We drove to his house, an anonymous little villa not far from Mira with a panoramic view over the chemical works at Miralanza. His wife, a charming and discreet Filipino, opened the door to us, then called her husband and disappeared. We stood by the open door and waited for a few minutes until Scrivo arrived, barefoot, in nothing but a pair of jeans, displaying a powerful chest and arms the size of Parma hams.
He scrutinized us with expert care. ‘What can I do for you?’ he asked, planting his feet squarely on the floor.
Rossini leaned on the door jamb and calmly lit a cigarette. Maybe Karate Kid didn’t scare him, but he sure scared the wits out of me. From that distance he could kickbox me in the teeth before I had a clue what was happening. I summoned up all my courage. ‘We figure it was you who gave Tavan to the cops. We don’t give a shit about it. It’s none of our business,’ I quickly added, to reassure him. ‘What we’re after is the name of the individual who supplied the school-teacher with Colombian coke. You must know who it was. It’s got to be another of the regulars at the discotheque. What’s more, it’s reasonable to assume you’ve sold him to the police too. And, since the papers haven’t carried any news about his arrest, he must have skipped out just in time.’
The bouncer stared at Rossini. ‘Are you going to leave here on your own legs or must I tell my wife to call a couple of ambulances?’
I snapped my fingers to regain Scrivo’s attention. ‘This here is Beniamino Rossini. If you lay a finger on him, he’ll come back and shoot you.’
Scrivo nodded slowly. ‘I’ve heard of you. From Milan, right? There’s a rumour going round that you’re the guy that killed Tristano Castelli’s soldiers last year.’
Rossini gave him an ugly grin. ‘Yeah, I’ve heard those rumours.’
Scrivo scratched his densely carpeted chest, lost in thought.
‘It’ll cost you.’
I pulled a couple of 50,000 lire notes from the inside pocket of my jacket. The bouncer quickly stuffed them into his jeans. ‘The guy’s name is Fernando Maiorino. He lives not far from here, at Spinea. Since the schoolteacher was arrested, Maiorino’s been missing, evading arrest. But his business is all concentrated in this area so he won’t have gone far.’
‘Is that it?’ I asked.
‘Well, as it happens, I do have another piece of information.’
I pulled out another two notes. ‘Is it worth hearing?’
Scrivo shrugged. ‘Let’s just say you’re not the only people looking for Maiorino. As well as the police, obviously.’
I handed him the money.
‘The other evening, this lady showed up at the discotheque. South American, about fifty, with a young girl in tow. She paid me in dollars to tell her the name of Tavan’s supplier, and then asked for a list of other people who peddle Colombian coke.’
Rossini and I exchanged glances. I had the photos of Alacrán and La Tía in my pocket. I showed Scrivo the photo of La Tía.
‘Yeah, that’s her. It’s not the same girl though. This one’s a blonde and she’s uglier and fatter.’
‘It would be best if you didn’t report any part of this conversation to the cops,’ Rossini advised in a flat tone of voice.
‘Then I won’t,’ said Scrivo. ‘I wouldn’t want to end up like
Castelli’s men.’ He turned his back on us and closed the door.
‘So La Tía is still around,’ I said, getting into the car.
Rossini started the engine. ‘Right. She’s obviously looking for her nephew’s offloader so she can go into business with him.’
‘Do you reckon it’s Maiorino?’
‘Hard to say. Even if at first sight he seems a likely candidate.’
‘What are we going to do? Try and track La Tía via the dealer?’
‘That’s far too long and complicated. If she’s holed up somewhere in the Colombian community, she shouldn’t be so hard to locate.’
It was a Colombian hostess working at the Diana nightclub in the small town of Mansuè, near Treviso, who put us on the right track to discovering La Tía’s hiding-place. One night at work she had been talking to a cousin of hers who said she had overheard another Colombian hostess saying that a lady from Bogotá with links to the narcos had arrived in the area. The girl who had mentioned this fact was staying at Da Gianna, a cheap hotel in Jesolo regularly used by Colombian hostesses from the specific Bogotá barrio over which La Tía reigned supreme. The girl at the Diana advised us to steer clear of the lady in question and begged us not to inform any of her fellow-countrywomen that she had supplied us information regarding La Tía’s whereabouts. This cost us 100,000 lire and a couple of gin and tonics.
Da Gianna turned out to be virtually identical to Pensione Zodiaco where Corradi had been arrested: tacky Sixties furnishings, family atmosphere, and full board for just 80,000 lire. The only real difference was that during the quieter winter months Signora Gianna, the landlady, let rooms to Colombian girls and didn’t take too much interest in nighttime comings and goings.
Doing business with Signora Gianna was a pleasure. She was much more affable and less timorous than her fellow hotelier at the Zodiaco. Short, chubby and sixtyish, she wore a dress with a reckless neckline. On her head she had a huge chignon from which several ringlets escaped to decorate her temples. Her face was rather heavily made-up.
Old Rossini paraded the gallant smile that he reserved for special occasions. ‘Bella Signora,’ he began, ‘we are enquiring after two Colombian lady friends. One is about fifty and the other about twenty . . .’
Signora Gianna studied the numerous rings on her finger and checked her perfectly varnished nails. ‘Signora Luisa Teresa Fonseca Trompiez and Signorina Alexandra Nieto Bernal. A pair of puffed-up dykes.’
‘That’s them.’
The landlady assumed an air of impertinence. ‘I would need to look at the register. For all I know, they may have checked out by now.’
I placed some 50,000 lire notes on the reception desk.
‘They’re still here but right now they’re out,’ she said in a matter-of-fact voice, pocketing the money.
‘We’d like to wait for them in their rooms, give them a little surprise,’ Rossini suggested.
Signora Gianna sighed. ‘Well, you certainly don’t look like the police. You’re not intending to make any trouble in my hotel, are you?’
Rossini took her chin gently between two fingers. ‘None at all, Bella Signora, just a little chat between friends.’
‘Another fifty thousand each and I’ll show you upstairs.’
I paid without a murmur and Signora Gianna led the way, tripping lightly on her high-heeled gold-painted sandals.
The room’s furniture consisted of a double bed, a wardrobe, a table, two chairs, a minibar and a TV. We made a rapid but thorough search. All we found was a roll of dollars hidden in the leg of a chair. We made ourselves comfortable on the bed and watched the eight o’clock news. And that was the way the two women found us when they opened their door.
We heard the key turning in the lock but went on watching TV anyway. They were showing a particularly interesting report on the cluster bombs that NATO forces had left scattered around in the Adriatic Sea during their war on Serbia. The navy was insisting the whole area had been cleared but fishermen kept finding the lethal yellow devices in their nets. ‘It seems they upset the cuttlefish. It’ll be a lean year in the fishing ports,’ Rossini informed me with the air of a know-all.
By this time, La Tía and Aisa had come into the room and were closing the door behind them. The girl was holding a long hairpin in her hand. There was no doubt at all in my mind that she knew how to use it.
Half in Italian and half in Spanish, Rosa Gonzales Cuevas asked us who we were and what we wanted, and thus began a curious conversation in a mixture of both languages.
‘Hola, Tía,’ I greeted her. ‘
That was a neat job Alacrán did for you in that prison. Though having your nephew murdered can’t be too pleasant.’
La Tía took a chair and pulled it up to the side of the bed. I hauled myself into a sitting position, and Rossini did the same. Aisa stayed close to the door.
‘You could be Colombian cops, I suppose, but you are certainly not Italian ones,’ La Tía observed. ‘So who are you?’
‘We’re trying to find your nephew’s Italian contact. A man has been wrongfully imprisoned in his place and the mistake needs to be rectified as soon as possible.’
La Tía’s face contorted with disappointment. ‘I was hoping you were the offloader. Or that you might want to do business.’
‘Could Maiorino be the guy we’re after?’ I asked mischievously, just to let her know we were aware of her reasons for remaining in Italy.
‘No, it’s not him. I was talking to him today. He’s involved in a different racket. He doesn’t deal in Colombian coke at all, but in low-grade Bolivian product.’
Rossini clapped briefly. ‘Congratulations, you did well to find him.’
La Tía gave him a sly smile. ‘It was easy. Everyone here likes South American girls and everyone talks to everyone else. He is hiding in the apartment of a Dominican chica who is snorting her way through all his reserves of coke. He is a cretin. It won’t be long before they find him.’
La Tía told Aisa to bring her a drink. Aisa fetched a half-litre bottle of Blanco from a suitcase. Doña Rosa unscrewed the cap and took a long pull before handing us the bottle. The smell of aniseed flooded the room. I declined the offer, passing the bottle to Rossini, who took a long swig.
‘What shall we do? Kill each other or do business?’ La Tía asked.
Old Rossini got to his feet. ‘You deserve to die and be buried at sea in an elegant pair of concrete shoes.’
La Tía yawned and lit a cigarette. ‘Ah, cut the crap. My nephew had it coming. He was a weakling. Sooner or later he would have talked. Look, I have a business proposal to put to you.’
‘Drugs and drug dealers are not our line of work,’ I pointed out.
‘That makes no difference. How do you reckon I knew Maiorino wasn’t the right man?’
I shrugged. ‘I guess you had some information about the real contact.’
‘Precisely. Which means that I’m the only one who can help you find who you’re looking for.’
Rossini took the bottle out of her hand. ‘What do you want in return?’
‘Other information.’
‘Of what kind?’
‘The girls have given me a list of dealers. I want to know which I can trust. I haven’t got the time to find out for myself which ones work for the police.’
‘Why don’t you look for your nephew’s offloader and deal direct with him?’ I asked, genuinely puzzled.
She smoothed her skirt down. ‘Because he was the one who persuaded that idiot nephew of mine to try ripping me off. I could never trust him.’
‘So you’re planning to open up a supply route to Italy?’ Rossini asked.
‘Coke sells like crazy here. There’s great business to be done.’
I decided to put out some feelers. ‘What if we decide to screw you?’
Doña Rosa threw her arms out wide in exasperation. ‘How can we possibly come to an agreement if you gentlemen continue to threaten me?’
‘The lady’s right, Marco,’ Rossini said. ‘At bottom, all we’d be trading is information.’
La Tía waved her hand at Aisa who swivelled around, hitched up her skirt and removed a piece of paper hidden in her panties. The list of dealers was passed from hand to hand till it reached my associate.
Rossini glanced down the list. ‘I know some of them. Two of them are definitely informants.’
Doña Rosa smiled with satisfaction. ‘How long will it take you to check all the names?’
‘A couple of days,’ Rossini replied calmly.
‘Fine. In ten days maximum I plan to return to Colombia. That is when our tourist visas run out.’
Rossini’s tone of voice hardened sharply. ‘Your turn now.’ La Tía shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think so. You give me the list and I’ll tell you how to find your man.’
The argument dragged on for at least ten minutes but there was no getting around her. She simply refused to budge.
‘Vile bitch,’ Rossini muttered, as we left the hotel.
‘Are you planning to stick to the agreement?’ I asked.
‘Of course. Double-crossing La Tía won’t put a stop to cocaine dealing. Besides, she’s so accustomed to mistrusting people that she’s sure to do her own investigations. And if she discovers we’ve slipped her a bum name, we won’t get anything out of her.’
‘I still don’t like it.’
‘Come on, Marco, don’t jerk me around. I’ve seen you go for worse trade-offs in the past.’
Rossini drove me back to La Cuccia. He was going to take personal charge of gathering the information La Tía wanted on the dealers. Then he would come back and pick me up so we could go together to our next meeting with her.
It was dinner time so I decided to invite myself over to Max’s. I found him with a rolling-pin in his hand, busily rolling out dough to prepare pappardelle, which he was planning to cook in a stock with chicken livers. On the kitchen table a book-rest held a recipe book of Venetian cuisine entitled Dining with the Doges, open at the dish Max was intent on preparing. Next to the book-rest stood a bottle of Bardolino Superiore, the wine that the book’s authors recommended to accompany the meal. In the background, the latest CD by Ivano Fossati, a singer-songwriter of Max’s and my generation.
I never betrayed my youth
I don’t have to prove my innocence
I’m guilty at the very most
Of love and similar deviations
Such as melancholy
Such as nostalgia . . .
Max the Memory had been forced to lie low for many years and cooking had been a good way of getting through long days spent on his own. Marielita, his woman, usually arrived home late from working as a street musician. She was murdered while he was in prison and when he got out again he went on living as if still in hiding.
He rarely ventured out, and never in the evening. At most, he would come down to the club, spend a few hours there, then go back upstairs to his flat and shut himself away with his books, his music, his films, his files and the internet. One day I turned to him and said, ‘You’re always cooped up here. Why don’t you get out . . . go to the cinema . . .?’
He just stood there, his hands resting as always on his beer gut, looking at me with those big faded-blue eyes of his.
‘People recognize me, Marco, and I can’t stand sidelong glances and remarks muttered behind my back. I bump into old political comrades, the ones who jumped ship just in the nick of time and the ones who somehow always had the best possible reason for turning their back on the movement. We greet one another with embarrassment, our eyes looking elsewhere . . . I would rather watch a video.’
‘If that’s how it is, why don’t you just leave this town, this country, altogether?’
‘Maybe I will one day. But right now, like you, I’d rather be here than anywhere else. And for exactly the same reason. It’s on account of the investigations I do, the cases we work on together, the bits and pieces of truth we uncover, the little skirmishes we have with the corrupt and powerful. It’s the engine that keeps both our lives going. It’s what makes sense of everything.’
‘I guess you’re right, Max. Except that I have no urge to leave. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.’
‘Perhaps one day we’ll be forced to leave in a hurry.’
‘Why?’
‘Because our investigations are illegal, because our methods our illegal, and because on more than one occasion Old
Rossini has pulled out his gun to save our skins. So far we’ve got away with it, but the first wrong move we make we’re in deep shit.’
I observed my friend as he moved easily among his pots and pans. It seemed to me that all this activity was just a way of giving time a little meaning, safe from the outside world. But then it struck me that I had no right to judge him. I got up and walked over to his living room to fetch the bottle of Calvados.
While we ate, I told Max about the meeting with La Tía. Max then went back over the entire case, point by point, examining our investigative strategy. As an analyst, Max was a genius, and it was fascinating to hear him talk.
Halfway through dinner my cell phone rang. It was Bonotto informing me he had reached an agreement with the prison governor and that Corradi had already been released from solitary and returned to the cell block. They had decided to incriminate the actual killers, the two Colombians who, according to the story they had concocted, had somehow supplied their compatriot with poisoned food with the help of an unsuspecting Albanian cell-sweeper who, in the meantime, like the two Colombians, had been freed from prison and deported. I complimented Bonotto on his work. All in all, it was a pretty plausible reconstruction and it involved nobody but prisoners.
I kept Max company while he washed the dishes and then went downstairs to the club. I wanted to see Virna but as soon as I walked in, Rudy Scanferla, the club manager, came up to me. ‘We’ve got to take a look at the books, Marco. Would tomorrow afternoon suit you?’
‘Sure. How’s business?’
‘Good. We’ve got some pretty loyal customers now and the takings are steady and good.’
I looked around and felt a glow of satisfaction that this club was mine. People were smoking and drinking, having a good time listening to Eloisa Deriu, who was just then paying tribute to Billie Holiday, singing one of Lady Day’s greatest numbers, ‘God Bless the Child.’
The Colombian Mule Page 7