by Jan Weiss
Brothels had operated in Naples for centuries. Only once, during the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, had they been closed down by the authorities. The women had been tested for the disease. Those in good health had been issued condoms and lectured, regular inspections instituted. Underage females had been sent home. Since then, the vice arm of the Carabinieri had grown preoccupied with white slavery and other Camorra business and paid little attention to the sex trade. Customers were likewise lax, paying a bit more to forgo condoms and sometimes for rough coupling. Johns and prostitutes were occasionally found floating in the bay. “You here for the pickpocket?” the bartender asked. The lone customer at the bar was snoring. “Sounds like a woodpecker, don’t he? I keep warning him to keep his hands in his pockets, but—” The bartender gestured widely. “Hey,” he called to the man. “Dummy.”
“Don’t bother,” Natalia said. “He’s not our concern today.” She pointed upward. “We’d like to take a look upstairs. Please step out from behind the bar.”
Cheeks puffed like a blowfish, he came out from the well. Natalia hoped he hadn’t already set off any warning alarm and wanted him away from it. Corporal Giulio had followed them in. Pino pointed the bartender to the nearest table.
“Sit. Corporal, watch him.”
Natalia and Pino proceeded into the kitchen. Boxes of liquor were stacked all around. It was cramped, illuminated only by a fluorescent strip nailed to the wall. A folding table doubled as a counter next to the stove, at which a man in torn jeans and white undershirt stirred a pot of stew meat, his cigarette ash poised to fall in at any moment.
“Giorno,” Pino said. The man said nothing.
The door leading upstairs was painted red. Natalia opened it and Pino led the way up. Air freshener saturated the passage, not quite masking the odor of mold. The stairs were carpeted, the walls overlaid with gold brocade paper, peeling and smoke-stained. At the top, a foyer led to a large, well-appointed bar with black leather booths along one wall. At the end of the bar sat the madam, a Nigerian by the look of her. She was doing her books, writing up orders to restock the bar. If she was surprised by the appearance of carabinieri in the place, she didn’t show it.
“You early,” she said.
“We’re looking for a young man—blind.”
On the wall by the corridor was a photo-array of women in various poses, and their room numbers and nationalities: Ukrainian, Albanian, Russian, Brazilian, Nigerian.
Natalia and Pino proceeded down the hallway. Natalia eased open the first door. Inside, two girls in Mickey Mouse pajama bottoms and T-shirts slept on a king-size bed. In the mess atop the dressing table were a set of handcuffs and lace thongs. The girls woke. The ash blonde sat up. The dark one too. She was skinnier and younger, her eyebrows shaved. A diamond piercing glittered in her nose.
“How old are you girls?” Pino asked. He pulled open a drawer in the vanity table.
“Fuck you,” the blonde said.
“Look,” Natalia said, “if you ever want help getting out of this.…” She placed two cards on the bed. “We can arrange a place for you in a halfway house.”
“And pay our bills?” the blonde said. “Cook our food? Tuck us in?”
The second room was empty of girls or customers. A mirrored ceiling reflected back the satin quilt on the double bed. A basket of masks sat on the floor next to it.
The third door was a bathroom. They heard male voices behind the fourth door. Natalia pushed it open with her drawn weapon. Benito Gambini sat on the bed, Father Pacelli in a chair next to him wearing his clerical collar and a purple ceremonial stole, bible open, their heads bowed. Benito stirred. “Who is it?”
“Don’t worry, my son,” Pacelli said, reaching out for him. “It’s the Carabinieri.”
“Benito Gambini,” Pino said, “we are placing you under arrest on suspicion of murder.”
“Please. Benito Gambini is an innocent man.”
How does he know that? Natalia wondered. And why was he protecting Benito so fiercely? Were he and Benito lovers? An hour or two of passion stolen from their grim lives? The distance from devoted acolyte to fervent lover was no more a distance than from chin to mouth. Or was she getting carried away? The priest seemed so certain about Benito’s innocence. How could he be?
“I’ve sinned,” Benito said, “but I’ve not killed.”
Pino ordered Benito to stand and handcuffed him in front. Natalia didn’t object to the breach of regulations.
“What about him?” Pino said, meaning Pacelli.
“Would you accompany us, Father?” Natalia asked. “We have some questions for you too.”
“Of course,” Pacelli said, and he preceded them out into the corridor and down into the bar.
Outside, Natalia directed Corporal Giulio and the backup unit to transport Pacelli, while she and Pino took Benito. Back at the station, Pacelli and Benito Gambini were placed in separate interview rooms and left to stew. Word spread quickly of the arrest and the priest’s detention. The observation rooms filled with a steady stream of carabinieri wanting to see the blind killer-monk and the cleric nabbed in a brothel in his priestly uniform.
Cervino volunteered to wear the monk down for Natalia and Pino, to be the unfamiliar face, the unsympathetic stranger pressing and probing. Natalia accepted, and Cervino had the young man tearing up and shaking in minutes, mostly by invoking his victim. She and Pino stepped next door to observe Pacelli. No one else was there watching the priest through the backside of the mirror. Pacelli, eyes closed, was meditating.
“Should we question the Jesuit together?” Pino asked.
“No. One-on-one. Let me go first.”
Natalia slipped into the room. She didn’t bother with the tape recorder so she wouldn’t have to officially announce that the questioning had begun and possibly inhibit him.
“Sorry for the interruption.”
“You have your job to do.”
“Some questions.”
“Please.”
“How did you know Benito was at the brothel?”
“I heard it from the ladies at the train station. Ida, actually. So I went to the brothel a few days ago to see what help I might render. I found him, of course, and tried to comfort him. Benito was still distraught at Teresa’s death, at being accused, hunted. I calmed him and assured him that no one would think him guilty of hurting her.”
“You are that convinced of his innocence?”
“Yes.”
“You went to see him again today.”
“He asked me to come every day, and I did. Until you found us.”
“Admirable loyalty.”
Pacelli shifted in his chair. “I am his priest.”
“That’s all?”
“What are you implying?”
Natalia waited, sensing something she was uncertain of. “What will you do with Benito?” Father Pacelli asked finally.
“Charge him formally. Try him. Most likely imprison him.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Pacelli said. “He’s innocent.”
“You keep saying that with such conviction. Forgive me, Monsignor, but how the hell can you say that so confidently?”
“He’s suffered enough. Castigated for being Gambini’s nephew. Losing his sight.”
“Nonetheless.… The evidence may be circumstantial, but there’s a goodly amount of it.”
“Benito is simple. A country boy. The girl’s death, the tableaux—its reference to deep history, the pagan history, if you will—well beyond his abilities. The killer is not some naïf, as I’m sure you’ve figured. The use of the ex-voto, for instance.”
Natalia sat up. The ex-voto was not public information. Nor were the other details of the tableaux. Natalia had scooped up the small silver heart before even Father Cirillo had noticed it.
“How did you know about the ex-voto?”
“I can’t remember—probably Gina Falcone.”
“No. She was out of there before she could identify anything bu
t the dead girl.”
“Sinners burning in hell,” Father Pacelli muttered.
“What?”
“So dramatic, the tiny figures and the flames.”
“The street shrine outside San Severo,” Natalia said. “You have the key to San Severo, don’t you, Monsignor? It was you Lattanza saw with Teresa Steiner. For once he was telling the truth. You murdered Teresa Steiner, and you were willing to let an innocent man stand in for your punishment.”
“I have tried to convince you of Benito’s innocence all along. You wouldn’t believe me.” Pacelli raised his head. “Sins of the flesh,” he said quietly. “For fifty years I did not give in to temptation. And then I did.”
Natalia pulled the control panel closer and pressed the button to begin recording. She cited the date and time, identified herself for the tape, and further noted Father Pacelli’s presence.
Pacelli held up a hand in surrender. “I was intimate with the girl, Teresa Steiner. We transgressed in my room, once in the chapel at her insistence. She came to me originally for confession. But it was a false confession. She offered herself instead. Ironic, isn’t it? The Jesuits were the first to hear confessions of women. They were to take place in churches, well-lighted spaces. Even so, Father Francis Xavier heard the confession of a female in 1537, and soon after she was found to be pregnant.
“For Teresa it was a thrill. The thrill of the illicit. For me it was something different. We went to Rome together, to the Jesuit library. I fell in love. I told her I would leave the monastery, the Church, to marry her. She was amused at first, pleased, I think, with her conquest. But it was all a game for her. Still, I didn’t give up.” He turned away for a moment, then continued.
“After Rome she refused me. Said Gambini wouldn’t like it. She taunted me with the pearls he’d given her. Can you understand?—to have paradise and then have it taken away?”
“What happened the night she died?”
“I was in the communal kitchen when she turned up. She’d come to see Benito about something, or so she claimed, though she knew he would have retired already, following the monks’ hours. I was the only one who might be awake. I pleaded with her to reconsider. She cursed me. She stormed out. I … followed her into the street. I still had the kitchen knife in my hand.”
“You stabbed her.”
“I lost control. May God forgive me.”
“What happened then?”
“She screamed once. The blood poured out. A fountain of red. I like to believe she lost consciousness. I held her. ‘At the hour of our death,’ I whispered. She died in my arms.”
They sat for a long moment. Someone knocked on the mirror. Not Pino. He’d never do that. She ignored the signal.
“You carried her back inside,” she said.
“Yes. Yes, I knew about the tunnel to the crypt. A gardener had told me. I carried her down to the ossuarium and recited the last rites over her body.” He looked straight into Natalia’s eyes. “We were lovers, Teresa and I,” he said, almost proudly. “Benito hurt no one. I am the guilty one.”
* * *
16
* * *
Army units accompanied Bianca Strozzi’s trucks as they removed the trash from the city’s streets and plazas, from the sides of the highways leading out of town, and hauled the fetid refuse away. Far away. Hamburg, Sicily, China, wherever. Natalia never wanted to see another garbage bag in her life and volunteered this information to Pino as they cruised along the waterfront, backing up the soldiers following Strozzi’s rolling armada. The garbage piles were shrinking away, the tide of garbage was going out.
Natalia leaned against the headrest and closed her eyes. Yesterday the phone had rung off the hook following their arrest of Teresa Steiner’s murderer. The mayor had called, the prime minister’s office. There was talk of a commendation. She and Pino had retreated to her bed for the night, hiding out from the world. They feasted on cold pasta and a chocolate cake from Dapolito’s Bakery. They indulged themselves with food and love and slept peacefully, phone disconnected. The instant it was reconnected in the morning, it went off again and didn’t stop. So she was happy to have escaped from it to her duty hours and the day’s mindless chore of shadowing the Army guarding Strozzi’s drivers and equipment.
The morning’s paper lay discarded on the back seat, its front-page headline screaming KILLER PRIEST CRACKS UNDER INTERROGATION. Somehow Luca had managed shots of them leaving the brothel, Father Pacelli in black suit and collar, Benito Gambini in cuffs, but by midmorning the monk had been dropped from the later editions that plastered the news kiosks along their patrol route.
Life was going on semi-normally. They passed a trattoria where waiters were setting up tables. Crisp white cloths, napkins and silverware. Natalia, hungry, imagined a freshly grilled branzino, her favorite fish, glistening with olive oil.
“What is going on over there?” Pino asked.
A truck was parked across the road, backing the traffic up. Horns blared. Drivers got out to see what was happening. Pinto too. Natalia pushed her door open and stepped out.
The truck’s cab door was open. No driver in sight. “There,” Pino said, pointing to the driver slumped against a light post across the street. They were walking toward him when the truck exploded, strewing garbage everywhere: paper, peels, cans, vegetables, coffee grinds, the bodies of rats foraging seconds earlier. Windows imploded and shattered in the building behind them. More blasts followed, echoing across the city.
“Where was the Army escort?” the colonel demanded.
“Stopped for a break,” Natalia answered.
“Break. I’d like to break.…” Donati tapped his desk blotter nervously. “Meanwhile, reports are coming in of addicts overdosing all over town, nodding off in public toilets and abandoned buildings and not waking up, passing out at their desks, at lunch, in the middle of treating patients. So far, there are nine of them. Each one dead.”
“Testers?”
“No. These weren’t coke whores and junkies test-driving the first shipments to see if they were properly cut and wouldn’t kill you. These are mostly middle-class consumers who cashed in. Francesca ran a quick analysis of their heroin. It’s been cut with the usual—benzocaine—but laced with strychnine. All the heroin is from Gambini distributors. All poisoned.”
Natalia pushed back her hair. “Payback for the truck bombings. We should get a warning out to addicts.”
“Dr. Francesca’s called a press conference for one o’clock. What I want you to do is get word out on the streets immediately. And I want Gambini to withdraw his … product.” Donati rapped the desktop. “Be fast.”
They needed to split up to speed things up. Pino went off to see the duty officer to have the news communicated to the carabinieri on patrol and spread the word through the battalion. Natalia set out to persuade Gambini to stop killing his customers.
It wasn’t far. The Via Chiaia ran northwest from downtown, parallel to the shoreline of the bay, fronted by a beautiful strip of parkland. In the distance, six kilometers east, brooded Vesuvius.
Huge plate-glass display windows of exclusive shops filled medieval arches made of Roman quarry stones. Versace, Cartier, Rubinacci. Gentlemen shopped at Marinella and Eddy Monetti’s while their ladies rested their expensive selves at posh sidewalk cafés and gossiped. Once upon a time, the Chiaia district had housed a ruling Spanish elite in baroque mansions overlooking the water. Its dilapidated villas and stately art-nouveau apartment houses were in a state of perpetual restoration. The lavish palazzos again sheltered the dolce vita–nouveau riche crowd once referred to by the press as jet-setters, the beautiful people, Eurotrash—esteemed subjects all, of the Kingdom of Naples. The idle rich had been joined by the professional classes: doctors, dentists, lawyers, and the Camorra chieftain Aldo Gambini, enjoying the fruits of la mala vita. In among the restored façades of their gentrified domiciles and offices were slummy residences of the poor. Their kids played in the streets, beneath endless
lines of drying laundry strung across the narrow lanes and blind alleys, and skateboarded along the well-maintained streets. Bent old women trudged past the cafés, carrying groceries home, grimy youngsters in tow. A woman openly sold taxfree contraband cigarettes and lottery tickets at the corner, and two African peddlers offered knockoffs of designer handbags and watches. A young man sold gelato beneath a cheerful red-and-white-striped awning. It was a fashionable area reclaiming its past splendor, made all the more popular by its views of the water.
Aldo Gambini had recently relocated to Chiaia from the old Forcella neighborhood that had given rise to him and from which he seemed to be withdrawing, piece by piece. The modern four-story building was a far cry from the bare offices in the abandoned button factory behind the railroad station and the seedy social club next door. The new offices were on the top floor, with a view of the water. The male receptionist didn’t look like much of a typist. Neither did the male secretary who came out to take her to their boss.
The décor in the office suite was ultra-modern: gray and black drapes, furniture, and rugs, with one spot of contrasting color: a bright red-lacquered vase holding stalks of dried opium poppies. Gambini appeared in matching gray suit and black shirt, with a deep-red silk tie. Tan and fit, he directed her to a gray couch and sat down in the charcoal armchair alongside. He crossed his legs. His shoes, expensive, had been recently shined.
“I’ve come to warn you, Mr. Gambini. We have a new health crisis, and we need your help.” She explained about the dead junkies and the poisoned dope.
“Sabotaged, no doubt, but what has this to do with me?”
“Given your wide range of contacts and knowledge of the city, we were hoping you might reach out to whoever is in a position to have these recreational drugs removed from the market and have the entire supply tested.”