The agency certainly lived up to its name. The deep pile of the dark-brown carpeting absorbed their footsteps, drowning all sound, while hidden speakers spread melodious notes that made the place seem exotic and charming. In the one room with an open door, Alex and Lojacono glimpsed two female models dressed in evening gowns, stretched out on a sofa and floodlit; a photographer was moving around them, snapping photos in rapid succession. The receptionist apologized, as if they had just stumbled upon some unseemly spectacle.
When they reached the end of the hallway, she knocked gracefully at a dark wooden doorway, more massive than any of the others. Next to the door a nameplate commanded pride of place: “Director.”
They went in.
The office was illuminated by the warm light flooding from two floor lamps and a desk lamp that stood atop a massive mahogany desk. Behind the desk sat a skinny man in his early fifties dressed in a dark sweater and wearing eyeglasses. The man stood up and walked to meet the two policemen, hand extended in greeting.
“Buonasera, I’m Carlo Cava, I run this agency. I can imagine why you’re here. Make yourselves comfortable. Can I get you something?”
Alex and Lojacono thanked him politely but declined the offer and then took seats in the armchairs to which they’d been directed. The young woman who had accompanied them to this point slipped away after being dismissed by her employer with a wave of his hand.
Now they could talk.
“Signor Cava, I’m Lieutenant Lojacono from the Pizzofalcone police precinct; my partner here is Officer Di Nardo. May I ask why you assume you already know the reason for our visit?”
“Lieutenant, I do read the occasional newspaper. And even if I didn’t, plenty of my compatriots watch the television news and listen to the radio, all the more so given the fact that for the past two days this topic is all anyone in this city has talked about, with the possible exception of the extreme cold. I know what happened to Grazia Varricchio, I’m sad to say. And, of course, I know that she was one of our models, even though she had only started working with us very recently. I simply added two and two and got four.”
“Why didn’t you think of calling us to inform us that she had been working with you?” Alex asked.
“And what could I have told you, officer? That the young woman had taken a few pictures here, that she had been duly paid, and that not even the staff of this agency had had time to get to know her?”
Alex felt an instinctive surge of dislike for that individual and the way he spoke, in a barely audible voice, leaning comfortably against the high backrest of his chair, arms crossed over his narrow chest. The man struck her as being perfectly in control of the situation, and extremely careful not to let slip that control.
“Exactly, how long had Varricchio been working with you?” Lojacono resumed.
“Less than two months. I’d have to check to be sure, but I’m almost positive that she only did two photo shoots: one for swimsuits, which was rather successful, and another for wedding gowns, which has yet to be published. She also did a runway presentation, though not here, of course.”
Alex asked: “What do you mean by ‘not here’?”
“We only do photo shoots here. We prepare a set, we make use of our own photographers, or else freelancers we decide to hire for the project, and then we deliver the pictures to the client who commissioned the shoot. The runway presentations, on the other hand, are held at the fashion houses themselves, or else in hotels, cafés, or nightspots. Depending on what is needed. We receive a fee for each young woman we supply.”
“So the Varricchio girl modeled for runway presentations and photo shoots?” Lojacono asked.
“A reasonable question; after all, not all the girls are suited for both jobs. There are highly photogenic women who just don’t know how to do a runway presentation, and others who are magnificent on the runway but simply don’t lend themselves to being photographed.”
Alex was perplexed.
“Even though they’re all pretty? Why is there such a difference?”
“Signorina, beauty is much more complex than people generally think. To put it in professional terms, there is static beauty and dynamic beauty. I imagine you’ve had occasion to notice how, sometimes, a person that you consider beautiful looks very different in a photograph; while on the other hand you may have chanced to meet someone who was stunning in photographs and found them very disappointing. Young women who have the gift of appearing perfectly lovely both to the eye and the camera lens are rare, exceedingly rare. Varricchio was one of these rare creatures.”
There was something alluring about the way Cava spoke. That impression was only heightened by the comfortable warmth that enveloped the room and the scent of sandalwood that floated in the air. Alex had the sensation she had wandered into the lair of a dangerous animal.
“And how do you find these girls? Do you place classified ads?” Lojacono asked.
“Lieutenant, if we asked all the girls who consider themselves pretty or, even better, elegant, to come into our offices, we’d have to fight off a genuine state of siege. And most likely we wouldn’t find even one young woman suitable to our purposes out of the whole mob. So in answer to your question, heavens, no. We have our networks, people my colleagues and employees know or have chanced to meet, professional models who have worked with us before, actresses in local theaters, announcers from various local television networks. From time to time someone may happen to come in of their own accord and we decide to give her an audition, but that’s a rare exception.”
Lojacono took a look around. On a number of shelves lining the walls, for the most part stacked with numbered file boxes, there were also photographs on display with the same model dressed in radically varying fashions. The cut of the dresses and the changes in the woman’s face made it clear that the pictures dated back over a period of at least two decades.
Cava followed Lojacono’s gaze.
“That’s my wife, Lieutenant. The most elegant woman this agency has ever had the privilege to represent.”
That last phrase aroused Alex’s curiosity.
“Elegant. From the way I hear you use that adjective, I’d have to guess that you consider elegance to be superior to beauty. In fact, earlier you said: ‘Pretty or, even better, elegant.’ Why did you say that?”
The man turned in her direction, but he didn’t seem to be looking at her.
“Elegance, Signorina, is far less common than beauty. Most important of all, there’s no two ways about it. It’s something that no cosmetic surgeon, no fitness center or gymnasium, no beautician can give you: you have it or you don’t. But I realize that that’s not easy to understand.”
It was clear, not so much from the choice of words as from the tone of voice in which those words had been uttered, that there was a subtext to what the man was saying: Alex not only didn’t possess the gift of elegance, but she would almost certainly be incapable of even recognizing it if she saw it. The police officer didn’t feel even slightly diminished by that tacit judgement: she would have been far more uneasy if she’d sensed that the reptile sitting across from her found her attractive.
Lojacono tried to shrug off the sleepiness that Cava’s voice and the atmosphere of the place were inducing in his body.
“So did the Varricchio girl have it, this quality of elegance?”
Cava stared at his desktop for a moment, and then looked up at the lieutenant.
“Yes. She did.”
The answer prompted a brief silence. Then Alex stirred in her chair.
“Can you tell us how you found her? Is she one of those very few candidates who came in unprompted?”
“No. She was spotted by chance, she was asked if she wanted to do a test shoot, and she accepted.”
“And just who is it that spotted her?” asked Lojacono.
Cava turned his face to the window
on his left, through which he enjoyed a splendid panoramic view of the void that was the central thoroughfare of that block of offices. He sat that way for a few seconds. An instant before Lojacono could solicit an answer to his question, he finally said: “I did.”
XXVIII
Carlo Cava’s office was shrouded in silence. Something about the way he had said that it was he who had discovered the Varricchio girl had left the two policemen perplexed. Finally, Alex spoke.
“But where did you first see her? Did someone introduce her to you, did you meet in a public establishment?”
Cava continued gazing out the window, as if he expected to see someone arrive.
“I certainly don’t think we frequented the same establishments, no. I just spotted her on the street.”
“So, do you usually pick up your models on the street? Do you notice a woman out for a walk and just strike up a conversation?”
With some visible effort, the man tore his eyes away from the desolate panorama outside the window and focused them on Alex’s face in a chilly stare.
“I get it. A person like you, officer, would think that way. You churn through the slime of everyday life. You deal with the worst aspects of ordinary people. You’re not accustomed to seeking out grace and beauty. I’m very sorry for you.”
Lojacono was about to weigh in, but his partner beat him to it.
“Sure, sure, I get it. Beauty, grace, and all the other bullshit you care to throw into the mix. You saw a young woman who was pretty, or beautiful, out walking down the street. She had a nice ass and you stopped her. That’s what happened, truth be told.”
Lojacono practically jumped in his seat. Here we go again, he said to himself. Usually, Alex was much more relaxed and balanced in the way she interviewed people. This newly aggressive edge he was seeing in his partner was not only rather unprofessional, it was also harmful to their investigations. It might lead Cava to clam up. He wasn’t a suspect, and the information he was providing was invaluable. Lojacono did his best to get the conversation back on track.
“Where did it happen? And did you talk her into it?”
Cava continued to stare at Alex, his eyes inexpressive behind the lenses of his eyeglasses.
“Her ass. Staring at her ass. What an exquisite expression, officer. The same expression that her boyfriend used, according to what Grazia told me, when she told him about our meeting. Evidently, you and the boyfriend share a similar mentality.” He turned to speak to Lojacono. “It was on Via Filangieri, Lieutenant. A young woman like any other, with a pair of earbuds, listening to music, and wearing absolutely ordinary clothing. Usually my eyes simply slide over people of that sort as if they didn’t exist. Leaving aside how nice the ass may or may not be.”
“Then what attracted you to her? Her earbuds?” Alex replied sarcastically.
Lojacono shot her a glare. Cava went on as if he hadn’t even heard her.
“Because she stood out from all those girls like a princess among commoners. That was her unique quality. She looked like the only individual in color in a black-and-white movie. I was in my car and I pulled over and double-parked: I couldn’t begin to describe the mayhem that ensued. I persuaded her to come get an espresso with me and we talked. I explained the way we worked at the agency, she told me that at the moment she was neither studying nor working, and that if it was a clean, honest line of work she’d be glad to consider it. And she gave me her details, her phone number and email address.”
“That’s it? That’s all? Didn’t you do a photo test?” Alex insisted, looking at him stubbornly, as if trying to convince him to turn his head in her direction.
“Of course, we did a photo test. One of our photographers took a few shots of her so we could market her to our clients, and we asked her to walk in a pair of high heels. Sometimes they can’t even cover a yard in high heels, accustomed as they are to those miserable canvas shoes.”
“And how did it go?”
“She was perfect. It seemed as if she’d never done anything else, all her life long. She was born to be looked at by other people. I hadn’t seen anything like it, not in years and years. The photographer was practically weeping in gratitude.”
“What about the payment? Did you come to an agreement in advance?”
Cava shook his head..
“She refused to talk about money until I told her that one of our clients wanted her for the swimsuit campaign, which in fact starts in the fall. It was the first client we had shown her book. He chose her, straight as an arrow, out of at least thirty candidates.”
“And at that point?”
“I offered her a steady contract at substantial fees, one of those agreements that the other girls, even the ones who were established professionals, would gladly have chopped off a finger to get. She had tremendous potential, and as soon as the competition saw the photos from the first shoot, they’d be falling all over each other to try to steal her away from me. I figured the best thing would be to lock her up tight, as the phrase goes. Her reaction, though, wasn’t at all what I expected.”
Lojacono thought about the drafty apartment with the broken ceramic tile and the poorly functioning electric heater. The patched blanket that he’d seen on the young woman’s bed, next to her dead body.
“So what did she do? Ask for more? Demand a higher fee?”
“No, the opposite. She told me that she preferred not to take on long-term commitments. She was terrified at the thought of what her boyfriend would say, and she told me about him. She even told me that she intended, sooner or later, to get married and have children. Things that the other girls were always careful not to admit, since they know that I’d fire them if I heard that.”
Alex spoke up.
“But you didn’t fire her.”
“No, I didn’t fire her. And you know why I didn’t, officer? Because I knew I’d never find another one like her. That’s why. Moreover, she asked me for a pittance compared to what I’d have been willing to pay her. A sort of flat fee, for the swimsuit campaign and two runway presentations.”
“How much?” asked Lojacono.
“Thirty-seven hundred euros. Not four thousand, not thirty-five hundred. Thirty-seven hundred. Exact, to the penny. And then she told me that that was all she needed.”
It really was strange, they had to admit it.
Cava seemed to be painfully amused by the memory of the episode. Then he stood up, went over to a shelf, confidently pulled out one of the file boxes without the slightest hesitation, came back to the desk, and opened it, turning it around then so the two cops could see.
In the photographs was Grazia Varricchio.
Alex and Lojacono had seen her dead, a battered body sprawled on a rumpled bedcover, and they’d seen her in snapshots from the beach, smiling cheerfully into the lens of a camera held perhaps by her brother, or maybe by her boyfriend. They knew that she was pretty. But to look at her in the pictures that lay before them now was to look at a completely different person. A woman who emanated an extraordinary force of personality, capable of blotting out everything that surrounded her by her mere presence.
There were fifty or so shots, in black and white and in color. In them, Grazia appeared in a variety of outfits: a long formal dress, jeans and top, an ample country-style skirt and a straw hat. In five explosive portraits, she lay, half-naked, on an unmade bed, barely covered by the hems of the sheet. In some shots she was serious, in others sweet, on the verge of tears, feline, angry. Her deep dark eyes, her pouting mouth, her impertinent nose, the perfect oval of her face were all musical instruments being played in a duet of model and photographer. The light flowed around that lithe body with the discretion of a devoted handmaiden.
“Now you understand,” said Cava. “That young woman had the world in the palm of her hand. We wouldn’t have been able to hold on to her for long. My agency is the leader in southe
rn Italy, but Grazia had much greater potential than anything we could offer. In two years, no more, she’d be on the covers of the most important international fashion magazines. She’d be working on the sets of the world’s finest photographers, and then she’d be cast in movies. That’s why I almost burst out laughing when she asked me for thirty-seven hundred euros.”
Lojacono nodded.
“So you gave it to her.”
“Right away, and in cash. In exchange, I asked her for exclusive rights for a year, and she agreed. She said that, after all, she wasn’t planning to work any longer than a year.”
Alex couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from a photograph in which Grazia, lying on a bed, gazed into the lens with a languid, satisfied expression, as if she’d just finished having sex. She was wonderful.
“And you didn’t ask her why? Why she wanted to stop after doing just one shoot? It doesn’t make any sense, does it, Lojacono? Either you don’t do any, or else . . . ”
Cava looked out the window again. He seemed to be chasing after a memory. Then he turned back.
“Of course, I asked her. I was looking at an extraordinary opportunity, the kind that come once in a lifetime, and I’d found her, all by myself. Do you think I was about to let that opportunity slip through my fingers?”
Lojacono’s almond-shaped eyes had taken on their usual inscrutable expression.
“So what did the young woman say?”
“That if she did it again, someone would kill her.”
Out in the street, the terrible cold didn’t keep the cops from exchanging their initial impressions of the meeting they’d just finished.
Alex was grim.
“I don’t like this guy Cava. A woman tells you that she can’t take any more pictures or someone will kill her, and you don’t even ask who and why? I don’t believe this story, the idea that he didn’t know what to say.”
Lojacono was walking with his hands in his pockets and his head tucked low in the lapels of his overcoat.
Cold for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone Page 17