The Colombian Mule

by Massimo Carlotto

  Rossini and I glanced at each other. ‘So they’ve decided to pin it on Corradi, right?’ I asked, even though I already knew the answer.

  ‘Yeah. They’ve got the backing of Commissario Nunziante so they’re feeling pretty relaxed about it,’ Mansutti replied.

  ‘Get yourself home,’ I told him.

  ‘Please don’t tell anybody what I’ve just told you. If they find out I’ve talked, I’m finished,’ Mansutti begged.

  I lit a cigarette. ‘Well, we’ll have to tell someone about it, but we won’t mention your name. You just take it easy, keep a low profile and everything will work out fine.’

  We stood up. Before leaving the booth, Rossini turned again to Mansutti, looked him in the eye and hissed, ‘Don’t ever again show me disrespect.’

  Max was waiting for us in his study. He listened carefully to the story Mansutti had told us.

  ‘Let me get this straight. Mansutti is saying that two Colombians had themselves arrested just to get into prison so they could poison a mule. It doesn’t add up. Arías Cuevas was small fry. Why put two killers to such trouble? Anyway, if they really were caught red-handed it would be in the papers somewhere.’ Max got up and started to thumb through recent copies of Nuova Venezia. ‘Here it is!’ he exclaimed after a couple of minutes, waving a page from the paper at us.

  GANG OF SOUTH AMERICANS ARRESTED

  AT DEPARTMENT STORE

  A professional gang of foreign thieves was arrested yesterday at a department store in Mestre. Pretending not to understand any Italian, they took advantage of the confusion they had created to hide the stolen goods. They are to be tried on a fast-track procedure and deported from Italy, in line with the government’s new strategy for combatting foreign racketeers.

  Beneath the story the paper carried the mugshots of Alacrán, Jaramillo and their girlfriends.

  Max looked at me. ‘You need to ask your Paris contact for some information on this. We’ve got to understand what’s going on.’

  ‘You’re right.’ I looked at my watch. It was just after four in the morning. Too bad. I’d have to wake up Alessio Sperlinga.

  ‘Ciliegia, it’s me.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Alligator. I was fast asleep.’

  ‘Did you get anything?’

  ‘Yeah, I did. I got some photos for you. I was going to send them yesterday but I didn’t have the time.’

  ‘Can you do it now?’

  ‘Is it really that urgent?’

  ‘If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have woken you up.’

  An hour later a page of notes and a couple of photos arrived at Fat Max’s email address. He printed everything out and we immediately compared the pictures he had received with the ones in the newspaper. The newspaper mugshot of ‘Alberto Jumenez Jamba’ matched that of Aurelio Uribe Barragán, aka Alacrán. The notes that Ciliegia’s Colombian friends had supplied identified this Alacrán as a hit man belonging to the syndicate run by Rosa Gonzales Cuevas, aka La Tía, a former member of the Medellin cartel currently active in Bogotá. Guillermo Arías Cuevas had been her nephew, but was described as a hanger-on of no importance. Alacrán, on the other hand, was described as a highly dangerous killer. He was believed to have served in the Colombian special forces and to have been sentenced to death by the Colombian guerrillas to avenge the numerous political militants and campesinos he had murdered.

  The other photograph matched none of those published in Nuova Venezia. It portrayed La Tía in the arms of a young woman.

  Old Rossini poured himself a vodka. ‘Things are suddenly a lot clearer. Auntie Rosa has had her nephew whacked because she knew he was a piece of trash and might squeal.’

  ‘You have to hand it to them, they’ve been both cunning and skillful,’ Max commented. ‘Without running much risk—admittedly with a fair amount of luck on their side—they managed to get close enough to the mule to poison him and then get themselves flown back home courtesy of the Italian police.’

  I looked at the photo of the gang leader. ‘The problem is, what do we do now? As far as the murder of the mule is concerned, with the information in our possession, Bonotto could probably put Corradi in the clear. But, as for the trafficking charges, we’re back where we started. The way things are looking, Corradi will die in jail.’

  Rossini yawned. ‘We’re just going to have to start sifting through everyone on the scene who deals Colombian coke until we lay our hands on the mule’s Italian offloader. We’ve no other option.’

  We all agreed. ‘We’ll make a start this evening,’ Rossini added, as he went out the door.

  I slept for a couple of hours, then got up and jumped under the shower. While shaving, I observed my face in the mirror. I didn’t like what I saw. I was ageing. I opened the bathroom cabinet and took down a jar of face cream that Virna had given me for Christmas. She must have bought it in some kind of health-food store. It was aimed at men and claimed to have a ‘day-and-night anti-wrinkle effect’. I smeared some on my face, massaging gently, as recommended in the instructions. Then I got dressed.

  There was a time when I used to dress like a blues singer from Louisiana: garish shirts made of raw silk, blue jeans, and python or alligator boots. Unfortunately, this made me too conspicuous and the cops got me in their sights. In the end I was forced to change my look. I now wore corduroy suits, sea-blue shirts and glove-leather shoes. Virna was in charge of my wardrobe. Every now and then she would drag me along to a store and choose my clothes.

  I stepped out of my flat cursing the icy weather and got into my Skoda. Twenty minutes later I parked outside Bonotto’s law office. The secretary told him I was waiting to see him and he came out to greet me. His office was tastefully furnished with antique furniture and the walls were decorated with old prints. I told him what we had found out.

  ‘Is your source reliable?’ he asked.

  ‘Completely. He’s a prison officer at Santa Maria Maggiore. I’m confident that events unfolded precisely as I have described. Unfortunately, I can’t give you his name. I’m sure you can imagine the reasons why.’

  ‘Of course, Buratti, of course. I’ll go to Venice later this morning and have a word with the prison governor and his deputy. I’m sure we can find a way of safeguarding their careers, while obviating the need for my client to stand trial.’

  I lit a cigarette. ‘This evening we’re going to start making some enquiries among drug dealers, checking out those who sell Colombian cocaine. We want to see if we can identify the mule’s Italian contact. It’s something of a long shot, but right now we have no other leads. Actually, that’s not altogether true. There is one other lead I haven’t yet mentioned to you. We thought it best to rule it out right from the outset given that it involves both the police and the Guardia di Finanza.’

  The lawyer knit his brows. Before he had time to take offence, I related to him everything that the owner of the Pen­sione Zodiaco had told us.

  ‘Do you think he could be useful to us if we put him on the stand and cross-examined him?’

  I shook my head. ‘He doesn’t pay his taxes and is terrified of a visit from the Finanza. He’ll say whatever the cops want him to say. I’m afraid you can put him down as a hostile witness.’

  Bonotto said nothing for a couple of minutes. Then he suddenly thumped the table. ‘I can’t make any damn sense of all the comings and goings of the investigators at the hotel. I have to tell you, Buratti, this case has got me really worried. I’ve always steered clear of defending drug dealers and as a result have no experience in this kind of trial. Any mistake I make could ruin Corradi’s chances.’

  I shrugged. It was time for some plain speaking. ‘Venice Police headquarters have received hard information to the effect that your client did in fact kill the two cops outside the jeweler’s shop in Caorle. This is the real nub of it. If Corradi goes to trial on these trafficking charges, you can bet your lif
e that some high-ranking official or other will slip the court judges the information on the killing just before they retire to consider their verdict, and Corradi will get the maximum sentence. The only way we can save him is if we turn up some really incontrovertible evidence of his innocence, leaving the judge no choice but to release him. In Italy, as you said yourself, trials are won or lost at the investigation stage. After that, it’s too late.’

  Bonotto looked troubled. He removed his glasses and cleaned them with a white handkerchief. ‘I was so sure he was innocent. I defended him with passion . . .’

  ‘It was my duty to inform you, Avvocato. Does it change anything, now that you know?’

  ‘No, it doesn’t. The evidence brought against him was entirely circumstantial. Besides, as a lawyer, it’s my job to defend my client to the best of my ability.’

  ‘Will you still defend him with the same passion as before?’

  Bonotto sighed. ‘Yes, I will. I’d much rather he wasn’t guilty of a double murder. Those men had families. And besides, Corradi lied to me. He swore on the heads of his dead parents that he was innocent.’

  ‘That was another bad mistake. One should never lie to one’s own defense lawyer. Listen. If you don’t feel up to defending him, drop the case.’

  ‘I can’t do that. I’ll defend him. But it’s the last time.’

  I got up and shook his hand.

  That evening we began to scour the nightclubs, lap-dance joints, discotheques, cafés, and bars of every description in and around Venice. We very quickly realized we were hunting for the proverbial needle in a haystack.

  Whereas heroin was now the drug of the most desperate, marginalized section of society, most users of cocaine and ecstasy-like synthetic substances were pretty ordinary people leading pretty ordinary lives, and their use of drugs was essentially recreational. Coke in particular had become really popular. The world was full of fine upstanding people who somehow felt the need to get out of their heads at weekends. Dealers had no trouble at all selling coke because buyers were prepared to go out of their way to get hold of it.

  It was an amazing money-spinner, expanding day by day. We came across business people, sales assistants, young factory workers, all with their pockets stuffed with cash, purchasing coke from big-mouthed wealthy dealers. We recognized quite a few of them from prison and got talking. They told us how things had changed with the arrival of the new foreign-based mafias. The entire market was spiralling out of control. Russians, Nigerians, Croats, the Neapolitan Camorra, the Sicilian Mafia: they had all carved out a slice of the action. And there were the independents, springing up like mushrooms from nowhere at all. Nobody was chasing them any longer. It wasn’t like the days when the local Brenta Mafia ran things.

  Antonio Soldan, nicknamed Zanza, a former con-artist who had thrown everything he had into coke dealing, was in the mood to talk. ‘Right now . . . say your company’s in a spot of trouble, or you fancy opening a shop, or there’s something you’re hankering after, like you want to treat yourself to a boat, or something . . . you take a trip to Bolivia or Colombia, buy some coke, put it in a condom, stick it up your lady’s fanny, and you’re away.’

  Like everyone else, Soldan had no idea who Arías Cuevas’ buyer could have been. ‘It’s almost certainly an independent operator or even some completely new channel. The way things are now, it’s anybody’s guess.’

  In a salsa and merengue dance-club, we bumped into Victoria, Corradi’s woman. She was with three Colombian hostesses who had a night off and were out to have a good time. We joined them at their table. Victoria was feeling sorry for herself and had had a glass too many. ‘They didn’t let me see Nazzareno. They said he was in solitary.’

  I laid my hand on her arm. ‘In a couple of days, you’ll be able to go and visit him, you’ll see. Just this morning, his lawyer went along to the prison to have a word with the governor.’

  Victoria’s lips curled. ‘That lawyer! He isn’t doing anything for Nazzareno. All he knows how to do is ask for money.’

  Until he overheard this remark, Rossini had been talking and joking with the other girls, but he now weighed in hard.

  ‘Go home and go to bed. You’re beginning to talk crap. It sure as hell wasn’t his lawyer that put your man behind bars.’

  I looked at Rossini. ‘Leave her alone.’

  ‘Look. This lady’s man is in prison. She’s got to learn how to behave. If she carries on like this, sooner or later it’ll affect Nazzareno.’

  I let it go. Rossini was a gangster of the old school. He took the view that the need to abide by certain rules extended to prisoners’ family members.

  We got up and left the club, having decided we had spent enough time nosing around among drug dealers for one night. We went back to La Cuccia. It had already closed and I was relieved to discover that Virna had gone home. We knocked on Max’s door. ‘I was expecting you,’ he said, handing us a couple of glasses, Calvados and vodka.

  ‘How did it go?’ he asked.

  ‘Badly,’ I replied. I gave him a quick summary of our investigations, concluding with an account of the way Rossini had laid into Corradi’s woman.

  ‘It’ll have done her nothing but good,’ Rossini growled. ‘How many kids in prison have we seen go out of their minds before trial because their girlfriends or mothers and fathers put it into their heads that their lawyers are not defending them properly? They end up doing something stupid, like insulting a screw, and pick up a conviction for defamation or, worse, get knifed in the back during a brawl.’

  Max glanced at me and shrugged. ‘Rossini’s right, damn it. A prisoner’s mental balance is a delicate thing, especially just before trial.’

  ‘Look,’ I snorted, ‘right now I don’t particularly want to get bogged down in the intricate psychology of prisoners awaiting trial. I’d rather we decided how to proceed with this investigation. We can’t waste any more evenings on wild goose chases.’

  Max switched on his computer. He had dug out all the articles from the local press on investigations into Colombian cocaine trafficking and saved them in a file.

  ‘The only interesting snippet I came across relates to the arrest of a schoolteacher in a discotheque in Dolo, near Venice.’ An article from Nuova Venezia, published a couple of months previously, came up on the screen.

  SCHOOLTEACHER ARRESTED WHILE SELLING

  COCAINE TO CHILDREN IN DISCO—EDUCATION AUTHORITY CONVENES EMERGENCY SESSION

  From classroom to cell block in a matter of hours, all thanks to the Carabinieri!

  Annibale Tavan, 42, a math and science teacher at the Sandro Pertini secondary school in Chioggia, was arrested yesterday at a discotheque in Gaia di Dolo where he was caught selling cocaine. During the week, Tavan was a respected schoolteacher, above all suspicion. But on Saturday nights, he allegedly turned into a drug dealer, selling top-quality cocaine and ecstasy to children little older than those he taught in class. The arrest was the result of prompt action taken by the Carabinieri of Chioggia.

  The article continued with statements from Carabiniere officers, Tavan’s staffroom colleagues and some of the parents of his students. Max had underlined in red the section of the article that was of most interest for our investigations: ‘The Carabinieri are now looking for Tavan’s supplier. So far their enquiries indicate that Tavan has not travelled abroad at all in the last four years.’

  I poured myself some Calvados. ‘What makes you think this is worth following up?’

  Max scratched his paunch with his fingertips. ‘It’s just possible that the schoolteacher gave the cops a tip-off, enabling them to arrest the Colombian at the airport. It’s only a hunch, but none of the other investigations covered by the press are of any interest at all.’

  I turned to Rossini. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘It’s worth a try,’ he answered.

  I moved back to
the computer screen and read the article through again, taking my time. Alongside the report of the arrest, there was an interview with the man in charge of drugs rehab programmes in Mestre:

  COCAINE NOW THE MOST POPULAR DRUG—

  9% OF ALL SCHOOL STUDENTS IN MESTRE

  SAY THEY HAVE TRIED IT

  Cocaine use is now extremely widespread among young people throughout our region. We are very concerned that increasing numbers of teenagers are becoming regular cocaine users. It’s cheap and easily available on the streets. Second only to cocaine in popularity are ecstasy and the so-called new drugs. With these substances, kids are playing a kind of Russian roulette, often taking them precisely because they don’t know what their effect will be. In reality their effect depends essentially on the kind of substance that the chemists playing around with the basic compound arrive at.

  And it’s a race against time. The moment a substance gets classified as a drug and placed on the prohibited list, the producers come up with a new one kids feel they have to try. Taking ‘E’ is becoming a highly risky business now that its manufacture is increasingly in the hands of East European chemists. There is no way of knowing what kind of ingredients they use.

  An idea flashed through my mind but failed to take solid shape, dissolving almost instantly in a mix of alcohol and tiredness.

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ I announced.

  Rossini gave me an affectionate slap on the cheek. ‘I’ll pick you up after lunch. Make sure you’re awake.’

  To find out who had supplied the schoolteacher with cocaine, we agreed that the first thing to do was pay a visit to the man in charge of security at the Gaia di Dolo discotheque where Tavan had been arrested. Most chief bouncers are police informants and, according to the information Rossini had gathered that morning, Giovanni Scrivo was no exception. As a former security guard and one-time kickboxing champion, by the age of forty Scrivo was tired of risking his life standing around outside banks and had turned instead to the lush pastures of nightclub security.