Spring Cleaning

by Antonio Manzini

  “What can we do for you?” asked Ugo, fair-haired and freckle-faced.

  “When that brawl broke out, you had a good vantage point up there to see the whole courtyard.”

  “Certainly,” the other guard replied: Mattia, dark-haired and with an enormous nose. He, too, started chewing on the meat.

  “Didn’t you notice anything? Cuntrera collapsing to the ground? Maybe someone who had approached him?”

  They both shook their heads in unison, like a couple of plush dogs on a car’s rear dashboard. “No. Nothing. To tell the truth, I was keeping an eye on the outside of the prison. There was a car that was having mechanical problems,” said Ugo.

  “I had my eye on the courtyard. But to tell the truth, I saw those inmates brawling, I sounded the alarm, and I didn’t look in the other direction where the dead man was lying. It was only Mauro, who went over with a young colleague . . .” And he looked at Marini. “Who was it? Abela?”

  “Exactly,” he replied.

  “All right, Dottore, it wasn’t till then that I looked over there, when Marini and Abela went over to figure out what had happened and why that guy was lying on the ground.”

  “At first I thought it had something to do with the brawl,” Marini went on, biting into an apple and getting bits all over his mustache, “even if that struck me as odd. In other words, Cuntrera was just a hundred yards away from the fighting, right?”

  “That’s right,” said Schiavone. “Near Wing 3. The brawl was on the other side, in front of the door to Wing 2. In any case, one thing is clear. When you went in, Cuntrera was already dead. Which means the murderer did his work earlier.”

  “That’s right, earlier . . .”

  They went on chewing in silence. “I need to talk to Tolotta . . .”

  “Tolotta comes on duty at six . . .” said Marini. “I know that because he relieves me.”

  HE EXPECTED TO HEAR SNORING, THE HEAVY BREATHING OF more than two hundred men in confinement, packed together like sardines. Compressed, ready to explode. But instead, there was nothing. From the hallway only the distant tapping of some electronic device or other. Not the sound of a car, not the noise of footsteps. And in spite of that surreal silence, he couldn’t seem to shut his eyes. He’d been tossing and turning on his cot for hours. The cot was uncomfortable, too short, with just a single blanket and a flat pillow that might as well not have been there. He got up and went over to the window. The sections were shrouded in darkness. The stars were watching from over the mountains, outdazzled by the enclosure lights that drooled their yellow glare over the fields around the prison. A car accelerated toward the city. A delivery van came puttering toward the house of detention. Who could say how many others, like him, were lying awake. The guards, certainly, weren’t sleeping. And in the sections, the inmates lying on their cots, eyes open, as they remembered well-known faces, distant and unattainable.

  He switched on his cell phone. A crazed carousel of beeps announced the presence of dozens of messages. Nearly all of them missed calls. A message from Deputy Inspector Rispoli: “Lupa is fine. She’s eating and sleeping!” One from Italo: “How’s it going?” And, finally, a text from Alberto Fumagalli: “Damn you! Call me the minute you read this message!” Then, just half an hour ago, a phone call. Anna.

  He looked out the window again. It was almost midnight. He saw his face reflected in the glass of the windowpane. He switched his cell phone back off and went back to bed.

  He finally fell asleep around three.

  A SHIVER RAN DOWN OFFICER ANTONIO SCIPIONI’S SPINE. The clock on the car’s dashboard said it was twenty-two minutes past midnight. He’d already been staked out in front of the Ristorante Santalmasso, a short distance outside Aosta on the road to La Salle, for three long hours. Walter Cremonesi had gone in at ten o’clock and still hadn’t come back out. The mountain hut that housed the restaurant had all its lights brightly burning, and the luminous sign was reflecting off the bodywork of the four luxury automobiles parked outside. He was starting to feel the tingling of pins and needles all down his left leg. His foot had gone to sleep entirely. He decided to get out and take a peek at the dining room from the side window. He grabbed his compact camera and opened the car door. He stamped his foot on the ground three times, and a stab of sensation lanced upward into his brain. Then he twisted his aching neck, put both hands on his hips, and arched his spine backward. He heard a vertebra crack, then another. He took a nice deep silent breath and approached the restaurant. He cautiously peeked inside. Walter Cremonesi was sitting at a table, along with two other men and a woman who immediately attracted his attention. Silky black hair, red lips, a small fine nose, a red dress that put a substantial pair of breasts on display with a plunging neckline. As she sipped her wine, she left the stamp of her lipstick on the rim. Otherwise, the dining room was empty. A waiter with a flower-print vest approached the table bearing three saucers with dessert. Officer Scipioni heaved a sigh, because that endless dinner seemed to be drawing to its conclusion and soon he would finally be able to go home and get some sleep. He took pictures of the foursome, though only after making sure that the flash was turned off. He put the little Nikon back in his pocket, stepped away from the glass pane, and retraced his steps. Outside the entrance was a lit-up wooden vitrine, and in it, on display, was the restaurant’s menu. Antonio leaned forward curiously. He grimaced when he read the prices of the appetizers. Entrées came in at more than twenty euros. Not the kind of restaurant he could afford. He went back to the car and lit a cigarette. The night was clear, but a light chilly wind found its way down the collar of his leather jacket, raising goosebumps on his flesh. The cold glittering stars dotted the dark vault of the sky. He got back into the car and cracked the driver’s side window open just wide enough to let the smoke stream out.

  “Put both hands on the steering wheel,” said the voice behind him, making the hair stand up at the nape of his neck. “Guaglio’, did you hear what I said? Get rid of your cigarette and put both hands on the wheel!” He tried to glance up at the rearview mirror, but the man was hidden behind his headrest.

  “What the fuck . . . ?”

  “Do it now!”

  Slowly, Antonio tossed the cigarette butt out the window; then he grabbed the steering wheel. The man emanated a smell of cheap cologne.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Antonio asked.

  “Who the fuck are you?” the other man asked. Antonio started to turn around, but the cold metal pressed against his cheek persuaded him to desist. Out of the corner of his eye, Antonio glimpsed the barrel of a handgun.

  “I’m going to ask you just one more time. Who the fuck are you?”

  Antonio swallowed. “Officer Antonio Scipioni, from Aosta police headquarters . . .”

  “And what are you doing here at this time of night?”

  “I’m working.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake . . .” And the man opened his door and got out of the car. Antonio saw half the man’s body reflected in the side-view mirror. The man walked forward. Tapped on his window. At last, Antonio rolled down the glass. And finally he could see him. In his early fifties, hair neatly combed, a mustache and a goatee. He smiled in at the officer. “Captain Pietro Andreotti . . .” And he extended his hand.

  Still baffled, Antonio shook it. “Captain?”

  “Carabinieri, guaglio’ . . . All right, so why are you staking out this restaurant?”

  “Orders from my deputy chief. That is, though, I’m not actually staking out the restaurant. I’m tailing Walter Cremonesi.”

  The officer nodded. “Why don’t you do this. Go on home. And forget about Cremonesi.” The carabiniere gave him a wink and vanished into the dense stand of hedges that surrounded the parking lot. Scipioni heaved a sigh and touched the pocket of his heavy jacket where he had his camera. It didn’t strike him as a particularly good idea to tell the carabiniere about the pictures he’d just taken. He started the car and left the Ristorante Santalmasso with his head full of un
answered questions, worse than the stack of bureaucratic files awaiting him on his desk.

  Monday

  When Rocco finally got to sleep, it proved to be short-lived. At five o’clock he leapt to his feet as if the fire alarm had just gone off. Instead, there was complete silence, except for someone going by in the hallway. He dressed hastily, grabbed a towel, and left the room. The hallway was illuminated by fluorescent lamps. He decided to head down to the dining hall. Maybe they made their coffee better than they did their chicken breasts.

  In the kitchen they were already at work on breakfast. There were two men cooking; a third was loading trolleys.

  Schiavone picked up a metal pitcher, poured a black liquid into a plastic cup, and the aroma of coffee wafted into his nostrils. It was black, piping hot, and, not least, excellent. He left the kitchen and followed the signs to the showers.

  “Excuse me . . . the locker room?” he asked a guard.

  “Ah, certainly . . . that way.”

  He went down the stairs and opened a double door that led into an enormous room lined with dozens of metal lockers. Two guards were undressing; another one was already in the shower murdering a song by Lucio Dalla. Rocco thought he recognized Mauro Marini’s voice. He looked at two other guards who were stripping off their uniforms. “No, let’s face it, the Sanremo Music Festival isn’t in his future,” said the younger guard.

  “Wait, is that Marini?” Rocco asked.

  “Yup,” commented the other man, disconsolately.

  “Marini, you sound like a walrus in heat!”

  The other man stuck his head out of the shower. “Ah, Dottore, it’s you! My shift is over, I’m going home.”

  “That doesn’t authorize you to massacre our eardrums!” shouted one of the younger guards.

  “Can I take a shower, too?” asked Rocco.

  “Be my guest. If you like, there’s shower foam and deodorant in my locker. It’s the first on your left.”

  “Thanks!”

  Marini’s locker had the usual deplorable calendar featuring a girl with big tits sitting on a motorcycle, but these days those photos were there more out of a sense of duty than any real desire. Change of clothes hanging up, a pair of clogs, talc shower foam.

  Rocco pulled it out and started getting undressed. By this point, Marini had moved on to covers of Queen.

  “After Queen, the next item in the repertory is Rigoletto.”

  “We’re climbing the ladder, aren’t we?”

  “No matter how high you go, you’ll still be able to hear Verdi turning over in his grave!”

  As if he’d taken the suggestion, Marini went on to the work of the Swan of Busseto, specifically Rigoletto. “Cortigiani vil razza dannata, per qual prezzo vendeste il mio beneeee . . .”

  The two young guards closed their lockers and left the locker room, hands over their ears. Rocco stepped into the shower.

  After a hellish night, the shower felt like a pleasant massage. He ran the water over his hair, shoulders, face, and ears.

  Marini shouted a series of guttural sounds.

  “I don’t understand!” responded Rocco, doing his best to overcome the auditory blur of the rushing water.

  “Toltt!”

  Rocco turned off the faucet and stuck his face through the shower curtain. “Marini, I don’t understand!”

  The man was drying his intimate parts with a rough violence that only made Rocco fear the worst. “Soon Tolotta will be here. He’s the one I wanted you to meet . . . my colleague from Wing 3 where we first found the corpse. I’ll turn you over to him.”

  “Ah . . . right . . . that way I can talk to him.”

  “Yes, in fact, here he is!” the mustachioed guard announced. “Ciao, Federì!”

  Federico Tolotta was enormous. Six foot four, not a hair on his head, a pair of Dumbo ears. A large nose but, all things considered, in keeping with his face, which was pink and round. Definitely tipping the scales at over 225 pounds. His eyes, rimmed by dark circles, unquestionably placed him in the family of the Ailuropoda melanoleuca, the giant pandas of Sichuan. He had two lockers. His jacket alone was enough to fill one of them.

  “Hey, Federì, Dottor Schiavone needs to talk to you.”

  Tolotta smiled. “Sure. Anything I can do to help . . .”

  “So, this is Deputy Chief Schiavone. He’s here from Aosta police headquarters.”

  “I imagine for that nasty business with Cuntrera.”

  “And you imagine correctly!” Rocco stepped back under the rushing jet of water.

  “I’VE BEEN ASSIGNED TO ACCOMPANY YOU ANYWHERE YOU need to go . . .” said Tolotta, opening the armored gate.

  “Right,” Rocco replied. Another hallway. He was starting to get his orientation in that labyrinth of doors and rooms separated by heavy metal gates. “Will you tell me about the day of the brawl?”

  “Sure. I was on duty in Wing 3. The one that’s closest to where they found the corpse . . .”

  “I saw it in the video. Go on.”

  “I heard shouts, then a colleague behind me shouted that they were killing each other. So I unlocked the armored gate and went running out into the courtyard. I rushed toward—”

  “Hold on,” the deputy chief interrupted him. “Did you close the gate?”

  “Of course. Behind me. Then I ran straight toward the brawl.”

  “And you didn’t notice Cuntrera on the ground?”

  “No. I didn’t notice him.”

  “Were there other people running toward the brawl with you?”

  “Naturally, a bunch of inmates and colleagues. When we got there, we pulled them apart and—”

  “Yes, I saw the rest in the footage from the closed-circuit security cameras. But tell me, nothing strange happened?”

  Tolotta stopped in the middle of the hallway. He thought it over. “No. Nothing strange. Then in the end Abela and Marini started shouting and we found Cuntrera’s corpse. In the corner. About thirty feet from the gate I was guarding.”

  “Do you mind coming with me to my guest quarters? I want to show you something . . .”

  ROCCO TURNED ON THE TELEVISION SET. HE RAN THE RECORDING from one of the closed-circuit security cameras. “This is during the heat of the brawl, you see?”

  Agostino Lumi, Erik, and the Nigerian were beating the Tunisians bloody. Other convicts were hurrying over. Then the guards arrived.

  “There, that’s you!” And he pointed to Tolotta as he ran toward the brawl. He froze the picture. “Right back here, on the right of the screen, from where you appeared, in this area, Cuntrera is dying.”

  Tolotta nodded.

  “And you didn’t notice him when you passed by?”

  “No, I told you. I didn’t notice him. You see, along with me there are two other inmates hurrying along, and this other guard here—he’s named Guidi, I think. They ran right in front of me and maybe that kept me from seeing that there was a man on the ground.”

  “Can you tell me why this corner isn’t covered by security cameras?”

  Tolotta smiled. “That’s not right, actually. There is a security video camera, right here, you see it?” And he placed his finger on the screen, right on top of a huge lamppost. “Right on this lamppost . . . it covers that corner and the gate to Wing 3. The door I just ran out of.”

  “Then why don’t I have the recording?”

  “Because that security camera has been broken for the past week and we’re still waiting for them to come fix it, that’s why.”

  Rocco nodded. “And the same way you know that fact . . .”

  “. . . everyone else knows it, too, Dottor Schiavone. That corner hasn’t been covered by the video cameras for the past week. If you only knew the things the inmates have been writing on the walls there!”

  Rocco ran back the video. “You approach the brawl . . . Here you pick up the keys . . . You grab them and you hit Oluwafeme in the back of the head.”

  “That’s right. I figured that with the keys in my hand,
the punch would be more effective. I mean, that guy is big.”

  “And in fact you can see the Nigerian is staggering after you hit him. A little unfair, to hit him like that, don’t you think?”

  “Desperate times, desperate measures, right?”

  The video continued. “There, now you’ve subdued them, you take Erik into custody . . .”

  “That’s right . . . we were just taking him away when—”

  “When Marini and Abela start shouting, attracting your attention because they’ve just found Cuntrera dead. You can only see the back of one of them, and you head straight over in that direction. Here, on the right of the screen.”

  “But how did Cuntrera die, anyway?”

  “Of homesickness.”

  The giant panda didn’t get the joke.

  “I was just kidding. Someone gave him an injection of some kind . . .”

  “And no one else saw?”

  “Strike you as strange, too, Tolò?”

  HE’D TYPED INTO THE SEARCH ENGINE: “ESCORT AOSTA.” A website had come up with lots of photographs and cell phone numbers of beautiful women. All with their faces blocked out. But their breasts, their legs, and their lingerie could have aroused a corpse.

  But are these photographs real? Alessandro Martinelli, warden of the house of detention of Varallo, was wondering. Maybe they’d just copied them out of fashion magazines, and then you went to the appointment and found yourself face-to-face with a skeletal junkie or, even worse, a transsexual. He lingered over one girl who seemed really promising. It listed her cell phone and three other photos of the woman, still with her face blocked out, in various poses. But she was never naked. Always fully dressed, maybe just a glimpse of breast, a bit of thigh. She was in the Top Escort category.

  Expensive stuff. Hundreds and hundreds of euros. And maybe she was worth every cent. He read her profile.

  Ciao, I’m not for just anyone, only for a discerning, refined customer. Time to spend and generous gifts should be among your virtues. I don’t reply to anonymous messages. At my place or in third-party offices. Seriously, though, only write me if you’re interested. My time is precious to me. But wait and see, you won’t be sorry that you called. The only risk is that you might fall in love with me, with my lips, with my breasts, with my theighs.