by Aaron Elkins
“Count de Grazia,” everyone had called old Domenico as he limped about Stresa or Ghiffa. It had made Caravale’s father, a socialist and a fiery antimonarchist, livid, but to young Tullio the genteel Domenico de Grazia had been the embodiment of what a storybook count should be: silver-haired and handsome, properly aloof, yes, but scrupulously courteous to all, right down to the street urchins.
Since that time, Caravale had come around to agreeing in large part with his father about the self-induced delusions of the post-war Italian “aristocracy,” but never in regard to Domenico de Grazia. The man had been a true, bred-in-the-bone patrician, the last of his kind. Or so it seemed in memory.
No one referred to Vincenzo as “Count” nowadays, but his noble lineage still made some people weak in the knees, and his behind-the-scenes involvement in regional politics (useful in getting building permits and variances) had made him more widely influential than his father had ever been. None of that had any effect on Caravale. Less than nothing. To him, Vincenzo de Grazia was just another human being like him, only richer, and not one he was particularly fond of at that. His relentless terracing of the foothills of Caravale’s beloved Mount Zeda into “Residenze This” and “Ville That” had chewed at him for years. Who needed all those developments? Who could afford them? Not the people who lived and worked here, that was for sure.
Beyond that, these new walled, gated communities of de Grazia’s represented something else, something essentially un-Italian to his way of thinking. When Caravale had been growing up, the rich and the poor had lived together. People didn’t believe it now anymore, but it was true. Oh, there were great villas and humble cottages, but they’d existed side by side on the same streets and alleys, as they had for centuries, sharing the same neighborhood concerns. In Caprezzo, the best drinking water had come from a centuries-old stone fountain in the courtyard of the village’s wealthiest landowner, and every afternoon, as they had since Caravale’s grandmother had been a girl, and probably long before, the housewives and peasant women would come to fill their jugs and bottles, and to gossip, on essentially equal terms, with the family of the padrone. Or if not on equal terms, then at least one could say they understood and appreciated one another. How was that going to happen when all the rich had walled themselves off behind the locked gates of these new “California-style” communities? It wasn’t, and something that made Italy what it was was being lost.
All the same, de Grazia was a father, and the news that was about to descend on him was almost as dreadful as anything a father could hear. Caravale’s heart went out to him. Getting out of his car, he found himself thinking that it would be nice if there were someone else he could hand this task off to, the way Boldini had handed it off to him. But the comandante was right; it was Caravale who was going to be running the investigation, and the task properly fell to him.
De Grazia was not in the office, a pretty secretary, dark as a gypsy, told him, but at the site of the new golf course and residential community that the company had just begun to excavate. Did the colonel know where it was?
He did not.
“You can’t miss it,” he was told. “Take the road up Mount Zeda, and right after the turnoff to Caprezzo—you know Caprezzo?”
“That’s where I was born,” he said with a smile.
“Really?” She looked as if she didn’t know whether or not he was joking. “Well, right after the turnoff, before you get to the village, you’ll see an area where they’re clearing the trees—lots of bulldozers at work. You’ll find him there.”
“Right after the turnoff? Do you mean the big pasture below the village? He’s putting in a development there? Another development?”
She laughed. “Well, I don’t know what it was before, but it’s not a pasture anymore.”
Caravale’s heart was perhaps just a little less softened as he returned to his car.
THREE
THE site was just where he’d feared it would be, on what had once been a wide ribbon of undulating meadow dotted with old flowering plum trees, which curved around the mountain’s flank. When he’d been a boy, it had been his playground. He and his friends had played soccer here and badgered the resident goats, pretending to be matadors—but now backhoes and bulldozers were shoving piles of rock and naked earth from one place to another. Already it was hard to remember the meadow as it had been.
GOLF AND COUNTRY CLUB LAKE MAGGIORE, the big, laser-embossed sign said in almost-English (which presumably gave it the trendy American tone that would attract rich Swiss and Milanese buyers), and underneath it a smaller, tacked-on placard for the benefit of the locals: Circolo Golf del Lago Maggiore. Una Realizzazione di Aurora Costruzioni.
Vincenzo de Grazia stood in consultation with another man, both wearing hard hats, work clothes, and work boots, and leaning over a blueprint spread out on the hood of a mud-caked cement truck. Truck, men, and everything else in sight were covered with dust. That was one thing you had to say about de Grazia: He didn’t run from getting dirt under his fingernails.
Caravale approached and waited for them to look up, but they remained immersed. “Signor de Grazia?” he said after a minute.
De Grazia glanced up, calculatedly leaving his forefinger resting on the diagram. “Yes, Colonel, can I do something for you?”
Caravale was impressed. It was natural enough that he himself should recognize de Grazia. He had seen him about often enough, and his picture was frequently in the newspaper; once there had even been a two-page spread on him in Oggi (“The Aristocrat of Waste-Water Treatment Plants”). Besides, de Grazia was quite striking-looking: a tight-knit, distinctively hawkfaced man with thick, stiff, ropy gray hair brushed straight back from the hairline, and a nose that cleaved the air like the prow of a ship. Add to that an air of bottled-up, restless energy and a rarely disguised impatience to get on with things, to move along, and he was not someone who would be easy to forget. Beyond that, once you watched him for a while, you couldn’t help but be aware of an ingrained sense of natural authority and entitlement that was hard to ignore, although it also tended to grate on the nerves. On Caravale’s nerves, anyway.
Colonel Caravale’s picture was occasionally in the papers or on local TV as well, but it was always in connection with some ceremonial affair or other, for which he’d be one of a crowd, and in dress uniform, complete with lavish gold braid and cocked hat with feather. Today he was wearing his workaday uniform, a simple, businesslike black with a white shirt and dark tie. And no one, to his knowledge, had ever called him “striking.” He was swarthy, short, fifteen pounds overweight, and heavy-featured, with beefy jowls that rode over his collars. Adolescent acne had left his cheeks deeply pitted. His thinning hair and receding hairline were more than made up for by the thick eyebrows that met in the middle of his forehead and even dipped a little, so that he had to shave the top of his nose every Sunday.
Once, dressing before a civic affair, stripped down to undershirt and shorts, he had taken a long look at his slope-shouldered, barrel-chested, short-legged figure in the mirror and shaken his head.
His wife, who had been unwrapping tissue paper from the ridiculous hat, had looked at him. “What’s the matter?”
“Ah, it’s hopeless,” he had said. “Look at me. Without my uniform, I look as if I should be slicing salami at the corner trattoria.”
She had shrugged and gone back to unpacking the hat. “With your uniform, you look as if you should be slicing salami at the corner trattoria.” Then, under her breath, with the slightest of smiles: “Or holding it up.”
That was as close as anybody had ever come to calling him “striking.” It was amazing that de Grazia, whom he’d never met, should recognize him.
“If you don’t mind,” Caravale said to him now. “I need to talk to you for a few minutes. Privately.”
“I’ll take care of this for you, Vincenzo,” the other man said promptly, rolling up the blueprint and snapping a rubber band over it. “We’ve caught it early
enough. It shouldn’t be a problem.”
De Grazia grunted and turned to Caravale. “Yes, Colonel, is something the matter?”
“Is there someplace we can sit down?”
De Grazia waved at the chaos around them and laughed. “In three months, I hope so. Unless you want to sit in the truck?”
“That would be a good idea.”
De Grazia nodded, invited Caravale in with a gesture, and clambered deftly up into the driver’s seat. He was a fit-looking, small-waisted man who moved the way he spoke, with conciseness and efficiency. Caravale, not quite so deftly, hoisted himself in opposite him. They left the doors open.
De Grazia’s expression had changed. He realizes this is something serious now, the colonel thought. Probably, he’s worried that we’ve found out about some shady quid-proquo arrangement to get a variance approved. Too bad that wasn’t all it was.
Best to get right to it. “Signor de Grazia, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but your son has been kidnapped.”
De Grazia, with his mind not totally clear of whatever the problem with the blueprint had been, nodded along with him as he spoke and then kept on nodding as if he were waiting for the punch line. Caravale paused, letting the words sink in.
After a couple of seconds de Grazia’s head snapped around. “What did you say? My son? Kidnapped? Achille de Grazia?”
“In Stresa, two hours ago. From one of your company cars.”
De Grazia frowned, blinked, and frowned again. His long fingers—manicured?—played over the steering wheel. “No, that’s wrong, someone’s made a mistake. Achille is in school, he goes to a private school, up near La Sacca.”
“There’s no mistake, signore. I’m sorry about it. Can you tell me what he was doing in Stresa?”
“What he was . . .” He smacked the steering wheel with the flat of his hand. “Who did it? What do they want? Is he all right?”
“We don’t have much information yet. Can you tell me what he was doing in Stresa?”
De Grazia made a small, impatient gesture, as if brushing away a fly. “I just told you. He goes to school near La Sacca. In the mornings, he comes with me to work—”
“Here to Intra?”
“No, to the main office in Ghiffa. That’s where I go first. We take the launch. From there, I have him driven on to school. How did—”
“So to get to his school the driver—”
“The driver goes through Stresa, yes, yes. What difference does it make why he was there?”
“Who else knew about it?”
“Who else knew?” He shook his head, exasperated, “Tell me, how the hell would you suggest one get from Ghiffa to La Sacca? Over the mountains and down to Rome, then around the back way and up through Milan?”
Caravale didn’t appreciate the sarcasm, but given the circumstances, he was willing to allow de Grazia some leeway. “What I’m getting at, signore,” he said mildly but with a shaded hint of warning, “is whether other people knew that he was driven over this route every day at this time?”
“Ah. I see what you’re getting at. I’m sorry. I’m afraid I’m a little . . .”
“I understand perfectly.”
“Many people would know, Colonel. It’s not a secret. Please, tell me what happened. Is he all right?” He was staring straight ahead, through the windshield, with his hands back on the steering wheel.
“It was elaborately planned. A traffic disturbance was created on the Corso, forcing your son’s limousine into a side street. There it was trapped by two cars, one in front, one behind. There was shooting—”
De Grazia’s head jerked. “Shooting!”
“Your driver was killed.”
“Killed—he was killed?”
“So was one of the kidnappers. The—”
“What about Achille? Was he—did they—”
“No, no, there’s no reason to think he was injured.”
Not quite the truth, but what would be the point of passing on an unverified report of the boy’s having been dragged from the limousine? If he was hurt, he was hurt; if he wasn’t, he wasn’t, and nothing was served by giving de Grazia something more to worry about. “As far as we know, he’s all right.”
De Grazia sank back against the seat.
“Does your chauffeur always carry a gun, Signor de Grazia?”
“What? Oh. No, not always. On regular trips, yes. To work, from work . . .” He hit the steering wheel again, this time with his fist, and with considerable force. “Bastards,” The word escaped pinched, as if hung up on something in his throat. He was breathing shallowly; Caravale could see his nostrils dilate and contract.
Why, he’s angry, Caravale realized with interest. Not stunned or appalled, as he’d first supposed (those being the usual reactions), or worried, or dismayed, or fearful, but angry. For Caravale, who had handled a dozen kidnappings in his career, this was something new. Anger usually came later, after the reality of the situation had been absorbed.
“What do they want, money?” de Grazia asked.
“That’s what they usually want, yes. It could be something else—some political point, maybe, but my guess is you’ll get a call in the next few days; maybe a fax.”
“Days!” de Grazia exclaimed. “I’m not waiting days!”
“Possibly longer. I believe we’re dealing with professionals, and they’re likely to let you stew a little first before getting in touch. It makes people more accommodating.”
“Animals,” de Grazia said under his breath. He turned his head to look at Caravale, and hesitated, as if searching for the right way to say something. “How do I . . . what should I do?” The words came hard. Asking for help wasn’t something he was comfortable with.
“First, you need to decide whether you’re going to cooperate with the carabinieri in this. They will almost certainly warn you not to. If my experience is a guide, there may be threats, frightening threats, against your son. All the same, in my opinion, it is to your advantage, to your son’s advantage, for you to work with us.”
“Why?” de Grazia asked bluntly. “What can the carabinieri do for me? Can they help me get my son back sooner?”
“Probably not, but it would still be helpful if you worked with us. Otherwise the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, never a good arrangement. You’ll want them caught, won’t you?”
De Grazia thought it over but remained skeptical. “Would I be dealing with you personally?”
“I would be in charge, yes.”
“I’m not accustomed to dealing with corporals, with sergeants.”
Caravale took a breath before answering. “You would deal with me,” he said quietly. He was determined not to let de Grazia rub him the wrong way.
“What would be involved? I won’t agree to anything that might put my son in jeopardy. None of your famous middle-of-the-night raids with all guns blazing and the news cameras grinding, nothing like that.”
Another deep, calming slow breath. “Agreed. Achille’s safety is paramount. I’m talking only about cooperation, about sharing information for later use—after your son is safe. I’m sure you want these people caught as much as I do.”
De Grazia ran a hand over his hair. It came away coated with oily dust, which he wiped off on his pants. “All right then, we’ll share information.”
“Good. I suggest that we begin by having the telephone lines to your offices and your home tapped.”
“No.”
Caravale’s eyebrows went up. “What?”
“No. I’ll share information with you—and I expect you to share it with me—but I won’t take any part in trying to trap them, nor will I permit you to use me for that purpose—not until the boy is safely home. Until then nothing is to be done that might frighten or anger them.” He looked directly at Caravale, his frost-blue eyes boring in. “Have I made myself clear?”
That did it. Deep breaths or not, de Grazia had finally gotten under his skin. Caravale was a carabinieri colonel
, and carabinieri colonels weren’t accustomed to being ordered around. “Signor de Grazia,” he said in his most official manner, “you seem to be under the illusion that this is a private matter between you and your son’s kidnappers. But let me remind you that kidnapping is also a crime against the State. Moreover, two men have been shot to death. If you think I’m about to sit around and do nothing for days or weeks because it might displease you, you’d better think again.”
De Grazia’s face flushed. He had stiffened dangerously as Caravale spoke. “Now just a minute. I am not accustomed—”
“And be good enough to remember, I do not take instructions from you.” He was matching de Grazia scowl for scowl.
“You—”
“Have I made myself clear?” He sat back, anticipating some outraged sputtering, but satisfied that he had gotten his point across. He hoped not to have to do it again.
To his surprise, de Grazia didn’t respond in kind. For a moment he bridled, but then the tension drained out of his posture, and with a shake of his head, he lifted his hands to massage his temples in slow circles. “I apologize, Colonel. This is all new to me. . . . I don’t know how to behave. Please, do whatever you think best.”
“Thank you, signore. I promise you, nothing will be done that might endanger your son.”
De Grazia nodded and looked out at the huffing earth-moving machines for a while. “How strange,” he said dreamily. “Half an hour ago, I had nothing worse to worry about than drainage schemes. Now . . .” He let the sentence die away. “And what else?”