I Will Have Vengeance

by Maurizio de Giovanni

  The tram station in Piazza Dante was right at the base of the long incline that led to the Vomero. Ricciardi bought a ticket and sat down near a window. On the street, toward Port’Alba, he saw the vision of a Camorrist mobster who had been stabbed during a settling of accounts. His killer had quickly been arrested: a young man who had aspired to make his way up in society and instead would rot in prison for thirty years. The image of the dead man, big and tall, his hands on his hips, was laughing his head off. Literally, because his neck was slashed from ear to ear; you could see the blood gurgling through the wound and bubbles of air from his last breath. He was mocking his murderer and his lack of courage: a fatal miscalculation. With a jolt, the tram started off.

  As it climbed, the houses gradually thinned out, though Ricciardi observed numerous building sites. A city under construction, which a little at a time was taking over the countryside. The previous year’s earthquake had led to needed reinforcing and restoration; there had been some collapses and some deaths, though it was Irpinia, some distance away, that had been devastated. But there were also new buildings, new streets and roads. Other districts to keep an eye on, additional wealth and new crimes and offences, the Commissario thought with a sigh.

  The cold wind gradually grew stronger as the tram clambered up the hill, trudging along; Ricciardi could tell from the swaying of the vegetation, that was now more dense. Trees, shrubs, cultivated fields, dirt paths leading into the countryside; here and there a villa surrounded by palm trees. On either side of the road—the tramway running down the middle of it—were occasional shacks with women washing clothes and children playing outdoors. A boy with a dog and two goats tied to a rope was selling ricotta cheese and bread to a small group of bricklayers at a construction site. One of them, standing a little apart, had his head bent in an unnatural way. The Commissario looked away: one of the thousands of workplace accidents, which no one ever heard about.

  The tram reached the end of the line, in the new square in front of the military prison. Ricciardi approached the man in the ticket office and asked if there was a boarding house or hotel in the immediate vicinity. When he got directions, he set out towards a small, low building not far away, where a green metal plate bore a yellow inscription: Pensione Belvedere.

  The landlady was initially suspicious. Then, when he showed his ID, she admitted that she recalled the portly gentleman who “spoke like a foreigner, a northerner,” who had come on Monday, the twenty-third. He had remained in his room for three hours, and had been joined by the signora. The signora had arrived on her own, they had not come together. Yes, she had said “his room”: the gentleman had rented it for three months, paying in advance. Did the Commissario wish to see it?

  Ricciardi found himself in a clean room, with a magnificent view from the window. No personal items, except a shaving brush, soap and a razor near a sink in the corner. No trace of any female presence, nothing in the chest of drawers, nothing in the armoire other than a new dressing gown, apparently never worn. He fingered it, as if wanting to feel its texture. On the shoulder, a long blonde hair.

  As he was leaving, the Commissario told the landlady that she could consider the room vacant, since the tenant was not coming back. The woman did not hide her disappointment.

  “I was hoping he would renew. Even though he didn’t answer me when I asked him. He left in a hurry.”

  “What do you mean, renew? Didn’t he pay for three months, starting Monday the twenty-third?”

  “No, Commissa’. Three months, beginning last December twentieth. That was when they came for the first time. Work was still underway on the new piazzale.”

  “And the woman who joined him? Was it always the same one?”

  “Yes, Commissario. Always the same one. You could tell she was young; she came on her own, separately.”

  “Can you describe her?”

  “No, truthfully, no. She wore a hat, a scarf, a heavy coat; I never saw her face. She didn’t even respond when I greeted her, I never heard her voice. Too bad, though; he seemed happy. And what nice tips he left me!”

  The news shed new light on events, Ricciardi thought as he walked down the slope leading to the panoramic piazzale and the belvedere. Vezzi had come to Naples in December, then: so that was the other time Bassi had hinted at. That was the detail that had been tickling his intuition, that he had not been able to put his finger on immediately. But there was something else in what don Pierino had said, that still wouldn’t come to him. What was it?

  The tram wouldn’t leave for another fifteen minutes. He decided to check out the view from the new belvedere. The city stretched out below him, under a sky increasingly heavy with rain. Seeing it like that, as the first lights began to appear, it did not look like it was seething with passions or emotions. But Ricciardi knew how many layers there were, beneath that apparent tranquillity. No crime, only safety and well-being dictated by the regime. So it was ordained, by decree. Yet the dead kept vigil in the streets, in homes, demanding peace and justice.

  He went up to the low wall: beneath him, the winding steps of Via Pedamentina which from San Martino led to Corso Vittorio Emanuele. A long, charming street, which flanked a slope of dense vegetation. The hanging lamps that illuminated the steps swayed in the wind. But the late afternoon rays still lit up a small park with benches, a trysting spot for lovers who could not afford a room for three hours much less for three months.

  Ricciardi saw two couples on the benches. A sailor was trying to embrace a girl who laughingly pushed him away. And a slim, elegant young man, perhaps a student, was holding the hand of a woman who stared at him dreamily. Ricciardi looked away. A short distance from the sailor he saw a man sitting on the ground holding both arms tightly around his stomach as if hugging himself. A yellowish foam bubbling with air oozed from his mouth. His eyes were glassy. Even from a distance like that, the Commissario could make out his words: “I can’t live without you. I can’t live without you. I can’t live without you . . . ” He poisoned himself, Ricciardi thought. Barbiturates, acid, bleach. Does anything ever change?

  A little further back the body of a young woman swung from a branch, hanging from a piece of cloth, a scarf maybe. She looked like a belated winter fruit, like a bunch of grapes that had escaped the harvest and had not yet dried up. Eyes bulging, her face purple, her tongue horribly swollen and bluish, hanging from her bloated lips. Her neck stretched by gravity’s pull, legs and arms limp and composed. She kept repeating: “Why, my love? Why, my love?” A place for lovers, Ricciardi thought. He had seen others “haunted” like that: people went to seek peace where they had been happy, not knowing that there was no peace, even in death.

  As he observed the living and the dead, he recalled the advertisement for a wonder drug, which he often saw in the newspaper. Before and after treatment.

  Before and after love.

  The tram sounded its horn. His expression unchanged, Ricciardi turned and began slowly walking up the slope.

  XIX

  The church of Santa Maria degli Angeli was freezing. The wind whistled relentlessly down the nave and inside the dome, where light filtered in from a sun that shed no warmth. In the pews in front of the altar several old women intoned an endless chant in the mangled words of a forgotten language, imploring God’s mercy and that of the saints.

  In the back, a woman was hiding in the shadows. Her head was bowed, and her blonde hair and her face were concealed by a large black shawl. She was hiding her beauty, her body, her blue eyes. She would have liked to pray, but she didn’t have the heart.

  She looked up at the fresco on the dome, stained with dampness, depicting paradise.

  The woman smiled sadly. A ruined paradise, wrecked to pieces. A longed-for paradise, painted in vivid colours and then lost. It seemed like the story of her life. She had imagined a new life, a new love. She looked around and saw the beautiful illustrations of the life of Mary. T
he purity, the innocence. Whereas she . . . she had not entered to seek forgiveness: she wasn’t sorry about the betrayal. She had gone there to think about how she could have fallen into hell after being so close to paradise.

  Exactly twenty-four hours after Vezzi’s murder, Ricciardi returned to the Questura. As expected, he found both Maione and Ponte outside his office. The air was electric, there had obviously been more than a few words between the two. The Brigadier’s eyes were bloodshot, the clerk’s lips were quivering.

  “Finally, sir! I don’t know what to tell the Vice Questore anymore. The Brigadier here is taking it out on me. I’ll cover for you as much as I can, but . . . ”

  “What do you think you’re covering, you ass-licker’s lackey? You have to let us do our job, can’t you get it into your head? How are we supposed to get anywhere if we have to report every five minutes?”

  Ricciardi thought it appropriate to intervene.

  “Never mind, Maione. I’ll take care of it. You go and pick up the manager and the wife, who are about to arrive. Ponte, come with me to Garzo.”

  This time the Vice Questore did not get up to welcome Ricciardi. Nor did he tell him to sit down.

  “So then, Ricciardi. I’m only going to ask this once. Where are you with it?”

  You. Not we.

  “I’m investigating. If there were any new developments I would have reported to you, of course. Isn’t that what we agreed?”

  “You’re not the one asking the questions!” Garzo snapped. “Do you have any idea of the pressure we’re under? We get phonograms from Rome every hour. It’s all the newspapers are talking about. Il Mattino called to vigorously protest the way you treated a reporter, a certain Luise, this morning at the theater. Those guys will retaliate, Ricciardi: you know that, don’t you? It doesn’t take much to go from ‘brilliant investigator’ to a ‘bumbler’ groping in the dark. What am I supposed to tell the Questore? And what is he supposed to tell Rome? Vezzi’s death has sparked more contact between Il Duce’s office and the city’s High Commissioner than last year’s earthquake. You must, I say must, give me something.”

  “I don’t speak without having something to say, Vice Questore. Never. If I give you a fact it means I have one.”

  Garzo’s confidence was crumbling.

  “But I don’t know what to tell them! Please, put yourself in my shoes. I can’t let them see that I don’t know anything!”

  “Tell them it’s probably a crime of passion. Isn’t there always passion behind a crime? Tell them that. Whatever the solution turns out to be, you’ll have been correct.”

  Garzo lit up.

  “You’re right, Ricciardi. Bravo, bravissimo! This will satisfy them, for a while. But I urge you: don’t keep me in the dark. If you should uncover anything else, please, tell me immediately.”

  “Of course, you have my word. But keep the press and Ponte out of my way.”

  “Consider it done. Keep up the good work, Ricciardi.”

  Returning to his office, Ricciardi tried to organize his thoughts. Vezzi had come to Naples with Bassi, in an official capacity, just before Christmas; he had stayed a few days, had rented the room at the Pensione Belvedere. He had been there on the day of the dress rehearsal as well, that was the reason he was late. The long blonde hair on the dressing gown. Ergo, a woman: and a woman to keep carefully hidden.

  There seemed to be several people with good reasons to want to see him dead, or at least take their revenge: the orchestra conductor, for example. Or Bassi himself, continually humiliated. Or any of the baritones, sopranos and valets.

  But Ricciardi had the idea that the people in the theater would be unlikely to give vent to their egos that way: opportunity, first of all. And then being used to acting, to fiction. No, he couldn’t see a singer or an orchestra player plan and implement such a fierce crime out of resentment. Besides, all aspects of the murder pointed to impulse: the scuffle, the broken mirror, all that blood. Whatever had happened, it was certainly not a premeditated crime. And the tenor was alone in his dressing room before being killed, putting on his make-up and getting ready to perform. Vezzi’s vezzo, his fixed routine. So who could it have been? Ricciardi knew that he had to look for the two old culprits: hunger and love. One or both of them. Hunger and love: at the root of any killing.

  Maione popped his head in the door.

  “Commissa’, the manager and the signora are in the waiting room. Who do you want to see first?”

  Mario Marelli was a businessman; you could tell from his clothing, the way he spoke, his gestures. Even his facial features: a square, strong-willed jaw, a prominent nose and clear blue eyes under bushy eyebrows. His well-trimmed hair, sleeked back with pomade, was barely greying at the temples; a dark tie, perfectly knotted, graced an impeccable white shirt with a rounded collar. The buttons of his waistcoat appeared beneath a double-breasted, brown pinstriped jacket, and a gold watch chain hung out of the vest pocket.

  “Commissario, I won’t waste your time and mine by pretending to be grieving. Vezzi was a dreadful individual, as you have probably gathered; and if you haven’t, I will tell you so. I never met a single person who liked him, in the ten years that I rendered my services on his behalf. Aside from the powers that be in Rome, of course. When it came to licking the feet of those in power, he was bravissimo.”

  “How come you weren’t with him, in Naples?”

  “I had been here for the preliminary arrangements, before Christmas: that’s when the terms of the contract, payments and all the other terms and conditions are settled. Later, at the time of the performance, it’s not necessary for the manager to be present. In this case, the less time I spent with that degenerate, the better off I was. So I made damn sure I didn’t go with him.”

  “As far as you remember, when you came before Christmas did Vezzi go off on his own for a period of time?”

  “Vezzi? For the entire time. Maybe I didn’t make myself clear: he left it to me to deal with the contract negotiations, and speak with the management, the orchestra, the theatrical director. He only saw to what concerned him personally. The wardrobe people, his dressing room, his make-up. All he was interested in was his costumes, his make-up and singing. The rest of the world had to revolve around him. We were in town for four days, and I saw him maybe three times, each time briefly. Oh, once I think we dined together, in that restaurant in Piedigrotta, the famous one. I remember it because he sent the fish back twice, he didn’t like the way it was cooked. I can still see the look on the owner’s face. What a bastard.”

  “What are the reasons behind your resentment? It seems to me that relations between you were particularly difficult and therefore not solely professional.”

  “It was impossible to have a good relationship with Arnaldo Vezzi. In fact, the only way to relate to him was to be a doormat and comply with everything he said. This might be acceptable, it’s happened to me other times, but not under certain specific circumstances when the position becomes untenable.”

  Ricciardi leaned forwards slightly.

  “For example?” he said.

  “For example, when he got drunk in Berlin and showed up at the Chancellor’s an hour late. Or when he was discovered in a hotel with a thirteen-year-old girl, the hotelkeeper’s daughter. Or again when, in Vienna—in a fit of anger over what he said was a delayed opening bar—he smashed a fifty-thousand lira violin on the floor, after tearing it away from an orchestra player. Shall I go on?”

  “So how did you keep up a professional relationship? On what basis?”

  “Simple: on the grounds that he was a genius. An absolute genius. Apart from the voice, which was extraordinary, his feeling for the stage, his ability to perform any role perfectly, immersing himself in the character. And I mean becoming one with him: he donned the soul of the character he was playing, he identified with him completely. I have a theory: I think he was able to
do it because he didn’t have a soul of his own. So it was like writing on a clean slate, a tabula rasa; he had no feelings of his own to keep hidden. A snake.”

  “And so?”

  “So there was no greater tenor in the world. Representing him was simply a matter of directing traffic. We could have had roles booked for ten years, if he had wanted to.”

  Ricciardi frowned, puzzled.

  “But then his death is a serious loss to you, isn’t it? You’ve lost an important client. If for no other reason than that, you should be grieving.”

  “No, Commissario. If you haven’t already heard it from that imbecile, his secretary, I’ll tell you myself: Vezzi had decided not to avail himself of my services anymore. He said, very magnanimously, as he always did, that he could command the same fees and save ten per cent besides. Sadly, I must admit that he was right.”

  “So, practically speaking, he had fired you.”

  “Practically speaking; but starting next season. I would still have gone on representing him until the end of this season. So all the complaints, the claims for penalties, the fines—they all still came to my office, unfortunately.”

  Ricciardi still wasn’t quite clear.

  “But the artistic decisions, the operas he would sing, the dates—did he coordinate them with you?”

  “Who, Vezzi? It’s obvious you didn’t know him,” Marelli said with a bitter smile. “Certainly that’s how it should be and that’s the way it is with all the other artists I represent. But not with Arnaldo. He did whatever he liked, whenever it occurred to him. Subject to later changing his mind and deciding otherwise, leaving dozens of people and their jobs hanging. Look, Commissario, my only regret in this matter is missing the chance to see what would have happened next season, when Vezzi would have tried to manage on his own. Take my word for it, I’m sure he would have ended up paying twice his earnings, at least, in fines and penalties. Only I know the effort it cost me to try and repair the damage he caused.”