“Come on, Tolò . . . we need to get back to the courtyard.”
AT THAT TIME OF DAY, THE PRISON COURTYARD WAS DESERTED. The inmates were all in their cells, waiting for their scheduled time to be outside getting fresh air. The day was sunny, not even a cloud in the sky, and the wind was wafting in the scent of fields and flowers.
“Spring is here,” said Tolotta as he followed Rocco over to the spot where Cuntrera had been found dead. He looked over toward Wing 2, on the far side of the courtyard, where the brawl had broken out, then toward the door to Wing 3, right behind him. He looked up at the sky. He shot a glance over to the guard towers.
“How far would you say it is from here to the guard towers?”
“At least five hundred feet . . .”
Then Rocco looked down at his shadow on the ground. He checked the time.
“Take me to the entrance and give my regards to the warden. He’s been very kind.”
“What . . . are you leaving?”
“Yes. This place is too damned depressing . . . I’ll swing by my room, just the time to check one thing, and then I’ll see you at the front gate in fifteen minutes.”
Tolotta raised his right hand to the visor of his cap, in an imitation military salute.
“At ease, Tolotta, at ease . . .”
“SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT, MAO TSE-TUNG . . . AND TRY to stick to Italian, or else I’ll have to give you a smack so hard that I’ll shut those squinty eyes of yours once and for all.” Sebastiano was leaning over Guan Zhen as he sat behind the cash register of his little shop on Via Conte Verde.
“I already told you, Sebastiano . . . all I knew, I already told police. Three years ago, maybe more.”
Seba balled his hands into fists. Brizio intervened before the angry bear had a chance to wreak havoc on little Guan and the second-rate merchandise on display in his shop. “So would you mind telling us the same thing? Nice and slow.”
Guan looked up. Seba laid a hand on the counter. His hand was much bigger than the Chinese shopkeeper’s face. “All right then . . . three years ago, the armed robbery in Cinecittà, right? Two men. A Neapolitan who was called . . . Just a minute.”
“Don’t pretend you can’t remember, Mao Tse-tung!” And Seba’s fist slammed down on the glass next to the cash register.
“Yes, yes, now I remember. Pasquale Scifù . . .”
“That guy’s in the boneyard now. There was another guy. A big guy. The one who shot and killed the retiree. Who was that?”
Guan Zhen thought it over. “I don’t know exactly. People say . . .”
“Then you just tell me what people say,” said Brizio, keeping his cool.
“First people were saying this one. Then that one. Who can say which is the truth?”
For half an hour now they’d been asking that man the same question, and all he would do is smile back with his rotten buckteeth. And for the past half hour he’d always said the same things. Seba had already lost his patience just a minute in, while Brizio was starting to feel that by now he, too, was nearing his limit. But if he lost control, then he could kiss good-bye whatever information they might hope to obtain. His bearlike friend would reduce Guan to a bleeding heap of flesh and buckteeth. “Then you just tell me both names, Mao Tse-tung.”
“Anyway, my name is Guan. Guan Zhen.”
“Who the fuck cares what your name is,” said Brizio. “Tell us who you think did the shooting!”
The Chinese shopkeeper thought it over. “And in exchange?”
“You get to live,” Seba grunted.
“All right then, Guan, or whatever the hell your name is. You see my friend here? Someone killed his wife. And if you give us a hand, you can keep your little shop open and no one will come around bothering you. But if my friend doesn’t find out who it was, you and your little shop are going to disappear once and for all.”
“You Brizio threatening me?”
“Yes. I’d definitely say so.”
The Chinese shopkeeper smiled, shaking his head. “You know who is my friend?”
“I know. And I don’t give a fuck. Because, you understand, Sebastiano here doesn’t have a thing to lose. You do, though. You have the shop, a wife, and two kids. That’s a lot to lose, isn’t it?”
Guan seemed to be convinced. “All right then, the two names. First people were saying it was . . . him . . .” And he pointed his finger with the black-and-yellow one-inch nail at Sebastiano.
“Me?” asked Seba. “They say I pulled the robbery in Cinecittà? What the fuck are you talking about, Mao Tse-tung?”
“In fact, that’s what people were saying. And if they were saying your name, then the other name is fake, too, if you ask me.”
“You tell us that name, and we’re a step ahead.”
“If you don’t believe in one, then why believe in the other?”
Seba looked at Brizio. “I’m going to slaughter this guy!”
Brizio blocked his friend’s arm. “In fact, we don’t believe it. But just tell us the name.”
The Chinese shopkeeper shot a glance at the door. Then he lowered his head. He unfurled a sarcastic smile stocked with cavity-filled teeth. “Go fuck yourself!”
Brizio went to the front of the store and pulled down the metal roller blind. Meanwhile, Sebastiano grabbed Guan by the lapels of his jacket and hauled him up off his chair. He hit him hard with a head butt, and the nose of the Chinese shopkeeper made an ugly sound. A gush of blood immediately poured out of his nostrils. Not satisfied, Sebastiano hit him again. This time, Guan passed out. They left him lying on the floor. Then Sebastiano and Brizio readied the chair and the duct tape.
ROCCO THREW OPEN THE DOOR TO HIS LITTLE ROOM IN THE prison. He immediately turned on the television set, slipping the DVD into the slot in the player. All he needed now was a confirmation. There had to be a detail that he’d overlooked, simply because he hadn’t grasped what was happening. Now that things were finally clear, he’d watch with a different pair of eyes. Because now he knew: the killer was on that video. He pushed the PLAY button. Right at the beginning, when the brawl had first broken out and the first two guards, Marini and Abela, came bursting onto the scene from the left of the screen, directly out of Wing 2. He froze the frame. He stepped closer to the TV set. He narrowed his eyes. He extended his forefinger, as if to touch the object that had attracted his attention. “There it is!” he said. On the ground, at Abela’s and Marini’s feet, was a bunch of keys.
WHEN THE TRAFFIC LIGHT TURNED GREEN, ITALO SHIFTED into first gear and pulled out. “Let me see if I have this straight,” he said to the deputy chief. “You know who it was, but we aren’t going to arrest him?”
“That’s right . . .” Rocco pulled a pack of cigarettes off the dashboard of the police department vehicle. “Have you started up with these pathetic excuses for cigarettes again? Hadn’t you switched over to Camels?”
Italo said nothing. “So how are we going to proceed?”
“Before we proceed, we need to figure out who wanted this murder to happen. We’re talking about the mastermind, Italo. I still don’t know who that was. Even if I do have my suspicions.”
The people on the street were wearing lighter clothing now. Jackets and calf-length overcoats had given way to short windbreakers and green, red, yellow, and blue pants. Everyone had begun to bloom into colors like a meadow full of wildflowers. And though no one ever realized it, even sidewalks and meadows resembled each other closely.
Rocco was pleased. Because any time human beings rediscovered the fact that they were part of nature, he knew that there was still a glimmer of hope.
“You’re smiling,” Italo told him. “Usually when you solve a case, you’re sad and pissed off.”
“That’s true. But we’re still only halfway there.”
“Whoever it is, I would arrest them immediately and not waste any time!”
“I never would have thought it could turn so beautiful around here. Aside from the mountains, which still
turn my stomach, the meadows . . . the meadows are a shade of green that no one’s ever seen in Rome.”
Rocco had mentioned Rome. Flashing red light! Alarm bells! Italo felt a hollow in the pit of his stomach. From one moment to the next he could expect to hear Schiavone’s nostalgic litany begin to unfold, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to take it. Since September he’d been sitting through one or even two a day. First the sky of Rome, then the buildings of Rome, and the colors of Rome, and the women of Rome. An infinite list of wonders that the nation’s capital, according to the deputy chief, revealed only to those capable of glimpsing them.
“Have you ever eaten filetti di baccalà?” Rocco asked him without warning.
“No. What’s that?”
“You know what baccalà is, don’t you? Dry salted cod? In the old days, we only used to eat it in Rome at Christmas. My grandmother, for example, used to make it with fried artichokes. Which, as you ought to know, are Article 4 of the Roman constitution.”
Italo could already recite the first three articles by heart, as instructed by Rocco. Now he mentally added the fourth to the list. “We’re talking about the one written by you, right, Rocco?”
“Exactly. Article 5 reads as follows, in fact: ‘Never shake the breadcrumbs off your tablecloth onto the balcony, unless you’re hoping to breed pigeons as livestock.’ And Article 6? ‘Never go to the sushi place near Piazza Vittorio, because they’re Chinese and they have no idea how to make real sushi.’ To come back to the filetti di baccalà, now you can find them year-round, not just at Christmas. And you know the trick for making them the way God commands? It all depends on how you remove the salt from the salt cod. Nonna used milk to desalt her cod, not water. She’d soak it for almost three days!”
“Sure, but what do dry salt cod filets have to do with anything?”
“If you leave the fish soaking in the water for less than forty-eight hours, then the cod will be too salty and you can’t even eat it. You have to leave it soaking and be patient, until it’s nice and tender. Then you fry it. Understood, Italo?”
No. Italo didn’t understand at all. “Since when are you a cook?”
“Since never. In fact, cooking is another thing I consider a tremendous pain in the ass. And if you stop to think about it, in the ranking of pains in the ass, the chart you hung up outside my office door, you need to add recipes and chefs.” And he lit one of Italo’s Chesterfields.
“All right. At what level?”
“Eighth degree, solid. Chefs . . . in the old days, we just called them cooks. Only, if they let us call them cooks, they won’t be able to charge us two hundred euros for dinner anymore.”
“Speaking of restaurants,” said Italo, honking at a car that seemed to have fallen asleep in the middle of the road, “what do you think about what happened to Antonio?”
“His little encounter with the Carabinieri corps? I was fully expecting it. Didn’t he get a chance to take any photos?”
“Yep. He printed them out and left them in your desk drawer.”
“Not the one that’s locked!” Rocco exclaimed, nervous at the thought of his weed.
“No, because that drawer, in fact, is locked, Rocco. How do you think Antonio could have gotten into it?”
“How do I know? Are you aware of just how many policemen behave like thieves, some even better than thieves?”
Italo looked at him. “I know one very well.”
Rocco tapped the ash off his cigarette without a word.
“In any case, all that Scipioni said was that, Cremonesi aside, there were two men and a woman, apparently very beautiful. But from the way she was dressed and made up, Antonio says that she was more of an escort than anything else.”
Rocco cracked his window slightly to let the smoke out.
“Speaking of escorts, you want to know something? In Nus I spotted Pietro Berguet leaving the Hotel Pavone,” said Italo.
“What’s that?”
“Oh, well, you’re Roman, you can’t be expected to know. It’s a hotel, or really it’s just a love nest. He had a girl with him . . . He went all the way to Nus to avoid being noticed. But if you ask me, everybody in town already knows.”
“So what’s become of the proverbial Aostan discretion?”
“There never was such a thing. You’re convinced that around here everyone’s silent, discreet, and peace-abiding. You couldn’t be any more mistaken, Rocco. In Aosta, like everywhere else, people don’t generally mind their own business. Do I really need to remind you how Nora found out that you were cheating on her with Anna? Wasn’t it the baker?”
“True . . . and as far as that goes, I can tell you something, too. When Pietro Berguet’s wife came to police headquarters the other day, if you ask me, she already knew. And now I’m even going to have to go talk to the daughter . . . Why did she have to ask for me?”
“Because you saved her life, Rocco.”
“Maybe so . . . whatever happened with the apartment on Via Croix de Ville?”
“I went to see it. With Lupa, just as you told me. Well. I went in. Lupa barked.”
“But did Lupa go into the apartment?”
“Certainly. She went in, she sniffed around, and then, all of a sudden . . . plop! She took a shit right in the middle of the living room!”
“No!”
“I swear it!”
“Well, I hope you took the apartment.”
“Of course, I did. Shouldn’t I have?”
Rocco smiled. He slapped the officer on the knee. “That’s great news! She took a shit in the living room! An auspicious beginning!”
Italo went around the traffic circle, and finally the police headquarters building appeared in all its dreariness. A concrete box, square and graceless, enough to wipe the smile off your face even on a lovely spring day like that.
“Ah! I get it!” Pierron suddenly shouted, so loud that Rocco dropped his cigarette.
“What the fuck are you shouting about, you moron?”
“That thing about the dry salted cod! You’ve caught the killer, and now you’re going to let him soak until he’s just right . . . is that it?”
“Well, you get there late, but eventually, you get there.”
“NOW THEN, DOTTOR SCHIAVONE.” COSTA TOOK OFF HIS titanium-frame eyeglasses and set them down on his desk. “I’m not going to conceal the fact that this silence of yours has been keeping me on pins and needles. I’m not going to bore you with the story of how hard I’ve been working to avoid the news vendors in this city, or go on at length about the gold-medal-worthy slaloms that I have to undertake on a daily basis, now that you’ve stopped bringing me reports and results. But for now, I’m successfully holding them at bay. I hope that you have something for me.”
“Certainly, Dottore. The only thing is that I have to ask you to wait before calling a press conference. For now, we’re going to keep an eye on the man who committed the murder in prison, keep him warm. Until I finally identify the mastermind.”
Costa smiled. “All right. I’m listening!” he said, in excitement, as he rubbed his hands.
“You don’t need to listen to me. You need to watch this video.” Rocco got up from his chair and slid the DVD into the slot on the police chief’s computer. A few taps of the mouse and the DVD was ready for viewing. “What I’m showing you, Dottore, is footage from the closed-circuit security camera of the prison courtyard. Watch carefully.”
To the left of the computer screen, the brawl broke out, with Oluwafeme, Agostino, and Erik against Omar. Here were Tarek and Aziz, who came running. The penitentiary guards Abela and Marini trying to put down the brawl. The bunch of keys on the ground. More prisoners; then Tolotta, the enormous guard, plunged into the out-of-control fray, grabbed the keys, got a good grip on them, and hit the Nigerian in the nape of the neck.
Rocco halted the video. “Did you notice anything?”
“No,” said Costa. “What should I have seen? There’s a fight, people hitting each other, guards sep
arating them, and other guards taking them into custody.”
“In fact, I had to watch and rewatch the video multiple times. But I finally understood. Do you see, Tolotta, this guy, the size of a bear, as he comes running in?”
“Yes . . .”
“Good. He’s the guard from Wing 3. So you see—he shows up, he takes a few punches, then he bends over and picks up the bunch of keys.”
“He must have dropped it!”
“In fact, that’s what he told me. You see? He uses the keys to hit the Nigerian, then he pockets them. That’s his bunch of keys! Why is it lying on the ground before he gets there?”
With interest in his eyes, Costa looked up at Schiavone as he sat back down at the desk. “You need to know that those keys open the doors in Wing 3. And especially one particular door, a small metal door that is almost never used. It leads to a corridor, a passageway not even a yard wide that takes you from Wing 3 over to the door to Wing 2. It’s a passageway for the guards to go from one side of the courtyard to the other, without having to go through it.”
“Let me go back to the earlier question: Why were Tolotta’s keys there on the ground before he arrived?”
“Because he didn’t have them, someone else did. Someone who kills Cuntrera outside the gate to Wing 3, hurries down the passageway that runs around the courtyard, and then emerges outside Wing 2, right next to the brawl.”
“Christ . . .” said Costa, starting at the screen. “So the brawl was nothing but a diversion . . .”
“That’s right. Organized by the very same guard. As soon as Agostino Lumi, Oluwafeme, and Erik get busy, he acts right in time with the brawl. He kills Cuntrera and emerges on the other side, without anyone noticing.”
Spring Cleaning Page 20
