Everyone in Their Place

by Maurizio de Giovanni

  “Brigadie’, please forgive me, but this morning we literally had a parade through here. A freighter came in, and there were more than three hundred sailors who haven’t seen dry land for a year. Genoans, Portuguese, Russians: a veritable Babylonia! I haven’t managed to get a bite to eat all day, now I have a moment to recover. I hear that it’s the same in every bordello in Naples.”

  Bambinella listened raptly to her friend, as if she were describing a safari in equatorial Africa, and darted proud glances at Maione from time to time.

  “No, don’t think twice, in fact I hope you don’t mind that we showed up at this time of day without calling ahead. The brigadier, here, just wants to ask you a couple of questions, you answer freely, and don’t worry: I can vouch for him.”

  Maione snorted in annoyance, shooting rapid, suffering glances at the uneaten chunks of bread and tomato still littering the table.

  “Eh, so it’s come to this: I need a recommendation from Bambinella! Now then, Signorina: what’s your name?”

  The girl proved to be amiable and intelligent. Her name was Gilda, just as Bambinella had said, and she came from the Rione del Vasto, a neighborhood behind the train station. The fifth-eldest of nine children, she’d gone to work as a housemaid at age sixteen because her family could no longer afford to feed her. Now that she was twenty-two, she earned enough in her current line of work to maintain her four younger siblings and her mother. Their father had vanished, three years earlier, and had never been heard from again. “Either he’s dead or he shipped out,” she said, her jaws working industriously all the while, and without a hint of regret.

  When she decided to become a housemaid, she’d been hired immediately by the Capece family, whose income was climbing along with the brilliant newspaper career of the head of the family. Gilda described a time that was not so much wealthy as hopeful, a household full of penny-pinching as well as laughter. “But it wasn’t weird,” she said, “because the signora helped me with the housekeeping and I helped her with the children.”

  The Capece family had two children: Andrea and Giovanna; Andrea, the boy, was the elder of the two. When Gilda decided to quit after the first year, Andrea had been twelve and Giovanna was seven.

  “So now,” Maione calculated, “they’re sixteen and eleven.”

  “Yes,” said Gilda. “And he’s become a handsome young man. I wonder if I’ll find him on top of me in here, some of these days.”

  Gilda knew what Andrea looked like now because every so often, up until a couple of years ago, she’d gone by to say hello to the Capece family; she had fond memories of her time there.

  “But then I didn’t want to go back. The last time was just too weird,” she said again.

  Maione didn’t understand.

  “What do you mean, too weird?”

  Gilda seemed to shudder at the memory, despite the heat.

  “It was like going to pay a call on a family of dead people, Brigadie’. Everything was different.”

  “How, everything was different how? What do you mean?”

  The girl hesitated before answering. Bambinella, who was sitting beside her and holding her hand, squeezed it quickly to encourage her. She looked over at her friend and went on:

  “The family I remembered was poor but they were happy. They treated me like a daughter; we were always lauging together. The signora would sit down next to me and teach me everything, how to cook, how to sew. She used to say that later on, once I’d found a husband and started a family of my own, I’d know how to do it all. Then I . . . well, my life went the way it did. I don’t regret a thing, eh. But I expected that Signora Sofia, the wife, would dress me down, that she’d tell me I’d done wrong.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Instead, when I went to see them, she sat me down in the drawing room, like a grand lady. I felt uncomfortable, I wanted to go sit in the kitchen. But she insisted, she said, come sit in here. You made the right decision, I’m the one who chose the wrong life. And the apartment . . .”

  Maione was sensitive to every detail.

  “The apartment? What had happened to the apartment?”

  The girl tossed her yellow-tinted head of hair.

  “No, no, nothing had really happened. It was all the same. But still it seemed . . . dead, everything was dead. The little girl sitting at the table, studying, white as a sheet, she barely said hello to me. The boy, Andrea, gave me a big strong hug, and then he left the room, right away, as if he was ashamed or something. But the signora talked and talked to me, I thought she’d never stop.”

  “And what did she talk about?”

  “She talked about the old days, about when I lived there with them. She talked about her husband, as if he was dead though, as if he was a memory from long ago. Without hatred. She didn’t say anything to me about it, but maybe she knew that I’d heard all about the affair with the duchess. Everyone’s heard about it. And her, too, Brigadie’: her eyes were empty. As if they’d taken her heart out of her, her stomach, her brain, everything inside her. And that’s why I said, before, that it seemed weird to me. And that I don’t ever want to go back there.”

  A long silence followed. Bambinella was stroking her girlfriend’s hand, as if she were consoling her for some loss. While Gilda was telling her story, she’d never altered her tone of voice; but now she wore an expression of profound sadness. The splotches of tomato sauce around her mouth made her look like a little girl playing at being a grown-up.

  After a pause, Maione asked:

  “Now listen to me carefully, Gilda: do you remember by any chance whether there was a pistol in the apartment? Think as hard as you can and try to remember: this is important to us.”

  The girl was about to answer the question, then she stopped. She looked at Bambinella, and then at the brigadier, and said:

  “The master of the house served in the war, he was an officer. His pistol is locked up in the desk drawer, one time he showed it to me to throw a scare into me, and he had a good laugh at my expense, too. But he keeps it locked up, and he has the only key.”

  XXVIII

  When Ricciardi and Maione met up again at headquarters, night had already fallen. The brigadier brought back the information he’d gathered from his round of bars and dives, from Bambinella, and from Gilda, the maid-turned-prostitute.

  For his part, Ricciardi was evasive, skimming over the results of his personal investigation; it wasn’t that he didn’t want to share his information, but he thought that the trail he was following might prove to be dangerous—even just knowing about it—and he preferred to leave Maione in the dark. At least for now.

  Every piece of information that they’d gathered on Capece and Musso seemed to strengthen the impression of guilt for both of them. And, paradoxically, the stronger the impression became that each of them was the murderer, the less there seemed to be any solid evidence proving it. It was a real stumper.

  Just as they were trying to determine their new investigative strategies, they heard a nervous tapping at the door of Ricciardi’s office. Maione gave him a knowing look:

  “If you ask me, it’s that snake, Ponte. He’s the only one who’ll knock on the door the same way he talks and the way he looks you in the face: all hesitant, without conviction. Listen to him: he’s practically scratching like a dog.”

  Ricciardi sighed and called out: “Avanti!”

  It was Ponte, of course, sweatier and more nervous than before.

  “Commissario, buona sera. I’m here to ask you to come straight up to Dottor Garzo’s office. He said right away, immediately, in other words. Please, come with me.”

  After such a grueling day, the last thing that Ricciardi felt like was resisting the little man’s darting, evasive gaze; moreover, even if he couldn’t say so to Maione, he was curious to hear what new objections the deputy chief of police had to make. And so he caught both the brigadier and Ponte by surprise when he stood up and said, agreeably:

  “Did he say right a
way? Then we’ll come right away.”

  They found the deputy chief of police pacing back and forth in his office, like a lion in a cage; his collar was unbuttoned, his tie was loosened, his jacket was draped over a hanger, and his vest swung open. On his desk, normally so immaculate, with only a few neatly stacked files, were scattered sheets of notepaper with transcriptions of official transcribed phone messages, various documents, and broken pencils. As soon as he saw Ricciardi and Maione come in, he started to berate them:

  “I warned you two! You can’t say I didn’t warn you! It’s exactly what I expected to happen, and now it’s happened. Now what do we do, Ricciardi? What now? Tell me what you plan to do now, why don’t you?”

  Ricciardi didn’t blink. He stood there, hands in his pockets, his lock of hair hanging over his forehead, a half-smile playing over his lips. Garzo stood seething, waiting for an answer. Maione and Ponte, behind Ricciardi, were both wondering what the commissario would say now. Ricciardi shrugged briefly and said:

  “If you don’t tell me what’s happened, I don’t very well see what I can tell you.”

  This time Garzo had no intention of allowing himself to be lulled by Ricciardi’s tone of voice.

  “The publisher of the Roma called. And do you know who he called? He called me! Not the chief of police, as he ought to have done. The bastard called me directly, knowing full well who’s in charge of day-to-day operations.”

  “And are you in charge of day-to-day operations?”

  Garzo was too upset to catch the ironic tone of voice.

  “And do you know what he said? He said that it’s his intention to run an article lambasting the intolerable methods being used by the police. That the police, without any solid evidence, and let me repeat that, without any solid evidence, are actually conducting newsroom raids. Now do you understand? An article in the newspaper! And it’s all your fault, you and your trusty sidekick here!”

  He’d finished up with a flourish, pointing a finger at Maione and panting. He was truly beside himself. Ricciardi replied in the same tone of voice as before, as if he were asking him whether he’d like a cup of espresso.

  “I’m glad you asked us to come upstairs, Dottore. If I’d known that you were still in your office at this hour, a highly unusual state of affairs, I’d have already come to talk to you. I need to request an authorization.”

  Garzo blinked furiously, as if he’d just woken up from a particularly bad dream.

  “Authorization? What authorization?”

  “Authorization to search the residence of Mario Capece, chief news editor of the daily newspaper, the Roma, and question the members of his family.”

  Mamma santa, thought Maione. This guy’s gonna have a heart attack any second now. And in fact Garzo seemed to be struggling to stand upright. He paled visibly, took a couple of steps backward, felt around behind him with one hand until he found the arm of his chair, and let himself flop down into it, with a dull thump. His mouth gaped silently until he was finally able to take in a mouthful of air and he exhaled. At last he said, in a faint voice:

  “What, Capece? Haven’t you heard a word I said to you? What I just told you is—”

  “I know exactly what you just told me. The fact is that today’s investigations have revealed a number of important elements. We now have good cause to believe that the Duchess of Camparino had just recently begun having an affair. A different one.”

  Garzo was having difficulty catching his breath.

  “Another affair? With who?”

  Ricciardi showed no pity.

  “I’m not yet ready to tell you the name, Dottore. But this person holds one of the highest offices in the city administration.”

  Garzo felt as if he’d just been shot. One of the highest offices? Which one? Faces swam past his mind’s eye: the prefect, an older man who commanded an immense and loyal following in Rome; the high commissioner, who’d been appointed directly by the Duce; and the chief of police, who was waiting eagerly for him to make a false step so he could rid himself of a formidable rival.

  Ricciardi and Maione almost felt as if they could hear the cogs grinding away in the deputy police chief’s brain as it feverishly processed this new information. A catastrophe. He could see a catastrophe looming. Once he felt sure that his superior officer had taken in the scope and dimension of the problem, Ricciardi continued:

  “And so, unless we can move quickly to exclude Capece from the short list of potential suspects or else, an equally practicable alternative, charge him with the murder beyond any reasonable doubt, then we’ll inevitably be forced to reveal that it was his jealousy over this new affair of the duchess’s that drove him to make that jealous scene the other night. And we’d have to reveal the name of . . . the other man.”

  Garzo shot to his feet, as if someone had just jabbed him in the derriere with a hatpin.

  “No! Never! This must never happen, Ricciardi. You understand that, don’t you? We’d be playing into their hands, giving them a chance to strip me of the . . . strip us of the necessary investigative independence. What do you plan to do, to prevent such a development?”

  Ricciardi shrugged his shoulders once again, keeping his hands in his pockets. His tone of voice became even vaguer than before.

  “Hmmm, I don’t really know. Maybe, if we could find the weapon used in the murder, we could just arrest Capece without bringing up the matter at all. It’s not in his interest, either; from what we’re able to determine, he had a fair number of reasons to be jealous, so why would he want to make a number of powerful enemies before going to trial? And if we don’t find the weapon, we could start looking elsewhere once we’re done: perhaps the murderer was someone else.”

  Garzo pondered the implications of what Ricciardi had just told him for a minute. In the end, he saw the light. A slow, broadening smile spread across his face like a river reaching the ocean. Still, a large bright red patch remained on his neck.

  “Yes. Yes, yes. Yes. That’s fine, Ricciardi, you’ll have your authorization. Do as you suggest. But for the love of all that’s holy, make sure that no one hears about the . . . the other thing. No one. Ever. Tomorrow morning, you’ll have the document on your desk first thing. And one more thing . . . Grazie.”

  As they left Garzo’s office, Maione was beside himself with excitement.

  “Commissa’, this time you practically laid that poor sap out flat. But what’s all this talk about another affair? I gather you invented it out of whole cloth, but what was the purpose? It won’t take even a fool like Garzo more than a day or two to figure out that there’s no third party.”

  Ricciardi shot a quick glance behind him to make sure that there was no one eavesdropping. With people like Ponte, you could never be sure.

  “I had no alternative: I had to raise the stakes. Otherwise he’d bind us and gag us, and then we wouldn’t have been able to move an inch. Instead, I feel pretty confident that with either Ettore or Capece something’s really about to come to the surface. The information you uncovered today, about the pistol at the Capece home, is the only concrete thing we’ve come up with, and we absolutely have to go. I’ll say it again, this was the only possible way.”

  Maione took off his cap and scratched his head.

  “Then what can I tell you, Commissa’? You’ve done the right thing. And may the Lord Almighty set our feet on the right path.”

  Sofia Capece was chopping onions and thinking about animals. About herbivorous animals, to be exact.

  She was thinking that even the gentlest animals, the ones at the end of the food chain, the most non-aggressive animals, the ones without claws or fangs, could still become violent and dangerous. They turned vicious if they saw their young endangered. And it was the females, the ones charged with the preservation of the species, who were responsible for the birth and protection of the young, and who had to make up for the shortcomings of the males, the males that were out hunting or on some other foolish pursuit, leaving lairs and caver
ns unguarded.

  She was determined to defend her home and her young. She could not allow a mistake made by their father to dangerously undermine their future. This was her duty, as the Duce himself had said more than once.

  As she made dinner for her children and her husband, who probably wouldn’t come home that night, either, Sofia smiled as she considered the fact that in the end the deadliest of all animals is the female of the species. The male kills, struggles, and bellows. The female defends. Because, while the male may be strong, the female is cunning.

  *

  Enrica was chopping onions and thinking how stupid she’d been.

  Perhaps her mother had a point when she said that a woman’s mission is to find a husband and have children. That there was no point in waiting for the love of your life, bcause what really matters most is to have a home of your own and the safety of a strong presence at your side. Perhaps Sebastiano, in all his obtuse fatuousness, devoid of mystery and allure though he might be, would have provided that presence, and might never have failed her: a solid shopkeeper on the Via Toledo, which was what her father had always been, after all.

  And yet Enrica couldn’t see that her father and Sebastiano Fiore had anything in common: her father was a dreamer, he had progressive, liberal political ideas, generous impulses, and a deep-rooted sense of honor; the other man thought only of frivolous things, and didn’t strike her as much of a worker, for that matter.

  But what alternatives did she have? Instinctively, she looked toward the dark window on the opposite side of the vicolo. A lonely, enigmatic man, with a hard, dangerous job, feared by everyone and perhaps hated too. Probably dating a woman who looked like she’d just stepped down from the silver screen, where she was playing a gangster’s moll.

  No, her mother was certainly right: better to just stick with Sebastiano, and think no more about it.