Yet he could not have done otherwise, and he knew this too. He had acted as he should, as was proper. And so he felt serene as he stared into the Commissario’s limpid green eyes, blinking in the strong morning light that came through the window. He thought that the investigator, despite the abominable work he did and the situation in which he found himself, was an honest man, worthy of respect. In the first place, he looked directly at you, looked you in the eye, and it was uncommon to meet people who did that. Then too, he felt that he had suffered, like him. And finally, he had called him back. Instead of being satisfied with the confession, he wanted to get to the bottom of it, to understand. And that meant that he was intelligent. An intelligent, honest cop: a rare and dangerous thing.
Ricciardi looked at Nespoli in silence. With a nod he had dismissed the policeman who had brought him in and had remained seated, hands clasped in front of his mouth, elbows leaning on the desk. Nespoli held his gaze, standing with his hands cuffed in front of him. After a long moment, Ricciardi spoke.
“Nespoli, I know everything. I figured it out. I realized it last night. I don’t know if you’re aware of what you’re doing, what’s in store for you. You’ll go to jail for thirty years, you’ll be an old man when you get out, that’s if you get out. A man like you isn’t capable of spending thirty years in the company of criminals.”
Nespoli stared at him. Not so much as a breath escaped him.
“You didn’t kill him. I know it. And I also know who did kill him.”
The singer blinked, but didn’t say a word.
“Think about those who love you: you must have a mother, brothers and sisters. I can’t believe you don’t have a reason, even just one, to want to live, to be free. Even if it were only to sing. You’re gifted; I heard you yesterday.”
Nespoli didn’t move a muscle. A tear ran from his right eye and began trickling down his cheek. He seemed not to be aware of it.
“Is your relationship with this woman that compelling? What has she done for you, to deserve this sacrifice? Why are you giving her your life?”
The man in handcuffs went on staring boldly into Ricciardi’s eyes; in the heat of the argument the Commissario leaned forwards.
“If you don’t help me, how can I help you? I can’t continue working on the case if you don’t retract your confession. Let me at least try. Don’t let me be the one to send an innocent man to prison. Please. Retract it.”
Nespoli gave a faint, sad smile and said nothing. After another long moment, Ricciardi sighed deeply.
“As you wish. I thought you would react this way.” He called the guard and said: “Take him away.”
On the way out, Nespoli paused in the doorway, turned and said softly: “Thank you, Commissario. If you’ve ever been in love, you understand me.”
I understand you, Ricciardi thought.
After a few minutes, Ponte knocked at the door.
“Excuse me, Commissario. The Vice Questore would like to speak with you in his office.”
Sighing wearily, Ricciardi got up and walked to the spacious office at the end of the hall. Even before he reached the partly open door he perceived the wild pungent scent of spices; by now he recognized it. Garzo had someone with him.
“Ah, my dear Ricciardi! Please, come in. Have a seat. You’ve already met Signora Vezzi, haven’t you?”
Sitting in front of the Vice Questore was Livia, legs crossed, dressed as usual in a sober yet sensual dark suit. The little veil on her hat was raised; she was smoking. Her splendid dark eyes gazed steadily at Ricciardi and her mouth bore the hint of a smile. She looked like a panther, ready to fall asleep or attack her prey, not caring which.
“Signora Vezzi saw the good news about the killer’s arrest in the newspaper,” Garzo said, “and came to offer her congratulations. She said she will express her satisfaction in the circles of Rome’s highest authorities, to which she has access. Even to our beloved Duce himself, since she is a friend of his and of his wife. She wanted to see you, to congratulate you.”
Ricciardi remained standing and looked straight at Livia. Continuing to stare at her, he addressed his words to Garzo.
“Signora Vezzi attributes excessive importance to the work we’ve done. We should have continued to investigate further, actually. Perhaps we were simply . . . fortunate, to come upon a confession.”
Garzo assumed a worried tone, giving Ricciardi a dirty look; it was lost on him, however, since the Commissario was still looking at the widow.
“What are you talking about? As usual, our Ricciardi is too modest. Actually, our arrest was the result of a very thorough and, as the newspaper says, tireless investigation. I myself—and the signora will be so kind as to keep it in mind so as to be able to report it—gave frequent procedural instructions to the Commissario and, on the basis of these instructions, we were able to catch the perpetrator; who confessed only when he found himself backed into a corner by the irrefutable evidence that we gathered. Isn’t that right, Ricciardi?”
Garzo’s tone was now definitely menacing. Livia went on smiling, smoking and watching Ricciardi.
“I have no doubt that your . . . teamwork, as they say, produced the result. But I myself have had the opportunity to observe Commissario Ricciardi first-hand and I can testify that nothing distracts him from his work. He is a topnotch man.”
Garzo was not willing to be shunted aside and tried to ride the wave as usual.
“Indeed, he is one of our best men. This success, a collaborative effort based on teamwork, as you noted, Signora, is due primarily to the ability to choose the right people to appoint to the right places. Isn’t that so, Ricciardi?”
The Commissario had not taken his eyes off Livia, who in turn had not stopped looking at him and smiling. Called upon once again, he couldn’t help but respond.
“Vice Questore Garzo is correct. Whatever he has said, may say or will say. As for me, the signora knows that I do what I must do. At least I try to. May I go now?”
Livia nodded, still smiling.
Garzo growled: “Yes, Ricciardi, go. And remember what we talked about before.”
Ricciardi briefly bowed his head by way of goodbye and left.
XXXI
A couple of hours later, Maione’s son, a boy of sixteen whom the Commissario had seen with his father several times, knocked on Ricciardi’s door.
“Good morning, Commissario. Papa asks if you can join him at Caffè Gambrinus in Piazza Plebiscito. He says he has to talk to you.”
“Thank you. I’m on my way.”
Maione looked even more like a policeman in plain clothes than when he was in uniform. Ricciardi couldn’t have said why. Maybe it was the way he wore his hat, or his rigid bearing. The fact was you couldn’t go wrong: he was a cop. He was waiting for him at the usual table, the one where Ricciardi sat to eat his sfogliatella at lunchtime. When the Commissario arrived, he started to get up, but Ricciardi stopped him with a gesture and sat down as well.
“I ordered coffee and a sfogliatella for you.”
“Thanks. Look, it’s on me; you haven’t received that bonus yet. He’s grown, your son. My compliments. He resembles his . . . his mother.”
“He resembles his brother, Luca, Commissa’. You can say it; you think I don’t see it with my own eyes? He looks just like him. The other day he told me he too wants to be a policeman. His mother fled to the bedroom, crying. I had to slap him hard. I yelled at him: ‘Don’t ever say that again!’ This is a rotten job. A criminal is better off.”
“Don’t be silly: don’t say such things. The boy should do what he wants. Obviously, with this pig-headed father of his as an example, it’s only natural that he would want to be a policeman.”
“And maybe even a commissario—no offence.”
“None taken. So then, what have you come up with?”
“I saw Bambinella, I even
went to where he lives, in San Nicola da Tolentino. You should have seen him: he was wearing a woman’s dressing gown, his hair swept up with a barrette. Since I’m used to seeing him in make-up, I didn’t even recognize him. ‘Brigadie’, such a pleasure! So, you’ve made up your mind at last?’ One more word and I would have punched him! He says that to me of all people! Anyway, he let me into the basement apartment where he lives and even offered me a surrogate. I explained what we needed and he already knew all about it. It seems that our friend is quite famous in the Quartieri. Actually, Bambinella immediately asked me why I needed the information. I told him that, to begin with, I needed it so I wouldn’t have to send him to prison for indecent assault and he said: ‘Okay, I get it, at your service, Brigadie’.’ And he talked.”
Ricciardi smiled briefly, taking a bite of sfogliatella.
“And why is the signorina quite famous?”
“Because she’s beautiful, first of all. Then too, because she can read and write. She teaches the kids who don’t go to school, which is most of them. Also, and here it gets interesting, because for several months she was living with a man—Bambinella doesn’t know his real name—whom they called ’o Cantante, the Singer. In fact, she’s even known as ’a ’nnammurata d’o Cantante, the Singer’s sweetheart, even though they no longer live together.”
“And how long ago did they stop living together?”
Maione consulted his notes on a slip of paper he had pulled out of his coat pocket.
“More or less since Christmas, he says.”
“More or less since Christmas, of course. It’s natural.”
“Why, natural?”
“Because it all started at Christmas. Things with Vezzi started at Christmas. And the signorina threw ’o Cantante out of the house, using some excuse. And guess who ’o Cantante is?”
“Commissa’, ’o Cantante is Nespoli. Who else, if not him?”
Ricciardi used his fingers to wipe the sugar off his lips and nodded.
“Right, Nespoli. And there’s our reconstruction of his mysterious past, where he lived before moving to his current apartment. Go on.”
“She lives alone now. She leads a somewhat withdrawn life, she doesn’t get too familiar with anyone. However, there’s news and it’s big news: the signorina is expecting, Commissa’. She’s pregnant. She confided it to the caretaker, because a few nights ago she was sick, she threw up, the usual thing. Would you believe it, Commissa’? When Bambinella told me, he was green with envy!”
Ricciardi had leaned forward as he always did when his full attention was captured.
“Pregnant, huh? There it is: the tame animal who becomes a beast. And did you ask about the other thing I told you to ask about?”
“Of course, Commissa’: you were right, as usual.” Maione smiled admiringly, shaking his head. “The young lady writes with her left hand.”
The afternoon passed slowly, as the wind continued to rattle the city.
Ricciardi remained shut up in his office, trying to take care of some routine paperwork he had neglected over the past few days, but he found it hard to concentrate. In his mind, the chain of events was now complete. But the Incident did not entirely fit the picture that had been formed. Vezzi was singing Nespoli’s aria: why so, if the baritone, as Ricciardi believed, had not committed the murder? And why was Vezzi crying? It was uncommon in Ricciardi’s experience: a sudden, violent death left no time for emotion. The tears must have preceded it. So then, why was Vezzi crying when he was killed? The Commissario glanced frequently at the clock. He had an appointment with someone who didn’t know she had an appointment with him, and he couldn’t be late.
The wind was still blowing fiercely, howling beneath the portico of the San Carlo. Standing around the corner, with his collar up and his hair tossed about, Ricciardi imagined how that place would be without the insistent whistling. Each time he had been there, in the past three days, the wind had virtually never let up. In the distance you could even hear the roar of the sea, when a rare car or a rattling tram wasn’t going by.
He hadn’t been waiting long when the person he was waiting for came out of the door to the gardens, along with two other women Ricciardi recognized: Maria and Addolorata. He looked at the petite figure of the young woman he wanted to talk to. What a miscalculation he had made, the first time he had seen her. Insignificant, struggling under the weight of the hanger that held the clown’s costume. Eyes downcast, shoulders curved. The woman who had stopped Vezzi’s heart and stolen that of Nespoli; whose single long blonde hair was on the dressing gown in the boarding house in the Vomero; who had lived with the penniless baritone then threw him out of the house at Christmas, when she had begun a relationship with the wealthy tenor: Maddalena Esposito at your service, Commissa’.
The woman saw him and stopped. Perhaps, for a moment, she even thought of running. Then she hastily said goodbye to her co-workers and came towards him. When she stood before him, she looked directly at him. The woman’s eyes were blue, intense and clear. She was very pretty, Ricciardi only then realized. How could he have noticed it before, he thought, since she didn’t usually show it. Only when and if it suited her.
“Good evening, Commissa’. What a surprise, to find you here.”
“Good evening to you, Signorina. Shall we take a walk?”
The woman seemed curious.
“Are you here in an official capacity, or not?”
“It depends. It depends on you. I’d say no.”
Maddalena nodded, then turned towards the piazza and began walking.
They went a few hundred yards in silence. Ricciardi knew that it would be up to him to lay his cards on the table first, otherwise the woman would hide behind Nespoli’s confession. Nor did he have any intention of underestimating Maddalena’s intelligence; she had successfully managed to conceal her role in the affair from the beginning.
“May I offer you some coffee? This wind makes it difficult to talk.”
Maddalena glanced quickly at him and nodded. A dark kerchief covered her hair and a coarse scarf was wound around her neck and mouth; she wore a dark threadbare coat, turned inside out with her skilled seamstress’ hands. They found an open café inside Galleria Umberto and sat down at a table away from the others.
The woman took off her coat and kerchief and folded them neatly on her lap. Ricciardi looked at her for some time. Her hands were slim and delicate, like her facial features; her hair, pulled up and bound, had a natural golden colour, like her eyebrows, and her complexion was dark, an unusual and pleasing contrast. What was surprising, however, were her eyes: a deep blue, with yellow flecks, they reminded him of those of a cat. Seeing them, the Commissario understood why the woman always keep them lowered and carefully avoided aiming them directly at anyone who looked at her: she could never have gone unnoticed.
“I could pretend and tell you that Nespoli gave us your name. Or I could interrogate you and make you confess. I don’t think you can afford a lawyer good enough to defend you against the charges of the court. But I looked into your man’s eyes and I want to respect his wishes. I know what happened, it’s clear to me; I cannot allow that young man to go to prison for thirty years as a result of this lie, for something he didn’t do, or that he didn’t do alone. So, I want to understand. Explain it to me.”
He fixed his cool green eyes on the girl’s blue, limpid ones: two minds, two intellects confronting one another. Without pretence, without masks.
The woman placed a hand on her stomach, gently.
“You know . . . ”
A statement, not a question. He nodded.
“My name is Esposito because I was abandoned when I was born. Did you know that almost all abandoned children die? Only the strong ones survive, Commissa’. Those who are very strong. I’ve been through illness, hunger. I was given up for dead maybe ten times, not that anyone would have cared much. I
nstead I survived: by tooth and nail. It surprised everyone, this little shrimp of a girl clinging so firmly to life. Then, because I wanted to survive, I learned to read and write. I would go and sit beside the nun who did the accounts; she didn’t even speak to me, but I watched her. Sewing, too. I watched the nun who kept mending the same little smocks over and over again; later on I helped her, while the other girls played or died from disease. And the hunger: I don’t even want to tell you what I ate when I was little, to survive. The most horrible things.”
Ricciardi looked at her and thought, there it was, the same old enemy: hunger.
“But the others were dying, even that the ones who seemed strong. Smallpox, cholera. Typhoid, diphtheria. How many diseases do you want, Commissa’? I can tell you all about them, even better than a doctor. And then one morning I felt ready and I left. Without thanking anyone, without taking anything away with me. What could I have taken? I had nothing. And what should I have thanked them for? They had given me nothing. I slept in the streets, I ate with the dogs, I defended myself. They didn’t want me even at the brothel: I was too skinny, I wore the face of hunger. Still, there was something I knew how to do: I could cut and sew. With my left hand.”
She raised her left hand in front of his face, looking at it as if it were a trophy, a medal. Ricciardi felt a remote quiver in his heart, thinking of a small hand that embroidered.
“I worked for a tailor, an old goat who took advantage of me. I let him do it, I had to eat. I waited for it to end. I slept in the doorway of the shop. Then one day Signora Lilla came in. She wanted a length of fabric in a colour that she had seen in the window. All it took her was a moment, one look. She has great foresight, Signora Lilla does. She saw that I was skilful, that I worked hard, and that the man was a pig. She called me aside. The next day I was working at the San Carlo.”
I Will Have Vengeance Page 17