“You’ve spoken to the commissario, I believe,” Romano replied.
“Yes, he told me about the phone call. When can I hear the recording?”
Aragona brandished his cell phone: “I had them put it on here. But first let’s go see the signora.”
Eva met them at the door. She seemed to be in even worse shape than she’d been that morning. She extended a lukewarm greeting to her ex-husband, then turned to the two policemen: “Please, come in.”
Sitting in the living room in an armchair was Manuel. Alberto reacted with a surge of annoyance: “Does he really need to be here? If you ask me, this doesn’t concern him.”
“This is my home,” Eva responded icily, “and I decide who stays and who goes. Let me remind you that Manuel spends much more time with Dodo than you do, so I think his presence is useful.”
Scarano broke in: “I don’t want to be a source of tension, Eva. If you think it’s best, I’m glad to wait in the other room. The insults I took from your father were enough for today.”
“I said that I wanted you here, Manuel. And that’s that.”
The woman’s peremptory tone put an end to the discussion.
Aragona started the recording; everyone listened in silence. Eva shook her head: “I don’t remember any of this, it’s as if that’s someone else speaking to this criminal. Good God. I don’t remember a thing.”
“That’s normal, Signora,” Romano said. “You’re very tired and you’re experiencing extreme emotional tension. But I have to ask you, and I mean all of you, whether you think you might recognize this voice.”
Alberto and Manuel, practically in unison, shook their heads no. Eva said: “No, I’m sure I don’t. Now that I hear it again, there seems to be a foreign accent.”
“Yes, we had the same impression, Signora. And clearly we’re pursuing that lead. What we’re most interested in, in this phase . . .”
Alberto leapt to his feet, his face twisted in anger: “In this phase? What are you saying, that in a situation like this one there are phases? What the fuck are you talking about? This is my son who’s been kidnapped, do you understand that? My son!”
Romano and Aragona were both surprised by Cerchia’s reaction.
“I certainly didn’t mean to give the impression that we’re taking this lightly, Dottore. We’re trying to gather every possible piece of evidence we can to . . .”
“And we’re the ones who are supposed to provide you with that evidence? Haven’t you seen the state the boy’s mother is in? We’re here, our son has been missing for almost two days, and you’re talking to us about evidence? Do you have any idea how to do your fucking job?”
Aragona had noticed his partner do something that worried him: Romano had unclenched and clenched his fist. Then he saw him slip his right hand into his trouser pocket and wait a moment before answering: “Dottore, I understand that you’re in a state. But believe me, we know how to do our job and we’re following procedure.”
Cerchia’s eyes, wide open and ringed in red, his mouth, twisted in a sardonic grimace, and his horrified expression, all spoke volumes about his state of mind.
“Ah, procedure. As if I were applying for a passport. As if this were just some fucking bureaucratic detail, a form to fill out. You know what you can do with your procedure, officer? You can stuff it up . . .”
Aragona saw the muscles in Romano’s arm flexing. He leapt forward, placing himself between his partner and Dodo’s father.
“Can you quit being such a pain in the ass? We’re here to end your son’s suffering and also end your own, and you start shouting like an idiot. If you like, we can leave and let you take care of things all by yourself, and then we’ll see how you do. Enough is enough, fuck.”
The tanned little policeman’s reaction caught everyone off guard. Cerchia opened and shut his mouth a couple of times, as if gasping for air. Aragona, seeing his partner’s face relax, heaved a sigh of relief. Romano inhaled, exhaled, and said: “All right, now let’s all calm down a little, please. We’re only playing into the kidnappers’ hands. We need to keep our minds clear. My partner Aragona and I are working on this case nonstop with the support of all the officers in the precinct as well as the magistrate in charge. You can be sure of that. I should let you know that all your phone lines have been tapped, and in the next few hours, as required by law, your bank accounts are going to be frozen.”
Cerchia stammered: “But . . . but how can you do that? I need my bank accounts for work. I have suppliers to pay, salaries . . .”
Aragona blew out his cheeks in exasperation: “As you yourself pointed out earlier, Dottore, the situation is serious. And if it’s serious, it needs to be faced head-on. That means that your suppliers will have to wait for a few days. For truly urgent transactions you can always contact the magistrate, Dottoressa Piras; she has the power to authorize specific payments. Debit and credit cards will still work, so your day-to-day needs should be taken care of.”
In a broken voice, Eva asked: “Do you think that before long we’re going to receive a demand for . . . that they’re going to want money to free Dodo? And what happens, if we don’t pay? Because if our accounts are frozen . . .”
Manuel spoke to her in a gentle voice: “Don’t worry, sweetheart. Dodo will come back home, and soon. I promise.”
“You promise?” Cerchia replied venomously. “And exactly what do you promise, since you don’t have a penny to your name and you’ve been sponging off this family for years? Or maybe you think you’re going to rescue Dodo yourself, with your brains and your brawn?”
Scarano eyed him ironically: “Oh, right, because you on the other hand were right here with him to stop them from taking him, weren’t you? The brave and powerful daddykins, who happens to live a thousand kilometers away. You don’t even remember what he looks like, your son, that’s how little you see of him.”
Alberto lunged forward with a roar. Romano stretched out an arm and stopped him with no apparent effort.
“I would advise you not to fly off the handle like that again, Dottore. I really would.”
Eva burst into tears: “Don’t you realize that Dodo’s in the hands of some complete stranger right this very instant? And the two of you, instead of trying to figure out how to help him, are butting heads like a couple of teenagers.”
Scarano nodded: “You’re right, sweetheart, I apologize. To you, not to him.”
Cerchia, massaging the place where Romano had grabbed him, said through clenched teeth: “Right. What matters now is freeing Dodo. But I swear to you that as soon as this thing is over, we’re going to come back to this discussion. And we’re going to review the whole situation, because it’s not at all clear to me that my son is better off living with you here than with me. I’ll hire the best lawyers in the country, and we’ll see how it turns out.”
“What you do afterward,” Aragona said, “if you don’t mind my saying so, is of little interest to us. What’s important now is to avoid making mistakes. My partner Romano and I will need to have a talk with Dodo’s grandfather. For that matter, it seems clear that it’s his money they want.”
Eva blinked rapidly: “Why would you say that?”
Aragona went into his glasses-removal routine and replied in a tone that mimicked—or so he thought—that of the Italian actor who dubs Al Pacino: “Because you, Signora, don’t have any cash on hand, as you told us, but the kidnappers still called you, not Dottor Cerchia, who does. And so, if the kidnappers are familiar with the family’s finances, then by contacting you they’re reaching out to Dodo’s grandfather.”
Romano stopped him: “Or else they just called the one number they found in the phone book. Let’s not speculate wildly, à la Columbo, Arago’, at least not while we have so little evidence. Now we need to go. Dottor Cerchia, why don’t you come downstairs with us, I think that would be best.”
; “All right, but I have no intention of standing idly by while my son is being held who knows where.”
Aragona eyed him coldly: “We can’t stop you from doing what you want. But if you screw up and the child suffers the consequences, you’ll have to sort that out with your conscience. My advice to you is to keep cool and wait for news. Maybe, if you think it might help, you could even try praying.”
XXVI
If it had been possible to see Brother Leonardo Calisi, parish priest of the church of the Santissima Annunziata and abbot of the adjoining Franciscan monastery, through the confessional, the sight might have provoked a few sarcastic comments; the chair he’d clambered onto, struggling with the tails of his habit and his sacred vestments, was too tall for his feet to reach the floor.
In fact, it would have been more accurate to call him five feet short instead of five feet tall—not including his church-issued sandals, which anyway added little to his diminutive stature. Little. That’s the word that came to the minds of those who crossed paths with him in the aisles of the church, or saw him struggling up the streets of the neighborhood, invariably at a trot, forever working to bring succor to the poor and the needy.
But any aesthetic considerations were quickly set aside because it was immediately clear that there was nothing little about his character. A second glance revealed the clear blue eyes, the curly, snow-white hair, and the captivating, clever face that made Brother Leonardo a figure beloved to young and old. A few years ago, the Catholic curia had expressed their intention to transfer him to another parish, a routine rotation, but such had been the clamor among the faithful that the proposal was immediately discarded.
Brother Leonardo was a good man. Generosity and altruism were the rules, set in stone, guiding his life, a life devoted to compassion and mercy. And yet he never lost the ironic streak that made him excellent company even to those who weren’t especially familiar with religion.
While a teenage girl with too strong a sex drive told him about her torments, the Franciscan monk dangled his feet in the air and thought about his best friend, Giorgio Pisanelli. Brother Leonardo suspected himself guilty of a sin, albeit a very venial one, because no man of the cloth, much less a parish priest, and even less than that the abbot of a monastery, ought to have a best friend; he ought to devote the same degree of affection to every parishioner, every fellow brother, every human being. But perhaps it was the Lord’s will that Giorgio, in the immense loneliness that had come in the wake of his wife, Carmen’s, death, should have found in him of all people the comfort he could not draw from his faith. Leonardo, moreover, took authentic intellectual pleasure from his conversations with the policeman, those over lunch at the trattoria Il Gobbo as well as the more hurried talks they had at the parish church. The conversation was always sparkling and intelligent, and the anecdotes that they exchanged about the neighborhood they both knew like the backs of their own hands were practically endless.
Recently, however, the obsession his friend had developed with the suicides was becoming dangerous. Convinced that someone else’s hand—always the same one—was behind the deaths, Giorgio never tired of gathering evidence that could help him to reconstruct the moment in which each poor person had committed his or her last act. Leonardo felt conflicting emotions about his friend’s fixation: On the one hand, he would have preferred to see him at peace, but, on the other, he realized that it was this very fixation that allowed him to maintain his grip on life, that gave him a reason to get up in the morning, go to the office, get through the day.
That was the matter he was pondering, even as he did his best to explain to the young lady on the other side of the confessional grate that regularly and devotedly servicing three classmates sexually was not a behavior exactly encouraged by the Catholic church; a reason to live, he mused, however wrongheaded, was still an important thing.
For many years, twelve to be exact, Leonardo had been, day after day, running up against the disease that was raging like an epidemic through large cities everywhere: loneliness. There was no place on earth, he always said, as deserted and empty as a major western metropolis, where invisible men and women carried on lives not dissimilar from those of old, sick animals, exiled from the herd and easy prey for prowling carnivores.
Every day, from dawn to dusk, in the cool shade of the confessional, redolent of incense, in the cozy warmth of the sacristy, out on the streets and in the narrow and intricate vicoli of the neighborhood, in dismal living rooms furnished with threadbare sofas that once bubbled with laughter, Leonardo was brought face-to-face with the desire to end one’s own life.
And he worked tirelessly to rekindle the flame of bygone happiness, the memory of love or the dream of a future; but far too often his efforts, before the bottomless abyss of drab despair, proved useless.
There were always those who managed to muster the immense courage required to commit the supreme act of existential cowardice. They were few in number, however. Most of them were afraid, or else lacked even the energy needed to swallow a bottle of sleeping pills or throw themselves down the stairs.
What should a spiritual father do? A guide, a brother in faith? These were the questions Brother Leonardo kept asking himself. Should he impart a hasty benediction and go on his way, abandoning these people to their fate? It was easy to help children, tied as they were to the desire for and prospect of the future; or young women who, after overcoming the impasse of a terrible moment, could resume lives of joy; even drug addicts, once freed from their dependencies, possessed a force that allowed them to surmount every obstacle in their paths. In those cases, Leonardo could see the concrete results of his work; it was easy to feel proud in the sight of the Lord.
What was true Holiness? Where did the greatness of a Higher Spirit find its fulfillment? When did the true and complete Imitation of Christ take place? There could only be one answer, as far as Brother Leonardo was concerned: the Extreme Sacrifice of God’s greatest gift—one’s own soul.
The reasoning was so straightforward that he wondered why it wasn’t shared by every Christian. Was there a lonely creature, suffering, with no desire to go on living, who lacked the courage to perform that final, irreversible act? The act that would condemn that creature, and here the Scripture was very clear, to suffer eternal damnation for having taken unto himself a choice that belonged only in the hands of the Almighty? Then the task to help him or her fell to that creature’s spiritual father, to the earthly interpreter of God’s will; he took unto himself the burden of the sin.
Just as Christ died on the cross, sacrificing Himself for all mankind, it was Brother Leonardo’s job to end the lives of those who wished to die but lacked the strength to kill themselves. In allowing those lives to leave this vale of tears, pushing them toward the Light, the diminutive Franciscan obtained two results, both of them of immense importance. He would stain himself with a grave sin, thus achieving the ultimate sacrifice of his own soul, and he’d also alleviate the irremediable suffering of their desperate souls. Simple. Perfectly simple.
As he listened to the young girl’s complacent account of a sexual encounter in the school gym with two boys, Leonardo reflected for the millionth time on the interesting theological problem before him. Could helping someone reach the presence of God, if they lacked the courage to commit an unthinkable deed, actually be a sin? What would really become of his soul, once he passed on to a better world? This wasn’t a thought he could report in confession, in part because his confessor, Brother Samuele, was something of a stickler in the application of the precepts, but he doubted there lived and breathed a man of the cloth so full of faith that he would not be surprised to learn of what he did for the benefit of the despairing souls in the neighborhood.
The monk, though, had faith. He was deeply convinced of the immensity of Divine Mercy. And also of the value of the intercession, on his behalf, with the Almighty, by those he’d saved from eternal damnation. They’d li
ne up two by two and, in a heavenly chorus, implore the Lord to welcome him, too: their liberator. And the Lord Almighty would certainly grant their request, to great jubilation.
This, however, in many years from now, he hoped, and in accordance with the Lord’s will. In the meantime, he still had a great many souls to save.
His mind went back to Giorgio Pisanelli. He was tired, weary, and sick, though it was only to Leonardo that he had confided the truth about the terrible disease that was devouring him. He was an ideal candidate for the particular kind of charity that Leonardo provided; in the afterlife he’d see his Carmen again, another of God’s creatures that the diminutive friar had sent to meet her Maker, in order to spare her further atrocious suffering.
The parish priest of Santissima Annunziata had a principle to which he clung without exception: If the individual still had a reason to live, or even merely believed that he or she did, then the person in question could not leave this world. To force them to would be unjust.
Giorgio’s case, therefore, constituted an intricate paradox: The only thing that preserved him from Leonardo’s help was in fact his stubborn hunt for someone who, as it turned out, was actually Leonardo himself. As long as Giorgio kept hunting, investigating the lives of the poor angels to whom Leonardo had given wings, he’d go on having a reason to live; and that would mean that Giorgio was not yet ready.
Sighing in the girl’s direction—she’d decided she’d gone too far just when she was getting to the good part—the monk decided that, while he waited for Giorgio to abandon his mission and thus become eligible for the mercy Leonardo could bring him, he’d work on other cases. He’d weave his usual web of visits, words, caresses, and admonitions, applying the variety of tools that he’d tested out over the years: gas, balconies, ropes, pills, and approaching trains. Always accompanied by a farewell note, written in various hands and using different phrases, always suited to the individual in question thanks to his in-depth knowledge, fruit of his role as confessor.
Darkness for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone Page 13