Darkness for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone

by Maurizio de Giovanni

  Romano snarled: “Look at that idiot. Just inches away there’s some woman waving her head off at a little boy inside the museum and this numbskull’s busy flirting with a girl.”

  Lojacono, fully focused on the video, replied: “Well, he’s not a security guard.”

  The grainy figure waved one last time, as if inviting someone to come over, then put her hand back in her pocket. A moment later, Dodo appeared.

  There he is.

  A small child, whose diminutive height made him look younger than his years. He wore dark clothing, a pair of long pants, maybe jeans, tennis shoes, and a light jacket. His hair was tousled, and he looked slightly lost. He went over to the figure in the sweatshirt, who patted him lightly on the cheek, took him by the hand, and then headed with him toward the exit.

  They slowly crossed the atrium with no trouble at all; they might as well have been invisible. All around them, everyone went on walking and talking, taking pictures and munching food, all absolutely indifferent.

  “Stop them, damn it!” whispered Guida, as if that were still possible. Instead the two of them headed off without a hitch. Just before they went through the door and vanished from the frame, the little boy, for no apparent reason, turned to look at the security camera, as if he wanted to say a silent goodbye to his dear friends at the precinct house of Pizzofalcone.

  The unexpected glance hit everyone watching like a punch to the gut. Ottavia murmured: “Sweet mother of God!” while Guida took in a sharp, noisy breath and Lojacono clutched his head with both hands.

  Dodo’s face was expressionless; in that moment, looking into the lens of the security camera, he betrayed neither fear, nor discomfort, nor pain. He seemed fine. Then he vanished from sight.

  Aragona asked Ottavia to run the footage back and freeze on the frame in which the two of them were closest to the security camera.

  “Can you zoom in on the boy’s hand?”

  Ottavia made a face: “Sure, but the picture is already very low-resolution. You won’t see a thing, just a series of black and white dots.”

  She tried anyway. Dodo had something in his hand.

  “What is that?” asked Aragona.

  No one said a word. At last, Alex murmured: “An action figure. It’s a plastic action figure.”

  XII

  Nighttime. Now it’s nighttime.

  Dodo can tell from the chink in the wall.

  One of the walls in the place where they’ve locked him up is made of sheet metal, that wall he knocked his fist against; the noise scares him, so he stays away. But there’s a gap, and a little light ought to filter in through it. But there’s no light now. So it’s nighttime.

  Dodo doesn’t really understand what’s happening to him. He knows that someone took him, and he knows that he’d better keep quiet and not try to run away or call for help, because that man is horrible and enormous, with that big mustache and long hair.

  Dodo remembers a movie he used to watch when he was little, a version of Pinocchio in which Stromboli was played by an actor who looked exactly like the man. Dodo was both afraid of and at the same time fascinated by him: He’d play the DVD over and over so he could see him defeated again and again. This time, who knew how it would end.

  Lena had come to get him. Dodo loved Lena, he’d been sorry not to see her anymore. When he’d recognized her, waving to him from far away, he’d gone over: What else should he have done? She was smiling at him, she was so nice. Then they’d left the museum grounds and when they got to the car, Stromboli was there. Lena had signaled to Dodo with her eyes, as if to say: Be careful, let’s not make him angry. And he spoke that strange language, in a deep, harsh voice.

  The two of them had gotten into the car and sat in the back, side by side, him and Lena. Who could say, maybe Stromboli had taken Lena too. And if Lena’s afraid, big and strong as she is, then it really would be best to be good, extra special good.

  He’d brought him something to eat.

  Hot pockets. But cold.

  Dodo likes hot pockets; but he doesn’t like them cold. He ate one and a half. Now his stomach hurts, he doesn’t much feel like eating anymore. Plus now it’s nighttime. Too bad, too, because with the passing hours his eyes had grown accustomed, and it hadn’t seemed quite so dark.

  The sheet metal wall scares him, but the wall that scares him most is the one with the door that Stromboli came through when he brought the water and the cold hot pockets. God, how big he is. He practically didn’t fit through the door. He narrowed his eyes in the darkness, he looked around. He shouted: You where?

  Dodo, curled up in the far corner, said: Here.

  Then Stromboli laid the plate and the water bottle down on the ground and locked the door back up behind him.

  Batman, Dodo murmured to the action figure. Batman, don’t be afraid. It’s just a matter of time. And after all, if he wanted to hurt us, the last thing he’d do is feed us, right? We just need to wait here, be calm and stay quiet.

  Let’s make believe that it’s dark because we’re in the Batcave. Let’s make believe that we’re the masters of the night, that darkness is our home and we’re not afraid. Let’s make believe that we’re close, tight together, and that we’re waiting for day to dawn.

  Let’s make believe that with our brain waves we can send a signal to my papà and that he’ll come right away to get us, and he’ll defeat Stromboli in a terrible battle, bare-handed. Or, even better, that Papà shows up with policemen who have guns, because Stromboli is strong, so strong.

  I wonder where Lena is, Batman. I wonder where Stromboli threw her. He’s clever, that one is, he knows that if he keeps us together we might come up with a way to escape.

  Poor Lena, let’s hope that he doesn’t hurt her. I wish she could be here, I was happy with her. I remember the strange fairy tales she used to tell me when I couldn’t fall asleep and Mamma and Papà had gone out to the theater.

  You remember how much fun that was, Batman? On Sundays when Papà was home and he’d play with me all day long. And we’d play Avengers, and I was always you, Batman. You’re my oldest action figure, you’ve been with me since then, since when my papà lived with us, since before he and Mamma started fighting. You’ve been with me since then. And I’ll never let you go. Never.

  If only we had our nightlight, eh, Batman? If only we had just a little bit of light, in this great big room.

  And maybe a pillow too, to sit on and be more comfortable.

  But not to sleep, no. Sleeping is impossible. It’s too dark to sleep.

  In this much darkness, there’s no way to keep out the bad dreams.

  XIII

  The sight of the video footage had lowered an icy pall over the room.

  “Excuse me,” Aragona had tried to maintain, “but what does it really change? She could still be a friend, the mother of one of his classmates.”

  “Oh, really?” Romano had murmured, expressing everyone else’s point of view—and perhaps Aragona’s as well. “And the hoodie, on a warm May morning, how do we explain that? The way she kept close to the wall, walking quickly so no one would stop her? The way she stood right by the door but was careful not to attract the attention of the ticket taker?”

  There was a pained silence, which Ottavia shattered: “I think it’s time we called his mother, she was waiting for news. Strange that she hasn’t called yet herself.”

  Palma ran his hand through his hair, the way he always did when he was worried: “I talked to her in my office. She’s made a round of phone calls, she’s called everyone, relatives, friends, and no one knows anything. I told her to be very careful not to give the impression that there’s anything wrong. It’s important to keep word from getting out about this possible kidnapping.”

  Alex gave him a level look: “This isn’t the first time for you, is it, boss? It seems to me you know just what to do.”
>
  A sad expression appeared on Palma’s face. “Yes, I’ve been through this before, it’s true. And that’s why, at police headquarters, they’ve decided to leave us the case for now, not only to keep leaks from getting into the newspapers and on TV. Years ago I was in charge of investigating the disappearance of a sixteen-year-old girl in Puglia. She’d run away with a boy, then she’d changed her mind and wanted to go back home; but the boy wouldn’t let her. She was rich, or at least well-to-do. Her father was in the meat business.”

  “And how did it end?” asked Pisanelli.

  “Well, that depends on how you look at it. We found her twenty days later. He’d raped and tortured her, but she was alive. In a state of shock, but still alive. Everyone sang our praises, but when I think back to the look on her face . . . I wonder sometimes if it wouldn’t have been better . . . Anyway, they tossed him in jail, and I hope he’s still there.”

  “Bastard,” murmured Alex.

  Romano brought the topic of conversation back to Dodo’s mother.

  “Anyway, we need to call her back. We have to show her this video, you never know whether she might be able to identify the woman, though it seems unlikely since you basically can’t see a thing. And then there’s nothing distinctive about her.”

  Aragona nodded thoughtfully, forgetting to remove his glasses with the usual cinematic gesture: “Right. She doesn’t have a limp, she’s of average height, average build, wearing a shapeless sweatshirt and pants. She could be anyone. How the heck is the mother supposed to identify her?”

  Lojacono shrugged: “Who knows, maybe she’ll think of something, some detail. You never know.”

  Ottavia gave voice to the thought that no one else had dared speak: “Even though we’ll be causing her intolerable pain. To see her son . . . in someone else’s hands. That would break my heart in two.”

  “I know,” Palma said, “but there’s nothing else we can do. I’m going to call the magistrate and request authorization to show her the video. Giorgio, perhaps you could make the phone call to the mother. Ask her if she can arrange for transportation here, so maybe we can keep from attracting notice, or whether she’d rather we sent a car to pick her up.”

  Half an hour later, Laura Piras, the magistrate on duty, entered the precinct house. No one had gone home, even though it was almost ten at night. As she had told Palma on the phone, her presence wasn’t actually necessary, but she preferred to be there: a kidnapping, if that’s what it turned out to be, was serious business, deadly serious. A crime that lent itself to media manipulation, and the media had become exceedingly aggressive thanks to a mole in police headquarters. Absolute secrecy would need to be maintained. And then she wanted to watch the woman’s reactions in person; that might help her to better understand exactly what had happened.

  Up to here, it was strictly a professional matter. But she couldn’t conceal from herself that she also wanted to see Lojacono again; recently, their only contact had been a few hurried phone calls. She had the impression that his daughter’s unexpected arrival had interrupted something that was in the process of evolving, and she wanted to make sure that this interruption didn’t become an end.

  Though petite in stature, Laura Piras filled a room the minute she walked in. Her even features, her large dark eyes, and, above all, her figure, which her dark skirt suit did nothing to conceal, inevitably attracted the attention of every male and the concern of every woman present: instinctive reactions Piras would gladly have done without, but that she’d learned to ignore.

  “Well,” she said, taking a seat in the bullpen after greeting the team with a nod of her head, “what do we know about the family?” Her strong Sardinian accent turned even harsher when she was concentrating.

  That’s just like Laura, thought Lojacono, masking the joy that was spreading over his face in spite of the circumstances: She goes straight to the point and finds out all about the cast of characters even before it’s clear that a crime has been committed.

  Pisanelli, putting on his reading glasses and rummaging through his notes, replied: “Yes, Dottoressa, I looked into the family. The boy is named Edoardo Cerchia, he’s ten years old, and he’s an only child. His parents separated four years ago and divorced last year. His father, Alberto Cerchia, originally from around Bergamo, is a businessman. From what I was able to learn, he’s more than well-to-do. He works in scrap metal: He supplies raw materials to industry up in northern Italy. After he and the mother separated he went back north. I don’t know if he has a new family, but I’m waiting for more information from my colleagues in Lombardy. Eva, the boy’s mother, is the daughter of Edoardo Borrelli, and the boy was named after his grandfather. She has a degree in business and economics, and she, too, is an only child. She doesn’t work, but then, of course, she’s the daughter of Edoardo Borrelli . . .”

  Piras stared at him attentively: “Which means?”

  “Well, Dottoressa, Borrelli is one of the richest men in this city. He’s well over seventy and for the past fifteen years he’s led a quiet and private life, but back in the golden years he was one of the biggest real estate developers in the city’s hinterland. There are townships he built up alone, from scratch. There are two magistrates, if you’ll forgive me, who are still under investigation for having massaged sentences in trials for malfeasance and bribing public officials.”

  “They’re not relatives of mine,” Laura stated flatly. “If they’ve done something wrong, they’ll go to jail, same as anyone else. Go on.”

  Pisanelli flipped to the next page: “Borrelli is a widower and he lives with a Sinhalese caregiver and a secretary he’s had on staff since the boom times of his building business; she’s still in charge of everything the old man needs. He has a huge duplex on Via Petrarca, and he never leaves it. He continues to pay for his daughter’s luxurious lifestyle, but they don’t see much of each other because he can’t stand her boyfriend, just as he couldn’t stand her husband before him.”

  Aragona was impressed: “Say, President, how on earth do you find out all this stuff?”

  “I have my informants. In this case, the concierge in the apartment building where Borrelli lives is the sister of the grocer who sells me my fruit and vegetables. It’s all just a matter of having the right connections.”

  Piras shot Aragona a look that could have killed: “So you’re still free and at large? Remind me to have your driver’s license revoked one of these days in the interest of public safety.”

  The policeman swept off his glasses, looking to impress the magistrate: “Dottoressa, you’re not being fair to me. It was simply my intention, when we went to perform judicial inspections, to keep you from wasting time getting from point A to point B.”

  “And I still thank providence and nepotism for sending you here, away from me. All right, then, Pisanelli, it looks like both the child’s father and his grandfather have plenty of money. We’ll have to act immediately to freeze their assets.”

  “Certainly,” the deputy captain noted, “it would seem that whoever took the kid got the right one. Moreover, though he doesn’t get along with his daughter, old Borrelli adores his grandson. The concierge tells me that the boy is the old man’s one weakness.”

  Palma grimaced: “Forgive me, Dottoressa, but I speak from personal experience. Freezing assets is, as they say in Rome, a fregnaccia—a fool’s errand. It’s not against the law to pay a ransom, all they’d need to do is borrow the funds; or maybe they have money stashed in a foreign bank, and they sidestep the restrictions that way. I know that it has to be done, but it’s not going to do a lot of good.”

  Laura was about to reply when Guida appeared in the doorway: “Signora Borrelli is here. Shall I show her up?”

  XIV

  Eva Borrelli entered the room hesitantly. She was accompanied by her boyfriend Manuel, who as usual walked a step or two behind her.

  To Romano and Aragona, who h
ad seen her only a few hours before, she looked like a different person. The confidence, aggressiveness, and strength that she’d displayed at the museum were gone now, lost over the course of a day spent in the pits of despair. Her face was creased and her eyes, as she removed her dark glasses, looked swollen and reddened; her hands were twisting a drenched handkerchief and her lips were trembling and quavering incessantly. It was clear to everyone that Eva was now certain her son had been kidnapped.

  She was evidently confused by the presence of so many people. Romano approached her: “Signora, let me introduce you to Commissario Palma, our commanding officer.”

  In a faltering voice, Eva replied: “But . . . why all these people? You haven’t . . . haven’t found him, have you? He isn’t . . . my little boy isn’t . . .”

  Palma understood that the woman was afraid she was about to hear a tragic announcement: “No, no, Signora. We have no news, or perhaps I should say we’re still working, as you can see. All of the officers on duty, including those assigned to other cases, are here to offer their help. Dottoressa Piras, the magistrate who’s working the case, is here, too. But let me ask you, do you have any news?”

  Eva felt reassured: “No. I called everyone, everyone I know, everyone who knows Dodo. But no one’s seen him since this morning, when the driver dropped him off at school. I . . . I don’t know what to think. It all strikes me as so absurd: Who could have taken my child?”

  The woman blew her nose. Palma stared for a moment at the man accompanying her.

  “Signora, I have to ask you . . . we aren’t authorized to discuss the matter in the presence of people not directly involved. I’ll have to ask the gentleman who’s here with you, I’m afraid, to please wait outside.”

  Eva jerked to attention, and Romano and Aragona recognized the attitude that had been on display that morning.