He clicked on a folder containing photographs and started scrolling through them. Each picture had a date and location. “Our fair Ylenia doesn’t go with Brianese to Rome but she’s never in the office either,” he started to narrate the images. “She meets plenty of people all over the Veneto, most of them in the light of day . . . ”
“She’s drumming up votes for her boss.”
“Sure. But sometimes she acts a little funny,” he added in an ironic tone of voice. “She meets people in odd places, like at gymnasiums, department stores, parking structures . . . Now do you understand why I’d just as soon bring this investigation to a close?”
I was about to answer him when I suddenly recognized a person who was talking with Ylenia in the coffee shop of a major bookstore outside of Treviso; my blood ran cold when I checked the date.
“That woman’s been a regular in your restaurant for years,” the private investigator commented.
“She’s the only one who has nothing to do with the alleged business dealings of Brianese and Mazzonetto,” I lied, doing my best to be persuasive. “Nicoletta Rizzardi sells lingerie to all the women she knows. She supplies my wife regularly as well. They meet after her Pilates class.”
I had the impression he’d taken me at my word. He showed me a few more photographs, which I looked at without paying any attention at all, then he turned off his computer. “When do I get paid?” he asked in a flat, pragmatic tone of voice.
“Come by tonight, I’ll buy you an aperitif.”
I walked him to the door and then returned to my post at the cash register. Good old Nicoletta! Even my business partner had decided to screw me. I’d been racking my brains trying to figure out who was supplying Brianese with call girls that met my security standards and all along it had been me. I’d even let them take my whores away from me. By now it was clear that the Counselor had laid out a strategy to ensure that I could no longer do him any harm while he enjoyed the benefits of my money, or perhaps to ruin me, or worse, to destroy me.
Then and there I felt like going to see Nicoletta, load her into my car along with the other girls, and pay a call on the Maltese gangsters. I’d be rid of her for good, just like all the other girls that we’d managed and dispatched to our various clients as call girls. But that would have been a mistake. Another in a long succession of mistakes. The time had come to remember who I once was, what I’d done to get ahead.
I’d shot my best friend in the head, I’d betrayed, cheated, raped, robbed, and eliminated anyone who got in the way of my reaching my objective.
They’d all known a different man, a man who was willing to do anything to please people and to be accepted. None of them had even the slightest idea of who Giorgio Pellegrini really was.
CHAPTER TWO
King of Hearts
I spent a little time verifying Nicoletta’s betrayal. It didn’t take much: all I had to do was keep an eye on the villas. I eliminated all doubt the day I saw Brianese step out of a Porsche Panamera along with two members of the provincial administration and a well-known face from local television, only to be greeted at the door by my partner.
Evidently, everything they were already doing was not enough to make me “innocuous.” The final blow was still looming, and it was driving me crazy that I couldn’t figure out what kind of plan the Counselor had come up with. Luckily the election campaign had begun and La Nena was draining all my energy. It was only at closing time that my mind overflowed with thoughts and nightmares that I was forced to take out on Martina and Gemma. I tended to protect my wife, even though she was ready and willing to immolate herself with love and devotion. I took out the brunt of it on her best friend.
One night, while I was getting my clothes back on, Gemma stood up and staggered over to the stereo. A second later the voice of Caterina Caselli came out of the speakers:
You think you’re the King of Hearts
And you grab a heart whenever you like
You keep it for a while
Close to you
But then you drop it . . .
“Turn that off,” I snapped in annoyance.
“No, no . . . listen to the words . . . ”
The bitter north wind
Breaks off flowers here and there
You break the heart
Of a girl who’s no more than a child
A heart you hold in your hand.
Life is a river
Sweeping you down . . .
King of Hearts,
I’d like to know
Where your heart might be . . .
I hit the “off” switch. Caselli’s voice reminded me of another song that I thought I’d erased from my memory. Roberta liked I’ll Never See You Again, and it had become our song. At her funeral, I’d had them write on the wreath “Arrivederci amore, ciao.” It was our goodbye kiss.
Gemma went on, half-humming half-singing the chorus: “King of Hearts, I’d like to know where your heart might be,” and pointing her index finger at me.
I grabbed her by the chin. “Shut up.”
“You’re the King of Hearts, I know it.”
“Don’t talk bullshit.”
“Just like I know that you killed Roberta.”
I grabbed her by the hair and forced her to her knees on the floor. “I understand your little game and I don’t like it one bit.”
“She was no good for you, she didn’t understand that the only way to love you is to abandon yourself and plunge down into the abyss that you dig for every woman that lets you get near her.”
I shoved her to the floor and I put on my pants. Gemma slithered along the floor to my legs and grabbed them tight.
“Listen, I’m begging you, I don’t care about Roberta. I only want you to know that you can do whatever you like with me.”
“You’re nothing but a pastime for me, Gemma,” I said, prodding her. “Martina is and will always be the only woman in my life.”
“Pastime, plaything, doll, toy, diversion, amusement . . . I’m anything you want me to be, King of Hearts, as long as you use me.”
“Look at me.”
I stared at her for a long time and what I saw in her eyes triggered a wave of desire inside me. I shoved her into the kitchen and when she understood what I had in mind she started chuckling softly.
“This is going to drive me crazy, King of Hearts.”
I went home a little after nine in the morning. Martina was sitting in a chair close to the front door. She leapt to her feet with tears in her eyes. “Oh, Giorgio, I was so worried.”
I didn’t say a single word. She helped me off with my overcoat as she chattered away about what a horribly hellish night she’d just spent. When she laid her head on my chest she caught the whiff of another woman. She stiffened and went to move away from me but I held her tight. She tried to break free but I was too strong.
“Why would you do this to me, Giorgio?” she sobbed.
“Because I love you.”
“You know that you don’t need any other women but me.”
“This is a tough period. But we’ll get through it if you stand by me and prove that you love me.”
“It’s hard to accept that I’m not the only one anymore.”
“Try to be strong.”
She wept for a few minutes. “I hope I don’t know her,” she said, blowing her nose. “She uses the same perfume as Gemma, but so do lots of women.”
“Draw me a bath.”
While Martina was scrubbing my legs with the bath sponge I decided that the time had come to have a conversation with Mikhail.
I met him in the usual service plaza outside Bologna. I played the part of his sidekick in the same old skit about him sharing a last name with the Soviet writer Sholokhov, but when he pulled out his laptop to show me the new catalogue of girls he was importing,
I explained the real reason I’d asked him to come to that meeting.
He thought about my proposal for a few minutes, giving me a mistrustful glance every so often. “It’s an unusual request,” he commented. “But it’s also true that we’re talking about a lot of money.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“You’re the problem,” he replied. “You see, I have a long history of getting ripped off, which is why I’m satisfied with collecting the money from the tricks turned by a crew of prostitutes, beating them up without leaving marks when they misbehave, and taking orders from a couple of wicked witches, who pay off a deputy commissioner of police every month to the tune of twenty-five thousand euros so he’ll keep the cops out of the picture . . . ”
“Excuse me, Mikhail, but I have no idea what you’re driving at. You make side deals with me and you screw your two employers in the process.”
He sighed in exasperation. “It’s never any fun to talk with you northern Italians . . . you can never complete a thought the way you’d like.”
I stretched out my arms helplessly. “I’m sorry, go on with what you were saying . . . ”
“I know plenty of criminals like you. As long as we’re talking about you giving me money for girls, everything’s fine, but if the work involves violence, you’re one of those guys that in the end winds up killing his partner so he doesn’t have to split the take. Do you see what I’m talking about?”
I stared at him open-mouthed, but then I burst into a hearty belly laugh.
“You’re right, Mikhail. That’s exactly how I am. But in this case, there’s no take to split. If you like, I’ll pay you for the job in advance.”
“Then I’ll do it.”
I spent twenty minutes or so explaining the plan in detail and answering his questions.
“You speak Italian very well, Mikhail,” I said after we were done.
“Even though I’m a Cossack?” he joked, careful not to rise to the bait. But I was no fool either and I could detect a university education, even in a fellow pimp.
On my way back to work I drove past Nicoletta’s house and when I noticed her car parked out front I decided to pay an unannounced visit. She opened the door with a cigarette dangling from her lips and pretended she was happy to see me.
“Anything wrong?” she asked.
“No. I was just in the neighborhood and I figured I’d drop by and talk about our situation.”
On the living room table a computer was humming and papers were scattered everywhere. “I’m trying to get my accounting into some kind of order,” she explained.
“Tell me about it. I just leave it all to my CPA these days.”
Nicoletta asked me in and offered me something to drink.
“The girls?” I asked.
She pointed upstairs. “They’re resting.”
I flashed a contented smile. “Then a little bit of work is coming in after all, now and then.”
“Don’t get your hopes up. It was four drunk Danes we found at the Venice Casino.”
I looked out the window. Through the blinds I could see lots of other little villas, all the same. “I’m really busy with La Nena, these days. I very much doubt that I can find time to help you drum up clients,” I said in a forlorn tone.
She reached out and grabbed my arm. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it myself.”
I stood up. “If you change your mind and you want to sell the whole package I only need two day’s notice.”
She nodded. “Let’s see how things turn out after the elections.”
I gave her a kiss on the cheek and left. I’d officially started the dance and for the first time my mind was at peace. In the afternoon there was a brief cocktail party for the Minister of Defense, but it would last no more than half an hour.
I called Martina. “What’s playing at the theater tonight?”
Then I called Gemma. “Ciao, King of Hearts,” she greeted me.
“In a few minutes Martina is going to call you,” I warned her. “This evening you’re coming to the theater with us. Do your best to be a good girl.”
I behaved like a perfect gentleman. Martina began to relax and once we were back home I rubbed the creams into her skin, and then I carried her in my arms to our bed, where we made love with ecstatic tenderness.
The next morning I woke up to the happiest woman in the world.
I spun Gemma a story about how that week would be hellishly busy at La Nena and that she shouldn’t expect to see much of me. I only went over once and I only stayed a couple of hours. I enjoyed peppering her with intimate questions. She was embarrassed and reticent.
I pointed to the door. “I can always leave.”
She shook her head. I left her drained and sucked dry. Disoriented. I knew the feeling all too well. I’d learned the technique from a DIGOS cop called Anedda who had transformed me into a turncoat and a puppet.
At the end of a dull day during which, from the morning on, there was one campaign event after another and I’d even had the honor of being photographed with my arms wrapped around a couple of showgirls, my cell phone rang. When I read the name on the display I heaved a sigh of relief.
“Something horrible’s happened,” Nicoletta shouted in a panicky voice. “Get over to my house immediately.”
“Calm down and tell me what . . . ”
“I can’t, goddamn it! And Jesus, hurry, please, hurry. I don’t know what to do!”
I hung up with a big smile on my face. At last Mikhail had gone into action. I poured myself a couple of fingers of cognac to celebrate the new development and I struck up a conversation with an official at a certain local agency who’d been frequenting the establishment for a while with an unmistakable look on his face that spelled out the words: I can be bribed.
I took my time getting there and when my partner opened the door to my knock she was in a state of complete meltdown. “Jesus, Giorgio, what took you so long?” she mumbled.
In the living room I found Isabel stretched out on the sofa, moaning, holding a bloodsoaked towel against the right side of her face. Along the edge of the towel was printed the name of a hotel in Chioggia.
“What the hell happened?” I asked.
“Some crazy Russian disfigured her face,” Nicoletta replied, revealing the Venezuelan girl’s damaged features.
“Wow, talk about disfigured,” I replied, looking at the open cut that ran from her jaw to well beyond her chin. “He completely ruined her.”
“I don’t know what to do, Giorgio.”
“The first thing to do is get a clean towel and some ice, then see if you can find some painkillers.”
I slipped on a pair of latex gloves that I just happened to have in my pocket and I examined the wound a little more carefully. Mikhail had asked what kind of a cut I preferred.
“Jagged-edged, like the cut a carefully sharpened metal comb would make,” I replied.
“Like that cut-up whore in the movie with Clint Eastwood and Gene Hackman. I think it was called Unforgiven.”
“Exactly, that’s how I want her: completely useless in terms of ever working again.”
The Russian had been a man of his word. My partner came back with the things I’d requested. I put a couple of tablets in the girl’s mouth and made her swallow them with a hefty slug of rum. Then I wrapped the towel around the ice and put it against the wound.
“Hold it like that, good girl.”
“Why aren’t you taking me to the hospital?” Isabel said rebelliously.
“Just be patient for a few minutes,” I replied, grabbing the liquor bottle.
Halfway through the third glass she passed out.
“At last!” Nicoletta blurted. “I don’t know how much longer I could have listened to that whore whining.”
Her hands were shaking and she could
n’t get her lighter to work. I took it out of her hand and helped her to light her cigarette.
“Relax and tell me everything.”
Nicoletta paid a night clerk at a hotel to find her customers for her girls. That night a distinguished Russian gentleman had taken a room and asked for an “extra blanket” for the whole night. He’d made it clear that money was no object. She’d brought Isabel around after dinner and the Russian had fucked her to a fare-thee-well. But then he’d started playing around with certain objects and the girl had raised objections. The Russian didn’t like that and he’d cut her face.
“And then?”
“The Russian left and the night clerk called me and told me to get Isabel out of there while he cleaned up the room.”
“Where are the other girls?”
She turned pale. They were in bed with friends of Brianese but she certainly couldn’t tell me that. “They’re with other clients,” she lied.
“What other clients?” I asked.
“What the hell do you care?” she shouted. “Can’t you see what a mess we’re in?”
I spoke to her in a calm tone of voice. “I was only trying to figure out if we have enough time left to try to hush this whole thing up.”
“They’re at the villa outside of Vicenza. I can tell them to spend the night there and go pick them up in the morning.” Then she pointed to Isabel slumped over on the couch. “So what do we do now?”
I ran a hand over my face, pretending I was trying to think. “One thing’s for sure: we can’t take her to the hospital looking like this. Two minutes later the police would be questioning us.”
I took the towel off the Venezuelan girl’s face. “What we need is a good plastic surgeon and a proper operating room to fix this disaster,” I pointed out to her. “It’s just too bad we’re not in business with Brianese anymore. He’d know the right people and a couple of phone calls from him would keep the cops off our backs.”
Nicoletta gave me a sharp glance, uncertain whether she should tell me the truth and hand over her betrayal on a silver platter. As I expected, though, she decided not to say a word. Which gave me the chance to lead her into my trap.
At the End of a Dull Day Page 7