“Yes. But his eyes were different. Cold, but they were the eyes of a human being, if that makes sense.”
“That makes perfect sense, Signor Abbas.”
The effort of the conversation had left the Iranian exhausted, and he let out a moan of pain.
Farideh hastened over to lift his head, solicitously.
Marco called Brandolin. He dictated brief, rapid instructions.
“In half an hour a young Carabiniere will arrive here, his name is Brandolin. You, Abbas, repeat everything you told me just now, he’ll write a report, and then you’ll sign it. Do you think you’re up to that?”
Abbas raised a hand, as if to impart a benediction, then his limb dropped sharply back to the bed covers.
Marco and Alice withdrew, both of them deeply moved and indignant. He offered to give her a ride back.
“How the hell did you know about all that stuff, eh, Colonel? The molotovs and all the rest . . . ”
“If you’ll accept an invitation to dinner, I’ll explain.”
At La Quaglia Canterina, a renovated farmhouse just a stone’s throw from the Arco di Travertino, dinner was served on rustic tables set out under a trellis covered with Isabella grape vines. The proprietor was called Federico; he had a wild head of graying hair and he greeted Alice with a kiss on each cheek.
“He used to be an architect,” she explained, as they were sitting down at their open-air table. “Then he decided he was fed up and he converted to zero-mile cuisine.”
Alice took off the red blouse, revealing a black stretch T-shirt that was pleasantly form-fitting. She wore light but well-applied makeup. The scent of citrus was delicate and fresh. The image of an orchid popped into his head. Lovely. Lovely and complicated.
“What did you do with that backpack? The one that you all planted at the Arcobaleno movie house?”
“Professional confidentiality,” Marco smiled. Then, seriously: “Confiscated and deposited as official criminal evidence. Officially, on a tip from an informant.”
“So you haven’t reported Terenzi.”
“No. But he’s on the blacklist now. When the time comes, he’ll pay. I’d emphasize the need for you to be careful. You’ve taken on the Anacletis. Expect a reaction.”
“Should I hire a bodyguard?” she asked, provocatively.
“I’m thinking more about character assassination, if you’ll allow me the expression. Slander, or else lawsuits for defamation, that kind of stuff.”
“I’m used to it.”
“You’re a strange young woman.”
“You’re a strange Carabiniere. Why are you doing all this?”
“Because we’re on the same side.”
“You and me? Really?”
The ironic smirk on Alice’s face faded as Federico appeared at their table. The menu, handwritten on loose sheets of paper, called for a deconstructed pasta with amatriciana sauce. Cold trussed rabbit with a medley of garden vegetables. A three-chocolate torte with a pomegranate heart. And of course, fair-trade, free wine. Vino libero.
“That is, without sulphites,” Alice pointed out.
“Actually, right here it says: ‘Contains sulphites,’” he pointed out, after pouring.
“Sure, of course, but much lower levels than you’ll find in any other bottle of wine. And anyway, Federico’s cooking is always better than the frozen precooked meals you’ll get elsewhere.”
Alice Savelli considered him, if not an actual enemy, something very close to that. He had to find a way to reassure her.
“I’m not an enemy, Alice. I’m not investigating you. I’m not spying on you.”
“Are you trying to make me believe that you haven’t gathered information about me?”
“Of course I have. I did what anyone would do. I read your blog. And I got an idea.”
Federico served organic bread, focaccia made of Khorasan wheat, and basmati rice croquettes flavored with hillside-grown scallions.
“An idea about me? How interesting. Please go on.”
“A person who is firmly opposed—”
“Ah, you can say that again.”
“Opposed to rape and violence against women,” Marco resumed, “opposed to welcome centers for immigrants . . . ”
“Calling those filthy stables ‘welcome centers’ seems vaguely hypocritical, don’t you think, Colonel?”
“I couldn’t agree more. Ah, and opposed to the new Roman mafia.”
“And what else?”
“And then there’s one more thing that surprised me.”
“And what would that be?”
“There’s no politics.”
Alice heaved a sigh of impatience, as if she were dealing with a foolish child. They dove into the deconstructed amatriciana, which proved to be less deleterious than expected. They ordered a second bottle of wine.
“Do you really think that the things I do, that so many of us do, aren’t political?”
“Well, when I read your blog I found all sorts of things in it. For instance, I wasn’t clear which side you’re on.”
“You mean left-wing, right-wing? That’s old hat.”
“You’re not the first person to say that to me.”
“Politics, the way it works now, with parties and assorted claptrap, is a filthy mess. We ought to load them all onto open boats and shove them out to sea, make a clean sweep. All of them. No one excluded. On the right and on the left. And then start over from scratch. Direct democracy, for instance. On the web. Did you know that the one percent of the wealthiest actually governs 99 percent of the world? Derivatives, subprime mortgages, hedge funds . . . bah!”
Heated, impassioned, rebellious, and fully alive. So different. Truly the voice of another world. How many years’ difference between them? Seven, eight, or even ten? And Marco felt so furiously out of step, so out of time.
Suddenly she scrutinized him, grim-faced.
“Exactly what is it you want from me, Marco?”
“The same thing that you want, Alice. A better world.”
They had shifted, without realizing it, to a first-name basis. Part of the credit for that went, no doubt, to the chocolate torte, made with pomegranate seeds and chocolate from Modica in Sicily.
For the first time, he heard her laugh. A laugh with the rich warmth of a youthful, impetuous force.
“This script isn’t convincing me. I’m the one who’s supposed to make the wisecrack about the better world. You’re supposed to say: the world is the way it is, my dear girl, and neither you nor I can ever hope to change it. So let’s be satisfied with what we have and stop trying to cause trouble.”
His hand had come to rest, as if accidentally, upon hers. Alice stared him in the eyes and asked if he had a cigarette. Marco pulled out his Camel Lights. Federico served an artisanal grappa, “produced,” he insisted on pointing out, “by a cooperative of ex junkies.”
The junkies hadn’t been kidding around with the proof on that grappa. That evening’s alcohol content was on the verge of skyrocketing. Alice pulled her hand away.
Still, the ice had been broken. She explained to him that she’d become interested in those neighborhood stories when a tranny had commented on her blog.
“We became friends . . . well, maybe friends is too strong a word, but long story short, she’s an interesting person. And in any case, she trusts me. She spread the word. Lots of people started writing in, from the neighborhood. And I spread their news. Otherwise, how could I ever have found out about Paja and Fieno, the Anacletis, and the rest of that freak show? Then Farideh showed up. That girl is a treasure, Marco, believe me.”
“Has anyone ever mentioned a certain Nicce to you?”
“Nietzsche, you mean? Like the philosopher?”
“No, Nicce, just like that, Roman-dialect style.”
“No. He�
�s probably a Nazi.”
“That’s a safe bet.”
“Anyway, word’s going around in the neighborhood that Paja and Fieno beat a sixteen-year-old kid black and blue.”
“Why did they do that?”
“Because he’s gay, that’s why.”
“And is that a good enough reason?”
“There’s no need for a reason if somone is different.”
“That’s something I can’t wrap my head around. Personally, I prefer women, but I respect gay people.”
“Oh, sweet Jesus, what a pathetic line. Just stop trying, Colonel.”
“What did I say wrong? I thought I was being correct.”
“After all, you are still a Carabiniere,” she said, cutting him off, with another peal of laughter in which he thought he could detect an undercurrent of seduction.
At two in the morning, they were still together. It was her idea to wrap up the evening with some good music.
“The Niro is playing at Il Circolo degli Artisti.”
“Wait, what? Now he’s singing, too?”
“Not the actor, dummy. The Niro, he’s a Roman artist. Very hip.”
Sweaty young people, among whom Alice moved freely and lightly. Beers. A couple of whiskeys. Unfamiliar songs, vaguely surreal or declamatory lyrics. Marco felt like an alien. At a certain point, though, The Niro started singing a song he knew. Marco joined in the chorus.
“Hallelujah! Hallelujah!”
“Well, at least you knew one song!” Alice complimented him.
“Who doesn’t know ‘Hallelujah’?”
“Right. The great Jeff Buckley.”
“Actually, the song’s by Leonard Cohen.”
“Who?”
“Jesus, Leonard Cohen, the Canadian poet. The one who sings ‘Suzanne.’”
“But isn’t Cohen kind of a . . . drag, really?”
Alice had made him feel like a dinosaur. He fished in his pockets in search of the last cigarette. His cell phone was vibrating furiously. Missed call, missed call, missed call. A text from Alba.
“Where R U? Fresh corpse in Cinecittà. Come now.”
XIX
State of Emergency As Crime Spikes in Rome.” “Summer, Bloody Summer.” “Ministry of the Interior: Extreme Measures for Law and Order Being Readied.” “Slaughter of the Innocents.” “The Sacrifice of Abdel.” “That Dead Man Has a Lot to Say About Us.”
The dead man at the Ferro di Cavallo had unleashed a lethal mix of understandable horror, two-bit rhetoric, and political opportunism of the lowest sort. The adhesive holding it all together: a firm determination to steer clear of the heart of the matter—the murder, the possible culprits—concerning which no one, and that means absolutely no one, seemed willing or able to offer the slightest shred of evidence.
Marco Malatesta stopped reading the papers, turned off Radio FM 922, and barricaded himself in his office.
He could see clearly now. And his hunch had paid off.
The massacre in Cinecittà confirmed of his theory. There was a war going on. No one could deny it, now.
General Thierry, not the type to hang back, went with him to call on Setola.
The prosecuting magistrate was an attractive man, deeply bronzed, with long wavy gray hair and the airs of an aesthete. In his office, where prints of historic yachts enjoyed pride of place, the Carabinieri General Rapisarda, commandant of the Custoza division, was waiting for them. A high-muck-a-muck to whom Thierry reported and whom he despised; moreover, the feeling was mutual. Marco had run into him only once, during an official ceremony. He had been left with an impression of arrogance and superficiality: the perfect cocktail for a careerist destined to rise to dizzying heights.
They got a chilly welcome. Marco laid out his theory.
And ran smack into a brick wall.
According to Rapisarda, the Moroccan had simply been the victim of a settling of accounts between drug pushers. The fact that he had no criminal record and hadn’t ever even turned up as a suspicious character was of no importance as far as the superior officer was concerned.
As for Spadino, Setola saw it as nothing more than a “mere case of geographic proximity,” and that investing the kind of resources Marco was advocating pouring into the case would “prove to be an authentic squandering of funds.”
Once again, the request was rejected out of hand, and Marco and Thierry were summarily dismissed.
The general couldn’t make head nor tails of it.
“Unbelievable!” he complained to Marco once they’d gotten to Ponte Salario. “What the hell do they need before they’ll come around? A massacre? If things keep going like this, they’ll have one.”
“Hmm, yes, una bella ammazzatina, as the Sicilians like to say. It might even prove useful.”
The calm irony in Marco’s voice baffled Thierry. He was about to reply when he received a call on his cell phone. He listened in silence, then jammed his thumb down to end the conversation.
“Bad news?” asked Marco.
“Terrible news. You’re off the investigation. Setola doesn’t want you interfering. And Rapisarda agrees.”
“I’m not surprised. Try to picture it through their eyes.”
Rapisarda plus Setola equals Politics, he explained. A government that’s being held together with scotch tape has no interest whatsoever in starting a law and order campaign in Rome. They have more than enough trouble with the European Central Bank, the spread, and the Frankfurt stock exchange. They needed results. Rapid and, above all, “compatible.”
“Compatible with what, Marco?
“With the phase, let’s put it that way. A settling of accounts here, a minor case of drug dealing there.”
“But I’m not going along with it!” Emanuele roared.
He’d write a scathing report to the district attorney. He’d brief the commander in chief of the Carabinieri. Respectfully, but firmly, he’d make his views known: by cutting out Marco Malatesta, their best man out on the street, they were committing a colossal error.
“General, if you truly care about me, don’t do any of that.”
Thierry looked stunned.
“You’re joking, right?”
“Never been more serious in my life. You remember back in rugby days, Emanuele?”
Before flipping head over heels for A. S. Roma, Marco had been a decent fly-half. Not vicious enough to break systematically through brutal defense lines, but fast enough and sufficiently quick-thinking to be able to move the three-quarters in a game that he tried to pretend resembled, only distantly resembled, the legendary All Blacks. Thierry had been his trainer. He continued to repeat, obsessively, a mantra that was supposed to have something to do with the philosophy of life, or something similar: in rugby, if you want to go forward, the ball has to go backward in search of the support line. And there’s no support line without a team, the collective team.
“Which means that now I’m going to take some of the accumulated vacation time I’m due,” Marco concluded, decisively.
“You want to drop the case.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. I’m just taking a step back. Defensive phase. Regrouping. As soon as we can find the support line, we’ll start off again, all together. And this time we’ll drive straight to the goal.”
“Bullshit!” Thierry retorted.
Marco smiled. Thierry rarely lost his proverbial ironic composure. This time, he was beside himself.
“Bullshit!” he repeated. “The man who invented rugby meant to create a healthy, robust pastime for the gentlemen of the English countryside. But this is Rome, goddamn it to hell! Here, ‘gentleman’ is a curseword! You aren’t going anywhere!”
“Trust me. It’ll work.”
It took him an entire evening to talk him into it, but in the end Thierry gave in. And the following morning
Marco was on a flight for Palma de Majorca. Aside from his swimsuits and a couple of T-shirts, his tiny suitcase contained the latest novel by Haruki Murakami and a CD of Me ne vado da Roma, the immortal litany by the great Remo Remotti.
XX
It was no walk in the park to explain to Number Eight the mess in Cinecittà. But less complicated than Denis might have thought. Basically, they’d whacked a zammammero. An unlicensed gas station attendant, twenty-nine years old—that’s what they learned by reading the newspapers—who was called Abdel Salam and worked as a free-lancer at the Erg self-service two hundred yards from the Ferro di Cavallo, picking up fifty-cent tips from people who didn’t have the energy to get out of the car and fill their own tank of gas.
It was pure chance that he was in the bar, the article that appeared in Il Messaggero said. Cue sobs and tears. They’d interviewed the widow, a housecleaner who was wailing like a fountain. Obviously: she was thinking about how to get herself a nice fat pension. The journalists had gone to the elementary school that the fatherless daughter attended to collect the terrifying drawings that her little classmates had done. The mayor had summoned a camera crew to follow him and take footage of him from behind, head bowed, arms crossed, on the sidewalk where they’d scrubbed away the African’s blood and brains and where he had placed a wreath of flowers from the city government. The Communists had stretched out a streamer: “Never Again.” Oh, sure, of course not. In other words, the usual tarantella. And after all, nobody really gave a damn. Sooner or later the zammammero was going to have to die anyway.
And yet, there were problems. That Morgana had started the whole thing. That the police were furious as rabid dogs. That the whole thing with the Anacletis wasn’t ending here. And that Number Eight wasn’t born to think straight.
Denis understood that when he went over to see him in the studio apartment in Santa Severa where he was hiding out. Number Eight was wrecked to the gills.
“Nice, bro!” he said with an idiotic smile, weaving in the doorway in his undershirt. His hands were betraying a continual tremor.
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