Spring Cleaning

by Antonio Manzini

  “Been better. You?”

  “Been better.”

  There was a strange light in her eyes, and Rocco couldn’t tell whether it was a gleam of anger or profound sadness. She was dressed in black. The sweater over which a handsome silver pendant hung was black. The knee-length skirt was black. The ankle-high shoes were black. She wore no socks. She reached up and brushed her hair back. “I’ve been waiting for you for days.”

  “I know. I only went back to the office today.”

  “Are you free this evening?”

  “I’m always free.”

  “We’re having a party. Will you come?”

  “I’m not in the right mood for a party.”

  “You’ll like this one. The crème de la crème of Aosta’s high society will be there.”

  “Will your lover be there, too?”

  “You’re my lover.”

  “No, I mean your official lover. That architect Bucci Something-or-Other.”

  Anna smiled. “Bucci Rivolta, is it really possible that you can’t get that name into your head? I don’t know if he’ll be there. But you need to relax. He’s not my lover anymore.”

  “You know what? I’m starting to get a little tired of people who want to shoot me!”

  “Don’t worry, he doesn’t even have a permit to carry a gun. Eight o’clock at my place?”

  Rocco nodded.

  “Do you have a black suit?”

  “What, are we going to a memorial service?”

  “No, it’s just that it’s formal, and black is elegant.”

  “Black isn’t elegant. Black is funereal. I’ll come dressed as nicely as I know how.” Then he pushed the button on the remote and the running lights on the Volvo blinked on and off.

  “And with that the conversation is officially over,” Anna said to herself. “One thing, please, if you’re going to run late or not come at all, will you call me?”

  “Of course, of course.” Rocco climbed into the car. Anna knocked on the window. Rocco opened it. “Yes . . . ?”

  “Would it be out of line to ask you for a kiss?”

  Rocco leaned out, barely brushed his lips over hers, and put the car into reverse.

  “I’ve kissed warmer gravestones,” Anna murmured.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Nothing,” the woman said as she turned on her heel and headed for home.

  “But why? Why!” shouted the deputy chief as he slammed his hand down hard onto the steering wheel.

  THE ONLY TELEVISION SET WORKING AT POLICE HEADQUARTERS was the one in the waiting room. Rocco chased out two officers who were resting up after a twenty-four-hour shift. While Italo was working with the cables around the video equipment, Antonio Scipioni walked in with a packet of DVDs in one hand.

  “All right.” Rocco walked to meet him. “Are these all of them?”

  “These are the recordings made by security cameras numbers four, five, and six out in the courtyard.”

  “Excellent. Are you done, Italo?”

  Pierron turned to look at the deputy chief. “All done.”

  “These are hours of video!” Antonio exclaimed. “They start twenty minutes before the discovery of the corpse and they end an hour later.”

  “What happened afterward is of no interest to us.” And Rocco cracked open the first DVD case. “What we’re interested in is before.”

  “Are we going to watch them all in order?”

  “You’re going to watch them all in order,” Rocco mocked him in a singsong. “Minute by minute. And mark down anything interesting that you notice.”

  The grimmest dismay was stamped on Italo’s and Antonio’s faces. “What’s wrong?” the deputy chief continued. “Did you have other plans for today?”

  “But . . . I’d say . . .”

  “Antonio, a nice long day at the movies with a friend, what more could you ask for?” And with a smile he left the two officers to that thankless task.

  AS THE DEPUTY CHIEF STRODE DOWN THE HALLWAY, HE SAW Casella emerge from an office. “Casella!”

  The officer came running. “Yes, sir, Dottore!”

  Rocco pulled out his wallet and extracted a twenty-euro banknote. “Go to the pastry shop. Get a nice big tray of finger pastries and take them up to Antonio and Italo, in the waiting room.”

  “Why?”

  “Has it really come to this? Are you seriously asking for an explanation of a direct order from your superior officer?”

  “No, it’s just that, seeing that I’ve got a stack of important documents here, I thought that . . .”

  “Well, you thought wrong. Go on, get going. Ten minutes tops and I expect to see you back here. I might have other things for you to do!”

  “I’m on my way!”

  Casella grabbed the twenty-euro bill and headed for the exit.

  Before going into his office, Rocco stopped and shot a glance at the chart of pains in the ass. He pulled a pen out of his jacket pocket. He had one in the ranking of sixth degree: buying pastries for Sunday lunch. Then he went in, followed by Lupa.

  He shut the door, and the noise of the panel slamming against the door jamb coincided with the ringing of the telephone on his desk. He grabbed the receiver. “Who’s busting my balls now?” he shouted.

  “Schiavone? It’s Farinelli . . .”

  It was the chief detective of the forensic squad in Turin. “Ciao.”

  “How are you?”

  “Better than yesterday . . .”

  “I’m always waiting for the day when you answer ‘Doing fine!’ That’ll be the day that I bet all my savings on the Powerball.”

  Rocco sat down in his leather desk chair. Lupa leapt up onto the sofa. “That day will come only once the primordial waters have taken back dominion over dry land, and the planet is finally safe from humankind!”

  “Excellent. You seem to be in fine fettle. So listen: something’s stirring.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “We’re talking about the pistol that was fired in your apartment. The 6.35 mm. I’ve done some cross-referencing and you know what? That pistol was used three years ago, in an armed robbery in a bank in Cinecittà, and someone was shot to death. The victim was called Ugo Ferri, a retiree. He just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, his bad luck. Caught in the crossfire.”

  “Go on.”

  “Two bank robbers. One was arrested, the other one got away, and that pistol was never recovered. And now here it is again, in the hands of the mysterious murderer of your poor late friend Adele.”

  “Do you know the name of the bank robber who was arrested?”

  “Hold on, I’ve got it right here . . .” Rocco heard the sound of shuffling sheets of paper. “Now, where the fuck . . . Ah, here it is! Now then . . . Pasquale Scifù . . . he died in prison a few years later.”

  “And the other one . . .”

  “Nothing. Scifù never talked.”

  “Were there any witnesses, anything that might help me?”

  “Not much to speak of. The only thing is that while Scifù was of relatively normal stature, we hear that the other guy was a giant. He’s the one who fired.”

  “Thanks. You’ve been invaluable.”

  “Useful?”

  “I certainly hope so.”

  “At last! He’s finally starting to see the glass half full!”

  “What glass?”

  ANTONIO SCIPIONI AND ITALO PIERRON WERE GAZING AT THE television set, and had been for three hours now. Their eyes were starting to blur, as lines and colors merged together.

  Rocco Schiavone strode into the room like a gust of wind.

  “How are we doing?”

  “Ah, thanks for the pastries . . . they were excellent,” said Antonio.

  “Rocco, we can’t take it much longer. We’ve been looking at the same things for hours . . .” Italo replied, rubbing his face.

  “And do you mind telling me what you’ve seen?”

  “Let’s do this, sir. We’ll s
how you the images on fast-forward, and while we watch we can give you a running commentary.”

  “Antonio, but weren’t you on a first-name basis with me, just like Italo?”

  “Ah . . . yes . . . it’s just that in the office . . .”

  “If there’s no one else, then what do you care?”

  “You’re right, Dottore. So, shall I go ahead, sir?”

  “Go on.”

  Antonio pushed a button on the remote control, and the black-and-white images started up.

  “This is video camera one.”

  Sped up like this, it was like watching a Soviet formalist film.

  “All right. So here’s the brawl. You can see the three convicts here at the left of the screen attacking the Moroccan.”

  “Tunisian,” Italo corrected him.

  “Right. Then these two other North Africans come running to help the Tunisian, you see? One of them jumps onto the back of the scarface . . .”

  “Erik,” Italo specified.

  “And then the other assumes karate stances as he tries to hit the negro.”

  “The black man, Antonio, ‘negro’ is offensive,” Rocco corrected him.

  “Right you are. The black man. Anyway, he swells up his face like a rubber dinghy.”

  “Wow, that’s a right hook. The African can throw a punch, eh?”

  “Right. Then . . .”

  “And then,” said Italo, taking over, “we have another North African coming to the rescue, this guy here, you see? I think his name is Aziz, and he takes quite a beating from Erik.”

  “Erik delivers quite a punch, too, eh?”

  “And now here are the convicts hurrying to put down the brawl. And then the guards come in and settle things quickly.”

  They went on watching the footage.

  “Who’s this third guy attacking the Tunisian?”

  “That’s a guy they call the Professor. He’s the mastermind behind the group,” Italo replied.

  “There, now we’re on it!” Antonio pointed to the right-hand side of the television set. “You see the people starting to assemble? Back here is the body of Mimmo Cuntrera.”

  “And why can’t we see him?”

  “Because that’s a blind area.”

  Rocco touched his chin. His two days’ growth of beard sizzled at the contact like hot oil in a frying pan. “What about the other video cameras?”

  “None of the six video cameras was taping this corner of the courtyard.”

  “So, wait: You’re telling me we don’t have any footage of the man falling to the ground?” Rocco asked.

  “No.”

  The deputy chief stood up.

  “It would have been too easy, right?”

  The two officers exchanged a glance as if it was somehow their fault.

  “So we already know one thing. Whoever killed the guy knows the prison like the back of their hand, as well as the video camera surveillance system. Which means it’s someone who’s been in there for a good long time already.”

  SERGIO MOZZICARELLI RETURNED TO HIS WING. HE WAVED hello to the sentinel standing guard. He didn’t feel like staying out in the courtyard. Not after what had happened. Not after what he had seen. He leaned his back against the hallway wall and started considering his fellow prisoners in that wing.

  Who could he tell about this?

  He immediately ruled out the foreigners. He never spent time with them—he didn’t know them at all. Romanians and Albanians spoke only rudimentary Italian. Africans couldn’t speak it at all. All that remained, then, were the Italians, a tiny portion of the prison population. He could have talked to Cavabucion, the former bartender from Padua—whose moniker meant “corkscrew”—but he didn’t even know his real first name . . . That was out of the question. How about Federico? He would certainly have misinterpreted Sergio’s approach, assuming that it was nothing more than a sexual advance. And then Federico would start coming up with a series of heavy-handed double entendres about the possibility of having sex in the showers or else in his cell during the “socializing” hours. Or else Mariano? The truck driver who had murdered his wife and her lover in a single night of violence? No, not him, either. That left Marco. Too young. All he ever thought about was the children he’d left behind and the days he counted down until he could return home. All he was good for was making leather bracelets with his astrological sign engraved in a black stone. After that, he had run out of fellow Italians. Few in number and none of them reliable or willing to share his secret and keep it jealously to themselves. Worst of all, none of them capable of offering him any advice.

  Just don’t give a damn about it! his head told him. Just don’t give a damn about it, Sergio, you saw it, so what? Mind your own fucking business. In a year you’ll be out and you can try to enjoy the last scraps of this shitty life you’ve made for yourself.

  “I’m just going to get myself into a world of trouble . . .” he said in a low voice as he looked down at the floor. And for what? Domenico Cuntrera hadn’t even been a friend of his. In those few days they’d exchanged, at most, three words. All he knew was that Cuntrera was Calabrian, that every night he prayed to the Madonna, and that they were planning to transfer him in the next few days. But they hadn’t been quick enough about it.

  Just don’t give a damn about it.

  But he couldn’t get that face out of his mind, that poor wretch as his features turned deathly blue, his staring eyes seeming to beg for help as his life fled his body, hasty and cowardly as all lives end. The foam on his lips, his death rattle. And what had Sergio been able to do? How had he responded to that desperate plea? He’d hidden behind the reinforced concrete column to make sure he wasn’t seen while a gang of assholes were beating each other bloody at the far end of the courtyard.

  Just remember not to give a damn about it.

  “Inside! Gates are closing!” shouted a guard. Sergio slowly returned to his cell, along with Aldo and Karim. With the noise of clanking, clattering metal, the gates slammed shut. Soon they’d bring their dinners.

  Just don’t give a damn about it.

  IT WAS 8:30. ROCCO WAS RUNNING LATE. HE’D WASTED TIME calling Brizio and telling him the details of the pistol and the armed robbery and associated murder in Cinecittà. His friend had assured him that he would get busy and let him know. Though Brizio had to say, he’d never heard of this Neapolitan Scifù. Rocco was galloping toward his residential hotel, with Lupa trotting after him, tail wagging happily. He had to take a quick shower and get dressed. But the idea was already starting to surface in his head of calling Anna and standing her up at the last minute—a move of colossal oafishness. He entered the residential hotel and went to the desk to ask for his key.

  “You’re unbelievably late!”

  He turned around. Behind him, sitting on one of the sofas in the lobby, was Anna. Lupa ran straight toward her, barking. Anna greeted the puppy with open arms—“Lupa! Are you happy to see me?”—and she bent down to pet her, then looked up at Rocco. “She’s happy to see me. Take a lesson from Lupa.”

  “It’ll take me three minutes, I’ll get changed and be right downstairs. Do you think the dog can come?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I can’t even bring the dog . . . Well, okay.” Rocco whistled, and Lupa followed him up the stairs.

  HE OPTED FOR THE USUAL DARK-BROWN CORDUROY SUIT WITH a light-blue shirt and no tie and, of course, his Clarks desert boots. “Now you go nighty-night,” Rocco said, pouring the doggie kibble into the pink plastic dog bowl. “All right? I’ll be home soon.” Lupa lunged at the food. Rocco put on his loden overcoat, left the table lamp on for the puppy, and shut the door softly behind him.

  “THANKS FOR COMING TO PICK ME UP HERE AT THE RESIDENTIAL hotel. I was running late.”

  Anna looked Rocco up and down. “So you think that’s elegant evening attire?”

  He made a poor showing compared with the woman’s getup: she wore a simple black tube dress, adorned with a necklace
shaped like a grape vine with red stones peeping out among small gold grape leaves, a cyclamen jacket tapered at the waist by bone buttons, and a pair of black python ankle boots. “You’re dressed for the office.”

  Rocco looked at himself in the reception desk mirror. He hadn’t even brushed his hair. “You think?”

  “You didn’t even shave! Let’s go, or we’ll be late. Shall we take your car, or are you going to make me drive all the way there?”

  “All the way where?”

  “Outside of Aosta. Toward Rumiod.”

  “Do you know the way?”

  “Sure. We’re going to the house of Berardo Turrini.”

  “That surname isn’t new to me. Any relation to Laura Turrini, director of the Vallée Savings Bank?”

  “He’s her husband. The head physician.”

  TO CALL THE RESIDENCE OF BERARDO TURRINI A HOUSE WAS certainly reductive and clearly inadequate. You entered the property through a double gate surmounted by six antique wrought-iron lamps. Rocco and Anna drove along a narrow lane lined by a double row of poplar trees, their white trunks standing out like skeletons in the dark of night. The villa was gigantic, illuminated brightly for the party. Rocco stopped to observe it after parking the car on the lawn amidst other vehicles, each of which was worth more than the GDP of an African nation. Three stories of modern architecture, a spectacular triumph of glass, wood, and stone. “Not bad, eh?” said Anna, taking care where she stepped, lest she sprain an ankle in her high heels. But the lawn was solid, an expanse of green velvet.

  They walked along a gravel driveway and finally arrived at the front door of the home, which was an enormous glass arch leading into the rooms on the ground floor. A lively crowd of people were milling around with glasses in their hands; uniformed waiters fluttered here and there carrying precariously balanced trays. As soon as the couple entered, an elderly, completely bald waiter extended his arms to take their overcoats and then turned to go. “Are we going to see them again, those overcoats? I left my wallet in mine,” Rocco said. Anna didn’t even dignify it with a response.

  Soft diffuse lights gently illuminated the artworks hanging on the walls. Rocco jerked in surprise as he approached a canvas with a slash at the center. The rest of the paintings were every bit up to the same level. A Burri, a Boetti tapestry, a considerable number of pencil drawings by artists ranging from Miró to Léger.