The lights blinked on and off a couple of times. She glanced back at the entryway.
“Don’t worry. It won’t close until I say.” Ernesto patted the lion’s flank.
“Who exactly approached you for a donation?”
“Fancy boy. Their friggin’ director.”
“Garducci. Really?”
“Surprised?” Scavullo touched his crotch, like he’d adopted the mannerism from his elders: something they did to ward off evil intent.
“Garducci contacted you himself?” Natalia said.
“We had some people in common.”
The lights flickered again.
“What is it you want, Ernesto?”
“To have you as my A number one bitch, of course.”
“You have a foul mind.”
“That’s what my nigger girlfriend said. But my new one, the Brazilian hottie? She loves it. The dirtier, the better. In fact, I’m thinking it might be fun to fuck her with Pino’s rod. Stick a condom over the barrel. What do you think?”
“I think you give animals a bad name.”
He played with a diamond on his pinkie. “Here I am, trying to be nice on our first date.”
Her phone beeped: Lola.
“Monte,” Natalia said.
“Scavullo bring the item?”
“We’re discussing it now,” she said and hung up. She turned to Scavullo. “So where is it?”
“Don’t be that way, Natalia. What are we, vendors transacting?”
“What do you want for it?”
“Ooh, let me think. I think I want … you.”
“You can’t have me.”
“Think I don’t own you already?”
“Say what it is you want.”
“Natalia, Natalia. What’s your rush? You’re gonna develop symptoms from all the stress if you keep this up.”
“I didn’t know you cared,” she said. “What’ve you got to tell me?”
“You been to Paolo’s place?”
“Not since we were kids, why?”
“No, not that sad-ass hovel. I bought him this duplex with a real nice view of the harbor. Just had his master bathroom redone in malachite. You know what that is?”
“Yeah, I know what that is,” she said.
“That’s green jade is what that is. I gifted him a BMW last December, too.”
“Such a Father Christmas you are.”
“If he does an extra-nice job for me, he gets a reward.”
“Like a trained seal?”
“A weekend in Paris, five days in New York …”
“Out of the goodness of your heart, eh? What is he carting for you? Are you sending out money for laundering?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes he’s got just an errand or two. Maybe a message to our American cousins that needs to be delivered personally. Or just a well-earned break for Paolo and his family.”
“How nice for him.”
“You still into art? You like modern stuff? Do this right and you could be looking at a Picasso on your own wall.”
“No, thank you.”
“Hard or easy, your choice. No matter which, I am going to have my way with you, Captain Monte.”
“The gun. What’s the price?”
“Your virginity.”
“Meaning?”
“Information when I need it. Advance warning of what’s coming my way from the forces of law and public order. Names of snitches who might rat me out.”
Threats to snuff out, he meant. Natalia said nothing.
“How it’s going to work is, I keep the gun, and for now you don’t have to worry about Pino’s uncle contracting anything lethal or Mariel’s shop burning down, what with all that combustible paper and book glue she’s got.”
“It’s not going to happen.”
“Oh, it can absolutely happen and will unless you get me taken off the suspects list for the double murder of those fags.”
“My bosses aren’t about to do that.”
“Now, now. You’ll figure out how to pull it off, I’m sure. You were always the smart one. If you don’t … hell, your dear Mariel’s life gets barbecued. Pino’s uncle, too, most likely. Obviously Pino himself. That understood?”
Natalia stood silent.
“Good,” he said. “Anytime I snap my fingers, you will produce for me. You deliver: the names of any witnesses against me that they’re developing. Any suspicions that crop up about my corrupting Carabiniere and police who work in my districts.” He smiled. “What do you think?”
“A work of genius, Ernesto. Really.”
* **
As soon as she was out of the building, she rang Pino.
“Sweetheart,” he said.
“I just had a lovely visit with Scavullo.”
“Ernesto Scavullo?”
“Yeah. Bad news. He has it.”
“Shit. How?”
“From Mama, obviously.”
“I’m sorry I got you into this.”
“Yeah, well. It’s done. Are you at home?”
“Almost.”
“Good, I caught you. Stop right where you are. Don’t go there—not to your flat either. Pick up nothing. Turn off your cellphone the minute we’re done and keep it off. Any future calls, use a pay phone. Right now you have to go to the rail station. I mean, immediately. Don’t buy a ticket with your credit card. Make the purchase with cash—on the train, if you can—but for some stop beyond where you’re getting off. Get on the next one. Go to your Uncle Ricci.”
“Why?”
“Scavullo says he’s keeping the thing for insurance, but I don’t trust him. He made a threat about torching Mariel’s shop.”
“And me? Christ. A threat to off me.”
“It didn’t go well. He offered me a trade—the Glock—for my loyalty to him.”
“Maybe he’s just bluffing. About the gun.”
“He’s not.”
“He wouldn’t dare target Carabinieri.”
“Listen to me. He needs to show the other bosses and his father who the real man is. He’ll target anyone he needs just to demonstrate. You need to get away tonight.”
“If he has ordered a hit, being at Uncle Ricci’s won’t do me any good,” Pino said. “I can’t put my uncle in danger like that. I’ll go to my place.”
“Pino, you don’t have a choice right now. Don’t go to your uncle then, but get out of Naples this minute.”
“You’re serious. He’d risk going after Carabiniere?”
“Without a doubt. He’ll do anything to prove himself. If you want to stay alive, go. Please.”
They hung up. She imagined Pino setting out on foot for the train station, his lovely eyes troubled, the sun playing on his dark tousled hair.
Chapter 25
“You can’t kill him,” Lola exclaimed, slapping the steering wheel so hard the horn bleated.
“Why not? You and yours do it all the time.”
“I’m not a captain of the Carabinieri.”
“So?”
“You’re the good guys.”
“And he’s a bad guy. The worst. He’s been slaughtering the innocent for years. Getting away with it. And he’s getting away with it again. We can’t prove anything on the horsemen. Not on Fabretti either. He set it up. Fed us false evidence. And now he has Pino’s gun. He wants to own me, Lola. I might as well wear his tattoo.”
“Fucking Pino,” Lola said, pumping the horn as she cruised through a light.
“He’ll kill Pino. He threatened to burn down Mariel’s store.”
“He said that? Okay, take him down.”
“I may need some help getting to him.”
“We’ll do it together.”
Natalia shook her head. “It’s too dangerous. You’re a mother, Lola, remember? You promised you wouldn’t take any foolish chances.”
“You chickening out?”
“No. I’m going to take care of it alone, that’s all.”
Lola idled and pushed the curls from
Natalia’s face. “You’re not nearly nasty enough for this, cara.” She put her foot on the accelerator. “You need me there.”
Without Natalia’s realizing it, they’d come out of the narrow streets and were rapidly climbing to the Vomero section. Soon the cacophony of Naples was far below them. She could see islands in the distance, and the sea twinkled. How peaceful everything seemed. Soon they’d be on the road that connected Naples to Sorrento.
“Where are we going?” Natalia asked.
“Nowhere. I’ll turn around in a minute. Safer to keep moving. Even though I have the car swept every day for bugs—I’m paranoid, you know? I bug my own house, for Christ’s sake. The glamorous life, right?”
“Dominick doesn’t mind being on tape?” Natalia said.
“He doesn’t know.”
“So he’s not getting involved in your business life, I take it?”
“Only my bed life.”
Natalia laughed.
“For now.”
Lola pulled off the road into a roundabout, and they got out of the car. A white butterfly danced around a clump of green foliage. Someone had spray painted Forza Italia! in purple on a concrete wall.
They conferred for a few moments then Lola reversed direction and dropped her a few blocks from the Casanova station. Natalia walked the rest of the way and reported in for the afternoon shift.
Angelina was engrossed in her computer screen and talking on the phone at the same time. Natalia passed by on the way to her office and closed the door. Concentrating was difficult. The phone rang, and Natalia answered with her name.
“Captain,” Francesca said, “when is Tina Gracci being interred?”
“Hi, doc. She was buried this morning. Raffi photographed the mourners for the intelligence people.”
“Okay, then. It’s officially ruled a suicide.”
“That’s it? Simple as that?”
“Unless the gun turns up,” Francesca said, “and we find otherwise. This is my first suicide in twenty years without a note left behind. Wait, there was Maria Martelli and her husband. A suicide pact.”
“The couple that informed on the Giuliano clan?”
“Good memory. What a crime scene. He blew her brains out. Then his. Actually, it was quite like the Tina Gracci situation. No gun found. But the gunpowder marks on the hand? Pretty conclusive.”
“What were you offered to rule their suicide pact an accident?”
“It opened at a thousand euros, stopped when I turned down fifty. Any luck getting the weapon from Mama Gracci now that her daughter rests in holy ground?”
“Not as yet.”
“No surprise there, I suppose,” Francesca said. “Tough as she is, the woman can’t face the truth. We’ll never know what the daughter was thinking. So sad, her being born to that gang that passes for a family. She didn’t have much of a chance in life.”
“That’s what Pino says.”
“Your Sergeant Loriano, he knew her?”
“He and I both, from a previous case.”
“What’s going on with you two, anyway? Wait! Forget I asked. Not my business. Gotta go.”
Francesca hung up.
“When I figure it out, I’ll let you know,” Natalia said into the dead phone.
Natalia signed out to patrol along the docks, hoping to let the sea air clear her muddled brain. She called Lola again on her private line. We are otherwise engaged, the answering machine voice announced, meaning she was enjoying an idyll with Dominick. And Mariel was at a matinee concert with her new Milanese boyfriend.
A few months ago, Natalia was the only one of them with a boyfriend, someone to eat dinner with, sleep with, talk to when times got rough. Now her two best friends were occupied by their man friends, and Natalia was the one alone again. For a brief second, she contemplated calling Suzanna Ruttollo but changed her mind.
A seagull swooped low over the bay. A ferry sounded its horn as it pushed away from the dock and headed for one of the islands. Natalia would have liked to extend her walk, but a summons on her phone from Angelina had her rushing back to the station. A homicide call. Natalia arrived panting and slid into the passenger seat of their Alfa Romeo.
“Where?”
“Remember the gallery with the erotic sadomasochist photographs?”
“Of course. What’s going on? Somebody offed the director?”
“No. We’re not that lucky.”
“So—what?”
“There’s a body on the premises identified as Stefano Grappi.”
“Grappi. Fuck. Not another one.”
They arrived at the CAM gallery. Two municipal policemen stood guard outside. “You sure you want to go in?” one of them asked as Natalia and Angelina rushed up. “My partner here threw up.”
Natalia nodded.
He saluted as he pulled open the heavy door.
Natalia strode ahead. The chill of the air conditioning felt intense after the sweltering street. Again, the sensation of a vast white space. A frozen landscape. A blur of violet flowers on a low, black table. A banner announced the show: SEX AND SENSIBILITY: OBJECTS OF TORTURE—AN HISTORIC SURVEY.
The gallery appeared empty, except for a knot of people at the far end of the room. As Natalia and Angelina made their way across the marble floor, they passed several artifacts: manacles rusted and attached to the wall. A guillotine with a newly polished blade. Some kind of wooden contraption Natalia recognized from history books—used to secure witches as recently as the nineteenth century in order for them to be displayed in the town squares; a treat for curiosity seekers before the so-called devil worshippers were burned at the stake.
Domenico Bertolli stood staring at the upright body of Stefano Grappi and tried to control his breathing. He seemed to be unaware of anyone else in the room. His face was sweaty. Two other policemen stood with their backs to the corpse. Angelina sat down on a long red bench, busying herself with notes, doing her best not to look up. Natalia didn’t blame her. She could barely look herself.
Stefano Grappi, naked, squatted on a wooden platform. A stake had been driven up through him vertically.
Natalia came up beside the director.
“Mr. Bertolli?”
He didn’t answer.
She touched his arm. “Mr. Bertolli?”
He turned his bleak face toward her.
“Officer Monte, remember? We need to speak with you. Did you find him here?”
“Yes.” A whisper.
“Someone broke in?”
“The door was unlocked when I arrived.”
“The alarm never went off?”
“No.”
“Maybe you should sit down,” Angelina suggested.
“No. I prefer to stand.”
“Okay,” Natalia said. “Can you tell me what it is, this device? Is it part of the exhibit?”
He nodded. “It’s called a Judas Chair. Invented during the Inquisition.”
“I take it the person’s weight pushed down on the … the tip of the stake,” Natalia said.
“Usually into the anus and then deeper as the prisoner descended. Or into the vagina in the case of … excuse me. If you don’t have any more questions …”
“Not at the moment. We’ll be in touch later,” Natalia said. “Thank you.”
Colonel Fabio dropped the crime scene photos back on his desk. “You know the perpetrator of this crime?”
“Ernesto Scavullo,” Natalia answered, standing in front of his desk next to her partner.
“This is intolerable. Truly unspeakable.” He tapped the pictures. “Explain this to me. Why?”
“It’s Scavullo clearing the deck, sir, eliminating those with firsthand knowledge of what he’s done. Chief among them, Stefano Grappi.”
“So it wasn’t Garducci conspiring with Ernesto Scavullo?”
“No, sir. It was Stefano all along.”
“Fooled us.”
“Yes, sir. He had us fooled. So unlikely. Such a gentle-seeming man. But he w
as passionately in love with Vincente when he found out Lattaruzzo was planning to leave him—and for Garducci of all people. Vincente had cheated on him with countless men during their time together. When he found out about Garducci, Signor Grappi snapped.”
Fabio pinched his lower lip. “Whereupon he set out to avenge himself on Vincente.”
“Exactly,” Angelina said.
“And Bagnatti got swept up in the bargain,” Natalia continued. “Stefano conspired with Ernesto Scavullo to do in Bagnatti and Vincente Lattaruzzo both, each for their own reasons. He had discovered the story of the contessa’s father’s betrayal at the hands of Vincente Lattaruzzo’s fore-bearer and put it to work.”
Fabio nodded.
Natalia went on. “Stefano sought out Scavullo and told him Bagnatti was preparing a gossip piece about a gay don. He got Scavullo to do his dirty work.”
“But what I don’t understand,” Fabio said, “whatever possessed Bagnatti to write such a story outing Ernesto? He must have known Scavullo would react badly.”
“They’d been sleeping together off and on for a long while—Bagnatti and Scavullo,” Natalia said. “I think he may have lost his appeal and been shown the door in less than a gracious manner. Ernesto Scavullo hadn’t known the story behind his father’s detention by the Germans and how the contessa’s father extricated the young Gianni Scavullo. When he found out, he must have realized how he could use it—make it appear to be the reason for killing Lattaruzzo.”
“When Bagnatti’s gossip piece was his real worry,” the colonel muttered as he wrote something on a pad on his desk.
“Exactly.” Natalia closed her eyes.
“God,” Angelina said. “One man set this whole thing in motion.”
Their boss crumpled the piece of paper and tossed it into the trash basket. “You may be interested to learn that La Mattina has named us the European capital of violent crimes against gays. Had you heard?”
“Yes, sir,” Angelina answered.
“Maybe now we can turn that around, assuming we can prove what you’ve just reported. Can we?” He leaned forward.
“Not a word,” Natalia said. “Scavullo did too good a job of controlling and planting evidence. What do you want us to do?”
The colonel stood. “I want you to change to black fatigues, load extra magazines and break out your field-grade weapons. Report to the incident room in forty minutes. This has gone on far too long.”
A Few Drops of Blood Page 23