Duca let her listen for a while, then said, ‘Are you declaring that you killed Turiddu Sompani and Adele Terrini?
‘Yes, she declared it to me too,’ Carrua said, sleepily covering his face with his hands.
She nodded and sadly left the window and that improbable spring dawn in Milan and returned to her chair.
‘And you came here to Milan, from Arizona, to hand yourself in?’ Faced with this young woman, a foreigner to boot – foreigners have their eye on us – he mustn’t get angry.
She looked at Duca, hearing that hint of anger in his voice. ‘Yes,’ she said.
Controlling himself, he said, ‘Why?’ He already knew why, it was stupid to even ask, but it needed official confirmation.
‘Because I realised I’d made a mistake,’ she replied in a clear but muted voice, her voice was increasingly muted. ‘I shouldn’t have killed them.’
Not being able to slap her, not being able to shout, not being able to fire a gun, he said sadistically, ‘Why?’
She batted her eyelids, it was an unusual interrogation. ‘Because we shouldn’t kill, nobody should take the law into their own hands.’
Oh yes, that was what he had wanted to make her say: you shouldn’t take the law into your own hands, or we’d end up all killing each other – which might not be a bad idea, he thought. But he wouldn’t let go. ‘Didn’t you know that before you killed them?’
She replied promptly but vaguely, ‘Yes, I did, but I was driven by a thirst for revenge.’
Duca got to his feet, went to the door of the office, with his back turned to the girl and Carrua and Mascaranti, lit a cigarette and inhaled a mouthful of smoke, then took a deep breath: maybe he could manage to control himself, he hoped he could, he was in an important office in Milan Police Headquarters, with an important officer like Carrua, he couldn’t let himself go, but he found it hard to hold back. ‘You couldn’t sleep, is that it?’ he said, with his back still turned, and his voice was gentle, the anger was only in the question.
She seemed very pleased that someone understood her and when he turned to hear her answer he saw a serene smile of pleasure in her eyes. ‘Yes, when you make a mistake, you don’t have any peace until you can put it right.’ Duca sat down again and looked at her: yes, she had said exactly what was required of a totally honest woman, and even more, she was the essence of clarity and had answered his ‘Why?’ with complete moral clarity, not even a convent schoolgirl would have answered like that.
He was about to ask her another question when an officer came in with a copy of the Corriere, hot off the press and still smelling of ink.
‘The Americans did it,’ Carrua said. ‘They made a soft landing on the moon.
Also in the Corriere della Sera, in the local pages, was the trial of the robbers from the Via Montenapoleone: the Burgamelli brothers, accused of the famous robbery, and all the other members of the gang, photographed together in the dock, all claimed they were innocent, they made a scene, they raised their fists at the prosecutor and yelled at him, ‘How can this be allowed?’ All the defendants talked nonsense, made sarcastic remarks, answered back to the judge, and they might even be acquitted because of insufficient evidence, Duca thought.
This girl in front of him, on the other hand, wouldn’t be acquitted because of insufficient evidence, they couldn’t give her less than ten years for premeditated double homicide, it was so premeditated that she had come all the way from Phoenix to kill them, and at her trial she wouldn’t raise her fists at the prosecutor, she’d say, ‘Yes, I killed them, it was premeditated, I worked it all out in advance.’ When you have defendants like that, the jury might as well be doing the crossword.
Duca asked the question he had been about to ask her earlier. ‘What evidence do we have that you killed those two?’ There were lots of crazy people about, people who came into Police Headquarters and said, ‘I killed the poet Carducci.’ You needed evidence.
Clearly, after seven years working in criminal records, she had anticipated the question. ‘It’s there, in the pockets of my coat.’
Carrua opened his eyes a little wider. ‘Yes,’ he said to Duca, ‘that’s what she told me as soon as she got here,’ From the heavy overcoat on his desk he took out two large and rather bulky white envelopes. ‘It’s the mescaline 6,’ he said, holding out the envelopes, and gestured to Mascaranti to give him a cigarette.
Duca opened one of the envelopes: inside it was an opaque plastic bag, one corner was open and peering inside Duca saw that it contained a number of stamp-sized sachets, on which was written, clearly, Mexcalina 6. Clarity is what counts, he thought, this was the mescaline that Claudino had spent so much time and effort looking for. ‘How did you get this?’ he asked Susanna (Paganica) Pani, daughter of Tony, Captain Anthony (Paganica) Pani: he was really curious to know.
It was simple, she explained, it had already happened once before: when she was having dinner with Adele and Turiddu at the Binaschina, a man had arrived and handed over two envelopes like that to Turiddu Sompani.
‘What did this man look like?’ Duca asked.
‘Not very tall, but well-built, very well-built,’ Susanna said.
It could only have been Ulrico, Ulrico Brambilla. ‘And then?’
‘Attorney Sompani took the envelopes and put them in his pocket, Susanna said, ‘but after a while he gave them to me and said, “Please keep them in the pockets of your coat, you have plenty of room, my jacket pockets bulge too much.” ’
‘So that evening this well-built man came,’ Duca said, ‘he handed over the two envelopes and went away, then Sompani gave the two envelopes to you, to keep until you got home, because otherwise the pockets of his jacket would have bulged: is that what you’re saying?’
‘Yes, exactly.’
It certainly wasn’t because his jacket bulged that Sompani had given her the envelopes, it was one of the rules of the game: especially in a car, some little accident might happen, you might get into an argument with someone, the traffic police might show up and find some of that stuff on you, it’s better if they find it on someone else, isn’t it? and then you can say, ‘I don’t know anything about it, I’ve never that stuff before.’ It was because of the same rule that Giovanna, when she had come that evening to have that repair job done on her, had left him the case with the submachine gun: if something went wrong, it was better that they find the sub machine gun in Dr Duca Lamberti’s apartment than in Giovanna’s car or at the home of Silvano Solvere.
‘So you mean that after throwing the car into the Naviglio, the two envelopes were still in the pocket of this overcoat and you forgot you had them?’
‘Yes.’
‘And when did you realise you had them?’
‘When I got to Phoenix.’
‘And how did you manage to get them from Phoenix back here to Milan?’
‘I didn’t do anything, I just left them there, in my coat.’
‘But if they’d stopped you and found them, what would you have said?’
‘I was coming to Milan to hand myself in anyway, I would have told the truth, it didn’t really matter who arrested me, all that matters is the truth.’
Keeping a totally serious face, Duca began to laugh mentally, and nervously: this was really wonderful, the International Narcotics Bureau would be pleased to learn that you can cross the Atlantic twice, there and back, with a few hectograms of mescaline 6 on you, you just have to be crafty enough not to hide it, but put it in the pockets of your overcoat and hold your overcoat over your arm.
And then he laughed even more, while still outwardly impassive, over all that had happened because of that mescaline: the goddess of vengeance had come directly from Phoenix, Arizona, killed the couple and gone back to her country, still unwittingly carrying the mescaline, and for those two envelopes, Claudio Valtraga had killed, first, Silvano, believing that he had kept them for himself, then Ulrico Brambilla, convinced that he had them, and finally he had been arrested and his revelations
had made it possible to arrest a number of significant figures. In his encounter with Susanna Pani, the devil had been, as sports people said, soundly beaten.
‘I’ve finished,’ Duca said, and went to the window: a tram was passing.
‘Take the young lady down,’ Carrua said to Mascaranti.
‘Goodbye,’ Susanna Pani said to Carrua. ‘Goodbye,’ she said to Duca, raising her voice a little.
‘Goodbye,’ Duca said and even made a curt little bow: goodbye, goddess of vengeance, goddess of purity of heart and conscience, goddess who came to confess her guilt in order to have – is that what it’s called? – the punishment she deserved.
‘She could get as much as fifteen years,’ Carrua said when she had gone out with Mascaranti.
Duca again looked out of the window: the first lorry was passing.
‘Because at the trial,’ Carrua went on, ‘she’ll insist on saying that the crime was premeditated, and no lawyer will ever persuade her to tell a lie or keep quiet about anything, no, she’ll tell the whole truth, because she’s a complete idiot.’
Duca turned and came back to Carrua’s desk. ‘Please,’ he said in a low voice, ‘don’t say she’s a complete idiot, don’t even think it.’
‘Why shouldn’t I say it?’ Carrua said, getting heated. ‘She was at home nearly five thousand kilometres from here, nobody knew anything about her, she had nothing to do with that awful bunch, she’d killed some people who deserved to die, why did she have to come back here to get from ten to fifteen years? For whose benefit? When she comes out, she’ll be over forty, life will have passed her by, why shouldn’t I say she’s an idiot? I do say it.’
‘No, please, don’t say it,’ Duca sat down next to him and with extreme patience and with a very low voice, said, ‘Don’t you like the fact that there are people like her? Or would you prefer everybody to be like Sompani, like Claudio Valtraga?’
‘Yes, I do like that fact, but she’ll be wasting the best years of her life in prison, and for nothing. That’s really stupid.’
‘Yes, she’ll be wasting the best years of her life in prison,’ he said patiently, leaning towards him, ‘but that’s why you should respect her.’
After a pause, Carrua said, ‘I do respect her, but don’t bite me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Duca said: he was a little tired, and he collapsed on the uncomfortable chair.
Then, glancing irritably at Mascaranti, who had come back in at that moment, Carrua said, ‘What was all that? What was that letter you sent me with Galileo’s recantation? You know, I’m not that clever, I don’t understand, what does it mean?’
Duca turned towards him. ‘It means I need fifty thousand lire as an advance on my salary.’ The salary for the catcher of thieves and whores: at eleven his sister and niece and Livia were coming from Inverigo and he wanted to take them to lunch and buy them a few little gifts.
‘But you haven’t even been hired yet,’ Carrua said. He stood up, opened the little safe on the wall, fiddled about with something inside. ‘Sign,’ he said when he had filled out a form.
Duca took the money: it was best for him to buy a shirt immediately, as soon as the shops opened, because if Lorenza saw him with those threadbare cuffs it would sadden her.
Carrua gave him a look almost of hate. ‘I suppose that makes you our colleague.’
‘Thanks.’ Duca put the money in his pocket. ‘Can you have Mascaranti go with me?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Carrua said mockingly to Mascaranti, ‘Take our new colleague home.’
Mascaranti stood up. At the door Duca turned and said, almost shyly, ‘Can’t you do anything for her? Anything at all?’
‘Like what?’ Carrua roared.
‘I thought maybe keep her in a separate room for the time being, not surrounded by whores,’ he proposed, shyly.
‘And where am I going to find a separate room?’ Carrua said. ‘The clientele here is constantly increasing, we’ll soon have to keep them in the courtyard.’
‘I was also thinking you could have a word with the examining magistrate, explain everything to him,’ Duca said, ‘and then, as far as her defence goes, you could get her a good lawyer who wouldn’t even charge a lira.’
Carrua stood up and snarled, actually snarled mockingly, ‘Duca, I serve the law, I couldn’t do anything if it was my father or mother. Was I able to do anything for you? Didn’t you spend three years in prison even though you were my blue-eyed boy? And now there’s nothing I can do for her, nothing at all.’ There was real bitterness in the mockery.
It was true, there was nothing they could do, only respect her. He left the room.
TRANSLATOR’S NOTES
1. Giorgio Strehler, distinguished Italian theatre director and founder of the Piccolo Teatro in Milan.
2. A reference to Davide Auseri, a character in the first Duca Lamberti novel, A Private Venus
3. Esculapius (Asclepius in Greek): the god of medicine.
4. Livia Ussaro, a major character in A Private Venus, whose face was severely disfigured by a gangster while working on a case with Duca. At the end of that novel, she was sent to recover at the villa belonging to the father of Davide Auseri (see above).
5. Occam’s razor: a philosophical principle stating that, among several hypotheses, one should always choose the one requiring the fewest assumptions.
6. Plateau Rosa: an area of the Alps popular with skiers.
7. In September 1943, the Italian government, which had just deposed Mussolini’s Fascists, signed an armistice with the Allies, to which the Germans responded by invading Italy.
8. A reference to the well-known Italian film comedy Seduced and Abandoned (1964).
9. The Alto Adige, or South Tyrol, is a largely German-speaking province of northern Italy. In the 1950s and 1960s, a German-speaking underground organisation in favour of secession from Italy committed a number of terrorist acts.
10. Cesare Beccaria was an eighteenth-century Italian jurist and philosopher, whose most famous work was On Crimes and Punishments.
11. A reference to the Italian poet Gabriele d’Annunzio, famous for his sensual style of writing.
12. Africa Addio: an Italian documentary film, premiered in 1966.
13. Gothic Line: the last major German line of defence in the Italian campaign at the end of World War II.
A PRIVATE VENUS
The first book in the classic Italian
noir series, The Milano Quartet
The death of a young woman in a gritty industrial neighborhood of Milan sparks off a tragic series of events, which only detective Duca Lamberti is brave enough—or desperate enough—to follow to their source.
$16.95 U.S./Can.
Paperback: 978-1-61219-335-9
Ebook: 978-1-61219-336-6
MELVILLE INTERNATIONAL CRIME
Kismet
Jakob Arjouni
978-1-935554-23-3
Happy Birthday, Turk!
Jakob Arjouni
978-1-935554-20-2
More Beer
Jakob Arjouni
978-1-935554-43-1
One Man, One Murder
Jakob Arjouni
978-1-935554-54-7
Brother Kemal
Jakob Arjouni
978-1-61219-275-8
The Craigslist Murders
Brenda Cullerton
978-1-61219-019-8
Death and the Penguin
Andrey Kurkov
978-1-935554-55-4
Penguin Lost
Andrey Kurkov
978-1-935554-56-1
The Case of the General’s Thumb
Andrey Kurkov
978-1-61219-060-0
Nairobi Heat
Mukoma Wa Ngugi
978-1-935554-64-6
Cut Throat Dog
Joshua Sobol
978-1-935554-21-9
Brenner and God
Wolf Haas
978-1-61219-113-3
The Bone Man
; Wolf Haas
978-1-61219-169-0
Eternal Life
Wolf Haas
978-1-61219-270-3
Murder in Memoriam
Didier Daeninckx
978-1-61219-146-1
A Very Profitable War
Didier Daeninckx
978-1-61219-184-3
Nazis in the Metro
Didier Daeninckx
978-1-61219-296-3
He Died with His Eyes Open
Derek Raymond
978-1-935554-57-8
The Devil’s Home on Leave
Derek Raymond
978-1-935554-58-5
How the Dead Live
Derek Raymond
978-1-935554-59-2
I Was Dora Suarez
Derek Raymond
978-1-935554-60-8
Dead Man Upright
Derek Raymond
978-1-61219-062-4
The Angst-Ridden Executive
Manuel Vázquez Montalbán
978-1-61219-038-9
Murder in the Central Committee
Manuel Vázquez Montalbán
978-1-61219-036-5
The Buenos Aires Quintet
Manuel Vázquez Montalbán
978-1-61219-034-1
Off Side
Manuel Vázquez Montalbán
978-1-61219-115-7
Southern Seas
Manuel Vázquez Montalbán
978-1-61219-117-1
Tattoo
Manuel Vázquez Montalbán
978-1-61219-208-6
Death in Breslau
Marek Krajewski
978-1-61219-164-5
The End of the World in Breslau
Marek Krajewski
978-1-61219-177-5
Phantoms of Breslau
Traitors to All Page 21