‘Where to, boss?’ the driver asked. The cab drivers however hadn’t improved. They always seemed to take pleasure in ripping you off.
‘Via Ricciarelli.’
‘Here we go.’
Here we go like hell. It took five minutes just to get out of Piazza Fontana; between turns and one-way streets the trip took almost an hour. Not even Hong Kong was this congested with traffic. Calculating the new exchange rate I paid an alarming amount for the fare.
I got out in front of Ines’ building on Via Ricciarelli close to the San Siro stadium. In my time, the area had been a mess. There was mainly public housing with old men in wifebeaters and little kids who threw stones. Now, it had been given a lick of paint.
Paying a visit to my old friend Ines had seemed like a good idea last night. I was beginning to have some doubts, however. Smoking a cigarette to kill some time, I made a move and went up the stairs. It was cleaner than last time. The walls were painted bright pink, and most of the graffiti was gone. There was also a brand new lift that I only noticed about halfway up. I kept walking, out of breath. Shit, I really needed to get into shape.
Ines’ front door was a nice, bright brown with a welcome mat that looked fresh out of the washer. I rang. A girl in jeans and a cut-off T-shirt with a hoop through her navel opened the door. I saw the belly ring first and then her face. I had to get used to these new trends.
‘Yeah,’ she said annoyingly.
‘Excuse me; I was looking for a woman who used to live here. Her name is Ines.’
The girl blew the nails on her right hand. She was painting them black to match her lipstick and was about halfway through. ‘Mamma! Someone’s here for you.’
Mamma?
When Ines came to the door I almost didn’t recognise her. She was thin, and her face was dried up like a prune. Her grey hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she looked like one of those old ladies that you see walking to church every morning.
‘Can I help you?’
I suddenly forgot the words. ‘I … I … ’
I watched her swallow. ‘Trafficante? Is that you?’
I couldn’t say anything. She stretched her hand out to touch my face, but I stopped her halfway. ‘Santo … You’ve changed. You’re … a gentleman.’
‘Time flies.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Can I come in?’
She glanced over her shoulder. ‘What do you want?’
‘I just want to talk.’ I gestured inside. ‘May I?’
‘Wait here; I’ll come out. My daughter—’
‘No problem.’
As she put on her coat, I tried to gauge her reaction. She seemed scared. We went down to a café that used to be an ironmonger. We ordered two beers and I lit a cigarette. The bartender yelled, ‘Hey, there’s no smoking in here.’
‘Where the hell, are we, in a hospital?’
‘Go and tell the guy that made the law.’
I dropped the cigarette on the floor and put it out with my heel. Ines chewed on her necklace without saying anything.
‘I didn’t know that you had a kid. You look different,’ I said.
‘She was sent to foster homes, but I got her back.’
‘Your husband? Did he leave you?’
‘He had kidney cancer. They sent him home to die.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘That’s life. Santo, why did you come here? I’m clean now.’
‘How long has it been since we’ve seen one another?’
She grew more anxious. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Please don’t ask me questions.’
‘It’s been ten years.’
More than I thought.
‘Did you come here looking for Max?’
‘Max?’
‘Yeah. You came to my place one night, completely out of your mind. You had blood all over your face, it looked like someone had broken your nose, and you were yelling for Max, saying that he’d ripped you off and so on. I hadn’t seen him for a while, and you didn’t believe me and trashed my house. It took me a while to throw you out. You stood there on the landing screaming until the neighbours came out and got rid of you.’
‘So, it was fourteen years this August.’
‘If you say so.’
‘And then we never saw one another again?’
‘No. You had some of your things at my apartment but never came by to get them.’
I lowered my voice. ‘The coke?’ I had left her about fifty grams.
‘I got rid of it. I couldn’t keep it forever.’
She wasn’t lying to me; I could feel it. But leave her the coke? I don’t think so. ‘Do you know why I never came back, Ines?’
She lowered her eyes, ‘No.’
This time she was lying, and I told her so. She got up on her feet and would have bolted out the door had I not grabbed her by the arm.
‘What’s got into you?’
‘Nothing. I have to go back to my daughter.’
‘You can go later, Ines. Don’t piss me off. Tell me the truth.’
Ines looked at the bartender, but he wasn’t interested in our troubles; she’d get no help from him. She sat down, shaking.
‘Promise me that whatever I tell you, you won’t hurt me.’
‘Who the hell do you think I am?’
‘Promise me.’
‘I promise.’ I didn’t know what the hell was going on. ‘So?’
‘It’s because of what happened to you.’
‘What the hell happened?’
‘You don’t really remember, right?’
A thin chill went down my spine. ‘Answer me.’
‘They put you in a mental hospital, that’s what happened.’
3
It was a shock, I have to admit. I tried to shrug it off by drinking my beer, but my throat was closed shut and I almost choked to death. Shit. A nuthouse. No wonder I was out of circulation.
‘Why did they put me in there?’
‘I only know what I heard, but it could be all bullshit.’
‘Tell me anyway.’
This was the story as far as she knew. One fine day some cop found me wandering around, delirious, with my trousers full of my own excrement. First they took me to the hospital and then, seeing that I was still out of my mind, they took me to the psychiatric ward. How long had I been in there? Ines didn’t know. When did I get out? She didn’t know that either. When she saw me at her front door she was convinced that I had just been released.
‘And Max?’
‘Max what?’
‘Where the hell is he?’
‘He stopped hanging out. If he screwed you over, he must’ve taken off somewhere and spent your cash, or maybe they broke his legs again. You weren’t the only person who was after him, you know. Anyway, he didn’t leave a trace.’
I finished my beer; Ines hadn’t touched hers. I got my wallet out and took out a hundred-euro note. ‘For your time,’ I said, giving it to her.
She didn’t touch it. ‘I don’t want your money.’
‘So what do you want?’
‘I don’t want to ever see you again. I left that life, you understand?’
I nodded. ‘Understood.’
She left, and I ordered a sambuca. An asylum. Is it possible that the blow I got to the head was that bad? I was half drunk and high when Max gave me that beating. The fact that I had barked and yelled at Ines seemed likely. And then what? Had I kept walking around yelling and screaming until they came and took me away? I drank the sambuca without tasting it. Maybe the amnesia was only the first sign that my brain was cracking up. Maybe in a while I’d be making puzzles with my own crap again.
The fear from the night before came back. Everything could disappear in a puff of smoke, the café and the table where I was sitting. I could drift away and never come back again. I dug my nails in my palms, and the pain brought me back to reality. I wasn’t disappearing. I was alive, breathing and reasoning, but how long would it last?
As I reflected, a shadow slid past on the other side of the street. It looked familiar. I paid the bill then went outside for a better look.
A cold, damp wind kicked up and the sky was dark. The guy was walking, keeping the flaps of his camelhair overcoat closed. It was that fat guy from the tram. I had no doubt that he was following me. My foul mood turned into anger. I ran up and grabbed him from behind. My idea was to turn him around and punch him in the nose, but he weighed a ton and my body didn’t move like it should’ve done. I felt like I was moving underwater, slowly and clumsily. He fended me off with a slap, and I fell on the pavement.
‘Denti, what the hell are you doing?’ he asked.
I got up, slipped under him, reached, and punched. Slow, too slow. He warded off my swings easily, and then he grabbed me by the arms, pulling my face towards his. Underneath the fat he had muscles, unlike me.
‘Enough.’
‘Let go of me!’ I tried to knee him, but he pushed me away.
‘Enough. Goddammit!’
I looked at him, panting. I couldn’t beat him. I calmed down.
Keeping an eye on me, the guy wiped his mouth with a napkin. He was the type that frothed at the mouth like my secondary school maths teacher who we all avoided because of his bad breath.
‘You didn’t answer your mobile, and at work they said you were at home. I saw you come out, so I followed you,’ he said. ‘If this bothered you I’m sorry, but I’ve got to lay low for a while, and we’ve got some unfinished business.’ He balled up the napkin and put it in his pocket.
‘Unfinished business?’
‘Are you drunk? C’mon, let’s go.’
‘Where?’
‘To my office. Don’t worry, it’s just us.’
‘And what if I don’t want to go?’
‘That would be unfortunate.’ I felt his grip on my arms again. His fingers were long with thumbs like hammers. This freak who read tarot cards at the African Bazaar told me that powerful hands were a sign of homicidal tendencies. I didn’t believe him until that moment. I could have turned on my heel and run, but the guy knew who I was and where I lived. I, on the other hand, had no idea who he was so I had to go with the flow.
‘Fine,’ I said.
He smiled, showing his yellow teeth. His car was parked a few metres away. It was a dirty Fiat that reeked of fags. As he drove he explained that he had followed me until the end of the line and then lost me between the pigeons and the tourists.
‘I thought that you’d taken a taxi, and I found out which one from one from my sources. It’s a part of my job to get the right information. You should know that.’
From his way of doing things, I imagined his job wasn’t something you would find written on a business card, but when we got to his office, in a building next to a construction site filled with excavators and rubble, I had to change my mind.
A tag on the intercom was printed with the outline of a guy with a magnifying glass, made by some novice: Poirot Detective Agency. A private detective. Poirot? It would’ve been funny had I not been so scared.
I peeked while the detective punched in the code on the panel to disengage the alarm: 0000. The door opened to a small room that smelt of dirty socks, with two desks and a computer that was old even during my time. He was packing. There was a pile of papers and folders on the floor, apparently taken randomly from the shelves.
He made me sit in a squeaky chair in front of one of the desks. Dressed in a tacky pinstripe suit, he looked me over. His expression reminded me of a dog that I used to have called Spillo. Spillo came into my life one spring evening, following me home like we were old friends. He was a mutt, a little bigger than the dogs that you’d see in the old portraits you find in museums. The crossbreeding had given him short legs and a sausage shape. The dog was covered with long dirty white hair. He was missing half an ear. The wound didn’t seem to be from a fight; more likely the cause was a crap vet or a psycho who wanted to have some warped fun. He didn’t have a collar and there was no one around looking for him. So I took him home on a whim even though I’d never owned a dog before. I would never own another one afterwards.
Spillo’s main attribute was that he was an expert on the human soul and he knew instantly if he liked someone or not. For some reason, the people he didn’t like, I didn’t like either. For example, he hated cops. He barked even if he saw them passing out of the window. Spillo lasted only a year. I found him one morning under my bed, where he’d gone to pass his last moments in silence.
This guy’s expression was the same as Spillo’s on one of those rare occasions where he couldn’t decide whether to growl or wag his tail. I had no other name to give the guy, so I called him Spillo.
‘Do you have your chequebook on you?’ Spillo said.
‘Yes.’
‘Make two out to yourself and endorse them to me.’ I’ll use them to cover debts with these people who also appreciate discretion. If anyone asks, tell them that you blew it at the roulette table at the Casinò di Campione.’
‘How much did I lose?’
‘Ten thousand, as we agreed.’
‘Ten thousand euros?’
‘It’s a little late to negotiate. The job is done, and I’ve been waiting to collect for a month.’
Whatever he did for me had to have been demanding … or illegal.
‘Just to let you know that as of tomorrow I won’t be here,’ he continued, ‘and I won’t answer the numbers that you know. If there’s an emergency, pass by Esposito’s just like the last time. He’ll know how to find me but it’s better if we avoid one another.’
I didn’t understand a thing, but I preferred not to let on and look confused. The name Esposito was familiar, but it was also a name that was everywhere in Italy, so I didn’t think much about it. I took out the chequebook. I twisted the cap off the Mont Blanc pen with some difficulty. Maybe the Ad Exec just kept it for show and somehow it had rusted shut. It wrote badly, and I used it to write the first cheques of my life. Spillo looked at them then put them in his pocket. Then he got up and took a painting of a lake surrounded by trees from the wall, revealing a hidden combination safe. He opened the door, then threw an envelope at me. ‘Even if you said that you didn’t want them anymore, you paid for them, and they’re yours.’
I opened the envelope expecting something interesting but the surprise was, at best, modest. It contained about ten standard A4 sheets of paper with four columns of numbers. They were phone numbers with strange area codes. For every number there was the date, time and duration of the call.
A private eye, a list of telephone calls.
From what I gathered the Ad Exec had put someone under surveillance and paid big time. On the back of the first page I found the name of the recipient of such great attention. Only the surname, Roveda, was listed. The only Roveda that I knew was a junkie who played guitar in Parco di Trenno, but I doubted that it was the same one.
‘If I were you I’d throw that away immediately. They’re hot, especially now – more than before.’
Before what? I rolled up the envelope, put it in my coat pocket, and left the building. It was only then that I recognised the area. The construction site where the excavators dug was the former Porta Vittoria station. The discovery killed my mood. Another piece of my Milan had been levelled into history, another bad omen. A taxi driver finally noticed my raised arm and pulled over to the pavement. The door opened on its own, sliding to the side. I half-expected it to fly like a hovercraft, but it didn’t, and I travelled normally through the crowded streets. I was so depressed that I didn’t even look at the fabulous new world around me. I had had enough of it already. If only there was some good news for a change.
The only bit of relief that I had was that the day couldn’t get any worse.
I was wrong.
When I got home, the police were there, waiting for me.
4
The cops were coming out of my apartment and I recognised their stench even
though they were undercover. When you had to watch out for them, you learned to spot them, to catch the way they walk and the way they talk. The first one was in his fifties, with a grey moustache, and had the air and stance of a pissed-off southern Italian. The other was younger and looked like the boy who swept up after my old barber. Rosario was closing the door politely, but he reopened it when he caught a glimpse of me turning around to try to get the hell out of there. ‘Good evening, mister.’ Then he added, ‘The police are here.’
‘I see.’
The southerner stretched out his hand, ‘Signor Denti?’
‘Yes.’
‘Detective Augusto Ferolli, Squadra Mobile. This is my partner, Commissario Brambilla.’ He also shook my hand. ‘May we come in and talk for five minutes, if you don’t mind?’
Yeah I mind, a helluva lot. ‘Please come in.’
I had them sit down on the sofa in the living room and, excusing myself, I went to the bathroom. The envelope was burning a hole in my pocket, and it seemed like the cops could smell it too. I flushed the toilet and hid the envelope behind the bathroom cabinet. I made sure that it wasn’t sticking out and then went back.
‘Sorry, but when you gotta go, you gotta go.’
‘No problem,’ Ferolli said.
My hands were sweating. ‘Can I get you a coffee? Maybe a whisky?’
‘No, thank you.’ Ferolli had a heavy Sicilian accent. ‘We apologise for showing up like this, but your office receptionist said that you weren’t feeling well.’
‘Yes, that’s true, and then I felt better and went for a walk.’
‘I see.’
‘Hey, don’t tell the office.’ I winked.
Ferolli didn’t react. ‘That’s none of our business. Naturally, you know why we’re here.’
‘What, am I double-parked? Ho, ho.’
They weren’t amused.
‘No, Signor Denti. I’m sorry to have to tell you, but I have some bad news.’ He paused. ‘Last night,’ he said gravely, ‘our colleagues over at Porta Genova found the corpse of Signor Roveda.’
He looked hard at me, studying my reaction. Roveda! The phone records! That’s why Spillo was blowing town!
In a Heartbeat Page 4