Ricciardi had spoken under his breath, whispering in the cold, dank silence of the church of San Ferdinando; but to Don Pierino it had seemed as if he were shouting at the top of his lungs. He couldn’t help laying a hand on the arms that Ricciardi had crossed over his chest, as if he were suffering from some stabbing abdominal pain.
“You know, Commissario, you may be the only person I learn something from every time I see you. And even though you say that you’re an unbeliever, you’re more of a Christian than the many people who fill these pews every Sunday just to show off their new clothing. You’re right; and forgive me for not having understood. Just one thing: be careful, very careful; Don Antonio has powerful friends in the Curia, precisely because of the stream of money he brings in. He can make a great deal of trouble for you.”
XXX
Gambrinus was crowded that evening. The rain and the cold made it impossible to sit at one of the outdoor tables and people were in the mood for something warm.
Ricciardi, who had arrived ahead of the time agreed upon with Maione, had to wait to be seated at his usual table, which was located off to the side, near the plate glass window overlooking Via Chiaia. He watched a steady stream of people go by, doing their best to stay dry under the rain as they headed home from the shops and offices in the city center.
He saw a woman begging, almost out of his field of view: she was sitting on the pavement, drenched and ill-clad, her open hand extended. Behind her was a little boy, in the shelter of the overhanging cornice, wrapped in a blanket. The mother, if indeed that’s what she was, mumbled an appeal to every person who passed by, though Ricciardi couldn’t hear what she said; just a couple of people tossed her a coin or two, and they did so without even slowing down.
Some ten feet away, a well-dressed young man in a white suit stood noisily mocking someone as a gash in his elegant waistcoat pumped out a gushing stream of dark blood. He kept saying: Come on, I’d like to see you. I’d like to see if you have the nerve. Ricciardi remembered the street fight, two months earlier: the young man in white had been stabbed to death by a friend, his best friend, in fact, who was sick of being derided for his nonconformist style of dress and his alleged cowardice. Just another way of expressing a difference of opinion among guappos, foppish young toughs, on the subject of men’s fashion.
If there was one thing that tormented Ricciardi when it came to the Deed, it was being forced to recognize the complete pointlessness of certain deaths. Not that there was any such a thing as a useful death, of course; he was perfectly in agreement with Modo on that point. But the sheer futility of certain motivations for a stabbing or a suicide offended him deeply.
As he sat waiting for Maione to arrive so he could order, he mused on the contrast staged before his eyes: the little boy’s desperate attachment to life, as he shivered under his blanket at his mother’s side while she took advantage of the spectacle of her son’s misery to stir pity in the hearts of the passersby, and that raucous laughter that served as the final exclamation mark in the life of the stabbed guappo. One life struggled for; another life casually discarded. But a life was a life, one the same as the next. Or was it?
His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a wet and circumspect Maione, who warily scanned the room like an adulterer operating in flagrante.
“Commissa’, buona sera. We’re going to have to be really careful here, the atmosphere at police headquarters is becoming more suffocating by the minute. All we needed was that letter from the archbishop’s secretary. Garzo and Ponte look exactly like a couple of ballerinas from the Teatro San Carlo: they’re constantly leaping around en pointe, the doors of offices fly open and one of them goes in and the other goes out.”
Ricciardi shrugged his shoulders.
“I’m glad I’m not there, then. Sit down, I was waiting for you to get here before ordering. What’ll you have?”
“Nothing, Commissa’, I have to get home for dinner; Lucia and the children are waiting for me. Maybe just three little zeppole, a sfogliatella with a cream filling, and a glass of rosé, grazie.”
“Good, that way you’ll have plenty of room for your wife’s ragù, eh? I’ll just have the usual sfogliatella and an espresso, grazie.”
After placing his order and dismissing the waiter, Ricciardi asked:
“All right then, were you able to find out any of the things I asked you?”
Maione flashed a fleeting smile.
“Are you really asking me that, Commissa’? What, can you think of a single time that I set out to learn something and came back empty-handed? All right: it occurred to me that Patrolman Antonelli has a son, a young man, and I know that the kid spends time in Capodimonte; there’s a girl, a guagliona that he’s sweet on, who lives around there. So I sent for the kid and his guagliona, and I asked them a few questions about the parish church and Tettè. Everyone knew the boy, he tugged on people’s heartstrings, he always had his dog with him, and they’d see him go up and down the street. At first they thought he was mute because they never heard him say a word, but then they realized that he had such a bad stutter that he could only converse with the dog. And precisely because of his stutter, the guagliona told me—she works in a shop right by the church—all the other boys in that house pushed him around and made fun of him and beat him up. That poor child’s existence really must have been a living hell.”
Ricciardi nodded.
“I suspected that from the moment that the priest told me, before saying anything else, that everyone loved the boy. An unsolicited bit of information. Go on.”
“In any case, the boy never fought back. He was starved for affection; the girl remembers how he’d stand there, trying to catch people’s eye in hopes of a smile, any gesture of friendship. And when the boys saw that, they just treated him worse. Boys can be cruel, sometimes, as we well know. I even found out who Tettè worked with; and it was a pleasant surprise. He was going around with Cosimo Capone, an old acquaintance of ours. He sells soap in the streets, a wandering junk seller in other words, he makes the rounds with one of those handcarts piled high with all sorts of merchandise, you know what I mean, they call out “get your rags here, get your soap here,’ but he’s visited our offices more than once, and I remember him clearly. Silver-tongued devil, smooth as the soap he sells, with a bright smile: a pure unadulterated stinker, a fetente. Word on the street is that when he was a youngster he killed a man, he never faced formal charges, but he likes to boast about that piece of lore to throw a scare into people who are dumber than he is. Ah, grazie, just put that here.”
Once the waiter had left, Maione went on with his story:
“So in other words, Tettè wasn’t exactly a full-fledged apprentice. He was just a kid Capone took along with him to soften up the housewives, and to chip higher prices out of them. But when we got to this point in the conversation, young Antonelli’s guagliona started getting a little evasive, so I took a little walk around to talk to our colleagues who take in criminal complaints in that part of town, between Capodimonte and the Sanità, if you follow me. And I found out that three or four reports of minor thefts committed during the day had come in, and they involved our friend Capone. There’s something to it, in other words; it could even be that the kid found that poison when he was “on the job’ with this gentleman, and he accidentally swallowed it.”
Ricciardi was listening with intense focus.
“Do you think that he was using the boy to burgle apartments?”
Maione answered with his mouth full, spraying sugar in all directions:
“You know how it is, Commissa’, in the bassi, our ground-floor apartments in the alleys and vicoli: if I’ve got a talent for making chit chat, then I keep the housewives’ attention focused on me, and a small boy capable of moving fast can easily get in and out again without anyone noticing. Quick and painless, as our Dr. Modo likes to say, no? Maybe, and I’m just saying maybe, that�
��s what that bastard Capone was doing. Otherwise, I can’t imagine what trade Tettè could have been learning, much less what good he could have been to that man; he couldn’t talk because he stuttered, and he couldn’t carry anything heavy because he was small and weak. The only thing he was good for was inspiring pity.”
The commissario nodded as he looked out the plate glass window at the child wrapped in the tattered, rain-drenched blanket.
“Yes, you’re right. Inspiring pity was all he was good for. The next thing is to talk with this Capone; maybe we should throw a scare into him, to see if he had anything to do with the boy’s accidental death.”
Maione shook his head, swallowed a zeppola in a single gulp, and said:
“I don’t really think Capone had anything to do with this though, Commissa’, to tell you the truth. For two reasons: First off, he’s one of those guys who’s all talk but would never hurt a fly, because he’s too much of a coward. Second, he lives in the Vomero, a long way from where we found Tettè; he comes down into town in the morning to work, if you can call what he does work, and then at night he climbs back up the hill to go home. It’s a two-hour walk, and on Sundays he doesn’t come down at all. The boy’s death, and the doctor was very clear about this, took place late Sunday night. If Capone had been out and about at that time of night and on a day that would be so unusual for him, someone in the quarter would have noticed it, but no one saw him. I checked.”
Ricciardi took a sip from his demitasse, thinking. Then he said:
“This Cosimo Capone strikes me as a character we need to keep an eye on. We can’t be sure that he had nothing to do with it. What about life at the parish church, anything else about that?”
Maione carefully scooped up the mortal remains of his sfogliatella with his fingers, cream filling included.
“Yes, Commissa’. The guagliona, Antonelli’s son’s girlfriend, like I told you, works in a shop whose customers include the parish church. She had quite a lot to say about this priest, Don Antonio, and about what life is like in there generally.”
Ricciardi said:
“It’s so nice the way nobody minds their own business in this city. One can always rest assured that if there’s something to know, in the end, it’ll be found out.”
Maione agreed, philosophically:
“True enough. In any case, it seems that the priest likes to go over all the accounts personally, checking the weights of the merchandise and so on. He’s someone who cares a lot about money, according to what the girl told me. And she also said that he’s terribly harsh when it comes to punishments. The boys are terrified of him. It seems that when someone does something they weren’t supposed to, he locks them up in a broom closet outside in the courtyard, where it gets suffocatingly hot in the summer, and freezing in the winter, and it’s full of rats and bugs. The minute he mentions the broom closet, even just as a threat, everyone falls right into line. I could use a broom closet like that at my house, because when I talk and I talk to my kids, it just goes in one ear and out the other. In other words, that priest is a Fascist, only he uses the broom closet instead of pouring a gallon of cod liver oil down the people’s throats.”
Ricciardi decided that all these lovely details were really starting to enrich Don Antonio’s character for him. He looked out the window and noticed that Tettè’s dog was sitting outside, between the beggar woman and the murdered guappo, looking at him. He shivered.
“You caught a chill, eh, Commissa’? Of course you did, with all the rain that’s falling these days, and you without a hat or an umbrella. The girl told me one important thing right at the end, just as she was leaving: apparently the main reason that the other boys were so hard on Tettè is that he was the favorite of one of the Ladies of Charity, and she used to pick him up and drive him around in her car. She said that this lady–the guagliona didn’t know her name–gives so much money to the parish that the priest lets her do whatever she wants. And she didn’t have children of her own, so Tettè was a sort of son to her.”
Ricciardi nodded.
“I know, they more or less told me so, both the priest and the other Lady of Charity, a woman with a winning personality that’s just not to be believed. Money to the parish aside, if you want to know the truth.”
“Obviously, the other boys were very jealous of him; but more than making fun of him and knocking him around a little every once in a while they didn’t do, because the kid shared everything the woman gave him and the priest was determined to keep this idyllic arrangement going, because of the money it brought him. Who knows how he’ll manage now to keep his claws in that hen that lays the golden eggs: it seems to me he’ll have to get her a new little kid.”
“In effect, our tunic-wearing friend struck me as a little worried about that. That lady’s another one I wouldn’t mind talking to.”
“I think you’ll have a chance to talk to her pretty soon, Commissa’. Dr. Modo phoned in earlier this evening: he sends his best wishes and says he hopes you enjoy your vacation; he even wanted to recommend a place for you to spend some of your time off, but I think I’d better not tell you where. He says that the boy’s funeral is scheduled for tomorrow morning, and it should be quite a deluxe affair, all paid for by a certain rich lady, I think the very same lady we’ve been talking about. In case you wanted to attend.”
Ricciardi sat looking out the window, thinking. The stream of people heading home had started to ebb. The beggar woman grabbed the blanket and the little boy as if they were a bundle of rags and walked off toward the vicoli. Left behind to watch over the street were the mocking dead guappo and the dog.
“Very well. I’ll go attend the last earthly carriage ride of Matteo Diotallevi, known to his friends as Tettè. Except that he didn’t have any friends.”
Sitting with his back to the window, Maione added, with a sigh:
“Except for the dog.”
As if on cue, the dog that had been Tettè’s only friend on earth got up and trotted off through the fine cold drizzle.
XXXI
Seven days earlier, Thursday, October 22
Tettè is running.
He’s running at breakneck speed, running barefoot and holding his wooden clogs to keep from falling.
He’s running and he’s risking his life, though he’ll lose that anyway, barely dodging car tires and carriage wheels. Horns honk in annoyance.
He’s running, dodging the walking sticks of gentlemen who swing their canes to punish him for forcing them to step aside.
He’s running, unintentionally splashing water on the nannies pushing tall perambulators, and they curse at him with incomprehensible words, uttered in the accents of unfamiliar dialects.
He’s running, and other scugnizzi try to trip him so that they can laugh at his calamitous fall, but he knows what they’re thinking and leaps over their outstretched feet, and stays upright.
He’s running, and the plate glass windows seem to be running along beside him, with shopgirls dressing mannequins who smile at him.
He’s running, and two little boys in smocks carrying bookbags and holding their mother by the hand watch him, envying him his freedom.
He’s running through the alley, and the dog is running after him, light, effortlessly, its ears fluttering like handkerchiefs waved from a departing train. It zigs and zags exactly like the boy, choosing the same trajectories as if it had some kind of advance notice of the route, as if they’d mapped it together.
They’re running, the dog and the boy: the same jutting ribs, the same eyes squinting in concentration, the same mouths half-open from the effort.
They’re running, and they hope they’ll get there in time.
Cosimo is standing next to his handcart in a little piazzetta where four vicoli run together, in the Spanish Quarter. He always follows the exact same route, so Tettè knows where to meet him at this time of day. One time, whe
n he was being nice to the boy, Cosimo told him that by following the same route, passing through the same places at the same times, the women get to know him and they wait for him, and they set aside the best items for him, and it’s good for business.
In fact, there are times when Cosimo is nice to Tettè. At times like that, perhaps when it’s getting dark and business has been good that day, he starts telling stories. Tettè listens happily, and thinks to himself that Cosimo could be his papà, and he could be Cosimo’s child. One time Cosimo even gave him a coin, all shiny, and Tettè never spent it; he just kept it in the pocket of his britches and, every once in a while, would pull it out and look at it. Then one day Amedeo saw it and took it for himself, but Tettè could still summon it in his memory.
Tettè thinks; he can’t really talk, but he thinks. And he remembers, he remembers everything. He remembers good things and bad things, but he doesn’t go into the bad things in his head. He holds on to them, because they might turn out to be useful someday, but he doesn’t go there. He goes into the good things, and in the good things there’s Cosimo telling him a story as night falls.
But this time Cosimo isn’t going to be nice to him. He knows it from the look he gives him when he sees Tettè arrive, even though he doesn’t look at him again right away, otherwise the women standing around will notice something is wrong.
He knows one of the women and in fact, when she sees him coming, she celebrates his arrival. Here comes Tettè, she says: hello, handsome, why weren’t you here this morning? And here’s the dog, too, but aren’t you ever going to give your little dog a name, Tettè? Don’t you know that animals get names, too?
Tettè says nothing, but he smiles. He says nothing because he’s worried about the way Cosimo looked at him. And besides, he doesn’t want to give the dog a name. He talks to the dog, they spend time together. They’re equals. And if they’re equals, how can he give the dog a name, Tettè thinks to himself. It has a name, in its dog-language. When the dog is ready, it’ll tell him its name.
Day of the Dead Page 17