Spring Cleaning

by Antonio Manzini

  “Speaking of which, how’s your sister?”

  For the first time, there was a darting sign of life in Agostino’s eyes, rapid and almost invisible. “Why do you want to know?”

  “What do they call her? ‘Cri-Cri’? Why? Isn’t ‘Carmela’ chic? Doesn’t it sound sexy? Or is she ashamed because it was her mother’s name?”

  “Actually, policeman, my sister isn’t a very interesting topic.”

  “I disagree. I mean, word is that Cri-Cri is quite the little cocksucker.”

  Agostino smiled. He rocked his head to the right and the left, making the bones in his neck crackle and snap. “My sister lives in Varese and she’s a schoolteacher. You’d better double-check your information, Schiavone.”

  “Your sister was a working whore in Milan, at Corso Como 12, in the basement apartment where you hid out a couple of times to avoid arrest. Now I hear that she still sucks cocks, but only in the very best hotels.”

  The Professor was starting to look like a pressure cooker.

  “Cri-Cri has climbed the ladder, no doubt of it. Where did she learn her skills? From her sainted mother?”

  Agostino lunged, but Rocco was ready for him. He slammed the palm of his hand into Agostino’s face, right under his nose. The inmate dropped to the floor. Rocco got up and delivered a sharp kick to his ribs. “Where are your friends when you need them, eh, Agostino?” He let fly with a second kick. “Where are they?” Then he sat down again. Marini appeared in the grate. He saw the inmate on the floor. He was turning to get his keys, but Rocco halted him with a gesture. “Everything’s fine. Don’t worry.”

  The worried guard vanished back out into the hallway. The deputy chief lit a second cigarette. Slowly, Agostino moved. He held his hand over his bloodied nose. He raised his head; then on all fours he made his way to his cot, where he grabbed a washcloth to stem the nosebleed. “Piece of shit . . .” he snarled, looking at the deputy chief, who sat smoking, unconcerned. He picked up his eyeglasses and put them back on.

  “Professor, now let me tell the way I see things.”

  Agostino said nothing. He looked at a fixed point on the floor. He hoisted himself up and sat down on the cot.

  “Someone told you to unleash all that hubbub. Someone suggested it. You did it, and maybe you didn’t even know why. But the guy they killed in the cell was a made man in the ’Ndrangheta. People like that eat people like you for breakfast. So if you think back on it, and if something occurs to you that you might want to tell me, go ahead. It just might save your ass.” Rocco stood up and walked over to the barred door.

  “If you so much as lay a hand on my sister, I’ll—”

  “I wouldn’t touch her even if I was triple-wrapped in condoms. But there are other people, guys who do this stuff for a living, who might make sure she’s found spread open like a sofa bed, fileted like a fish. Think it over, carefully. Everybody knows where to find a whore.” He dropped the half-full pack of cigarettes on the floor. “Here, smoke something decent for a change, not that shit that you roll, ineptly, if I might add.” Then he shouted: “Marini, open this door!”

  THE PRISON INFIRMARY WAS DOWNSTAIRS FROM THE ADMINISTRATIVE offices. It must have been recently repainted because there was still a distinct odor of paint. Green walls and fluorescent lights tinged the skin with an unhealthy grayish hue and left circles under the eyes like out of some film by Murnau. There were three wardrooms, each with six beds. In the first wardroom, Rocco glimpsed a skinny young man who was staring at the ceiling and barely breathing. Dr. Crocitti and Marini both greeted the inmate, but he didn’t reply.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Rocco asked.

  “Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. We’re going to take him down to Turin, to the infectious-diseases ward. He needs to be in isolation, we’re not equipped for it here. Do you know how many prisoners with AIDS we have in this prison?”

  “No . . .”

  “Seven. And sometimes we don’t even have an aspirin to give them if they catch a cold . . . Oh, well, forget about it. You know something, Dottor Schiavone? I’m waiting for my pension. Then none of this is my business. Only I’ll take all of this”—and he looked up and out, his gaze taking in the whole hallway—“with me, for the rest of my life. Until the day I die.”

  Crocitti was frighteningly skinny, with a haggard face and lemur eyes bugging out of their sockets. His gut spoke eloquently of an absolute lack of physical activity. His thick curly hair, sprinkled with gray, looked like a camouflage helmet.

  Marini was toying with his keys. He had an array of bunches of keys. They crossed paths with a male nurse. He was carrying a vial. “Doctor, I just changed Omar’s IV . . .”

  The doctor nodded and kept on walking alongside Rocco and the guard. In the second room as well there was only one patient.

  “Here we are. Omar Ben Taleb. Three guys beat him up. But he’s recovering. A few fractures, but nothing serious, I’m glad to say.”

  Marini pulled out a key. He opened the barred door. “Do you want to be left alone with the kid?” he asked him. Rocco nodded his head and walked into the room. Marini shut the barred door behind him.

  Omar was wide-awake. On his nightstand he had a bottle of water and an old Roy Rogers comic book. His face, his lips, and his eyes were blackened and swollen.

  “Can you talk?” he asked him.

  Omar nodded.

  “Will you tell me what happened?”

  Omar raised his bandaged hand and touched his lip to stop the throbbing that was bothering him. “I don’t know. They just started threatening me . . .”

  “Why?”

  “They said I was smuggling hashish into the prison . . . and they wanted it . . .”

  “And do you bring hash in?”

  Omar shook his head.

  “Omar, you’re behind bars for dealing controlled substances, so don’t try to feed me any bullshit . . . Just tell me the truth. We’re talking about a dead man.”

  Omar took a deep breath. “Now and then. Because I don’t have any family here. And without money, life is terrible in here. Eating nothing but the garbage they make in the kitchen isn’t something I’m interested in. So I have to buy food . . .”

  “You ever get any weed?”

  Omar looked at the deputy chief uncomprehending. “Weed—marijuana, you mean?”

  “Exactly.”

  The young man shook his head.

  “Too bad. So tell me, were you expecting any that day?”

  “No. Nothing. I swear to you, Commissario—”

  “Deputy Chief.”

  “What?”

  “I’m a deputy chief, not a commissario. What is it that you think happened?”

  “No idea. All I know is that I was unlucky, Dottore. I used to be a mechanic. But then the garage went out of business. What was I supposed to do? Go back to Tunisia and starve to death?”

  “Did you know Mimmo Cuntrera?”

  “Who’s that, the guy who died?”

  “That’s right.”

  “No. I don’t know anything about him. I’ve never even heard his name before.”

  “Had you ever had any trouble with those guys before?”

  “What, are you crazy? I’ve never even talked to them. Erik, the black guy, and the Professor are people you steer clear of if you happen to cross paths with them. I don’t know why they attacked me that day. I really don’t know . . .”

  “How long do you have on your sentence?”

  “Two years. And you know what? I’m going back home. I don’t want to stay here anymore. Better to starve, you know? Where I come from, you can already go swimming in May. It’s starting to get hot and the melons are ripe.”

  “I understand, Omar. But you’re not hiding anything from me, are you?”

  “What would I want to hide from you?”

  A tear rolled out of the young man’s blackened eye. Rocco got up, put the chair back where it belonged, and left Omar to his memories.

  ROCCO, MA
URO MARINI, AND DR. CROCITTI WERE STANDING on a catwalk each smoking a cigarette.

  “How do you see it? Difficult?” asked the prison doctor.

  “Are you married?”

  “More or less,” the health services director replied.

  “That’s how I see this situation. More or less difficult. Are you the only doctor here?”

  “Well, besides me, there’s the doctor from IMAS.”

  “IMAS? What’s that?”

  “The Integrative Medical Assistance Service. He came the day after the brawl in the courtyard . . . Then there’s a psychiatrist, a dentist, an immunologist, and four male nurses who work alternating shifts.”

  Rocco flicked the cigarette to the floor. “Would you show me where you keep the medicines?”

  “Sure. Come with me . . .” And Marini flicked his cigarette to the floor, too. Then he and Crocitti led Rocco away.

  TO GET TO THE PHARMACY IN THE HOUSE OF DETENTION, THE doctor opened an armored door, turning the key three times. Rocco took a close look at the lock. It hadn’t been tampered with.

  “Please, go ahead in . . .”

  It was a room with an examination bed, a table with an EKG device, a large glass-front cabinet with boxes and bottle of medicines inside.

  “But as I was telling you earlier, we only have emergency and first aid pharmaceuticals. Are you looking for anything in particular?”

  “No. Unfortunately I really have no idea. Syringes?”

  “They’re here . . .” And he pulled out a key and opened a drawer. That lock, too, seemed untouched. “They’re all sterile, single-use syringes . . . I also see a few cannula needles, for IVs . . . In other words, it’s all here.”

  Rocco nodded. “How many people have access to this room, to these pharmaceuticals?”

  “Only the doctors. The nurses have to speak to us for anything they might need.”

  Rocco ran his hand over his unshaven whiskers. “Listen, Dr. Crocitti, can I have a list of everyone admitted to the infirmary in, say . . . the two weeks prior to the day of the brawl?”

  Crocitti looked up. “There’s no need, I know it by heart. Aside from the poor kid you saw in the other room, we’ve had Ilie Blaga in here, a Romanian, for a case of dysentery. We sent him to the hospital, too, and he should be back in the next few days. There was Aziz Ben Taleb for an abscess and, last of all, Sergio Mozzicarelli, an old inmate being checked out for kidney stones.”

  Rocco took a deep breath. “Thanks. You’ve been very helpful. Shall we go, Marini?”

  “At your orders!”

  ON A WOBBLY PLASTIC CHAIR, THE WARDEN HAD HAD AN OLD television set with a cathode tube set up, along with a DVD player that had been repaired with duct tape. Perfectly in keeping with the room around it. A bed, little more than a cot with a small, flat pillow, and a nightstand made out of an old filing cabinet, were the only furnishings in the room. On one wall hung a Carabinieri calendar and a terrifying painting that depicted a smiling clown with a handful of juggler’s balls. The deputy chief had put the DVD with footage of the brawl in the player. He hit PLAY.

  Here was Omar being beaten by the murderous trio to the left of the screen; here were Tarek and Karim running to his rescue. Then Aziz’s arrival. But there was no sign of Mimmo Cuntrera. And none of the inmates were going anywhere near that blind spot to the right of the TV screen where the Calabrian might have already been breathing his last. From that corner he saw an inmate emerge, hurrying to put down the brawl, followed by a guard and two other inmates. He froze the picture. He knew just how pointless it would be to ask around whether anyone had seen anything. Anyone who knew anything said nothing. Or else they’d present themselves of their own free will when the time came.

  “Shall we go to dinner?” asked Marini, poking his head in the door. Rocco nodded.

  “Marini, come here for just a second, please . . .”

  The other man came over.

  “Look carefully.” And he pointed to the still on the TV screen. “Who is this?” And he pointed to the spot behind which Cuntrera must have been already lying on the ground. “Who’s this inmate?”

  Marini looked at the still picture. “That’s Radeanu.”

  “What about this great big guy here, this guard running from the right of the screen, where I’d expect Cuntrera to be, who’s that?”

  “That’s Federico Tolotta, a colleague. He was on duty in Wing 3 and in fact he’s coming from the right of the TV screen.”

  “And instead, over here, on the left of the screen, this is you . . .”

  “Right.”

  “Congratulations, you look good on TV. So who is this other guy?”

  “My colleague Abela. We were both coming from outside the courtyard, near Wing 2.”

  Rocco let the video run. The figures resumed movement. While Abela and Marini put down the brawl with the help of other convicts, Tolotta picked up a bunch of keys from the ground and used it to hit the Nigerian in the back of the neck. Agostino Lumi and Erik the Red were immobilized by Abela, while three other guards came running to help their colleagues. The last punch was thrown by Marini, and it caught Erik square in the jaw and knocked him flat.

  “Nice right hook, Marini!”

  “Thanks!”

  “Tomorrow morning, I want to talk to the Romanian Radeanu and to Abela. And also to Tolotta, if he deigns to make an appearance.”

  “He just had the day off today.”

  Rocco turned off the television set. “What’s for dinner?”

  “I’d recommend avoiding the pasta. And the entrées, too.”

  “What’s left?”

  “Side dishes and fruit. You can’t go wrong.”

  “I’m laughing as hard as I can.”

  “You’re in prison, Dottore, what did you expect? Rainbow trout?”

  “CORRADO HAS VANISHED. I WENT TO HIS PLACE, BUT WHEN I rang he didn’t answer. His car isn’t there, either.” Tatiana was serving her husband a plate of lightly scorched Hot Pockets. The CPA Arturo De Lullo had a woolen cap on his head in spite of the springlike temperature. He coughed three times and then slowly lowered himself into the chair at the table. “They’re burned, Tatiana . . .”

  But the woman didn’t even reply. “So I went to the police and I filed a missing-person report!”

  De Lullo was suddenly overcome by yet another coughing fit. He turned red in the face, and seemed as if he was going to spit up his soul any second now. Once the convulsions had calmed down, he breathed in slowly and then said: “You went to the police? Aren’t you overdoing it a little? Have you tried his cell phone?”

  “It’s switched off.”

  The CPA had never much liked that Corrado Pizzuti, from the day he’d arrived in town from Rome three years earlier. The man had never really appealed to him. De Lullo expected him to pull some unethical move at some point, sooner rather than later, probably. Tatiana had insisted on going into business with him on the Bar Derby, in spite of the fact that De Lullo was opposed. But he couldn’t really tell her no. Tatiana was his last woman. The last woman he was ever going to make love with, the last woman he was going to kiss, the last woman who’d make him dinner, the last woman to smile at him. The woman who was going to close his eyes when he died, gently, without making a scene, as one more inevitable passage of life. If he thought about his two nephews, who hadn’t called him in months and who were incapable of doing anything but defaming Tatiana and inquiring about the market value of the tiny 1,100 square feet of his apartment, he always sank into a fit of hoarse, rheumy coughing. Tatiana was going to be his last companion before chronic obstructive pulmonary disease finally shuffled him off this mortal coil. And he certainly owed something to this last angel who had willingly taken on the task of seeing him to the end of his road.

  The burned Hot Pocket was as hard as a slab of wood. “Is there dessert afterward?” he asked her.

  “If he’d left me his house keys, I could have just gone in. Maybe he’s sick,” the woman replied,
going over to the pantry. She’d brought home two custard doughnuts from the bar. She set them down in front of Arturo. He immediately grabbed one.

  “What if his neighbor has a set of keys?”

  “That woman does nothing all day but quarrel with her sister who lives in the apartment facing her. You should hear the things they say to each other!”

  Arturo wiped the custard filling off his chin. Still chewing, he said: “The Iezzi sisters have hated each other since they were small . . . Don’t worry, my love. This evening we can watch that program on TV with all the dancing! You like that show so much . . .”

  Tatiana sat down. She poured herself a glass of water.

  “Aren’t you going to eat?”

  “I’m not hungry, Arturo . . .”

  THE DINING HALL WAS A BIG ROOM WITH A DOZEN OR SO TABLES. On the right side were the counters where the food was dished out. In the middle were two cement columns that held up the ceiling, a good thirty feet high. Rocco hadn’t followed Mauro Marini’s advice and had decided instead to risk the chicken breast. At the other end of the table, two guards in their late twenties sat down. “Ciao, Mauro . . .”

  “Ah, it’s you two. Dottore! This is Mattia and this is Ugo. They were on the guard towers the day of the brawl.” Then he spoke to his colleagues: “Why don’t you move a little closer . . .”

  The two men picked up their trays and slid along the bench until they were next to Rocco and Mauro. “Allow me to introduce Deputy Chief Rocco Schiavone . . . from Aosta police headquarters.”

  They shook hands. Rocco noticed that the two new arrivals had opted for the chicken breast, too. “How is it?” asked Rocco, pointing to their plates.

  “Well . . . at least it’s grilled, with a little lemon . . .”

  Rocco took a bite. It tasted of hospital. “It’s stringy,” he said.

  “I told you to stick to the side dishes!” said Mauro Marini, and shrugged his shoulders. At the far end of the room, an old man in a shiny tracksuit and a white T-shirt stood looking at the deputy chief. Rocco look up and met the man’s glance. The man smiled at him, then darted into the kitchen like a mouse.