The brigadier, who had stuck his head in at the office door, felt concerned.
“Commissa’, if you ask me, you’re coming down with the flu yourself. Believe me, I have experience with this thing that a doctor would envy: all six of my children have handed it around between them, and now I even think they’re starting on the second round. Last night, at my house, you would have thought we were throwing a party, and since Lucia, poor woman, was a wreck and had had to fight all day to hold things together, it was my turn. I told you it wasn’t in my interest to go home.”
Ricciardi shook his head.
“Don’t be silly, I don’t have the flu. I just haven’t been getting enough sleep: I’m not used to staying out late, that’s all. And in any case, between the two of us, the one who needs sleep most is you, Raffaele. Now let’s get to work, come on. Our little chat with Signorina Wright has convinced me that we need to talk to both Sannino and his manager, Biasin, again, and soon. After all, there are two of them, which means they’d fit in with the doctor’s theory about the way the corpse was moved.”
Maione served the ersatz coffee on the desk, in accordance with a long-standing ritual.
“And we’ll also need to talk to this Merolla from that other shop, Commissa’. Do you remember what the intermediary, Martuscelli, said? He said that Merolla was already on the edge of bankruptcy, and that this business deal would ruin him for good. That strikes me as a pretty good reason for getting Irace out of the way.”
Ricciardi drank his beverage, doing a poor job of dissimulating his disgust.
“Mamma mia, how disgusting. Can you really not find even a little bit of genuine coffee, at least for the morning?”
Maione put on a hurt expression, studying the little glass that he reserved for himself, keeping the only proper demitasse for the commissario’s use, chipped though it might be.
“Commissa’, don’t talk that way, if Mistrangelo on the crime reports office heard what you just said, he’d pull out his department-issued revolver and shoot himself. He’s terribly proud of this horrible sludge. He walks around telling anyone who’ll listen that it’s better than real coffee. That even you, who are notoriously grim-faced, no offense intended, smile when you sample it.”
Ricciardi looked at the dark brew as if it were a snake about to strike.
“He thinks it’s a smile, but it’s actually a grimace of pain. To come back to the matter at hand, before we talk to these three, I’d also talk to the victim’s widow. The presence of her cousin, if you ask me, kept her from speaking freely. We need to understand a little more about this Irace’s habits and circle of acquaintances. And also about what he and she had to say to each other after Sannino’s public threats.”
Maione was about to reply when there came a faint tapping at the door. Through the opening came the embarrassed face of Ponte.
“May I come in, Commissa’? May I?”
This time, for the protégé of the deputy police chief, the task of not looking Ricciardi in the face was made even more complicated by the presence of Maione who, hating Ponte openly as he did, never missed the opportunity to make the man uncomfortable.
And in fact, the brigadier started in promptly.
“So, the way they taught you is to come in first and then to ask if you can? There’s nothing to be done about it, if a man is an idiot, he’s an idiot through and through.”
Ponte blushed.
“Forgive me, Brigadie’, but when Dottor Garzo wants something in a hurry, I even forget my good manners. He asked whether you could both go straight up to his office, you and the commissario. That is, the commissario and you. That is to say, whether the commissario and you might be so kind as to . . . ”
Maione slapped his open hand against the backrest of the chair.
“Ponte, you’re the only creature on earth who is too stupid even for basic good manners. Just what is it that your boss wants?”
The little man, his forehead pearled with sweat, stood staring at the chair Maione had just smacked, and replied in a falsetto voice: “How am I supposed to know, Brigadie’? It’s not as if Dottor Garzo confides in me.”
Maione commented in a chilly voice: “Strange. I used to own a dog, when I was a boy, and I told him everything about my personal business.”
Ricciardi stood up.
“All right, let’s get this thing out of the way and go see what it is that his honor the deputy police chief wants of us, since he’s so strangely in his office at this early hour. Ponte, tell him that we’re on our way.”
Angelo Garzo was in a genuinely foul mood. First of all, the autumn always filled him with melancholy, because he was forced to bundle up and get his trousers spattered with mud, and he was a man who cared deeply about sartorial elegance and personal cleanliness. What’s more, that morning he had been obliged to get to the office quite early, like any ordinary commissario serving a shift, and he was convinced that his rank of deputy police chief and director of public safety, attained through his own merits and, here and there, a little help from strategically placed allies, needed to be reinforced and confirmed on a daily basis through the liberal use of the privileges that pertained to the office. Last but not least, he had not been able—in spite of his tireless efforts and exertion of pressure—to wangle an invitation to the party thrown by Marchesa Luisella Bartoli di Castronuovo the night before, which a number of functionaries from the ministry in Rome had attended, and where he dearly wished he had been able to show himself off in all his splendor.
His informants had told him, among other things, that one of the guests was none other than Ricciardi, a lowly functionary in the office over which he, Deputy Police Chief Angelo Garzo, presided. Might it have been because the man was of noble birth? And what the devil did that amount to? Weren’t they about to celebrate, in just a few days, the tenth anniversary of the March on Rome? Wasn’t there a great stir and ferment in the air because the Fascist party, of which he was a fervent supporter, planned to eliminate once and for all this foolishness of an aristocratic class—though the king, of course, remained a necessity?
Along with these causes for discontentment he could now add the phone call that he had received the night before. It had come from the Ministry of the Interior, and the switchboard operator had been obliged to announce and transfer the call no fewer than three times, which had immediately put him on high alert, because it was clear testimony to the high rank of the caller. This was a top secret phone call, did he understand that? Yes, he understood that perfectly. This was a very delicate matter, was that clear? Yes, it was clear. Even in his pajamas and with his head swaddled in a hairnet, his feet freezing in his slippers, the deputy police chief had conducted the entire phone conversation while standing at attention: if people were still working at the ministry at 11:30 at night, then his ears and his mouth would certainly be up to the level of such an inspiring spirit of self-sacrifice.
And so now, in the early morning hours, he was ready to transmit the instructions he’d received to his underling in charge of the investigation. Was it clear that the man in question was an underling, even though he was welcomed at receptions from which he himself had been excluded? Yes, it was clear. Beyond the shadow of a doubt.
Garzo heard a knock at the door and intentionally chose not to answer immediately: an executive was always doing something fundamental that those who serve under him cannot hope to understand. Better to let them cool their heels for a little while. Let them imagine that I am examining important documents, and that I am so absorbed in my weighty duties that I choose not to invite them to enter the office until I have completed my task, he told himself. And so he decided to take the opportunity to check the progress of his impeccably groomed narrow mustache, his pride and joy.
It was just as Garzo was holding up his pocket mirror at nearsighted distance to groom his facial hair that Ponte, without waiting for any verbal instructions, opened the door. Standing behind him, unfortunately, both Ricciardi and Maione were
perfectly capable of seeing the deputy police chief at work on his important business, and the brigadier only just managed to stifle his hilarity.
Red as a bell pepper, Garzo shouted, stridently: “Ponte, damn it! Who gave you permission to come in, if I may ask?”
The lowly police officer turned pale, took a step back in terror, and hastened to close the door again, but Maione, mischievously, had taken a step forward and was now blocking the door with his belly.
“You certainly have a point, Dotto’,” said the brigadier. “Ponte has a bad habit of walking into rooms without being told to come in. I just told him the same thing, didn’t I, Ponte?”
The other man dropped his eyes to the floor and assumed a strange posture: both arms close by his side, hands opened outward, torso extended in a half bow. Ponte didn’t move after that: he understood that any excuse he might come up with would simply be thrown back in his face.
Garzo thundered: “Get out, Ponte. Leave immediately.”
Once the poor man had left the office, creeping out backward with his eyes fastened to the floor, Garzo put aside his brusque tone of voice and addressed Ricciardi.
“Ricciardi, caro Ricciardi. I know that yesterday you attended the Marchesa Bartoli’s reception. I ought to have been there myself, but unfortunately my wife was indisposed and I had to beg off.”
Ricciardi shrugged.
“You didn’t miss a thing, Dottore. A party like any other. There were lots of people, but I left early.”
Garzo’s thirst for information was thwarted.
“I understand that there were a number of functionaries from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs who came down from Rome. Colonel Franti, for instance.”
Ricciardi cut him short.
“Oh, really? I wasn’t introduced. In any case, I didn’t know most of the guests. I’m not much of a socializer.”
Garzo let out a sigh. Pearls before swine, he thought to himself. What a waste.
“Ah. Yes, I see. But now to our business. I asked you here because I’ve received a phone call, direct from Rome, but from the Ministry of the Interior. I don’t need to explain the meaning of that to you, I’m sure: these are the highest levels, Ricciardi. The ve-ry high-est lev-els.”
The commissario listened impassively as the deputy police chief underscored the point. Maione cleared his throat.
“Dottore, if these matters are confidential, I’d be glad to leave you two to talk alone, if you have no objection.”
Garzo raised his hand decisively.
“No, Maione. No. This matter is indeed top secret, that’s true, but all of the enlisted men who are working on the matter will need to be informed.”
“Which matter, Dottore?” Ricciardi asked.
Garzo started searching on his desk, then he rummaged around in his leather satchel, which he kept on a shelf behind his office chair, swore softly, and at last managed to lay his hands on a folded and refolded scrap of paper in the inside breast pocket of his jacket.
“Ah, here it is. Now then, let’s see: you are both working on a murder, are you not? The dead man is called Costantino Irace.”
Ricciardi confirmed the fact.
“Yes, that’s correct. He was found dead yesterday in a vicolo down by the harbor. He had a broken rib, a vast bruise . . . ”
Garzo raised his hand again.
“If you please, Ricciardi. If you please. Certain details first thing in the morning . . . And of course I have no doubt that we have all the necessary information. There are times when I get the impression that you have a macabre fascination with the dead. Whatever the case, this case also involves—or at least so it would seem—the renowned Vinnie Sannino, the world light heavyweight champion. Isn’t that right?”
Maione heaved a sigh and shot a glance at Ricciardi. The same old story, both men thought to themselves, a phone call from Rome to protect an important person.
The commissario stiffened.
“Dottore, that man threatened to kill the victim, in public and just hours before he was actually murdered, and he cannot say where he was at the time of the murder. And his lover, who came in of her own accord to make a statement, is likewise unable to confirm that . . . ”
Garzo blew his cheeks out in frustration.
“Don’t draw mistaken conclusions. Nobody here is trying to prevent you from carrying out the necessary investigations. Quite the opposite.”
Maione and Ricciardi once again looked at each other in astonishment.
“What . . . what do you mean, quite the opposite?” asked the commissario.
Garzo smiled condescendingly, stood up from his chair with a theatrical movement and took a few steps toward the window, his thumbs hooked in his vest pockets. Maione thought to himself, what a cretin the deputy chief of police was.
“Certain considerations, Ricciardi,” said the deputy police chief, trying to infuse his words with importance, “are well above your rank and your ability to grasp them. They involve the public image of our nation, of the party. They spring from the personal thoughts of the Duce himself. I myself, with the rank that I enjoy, was obliged to ask to have it all explained to me twice, when they called me last night.”
Maione murmured: “No less.”
“Yes, Maione. It might seem absurd, I know. Now then, it would seem that this Sannino, described in the past as the paragon of the invincible Italian male, the pride of the regime, during a match of that barbaric sport that, let me tell you, I am not likely to follow anytime soon, actually killed a negro opponent. A Negro, you understand? One might well think: so what? It was a boxing match, after all? It’s not as if he shot the man. And then, it was just a Negro, as stated. Well, you won’t believe what happened next: after the incident, Sannino refused to fight again. In defiance of the encouragement of everyone, including the Duce himself, in suggestions that were forwarded to Sannino via the Italian ambassador to the United States, and make no mistake, His Excellency the Duce had even written him a letter in his own hand, in his own personal handwriting, and yet, in defiance of all this, the coward refused to go back into the ring to fight.”
Ricciardi tried to get the man to come to the point.
“I apologize, Dottore, but I really can’t see what any of this has to do with our investigation.”
Garzo looked at him indulgently.
“Bravo, Ricciardi. Very well put. You do not see. And at first I hadn’t seen either, in fact, but then I asked to have it explained. The truth is that such a blatant show of cowardice is simply intolerable. That is the exact wording that was used in my phone call: in-tol-er-ab-le. At this point, it would be preferable, far preferable, if it were to emerge publicly that the man is a deviant, a pervert, a murderer. That way it will become clear to one and all that he was anything but an invincible Italian male, and that the wise and far-seeing Italian police recognized the fact when they clapped him behind bars.”
Ricciardi was disconcerted.
“But, Dottore . . . ”
“No buts, Ricciardi. No ifs, ands, or buts. That man publicly threatened the victim, you said so yourself. And he has no alibi—again, you said so yourself. Which is why I request and require, re-quire, that justice follow its course and that the individual in question be remanded to prison this very day. We need to set an example.”
Ricciardi replied in a dry tone: “The fact that he has no alibi hardly amounts to proof of guilt. He’s one of the chief suspects, no question, however . . . ”
Garzo slammed his fist down on the desk.
“Damnation, Ricciardi, don’t you try to contradict me! These are instructions that were given to me personally by the ministry itself, do you follow me? By the min-i-stry it-self! I’m giving you an order!”
Ricciardi replied without a shift in his tone: “Help me understand here, Dottore: are you telling me that I am not to investigate a murder case adequately? That I am to arrest Sannino merely because, by refusing to continue boxing, he has offended the Fascist regime? Is that what you
’re telling me? If so, then I have no choice but to tender my resignation, effective immediately. After which, I will make a point of informing the press of the deplorable situation that made my resignation inevitable.”
Garzo’s jaw dropped and his eyes opened wide. For a moment he seemed to be on the verge of deflating like a punctured soccer ball. Maione carefully examined the fingernails of his right hand.
Nearly a minute went by, during which the deputy police chief’s mind catalogued at the highest speed of which his brain was capable, the pros and the cons as far as he personally would be concerned of the line of behavior Ricciardi had just outlined. Then he said: “I answer to Rome. Not merely to his honor the chief of police, not just to the citizenry, but also to the national government. If I am told that this man must be detained, unless we have full and absolute certainty of his innocence, then he must be detained. Do you have full and absolute certainty of his innocence?”
“No, but . . . ”
“Fine. You don’t have that certainty. In that case, I beg you, just do as you’re ordered: detain him. Then you can go about your work, and if his innocence were to emerge in an incontrovertible manner—but listen closely, in an in-con-tro-vert-i-ble manner, then no one will have any reason to object. We do administer justice, after all. But till then, I’m afraid, Sannino will have to stay behind bars. Have I made myself clear?”
Ricciardi sighed.
“All right, Dottore. We’ll see to it before the end of the day.”
Garzo appeared to be reassured.
“Very good, Ricciardi. Very good. Have a good workday.”
After they left the office, Maione exploded like a steam boiler under excessive pressure.
“Commissa’, forgive me, but this time I have to say that I’m not with you. How can we put a man in prison before we’ve completed our proper round of inquiries and questioning? Even if we’d caught him red-handed, we wouldn’t arrest him this quickly.”
Ricciardi didn’t slow his step, as he headed back toward his office.
“It was a necessary strategy, Raffaele. If we hadn’t given in, we would have been taken off the case and they would have assigned it to some other colleague who was likely to be more compliant. At that point, there would have been no hope left for Sannino: innocent or not, he would have been the subject of a political vendetta. This way, at least, we have kept the possibility of continuing to investigate and to search for evidence that can either prove his guilt, in which case everyone will be pleased, or his innocence, beyond the shadow of a doubt.”
[Ricciardi 09] - Nameless Serenade Page 22
