A Few Drops of Blood

by Jan Merete Weiss

  Her phone buzzed.

  “Captain Monte,” she answered automatically.

  “Did you get them?”

  “They’re beautiful, Pino. You shouldn’t have wasted your money.”

  Angelina picked up the watering can and stepped out.

  “Your concierge told me to tell you she’s glad you finally came to your senses. Oh, she gave us a housewarming present. I think it’s a trivet. She probably used it to serve her husband his hot meals when he was alive.”

  “How romantic,” Natalia said. “What else?”

  “I rearranged some of the furniture.”

  “I can’t talk now.”

  “How does butternut squash risotto sound? We can try out the trivet. When shall I expect my beloved?”

  “There’s a lot going on. I may have to work late.”

  “Eight o’clock?”

  “Eight thirty.”

  “Perfetto. I don’t know if I can bear taking a shower. I love having your smell on me.”

  “Look,” Natalia said to Pino, “I have to get off.”

  “Understood.”

  “I’ll see you later.”

  “Give the stems a fresh cut, okay? I love you.”

  The risotto and one round of passionate love later, Pino and Natalia faced one another in a tangle of sheets.

  Pino’s slim chest was tanned from working outside. Natalia imagined he’d worn nothing but yoga pants or jeans in the country. She could see him there, moving among the bees and sunlight. Natalia inhaled his scent: somewhere between clove and sex. They kissed and rubbed their faces together. Noses, cheeks, mouth, tongue.

  “Is my beard scratchy? Shall I shave?”

  “No. I like the rustic look.”

  “Oh? You like it rough?” He pushed her down. She must have fallen into a light sleep. When she opened her eyes, she found him watching her in the faint light.

  “Fabio had me in for a talk,” he said. “I have another month before I’m expected to report back to duty.” He stroked her stomach. “So I was thinking, if we have a child, you’ll need to take a leave of absence, and I want us to be able to afford it.”

  “A kid? You blow back into town, and now we’re having a baby? What if one isn’t in the picture?”

  “Baby or no, we’re meant to be together.”

  “No one is meant to be together, Pino. That’s another of your romantic notions. You’re on extended leave. You have no income,” Natalia said.

  “I know.”

  “Well, I’m not giving up my career, and we both can’t stay in the ranks. Not serving in the same city anyway. Which would make for quite a hurdle as far as having a relationship. And when and if you quit entirely, you’ll forfeit your income and pension.”

  “It’s a conundrum.”

  “What are you thinking to do? We couldn’t very well live on one salary.”

  He kissed her and said, “Turns out the zendo wants to add a yoga component to the practice. They need to attract more people. They’re interested in my developing a following for them. They can’t pay much to begin, but it’s something. In a few months I could open my own studio. Good, right?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Okay. Well, then, Fabio and I, we’re going to meet again next week to see where I might fit in.”

  “I thought you were done with the Carabinieri.”

  “Probably. But I don’t want to completely close the door if there’s a chance. A special post, unofficial.”

  “There is no unofficial,” Natalia said. “You’re dreaming again.”

  He placed her hands over his chest. “My heart is in your hands.”

  “So melodramatic,” Natalia said.

  “I love you. Don’t deny your feelings, Natalia. We may not have the same opportunity in the next life.”

  “The next life? You sound like Zia Giovanna.”

  “Maybe she understood something about what’s important in life.”

  “Maybe. The woman was afraid of her own shadow.”

  “But that’s my point exactly. Fear. Look at the birds. When they take to the air, they leave the dark shadows behind.”

  Chapter 16

  The motorcycle screeched to a halt in the alley beside San Paolo Maggiore. A girl in a gold minidress and gladiator sandals slid off the back. For good measure, her lover gunned the engine, terrifying a flock of pigeons rummaging for food.

  Cleopatra pulled off her helmet. A pair of sapphire eyes appeared from behind the dark glasses she pushed up onto her forehead. Lover boy slouched in his seat. Helmets dangling, they embraced.

  The couple remained glued together as she stepped around them. Nice, Natalia thought. Cupid working her tricks. Such passion. She hoped it would lead to happy days and not jealousy or death.

  She wondered if she was projecting her own concerns, her fears, about the rekindled relationship with Pino. Living together was working out better than she would have dreamed, a fact she hadn’t confessed to anyone—certainly not to Pino, not even to Mariel. She was more in love than ever.

  And she was well aware that that put her in a vulnerable position were something to go wrong. And who was she kidding? Of course it would.

  She tried to remind herself to live in the moment, to enjoy what they had. She’d never put much credence in horoscopes, but what they said about Cancers seemed to be true if Pino were an accurate example. He was a real homebody, something she hadn’t appreciated before they lived together.

  Two days after his return, her dingy bathroom was transformed into a sunny space with a couple of coats of canary yellow paint. Her balcony was suddenly awash in coleus plants: purples and yellows and greens. One night she returned to a candlelight dinner. Another, he swept her up to Capodimonte, and they watched the fiery sun set over Naples as they consumed chocolate and wine.

  He was so spontaneous. For her, such a creature of habit, his free spirit was a delight. What was the poem Mariel had showed her once when she was dating the crazy painter? Something along the lines about being with the lover made the poet feel twice alive? Yes, that was it. Twice alive. That captured perfectly how she felt being with Pino. But when and if their relationship ended … how would she feel then? Twice dead?

  It was the heat of the day, but the alley was cool.

  An itinerant magliare tried his luck selling white and black socks to patrons at sidewalk tables. The headwaiter shooed him away. Undaunted, he gave him the finger and made for the café immediately adjoining.

  These wandering merchants, a throwback from olden days, slipped from honest labor into shadier practices with utter ease. Now and then, they were given a low level job by the Camorra. Nothing too complicated: break the windows of a store, maim someone’s dog.

  They were cheap, bought for a few boxes of cigarettes, a half-dozen, knock-off designer scarves. They were also out and about and sometimes privy to useful information. Information paid a little better. Not much.

  Regardless, they were loyal to the criminals who ran their districts and grateful for their hardscrabble lives. And it made sense, their loyalty. Most were without education and couldn’t read or write. How else were they to eke out a living? Which is why no one ever spoke of a magliare operating as a snitch. Besides loyalty, the penalty of a swift and painful death kept them in line. Even if offered relocation by the authorities, that was no guarantee of physical safety. Besides, they were as wed to their streets and way of life as was Natalia. It was in their blood and hers.

  Musing on this, Natalia arrived at Stefano’s building. The downstairs gate swung open and a blue Fiat inched out. Natalia slipped in, arriving unannounced. The elevator was engaged, so she walked up the echoing staircase.

  Using the brass sun doorknocker, she rapped twice gently. Voices murmured inside, and the door cracked open. A tan Stefano greeted her, somewhat surprised to find her at his door.

  “Sorry to intrude. Is this a bad time?” Natalia asked.

  Behind Stefano a slim young man
in a red and white t-shirt and khaki shorts lay sprawled on the couch.

  “No, not at all.” He stepped aside to let her enter. “Serge, do you mind?” he said back into the room and then to her: “A friend from Paris. He’s doing some research at Paestum. Seemed like a waste, this big apartment. No one to share it with. My therapist says I have to go on with my life.” He laughed bitterly. “Sometimes I wonder what is the point after all?”

  “You won’t always feel this way,” Natalia said.

  “That’s what I’m told. Grief makes one quite self-centered, I’m discovering. But you didn’t come here to discuss my mental state, I’m sure.”

  “I don’t want to upset you further,” Natalia said.

  “I’m not sure there is a further, Captain Monte. So …” He pulled himself together. “How can I be of use today? Or is there news?”

  “Not yet. Except I didn’t want you to hear that we’ve arrested Garducci and have you mistake that as being for the murder of Vincente. It’s not. It’s for another matter.”

  “Some days I wonder if it’s better not to know. Please, come. Forgive my terrible manners. Voila—the new couch. Vincente thought white quite impractical. He’d disapprove.”

  Natalia wasn’t sure she didn’t agree with the departed curator, as she sat on the pristine white leather. “Thank you,” she said. She wasn’t sure how to begin the conversation and sat in awkward silence for a moment.

  “Please,” Stefano said, “I’m not so fragile. How can I help you?”

  “I’m exploring a new theory. Do you mind a few questions?”

  “Not at all.”

  “To your knowledge, when Vincente and Garducci were first involved, did he ever rough up Vincente?”

  “Nothing more than Vincente agreed to, if that’s what you’re getting at. Why?”

  “Did Vincente ever discuss his boss, Garducci, with you?”

  “Now and then he came up. Not my favorite subject.”

  “And Bagnatti?”

  “Nothing more than some reminiscences from when they were friends way back.”

  “Were you ever aware of talk at the museum about Garducci? I mean, apart from having to do with his affair with Vincente? Other involvements?”

  “Way back? There was some speculation that he may have been fucking someone prominent, maybe high up in government or law enforcement or, hell, movies for all I know. The rumor was that the director was having it off with someone of note.”

  “And Vincente didn’t know who?”

  “If he did, he never said.”

  Back on the street, Natalia took a call from Angelina. The word had just come down from the Directorate for Anti-Mafia Investigation. Old Gianni Scavullo, father of Ernesto, father-in-law of Suzanna, husband to Renata, and the oldest Camorra head in Naples, was about to be released from prison.

  Natalia turned onto Via Salvatore Tommasi. There wasn’t a speck of shade. Sweaty and winded from the climb, she paused and took a deep breath.

  A boy ran up the hill past her and darted into an alley.

  “Attenzione!” someone called. A hearse maneuvered its way on the narrow street. Behind it a procession of mourners made their way to the church. Young men in dark suits, glamorous women in high heels and sleek multicolored frocks, hidden by designer sunglasses. All of them wearing long sleeves and stockings when it had to be close to 90 degrees, 32 centigrade.

  It seemed summers were getting hotter. She yearned for September. Only during the rainy season would there be a respite from the baking heat. October was even better, the season of the ottobrate, excursions into the countryside by those who could afford to escape. For Natalia and her kin, as in many poor families, whoever could organize a car would arrange a meeting time and place. Everyone converged on the place and squeezed in.

  First thing when her relatives arrived in the country, they had a sumptuous picnic and uncoiled in the sunlight to digest and rest like contented snakes. Once revived, they set out hunting for chestnuts and dandelions. Now and then they’d come across a shepherd with his flock.

  The adventurous went into the woods after mushrooms that sprouted like tiny ghost villages among the moss and decay on the forest floor.

  Afterwards, she and her father would lie in the fields waiting for the flights of birds heading south. Their mournful cries as they headed to Africa signaled the change of season. When the fireflies began flickering, they’d head back to rejoin the family for the trip back to town.

  Unlike the other families, they didn’t return triumphant with a collection of bloody carcasses. Her father had never taken to the pleasure of hunting game unlike every other male over the age of thirteen. Even during the war when food had been so scarce.

  NUMBER 43, HEADQUARTERS, COMMANDO LEGIONALE CARABINIERE said the sign. The second m was missing. The scruffy walls were beige, and thick metal grates covered the few windows on the ground floor. Natalia pushed the bell and held up her photo ID to the video camera overhead.

  The former monastery was more than four centuries old. You could see its past grandeur as the green metal door swung slowly open onto its enormous courtyard. The sudden shift in scale from portal to expanse always surprised her.

  Hands behind his back, the guard greeted Natalia. “Everything okay?”

  “Si, si,” she answered and stated her business. He led her into the reception area. The officer working intake was on his phone. Natalia studied the black-and-white photographs on the wall. Most from a long ago time. Two men came in to pick up their identification cards from the pigeonholes above the receptionist’s desk as they reported to work and rushed toward the locker room to get into uniform. If they were lucky, they’d spend a quiet day fielding calls and watching some football.

  Just then the officer on desk duty jumped up, slapped on his cap and jogged outside to join the entry guard. Both stood at attention, saluting, as a limousine slipped past. Their commander, no doubt. She found herself once again grateful Colonel Fabio kept the military courtesies and ceremonies minimal at Casanova. She was proud to be a member of the armed forces but could do without the flourishes, especially the formal deference paid to superiors.

  The officer in reception finished his call and wrote down her ID number on a sheet of paper. He asked her to wait across the hall.

  The waiting room didn’t have much on Casanova either: two upright chairs with brown leather seats and a matching couch. The main difference was that there were no anxious crowds of complainants waiting to be seen. She was alone. The fact that it was a Sunday may have had something to do with it, but not all.

  Headquarters was more a military installation than a working law enforcement station. The rank and file was called out for disasters and important ceremonies that were held in the courtyard. Also press conferences, award presentations and induction ceremonies for the newest recruits. But the men stationed there were more likely to be called out for deployment to war zones overseas than for police work. Currently, part of the brigade was again in the Middle East. They had lost several men during this latest violence and many more than a few during the civil war in the former Yugoslavia.

  A corporal greeted her and escorted her across a wide concrete yard. A few potted plants dotted its perimeter in a feeble effort at decoration, and a single, spindly palm rose fifty feet in the air. They entered the building at the far side. Proceeding down quiet halls, she followed him to the door of the person she had requested to see.

  “Thank you for seeing me.”

  The major greeted her warmly. He’d kept his slim figure. A few threads of silver in his mustache and hair. He still invited trust as he always had.

  “Always a pleasure, Major,” she said.

  He’d been one of her teachers when she was in training. A decent man, one of the few who hadn’t given her grief for daring to enroll as a female recruit. It was the major who had arranged for her assignment to Casanova afterward. His own father had mentored Fabio. And he himself had idolized his father and had g
rown up wanting to be a Carabiniere from the time he was ten.

  His first posting had been to Rome, but Naples was where he’d made his name, taking on the head of the Rimaldi clan.

  Major Tucci now headed internal affairs. Carabinieri in all of Naples’s nearly thirty stations reported to him and him alone. No doubt he was aware of her and Pino. He knew of anyone in the ranks who fraternized or consorted with Camorra members or relatives.

  The last thing Natalia wanted was to voice any suspicions about her lover, but at this point she felt she didn’t have a choice.

  His phone rang. He mouthed “Sorry,” and took the call. “Si, signora. Lo so. Exacto. Si, si, secorro. Arrivederci,” he said and hung up. “Do I want to be a speaker at the celebration Friday night? No. I’d rather be home with my wife. But do I have a choice?” He laughed. “Goes with the job. In a few more years, they’ll be sending you out to speak about how well you were received by the all-male contingents of Carabinieri. Or have they already?”

  “Public affairs sent me to a high school last year,” Natalia said. “Actually, it was kind of nice.”

  “Good on you. I hear only good things about you, Natalia. Bravo.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “So what brings you here? The Scavullo business I assume? Anything I can do to help you get him would be my pleasure. Another tap. I’ve got a marvelous technician working for me.”

  “I appreciate the offer, but we haven’t the need at the moment.”

  “Good. So, what is it I can do for you?”

  “Two things actually. The first is more of a personal nature.”

  A Carabiniere in black fatigues popped his head in and stopped, seeing Natalia. “You’re busy.”

  “Give me half an hour.” Major Tucci got up and closed the door. “Is Pino Loriano back from leave yet?”

  “It’s a bit up in the air.”

  “You and the sergeant made a great team, Natalia. And you’re partnered now with that rookie from Palermo, Angelina Cavatelli. That’s working out?”

  “Very much so. You do know everything, don’t you?”

  “Occupational hazard.” He smiled, pleased. “Given that she’s from Palermo, we pay close attention. It would be just too easy to plant someone. Certain parties in Sicily would love to latch on to a piece of Naples. And, yes, we’ve kept an eye on Pino, too, naturally. Someone goes on indefinite leave, it catches our attention.”