I Will Have Vengeance

by Maurizio de Giovanni

“All right then, let’s check: did you leave when I told you?”

  The Brigadier checked his wristwatch, holding it a distance away, being far-sighted.

  “Yes, I think so. My watch read seven minutes past eight. From the stage to the dressing room, less than a minute. From the window to the dressing room, two minutes, including the time it took to open the door of the gardens, which I wasn’t familiar with. But it’s easy, a normal lock. From the dressing room to the stage, another minute, even less.”

  Ricciardi was keeping count on the tips of his nervous fingers.

  “Barely four minutes to account for the movements. Let’s see, then.”

  He turned to don Pierino.

  “Father, what happens when a singer leaves the stage and then has to return to it?”

  “Well, it depends. If he has to return immediately or almost, he waits in the wings. If instead he has a longer interval, then he goes back to his dressing room: retouches his make-up, straightens his clothes. He doesn’t go outdoors, partly to avoid draughts which are always possible when going from one temperature to another.”

  The little priest continued to whisper, waving his hands in his characteristic way.

  “But is the way to the dressing rooms from the stage the same for everyone?” Ricciardi asked.

  “Yes. First come the dressing rooms of the orchestra conductor and the principal singers, then the common ones for the other singers and the extras in costume.”

  Ricciardi’s crystalline green eyes gleamed in the darkness, as onstage Santuzza and Lucia sang their duet. Behind the Commissario, Maione’s imposing figure kept watch in the shadows.

  “And tell me, Father, to get to the common dressing rooms, you have to pass those of the principals? Are you sure?”

  “Yes, Commissario. I just told you.”

  On the stage, the women’s duet over, a new character had entered, dressed as a rustic villager, and singing in a deep voice. A tall young man with broad shoulders. Ricciardi glanced quickly at Maione, who nodded his head slowly. The Commissario again turned to the priest, tilting his head toward the singer.

  “And him?”

  “That’s compare Alfio, the baritone who later on sings the lines you quoted this morning. He’s Lola’s husband, the one who kills compare Turiddu at the end.”

  “And the singer? Who is he? Do you know him?”

  “Yes, I’ve heard him a few times this season. He’s a very talented young man, if you ask me. He has a career ahead of him. Nespoli is his name. Michele Nespoli.”

  Onstage, Michele, seated at a table with a glass in his hand, thundered: “M’aspetta a casa Lola, che m’ama e mi consola, ch’è tutta fedeltà.” Lola awaits me at home, the woman who loves and consoles me and is wholly faithful to me.

  The opera continued; the company performed well together, the singers perfectly suited to their respective characters. The audience, Ricciardi thought, seemed to be enjoying it quite a bit, and on several occasions there was spontaneous, heartfelt applause. In addition to his voice, Nespoli was notable for his stage presence. His athletic, imposing build helped him stand out, and he sang with the passion and enthusiasm of a man who lives and breathes just to sing. The Commissario, hands in his pockets, took it all in with a watchful eye, not missing a word.

  He moved only when, at the end of a dramatic duet with Santuzza, he heard the lines that he had come to know: “Io sangue voglio, all’ira m’abbandono, in odio tutto l’amor mio finì . . . ” I will have vengeance . . . , all my love shall end in hate. Repeated several times, with force and rage, by Nespoli. To Ricciardi they seemed very different from when he had heard them from Vezzi’s dead lips, more than one might reasonably expect.

  The tenor, in his high, modulated voice, was expressing regret over what happened: Vezzi’s image meant to convey, Ricciardi finally understood now, the emotion that had guided the killer’s hand. The second singer, with the deep timbre of his baritone voice and his eyes flashing with rage, was articulating his own feelings. The Commissario had no doubt that Nespoli, after two days, still felt the full reverberation of his vengeance. In fact, he wondered how the audience, the other singers, even don Pierino, who, as usual, was murmuring the lines to himself, hadn’t noticed it and been horrified.

  With a final, terrible “I will have vengeance!” Nespoli ran offstage, unknowingly passing right under the noses of the three hidden spectators. The audience got to its feet in a furious round of applause that drowned out the music of the orchestra. From his position Ricciardi, who glanced quickly at his watch just as Maione had done, saw the expression in the singer’s eyes: they were vacant, as though he were thinking of something else.

  The baritone did not pause to hear the applause, which gave no sign of stopping; hastily he descended the stairs that separated him from the dressing rooms and Ricciardi. The Commissario took a few steps after him, and saw that he passed Vezzi’s door without looking at it, his head held high and his gaze focused straight ahead. Ricciardi looked at his watch again and went back to his place, as the orchestra started playing again.

  When Nespoli came back onstage, with a ringing “A voi tutti salute!”—good health to you all!—exactly nine minutes and fifty-six seconds had passed. Ricciardi thought it was more than enough time. He was a grim, silent observer of the story’s ending and of the roaring success the opera enjoyed that evening as well. Don Pierino and Maione watched him, the one oblivious and the other well aware of the thoughts that were going through the Commissario’s head. The difference between Nespoli’s expression and that of the other members of the company when they were individually called back to the stage to receive the public’s ovation did not escape any of them: the baritone smiled with his mouth, but not with his eyes. Ricciardi looked at Alfio’s shoes and the faint marks left by Maione’s shoes on the floor he had walked across. Mud and a bit of grass. The picture was complete.

  Ricciardi said goodnight to don Pierino while the public, on its feet, was still applauding.

  “Thank you, Father. Once again, thank you very much. Your help has been vital. Now it’s time for the hard part of my job, and I have to do it on my own. My promise still stands; I’ll come and see you.”

  The Assistant Pastor looked at him steadily, his lively, spirited dark eyes staring into the other’s unwavering, expressionless green gaze.

  “Goodnight, Commissario. May God help you make the right choice, for others will pay for your mistakes. If you need me, for my services, you will find me available. Day or night.”

  With one last intense look, Ricciardi turned and walked towards the dressing rooms, followed by Maione.

  XXVIII

  As he walked off the stage, Michele Nespoli knew instantly that it was all over. As soon as he saw the two men standing there motionless, their hands in their pockets, in front of the door, that door, he knew right away.

  He was surprised to feel relieved, more so than he would have imagined; he couldn’t live with that constant threat over his head. Maione stepped forwards and touched his arm.

  “Are you Michele Nespoli? We have to ask you a few questions. Please, come inside,” he pointed to Vezzi’s dressing room, the door to which had been repaired.

  A stunned silence fell around them. The still heavy breathing of those who had just left the set was palpable; those who were near the baritone instinctively moved away and left him alone in the middle of a small imaginary stage.

  The three men entered the dressing room. Inside, everything had been cleaned up. There was no trace of the tenor’s blood anymore, except for some damp stains on the carpet. The mirror had been replaced. If it weren’t for Vezzi’s image, which he could still see in the corner of the room, though it was fading by now, Ricciardi would have had a hard time recognizing the crime scene that had appeared to him only two days before. Nespoli, who had not lowered his eyes for a moment, looked around briefly, his in
tense dark gaze pausing at the window, which like before was open partway.

  Maione had finished stating Nespoli’s name and referencing the occasion of the murder, and silence now fell in the dressing room. Ricciardi stared fixedly at the baritone, who met his gaze boldly. It was the Commissario who spoke.

  “Who is the woman?”

  Nespoli sighed, slowly.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Ricciardi nodded his head faintly, as if he had somehow expected that reply.

  It was Maione, without altering his tone, who stepped in.

  “Would you tell us about what happened the night of March the twenty-fifth, the day before yesterday?”

  Nespoli exhaled sharply, irritated.

  “What do you think happened?”

  Ricciardi took a couple of steps and turned again to the baritone, his back to the corner where Vezzi’s image continued spewing out blood.

  “We have reason to believe that, for undetermined reasons, you intentionally or unintentionally killed Arnaldo Vezzi; that you killed him on the night of March the twenty-fifth, between seven and nine P.M.”

  Nespoli smiled, again only stretching his lips. His eyes were those of a caged animal.

  “And on what basis do you have reason to believe such a thing?”

  They went on staring at one another. Maione stayed where he was, centred between the two of them. Outside the door a constant murmuring could be heard.

  The Brigadier said calmly: “We’re the ones asking the questions.”

  The singer did not seem particularly shaken by the accusation.

  “Then ask,” he said disdainfully.

  “Did you encounter Vezzi on the day and time of the crime?”

  “I saw him, yes. I ran into him.”

  “Where?”

  Nespoli gave a faint sigh, looking around briefly.

  “Right here. Or rather, out there; at the door, I mean.”

  “At the door?”

  “Yes, at the door. I was coming from the stage, on my way back to the dressing room.”

  “And you spoke to him?”

  “He spoke to me.”

  Until that moment, Ricciardi had not intervened in the conversation; he had been staring at Nespoli the entire time, studying his behaviour. Now he spoke, in a low voice.

  “Look, Nespoli, you’re in a difficult position. We have our facts and the evidence we need: not being forthcoming will make us waste a little more time, but it will certainly not save you. It will be better for you if you stop pretending you don’t understand what we’re asking you.”

  Nespoli turned to the Commissario and smiled.

  “If you have this evidence, why are you wasting all this time?”

  “Because we have to reconstruct everything that’s happened, that’s why. And because,” here Ricciardi lowered his voice even further, “we have to know if there were accomplices.”

  A silence fell. Nespoli and Ricciardi stared at one another. Maione glanced from one to the other, his eyelids half-closed as if he were about to fall asleep: his way of staying focused.

  Finally Nespoli said: “Evidence, you say? What evidence could you have?” Restrained like that, his powerful voice sounded like distant thunder.

  “We found the shoes you switched so as not to track mud from the gardens on to the stage. You’re the only one who had prop room shoes of that size checked out to you at that time. You have big feet. You’re among the limited number of people who had access to the dressing rooms, the only one who could wear Vezzi’s clothes. And lastly, you were seen re-entering from the stairs and you were recognized.”

  Maione gave no sign of being surprised by the small trap that Ricciardi had set for the baritone: they both knew that it was only circumstantial evidence and that don Pierino could never be sure that the individual he had met on the stairs was Nespoli rather than Vezzi or anyone else of that size. But the Brigadier knew that at times their work resembled mullet fishing, which he did on Sundays near the port; and the mullet, this time too, took the bait.

  Nespoli swallowed it with a sigh and a smile, shaking his head slightly. “The priest. Damn it.”

  He seemed more amused than dejected, as if he had lost a hand at a card game. Ricciardi, his voice still low, said: “What did you have against Vezzi? What had he done to you?”

  “He was a bastard. A vile, despicable man. He seduced women. He took liberties with them. He thought he was God. And he wasn’t God, he was a zero.”

  “And so you killed him.”

  “I certainly didn’t intend to kill him. We argued, got into a fight. I punched him, and he ended up in the mirror. Tall as me, heavier than me, yet as soon as I laid a finger on him he ended up in the mirror. Even in that respect, he was worthless.”

  Silence. Ricciardi turned and saw the tears streaming down the clown’s face. He looked at Nespoli again.

  “So he didn’t deserve to live, Nespoli? And you thought you were God and you came here to kill him.”

  The baritone gave a start.

  “No, I’m not God. But as far as I’m concerned, good is good, and bad is bad. And Vezzi was bad. He didn’t even make an attempt to appear good. With that poor Pelosi, for instance, at the rehearsal. I had gone to watch, you can’t imagine how he treated him. Pelosi is a good man; he drinks, but he’s a decent person who never harms anyone. Vezzi called him an incompetent old drunk, that’s what he called him. Heartless.”

  “And women? You mentioned women.”

  “Yes, women. He got too familiar with them, he was free with his hands, he demanded their attentions by force, owing to the power he had, because he was important, because he was the famous Vezzi. And now he’s nothing.”

  Nespoli spoke calmly, in a normal, conversational tone. There was no sign of emotion in his voice. But his eyes—his eyes flashed with a savage fury. Ricciardi thought curiously that he would have made a magnificent movie actor, not the new talkies, but the silent films: his expressions wouldn’t require captions, the music would be enough.

  “Tell us how it happened, exactly.”

  Nespoli shrugged briefly.

  “What can I tell you? I was going back to the dressing room, I had finished my first scene, I had about ten minutes. He had his door open, he looked at me and made a sarcastic comment: ‘The amateur, bravo! You sounded like a singer, almost!’ I saw red. I gave him a shove, he fell backwards. He got up and said to me: ‘You’re finished. After this you’ll never sing again.’ I stepped inside, I closed the door behind me. I tried to apologize, but he repeated: ‘After this you’ll never sing again.’ So I stopped thinking and I punched him.”

  “How did you punch him? Where?”

  Nespoli simulated a right hook.

  “Like this. In the face. I caught him under the eye, I think.”

  It corresponded to the blow’s mark on the body.

  “And then?”

  “Then he fell back into the mirror and it shattered. He started bleeding from his throat, in spurts, a ton of blood. He was wheezing, he sat down in the chair, the blood kept gushing out. The bastard, he was the one who was done singing. With that insincere voice he used to make fun of everybody. With that black soul of his.”

  Ricciardi, out of the corner of his eye, glanced at the black soul who, weeping, was still singing and gushing blood. Still, he had a right to live, he thought. No matter how black his soul was.

  “And what did you do?”

  “I thought quickly. I couldn’t leave through the dressing-room door, someone might see me. But if I went out through the window and then came back in during the performance, dressed in costume, it would have seemed odd. In effect, it would be like confessing. So I took the bastard’s coat, hat and scarf from the armoire and climbed down from the window.”

  He pointed with h
is chin to where he had gone out.

  “And what door did you come back in from?”

  “The little door, near the entrance to the gardens. It’s always open; we go out there to smoke during rehearsals.”

  “And did you meet anyone, coming back?”

  “Only the priest; he was towards the top of the stairs. But he was engrossed, he was listening to the intermezzo. I didn’t think he had recognized me. I still had a little time, I thought.”

  “What did you do then? Did you go back to your dressing room?”

  “No. How could I? Wearing Vezzi’s coat and hat? Besides, even if after the intermezzo there’s the chorus and almost everyone is onstage, there’s always someone in the dressing room. I looked around carefully, and when I saw that there was no one about, I opened the door and tossed the coat, hat and scarf into the room with Vezzi. They were still playing the end of the intermezzo.”

  Ricciardi looked at Maione, who nodded. The timing corresponded to what had been clocked that evening.

  “Then I locked the dressing-room door and took the utility lift up to the prop room to switch the shoes.”

  “And the key?”

  Nespoli appeared disoriented for a moment.

  “The key? I put it in my pocket and later, when I left, I went to the port and threw it in the sea.”

  Ricciardi stared at him, eye to eye. Nespoli held his gaze.

  “How did you explain the fact that the shoes were muddy to the prop manager?”

  “Campieri? He wasn’t at his post, maybe he had been called away elsewhere or had wandered off somewhere. If he had been there, I would have wiped them off as best I could and gone onstage, running the risk of leaving traces. At that point I had no choice. In any case, there was no more time, I had to go back onstage.”

  There was a moment’s silence. The murmuring outside the door was a backdrop to the long look exchanged between the singer and the detective. Maione was breathing heavily. Vezzi’s soul wept and sang and demanded justice, but only Ricciardi heard it.

  Nespoli said: “I’m not sorry. I’ll never be sorry.”