The two women glared daggers at each other. Tatiana looked back and forth, first at one and then at the other, baffled.
“You just need to shut your trap!” shot back the little old lady on the second floor of Staircase A, plucking at her cardigan sweater. “And worry about your husband!”
“I guess you’d like to worry about him for me, wouldn’t you?”
“Fuck yourself!” shouted the woman with the oversized eyeglasses and shut the window. She vanished, swallowed up by the dark room behind her. Tatiana looked up at the neighbor woman on Staircase B. “Buongiorno, Signora.”
“Why were you talking to that slut?”
“I wanted to know if you’d seen Corrado. Corrado Pizzuti, the guy in the mezzanine apartment on Staircase A.”
“What, are you his girlfriend?”
“No. His business partner, we run the Bar Derby on Piazza della Sirena.”
“Slut. You’re a slut, no better than my sister!” And with these words, she, too, slammed her casement window shut and withdrew into her apartment. Tatiana threw both arms wide in helpless frustration. Then she turned her eyes up to scan the other windows in the apartment building. Except for the ones on the second floor, they all seemed abandoned. She rang the buzzers of all the other apartments, but no one answered. Except for the little old lady on the second floor, who reappeared in her window. Tatiana gestured to her in an appeal to buzz her in, but the woman did nothing other than to vanish again.
“Where could you be?” she said in a low voice. It occurred to her to search the area around the apartment buildings for Corrado’s green Fiat Multipla. The surf was rough. During the night a north wind had sprung up that was now shaking the palm trees and pushing the waves into roaring breakers. Tatiana put on her baseball cap. She walked around the block three times, but there was no trace of Corrado’s car. Anxiety was by now a constant knot at the center of her chest, blocking her windpipe. She leaned against a wall, trying to get a breath of air. She could feel it. Something had happened.
“Chto mnye delat’?” she said to herself in a faint voice, speaking her native Russian. “What am I going to do?” There was nothing left but to go to the Bar Derby. Open the place up for business. Then wait till nightfall. And if Corrado hadn’t given any signs of life by then, she’d go to the police.
DEPUTY CHIEF ROCCO SCHIAVONE HAD BEEN SITTING ON THE little yellow settee outside Judge Baldi’s door for the past ten minutes. Lupa had dropped off to sleep, and he had already read everything there was to read. A copy of La Stampa that was three days old; two magazines published by the Guardia di Finanza, Italy’s financial police; a pamphlet for a hotel in the ski resort of Courmayeur that somebody had forgotten there; all of the notices posted on the walls and even the label on the fire extinguisher. The door was still closed. There was nothing left for him to do but kill time by studying the swirls and whorls of the knots in the wood, hoping to discover some mysterious hidden figure in them. He was still focusing on this task to pass the time when the door finally swung open. Judge Baldi appeared in a herringbone jacket from the eighties and the gray skin tone of someone who hasn’t had a breath of fresh air in hours. Behind Baldi, Rocco was able to glimpse the bearded Judge Messina sitting in the office and a black uniform bedecked with glittering silver insignia.
“Schiavone! I’m going to be busy with this for quite some time. Can we postpone till later?”
Rocco got to his feet. “I just wanted to make sure everything was taken care of. I’ll go to Varallo tomorrow. Did you talk to the warden?”
“Certainly . . .” He turned around and looked at the room behind him, then slowly shut the door. “This meeting is never going to end. But we’re doing great things, you know that?”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“Cuntrera’s papers . . . the documents we found on his person at the border . . . are looking like they’re going to be decisive!”
“Am I wrong, or is there a carabiniere in there?”
“That’s right, a colonel.” And he looked at the deputy chief. “I can’t say much. But this time, thanks to you and that mental defective Cuntrera, we’re going to be able to nab a fair number of people. And as we were saying the other day, very highly placed people, too! So now I’d like you to solve the problem at the prison.”
“ROS?” asked Schiavone.
“Excuse me?”
“That colonel . . . is he ROS? Special Operations Group?”
Baldi nodded. “They’re giving us a hand now.”
“If you need me, you know where I am.” Rocco shook his hand, and then, with a soft whistle, he summoned Lupa. “Shall we go, pup?”
“Schiavone?”
He turned around after walking halfway down the hall.
“Keep your cell phone switched on.”
“You can count on it.”
EVENING HAD FALLEN AND WITH IT THE TEMPERATURE. During the day, the sun provided warmth, but the minute it ducked behind the line of the mountains, the chill that had dogged Schiavone’s footsteps for months now spread back out into the streets and piazzas of Aosta. The icy embrace of an unwelcome, intrusive old friend. He was planning to eat dinner in a trattoria, but first he’d make sure to feed Lupa. He walked into the brightly lit residential hotel and stepped up to the reception desk for his key. The receptionist greeted him with a smile, then jutted his chin to direct his attention to the sofa behind him. Rocco turned around. Sitting in front of the now-cold fireplace was Anna. He went over to her.
“What am I supposed to think?” she asked him without standing up.
“That’s a little generic. Give me the topic.”
“You and me, Rocco. What am I supposed to think?”
Lupa was trying to get Anna to pet her, but there was an electric charge running under the woman’s skin powerful enough to light up a desk lamp. The dog wandered away and curled up at her master’s feet.
“Last night at the Turrinis’ house, you left without even saying a proper good-bye. I’m not talking about love or us being a couple, I’m just talking about basic good manners!”
“I’m not a guy with manners of any kind, you ought to know that by now.”
“Right, you just do whatever you feel like, without a thought for the consequences.”
“That’s a problem I have.”
But Anna still wasn’t done. “Do you know how I got home? Or is that a problem you haven’t even considered?”
“Someone must have given you a ride?”
“Asshole!” Anna dropped her gaze.
Here we go, thought Rocco. Tears were rolling down her cheeks, even as Anna struggled against it. “What did I ever do to you, Rocco?”
Rocco sat down beside her. “Nothing. You didn’t do anything to me. Unfortunately.”
“Then would it have cost you that much to make a phone call? Or even just drop by to make sure I made it home safe and sound?”
“You have a point about that. That was a shitty group of people. I shouldn’t have dumped you there. Even though you did seem completely at your ease.”
“All the same, that shitty group of people was talking about you. The Turrinis, for instance, even though you made damned sure not to even say good-bye to them.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll find a way of making it up to them,” Rocco replied without bothering to conceal the irony in his voice.
“Or else that friend of mine, the gallery owner, who really wanted to meet you.”
“But I didn’t want to meet him. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
Anna opened her handbag. She pulled out a handkerchief. She rose quickly to her feet and walked away, turning her back on him. She was drying her eyes. The receptionist at the desk looked down in embarrassment. Then Anna turned back around. “When Nora told me what an asshole you were, she wasn’t telling me half of it!”
The deputy chief heaved a sigh.
“Now I need you to tell me: What was I for you? Just a quick fuck?”
“Tw
o, actually.”
“Right. Two.” Anna laughed, with a note of hysteria in her voice. “And not even especially memorable ones, trust me.”
“Never claimed any different. Listen to me, Anna, sit down for a second.”
“No!”
“Please.”
The woman shut her eyes, took a deep breath, and went back to sit down next to Rocco. “Listen, let’s just think of it as a scale, with two pans. On the one side is you, and you’ve loaded up the pan, while on the other side is me, and I’ve put in practically nothing. So this is what happens.” He fluttered both hands. “You see? There’s no balance. If we want to get some balance, there’s only one of two ways. Either you remove some weight from the scale, or else I add some . . .”
Anna looked him in the eyes. “So you can’t do it?”
“I can try. But you need to give me some time.”
Anna nodded. “Why did I ever fall in love with you?”
“You can’t ask the innkeeper if the wine he serves is good!”
The woman finally smiled, and her eyes became enormous. “My mother always told me: ‘Anna, stay away from the men who make you cry and only chase after the ones who make you laugh.’”
“Your mother was a wise woman.”
“You’re sort of a mix of both kinds, the crying and the laughing. Shall I sleep at your place?”
“And then what? We’ll just be back where we are tonight, and instead of two quick fucks we’ll be up to three. But nothing will have changed.”
“Have we come to this? Are you actually giving me the ‘I don’t deserve you’ line?”
“No, I’m just trying to explain the way I see things between us without hurting your feelings.”
“So basically, you don’t love me. Say those words, and we can call it quits.”
Rocco took a deep breath. He took both of Anna’s hands in his. “I don’t love you.”
Anna reeled from the blow. She shut her eyes, and two tears leaked out from under her large eyelids. “It hurts a little to hear you say it, but at least you said it.” She opened her eyes again. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“For the honesty.” She picked up her purse and got to her feet. “I hope you have a good night, and a very nice day tomorrow.”
“Like fun. I’m going to prison tomorrow.”
Anna looked at him for a couple of seconds. A half smile flickered across her face. “The idea of you going to prison isn’t all that ridiculous after all.”
“You’ve got a pretty good sense of humor yourself, you know.”
“Take care of yourself, Rocco.” She turned on her heels and strode to the residential hotel’s glass front door. Her eyesight must have been blurred by streaming tears because she came dangerously close to smashing into the glass doors, which had opened automatically but not quickly enough for her. She could have marked her exit with a cathartic burst of laughter, but instead, she just kept walking and vanished into the street. The deputy chief looked at Lupa. “Hey, you! Let’s go get some sleep. What do you think? Did I just fuck up?”
Lupa stood up and put her head up near Rocco’s lap, and he immediately scratched her head. “I guess I did, right? I fucked up. Just look at what’s become of me, having to ask a dog for advice.” Going out for dinner was out of the question now.
“Come on, let’s go to bed!”
WHEN HE SAW TATIANA AND BARBARA COME INTO THE OFFICE of the town constables, Ciro got to his feet and flashed his brightest smile. “Tatiana! Dang, if Luca finds out that you came in on the day he went home early, he’ll tie a rock to his ankles and jump into the river, no doubt.”
The Russian woman didn’t smile. Her eyes were gloomy and haggard, and her face was pale. Barbara was there to offer her moral support and was walking just a few inches away from her friend, convinced she might collapse at any instant. “What’s happened?” asked the constable. “Why are you here? Do I need to be worried?”
“I need to file a criminal complaint, Ciro!”
Ciro’s eyes bugged out. “A criminal complaint? Why?”
“It’s about Corrado,” Barbara broke in.
“What’s he done?”
“He’s vanished.” And Tatiana finally broke into tears.
“Oh, Jesus . . . Sit down! Sit down!” And the constable went to fetch a chair. “Let me go get you a glass of water . . . Wait, wait right here . . . And you, Barbara, stay close to her, okay? Hold on while I go call Lisa, too . . .” Then he turned toward a door and yelled, “Lisa!” He quickly shoved his hands in his pockets, pulled out a plastic key, and headed for the vending machine. “Lisa!” he called again. “Could you come out here please!”
The door swung open and Lisa emerged with a sleepy face. “What’s happening?”
“Tatiana’s here . . . and she says that Corrado has disappeared!” he shouted over his shoulder while jabbing at the buttons on the vending machine. “Damn it to hell! . . . I jabbed the wrong button. Is a Coca-Cola all right?”
“Don’t bother, Ciro!” said Tatiana. But the constable had already shoved his hand inside the flap.
“Anyway, Coca-Cola has plenty of caffeine and it’ll pep you up!” He yanked the pull tab, took a glass from the desk, and emptied the can into it.
“Disappeared? Are you sure?” asked Lisa, adjusting her hairdo, freshly tinted with reddish highlights. You’d almost expect the dye to come off on her hands, it was such a radical shade of Titian red.
“I haven’t talked to him since yesterday. I’ve been calling him continuously, but his cell phone is always switched off.”
“Maybe he had to leave town!” said the constable as he handed the glass of Coca-Cola to the Russian woman.
“He’d have told me. He’s never gone away without telling me. Last week he was out of town for two days and he called me without fail to make sure everything was okay. Corrado is . . . apprehensive, that’s the word.”
“All right, then, let’s proceed methodically.” Lisa went over to sit behind the desk. “When is the last time you saw him?”
“Yesterday evening, right before closing time.”
“That’s not very long. I mean, are you ready to declare him a missing person? Maybe he’s at home even as we speak!”
“Listen!” Barbara broke in. “Last week, Corrado was gone for two days, but since he got back he’s been very strange, and when I say strange, I mean strange.” Barbara seemed to have been possessed by the spirit of Inspector Maigret. “And he wouldn’t talk. He was on edge, and he’d snap at the drop of a hat.”
“So he was dropping his hat? Maybe he’s losing his hair!” Ciro replied.
“You idiot,” his partner upbraided him.
“I was just trying to lighten the—”
“Just keep your trap shut. Go on, Barbara.”
“Now, as long as I’ve known him, Corrado has always lived alone. But just the other day I discovered”—and here she lowered her voice to just above a whisper—“that there was someone else in his apartment. And Tatiana and I are certain of that.”
“A lady?” And Ciro winked at Barbara.
“Then why would he be keeping his shutters closed?” the bookseller continued. “Let’s say it was a lady. Did she live in the dark? Why? What was he ashamed of?”
“Maybe the lady is married, and she didn’t want to be seen in that apartment.” Ciro was still clinging to that hypothesis.
“Or else something else.”
“You know that Corrado had a criminal record, right? And who knows . . .” While Tatiana said these words, she trembled. “. . . who can say . . . maybe a fugitive from justice!”
There was a dense, compact silence.
“A fugitive from justice?” Lisa echoed her.
“Why not?”
“Then that would explain everything!” the lady constable realized. “If he’s a fugitive from justice, then he could hardly say: ‘I’m going to be out of town, so you need to help me hide this man’ . . . It’s cle
ar, isn’t it? These are things that people do in secret!”
“Not so!” Barbara objected. She had taken the reins of this investigation well in hand, and a quick glance at her spirited eyes showed that she was thoroughly enjoying herself. “Who says? If you’re going to do something secret, then it’s best to do it in the light of day, you just call over to the bar, you say that a commitment of some kind—anything will do, you make something up—requires you to go to . . . oh, I don’t know, to Ancona, and you go. Otherwise you’re just going to kindle suspicions!”
“No, that’s right. Barbara has a point,” said Tatiana, who hadn’t touched a drop of her Coca-Cola. “Just disappearing like that, without warning: it doesn’t look good!”
“Did anyone else have the keys to his place?” Ciro broke in.
The Russian woman gestured disconsolately. “Please . . . I can tell. Something’s happened to him!”
Lisa took the situation in hand. “All right. Let’s go in the back office and take down the details of this criminal complaint.”
“Then what happens?” asked Tatiana as she got to her feet.
“We’ll inform the various police headquarters, then the prefect will contact the special commissioner for missing people and the investigation gets under way.”
“Let’s just hope it’s nothing, eh?” said Ciro, opening the door to the office. Barbara and Tatiana went in. The constable looked at his colleague. “You know something? Tatiana is in love with Corrado.”
“Jesus! Luca’s going to kill himself!”
Sunday
Alessandro Martinelli ushered him promptly into his office.
He had spoken with Baldi and he’d been more than willing to help.
“Where do I sleep?” the deputy chief had asked.
“Three rooms right next to the office. It sort of resembles a cell, but all things considered, that’s just part of the package, right?”
“I’d agree. Just one more favor.”
“If I can.”
“I’m going to need a television set in my room, if it’s an old one that doesn’t matter, and a DVD player.”
“I’ll have them bring in the TV set from the rec room on the ground floor. Anything else? I don’t know, a wake-up call at a certain hour? Breakfast in bed?”
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