by David Hewson
“Of course.”
“Then that’s how I feel about most things,” Marco continued. “I’d rather just make a good job of a few and leave the rest to someone else. It makes sense, to me anyway.”
She looked around the kitchen, wondering if she should fill the silence by preparing a meal. There was good olive oil and balsamic vinegar for the dressing. Marco pushed his wheelchair forward and put his hand on hers, bidding her to stop.
“But that’s easy for me,” he told her. “I was brought up that way. It was natural. For you . . . I’m sorry, Sara. It’s not my business. But I have to say it. I don’t understand. Nic doesn’t either. That doesn’t make it wrong. It just makes it hard. No one’s judging you. No one’s thinking the worse of you for what happened. They’re just . . . puzzled. That’s all.”
“And you think you deserve an explanation?” she said coldly.
He retreated, no doubt feeling he had come too far. “You don’t owe anybody anything. It’s your life. To do with as you wish.”
“I know.”
“It’s just that I find it hard to believe this makes you happy. You’re so smart. You’re good to be around.”
Her green eyes widened. She was, he saw, surprised.
“And you don’t know that about yourself, do you?”
She went to the fridge and poured herself a glass of Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi from the Marches. Marco watched her taste it.
“It’s easy for you,” she said finally. “It comes naturally. I can’t just learn.”
“And why not?” he demanded. “Are you the only person who ever grew up an orphan? I can’t begin to understand how difficult that is. No one would wish it on another. But none of us is some fixed, unchanging point in the universe. Not me. Not Nic. We’re always changing, sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better. The person you were when these things happened is not the person you are now, surely?”
“And you think that you know either of them?” She said it too harshly. There was disappointment on the old man’s face and she was shocked to discover this made her feel guilty.
“I think I know one of them better than she might give me credit for,” he answered.
She poured a second glass of wine and offered it to him. Marco Costa laughed and pushed it away from him.
“Now you’re playing games with me,” he said. “I don’t want the wine, Sara. These drugs they give me, they make everything seem the same. What I want is the old taste, the one I remember, and that’s impossible. That will never happen. I can’t get that back. So what would be the point?”
She poured the Verdicchio back into the bottle and gave him some water instead.
“Don’t wait until it’s too late,” he said. “Regret’s a small sour thing but it can poison you for years. You saw Bea when you left? How was she?”
“Confused, I thought.”
“Not surprised. I asked her back here for dinner with us this evening. What you said last night made me think it was the right thing to do. It’s easy to take people for granted, all the more so when you’ve known them for a long time. We’re lazy creatures, looking for the soft option.”
“So you asked Bea for her sake?” she said, half scolding.
Marco Costa smiled, accepting the rebuke. “No. I admit it. Mine too. Bea’s a beautiful woman. I can’t believe I stopped noticing. I can’t believe I forgot that life requires the occasional surprise. And this is a special occasion, now that I come to think of it.”
There was the sound of cars outside. She could hear the voices of the distant cops on the gate. Then the doorbell rang. The old man looked at her expectantly. She went to open the door and was, for a moment, made giddy by the perfume of flowers, bouquet upon bouquet, in the arms of two pleasant-looking middle-aged women chattering wildly, looking ready to go to work.
40
Rossi was three hours past the end of his shift when Falcone collared him. He could tell from Falcone’s smile it wasn’t good news.
“Overtime,” Falcone said.
“That’s voluntary, I imagine?”
“You’re going to be in the company of a star. You should be paying me.”
Rossi had seen Arturo Valena walk into Falcone’s office. He couldn’t stand the man. “Jesus . . .” he groaned.
“Piece of cake. The guy needs taking to the Brazilian Embassy in the Piazza Navona. There for an hour, no more, then you see him home. I’ll send someone else to take over around eleven.”
“How kind. He’s another one on the list? Another one she never told us about?”
“Seems so.”
Rossi shook his head. “Such taste . . .”
Falcone scanned the office, looking at the men on duty. “Shame Costa’s gone home. I could call him back.”
Rossi knew what game he hoped to play, winding the kid up with another ex-lover she’d forgotten to mention. He was having none of it. “Are you serious? The kid’s half dead.”
“True. But he needs to learn. You know that, don’t you?”
“Learn what? All the old tricks we know and love so well? Maybe he thinks that’s not such a good idea. Maybe he’s right.” Rossi was tired of Falcone. He couldn’t give a damn about the job anymore.
“You don’t fit in here, Rossi. Just three days and it’s so obvious.”
“Now, should I be offended by that? Sir?”
Falcone looked out of the window of his office, thinking, calm, as always, in these situations. “It doesn’t make much of a pension at your age. You should have stuck it out longer.”
“There’s more to life than money. Can I ask you one thing?”
The silver beard nodded.
“Just take the kid off this case. It’s beyond him and he doesn’t realize it.”
“Seems to me,” Falcone said, “he’s done pretty damn well. Found out more than you, to be frank.”
“Yeah.” Rossi wondered how far he could go. “Found out lots of things that just seemed to be sitting there waiting for him, huh? I just don’t want to see him damaged. Do what you like to me, but I won’t have that. Understand?”
“Get the hell out of here. Take Cattaneo instead.”
Rossi groaned again. In three days he had already come to learn the dull little man from Bologna was the least popular detective in the division: slow-witted, boring and an incessant talker.
“The sooner you’re gone, the sooner this all becomes someone else’s problem.”
“And the kid?”
“I’ll think on it.”
“Sir,” Rossi murmured, and walked to Cattaneo’s desk to break the news.
“Arturo Valena?” Cattaneo was in his mid-thirties, single and without vices. He bought his suits, shirts and shoes in threes from Standa because he got a discount that way and it removed the needless task of deciding whether to choose something different each day. His shift had started one hour before, which meant he was just bursting with energy to expend in useless conversation. “You mean the Arturo Valena? The man on the box?”
“Just don’t ask for an autograph,” Rossi warned him. “I don’t think I could take it.”
“Oh, come on,” Cattaneo complained. “It wouldn’t be for me, you understand. My brother’s kid. He just loves the guy.”
“Your brother’s kid is how old? Twelve?”
“Eleven.”
“And he watches Valena on TV?”
“We all do.”
“Sweet Jesus. The poor bastard’s marked for life. Can you walk and talk at the same time?”
Cattaneo scowled, picked up his jacket and followed Rossi to the door, where they joined Valena and went downstairs to the car. The detective from Bologna talked every step of the way. Before they’d even left the building, Rossi could see from the TV man’s eyes that he loathed Cattaneo too.
41
She was sleeping. It made Gino Fosse feel odd. She’d made love to him on and off for two hours, never asking what he wanted, always knowing somehow. Irena was now cu
rled next to him on the cheap, hard bed. With her mouth half open she looked younger, almost a child. The red and blue neon signs outside the window flashed repeatedly and cast lurid beams across her head. He touched the marks they made. She had soft, clean hair. It was fragrant, noticeable even amid the smells of sweat and sex that filled the room.
He’d never slept with a woman before, not like this. He’d not known what it was like to close your eyes and find them still there when you woke up. It was unreal somehow, like a scene from some dream that would be shaken from his head in an instant. Then she stirred, her eyes opened, she saw him and smiled.
Unasked, Irena leaned up to his face and kissed him softly on the lips.
“You’re crazy,” he said.
“Why?”
“Acting like this. Like we’re . . . together or something.”
She touched his dark hair, let her fingers curl against his cheek. “What’s wrong with that?”
“You’re just a hooker. And I’m just . . . nothing.”
Her lips formed a pout and he was sure now: She was no more than seventeen or eighteen. “Doesn’t mean you can’t love someone, does it? Where’s it say that?”
Somewhere, he thought. In the books they wrote. It didn’t come from God. Even the old God, the cruel, hard one, understood the imperfections in the clay He’d once shaped. They were part of the journey each individual had to take, one that was unavoidable, though so many people tried to ignore it happened at all. She was right there: There was nothing to say either of them should be denied a thing.
“How much money have you got?” she asked.
“Why?”
“We could go. We could get out of this hole. We could go to the coast, Gino. Someone told me it was nice there. All clean and fresh and none of this crap to ruin us.”
He found himself laughing. “You are crazy. And what do we do when we get there?”
“Screw.”
The neon painted its colors on her hair again. He couldn’t stop himself laughing again. “And then?”
Her small, perfect shoulders shrugged. She grinned this time. He didn’t mind the bad teeth, he decided.
“Whatever. We just roll, Gino. We just take it as it comes . . . and roll.”
He thought about it. They gave her to him. She knew their faces. She would receive a visit from the police sometime. It wasn’t difficult to guess what their solution would be.
“I never ran anywhere before. I never had that option.”
Her face lit up with surprise. “You mean, you just do as you’re told?”
“These are big people, Irena. I’m just so small.”
Her hand moved stealthily and took hold of his penis. It lay in her fingers, rising, hardening. “I wouldn’t say that.” Her fingers moved. “Let’s do it, Gino. Let’s go. Anywhere.”
He felt his breath begin to catch. He wondered how many times they had made love. His head felt fuzzy, unfocused.
The phone rang. Gino Fosse pushed her away from him and turned to get it. She looked at the sheets sulkily as he spoke. It took a good three minutes. Someone was telling him what to do.
“Got to go,” he told her when the call ended. He started putting on his clothes. Then he looked in one of the bags he’d brought, a big one. She’d taken a peek when he was in the bathroom, wondering if there was money there. It was just junk. Theatrical makeup. Stage props. Crazy stuff. And something at the bottom. Something gray and metallic she didn’t want to think about, didn’t want to see.
Gino Fosse sat down on a thin wooden chair by the neon-lit window, thinking, not taking any notice of her. Then he got up, ordered her off the bed and snatched the crumpled, stained sheet off the mattress. She sat down on the bare divan and watched him.
“We could catch a train,” she said, half pleading. “We could go anywhere. We could be in France or Spain.”
He picked up a pair of scissors and began stabbing at the sheet. When he was done he bent down and touched her hair. “But we’d still be what we are now, Irena. You can’t run away from yourself.”
“So you want me to go work some tricks while you’re out?” she asked petulantly. “Or do I sit here like some stupid girlfriend waiting on her man?”
He seemed shocked that she wanted him to stay. He reached into his pocket and pulled out some money. “Go buy some champagne. Tomorrow, I promise, will be a special day.”
Her face brightened. She was attractive, beautiful after a fashion. But she was stupid. This wasn’t about him. It was about her finding some rock she could cling to, something that could improve things a little.
She kissed him on the cheek. He could smell her rotten teeth.
Gino Fosse walked out into the stifling night with the bag on his arm. The air was acrid with traffic fumes. He strolled down one of the grimy back alleys that led from the station, thinking. There were drunks and hookers and dope dealers.
And a small, dark van with a man standing by it. He was in uniform. He looked as if he’d had a few drinks himself. Fosse walked toward the vehicle. He recognized what it was now. There was the sound of animals moving in the back. The dogcatcher still had his pole, with the noose on the end, in one hand. He held a bottle of beer in the other and waved it unsteadily in Fosse’s direction.
“What a job,” he said with a slur in his voice. “What a stupid, boring job. You know how many times I got bitten by these miserable mutts today?”
He hadn’t killed an innocent person before. But he knew now: there was no such creature. They all shared in the guilt. They all partook of the shame. It was weakness to exclude them.
The man held up three fingers. “Three times, Jesus . . .”
“I’m sorry,” Gino Fosse said, and took the knife from his pocket. The blade caught the moonlight. A shaft of silver flashed in the dogcatcher’s face. Abruptly sober, he took one look at the young man in front of him, then turned and ran with a sudden turn of speed. Fosse watched him race frantically down the street, debating whether to follow. There was a low whimper from inside the van. He peered through the barred window, open to the air at the rear. The vehicle stank of dog crap and urine. Several pairs of eyes stared back at him. The animals growled. It was too much effort to give chase, he decided. There were better, more profitable, avenues to pursue that evening.
42
When Nic Costa arrived home he thought, for a moment, that he had stepped back in time. The house was alive with voices: his father, Sara, and a laughing Bea who, when he walked through the door, was playing with the dog as if some unexpected peace pact had just been signed. There were flowers throughout the downstairs rooms: roses and chrysanthemums, dahlias and sprays of lurid irises. The scent hung heavy everywhere. Sara and Bea drank champagne. Marco stuck to mineral water. In the kitchen two women, hired hands for the night, were putting the finishing touches to an extravagant cold buffet, the kind of meal his mother had once prepared so well. Plates of cold grilled vegetables, glistening with olive oil, were going on the dining table alongside scampi and lobster, bresaola and cheeses. He had to close his eyes for a moment to ensure this was not some dream. When he opened them again his father sat in front of him, in the wheelchair, still gray and cadaverous, but wearing the broadest smile Nic could recall for many months.
“Why’re you looking so damn fed up, son?”
“I just . . .” he stuttered. “Did I forget a birthday?”
Marco waved a hand at him, then motioned for one of the women to pour a glass of champagne. “Do you always need a reason? Isn’t it possible I was just bored with being miserable? It’s so enervating after a while. And all this crap out there. Your work. Sara . . .” Marco cast a glance back at Sara and Bea chatting in the living room, the dog at Bea’s feet. “Whatever the facts tell you, Nic, I think she’s a good woman. She just doesn’t realize it herself.”
“I know.” Nic hesitated. He didn’t want to break the spell. “That’s what makes it so hard to understand.”
“Bullshit!” Marco dec
lared. “How can you understand someone until you get to know them? You fret about things too much. You want everything wrapped up all nice and tidy before you’ll deign to touch it. Relax, Nic. Make the most of things while they’re still there.”
Nic picked up a glass of champagne and raised it to his father. “Salute!”
“And to you, my son. There . . .” Marco cocked an ear. “You know that sound?”
Women chattering. The dog, Pepe, yelping at their feet for attention. Voices ringing off the plain stone walls of the farmhouse. He knew what his father meant. “Yes.”
“How many years since we heard that racket in here? Eight? A house needs the noise of people or it starts to die. That’s what I’ve been missing all this time. I’m going to record you all secretly and play it back when you’re gone. Do that and you could fool yourself into thinking you’ll live forever.”
Nic Costa was unable to take his eyes off the women in the other room. Sara looked so calm, so lovely. Bea too seemed transformed, as if being invited back to spend some social time with Marco was the greatest compliment she could receive.
“And Bea?” he asked his father.
“She deserves it. That’s all. I’m an idiot, Nic. You should know that about your father. I was never good at seeing things in other people. That was your mother’s talent. It’s where you got it from.”
The four of them sat down around the dining-room table and admired the feast. Then the two hired women lit the large antique candles Marco had insisted be set up throughout the ground floor and turned down the electric lights. He paid the women, with much thanks, and they were gone. The farmhouse was now lit like a canvas. There were deep shadows where the guttering flames failed to reach, and rich, natural colors, the ancient timber table, the subtle red of the curtains, the ocher of the walls, in the idle beam of the waxy light.
“A toast!” Marco declared. “You were right, Nic. This is a birthday. But whose?”