Now you’re dead and I don’t know how to live. Ain’t that grand.
He grabbed the bottle. There was enough left to send him back into a dreamless sleep. This evening, or this morning, it all amounted to the same thing, I don’t want a black whore. I don’t want anyone near me. Even if a black whore is warm, at least.
And she’s cheap, too, when all is said and done. But no cheaper than the bottle that you use to die a little bit.
To die a little more.
XV
Once Alex and Lojacono had finished their detailed account of what they had seen and heard on Vico Secondo Egiziaca, and had answered their colleagues’ questions, a sort of grim blanket descended over the squad room. Now everyone had the corpses of those two kids in their mind’s eye: years and years in regular contact with murder scenes did nothing to make the image any less heartbreaking.
Palma kept nodding his head, as if following a flow of thoughts known only to him.
“All right then, the weapon that was used to kill the young man couldn’t be found, but it’s certainly a heavy object. And the young woman, in all likelihood, was suffocated or strangled. The best evidence suggests a man, and a reasonably powerful one, too.”
Romano shook his head.
“Not trying to contradict here, but I’ve seen women capable of knocking a horse to its knees with a single punch. What’s more, the young man was taken by surprise, from what we were able to determine; even a young girl could have smashed his skull in with a hammer. As for the sister, well, maybe she was attacked from behind. I don’t think that these elements can point to a solid conclusion concerning the murderer’s strength.”
Aragona chewed thoughtfully on the arms of his eyeglasses.
“I’m curious about the state in which the young woman’s bedroom was left. Alex said that Martone is of the view that, if there had been a struggle, then the items on the side table by the bed would have been knocked to the floor, which therefore means that the murderer—male or female as the case may be—would have gone to the bother of putting them back where they’d been. But that strikes me as highly unlikely: first a murderer kills two kids, and then tidies up? Why should he?”
Pisanelli picked up a sheet of paper.
“All right, now it’s our turn to add some information to the story. After Alex called in, we both got busy. Ottavia learned some very interesting things, and in a moment she’ll tell you more about those. On the other hand, I talked to a friend who runs the most powerful real estate agency in the quarter. Now, the apartment that the Varricchios occupied belongs to the father of Renato Forgione, who is Biagio’s colleague and who found the bodies. Everyone with me?”
Lojacono nodded.
“That’s what the young man told us.”
Pisanelli continued scanning the notes that he held in one hand.
“And in fact, that’s the way things stand. Renato’s father, Professor Antimo Forgione, is a famous biotechnologist who teaches at the university: a self-made man, from a poor family, who grew up in a small town in the provinces. Now he’s a respected luminary, and he delivers lectures around the world. He’s a specialist in the metabolism of the very elderly, and he’s loaded with money.”
Aragona couldn’t contain himself.
“Why don’t you ask for his phone number, Chief, because that sounds like the doctor for you.”
Pisanelli was the only one to chuckle at the line.
“Maybe you have a point, he might be able to help me. But there’s no doctor who can do a thing for the disease you’re suffering from. Stupidity is incurable. In any case, Dr. Forgione owns a number of apartments in the district and even in the same building, including the one where the victims’ neighbors live, as you already know.”
Alex confirmed the detail.
“They seemed to be friends of young Forgione. Or at least, on familiar terms.”
Pisanelli read aloud: “Vincenzo Amoruso, age twenty-four, from Foggia, and Pasquale Mandurino, same age, from Metaponto. Both their names are on the lease as tenants: it’s all properly registered, nothing under the table. The professor does things by the book. The rental units, my friend informed me after checking it on the land registry database, were legally subdivided, properly permitted and approved by the city office in charge.”
Palma asked Lojacono: “So are these two young men a couple or just roommates?”
“They seemed pretty tight.”
Alex interrupted, confidently: “They’re a couple. And Vinnie, at least, is pretty jealous of his partner, I got that from a couple of glances and one sarcastic reply.”
Lojacono was uncomfortable.
“We can’t say that for certain. We got the impression that—”
Aragona cocked an eyebrow.
“And who was this faggoty jealousy directed at? The owner of the apartment, or the dead man?”
Alex glared at him.
“Neither one nor the other. Vinnie, who’s the more effeminate of the two, was jealous of the fact that Paco know about the young woman’s movements. Jealousy, as you seem not to know, comes out of love, and you can feel it toward anyone.”
Ottavia stepped in to put an end to the quarrel before it could degenerate any further.
“The most significant fact, in any case, has to do with the two kids’ father, Cosimo Varricchio, age fifty-five. But the whole story of that family is interesting.”
“Four hours on the computer and the phone: Giorgio and Ottavia did an excellent job of reconstructing everything outside of the scene of the murder,” said Palma, with a hint of pride.
“Thank you,” the deputy chief replied. “Let’s hope it comes in useful. In any case, the Varricchio family is from Roccapriora, in the province of Crotone, inland. A town with a population of three thousand, and most of the inhabitants are farmers. Seventeen years ago, on a Saturday night, Cosimo goes to the bar in the town piazza to waste some time, while his wife, Annunziata, known to her friends as Tatina, remains at home with Biagio, aged eight, and Grazia, who was three. In the bar, an argument gets started and then degenerates, over some trivial matter. Everyone was drunk, and Varricchio starts trading punches with an older fellow, a field hand just like him. He knocks him to the floor and turns to leave, but the other guy, according to the testimony of more than one witness, insults his wife: apparently Tatina was the prettiest girl in town and all the men were mooning after her.”
Romano was interested now.
“Huh? Why would you insult a girl, just because she’s pretty?”
“You’ve got me there. But the fact remains that Varricchio turns around, goes back, breaks the leg off a chair, and starts pounding the guy on the floor with it until he kills him.”
It was if someone had dropped a bomb. Aragona was taken aback: “And nobody tried to stop him? In a bar in the main piazza of a small town in Calabria? You said that there were witnesses.”
Ottavia narrowed her eyes: “Thirty-one people, to be exact. The carabinieri were very meticulous, when they got there. But they got there too late. No one had had the nerve to intervene. It seems that Varricchio had flown into a blind rage.”
Palma hugged his arms to his chest.
“All right, so he served sixteen years and seven months in prison. If he’d had a better defense lawyer, he would have been given a shorter sentence: he was drunk, he’d been actively provoked, and he had no weapons on his person, but that’s how it went. He’s been out for less than a year, right, Ottavia?”
“That’s right. In the meantime, his wife, the beautiful Tatina, even though she had been courted and pursued by many different men, remained at home, a good little homemaker, with her two children, doing her best to raise them right. She did all the jobs she could think of: ironing laundry in people’s homes, cleaning house, anything as long as it was honest work. Then she fell ill and died, six years ago, stil
l a very young woman. The report from the carabinieri makes it very clear: no extramarital relations, a tireless worker, much loved. The whole town attended her funeral.”
Lojacono had taken on the meditative demeanor that made him look even more Asian: hands with both palms planted on the surface of the desk, slanted eyes narrowed to two slits that barely made it possible to glimpse his pupils. He asked: “What about the kids?
“With her savings, the woman had taken out a small life insurance policy, naming her children as beneficiaries, which took care of basic necessities and allowed Biagio to finish high school. Even though everyone insisted and advised her, Tatina had refused to let him quit school: the boy was a good student, a first-class student. He graduated with excellent grades and came here to study at the university, doing odd jobs to pay his way. Giorgio learned that last detail from his friends.”
Pisanelli threw both arms wide, almost as if excusing himself for his excessively vast network of contacts.
“The students from out of town, both because they need the work and maybe because they’re suited to it, are the best source of manpower for cafés and businesses in the area. I’ve asked around, and I found the proprietor of a restaurant where he worked. He had only the highest words of praise, he said that Biagio was tireless.”
Ottavia went on.
“At the university he also got to know Renato Forgione, from what I hear in the department’s administrative office, a very good student, with an excellent academic record. They made friends and graduated together. Apparently, Forgione gave Biagio a big hand up, financially speaking: he didn’t ask him to pay rent, with his father’s approval, of course, and now and then he even paid off his debts.”
Alex nodded her head: “He must have been very fond of him, that much was clear. Forgione was devastated.”
Ottavia sighed.
“They were both first-rate students, and apparently after they graduated all the schools came courting them, and so did a number of corporations. But they both decided to stay at the university and they started working with Renato’s father. From the information we’ve been able to gather so far, there’s nothing fishy about the young man’s life. He was all study and research, not especially sociable or open, a couple of female friends in the past, and always in the university context.”
“What about the sister?” asked Romano.
“That’s the point. The whole time he was at the university, Biagio sent home money to help defray his sister’s expenses. She had gone to live with an uncle and aunt. Apparently, she was the spitting image of her mother as a young woman, but just, let’s say, more outgoing. All the boys and young men in the town, and even the neighboring towns, had been buzzing around her since she turned sixteen.”
“So, you’re saying she was a bit of a slut?” Aragona insinuated, with a wink.
Alex elbowed him hard in the ribs. Ottavia glared at him.
“No, not the way you’re talking about. She was pretty, she was sunny, she was intelligent. After graduating from high school, though, she decided not to continue her studies, even though her aunt and uncle had offered to help. She preferred to remain in her hometown, or at least that’s what the carabiniere I spoke to told me. A really kind and helpful gentleman.”
Aragona, massaging the rib that had taken the blow from Alex’s elbow, muttered: “If I could go back in time, I’d join the carabinieri, instead of the police. Then I’d find a town like that one, where the girls are beautiful and the only job is to meddle in other people’s business.”
Ottavia made a dismissive gesture.
“He’s a senior, veteran carabiniere, a lance corporal who’s been there forever. It’s a small town, everyone knows everyone else. In any case, Grazia had a motive to stay put.”
Alex’s curiosity was aroused.
“What motive was that?”
“Love. She stayed in Roccapriora as long as the boy she had fallen in love with stayed there.”
“Which means till when?” asked Palma.
Ottavia consulted the notes that she had taken on the computer: “I have here that she left last April.”
“So her father had already been released from prison.”
“Yes, he’s been out a few months now. According to the lance corporal I spoke to, Cosimo immediately went back to the family home, a short distance outside of town, which had been sitting empty since Biagio left to attend university and Grazia went to live with her uncle and aunt. Then he demanded that his daughter come back to live with him. An argument ensued, because she didn’t want to, and it even seems, though there was no solid confirmation, that Varricchio beat up his brother-in-law, his late wife’s brother, because he’d taken up for the young woman. In any case, the brother-in-law chose not to press charges.”
Romano asked: “Do we know who the boyfriend is?”
“Domenico Foti, age twenty-two. In town, everyone knows him as Nick Guitar; on his social network profile, he calls himself Nick Trash.”
XVI
You’re a piece of shit. You’re a tremendous piece of shit.
Because you have the money to be in here in the first place, sitting at this table with your young woman, ordering anything you please and even complaining at having to wait for a couple of minutes, you just think you’re so much better than I am.
But you’re a piece of shit. No more and no less.
Not just you, don’t get me wrong: everyone in this place is a piece of shit.
For that matter, it’s a place designed to appeal to the smug young sons and daughters of the wealthy neighborhoods of town, the kind of place that’s fashionable for two or three years, no more, after which nobody goes there anymore. At that point, the proprietors rest on their laurels, the fading glow of past glory, hoping for a return to a popularity that’s never going to come back, and then they finally shutter the place. For people like us, for people who don’t have a rich Papà who cheats on Mamma and then salves his conscience for the fact by spreading money around to everyone in the family—for someone like us who just works in the place—it’s fundamental to understand when the time has come to move on.
Things are fine here for now. No doubt, I have to put up with some humiliations, people like you, my dear piece of shit, as you complain about slow service and leave me a one-euro tip. I hate you and everyone like you, but the ones I hate most are the ones who leave a one-euro tip. Better to leave no tip at all than a one-euro tip. That at least seems honest: I didn’t like having to wait, so I’m not giving you anything at all. But a one-euro tip is an insult. Sometimes, it’s an unforgivable insult.
I still can’t seem to let these things slide off my back. And maybe I never will. But that’s okay. It’s the anger that feeds my music. It’s with that anger that I manage to survive and make sure my dream survives, too.
It’s easy for you, you piece of shit. What problems do you have in life? What problems have you ever had? It’s not like you were born in some tiny shithole town in the middle of nowhere, some burg that’s not even mentioned on maps, stuck in the middle of the most overlooked and downtrodden region of all of Europe. They throw you a lavish birthday party every year, and your Papà buys you a new car, and your Mamma buys you the latest pair of shoes, the finest brand. And if you’re ever lucky enough that they get divorced, you’ll just get twice the swag.
Instead I have to stand here and serve you, and listen while you lecture me, with that shrill little faggoty voice of yours, just so I can nourish a dream that might never come true.
I can take my little revenges, though. For instance, I can spit in the beer you ordered from me. For instance, by exchanging hot glances with the slut you brought in here, who stares at my junk and my pectorals every time I pass by your table.
And for that matter, that’s only natural, seeing that you’re a homely piece of shit, no matter how much money you may have. It’s only natural
that she should look at a man who could finally give her a proper appreciation of the meaning of the verb “to fuck.”
I could wait until she gets up and tells you, excuse me, I’m going to the restroom, and then follow her downstairs and take her into the supply closet and give her five minutes of paradise and a point of comparison. In fact, that’s exactly what I used to do, at the beginning, until I realized I was running too big of a risk. There aren’t many places in this town where they give you a steady salary, on top of the tips.
There are times, you piece of shit, when I wonder how long this is all going to have to continue. How many sandwiches, how many beers am I going to have to serve. How many floors am I going to have to mop, at night, while you sleep peacefully in your bed and your slut goes around cheating on you with guys like me.
Because that’s the way women are, you piece of shit. They swear their undying fidelity, they tell you how much they love you. They even follow you when you leave town and move away: it’s just to be close to you, they tell you, but it’s actually so they can keep an eye on you and then have their own fun. If we were friends, you piece of shit, and I consider myself lucky that we never will be, I’d tell you to steer clear of love in general, because love will just drag you down with it. I even wrote that in my last song, another song that, along with the other hundred or so that I’ve written, might never have the honor of gracing a stage in an auditorium.
Love drags you down.
She used to gaze at me as if I were God Almighty, back in the village. All the guys swooned over her, but she only had eyes for me. I could have told her to walk naked down the main street of town and she’d have done it, but even so, she would still have belonged to me, and me alone. Whereas you, you piece of shit, you can’t even begin to imagine how pretty she was. Not one of these little sluts—these little whores in your oh-so-respectable city, made up and dressed to the nines and accessorized to the tune of thousands and thousands of euros—can even hope to come close. Even the cheapest glad rags, if she wore them, looked like a custom-made evening gown, stitched by some world-renowned designer.
Cold for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone Page 9