Liguori headed off on foot toward RAI’s regional headquarters in the Via Marconi, leaving behind him a tangle of developments, of crusades with shields held high in defense of nothing in particular, of palm trees uprooted and then replanted in an alternation of urban design close to his own useless thoughts.
In response came his usual urge to find the logic of events guided by others and hence the determination to uncover something about the concert recording that he couldn’t seem to find.
The girl at the security desk recognized him. Liguori had been to RAI headquarters before:
“These visits are turning into a habit, Detective.”
“I come just to see you.”
“That strikes me as the only possible explanation: there’s practically no one else here today.”
Liguori didn’t take the elevator, he headed up the stairs determined to visit every floor, if nothing else for an excursion.
After the first flight of stairs, he went into a seventies-looking room, took a seat, and at his leisure studied a studio upright piano, the microphone, nicely undulating moldings, lines from the years of his youth.
A man stuck his head out of the glass director’s booth:
“Are you looking for someone?”
“Maybe you. I’m Detective Liguori of the Pozzuoli police station. I’m trying to find the recording of Jerry Vialdi’s last concert.”
The man introduced himself, and Liguori noticed, more than the name, the courteous manner and the seventies jacket. Perhaps the sound technician had never left his booth.
“I’m very sorry, but I’m not sure I can be of any help to you. I’m in charge of regional radio broadcasts.”
“There’s one thing you can tell me anyway: in your opinion, what could happen to the recording of a concert? Is it possible that it was put away somewhere, or that it got lost?”
“In the case of the concert you’re referring to, the structure merely hosted the show, while the organizers and technicians were non-staff. And in any case I doubt that any recordings are likely to be lost. You know, the amount of work that goes into it, the money and the time, you wouldn’t want to throw it away.”
“Even if it turned out badly?”
“What was it for?”
“A live album.”
“Well, it depends, if the recording has already been done and there are problems, I guess you might throw it away, but I’d imagine only once you were done with the editing, once the work was complete. It would seem stupid to get rid of it before then.”
“How long have you been working here?”
“Since 1978. Just think, I myself recently had to hunt for old tapes from years gone by for a radio montage they were editing.”
“Thanks.” The detective was reminded of the antiwar collages, ferociously naïve, that he put together in his first year at university for student protests. Likewise the same age as the furnishings and the technician’s jacket.
The quirk in Liguori’s head took up permanent residence: he needed to find out who had destroyed or concealed that recording and, above all, why.
52.
Martusciello remained in his office with the cabbie and Carità; he took Menico Gargiulo’s ID and turned his back to the window, to get better light, so he could read the details and get a clearer view of the picture.
He laughed, this snapshot bore no relationship to the face of the man sitting across from him. From the driver’s license came the smile of a fair-haired young man in his early twenties, with light-colored eyes.
“Why, you should have told me that you were Prince Charming in your younger years! What the hell do you think you’re doing? Put that down immediately.” He glared at Carità. “Weren’t you going to say anything?”
“Forgive me, Captain, I thought he was reading his own papers, to sign them.” Menico Gargiulo had picked up a sheet of paper from Martusciello’s desk, and was still reading.
“Now, don’t get bent out of shape, everyone knows what’s written here. It’s Pulcinella’s secret,” he concluded, using the Neapolitan term for an open secret.
“Gargiulo, have you mistaken police reports and transcripts of depositions for magazines to leaf through in a waiting room? And what do you mean by ‘everyone knows what’s written here’?”
“That is what I mean. If I explain Pulcinella’s secret then you’ll let me go? I’ll give you a nice quick overview of all these papers, it’ll save you lots of time.”
“Tell us and then we’ll decide.”
“You start with the minor leagues, it’s better, it’s easier. The players get smaller salaries so the money they’re paid to throw the games is more attractive. Which is to say, it makes a bigger impression. Plus in the minor leagues the kicking is bad, the brawls after the matches too, so your career isn’t going to last as long. The gentlemen in the betting parlors, which are now legal, have two sections: one people know about, and one people don’t know about. Right?”
“One that’s legal and one that’s illegal,” Carità translated, clearly enunciating the final l’s.
“I didn’t speak to you, and I wouldn’t if you paid me.”
“Drop dead,” Carità replied, losing his impeccable diction in the process. Martusciello put an end to the exchange.
“Go on, Gargiulo.”
“Now then, hunger can bring on a nastier kind of hunger, and so people start climbing the ladder. They move into higher markets. Notice this detail: only some, because the ones who are specialized in the minor leagues stay there, and if you ask me, that’s a smart move because they’re not as likely to get caught. Certain others might climb the ladder: Series B, Series A. The game works in exactly the same way. The gentlemen who run the parlors take the bets, and they especially take them in large number for certain matches. They take them regulation and they take them secret, illegal, however you call them. They take advantage of the addiction of sports fans: Atalanta wins and wins; Roma wins and wins; Chievo wins and wins; Cremonese wins and wins; Bari wins and wins; Como wins and wins; Bologna wins and wins; Ascoli wins and wins; Juve wins and wins. And so on. The names of the teams I just mentioned, Captain, are taken at random, the first names that came into my head from the Panini soccer cards album from when I was just a tyke. So let’s say that the owners take in two or three million euros per parlor on the victory that is supposed to come from the team they love best, or even more, I’m just giving examples. At this point they contact the players that we already know about, better yet, the strikers, all you need is three good players, maybe the goalie could be the wild card. They pay and the players arrange for a tie, let’s say. The gambling parlors take in the money plus they have the advantage of a nice little money laundering operation, with the money from neighboring business sectors: loan-sharking, shakedowns and protection, drugs, arms, and things like that, and then they invest that money in other businesses. Have I made myself clear?”
“Perfectly.” Martusciello looked around for his lighter.
“And I know that, in particular, you already know all about this whole thing. Now you tell me: how could it be that a fake taxi driver like me, who barely makes end meet with a few pennies picked up in out-of-the-way corners of the city . . . ”
“A few pennies?” Carità blurted out. “You pick up in a year the retirement fund that I’ll never see!”
“I didn’t speak to you, and I already told you I wouldn’t, you have nasty manners.”
“Go on, Gargiulo.” Martusciello took the first puff, the best of all.
“Now, how could it be that a flea like me knows all this and you don’t? The truth is that you know it too, and you’re content, even, that the industry can’t be stopped. Factories can shut down, the world economy is such a fucking mess that even the biggest sharks are eating each other alive, the only decent source of revenue left is soccer. And wherever you find profits y
ou’re going to find hungry crows. Let’s just say that the crows are the melancholy cost of doing business.” Martusciello put out his cigarette in the triangular Pepsi ashtray, which followed him from office to office along with his Bakelite telephone.
“We know it, you claim. Fine. Still, we need the criminal complaints, the statements. Now Carità is going to be so good as to draw up a regular police report of your admirably detailed testimony and you’re going to sign it for us.”
“As you like, but then we’re going to say goodbye and we’re friends as before.” Martusciello lowered his chin just once. Carità was overwhelmed with astonishment.
“Really?”
“Really.” Menico Gargiulo signed his named with a final self-satisfied o.
Carità extended his hand and accompanied him to the door, which he closed carefully with a certain respect.
“Captain, I would never have expected this honorable behavior from the taxi driver.”
“Fake taxi, fake license plate, fake driver’s license, super-fake photograph on a fake driver’s license. Fake name. The honorary signature didn’t even cost him a penny’s worth of risk.”
“So why did you let him go?”
“Because his account is believable, at least in part, and it’s useful to me.”
“I’ll never understand you, Captain.”
“Or I you. It’s why we love each other.”
53.
I told you it wasn’t right. You grabbed me by the back of my neck and bent me over until you were shoving my head against my knees.
You don’t know a thing and you can’t understand what’s right. You, of all people. That’s what you said.
From that position I went on talking, with that child’s voice you like so much. Trying to calm you down. Trying to tell you what I really thought.
Tell me that you love me. I was thinking.
Your hand was caressing the hairline at the nape of my neck.
Let me try, father, don’t spoil my chances in advance. Everything becomes impossible, even love, even anger. Everything. Even laughter starts to take on the sound of a slap.
I am the hand that pitches the billiard ball that can either bounce off the green felt table or not. I’m the attempt, the endeavor. Listen to the lovely sound of the word. En-dea-vor.
Tell me that you love me. I was thinking.
The opportunities have already been compromised by another case whose rules are unknown to us. At least here, in this garden of days, we try as best we can, we dare, we lose, we get back on our feet. Listen to the sound of the sea: we don’t know how much longer the waves will roll in calm and unhurried. And the air that comes in from outside, in spite of the closed window, that still finds its way through some unsuspected fissure.
Tell me that you love me. I was thinking.
I’m your son, let me try to guess, and give me the slightest window of victory. Let me be sincere, nasty, bold.
Tell me that you love me. I was thinking.
Even your success would have been wonderful if you hadn’t been elevated on high by hands that were so evil, so harsh, hands that demanded their price while they were making you rich.
Tell me that you love me. I was thinking.
Instead you flew into another one of your animal rages again.
There I am, as you bang my head against my knees again, slowly, slowly. Then your own anger starts to excite you and you accentuate the movement.
You see that you don’t know a thing? They came to get me while I was singing in front of the rigid tulle tutu of that hateful little girl and they told me thus and such. What could I do, my dear young scientist? I said no thanks, you can have someone else climb onto your parade float, celebrate the triumph of some other idiot. What would it have changed? Nothing. And when I plump myself down right in the middle of the Posillipo bleachers, when I suck the pure gold of American music, when I grab the woman I chose or else your own misery, I don’t think to myself that I was dealt a bum hand. I think of four of a kind, a hand full of aces of hearts. And that’s fine.
Tell me that you love me.
You laughed your usual slap and we started.
I didn’t tell you that knowing the end, having the answers at your disposal, would do nothing to save your life.
54.
Turn it off, Sergio.”
“I put on your favorite Mozart and you don’t appreciate it.”
“No, I don’t appreciate it, turn it off.”
“You’re a lunatic.”
Blanca lifted her head in search of the lunatic’s moon, looking for the light that never came.
As she walked toward her own front door she enjoyed the breath that separated her from tranquility. She wanted, that night more than any other, to escape the outside world, relax her vigilant attention to her footsteps and conceal herself in her unrestrained gestures. She wanted an indifferent sense of hearing and careless hands and rapid feet to recognize the domesticated space of a familiar routine.
No matter how eager she was to be home, she still sensed something out of the ordinary, even as she was turning the key in the lock. She stopped and moved her hands down the surface of the door, between the lock and the doorjamb she felt faint scratches on the smooth wooden finish.
She went up one flight and phoned Nini.
“Where are you?”
“I’m down at Sergio’s, I forgot my keys and I came over to get his, but he’s not answering his buzzer.”
“He was with me, he’ll be there any minute. Wait for him, then stay at his place and tell him to come join me upstairs on the landing outside our apartment. Tell him to take the elevator, not to use the stairs.”
“Why?”
Blanca cut off the call and stood there, motionless, counting off the minutes. The noise of the old motor grinding with the effort of hoisting the elevator car up the shaft calmed her.
She told Sergio that it was possible that someone had broken into the apartment.
The key turned in the lock, making only one click. Not double-bolted. The door swung open.
“Tell me what you see, but don’t go in.”
“It’s a shambles. There’s broken glass everywhere and all the furniture’s been shoved out of place, clothing; it’s messier in there than even my apartment’s ever been. What should we do?”
Blanca called the police station and told them what had happened.
Martusciello and Liguori came right over. Before determining the quantity and more importantly the quality of the damage, the captain summoned the forensics team. While they were waiting, Blanca told them that probably they’d find the same nothing they found in the sheet metal shed, then she felt suddenly exhausted and hopeless.
“Sergio, take me to Nini.”
Before she left, Liguori took her aside with some excuse. He took her hand, turned it over, and kissed the inside of her wrist.
While the officers of the forensics team were working with Martusciello and Liguori to develop an initial report on their inspection, Captain Malanò arrived.
“Welcome to my house,” he said.
“Thanks,” Martusciello replied. “Go on working, men.”
“Captain, we haven’t found any of the usual evidence you’d find in an apartment burglary. We did find signs of an atypical carefulness on the part of the burglar, even though the damage is quite visible, and whether or not Occhiuzzi tells us that valuable objects have been stolen.”
Malanò really did feel at home there, after all his police station was just a short walk from Blanca’s apartment building.
“ . . . and even though just yesterday another apartment in the area was broken into and even though we receive reports of apartment burglaries every week and even though and even though.”
“Is this a problem for you?” Martusciello asked. “No, I mean, is th
is a problem for you that the officers doing the investigation voice doubts that strike me as reasonable?”
“No, doubts are perfectly healthy in the work that we do. It’s fixations that I can’t stand.”
“Oh, I can’t stand them either, especially if it’s a serial killer hunting mastiff that’s got its teeth into something and just won’t let go. By the way, Grimaldi told me that he gave you his findings from Vialdi’s autopsy: the cause of death was myocardial infarction.”
Liguori intervened.
“This apartment is the one place where a partially blind woman can feel that she’s safe. You never thought of that. What astonishes me is the way you keep tugging on the rope of a completely different investigation, when a valued colleague of ours has just suffered a profound violation of what little peace life affords her. I’m in complete agreement with the conclusions that Martusciello has not yet laid out explicitly, it’s quite likely that this burglary is in some way linked to the Vialdi case. Which only makes it worse, because once again Blanca Occhiuzzi stands to lose a substantial part of her hard-won equilibrium at the service of a civil and investigative community that might not even deserve the efforts of those who possess eyes to see with. I’m leaving.” The officers of the forensic team trooped out behind Liguori.
Malanò extended his hand to Martusciello.
“The two of us will talk again. My compliments to your men, they have original ideas about bureaucratic hierarchies and objective facts.”
Three, Imperfect Number Page 16