Big Italy

by Timothy Williams

  “I’m not sure I understand what you’re talking about.”

  Again the laugh. “I’m a lawyer by training.”

  “You astound me, Signor Giudice.”

  “I’ve taken a certain risk in coming to see you. Not for myself. Personal risk’s something you try to put out of your head. Anyway, Milan isn’t Palermo and I’m not Falcone. Just a second-rate judge buried away on the third floor of the Palazzo di Giustizia.”

  “What risk?”

  “The inquiry.”

  “The inquiry into Turellini’s murder?”

  “I can’t frighten you off, Trotti, in the same way I did Bassi. You do realize there never was an injunction. That was simply an act of bile on Bassi’s part—or perhaps Vissuto hoped to increase their readership by denigrating the Palazzo di Giustizia. No injunction—but it’s true I had to frighten Bassi.”

  “You want to frighten me?”

  “You’re a professional. I hope you’re more intelligent.”

  “Everybody keeps telling me Bassi was a fool.”

  “He got himself killed, didn’t he?”

  “Falcone and Borsellino in Sicily were fools?”

  “They were fools if they wanted to live out their lives and die in their slippers.” Abete paused. “Fools die young.”

  “At least they achieve something.”

  “Let me tell you a little anecdote, Trotti. It might help you understand what I’m up against. What di Pietro and the other judges both in and out of the investigative pool at Mani Pulite are up against.”

  “You wouldn’t have a sweet, by any chance?”

  “Trotti’s rhubarb? No, I’m afraid not. But perhaps my driver has some chewing gum.” Silently, without seeming to move, the driver handed a packet over his shoulder—Trotti saw his hand against the light of the dashboard. Trotti took it and the movement of his arm set off the pain in his shoulder. Brooklyn chewing gum, banana-flavored.

  “A couple of months ago I was in my office with a Calabrian. A Calabrian like me—but who’d landed up on the other side of the bars at San Vittore. A career within the ‘Ndrangheta and one of the first people to opt for the government witness program. Un pentito. An intelligent man, but scarcely repentant. A man who, with a different background, could have gone far. Shrewd, with a sense of humor and a good understanding of human nature.”

  “Why San Vittore?”

  “The man’s already doing seven years for kidnapping. At the same time, he was on appeal against a life sentence for murder. I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that although we’re different, he and I, in other ways we could be Siamese twins. We are, I believe, all of us, victims of destiny.”

  “Some of us are more victims than others.”

  “This Calabrian was in my office and he seemed in a particularly good mood. I asked him why. He leaned forward and speaking in dialect—he’s from Brancaleone—‘You’ll see, Dr. Abete,’ he told me in his hoarse whisper, ‘my appeal will be upheld. Somebody’s already had a word with the judges.’ I of course laughed. There was absolutely no possibility of the man’s winning the appeal.”

  “And?”

  “Two weeks later the appeal went before the court. My fellow Calabrian got off.”

  “How?”

  “People seem to think our Palazzo di Giustizia’s hermetically sealed so that we can get on as we please. That’s not the point.”

  “What’s the point?”

  “We can’t afford the leaks, Trotti. We can’t afford having fellow magistrates being suborned. After all these years, at last we’re getting the support we should’ve had when this First Republic was created.”

  “After forty years of sitting on your hands?”

  “Little choice, Trotti. You know that.”

  “I know nothing.”

  Judge Abete sighed before continuing. “Things are changing, thank God. That’s why I’ve come to see you like a thief in the night. That’s why I had to scare Bassi off. That’s why we told the Carabinieri at Segrate we were temporarily shelving the Turellini dossier.”

  “Why?”

  “Does the Prontuario farmaceutico mean anything to you?”

  “We’re still playing at double or quits, Signor Giudice? Another quiz program for Berlusconi?”

  74: Karaoke

  “WE’RE ITALIANS—THE EASY victims of our own rhetoric. If we say something often enough, we begin to believe it.”

  “What do we believe?”

  “Go into a court throughout this country. The law is equal for all. Written in big letters for everyone to see. For everyone to believe. And it’s true we do have good laws, Trotti. Just, equitable laws. In many ways, ours could be such a civilized country. Capital punishment we gave up years ago, while the Americans, who have no doubts concerning their moral superiority, still fry their compatriots—preferably the black ones and the poor ones—to death in the electric chair. Or with a syringe.”

  “The Americans are no less victims of rhetoric than us?”

  “There’s a big difference between them and us. When an American court decrees you’ll serve time in prison, no matter who you are, no matter how much you spend on your lawyer, that decision will be enforced.”

  “And?”

  “Without enforcement, there’s no law. Or rather, without enforcement, the law—so equitable in concept—exists not for your benefit but for the benefit of those who are more powerful than you, who can apply that law when it suits them. And who can forget about it when it ceases to serve their own interests.” Again the laugh and Trotti could feel Abete changing his position on the seat. “Let me give you an example.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Trotti, you only play at being the dull policeman.”

  “By dint of having played it for such a long time, I’ve taken myself in. Forgive me if I don’t like philosophical treatises. I even have difficulty with Costanzo’s talk show on Berlusconi.”

  “You prefer Fiorello in karaoke?”

  “At least I understand the words—when they come up on the screen.”

  Abete waited. “Then I’ll try to speak slowly.”

  “Very thoughtful.”

  “The law in a democracy’s there to protect everybody. Clearly Italy’s not a democracy. Power is in the hands of an oligarchy. The nature of that oligarchy can change. Since the creation of the Republic, the oligarchy’s been those members of the political parties who’ve carved up the juicy pie. Lottizzazione, Piero Trotti. Sharing the common wealth for their private benefit. And nowhere is this process more evident than in the pharmaceutical sector.”

  Trotti ran his tongue along his lips. His bruised shoulder was now throbbing uncomfortably.

  “Medicine is, by definition, to help people get better. Consequently, it’s only normal that a civilized country, a country that cares for the feeble, for the unwell, should ensure the drugs being administered have the effect their manufacturers claim. No point in taking a pill for a headache if in the process it destroys your nervous system. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Very clear.”

  “Health’s a multibillion-lire business—in any country. But in Italy, it is more than that. It’s King Midas’s gold.”

  “And who’s King Midas?”

  “Dr. Quarenghi is not King Midas—merely a very wealthy prince. The prince of the CIP.”

  “CIP?”

  “There’s a man in Rome who’s probably richer in liquid assets than Agnelli or Berlusconi. His wealth isn’t held down in capital he can’t get his hands on. His wealth’s in the Swiss banks. Or in the works of art—Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani—at his villa at the Eur in Rome.”

  “Who?”

  “You’ll find out, Trotti, but you mustn’t be impatient. You must give me time. This is the most sensitive inquiry of my career—and it could destroy me.”

  “Not Dr. Quarenghi?”

  There was a long pause.

  Trotti pulled back the thick pleat of the curtain. Lookin
g through the window, he could make out what he thought was a distant truck moving towards the glow of Milan. There were too many lights and he realized it must be a slow train heading to Porto Garibaldi or Lambrate.

  The real world.

  “People like to think di Pietro was responsible for Mani Pulite. In many ways, that’s true. But he wasn’t alone. The writing was already on the wall. Or rather, the wall had started to crumble. When the wall came down in Berlin, the Communists suddenly ceased to be the enemy western civilization had had to defend itself against for so long. Just as suddenly, the Christian Democrats and the Socialists could no longer count on the blind support of our dear NATO allies. On our good friends the French and, above all, the Americans. Suddenly our political masters, such staunch allies of NATO and the West, were being dropped in the shit. We, the judges, were the first to realize it.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “What had been going on at Sanità—we’d known about it for years. But what could a few motivated judges in Milan do? Against the might of Rome? What could we do about an entire edifice of corruption—in which everybody was implicated? Despite your sarcasm, commissario, I know you’ve found yourself in a similar situation. You know wrong’s been done, you know who the wrongdoer is—and there’s absolutely nothing you can do simply because the wrongdoer’s a politician. A Christian Democrat, a Socialist, a Liberal. He’s untouchable precisely because he’s a politician—or the friend of a politician. Or the friend of a friend of a politician.”

  “I now work with sex abuse victims.”

  “Because you don’t have any alternative, Commissario Trotti. As I said, Italy’s a country with good laws. And over these last eighteen months, that’s been the power of us magistrates. Trotti, when I was given the Turellini affair, I had no idea I’d be barricading myself into the Palazzo di Giustizia. That I’d be putting my private life on hold. A straightforward killing in Segrate? What appeared to be an ordinary murder—possibly a crime passionnel.”

  “Cherchez la femme?”

  Again, Giudice Abete laughed. “In a manner of speaking.”

  There was a movement and suddenly the roof light came on.

  Trotti blinked. The light was not strong, but his pupils were unprepared for it.

  A clicking of metal on glass.

  Trotti had seen the judge’s face in the newspapers but now, sitting beside him in a car somewhere between the Po and the stale lights of Milan, Abete seemed very young to Trotti. Young, earnest and desperately tired, with dark rings beneath his eyes.

  “Perhaps you’d care for something to drink, Trotti?”

  The young judge had taken a flask from his jacket pocket and was pouring amber liquid into the silver thimble which he then handed to Trotti. “Dewar’s,” he said, with a crooked smile.

  Without removing the gum from his mouth, Trotti took one sip and returned the thimble.

  As suddenly as it had come on, the light within the Fiat Argenta was extinguished.

  75: Congo

  “FROM WHAT I can gather, Turellini was honest. Everybody I’ve spoken to says he had a great nostalgia for Fascism—but he was by and large honest. I can believe that. What I find difficult to understand is how it could take him so long to realize what was happening at the clinic.”

  “The clinic on Lake Maggiore?”

  A deep breath. “Turellini had an extremely lucrative private practice on Lake Maggiore—a clinic he’d created in 1979 with his associate, Dr. Quarenghi. Quarenghi had specialized in clinical medicine in Milan. If they were friends then, by the time of the murder, Turellini and Quarenghi were no longer on speaking terms.”

  “Why not, Signor Giudice?” It suddenly seemed strange to use an honorific title with somebody who was less than half his age.

  “Because Turellini was angry, I suppose.” Abete took another sip of whisky. “Listen, Trotti, I’m counting on your discretion.”

  “I don’t really see what I’m supposed to be discreet about.”

  “I can understand your desire to identify Bassi’s murderer. Bassi’s murderer and Turellini’s. Try to understand the case has ramifications that go beyond a mere fait divers in the streets of Milan. I have to tread carefully, Trotti. Like everything else at the end of the First Republic, this is a minefield. Quarenghi’s powerful. But Quarenghi’s just one of several people who, should they find out about my inquiries now, will do everything in their power to stop me reaching the truth.” He lowered his voice and Trotti could feel the odor of Dewar’s against his cheek. “I hope to throw the bastards in jail. For good.”

  “What truth, Signor Giudice?”

  “The truth of the Prontuario. The truth of billions of lire, Trotti. Money from the taxpayer’s pocket that’s been disappearing into Swiss bank accounts for the last thirty years.”

  The sound of the cap being returned to the flask.

  “I had the man from Galaxa Eurochem in my office recently. An English company. He was American, one of those who try to be more European and more cosmopolitan than us Europeans. He’d come up from Rome. He came to see me because he realized he needed me as much as I need him. They’re not like us, the Americans—they seem to think everything functions in black and white. Who knows, perhaps it does in their country. Yet another reason for my not wanting to go there.” Abete started to laugh. “Forgive me, commissario, I belong to the generation that came of age after 1968. A generation fed on Coca-Cola and blue jeans and hamburgers. They say familiarity breeds contempt. Which would explain why I consider the Americans to be children. Naive, unsophisticated and potentially dangerous.”

  “You ought to live in our city. The Lega town hall has outlawed the use of English on street billboards.”

  “This man from Galaxa explained how every time he needed to get a new product on to the market he went to see Quarenghi at the CIP.”

  “CIP?”

  “Comitato interministeriale prezzi per i farmaci—the committee which sets the price on all medicines that are on sale in the country.”

  “The Prontuario?”

  “Precisely.” A private chuckle. “Quarenghi insisted upon donations for his Clinica Cisalpina on Lake Maggiore.”

  “How could he do that?”

  “Power and business speak the same language, Trotti. You should know that. The language of money.”

  “He asked for money?” Trotti asked incredulously.

  “The clinic has its own foundation. A research foundation which, as I understand it, consists of little more than half a dozen postgraduate students, normally still studying at the university. Quarenghi’s method is to ask the pharmaceutical company for a voluntary donation towards the research.”

  “What research?”

  “That’s the question that Carlo Turellini must have eventually asked Quarenghi.”

  “He didn’t know about the research?”

  “Of course he knew. But Carlo Turellini left the running of the clinic largely to Quarenghi and their accountant. Money doesn’t appear to have been Turellini’s driving force. His prime concern—both Signora Coddrington and his ex-wife agree on this—was getting the professorship in clinical medicine at your city’s university. For the kudos. He was very jealous of Quarenghi’s job in Rome—even if he realized that as a Neofascist and a one-time member of the Destra Nazionale, his hopes of getting anywhere in the academic world were seriously limited. Turellini wanted glory and kudos. Not, apparently, money.”

  “His ex-wife told me nothing about a conflict with Quarenghi.”

  “I don’t think she knew.”

  “How did you find out, Signor Giudice?”

  “An anonymous letter.”

  “Another anonymous letter.”

  “Where would we be without our anonymous informants, Trotti?”

  “Out of a job.”

  “Some four months after the murder. To be honest, I’d always thought it was the Quarenghi woman who’d killed him. She’s fairly unhinged. And she had a motive. She’d alway
s believed Turellini had divorced his wife for her sake—and instead he’d gone off with a younger woman. Signora Quarenghi’s behavior after the murder—turning up at the scene of the crime and making accusations—all that made her a prime suspect.”

  “Except …”

  “Except she had an alibi—as did the other potential murderesses, all the slighted lovers or mistresses.” Giudice Abete snorted. “A lady’s man, Turellini.”

  “You think Quarenghi murdered him?”

  “Quarenghi didn’t murder him. Not physically, at least, because he was in Rome on the day of the murder. But once I got wind of the kickbacks coming from the pharmaceutical companies, the real motive at last became apparent.”

  “Money?”

  “There was no reason for any of his women to kill Turellini. His ex-wife had long been used to the idea of a separation—and, anyway, they saw eye-to-eye over the will. She’s wealthier than he is. Turellini was a self-made man, whereas his ex-wife inherited all her wealth. Both Turellini and Signora Lucchi were concerned the daughter Carla should be provided for.”

  “And the Englishwoman?”

  “She wanted a child. Why kill the man who would finally give her what she’d always wanted? We all lost too much time looking for a woman when the real motive’s money. I don’t know who actually pulled the trigger at Segrate as Turellini drove through the gates. I’m convinced, however, Quarenghi paid the gunman.”

  “Why kill Turellini? Quarenghi and Turellini had been associates for years. Nobody ever mentioned to me there was a problem between them.”

  “Because they hid their problems. Doctors are like lawyers—or policemen. They close ranks so that nobody will see what infighting is going on. Of course Quarenghi and Turellini loathed each other. Or do you think Quarenghi was amused by his wife’s infidelity with his close associate?”

  “That’s no reason to have Turellini murdered.”

  “Turellini had at last got wind of what was happening at the clinic. Perhaps he knew before—but I don’t think so. That kind of easy wealth could only have done him a disservice in his attempts to get the professorship. For heaven’s sake, he’d even given up his membership of the Neofascists for the sake of that professorship …”