“Silence! You’re coming with me to police headquarters.”
Michele smiled at him defiantly. “Why should I?”
“Show me all the bills of purchase and lading for these cell phones. Or for those car radios that I can just glimpse around the corner over there. Or for all these electric kettles.”
Michele pulled the cell phone out of his pocket. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Rocco strode over to him. He grabbed the cell phone out of his hand.
“I want to call my lawyer and. . . .”
It was only after his head suddenly swiveled toward the wall on the far side of the room that Michele realized an express train had just slammed into his cheek. The pain arrived two seconds later. The deputy chief had moved so suddenly that Diemoz hadn’t even seen the fist heading toward him. He felt the policeman’s grip on his neck and an irresistible force dragging him toward the storeroom exit. His head was spinning and he could see a reddish shadow in his right eye.
“Melina, help me!” he shouted, as if the chubby young woman could actually do anything to stop that force of nature.
The young woman was standing in a corner, clearly frightened, hands clasped over her belly. She pulled her head in like a scared turtle when Schiavone dragged Michele past her.
Outside the shop, the man partially regained consciousness. “Let go of me. Let go of me. I swear that I’m going to report you to. . . .”
Instead of replying, Rocco just smacked him hard, open-handed, on the back of his neck, the kind of whack you give a misbehaving child who’s pulled some stunt or prank. “Shut your mouth and get moving!”
He shoved him into the car, in the passenger seat. Then he got behind the wheel.
“This is a kidnapping!”
“And don’t bother trying to open the door. There’s a security lock on it.”
Michele lunged at the deputy chief’s throat, scratching his face. In response, Schiavone slammed his elbow into the man’s ribs, which quieted him down while he struggled to breathe. Then Schiavone grabbed him by the back of his neck and with one sharp shove slammed his face against the dashboard. Michele Diemoz lost consciousness.
“What the fuck . . .” grumbled Rocco. The face of HeyDiddleLiddles’ owner had finally cracked the plastic dashboard. Now he was going to have to take the car to a body shop.
Deruta had locked Michele Diemoz in the holding cell. Rocco was standing outside police headquarters, waiting for Italo. The snow had already been cleared from the sidewalks and streets but the sky was threatening to spit down yet more. Officer Pierron came racing up, his car doing fifty, and he screeched to a halt just inches from the deputy chief, kicking up a wave of mud and ice that splashed all over Rocco’s trousers.
“What the fuck were you thinking?”
Officer Pierron came running around to the deputy chief. “Sorry. Did I splash you? I guess so, from the look of your shoes.”
“I’m not getting much sleep, my circadian rhythms are completely shot, I’ve got a case of jet lag that feels like I just flew in from Tokyo, so I’m just a little bit edgy,” Rocco replied as he reached out a hand to take the ledger of debts from the HeyDiddleLiddles shop that Italo was handing to him.
“Here. What you asked me to bring!”
“Excellent. Who’s at HeyDiddleLiddles?”
“Scipioni and Casella.”
“All right then, I’ll run over and see the judge. The pictures you took aren’t needed anymore. We have the original.” And brandishing the ledger he headed back to his Volvo. “Go see whether that idiot Deruta remembered to lock the door when he put Diemoz in the holding cell.”
“Okay. And then what?”
“Wait until you hear from me. By the way, about the shoes . . . have you figured out where they sell them?”
“Not yet.”
His feet soaking and a throbbing permanent pain in the middle of his temples, Rocco had been waiting outside Judge Baldi’s door for ten minutes. As usual, he was trying to piece out the strange patterns that formed in the wood grain and knots, patterns which seemed to change every time. Exhaustion and lack of sleep: he couldn’t see a thing. Just a bloodhound’s head, or else maybe looking at it from the other side, it might also be a cannon. He clenched the ledger and nervously bounced his right leg.
“Here I am, Schiavone!” The words resonated from behind him. Baldi, followed by a male assistant, was walking toward him, signing papers as he arrived, and then handing them to the assistant who would promptly produce a new one to sign. “What’s happening?”
Rocco got to his feet as Baldi was signing the last document and dismissing his assistant. “Come on in.”
Schiavone handed the ledger to Judge Baldi. “Now, what I need is an arrest warrant for Michele Diemoz and a search warrant for the HeyDiddleLiddles store where I found this.”
“Wait a minute, Schiavone. Let me get this straight. You want a warrant for things you’ve already done?”
“Exactly!”
Baldi exploded: “Fucking Christ, Schiavone!” The judge slammed the ledger down on the desk. “What did I tell you? What did I tell you? You keep doing things the way you want to, or the way we put it where I come from: You keep screwing the pooch!”
“Listen to me, just listen to me, this is important!”
“I need to be told about things before they happen! I must have told you a million times!”
With a quick glance, Rocco noted that the photo of the magistrate’s wife was once again face down. No, things at the Baldi home were definitely not working out. “Please, listen to me! This shop was set up to launder money. And that ledger contains a list of everyone in this part of Italy who owes money to the organization.”
The judge’s mood—like a summer thunderstorm that shakes and floods everything and then, with a flick of its wings, veers away—had shifted in the course of a few seconds. “Tell me more.”
“Now I’ve arrested the proprietor, but I arrested him for receiving stolen goods. That’s the important concept. Receiving stolen goods. That ledger I’m giving you is evidence of the money laundering and the loansharking those bastards are involved in, but we’re going to keep it for me and for you.”
Baldi finally opened the ledger and started reading.
“But I’m going to keep this Diemoz behind bars because, aside from being a loanshark, these jerks have a storeroom full of stereos and electronics that are obviously stolen. Hence the charge for receiving stolen goods.”
“Why do you want to hide the real reason for the arrest?”
“Because I need to throw a rock at the beehive to stir up the swarm. I can’t let them catch on to the fact that we’ve caught them. But I need to make them wet their pants. And it goes without saying that wetting your pants puts you in a defensive position.”
“And you smell bad, too,” added the judge.
“Precisely.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“Find the girl before it’s too late. They have an appointment with the notary to hand over the company. I need to stall them for a few days.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“I’ve got an idea.”
“If you’re planning to shoot the notary, I’d recommend you find some other way.”
“I wouldn’t go that far, Judge Baldi.”
The judge stood up and started pacing the room, taking long strides. He was hyperactive. He was unable to stand still for more than thirty seconds at a time.
“The girl still hasn’t talked to her parents. They haven’t heard from her. Something’s not right. Do you understand?”
Baldi stopped in the middle of the room. He swept back his blond bangs and looked the deputy chief in the eye: “Do you think she’s dead?”
“I don’t know. But we certainly can’t rule it out.”
The judge went back to his desk and sat down. “All right, I’ll sign your warrants. Will you talk to the chief of police?”
“Cert
ainly. I’ll convince him to hold a nice big press conference focusing entirely on the stolen goods. A successful police operation, he’ll be pleased, and whoever it is we’re interested in will read in the papers and online that the authorities were only interested in a ring of fences.”
“Meanwhile, our sons of bitches. . . .”
“. . . are going to start worrying that we’ve found out about a lot more than just a roomful of stolen stereos.”
The judge nodded. “I don’t like the way you operate, and that’s no secret. But I’m going to turn a blind eye just this once. I’m doing it for Chiara.”
“How old is it?”
“How would I know? Maybe thirty years old.”
Enzo Baiocchi looked at the Beretta 6.35 still wrapped in plastic. The serial numbers had been filed off. “How much work has this little girl done?”
“Again, how am I supposed to know? If you want to know the truth, I don’t even remember why I have it in the first place,” Flavio replied, rubbing a hand over his bald head as he stood by the window.
The traffic out on Viale Marconi was hellish. Car horns, screeching brakes, ambulances—and every bus that went by made the apartment shake.
“Who wants an espresso?” Flavio’s mother shouted from the living room. She was eighty-five years old and she could only see out of one eye.
Flavio looked Enzo. “I don’t understand why my mother has to shout. Even if you answer, she can’t hear you.”
Enzo shrugged.
“Are you interested in this espresso or not?” the woman shouted again. Flavio heaved a sigh of irritation and left the bedroom. Enzo remained there with the pistol. He hefted it. It was light. And it could be easily concealed.
“You didn’t want the coffee, did you?” asked Flavio, coming back into the room.
“No. But with this thing, you have to shoot from close up.”
“I don’t want to know what you’re planning to do with it. Anyway, trust me, the 6.35 takes care of business. And you can stick it in your pocket. It’s light, you can hardly see it.”
“What about something bigger?”
“You want a 9 mm? That’s a heavy gun, it’s got a helluva kick, and you can’t stick it down your pants. This one you can. Give it a try.”
Enzo stuck the gun into the pocket of his jeans. It was true. It fit comfortably, and he could hardly even tell it was there. “It’s certainly comfortable and convenient. When was the last time this thing fired?”
“I don’t know. I’ve always kept it clean. Take a couple of shots with it down by the Tiber.”
“Are you going to give me the slugs to go with it?”
“Of course.”
“And how much do you want?”
“Let’s say 200 euros and I don’t want to see you again.”
“Payment?”
“As soon as you can.”
Enzo looked at his friend. “Flaviuccio, I just got out yesterday.”
“I know.” Flavio tucked his checkered shirt into his trousers. His watermelon-sized gut rolled heavily over the belt. “And they’re looking for you, too, aren’t they?”
Enzo nodded. “That’s why I don’t have the money right now.”
Flavio heaved an exasperated sigh. He ran his hand once again over his bald head. A bus went by in the street below. The window panes rattled, as did two Murano glass ballerinas set on the walnut sideboard. “At the very most, in a week.”
“You’re a friend, Flavio.”
“Come on, let’s go, I’ll treat you to an espresso. At the bar though, not the swill my mother makes.”
The phone call with the police chief had been brisk and concise. Costa had already called a press conference, not especially pleased that he’d be dealing with the detested newsvendors but—and Rocco knew this well—if there was one thing that gave meaning to the life of this particular high government functionary, it was the opportunity to dominate the scriveners of the printed page. And he never missed a chance to confront them when he was playing from a position of unmistakable superiority. Costa loved to see them hanging from his lips, so to speak, and this latest exploit by his deputy chief, rapid, efficient, and with a handsome outcome, was something about which he alone had intimate and detailed knowledge—knowledge that none other than Schiavone had supplied to him. None of those wretched newsvendors knew anything about this vast fencing ring. They’d learn all about it from him, then they’d rush to their newsrooms and their computers to quote the police chief’s exact words. This, for him, was a gratifying taste of revenge upon those ghastly creatures, people that Costa placed only one step on the evolutionary ladder above the lowly amoeba. His wife had left him years ago for a journalist at La Stampa. And since that day, the chief of police had transferred his hatred for one individual to the entire professional category, without distinction of gender or creed.
“I’m perfectly in agreement with you, Dottor Schiavone, we need to keep it quiet, but do you realize what you’re asking me to do?”
“I just want you to delay for a couple of days, Dottor Charbonnier, just for a couple of days.”
The notary scratched his right earlobe and went on puffing at his now-cold pipe. “I don’t know. What could I say to convince them?”
“For instance, that you’re dealing with a routine tax audit?”
“That’s not very believable. But are you certain?”
“That girl was kidnapped, Dottore. And they’re not going to let her go until Pietro Berguet hands over his shares in Edil.ber.”
The notary nodded. He put down the pipe. He pushed the button on the intercom: “Graziella, if you would, bring me the Edil.ber documents.”
“Right away, Dottore,” the secretary replied over the intercom.
“You know something, Dottor Schiavone? I’m almost seventy years old, and nothing like this has ever happened to me. I just figured I’d work away quietly until retirement, but instead. . . .”
“But instead. . . .”
“I know about you. I read the newspapers, and I know you’re a responsible policeman. But you understand, don’t you? I’m going to have to talk to the chief of police and. . . .”
“Wait. I’m going to beg you not to do that. If word got around, the only one who’s at risk is the girl. She’s only eighteen.”
Graziella entered with a file folder. She laid it down on the desk in front of the notary and vanished like a flash of lightning. Enrico Maria Charbonnier opened the folder. “Now then, the beneficiary of this transaction is Dottor Ugo Montefoschi, who is the president of a company called Calcestruzzi Varese. They make reinforced concrete.”
“That’s nothing but a front, guaranteed. I already told you who’s behind this filth.”
“You know, this whole thing struck me as fishy right from the start, you realize that, Schiavone? Anyway, Edil.ber isn’t exactly thriving, but now, with this new competition for the regional government contract . . . well, earnings ought to double. What’s the point of signing away shares? But I do my professional duty, even when things don’t really add up. I don’t know this Pietro Berguet. On this piece of business, that other man always came in, the one with the very well-trimmed beard.”
“Cristiano Cerruti?”
“Exactly. Who seems to be some sort of right-hand man to Dottor Berguet.”
“What else do you remember?”
“He was in a hurry. He was always in a tremendous rush, as if some great danger were snapping at his heels. I never liked him, you know? Arrogant, dismissive, and any time he talked to me, he was also talking to who the hell else on his cell phone. He always had that earpiece working.”
“All right, then, Dottore, are you going to help me out?”
Enrico Maria Charbonnier took a deep breath. “You’re asking me something that goes against my professional ethics.”
“All I’m asking you to do is trust me and give me a little time.”
The notary picked up his pipe again. “I don’t know. A routine tax audi
t, you say?”
“If you want, I can arrange to get some genuine officers from the tax office to come by and do an audit.” The notary’s eyes widened. “A pretend audit, obviously.”
“Do you have children, Schiavone?”
“No.”
“I do. Three of them. And two grandchildren into the bargain. One of them is the age of this Chiara. Let’s do this: there’s no official investigation, but I do need a document.” And without hesitation he picked up the phone.
“Hello, this is the notary Charbonnier. Could you put my brother on? Thanks, of course I’ll wait.”
He loaded his pipe with tobacco. Rocco couldn’t wait for the notary to light his pipe so that he, too, without having to ask, could light a Camel of his own.
“Ciao Alfredo. It’s me, Enrico. I need a favor. Have you seen my latest blood tests? You have? Is there anything that looks out of line?” Enrico Maria Charbonnier nodded his head.
“Mmmhmmm . . . but don’t you think an urgent hospital stay might not be advisable, for further testing? That’s right, I need it desperately. You think so? Today, immediately? That strikes me as prudent. And, technically speaking, what is it I’ve had? An atrial fibrillation . . . excellent, very good. Perfect, then, see you later.”
He hung up the phone and finally lit his pipe. It wasn’t until his third puff that he looked over at the deputy chief who had in the meantime stuck his cigarette in his mouth. With a wave of the hand, the notary gave him permission to light up. “You know what? This morning I found blood in my stool.”
“Really?”
“Yep. And I also had a ventricular fibrillation. And even though I take a Tambocor every morning, I still think that the wisest thing would be to have myself admitted for at least three days at the clinic where my brother works. Urgently. He’s a first-rate cardiologist. You know, at my age, the risk of a heart attack is always just around the corner.”
“Heaven forbid, Dottore. Let’s not joke about these things.”
“All right, then, let me finish this pipe, and then I’ll have Graziella drive me over.”
“If you like I’d be glad to take you.”
Out of Season Page 17