“Where are these four? Can I see them?”
“Yes, but hopefully you won’t take up too much of our time. They’re back there.”
Ricciardi walked over to a large table where the four young women were sitting. The clown costume was on the tabletop and they were all working on it, eyes lowered. Seen like that, in uniform and with scissors and needles in hand, they all looked alike. The Commissario was barely able to recognize the pale girl whom he had seen the evening before, nearly staggering under the weight of the costume.
“Good day, everyone. How is the work going?”
A murmur of assent, but it was Signora Lilla who responded.
“It’s quite a job. Vezzi was a tall, heavyset man, with a belly. His replacement is short and thin: I don’t know where that voice of his comes from. We have to cut the costumes from scratch.”
Ricciardi spoke to the girls again.
“Does anyone remember having seen or heard anything unusual in Vezzi’s dressing room? A word, an object. A change in mood.”
One of the four, a brunette with lively eyes, looked up at the Commissario and gave a half-smile.
“Vezzi’s mood never changed, Commissario: it was always black, like this button. At best, he might give you a pat on the ass. At worst, it was as if you were invisible.”
“Maria! Be careful what you say!” Signora Lilla said. But you could tell she was amused. Ricciardi saw that they weren’t getting anywhere.
“If you should think of anything else, let me know: either come to the Questura, or tell Signora Lilla.”
Meanwhile, the stage manager had entered; his arrival triggered a dramatic change in Signora Lilla, who, blushing, lowered her eyes and nervously smoothed her wiry blonde hair with both hands.
Lasio spoke to Ricciardi: “Commissario, there’s a man asking for you at the front entrance, he says he’s Dr. Modo, the medical examiner. Good morning, Signora Lilla.”
The woman replied in a soft, velvety voice, very different to the sharp, brusque tone she’d been using until then.
“Good morning to you, my dear Signor Lasio. Gentlemen, we are at your disposal: come back whenever you like.”
XVII
Dr. Modo stood waiting at the main entrance, smoking and huddled inside the vestibule to avoid the cold wind. As soon as he saw Ricciardi, he smiled.
“Spending the morning at the theater, huh? Addicted to it.”
The Commissario made a face.
“Hello, Doctor. What are you doing here? Couldn’t stand being away from me any longer, right?”
“How about it, will you buy me lunch?”
“Out of the question. I was thinking of just a pizza, from the usual cart. Come on, a sfogliatella and coffee at Gambrinus: seems like a fair compromise to me.”
“Spendthrift. And yet they say you’re loaded. Fine, I’ll settle for that: anything to get out of the cold.”
Walking against the wind, they covered the short distance to the cafè in silence, the doctor holding on to his hat and tightening his coat collar, Ricciardi with his hands in his pockets and his hair blowing about. He was thinking about the evidence gathered that morning. He felt like he was holding the pieces of a wooden puppet which he couldn’t seem to put together. He also had the nagging sensation that he had not given proper importance to something. But to what?
The two men went in, rubbing their hands, and sat down at Ricciardi’s usual table, the one near the window that looked out on to Via Chiaia. The doctor puffed, taking off his hat, coat and gloves.
“When was the last time we saw such weather in late March? You’re a country boy from the mountains, but I’m from the coast and I’m telling you that as a kid I would already be diving off the rocks at Marechiaro by this time. Even in the Alps, during the war, it wasn’t this cold in March.”
“Don’t complain; you’ll keep better this way. Like your cadavers.”
“Hold on, wait a second: maybe I’m hearing voices, like Joan of Arc. I thought I heard a wisecrack: but aren’t you Commissario Ricciardi? The gloomy Commissario Ricciardi, the man who never smiles?”
“And in fact I’m not smiling. So, what can you tell me? You beat me to it—I would have come by your place this afternoon.”
Modo nodded dejectedly.
“Listen, I’ve never felt so much pressure to work quickly: even from Rome, from the Ministry. Who on earth did they kill, the Pope? Your pal Garzo, always so simpatico, sent that clerk of his, Ponte, to see me twice this morning. If there were any results from the lab tests and the autopsy, the Questura wanted to know immediately.”
“And are there any results?”
“Well, I don’t know. I’m not sure. I’d say that the considerations I shared with you last night remain valid. However there is something strange; more a feeling than anything else. Still, it’s a feeling.”
The waiter appeared. Ricciardi ordered two coffees and two sfogliatelle.
“What do you mean, a feeling? Are there feelings, in your profession? Isn’t it all just scientific rigour?”
“Ah, there we go, now I recognize you: the sarcastic Commissario Ricciardi, ready to relegate science to second place. But science can help your feelings. It can confirm them, and it can prove them wrong.”
The waiter returned, bringing their order. The doctor bit into his sfogliatella, famished. His greying moustache turned white from the powdered sugar dusting the flaky pastry; each mouthful was accompanied by moans of pleasure.
“Mmm . . . ask me what I love about this city, and I’ll tell you: the sfogliatelle! Not the sea, not the sun; the sfogliatelle.”
Ricciardi, who, on alternating days, lived on sfogliatella and pizza, tried to draw the doctor’s attention back to Vezzi.
“Do you mind telling me about this feeling of yours? I realize you’re getting old, but lately you’ve been having trouble maintaining your concentration.”
“Listen, I’m more alert at fifty-five than two consulting doctors of twenty-seven, and you know it. So then: remember I told you, there at the scene, about the ecchymosis under the left eye? We talked about a punch, a blow.”
Ricciardi nodded.
“He was struck, hard. His cheekbone was actually fractured, not a big deal, but still, fractured.”
“So?”
“So it’s not possible that a haematoma would be so circumscribed. Do you have any idea how little time it takes for a haematoma to form? From a blow of that kind? He should have had a balloon under his eye. Instead, there was just a little bruise.”
“Which means?”
“Which means—and I know you already know because I can see it in your eyes—that our great tenor, friend of the Ministers of the Fasces, damn him, was already dead when he was struck or had just a few seconds of breath left. His black heart wasn’t pumping out much anymore.”
“You know, Bruno, one of these days you’re going to get beaten up over those anti-fascist comments, I’m telling you.”
Modo grinned broadly, his mouth full of pastry cream and coffee, which he had been wolfing down as he talked.
“But I have friends in the police!”
“Yeah, sure. So, he was already dead or dying. Then why would they have had to hit him, if he was already dead?”
Ricciardi kept his eyes fixed on the doctor, who had his back to the window. Behind him, the little girl without a left arm, the marks of the tram wheels on her small battered chest, held out the bundle of rags to them: “This is my daughter. I feed her and bathe her.” The Commissario sighed.
“Is something wrong?” Modo asked, noticing Ricciardi’s expression grow pained all of a sudden.
“A hint of a migraine. Just a slight headache.”
And a sea of despair, that attachment to life that no longer wants you, that moment when the hands cling to a prop before plunging into the void. “
This is my daughter. I feed her and bathe her.” Dying under a tram, maybe to retrieve a stuffed rag doll that somehow ended up in the street. The sorrow. All that sorrow.
“You’re an odd duck, Ricciardi. The oddest there is, everyone says so. You know, people are afraid of your silences, your determination. It’s as if you want vengeance. But for what?”
“Look, Doctor, I enjoy talking with you. You’re capable and decent. If you have something more to give, you give it, and that’s no small matter in these times. But don’t ask anything more of me, please, if you want me to continue talking to you.”
“Whatever you say. I apologize. It’s just that, working together, one can’t help caring . . . you have a sorrowful expression at times. And I know sorrow, believe me.”
No, you don’t know it, Ricciardi thought. You know wounds and expressions of grief. But not sorrow. That comes afterwards, and poisons the air you breathe. It leaves a kind of sickly-sweet stench that lingers in your nose. The putrefaction of the soul.
“Thank you, Doctor. Without you, I would have already killed myself. I’ll let you know if there are any developments in the investigation. One thing I’m curious about,” Ricciardi added as he stood up, “why did you tell me about the bruise and not Ponte, the clerk?”
“Because your pal Garzo wears a black suit, that’s why, whereas you . . . only your disposition is black. Pay the bill on your way out: a deal is a deal.”
Ricciardi found both Maione and Ponte waiting outside his office. He nodded at the Brigadier, ignoring the clerk. He entered the room followed by Maione, who took off his overcoat and was about to close the door when the clerk stuck his head in.
“Excuse me, sir, but I don’t want to get in any trouble. Vice Questore Garzo said that you were to see him the very minute you came in. He didn’t even go out to lunch!”
“If it’s so urgent that he talk with the Commissario, why doesn’t he come here himself?” Maione asked sarcastically.
“Are you crazy, Brigadie’? That one only leaves the office to go and see the signor Questore! Please, sir, I beg you, don’t make me get me in trouble.”
“I’m busy right now, Ponte, I’m conducting an investigation, as the Vice Questore knows—or should know. If he has any information that can help me, have him send it to me. If not, let him put it in writing that I should go and see him instead of doing my job. He himself told me to set everything else aside.”
Ponte gave a long sigh. “All right, sir, I understand. I’ll tell him what you said, may God help me. As you wish.”
When the clerk left, Maione sat down and pulled out a notebook.
“So then. Vezzi stayed at the Vesuvio, on the waterfront, the same hotel he always stays at whenever he comes to Naples. They arrived the evening of the twenty-first, by train, he and Bassi, the secretary. The hotel staff hated him—so what else is new. They say he chewed out anyone who came within sight, nothing ever satisfied him, and so on. However, nothing unusual happened, there were no quarrels that would suggest that anyone might do something. The dress rehearsal was scheduled for six o’clock on Monday, the twenty-third. Vezzi left the hotel at four and went straight back late in the evening, after the rehearsal. The doorman remembers him well, because he asked him if he needed a carriage and he told him to mind his own business. Yesterday, instead, he left at six to go to the theater, and was wearing a long black coat, the one we’ve seen, a broad-brimmed hat, also black, and a white wool scarf which he used to shield his face from the wind. When the doorman wished him good luck, Vezzi made corna at him and gave him a dirty look. That’s everything. Oh, by the way: the hotel is right on the sea.”
Ricciardi had listened closely, his hands clasped in front of his mouth and his eyes never leaving Maione.
“What time are they due to arrive, the manager and Vezzi’s wife?”
“Two hours from now, at Mergellina station,” Maione said, checking his wristwatch.
“All right then, send Bassi in. There’s something I need to understand.”
XVIII
Vezzi’s secretary appeared, dapper and elegant as always; hair neatly parted in the centre, freshly shaved, gold-rimmed glasses that he nervously kept adjusting on his nose.
“Should I be worried, Commissario? I’m not a suspect, am I? I’ll remind you that I spent the evening sitting next to the theater director, in the front row.”
Ricciardi made a slight wave of annoyance, as if to chase away an insect.
“No, Bassi. I wouldn’t say so. But there is one thing I’d like to know. You said that, to please Vezzi, an assistant had to ‘be able to disappear at the right moment, leaving him free.’ Explain it to me more clearly. What does that mean, exactly?”
Bassi seemed caught off guard. He adjusted his glasses on his nose with his right index finger.
“Exactly? Well, in practical terms it means that the Maestro insisted on . . . well, discretion. You had to understand him even before he spoke, like all individuals endowed with a big ego.”
“Look, Bassi, I asked you a specific question. Believe me, we’re not in a convent here; there’s nothing we haven’t heard in this place. I know you meant something by it and I demand that you tell me what it was.”
Bassi instantly lost his self-confidence. He went on speaking in a submissive tone.
“The Maestro had his weaknesses. Who doesn’t? He was a man who sought gratification, anywhere, no matter what the circumstances. And he liked women: especially those of other men. I often thought that he couldn’t stand the idea that a woman might prefer someone else. Anyone else. So he took her. Or tried to take her. Though normally he managed to.”
“But wasn’t he married? Isn’t it his wife who is arriving by train?”
“Well, married so to speak. His wife is, in a word, the kind of woman . . . she was a singer, you know. A contralto. She gave it up when they married, ten years ago. Then, after the death of their child—from diphtheria, five years ago—they virtually stopped speaking to one another. They each led their own lives. But you see, Commissario, the Maestro was a personal friend of Il Duce. The family cannot be destroyed. So formally they stayed together. But only formally.”
“I see. So Vezzi busied himself elsewhere. And here, in Naples? How was he, these past days? Did he do anything, did he go anywhere?”
“I don’t know, Commissario. When he . . . was busy, the Maestro simply dismissed me. He’d say: ‘I have no further need of you; I’ll see you at seven, or eight, or nine,’ whatever. I understood, and I kept away. Still, there was always something to do, so . . . ”
“And in the past few days did he dismiss you?”
“Yes, on Monday, the day of the dress rehearsal.”
“And did he say anything to you?”
“Yes, something odd: he asked me where you caught tram number seven from.”
As soon as Bassi left, Ricciardi asked Maione what route tram number seven followed. The Brigadier went off for a few minutes, and when he returned, he was the usual font of information.
“So then, Commissa’: there are two number seven trams. The red seven, that leaves from Piazza Plebiscito and goes to Piazza Vanvitelli, on the hill above the Vomero; and the black seven, that starts at Piazza Dante and also goes to the Vomero, but to Piazzale di San Martino. Antonelli told me and he knows all the transportation routes in the city, proving that those guys in the records department don’t do a thing from morning till night. Now, the black seven is called the ‘poor lovers’ tram,’ because it leads to a little wood with panoramic views of the city, where he says couples who can’t afford a room get together. The red seven, on the other hand, is used by those who work in the centre and live in the new houses. Which one would Vezzi have taken?”
“The black seven. For certain.”
So Ricciardi decided to fill the time remaining before the arrival of Vezzi’s wife and his manager by maki
ng a quick on-site inspection of the black seven line. In actuality, he admitted to himself, it was also an excuse to avoid giving Garzo a report that by now was overdue. He didn’t like the idea of presenting sketchy or incomplete theories, but neither could he concoct a story out of whole cloth and pretend he was on the trail of a murderer he had already identified. So he told Maione to stay there and hold down the fort, in case someone came to make a spontaneous statement, and set off on foot towards Piazza Dante.
The wind had lessened a little, and clouds were thickening: maybe it would rain. Early in the afternoon the street was crowded with pedestrians and street vendors. For sixty years now its name had been Via Roma, but for Neapolitans it was and would remain Via Toledo, like when it was built under the Spaniards. And it would remain the boundary, the throbbing border line between the two souls of the city, which was alternately invaded and possessed by one or the other. The shouts and calls of vendors split the air, urchins ran barefoot, chasing one another. Beggars sat huddled beside the walls of buildings, near the entrance to churches. On the left side, the maze of numerous back alleys intersecting the street revealed the desolate, volatile scene of the old Quartieri Spagnoli.
As he walked along, Ricciardi continued to reflect: why the tram? A carriage, or one of the city’s fifty taxis, would have been a more logical choice. Or even the funicular, the beautiful, modern Funicolare Centrale that had been open for three years; the real reason why the new quarter was becoming increasingly populated, attracting the attention of the middle class more and more. But otherwise, the Vomero was still farmland, with flocks of sheep and goats and farmsteads. And a few beautiful aristocratic villas, for vacationing in the clean air.
The only reason why Vezzi would have preferred the tram was anonymity. So he wouldn’t be recognized. Why? Because the tenor’s intention wasn’t simply to take a nice vigorous walk. Rather a different kind of walk. Ergo a courtesy visit to some aristocratic friend could also be ruled out.
I Will Have Vengeance Page 8