“There he is now,” said Rocco. And he got to his feet. As he drew closer, Rocco realized that what Antonio Biga had in his hand wasn’t an umbrella at all. It was a peculiar walking stick with a bulge at the center that ended just under the hooked handle. When Antonio spotted the deputy chief, he was neither startled nor indecisive. He just kept hobbling along toward the policeman, with a smile on his face. To any outsider, it would have looked like a meeting of two longtime friends.
“Well, take a look at who’s here. None other than Rocco Schiavone. Why are you around these parts? Did they call you back to Rome?”
“I’ve been looking for you.”
Antonio took a deep breath. With a quick gesture of his hand, he pushed a button and the walking stick was magically transformed into a stool. “You mind? I just had my femur rebuilt. They replaced the tip of it with some material they use at NASA. But I’m still not all the way recovered.” And he lowered himself down onto that little handheld perch that was undoubtedly of Chinese manufacture. “Nice, eh? People use it to go fishing.”
Rocco was still on his feet. He gazed down upon him from above. “And do you go?”
“Where?”
“Fishing.”
“I’ve never given a shit about fishing.” And he broke out in a laugh that soon changed into a convulsive hacking cough. He’d turned red in the face, he was choking, but Rocco didn’t move a muscle to help him.
“You aren’t going to kick on me, are you? Not right here and now, Antò?”
The man recovered his breath. He dried his lips. “All right, then, tell me what you want, cop. After you ruined my life, I’ve heard that yours hasn’t gone all that much better.”
“They told it to you straight. By the way, best regards from the parents of Dottoressa Semplici. Do you remember her? The one you killed in the bank.”
“I never killed anyone. You know it, I’m an innocent man.”
“Of course you are. So, aside from hobbling around like a cripple, what have you been up to lately?”
“What can I tell you? You know what? I’m finally getting my pension in just two months.”
“You’re getting a pension?”
“Yeah. This is a great country!”
“You can say that again, if they’re helping a piece of shit like you to survive.” Rocco lit a cigarette. “Have you been doing any traveling?”
“When?”
“Lately?”
“Aside from Frascati? No. I haven’t been anywhere.” Antonio noticed that at the mouth of the alley another figure was leaning against the wall of the building. “Who’s that? You go around with a bodyguard?”
“It’s a friend of mine.”
Antonio focused. “Well, would you take a look at that . . . it’s Brizio! He’s aged. The two of you, to come look for a relic like me?”
“Do you know where I live now?”
“I was hoping that you’d gone to stay with your wife in the boneyard. But instead, here you are, hale and healthy and going around busting people’s balls, as usual.”
“Are you sorry to see that?”
“Very sorry, my friend. Very sorry.” The aged criminal sneezed. “I spent the first two years behind bars thinking about how to send you underground in a box to stay with the tree roots. Then I said to myself: Antò, what do you care? Get out of this cell and enjoy your life.”
Rocco flicked the cigarette far away.
“Schiavò, did I ever send you my condolences for your wife?”
Rocco lashed out with the instep of his foot and knocked the three-legged stool out from under the man, spilling Antonio to the ground in the blink of an eye.
“You bastard!”
Rocco bent down and grabbed him by the lapels. “I’m letting you talk because you’re an old gimp and your words don’t count for shit. But watch out, Antonio, don’t overdo it.”
The two men stared each other in the eye.
“Let me get up, give me a hand . . .” said Antonio.
“My ass,” Rocco hissed. He leaned in closer, bringing his own face right up against the bandit’s. “What do you know?”
“Let me understand one thing, cop. Did I ever say a thing to you? Never. So now why are you asking me all these questions? What are you hoping to find out?”
“Who took a trip to Aosta lately?”
Antonio smiled. His teeth were black, and he was missing a couple of incisors. “You’re shitting yourself, aren’t you?”
“Who?”
“I’m just sorry for Seba’s woman, because she had nothing to do with any of it. Too bad. A nice piece of ass—”
Rocco gave him a straight-armed smack. “Don’t you dare mention her name. Well?” And he grabbed the old bandit’s jacket even tighter.
“I don’t know. Consider the people who have it in for you. There’s a lot of us, Schiavone . . . Time to get busy!”
“Antò, if I find out you have anything to do with this, I’ll come back and break both your femurs for you.” Rocco released his grip. He stood up and looked down at the old man with contempt. “All these years in prison haven’t changed you a bit. You’re just the same old dickhead as ever, only now with a broken femur. I hope I never see you again, Biga!”
He turned and walked over to Brizio, who hadn’t moved from the street corner.
Antonio Biga was struggling to get up off the cobblestones. His legs were waving frantically like those of a cockroach on its back. “Schiavò, these things have nothing to do with me anymore. It wasn’t me. And you want to know why? Because I wouldn’t have missed, I wouldn’t have shot the wrong person. I wouldn’t have killed Sebastiano’s girlfriend. I would have killed you!” The old man’s voice echoed down the deserted alley. “If I’ve broken my femur, I’ll file a criminal complaint!”
“Why don’t you just complain to NASA!” Schiavone shouted at him. Then, with a nod to Brizio, “Let’s go. It’s not him. He knows, but he’s not talking.”
“Maybe a car will come by and run him over,” Brizio said and pointed at Biga, who was crawling along the cobblestones, trying to use the stool to get back on his feet.
“No such luck, this is a pedestrian zone.” Then Rocco looked up at the sky above. “There’s still plenty of daylight. Shall we go pay a call on Zaccaria?”
“WE’RE SORRY, BUT THE NUMBER YOU’VE DIALED IS MOMENTARILY unreachable . . .” Judge Baldi slammed down the receiver. “Where is he?” he shouted at his office. Then he stuck his forefinger into his ear and scratched. “Where is that mental defective?” he yelled at the walls of his office, empty but for him. He picked up the phone again.
“Aosta police headquarters, go ahead.”
“This is Judge Baldi. Where is Schiavone?”
“We haven’t seen him in a while, Dottore.”
“Who am I speaking with?”
“Officer Deruta.”
“Could you put me through to . . . Who else is there?”
“I couldn’t say. Do you want the whole list?”
“No, who is there in Schiavone’s place?”
“Ah . . . well, Pietra, from the Turin mobile squad was here. I don’t know if he’s in the office now. Did you want to speak with him?”
“No, I want to invite him out to dinner. Of course I want to speak with him!”
He detected noises in the background. A subdued buzz of conversation. Baldi rolled his eyes. Someone else took the receiver. “Dottore, this is Officer Italo Pierron speaking, how can I help you?”
“Where is Carlo Pietra?”
“You want the truth? I couldn’t say . . . I haven’t seen him since yesterday.”
“Goddamn it to fucking hell! There’s no time. You come straight over to the court building.”
“What’s happening?”
“We need to rush straight over to Varallo prison. Is there any hope of tracking down Schiavone?”
“I’ll do everything I can. At the very outside, I can deliver him to you tomorrow.”
“Yo
u’re on your way up, Pierron.”
“Dottore, why are we going to Varallo prison?”
“Someone murdered Mimmo Cuntrera!”
STEFANIA ZACCARIA WAS A PATIENT IN THE TRAUMATOLOGY ward at Rome’s Santo Spirito hospital. She was resting on a bed in a single room, her right leg elevated in traction, one arm in a plaster cast, the other leg in a brace, and a bandage covering her left eye. Her lips, reconstructed by some completely incompetent plastic surgeon, were swollen and covered with scabs. At the foot of the bed was an elderly woman intent at her crocheting. Sunlight poured in through the window, brightening the bureaucratic pistachio-green paint on the walls, a hue that always seemed to give its utmost in settings like hospitals or prisons. Stefania Zaccaria had built up a small prostitution empire all her own. She’d bought dozens of one-room basement apartments in a variety of Roman neighborhoods and had parked Slavic and South American girls in them. A nice little revenue stream that, even in a year when business was lean, still brought in several hundred thousand euros. Rocco had put her behind bars not once but twice, and yet she’d always managed to wriggle out and back onto the streets somehow. The power of money and skilled lawyers, many of whom were also happy customers of her ring of girls. When Rocco entered the room, the old woman who kept Zaccaria company put down her crocheting and lifted her index finger to the tip of her nose. “Shhh . . .” she told Rocco. “She’s sleeping.”
The deputy chief walked over to the bed. Stefania Zaccaria had her one good eye closed. But her eyelid was quivering just a little too much. Rocco decided to go along with the game. “How is she?”
“So-so,” the old woman replied. “And who are you? A friend?”
“A close friend. How did she get hurt so badly?”
“She crashed her car in Casalotti. She slammed right into a highway-department cement truck.”
“It’s just a lucky thing she’s alive,” said Rocco. Then he edged closer. Stefania was covered with scratches on her forehead and cheekbones. “How long has she been like this?”
“Counting today, it’s been three days.”
“What do her doctors say? Can I take her with me down to police headquarters?”
“To police headquarters?” the woman repeated, dropping her crochet hook on the bed cover.
“No, huh? Well then, I can always come in with the judge. Stefà, here we go again. I’m pretty sure you’re going to have to come in and spend some time behind bars.”
Stefania continued to keep her unbandaged eye closed.
“What on earth are you talking about? Can’t you see what kind of shape she’s in?”
“Oh, I can see. But six days ago, Stefania put her foot in it big time. And now that we’ve caught her red-handed, it’s time to pay the piper. Am I right?”
“My ass, you are!” Stefania Zaccaria replied, opening her one good eye. “My ass, that you or anyone is putting me behind bars, Schiavone! All right then, what are you claiming I did six days ago?”
“Ah, so you’re awake after all?” said the deputy chief in fake surprise. He noticed that she was also missing a couple of teeth. “You know better than I do, Stefania. It’s more of the same!”
“Schiavò, I’m not coming with you to any police station. Go ahead and send a judge to see me, send whoever you like. You’re going to have to talk to my lawyers!” And she accompanied the threat by hoisting herself up slightly, a movement that caused her a stabbing pang of pain at the base of her neck.
“Take it easy . . .” suggested the elderly woman.
“Shut up, you idiot!” Stefania shouted at her.
“That’s no way to talk to a mother . . .”
“Commissa’, this isn’t my mother.”
“And I’m not a commissario. I’m a deputy chief of police. In that case, just who is this lady, your aunt?”
“Not even. This miserable wretch does my housekeeping for me.”
The little old lady nodded and smiled. “I keep house!” she proudly confirmed.
“Come on, Deputy Chief, tell me. What is it you think I did six days ago?”
Rocco pulled out a formica chair and dragged it closer to the bed. He looked at the little old lady. “Listen, Signora, could you do me a favor?”
“Certainly,” she said with a smile.
“Could you leave us alone for just two minutes?”
The old woman looked over at Stefania. “Can I?”
“You don’t need to ask her. You need to just stand up and leave the room for two minutes. Will you do that for me?”
The woman set her crocheting down on the mattress. “All right then, I’m going to go get a drop of water, if you don’t mind.” She stood up, smoothed her skirt, and with an off-kilter smile, she left the room.
“Excellent, Stefania. Now that we can talk eye to eye—well, at least one of your eyes, anyway,” he said, pointing to the bandage across the side of her face. “Shall we have a serious conversation?”
“I’m always serious.”
“Can you tell me where you were six days ago?”
Stefania rolled her good eye to the ceiling. She was thinking. “Six days ago . . . six days ago . . . so you mean Thursday evening?”
“Exactly.”
“Let me think . . . You know, I don’t remember. I think at home. Nothing special. But why?”
“Make an effort.”
Stefania tried. “Nothing, I’m not getting anything. But why do you want to know?”
“You know why.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Everyone in Rome knows.”
“Not me, though. You busted my balls long enough.”
Rocco extended a hand. He laid it on the young woman’s good arm.
“Let go of my arm.”
Rocco maintained his grip. “You know why I’m here. And you were expecting me. Was it you?”
“Who did what?”
Rocco clenched down on the arm. Stefania grimaced from the pain. “I told you we need to be serious. I’ll break your good arm, too.”
“I don’t know, I don’t know . . .”
Rocco tightened his grip. “You don’t know?”
“Yes, that is, I know . . . I know what happened to you . . . Let go of me, you’re hurting me!”
“That was the plan. So?”
“Ouch, that hurts . . . don’t squeeze so tight . . .”
“If you don’t open up about this, I’ll move on to the broken leg.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with it. I would have loved to, let me assure you. But I haven’t been thinking about you, I didn’t even know where you were.”
“So who told you that someone had come and paid a visit on me?”
“Let go of me, let go of me and I’ll tell you.”
Rocco let go of her wrist. He looked down at Stefania. “I’m waiting . . .”
Stefania Zaccaria gulped down a gob of saliva. “This one guy was talking about it . . .”
“This one guy whose name is?”
“What’s-his-face . . . I don’t remember the name . . .”
Rocco reached out his hand toward the leg in the brace. Stefania practically levitated off the bed. “Paoletto Buglioni!”
Rocco smiled. He stroked the arm that he’d just been crushing and stood up from the chair.
“You’re a piece of shit, Schiavone, you know that? Why don’t you go back to wherever you crawled out of?” While she was shouting, Rocco put the chair back and walked to the door. With his back to her, he waved good-bye to Stefania as she went on bellowing, making the bed and her leg traction creak: “There you go, good! Get the hell out from underfoot! Now I’m going to call my lawyers, Commissa’, don’t kid yourself. You can’t just come in here and threaten me, you know? If I make up my mind, I can . . .”
Schiavone didn’t hear any of the rest of it. He was already out in the hallway. He crossed paths with a male nurse. “Listen, the patient in Room 209 is flipping out.”
“What the fuck do I care! As far as I
care she can flip right out the window!” And the nurse continued on his way.
ALESSANDRO MARTINELLI, AFTER A LONG CAREER IN LAW enforcement administration, had arrived at age fifty-four as the warden of the house of detention of Varallo, and he was sitting with both arms folded across his chest. In his office, as spartan as his attire, his only indulgence was the photographs of his three children, framed and enjoying pride of place on his desk. That aside, the room might as well have been a monk’s cell. “I don’t know,” he was saying as he shook his head. “I can’t say anything for sure . . . I’d prefer to have you talk to the doctor first . . .”
Sitting across from him was Judge Baldi in an elegant leather jacket, and Officer Italo Pierron stood next to the door.
“What’s the doctor’s name?” asked Baldi.
“He’s the health-services director. His name is Crocitti,” the warden replied.
THEY WALKED DOWN A DOZEN OR SO CORRIDORS, STRIDING past iron doors that opened and closed behind them in a symphony of screeches, squeals, and metallic thumps. The walls were painted the usual drab bureaucratic green. At last, they reached the courtyard. There were actually two courtyards, separated by a high masonry wall. “The roofed yard is for the prisoners in solitary confinement. This larger, open-air yard is for the other prisoners.” The warden was leading his visitors on a tour. Next to a small recess in the wall, not far from the entrance to Wing 3, were two prison guards and the prison doctor, Crocitti, bending over a white sheet from beneath which extended a pair of legs.
“A pleasure, I’m Baldi, from the Aosta prosecutor’s office.”
Crocitti stood up. Six feet and two inches of skinniness and gray hair, and a lifeless gaze behind his eyeglasses. “Crocitti’s the name . . .”
Baldi looked at the corpse without a flicker of emotion in his gaze. “What do we have here?”
“Myocardial infarction,” the doctor replied. “Fulminating heart attack killed him instantly. He must just have overexerted himself in the brawl.”
“Domenico Cuntrera didn’t die of a heart attack!” shouted Judge Baldi, so loudly that the doctor and both prison guards jumped in fright. Italo remained dutifully motionless while the prison warden gazed in embarrassment in the opposite direction. “I issued the warrant for this Cuntrera’s arrest. He’s a Mafioso who was running a loan-sharking operation, involved up to his elbows in the kidnapping of a young woman . . . Someone like that doesn’t die of a heart attack. I want an autopsy.”
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