The Second Day of the Renaissance

by Timothy Williams

  “Choose the company you keep more carefully.”

  “More than a coincidence.”

  “You’re being used, commissario. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “Used by who?”

  “You’ll soon find out.”

  Trotti pointed the telephone’s aerial at his friend’s chest. “You remember Guerra?”

  “Gracchi’s old girlfriend?”

  “You remember her, Pisa?”

  “Last time I saw Lia Guerra, she was scuttling down into the subway in Milan. Back in 1982. Wearing a blonde wig and on her way to a clinic in Switzerland. Trying to avoid you, commissario.”

  “Really?”

  “Trying to avoid you—like so many other people.”

  “She stayed in Switzerland for several years.” Trotti said, “Then Lia Guerra went down to Trapani in the mid-eighties. She wanted to be with Gracchi—unfortunately the ex-boyfriend had married another woman.”

  “Which wouldn’t’ve stopped Gracchi from screwing her.”

  “Delicately put.”

  “Gracchi’d screw anything that moved—and a few things that didn’t.”

  “Gracchi found Guerra a job at the commune, and she worked with him at BRAMAN.”

  “She hoped Gracchi’d leave his wife and go back to her?”

  “Spadano says Gracchi’d never’ve left his daughter.”

  “So he got murdered,” Pisanelli said.

  “Gracchi got himself murdered, Pisanelli, and everybody thought it was the Mafia silencing a noisy journalist.” Trotti pushed the empty cup away. “Lia Guerra’d been an addict herself and she felt empathy for the people on the commune. Several months before the murder, Giovanni Verga sent her here to Rome to run the public relations for the commune.”

  Pisanelli took the Repubblica and folded the paper on his unbending knee.

  “It’s Guerra who’s been pressuring the pubblico ministero to reopen the file.”

  Pisanelli tilted his head in mild interest. “Why bother?”

  “Guerra loved Gracchi.”

  “Gracchi’s dead.”

  “She’d always loved him—ever since the years of lead when Guerra and Gracchi were playing terrorists.”

  “She’s got any children?”

  Trotti shook his head.

  “A silly cow,” Pisanelli observed. “She spouted left-wing politics, the revolution and all that crap. Beneath the facade, she was a woman like all the rest.”

  “All the rest, Pisa?”

  “Guerra was a good-looking girl. I could’ve fancied her myself. She should’ve had children.”

  “It’s not too late.”

  “I’ve never known a woman to put the dictatorship of the proletariat before a home of her own, a family and a white Fiat.”

  “You were good to her, I recall. Silly cow, Pisa? You stopped me from arresting her.”

  “You manipulated her.”

  “Hardly.”

  “Her politics gave you no right to treat her the way you did, Trotti. You despised her.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Despised her because she was taking heroin,” Pisanelli said.

  “I had a job to do.”

  “She was protecting Maltese.”

  Trotti grunted, “And now, eight years after his death, she’s protecting Gracchi.”

  “Silly cow.”

  “Guerra’s never believed the Mafia killed Gracchi, but with Beltoni absconding, the case was very conveniently closed. The Procura had wound Gracchi’s murder up to its own satisfaction and life could go on in BRAMAN. And in Trapani. A Mafia killing with Beltoni as the executor—it suited everybody.”

  Trotti’s fingers toyed nervously with the telephone, and his glance went from the piazza to Pisanelli and back again. “Except Lia Guerra.”

  “What does it all matter, commissario? Gracchi’s dead—been dead for years. Nobody’s going to bring him back. It’s not your problem.”

  “Spadano’s thinks I should find out who killed Gracchi.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “You know I have no sense of humor.”

  “You owe Spadano a favor?”

  “Spadano was good to me over my wife.”

  “Twenty years ago.”

  “Southerners never forget.”

  Pisanelli imitated Trotti’s flat Lombard accent. “Piero Trotti’s a functionary of the republic. He neither gives favors, nor does he ask for them.”

  “You have a good memory, Pisanelli.”

  “From hearing the same things repeated over and again?” Pisanelli’s amusement vanished. “You really want to help Spadano?”

  “Spadano wants me to help myself.”

  “Could you care less?”

  A shrug. “My life’s in danger.”

  “Scared of being shot down by a Sicilian killer?”

  “I’ve never been afraid of death.”

  “You really are scared, aren’t you?”

  “Wife, daughter, a family of my own.” Trotti pressed the telephone aerial against his chin. “I always told myself I could depart in peace when the grandchildren came along.”

  “Piero Trotti’s Nunc dimittis?”

  Trotti shrugged. “The grandchildren.”

  Pisanelli asked, “What about the grandchildren, commissario?”

  “I left Spadano in his magnificent office and went into the center of Siena, looking for the American girl. Believe it or not, Pisa, I was frightened. Despite the cold, I was sweating. The big, empty piazza—I felt naked and vulnerable. More scared than I’ve ever been in my life.”

  “Getting old and senile?”

  “More scared than when the American bombers flew over Santa Maria all those years ago.”

  Pisanelli had set the paper down. He was smiling and his eyes were fixed on the older man’s face.

  “My grandchildren—I want to see them grow up. I want to see the girls become young women. I want to be there, I want to enjoy their childhood because I never had a childhood of my own. And I never enjoyed Pioppi’s early years—too busy being a policeman. I wasn’t a good father. Who knows, perhaps that’s why she stopped eating.”

  “You’re turning into a human being?”

  “Be there for my Francesca and my Piera. For this adventure they call life. I want to be there—just as I want to be there for your children, damn it, Pisa. For the babies of this marriage of yours to Anna.”

  33: Ciuffi

  At the other tables on the terrace, the customers chatted or read the morning paper in the warmth of the spring sunshine.

  The waiter had disappeared.

  “Guerra hated you, commissario, and with good reason. Why help her now? Why help Spadano?”

  A young man in sunglasses dismounted from a battered Vespa. He was wearing a dark lumpy suit and a red tie.

  “Go back to your foggy little city, commissario. Forget Guerra. Go back to your Dutch cousin and her Count Cavour glasses. Forget Trapani.”

  “It’s not too late to help.”

  “Feeling guilty, Commissario Trotti?”

  “Don’t think I know that word.”

  “After all these years of throwing your weight around, you’re having remorse?”

  Trotti fidgeted with the mobile telephone.

  “Finding the truth isn’t going to stop Beltoni putting a bullet through your head.”

  “Or leaving me tied up in the trunk of a car—just like his twin brother.”

  “Let the Procura in Trapani get on with it. It’s their job. They’ve got the logistics—and the armor-plated cars.”

  The gypsy children stood around aimlessly. One tapped the deflated football with his hand. Several older boys had sat down on the steps of the fountain and were in conversation
. They appeared to be trading, placing pieces of paper on the steps.

  The man with the Vespa approached them, smiling cheerfully. He had a small head and the long hair was combed backwards to where it touched his collar.

  “You’ll go to Sicily?”

  “I’m going home after your wedding.”

  “You’ll be safer there.”

  Trotti gestured to the piazza as if it were a foreign country. “Going back to where I belong.”

  “Not going to bother with Spadano or Lia Guerra, then?” Pisanelli sounded relieved.

  “There’s also Wilma wanting my help.”

  “A lot of people all clamoring for favors from a retired flatfoot with a conscience. How very popular you are, commissario. Your Wilma doesn’t know Gracchi’s been dead for nearly a decade?”

  “Clearly not.”

  “She’s leading you on.”

  Trotti tapped his friend’s wrist with the mobile phone. “Why lead me on?”

  “She’s a woman and she’s pretty. Because you’re a gullible male. And because you’re a retired policeman.”

  “Can’t she get someone young and dynamic to do the job? Why ask an old man?”

  Pisanelli shrugged unhappily. “Goodness knows.”

  “You’re supposed to be good on female psychology, Pisanelli.”

  “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

  “Remember that nurse at San Matteo who admired you so much, Pisa? She was convinced you understood women.”

  Pisanelli’s smile vanished as he shook his head, “On the contrary, commissario, your friend Ciuffi maintained I was a phallocrat.”

  “The nurse in obstetrics. You’ve forgotten her?”

  “A phallocrat, Trotti.”

  “No need to mention Ciuffi.”

  “A balding phallocrat—but then, Ciuffi only had eyes for you.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t mention Brigadiere Ciuffi.”

  “Poor thing loved you blindly and wanted to marry you. The wise old man of the Questura and the pretty young policewoman.” A laugh. “May-September.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You’d’ve never married Ciuffi.”

  Trotti whispered hoarsely, “Why bring all this up, Pisanelli?”

  “You’d never’ve gotten a divorce.”

  “Ciuffi and I were colleagues.” The knuckles around the blue telephone had turned grey.

  “Ciuffi worshipped the ground you walked on. Like a dutiful little puppy, she did everything you asked her to.”

  “Be silent, will you?”

  “Most probably she’d’ve ended up marrying some boring, rich lawyer husband in that godawful, damp city of yours. Instead, the stupid girl got herself killed.”

  Trotti had turned away; he was looking at the man in the sunglasses. The man stood in conversation with the older boys. His trousers were short, not quite touching the top of the scuffed shoes. The shoulders of the jacket were padded.

  Behind the sunglasses, the face seemed familiar.

  “A silly young woman in love with an irascible old policeman.”

  Trotti was silent.

  “Not as if Ciuffi was the first police officer to be killed in the line of duty.”

  Trotti swung round and banged the table with the flat of his hand. “Shut up, damn you! Shut up, Pisanelli!”

  The cups rattled.

  Heads were raised. People at the neighboring tables turned in their seats, lowered their newspapers.

  A hush came over the terrace. The church bells chimed ten o’clock.

  The man had pushed the sunglasses up to his forehead and was staring at Trotti and Pisanelli. The broad smile showed white teeth.

  “No longer the dark-haired Latin lover of Lombardy, you know,” Pisanelli went on amiably, “I’d hate to think you were falling in love again, Trotti. Not at your age. Not with another wretched black woman.”

  34: Aluminum

  The two men took a taxi and went over the slow green waters of the Tiber.

  “Nice of you to help me,” Trotti said evenly.

  Pisanelli sat in the front of the taxi, his leg stretched before him.

  “You don’t have to, of course. I’m surprised your in-laws don’t need you.”

  “Someone’s got to keep an eye on you now that there’s a price on your head,” Pisanelli answered glumly.

  “Don’t worry about me, Pisa. Just keeping myself amused in this city.”

  “Visit the sites. Go to the Colosseum, go to the Spanish Steps. Visit the museums. Find yourself a whore, if you must. Try out one of the transvestites.”

  Trotti waited before asking in a casual voice, “You noticed he was carrying a gun?”

  “Either a gun or a pump for his Vespa.” Pisanelli turned his head awkwardly. “You really are scared, aren’t you, commissario?”

  The taxi-driver lifted his head quizzically and his eyes met Trotti’s in the mirror.

  Trotti averted his glance. He looked out of the window at the city. “The same man as in Siena. The man who knocked me over in via di Città—I was coming out of the bar.”

  “You said you didn’t see his face.”

  “I was on the ground, but I saw him from behind. The same man.”

  “Not very likely if he’s friends with the gypsy children.”

  The yellow taxi moved into the narrow streets near the Colosseum.

  At the entrance to the via del Tempio, there was a roadblock.

  Two vans; several alert and wary Carabinieri stood around wearing bulletproof jackets. They toted semi-automatic guns.

  The taxi turned onto the street and stopped with a squeal of brakes.

  A couple of officers scrutinized Trotti and Pisanelli as the two men clambered from the taxi.

  A sergeant in a beret moved sideways, crablike, towards the taxi, a hand on the butt of his weapon. With the other hand, he gestured for Trotti to halt.

  The driver did not wait for payment; the yellow car slid rapidly backwards. The exhaust pipe reverberated angrily as the taxi vanished into the morning traffic by the Tiber.

  “Visiting Signorina Guerra,” Trotti announced.

  As Trotti’s hand went towards his pocket, the Carabiniere jerked the gun up menacingly.

  The sergeant’s face was immobile. The right eye stared at Trotti; the left eye squinted, as if taking aim. For a long moment no one moved; then the glance turned unhurriedly towards Pisanelli. To the aluminum crutch.

  Neither Trotti nor Pisanelli spoke.

  Just the slightest movement of the muzzle.

  “Forward!”

  The sergeant nodded imperceptibly, lowering his weapon as he gestured the two men onward into the via del Tempio.

  Trotti mumbled thanks, his lips dry, his hands trembling.

  Pisanelli limped along beside him, the crutch clicking on the pavement.

  Tension evaporated into the brightness of the morning as the sergeant shouted in thick Roman dialect and laughed, “Arab terrorist with a bloody walking stick.”

  There was the glint of teeth beneath the short, military mustache. “Saddam’s scraping the barrel.”

  “No terrorists today, I’m afraid,” Pisanelli said, turning back and grinning sheepishly. “Two retired cops.”

  “God help us.” With his free hand, the sergeant made the sign of the cross.

  “Friends of yours?” Trotti asked in a whisper.

  Pisanelli did not reply, but there was sweat along the premature creases of his forehead.

  35: Stairs

  The front door to number twenty-six was open.

  Trotti ran a finger down the names of the residents, stuck behind a plate of brass and battered, yellowing Perspex.

  sig.na guerra lived on the top floor.


  “Fourteen years since I last saw her.”

  They entered the hall. The air was chill; spring had yet to reach the interior of the building. A grimy floor of checkered tiles.

  There was an elevator cage, but no response to Pisanelli’s repeated pushing at the worn button. After a silent wait, the two men began to climb the stairs that rose beside the elevator shaft.

  It grew darker inside the building as they trudged their way upwards. The crutch clicked against the steps, accompanying Pisanelli’s laborious journey to the top of the stairs.

  Trotti was out of breath by the time he reached the top floor. Sweating, he rang the doorbell.

  Trotti watched Pisanelli clambering the last set of stairs, and behind Trotti there was the sound of various locks being pulled back, keys being turned, bolts being drawn. Then the ponderous oak door of the sixth floor swung inward.

  “I was expecting you,” a woman said. Her face was lost in the penumbra.

  36: Nucleo Politico

  She had changed.

  In the photograph taken by the Nucleo Politico, Lia Guerra had been wearing a handkerchief round her neck, and the young face had an intense, proud beauty as she pulled back her arm in the act of hurling a missile. Now she was older, twenty years older, the face worn and slightly waxen.

  A faded prettiness remained.

  “I need to know the truth, commissario. I need to know who killed him—it’s the only thing that matters.” She spoke in a low voice while her eyes held his. Lia Guerra had poured herself a glass of mineral water. Moisture ran down the sides of the thick glass and onto her fingers.

  Trotti said flatly, “Life goes on.”

  “Not necessarily. What d’you know about Lotta Continua?”

  “Very little, I hope.”

  “Tino Gracchi was a founding member of the movement.”

  Trotti shook his head. “That wasn’t why I disliked him.”

  “Why did you dislike Tino?”

  “Tino?”

  The lips broke in a smile that immediately vanished. “What’d you hold against him?”

  “Gracchi kidnapped my goddaughter. With your help.”

  “Not true, commissario.”