Vipers

by Maurizio de Giovanni

  The woman saw she was cornered:

  “I know, I was wrong there. But I didn’t think it mattered much who had found her. Lily has been with us for years, she was here before Viper and she knows the Cavalier very well, they’ve been together so many times, and even now, if Viper wasn’t feeling well, he’d go with her. I assume she did it out of friendship. To keep him out of trouble. You know, the Cavalier is a well respected man about town, and if word got out that he’d been here . . . after all, he has plenty of priests for customers. It’s one thing to see him go in and out, it’s quite another to know that he found the body of a murdered whore. Then there’s his son . . .”

  Ricciardi’s ears perked up:

  “Whose son?”

  “The Cavalier’s son. Just the other day he was telling me that he was worried because his son, a young man, just twenty, who runs the shop with him, let him know that people were talking about the fact that his father comes to Il Paradiso. I mean, he was starting to worry.”

  Interesting, thought Ricciardi.

  “Grazie, Signora. If I need any more information, I’ll be sure to call you. Now could you send in Signorina Lily, if you please?”

  Lily came into the room, her slippers flapping on the floor, unafraid to display her hostility to Maione and Ricciardi. Once again, the commissario could not help but remark the dramatic difference between the youth he could gauge from her delicate features, which looked even younger thanks to her blond hair and blue eyes, and the age that emerged from her weary, apathetic expression.

  “Buongiorno, Signorina. I’d have just a few more questions, if you don’t mind.”

  “And why should I mind, Commissa’? Without men in here, we’re all just bored. You’re a distraction. And now that I’m getting a good look at you, you’re not bad at all, you know, I might even see if I can get a smile out of you. What do you say, should we give it a try? Or are you one of those men that don’t like women?”

  Maione took a step forward:

  “Hey, sweetheart, don’t step out of line or I’ll smack you into a jail cell so fast it’ll make your head spin, and don’t think I won’t.”

  Ricciardi raised one hand.

  “Don’t worry about it, Maione. My tastes aren’t up for discussion, Signorina: what is up for discussion is the fact that you lied about the discovery of the corpse, and unless you give us a satisfactory explanation that we find convincing, you’ll be going to jail, all right, and for much more serious infractions.”

  The girl wasn’t about to let herself be intimidated.

  “You guys really don’t have a sense of humor. I wouldn’t take a policeman to bed, even for double my fee, I was just kidding. And as for who found the dead body, I saw it right after Enzo . . . after Cavalier Ventrone called for help. So whether it was me or him, the important thing is that we found it, no?”

  “The difference has to do with the fact that Ventrone just might be the murderer.”

  Ricciardi’s words had the effect of a slap on the girl’s face. Her sweet features suddenly twisted into an expression of anger and indignation.

  “Ventrone didn’t kill anyone. He was very fond of Viper, and in any case he couldn’t hurt a fly.”

  Ricciardi went after his wounded prey.

  “And yet, from what I’ve heard, Ventrone’s tastes were quite particular. Let’s just say that, at least with Viper, he liked a little violence.”

  Lily flushed red.

  “What we do with our customers in the privacy of our rooms is none of your business. And if Viper never complained, it must mean she didn’t mind it either. And in any case, she made money doing it, and plenty of it.”

  Ricciardi fell silent. Then he said:

  “Signorina, I’m going to ask you one more time, and I urge you to consider carefully the answer that you give: what was your relationship with Viper like?”

  “We’re all in here together, Commissa’. Some for one reason, others for another. It’s not an easy life, we pass the time together, we talk. It’s like being in jail, when people are thrown together with no say in the matter. Viper and I were very different, but we respected each other. In a way we were even friends. I’m sorry about what happened to her: but it’s the kind of thing that you have to take into consideration as a possibility when you’re in this line of work.”

  She furrowed her brow and stared into the middle distance. Her deep voice seemed to drift in pursuit of memories.

  “There were afternoons in here, with the rain coming down and no clients at all, when we’d get to talking, stretched out on the bed in her room or mine. All the dreams we’d thrown away, all the things that could have happened but never did. She had a son, did you know that? She never saw him, because she didn’t want anyone to know that the boy’s mother was a whore. She sent nearly all the money she made to her mother, for the boy. Poor Viper, if she’d known how things were going end up, maybe she would have gone to see her son. Secretly maybe. And there were times when they had the two of us work together, the blond with the big tits and the fiery-mouthed brunette; men are fools, Commissa’. They imagine things and then think they can see them. How we laughed, behind those fools’ backs.”

  She shook herself.

  “We weren’t fond of each other, Commissa’, that’s true. In here people can’t be fond of one another, they can only pretend. But Viper wasn’t a bad girl, she was just like me: someone doing her best to live decently. She certainly didn’t deserve what happened to her. Can I go now?”

  Ricciardi nodded his head.

  “Yes, Signorina, you can go. But remember to make sure we can get in touch with you, if we should need more information.”

  Once the girl had left, he summoned Madame Yvonne.

  “Signora, you can open for business tomorrow. Of course, the room where the murder took place must stay locked, and no one is to touch anything.”

  The woman sighed, in evident relief.

  “Grazie, grazie, Commissa’. You’ve saved my life. May the Virgin Mary reward you!”

  Maione snickered.

  “Let’s leave the Madonna out of this, Signo’, I have a feeling she might not pass by these parts that often.”

  Before leaving, Ricciardi went upstairs and walked toward Viper’s door. He turned the knob and walked in. Everything was exactly as it had been the day before, except for the corpse, which had been removed, along with the murder weapon, the pillow. Like a chilly breath of air, he heard the girl’s hoarse voice, as she stood at the mirror. The voice made the hair stand up on the back of his neck: Little whip, little whip. My little whip. What is it you saw, Maria Rosaria Cennamo from Vomero, aka Viper? What did you think about as you died? As your fantastic body, the fantasy of hundreds of men, gave up its last breath?

  Coppola had been known as Peppe ’a Frusta, Joey the Whip, ever since he was a boy: since the days when he used to run over the fields and through the gardens with his little girlfriend, laughing and dreaming of a happy future. But Ventrone, the slimy merchant who dealt in sacred art, had an unhealthy passion for violent games, and perhaps the whip was an instrument of demented pleasure for him. One of the two, Viper? Or both of them?

  There were blond hairs on the pillow and on the brush. Coppola was blond and Lily was blond, and neither of them had denied spending plenty of time in Viper’s room.

  Who was the last person to be in this room? Ricciardi asked the ghost he could sense there. Why, now that you’ve decided to poison my existence like all the other hundreds of dead people I encounter in the street, won’t you go ahead and tell me who decided to reduce you to this state?

  But the woman turned her dead gaze to the mirror that refused to show her reflection, repeating over and over: Little whip, little whip. My little whip. The same thing she’d keep saying until the air had forgotten her emotions, and she’d vanished into the wind.

  X
VI

  Down in the street, they realized that the rain had been defeated by the wind. The clouds were scudding rapidly across the sky, creating a succession of shadows and light on the wet street.

  At the corner of the vicolo, the blind accordionist was taking advantage of the increased pedestrian traffic to run his fingers over the keys, playing a mazurka that drew giggles from the nannies out doing a little shopping with an umbrella well within reach.

  Ricciardi and Maione stood watching the little side door, the one that Madame Yvonne had said led into the kitchen.

  “The murder, Commissa’,” said the brigadier, “took place just after the place opened in the early afternoon. Honestly, I doubt there was enough activity at that time of the day to make it possible to get away with this thing in all the chaos. And I don’t think that anyone could make it from the kitchen into one of the bedrooms without being noticed.”

  Ricciardi stroked his chin pensively.

  “You have a point, it would have been hard to pull off. And anyway, we have plenty of suspects to check out already, without going in search of new ones. Madame, for instance, mentioned that Ventrone has a son who is upset with his father over his obsession with the brothel. The son’s twenty; I think they would have seen him if he’d tried to get in, but he could have pretended to be a customer of one of the other girls. It should be checked out, don’t you think? At that hour, the shop would have been closed, so the young man would have been free to move, even if he’d have run the risk of being seen by his father.”

  Maione listened attentively.

  “And if you want me to tell you the truth, even that Lily strikes me as the kind who’ll say one thing but think another.”

  The commissario trusted Maione’s intuitions.

  “So that’s the impression you got, eh? I thought there was something odd about her too, and the same goes for Yvonne . . . You know what I think, Raffaele? I think the time has come to open a crack in this wall. You should take a walk to see that girlfriend of yours, the one who knows everything about everybody.”

  Maione waxed indignant:

  “Commissa’, what are you talking about, what girlfriend! First of all, she’s not even a girl. And we’re certainly not friends: she . . . he owes me a favor because I didn’t throw him . . . her in jail when we first met, and . . .”

  Ricciardi raised both hands.

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake, you’re right, my mistake. All right, go visit this old enemy of yours, this almost-ex-con, and see if she knows anything about what went on at Il Paradiso when Viper was alive.”

  A metallic sound caught their attention: a man walking a little dog on a leash had dropped something into the blind musician’s metal tray. The accordionist, still playing with one hand, used the other to lift his dark glasses partway, and when he realized that what lay in the plate was a nail, not a coin, he cursed under his breath at the pedestrian who was walking away and then resumed his masquerade, with musical accompaniment.

  Maione called out in amusement.

  “Would you just look at that son of a bitch!”

  Ricciardi glanced at his watch.

  “I have to meet Modo at Gambrinus, otherwise he’ll tell anyone who’ll listen that I refused to buy him lunch. You go ahead and take your walk, we’ll meet back at the office.”

  Rain or no rain, Gambrinus was still a destination for those who wanted to eat well without leaving the center of town, so the inside tables were all full.

  For that matter, however unpredictable the weather might be, it was by no means chilly, and so some tables had been put outside and piano music poured out the open windows; as a result Ricciardi found Modo sitting at the table most sheltered from the wind, raptly reading his newspaper and enjoying the view of pretty girls walking past. A few yards away, sitting up as usual, as if he might take off at a dead run at any moment, was the the dog with no name.

  “Ah, there you are. I was just resigning myself to being stood up for the umpteenth time by you, my somber friend. But this time I would have forgiven you, because I like this new familiarity with the brothel. All right, for now it’s just work: but perhaps, over time, you’ll grow to like it and become a customer.”

  Ricciardi sat with his back to the street: the suicide went on murmuring, his face bloody: Our café, my love, our café, my love, and he knew that in time the litany would give him a splitting migraine.

  “I wouldn’t count on it, you know. Those places aren’t for me.”

  “Because people have a good time there? So where do you spend your evenings, at the cemetery chatting with the residents?”

  The commissario was willing to give as good as he got.

  “You can kid around all you like. But you ought to know, with the work you do, just what happens to those who experience powerful passions. Knives, brass knuckles, billy clubs, and revolvers, in and of themselves, when left in a desk drawer, are innocent. It’s the hands that are guilty: and the hands are driven by the belly, by the heart, and by the exact same emotions you go in search of in places like your Il Paradiso.”

  Modo stretched out his legs.

  “That’s the point. I know that’s how you see things; and it’s what makes you seem like a character who’s just walked out of one of those gothic novels from a hundred years ago. But you also know that the main force driving mankind is emotion, and that in the end emotions are nothing but a fancy word for the blood that pumps through our veins and fans the flames of our desires. We’re animals, my friend, and we should never forget it. In spite of the church, which does its best to persuade us that we’re purely spirit, or our lovely current ruler, who sees us as lines of numbers on a sheet of paper.”

  Ricciardi considered the matter.

  “So, in your opinion the bordello is a place of emancipation, is that right? And these girls who work there, don’t you think about them? About their dreams, their hopes? The fact that they have to go along with who knows what perversions, however violent?”

  Modo turned serious.

  “The girls are there of their own free will. No one forces them into it, and I believe that freedom to choose what kind of life you’ll live is also a mark of civilization. Believe me, they’re safer in there, under constant medical supervision, with a minimal security detail and decent sanitary conditions, than they would be on the street. Plenty of times I’ve seen some drunk who’d stepped over the line being given the bum’s rush; I’ve even helped toss them out myself. What do you think, that I’m the kind of guy who takes advantage of poor defenseless girls?”

  Ricciardi shook his head vigorously.

  “No, no, Bruno. I know who you are and the way you think, of course. But the fact remains that this girl, Viper, was killed while she was working. And that one of her clients often dabbled in violent little games.”

  “Yes, I know that there are people like that. But believe me, there are more people who want to be hit than the ones who don’t. And in any case experienced girls, and Viper certainly was one, know how to keep the situation under control. But will you let me eat now, or are you hoping that your ramblings will make me lose my appetite?”

  They caught a waiter’s eye and ordered.

  Modo snorted in annoyance.

  “The fact that we aren’t free to eat meat this week oppresses me. I respect Catholics, why shouldn’t they respect me? A nice sizzling steak is off the menu during all of damned Lent, including the bone that I would have given to my little four-legged friend over there.”

  Ricciardi, who as usual had ordered a couple of puff pastries and an espresso, shrugged.

  “Oh, come on, you’ll find something to eat. And your friend won’t mind eating those scraps, just this once; maybe they’ll remind him of his youth, when he had to paw through the trash for his dinner.”

  In the meantime the doctor was listing for the waiter the dishes he’d sele
cted in the absence of his beloved steak: macaroni timbale, grilled snapper with anchovies and capers, and strawberries.

  “And a bottle of white wine, which you’ll open here at the table before our eyes, otherwise I know you’ll water it down.”

  The waiter, an impeccably groomed little man, whose few remaining hairs were slathered in brilliantine, glared at him in an offended manner and strutted away.

  Ricciardi said:

  “Well then, Bruno, what do you have to say about the autopsy?”

  “Nothing like a dead body to stimulate the appetite, eh? Well, there’s nothing new with respect to what we’d already guessed. Her nose was broken without trauma, due to the pressure applied to the pillow, and not from a violent blow. The murderer gripped Viper’s body between his or her legs, and at some point must also have placed his or her knee on her chest because a few of the ribs were cracked. The whole thing didn’t last long; perhaps the murderer caught the girl by surprise and she never even had a chance to take a deep breath. There are no traces on her hands, I’ll confirm that she could only have tried to push the pillow away from her face.”

  “Nothing more than that?”

  “No. Viper was in excellent health, she was twenty-five years old and looked even younger. And for what it’s worth, she was beautiful even when she was dead.”

  Ricciardi remembered the sinuous body sprawled out on the unmade bed.

  “And her beauty was the cause of her downfall. Listen, Bruno, she didn’t have . . . I mean, there weren’t any traces of . . .”

  Modo burst out laughing, scattering bits of macaroni all over the tablecloth.

  “Do you realize that you can’t even bring yourself to utter the words? How old are you anyway, eighty? And in any case, it’s a silly question, sorry, if you remember what this girl did for a living. Still, even a silly question can have an unexpected answer: no, Viper hadn’t had sexual intercourse recently, neither vaginal nor anal. At least not in the past several hours.”