Lojacono showed no visible reaction: “Commissario, I would have accepted a transfer to Patagonia in order to get out of here. But I wanted to keep you guessing. When do I report for duty in my new precinct?”
III
The woman enters, and slams the door behind her.
Before the door slams shut, he manages to glimpse astonishment on the faces of a couple of employees, fixed as if in some hyperrealistic painting meant to depict amazement, embarrassment, and terror, all in a single expression. One of them was actually halfway out of his chair, as if he meant to try to stop the intrusion. As if that was even possible.
The man heaves a sigh and tucks his head between his shoulders in order to absorb the loud banging of the door against the jamb; it sounds like its structural integrity is being tested.
“Well, what the fuck are you planning to do? Have you made up your mind? Don’t I have a right to know?”
Hands on her hips, long legs braced, jaw clenched tight. Her red hair glows as if it’s on fire, and so do her eyes. She’s beautiful, the man thinks to himself. Beautiful, even when she’s furious.
Which seems to be the case more often than not these days, truth be told.
“Lower your voice. Have you lost your mind? What are you trying to do now, air all our dirty laundry?”
She does lower the volume; but not by much.
“I need to know what you plan to do. Because enough is enough: I refuse to become that pathetic cliché—the poor idiot duped by the older professional. I’m a girl who’ll knock you flat on your ass; that’s exactly what I’ll do, and you know it. I can’t believe it, can’t believe I’ve let this go on so long.”
He knows perfectly well that if he starts whimpering now, she’ll just get angrier. He does his best to think quickly.
“It’s not a matter of anyone trying to dupe you. This is a complicated situation. A whole lifetime together . . . We own property together, a lot of it in her name, for tax purposes. And then it’s a moral issue, it’s not like I can just get up one morning and kick her out the door, not someone like . . . someone like her. And there are all our friends, our contacts, some of them politicians . . . It’s not a simple matter.”
“Friends? Politicians? I DON’T GIVE A FLYING FUCK about your contacts, do you get that? I will humiliate you in front of the whole world! Do you seriously think I don’t know that everything you have comes to you from the curia? What do you think His Eminence would say, if he knew that . . . if he knew about me, about my condition? He’d send you straight to hell, that’s where he’d send you!”
He shifts to get more comfortable in his chair, threading his fingers together in front of his face, his expression pensive. He needs to keep cool.
“Well done. That way we’ll both lose everything. Is that what’s in your best interest? And is that in . . . well, I mean, is that in our best interest? Wouldn’t it be smarter to wait for the right time? Maybe we can get someone else to solve the whole problem for us. I’ll talk to her, I told you. I’ll do it. No matter what, I’ll have to do it. She’s reasonable, you know; she’s certainly no fool.”
She watches him, unblinking, with those green eyes of hers. Her breasts heave with her still rapid breaths. He can’t help but stare at her in fascination.
“You’d better do it, and for real. Otherwise I’ll do it for you, and I’ll look her straight in the eye when I tell her. Maybe we women understand each other better, without a lot of fancy phrases. Maybe I’ll bring her a present, and then I’ll tell her: that it’s not a very good idea to try to get in the way of someone like me.”
He knows perfectly well that she would do it. That she’s good, very good, at facing situations head-on.
“If you don’t lower your voice, goddammit, you won’t even need to go see her. Do you have any idea how many spies she has, here in this office? It wouldn’t do you a bit of good, anyway. She’d never say yes to you. She’d just decide that there’s a battle to be fought, and maybe she’d talk herself into believing that, since I wasn’t the one who came to talk to her, I don’t have the courage to leave her, and that therefore she might stand a chance of winning me back. God forbid. We’d get swallowed up in legal maneuverings that would never end. Her father is a retired judge who still has plenty of influence. No, I’m going to have to talk to her.”
The woman walks closer to the desk, feline, like a tiger about to pounce on its prey. She places both hands flat on the desktop, long red fingernails pointing straight at him.
IV
The entrance to the police station of Pizzofalcone was situated in the courtyard of an old palazzo, its façade covered with flaking plaster that had been patched in more than one place. The impression Lojacono got was of decay and neglect, which was so often the case in the city’s older neighborhoods.
After a brisk wave goodbye to his driver, who roared off, tires squealing and siren wailing, he climbed a short flight of stairs that led into a small antechamber lit by fluorescent lights: even in the middle of the day, sunlight couldn’t make its way into that room.
Behind the counter an officer sat sprawled in a swivel chair, deep in the pages of the sports section. There was the smell of coffee in the air, clearly emanating from a vending machine where two cops stood talking and laughing. The man behind the front desk didn’t even bother to look up. Lojacono drew closer without a word and waited, staring at the uniformed officer.
After a while, the officer looked up from his paper and assumed a quizzical expression: “Yes?”
“I’m Lieutenant Lojacono. I believe the commissario is expecting me.”
The man neither put down his paper nor shifted position.
“Second floor, room at the end of the hall.”
Lojacono didn’t move.
“On your feet,” he murmured.
“What?” asked the policeman.
“Stand up on your own two feet, asshole. Give me your last name, first name, and rank. And do it fast, or I’ll jump straight over this counter and kick your ass black and blue.”
The lieutenant hadn’t changed his tone of voice or his expression, but it was as if he had shouted. The two men drinking coffee exchanged a quick glance and then left the room, quickly and quietly.
The officer struggled out of the chair, displaying a jacket half unbuttoned over a prominent gut and a loosened belt. His collar was half undone, and the knot of his tie hung slack. He snapped to attention, his gaze fixed on the empty air before him.
“Officer Giovanni Guida, Pizzofalcone Police Precinct.”
Lojacono continued to stare at him.
“Now you listen to me, Giovanni Guida of the Pizzofalcone police precinct. You’re the first thing people see when they walk in here, so of course they’ll assume that we’re all filthy pigs, because you’re a filthy pig. And I don’t like it when people think that I’m a filthy pig.”
The man said nothing, and his eyes remained expressionless. One of the two cops who had been drinking coffee stuck his head in for a moment, then vanished.
“If I see you looking like I found you just now ever again, I’ll kick your ass for one solid hour out in the courtyard. Is that clear? And then you can write me up for it.”
Officer Guida murmured softly: “Forgive me, lieutenant. It won’t happen again. It’s just that, these days, practically no one even comes in here anymore. People prefer . . . people go to the carabinieri, when they want to report something. They seem to prefer going there since . . . for a while now.”
“I don’t care about that,” Lojacono replied. “Even if they turn this place into a cloistered monastery, you still need to present yourself looking the way you’re supposed to look.”
He went through the internal door as Guida was stuffing his shirttails into his trousers, red-faced and swearing under his breath.
A short hallway led to the stairs. Out of the corn
er of his eye Lojacono took in sloppiness, disorder, and neglect. He felt distress rise within him, and he wondered if he’d ever again experience the excitement he used to feel for his profession.
The commissario’s office was right at the top of the staircase. Behind the desk sat Palma, busy placing sheets of paper into a box file. Lojacono remembered him the minute he saw him, a man of about forty with a rumpled look, his shirtsleeves rolled up, a shadow of stubble on his face. More than sloppiness, however, the impression he gave was of someone who was constantly busy.
Commissario Palma noticed Lojacono and beamed a broad smile: “Ah, Lojacono, at last you’re here! I was hoping to see you today. I would have called you, but the right thing to do was to let that old geezer Di Vincenzo talk to you first. Come right in, make yourself comfortable.”
The lieutenant took a step forward. The window was closed, but through the panes of glass, wet from the gusts of rain, it was possible to see the stormy sea, engaged in its thousand-year effort to demolish the tufa-stone castle perched over the waves. That city never ceased to surprise him, treating him to sudden spectacular glimpses of deceptive beauty.
“Nice, eh? A magnificent view, but let’s not let ourselves get distracted: we have work to do. Go ahead, have a seat. You want a coffee?”
“No, thanks, commissario. How’s everything going, sir?”
Palma threw open his arms: “No, no, that’s no way to get started, Loja’! We need to be on a first-name basis here. It’s just the four of us here and we all need to be rowing in the same direction. And after all, we’re practically all new; I got here last Monday, the others have come in over the past three days, you’re the last. In fact, now that you’re here we can have our first meeting, what do you say? Or would you prefer to get settled in instead?”
The lieutenant was overwhelmed by the commissario’s enthusiasm.
“No, that’s not a problem, if you’d like, sir . . . I mean if you want, sure, right away . . .”
“Perfect, there’s no time to waste, I was just waiting for you. Ottavia! Ottavia!”
A side door opened up and a woman in a skirt suit stepped out.
“Yes, sir, commissa’?”
“No, what is this ‘yes, sir’? Didn’t we just say yesterday that we’re all on a first-name basis around here? Come in, come in. This is Lieutenant Giuseppe Lojacono, the precinct’s latest draft pick. Loja’, allow me to introduce you to Deputy Sergeant Ottavia Calabrese, she was already here . . . she’ll be an invaluable resource as we get ourselves situated.”
Calabrese took a step forward and Lojacono, who had stood up in the meantime, shook her hand. A good-looking woman a little over forty, serious, weary-looking, her hair pulled back.
“Welcome, lieutenant. If there’s anything you need, sir, just let me know.”
Her voice, low and warm, was firm and nicely modulated. Lojacono liked to judge people based on first impressions, though he was always willing to change his mind if the facts seemed to warrant it. And he liked Deputy Sergeant Calabrese.
Palma laughed: “Well, there’s no way around it, you can’t seem to shake that formality, eh, Ottavia? Loja’, Calabrese here is a computer genius. Anything you need on the Internet, she can find it for you. Ottavia, let’s alert the others and have everyone gather in the meeting room, all right? Let’s call down for some coffee and a bottle of mineral water, we’re celebrating the new administration. Come on, Loja’, let’s head down and wait for the others.”
V
The walls. The walls of this room.
They’re six and a half paces long; actually, eight and three quarter paces, to be precise. And it’s eight paces on the other side. I remember from school, to measure the area of a rectangle you have to multiply the long side by the short side. I liked that, going to school. But then, of course, once I reached seventh grade, I stopped going.
To measure the short side you have to take into account the dresser against the wall, so to take that step you have to move a little to one side, which lengthens the distance by almost a quarter pace. And on the long side, there’s a tile that’s slightly chipped, right where you place your foot after the third pace.
You learn lots of things, staying here. From the windows on the balcony, for instance, you can see five apartments in the building across the way. If I could go out onto the balcony, I’d be able to see others, I think, but I’d better not. One time, he stuck a piece of paper in the French windows, and he looked to see if it was still there. It was, because I hadn’t even thought of trying to open the bedroom windows: but then if it had been gone, what would I have said to him? It was my good luck I didn’t open that window.
It’s been fifteen days now. He came yesterday, who knows when he can come back. He said: let’s hope it’s soon. Sure, let’s hope it’s soon.
Eight and three quarter paces, if you ask me, is almost thirty feet. An enormous room. All for me: and there’s a bedroom, too, and a kitchen, and a bathroom. Back home, in our basso, the hovel I lived in, a space that’s half the size of this, there were five of us, and we thought we were doing fine. I’m really a lucky girl.
But I am allowed to raise the shutters. Not all the way, he said I’d better not, even though there are curtains; but a little bit, I can. I like to look out the window, I pass my time watching what people do. For instance, on the fourth floor there’s an old woman who likes to watch, same as I do. Once, I’m pretty sure she saw me.
Thirty feet long, twenty feet wide. More than 600 square feet, for just one room. Mamma mia, I really am a lucky girl.
And he left me all sorts of provisions, I have a refrigerator that’s about to collapse with all the food in it, and who’s ever seen such bounty? It doesn’t seem possible.
There are times, I’ll admit, when I miss fresh air. He had an air conditioner installed, he gave me the remote control, and how we laughed, I just couldn’t figure out how to make it work.
I even have a washing machine that dries the clothes after it washes them, who would ever have believed it, it seems like a miracle. I told him I don’t need such a thing, the few items of clothing I have I can hang over the bathtub, but he wouldn’t listen to a word I said, he told me that I ought to have everything I need. Like a queen. That’s exactly what he said, like a queen. And who would ever have said such a thing about me, that I was going to be a queen!
I keep everything clean in here, even if nothing gets dirty. When he comes here, I don’t ever want him to think that I’m neglecting the cleaning. When I’m done, I sit down to watch TV; now that’s a remote control I have no trouble using. But I keep the voices very low, he made a point of telling me to be quiet, even if the voice people would hear would be the TV’s, not mine.
I wait for him, I always wait for him. Every so often he calls me, he’s the only one who even knows the number here. The last time he called he even let me say hello to Mamma, what a pleasure it was to hear her voice! She was so happy! She told me that he had bought her lots of nice things, that he even gave Papà a job, and work to my two brothers, that everyone’s fine. She told me: grazie, Mammà’s little sweetheart. Grazie. And I felt proud.
I need to eat now. He said I can’t waste away, that I’m too beautiful and I need to be careful not to lose my looks, if I do he’ll kick me out. He said it with a laugh, but I was scared. He said that I’m eighteen years old, and that at my age girls get ugly if they eat too much or they don’t eat enough: and so he brought me the things I need to eat, and he wrote down what I should cook every day, and at what time.
I put the sheet of paper on the fridge, with the magnet in the shape of a ladybug, and I read it slowly and I cook and I eat according to the schedule.
A little while ago I looked out the window, and there was that old lady, looking right in my direction.
I’m afraid of her, that old lady.
I wonder what she wants with me.
<
br /> VI
Now, then,” said Palma, “here we are. Before holding this meeting, we waited for Lieutenant Lojacono, the last addition to the staff. Now that we’re all here we can introduce ourselves.”
Lojacono hoped that the commissario’s cheerful and amiable demeanor was meant to encourage the staff; that it wasn’t dictated by any real and, in his opinion, unjustified optimism. The group looked pretty thrown together and it was, as Di Vincenzo had maliciously pointed out, made up of rejects from the city’s various precincts; and those rejects were here to replace dirty, disloyal cops, who had muddied their colleagues’ reputations by getting their faces splashed onto the front pages of the national press.
For that matter, Lojacono mused, he too was one of those rejects; and people had also accused him of being a dirty, disloyal cop.
Palma was still talking: “I’m not going to pretend that it will be an easy task: people warned me against taking this position, and the police chief himself debated, up to the very last minute, dissolving the precinct entirely. But I like daunting challenges, and so I accepted. It if turns out well, it’ll turn out well for all of us: if not, it’ll be bad for me in particular, because I doubt that any of you, for one reason or another, are interested in going back to where you came from.”
In the pause that followed, Lojacono shot a glance around the conference table, a long oval in light wood, coated with dust and scarred by cigarette burns. There were seven people, him included—all of various ages, genders, physical appearances, and expressions; he wondered what had brought them here, what stories haunted their pasts.
As if he’d read his mind, the commissario said: “I’d like you all to introduce yourselves, as if no one here knows anyone else. I’m Gigi Palma, the commissario of Pizzofalcone. I’m always available, I never close my office door, unless keeping it open is a problem for whoever is talking to me. I feel sure that if we work hard, and work honestly, in the end we’ll see results, and they’ll be good results. I try not to be prejudiced, and I don’t give a damn about what the newspapers have said about any of you: I’m wiping the slate clean, starting today. Best of luck. I’d begin with those of you who were already here, if you want to tell us a little something . . .”
The Bastards of Pizzofalcone Page 2