able to stay as close to you as I’d like this evening and you may feel tempted to sneak away. If you do, you’re dead.’

  She broke free, clearly furious, and said, ‘Quit threatening me.’

  ‘It’s for your own good,’ Rossini explained. ‘This is the kind of business where mistakes just aren’t allowed.’

  A couple of hours before the rendezvous, Max and I took up position at a table in the hotel bar, wearing clothes and shoes we had bought that afternoon at a store downtown. Beniamino, as ever, had come supplied with a wardrobe suitable for all conceivable circumstances. Max and I looked like a pair of traveling salesmen. To slip more convincingly into my role, I’d even taken out my earring. It was time for dinner and the place was deserted. The barman fixed us a couple of vodka Martinis. Beniamino was going to bring Donatella to the hotel on the dot of 10 p.m.

  ‘I feel a little edgy,’ Max said, filling his mouth with peanuts.

  ‘Me too. Our plan’s full of holes.’

  ‘It was the best we could think up.’

  ‘What if we lose the guy?’

  ‘We’ll have to force Donatella to meet him again.’

  ‘That’s just what I’m worried about.’

  After nine, the bar got more lively: drinkers, hotel guests who didn’t know what to do with their evening, and the odd business meeting. There were several men on their own but none of them looked anything like the descriptions Docile Woman had given us or the masked sadists we had seen for ourselves in the videos.

  ‘I’ll be going back to Genoa next year,’ Max announced. ‘The movement is going to converge there to mark the anniversary of the death of Carlo Giuliani.’

  ‘Right. So the beating you took didn’t teach you a thing.’

  Max sipped at his third cocktail. I had switched to Calvados. ‘I’ve given some careful thought to what you and Old Rossini said, and I can’t agree.’

  ‘Yet it was one hundred per cent pure distilled wisdom,’ I joked.

  ‘You both assume things can never change, but that just isn’t true. And, besides, the new rulers of the world are taking the whole of humankind to hell in a handbasket, which is a good enough reason to try and stop them.’

  ‘I seem to recall talk just like that back in the seventies.’

  Max gestured impatiently. ‘At long last something new is happening, and I don’t want to be left on the sidelines. Do you see what I’m getting at?’

  I gave him a wry grin. Max was burning up inside.

  ‘I’m sick of living hand to mouth,’ he went on. ‘I’d like a different life.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say to you. Personally, I wouldn’t know how to live any differently.’

  Max stared at me as he stroked his gut. ‘Forgive me for busting your balls with all this stuff.’

  ‘We’re friends, Max,’ I said, serious for once. Then I added, with a chuckle, ‘Though right now you do remind me of Virna and all her crap about how I should sort myself out some other kind of life.’

  Max burst out laughing and grabbed a handful of crisps. I was really fond of him but there was nothing I could do to help; I could scarcely make sense of my own life and had long since stopped worrying about it.

  A couple of minutes before ten, a man in his thirties strode into the bar. He was tall, well-dressed, wore his blond hair tied in a ponytail, and had the kind of physique it takes a gym to shape. Max and I glanced at each other: this could be our man. He sat down on one of the stools at the bar and looked around. He exchanged a glance with another customer who gave him a barely perceptible nod to let him know things were fine. My stomach churned. We had found the Master of Knots’ so-called Bang Gang. Max was sitting with his back to them and so hadn’t noticed their greeting.

  ‘There are two of them,’ I murmured, indicating the other guy.

  He had arrived about an hour earlier and had acted like a bored hotel guest. He was a little over fifty, tall and slim with short brown hair and a goatee cover
ing a rather weak chin. I reckoned it was his job to hire the room and set up the hidden camcorder, but that it was the other guy who would get to meet Sherazade. If something went wrong, he could always claim the woman had made the whole thing up or that somebody had sneaked into the room while he was out. After all, they couldn’t use false documents every time they checked in to a hotel. It might be necessary for a kidnapping—like when they snatched Helena—but otherwise it was a pointless additional risk. And they were hardly going to try to abduct Donatella from this place. It was far too busy.

  When Donatella walked in, wearing an elegant short black dress with a plunging neckline, every man in the bar turned and stared. The blond guy waited a moment or two then got up and walked over to her with a smile. They shook hands and he pointed her to an out-of-the-way table. I dialed Rossini’s cell phone—it was time he too made an appearance. Donatella and her client were chatting and drinking cognac. I had the impression he was asking her some more questions, so maybe he still didn’t quite trust her. The other man kept glancing in Donatella’s direction and, to judge by the smirk on his face, liked what he saw. He was no doubt convinced they had got themselves another stunning slave.

  Rossini joined us, wearing a dark blue double-breasted suit. He held out his hand, apologized for being late and sat down at our table. While he babbled inanities for the benefit of the other drinkers, I pointed the two men out to him. A smile appeared on his face, too, though for quite different reasons. He touched the bracelets he wore on his left wrist. He couldn’t wait to add a couple more. Donatella and the blond guy got up and headed for the lifts. She was smiling, relaxed, a true professional. The older guy remained in his place. Our bait had agreed to terms: a million lire for an hour-long session. I started watching the clock impatiently.

  The need to stay sitting in the bar had compelled us to put away a great deal of drink. Max had even demolished several bowlfuls of appetizers. I had limited myself to a few peanuts, but it was time to stop drinking. We needed to keep our wits about us so we could tail Blondy. We’d decided to forget about the other guy. He would probably be staying the night, and if Blondy gave us the slip we would still be able to find him the following morning.