White Death (2011)

by Jones, Tobias

An hour later I was uncomfortable and bored. The stool was too high, or too narrow, and I felt like an elephant perched on a pin. I had drunk three spremute and hoofed two brioches so I had icing sugar all down my front.

  The bar was full of talk about some important game from last night. I listened to people’s awe for the goals and derision for the linesmen. The brilliant spontaneity of the pitch had been replaced by the predictable paranoia and pomposity of the bar-fly commentators. Football’s a way to reinforce that deep-rooted feeling that the world is against you. It’s yet another reason to be indignant and that, here, is our favourite pastime. There’s certainly enough to be indignant about. It’s just that there are more serious things than a phantom offside or a disallowed goal that should arouse our powerless self-righteousness.

  Then I saw Santagata walking towards the bar where I was sitting. He came in and shouted his order when he was barely through the door. He greeted a couple of people and took the tiny tazzina in his hand. I noticed how fat his fingers were as they held the petite handle of his cup. Close up, his face looked mean. Either his nose was too wide or his mouth was too narrow. He shouted for a glass of acqua which was immediately poured out for him and put on the counter. He slapped a couple of coins on the counter, the metal making a loud crack as he did so, and walked out without saying another word. I watched him walk back to his stall, nodding at Davide Pace to say he had returned.

  I took a piece of paper out of my pocket and looked at the number. I dialled it and listened to it ring, watching Santagata reaching for his pocket. I placed my dictaphone next to my ear. It rang for five rings before a gruff voice came on the line. ‘Pronto.’

  ‘Salve,’ I said, ‘you left your number with my secretary. I’m just returning your call.’

  ‘Who is this?’

  I made up a name and a company.

  ‘You must have the wrong number.’ The voice was harsh and impatient.

  ‘So who am I speaking to?’

  There was a pause before he said goodbye and hung up. I stopped the dictaphone and listened again. The conversation was so short it was over in less than two seconds. I listened once more and then put the dictaphone in my pocket and called Bragantini.

  I arranged to see him at his house. He let me in and I told him I had something I wanted him to listen to.

  ‘What’s that?’ He sounded distracted, almost uninterested.

  ‘I’ve got a recording of a voice you might recognise. It’s just an idea.’

  ‘I told you, it’s over.’

  ‘Just listen,’ I said, putting the dictaphone on the table.

  Our short conversation was played back. The man the other end only said a few words.

  ‘Allora?’ I asked. ‘Could that be the man that called you, who threatened you after the first fire?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said impatiently. ‘It could be. I don’t know. When they phoned me it lasted a few seconds, just like that.’ He seemed defeated, like he had given up.

  ‘Does it sound like him?’ I asked again.

  ‘I don’t know.’ He told me again to drop round my expenses. It was a way of reminding me that my commission was over, that the case, for him, was closed.

  I showed him the photograph I had of Santagata. He shook his head curtly like he was warding off some street vendor.

  I drove round to Lombardi’s place. He was the only other person I knew who had received a threatening phone call. I hoped he would be more helpful than Bragantini.

  As I walked in I saw him slicing some coppa for a customer, his left hand moving backwards and forwards like he was rowing. Slender slices fell away, and he caught the upper edge with a small clip and laid them out flat. It looked like something he had done all his life, something he could do without even watching his hands.

  ‘Some culatello as well?’ he asked as he folded up the edges of the aluminium foil over the coppa.

  The customer agreed and Lombardi reached for the culatello under the transparent plastic bar. ‘This is really optimum quality,’ he said proudly as he placed it on the squat needles of the slicer. The machine began whirring and he started rowing again.

  As he was slicing he looked up and saw me. ‘Buongiorno,’ he said.

  I raised a hand and smiled at him.

  Once the customer had left, he came round to the side of the bar. He made a gesture to say he would have shaken hands but that they weren’t clean. I told him I had a recording of a voice he might be interested in. I put the dictaphone on the transparent counter and pressed play. I watched his face as he listened: he was grimacing in concentration.

  ‘Is that the man that threatened you?’

  He raised his eyebrows and his shoulders. ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t tell. It was a year ago and that’, he pointed at the dictaphone, ‘was so short.’

  The photograph wasn’t familiar to him either. I nodded, knowing I would have to go down a different route.

  ‘Some prosciutto?’ he asked jovially.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Coppa, culatello, gambetto?’

  I threw my fingers in the air and he took one at random. He went through the usual routine, placing it on the slicer and starting his one-handed rowing.

  ‘That’s more than enough,’ I said after a few seconds.

  He kept going, ignoring me. ‘Ecco,’ he said eventually, passing me a thick A4-size folder of aluminium.

  I passed him a twenty but he tutted. ‘It’s a present for your family.’

  ‘That’s very kind,’ I said, not telling him that I didn’t have any.

  He shrugged like it was no big deal. ‘I’m fortunate. Business is good. You know, everyone’s talking incessantly about the economic crisis, but people round here will never give up eating prosciutto. They would rather go without shoes than without ham. I’ve got roughly the same job security as an undertaker.’ He laughed gently at his own grim joke. ‘Death and ham, they’re the only certainties around here.’

  ‘Who’s your supplier?’ I asked. I had always been amazed that for an area that eats so much ham, you never see any pigs in the fields.

  ‘I am. That’s the only way to make real money in this line. If I didn’t raise my own pigs, I would be nothing more than a shopkeeper. I would just be selling someone else’s product. This way, I’m responsible for it. I know it’s the best quality because I’ve raised it with my own hands.’ He held out his palms to me and shook them to underline the point.

  That’s what I like about this part of the world. It’s so sophisticated but earthy at the same time. Even the fine flavours of a delicatessen are just an extension of a farm.

  ‘Buon appetito,’ he said, raising his right palm to his shoulder as I turned to walk out.

  I sat in the car and called an old friend who was still with the force. He had a family to support, which meant that he would sometimes look things up for me in return for some financial gratitude.

  ‘Marco?’

  ‘Sì.’

  ‘It’s Casta.’

  ‘Salve. How you doing?’

  ‘Not bad. I’ve got a scent and I’m looking for the prey.’

  ‘What’s the scent exactly?’

  ‘A number plate.’

  ‘That it?’

  I gave him the numbers from Santagata’s Fiat and heard him repeating them under his breath. ‘I’ll call you back,’ he said. ‘It normally takes a while.’

  I parked and wandered around the city aimlessly. Eventually I felt my phone vibrating and pulled it out. It was Marco.

  ‘Got a pen?’

  ‘Got a memory. Go on.’

  ‘It’s registered to a guy called Antonio Santagata.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘So what do you need?’

  ‘The address.’

  ‘Via Volturno is what it says here.’

  ‘Number?’

  ‘53.’

  The road to the Agip station where I had met Gaia was full of afternoon traffic. I sat in th
e car inching forwards and feeling frustrated at not having a positive ID on Santagata’s voice and face. So far all I really had was someone buying petrol and passing it on to a friend. The friend didn’t appear particularly friendly, but that was no crime.

  I parked at the far end of the forecourt and walked towards the booth where she was serving customers. Most of them seemed to know her; they stood there talking and laughing with her as they paid for their petrol. I was surprised to find myself feeling excluded somehow as she offered each of them her happy, honest smile. I stood at the back of the queue and she didn’t notice me until I was right in front of her.

  ‘Salve,’ she said, her smile more contained than it had been for other customers.

  I had the photo of Pace ready and passed her the phone across the counter. She looked at it briefly then nodded.

  ‘You found him then?’ she said in a low voice.

  ‘He came forward.’

  ‘I guess that’s that then.’ She said it like she wanted to be contradicted.

  ‘There is something else.’ I looked over my shoulder and saw one other customer in the booth choosing some chocolate. He didn’t seem to be listening. I leant closer towards her. ‘I need to check something out and I kind of need company.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve got to go and scout out a restaurant. If I go on my own, I stand out. People are suspicious. If I go with a woman, well, it looks normal. They don’t notice me.’

  ‘You need me for cover?’ She sounded almost offended.

  ‘Il Cucchiaio tonight at eight?’

  ‘OK,’ she said. We stared at each other for a second longer than necessary and I walked out feeling mildly euphoric.

  I drove home and called Il Cucchiaio. I wanted to check that it did what every other restaurant did: take a number with the booking. I walked over to my desk and looked in the phone book. It rang for a long time before a sleepy voice came on the line.

  ‘Il Cucchiaio.’

  ‘I was hoping to book a table for later tonight.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Eight.’

  ‘Two for eight o’clock. Can I take a name and a number?’

  ‘Renzo Rinaldi.’ The name rolled off my tongue so easily it sounded real. ‘Zero five two one. Fifty-eight, seventy-four, sixty-two. Is that right? Hang on, sorry, I’ve just moved house and don’t always get it right. Could you just read that back to me?’

  ‘Zero five two one. Fifty-eight, seventy-four, sixty-two.’

  ‘That sounds right, thank you. See you later.’ I hung up and stared at the phone. It was a long shot, but if Bragantini’s housekeeper had been booking tables there, they must have had his number. And if they had his number, the chances were someone else had got hold of it.

  It was a short walk to the offices of Casa dei Sogni. The agency was empty but for the girl on the front desk.

  ‘Is the boss in?’ I asked her.

  ‘Marina? She’s just gone out.’

  ‘You know where?’

  She pulled a large diary towards her and looked at the right-hand page. She tapped it with her finger. ‘There’s some reception at City Hall.’

  ‘You know what time it starts?’

  She looked at her watch. ‘About now.’

  I thanked her and she said ‘prego’ cheerfully like she was surprised by gratitude. I looked at her again, trying to weigh up how much she was a close ally of her employer.

  ‘Do you ever come across a man called Giulio Moroni?’ I asked.

  She frowned, looking sideways to the end of her desk. ‘I know the name.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘He calls occasionally for Marina.’

  ‘You’ve never seen him in here?’

  She shook her head slowly, like she was thinking about it.

  I walked over to City Hall and up the august steps into the main building. I could hear the sound of an amplified voice as I approached the main hall. There was a wall of backs as I pushed open the door. On stage there were three or four local dignitaries, including Paolo D’Antoni. They were separated from the public by a thick, twisted red cord held up on metallic supports. The man next to D’Antoni was talking proudly about the beauty of the territorio and the projected growth of the city. His sentences were so long and rambling that they managed to disguise the fact that the growth would destroy the beauty.

  I saw Giacomo leaning against one wall on the right and gently pushed my way through the crowd towards him.

  ‘What’s this all about?’ I whispered.

  He leant his head against the wall so that he could whisper in my right ear: ‘The publication of the strategic review of urban planning.’

  ‘What on earth’s that?’

  ‘It’s the waffle before the business. Makes it look like they’ve got a philosophy to back up their plundering.’ He looked at me wearily, just in case I was in any doubt as to what he thought about it.

  I looked round the room. Giulio Moroni was standing against the wall opposite us, staring at me. I offered him a false smile and he looked away. Marina Vanoli was sitting in the middle of the seats, her neck still looking twice as old as her face.

  It all felt a bit like a sermon at Mass. No one was really listening. In fact, quite a few were whispering openly amongst themselves. It was just something that had to be gone through, something to justify what came afterwards: the slicing up of the cake, the division of the spoils.

  The man was still talking, droning on about what the city had been like when he was a child. He described the honest poverty of his youth and quoted one or two local poets I had never heard of. He slipped into dialect occasionally to prove he was a man of the people. He had lost his audience long ago, but he wasn’t going to lose the microphone.

  It went on for over an hour. Each local dignitary having their say. Giacomo occasionally made a sarcastic comment to me when the idealism got too much.

  Afterwards there was a small reception. Flutes of local wine served with minimalist canapés. There were lots of handshakes and back-slaps and cheek-kisses. I watched Paolo D’Antoni seek out Moroni and chat to him for a few minutes. They were standing close to each other, each looking over the other’s shoulder and they spoke into each other’s ear. As soon as they had finished, Moroni left.

  I followed him outside and caught up with him.

  ‘Enjoy it?’ I said when he was half-way down the stairs.

  He turned round slowly and snarled at me. ‘Eh?’

  I repeated my question.

  ‘I never enjoy listening to politicians,’ he said. ‘They talk too much.’

  ‘Don’t they ever tell you anything interesting?’

  He stopped walking and turned to look at me. ‘What is it you want? I’m beginning to get tired of you.’

  ‘I just wondered what your connection is to Paolo D’Antoni and Marina Vanoli.’

  His eyelids looked heavy with contempt. ‘There is no connection.’

  ‘You’ve never put business each other’s way?’

  He tried to lift his heavy jowls into a derisive smile. It just made him look more intimidating. ‘What’s your problem? You haven’t got enough work?’

  ‘I’m doing OK.’

  He sneered. ‘You’re doing OK?’ He flashed his teeth briefly. ‘So why are you following me around like you’ve got a crush on me?’

  ‘Maybe I have.’

  He gave a single exhalation that could have been a laugh or a grunt. ‘Why don’t you get a proper job?’ He lowered his chin. ‘Being a snoop is no career. You’re not doing anything useful for anyone.’

  A couple of people came down the steps. We had to move to the side of the staircase to let them pass. Once they were gone, he raised his eyebrows at me. ‘We could do with someone like you in the company. Someone smart, tenacious.’ He nodded. ‘Very good wage. Four thousand clean each month. A chance to get involved in investments whenever you’re re
ady.’

  I chuckled. ‘I wouldn’t work for you if I had starving children to feed.’

  His face dropped and his eyelids descended again. ‘You think you’re better than the rest of us, is that it?’

  I shook my head and smiled slightly. ‘Not at all. I just think the rest of us are better than you.’

  He stared at me briefly, apparently stunned that someone had dared to insult him. ‘You should be careful,’ he whispered.

  I watched him walk down the steps muttering to himself.

  Gaia was standing under the arches. She was leaning with her back against one of the square columns, her coat hanging vertically down from her shoulders so that I could see her figure silhouetted in the evening light. I stopped walking for a second to look at her. She was stunning in an eccentric way. Her blond hair was glowing in the last of the sunlight and it was so chaotic it looked like she had cut it herself in the dark.

  She saw me and bounced herself upright. We brushed cheeks and I could smell a hint of perfume.

  ‘You hungry?’ I asked, holding the door of the restaurant open.

  ‘Always,’ she said.

  A man in a clean, front-of-house apron shouted ‘Good evening’ from behind a bar. The apron was yellow with a vertical black spoon on the side. He was tall and was cultivating a professorial look with his glasses perched theatrically on the very tip of his nose.

  We nodded our greetings and walked towards the bar. It was a cavernous sort of place: bare, beige bricks forming curved alcoves full of dark red bottles.

  ‘We booked for two. Rinaldi,’ I said.

  Gaia looked at me, frowning slightly at the use of a false name.

  ‘Of course. Let me just go and check if it’s ready. Can I get you a drink whilst you’re waiting?’

  ‘Malvasia please,’ she said.

  ‘Two.’

  He bent down to open a fridge door. He ripped gold foil off the neck and turned the bottle in one hand so that the cork popped into the palm of the other. He filled two flutes and pushed them across the bar to us, his fingers on their bases. ‘Prego.’

  We watched him disappear under an archway.