“Fuck you, Alice.”
“No, fuck you. Have any of your investigative geniuses even bothered to call that Greek phone number, which isn’t Greek at all, but Italian?”
“It’s turned off. It goes straight to voicemail, in Greek, Signorina. That phone is in Greece. Even if the SIM card is Italian.”
“It’s Farideh’s number, oh my God, you’re such an idiot.”
“Farideh? And just what would Farideh be doing in Greece?”
“I found out myself that she was there, by calling her. And she’s not alone. She’s with that bandit, Max.”
“What were they doing there?”
“Farideh told me that they were there to bring a boat back to Italy.”
“And I suppose she also told you the name of the boat.”
“Runa, if I’m remembering it right.”
“Where were they in Greece?”
“Some island. She didn’t tell me the name. And here’s another thing: I called her because I trusted you, Marco. I wanted to warn her about Max. I believed in you. And that other guy, your handsome friend, the prosecuting magistrate.”
“The fact that they even allowed me to have this interview with you is thanks to him, Alice.”
“Oh, really? Well thank him so much on my behalf. Could he be so kind as to put me under house arrest?” she shot back, vitriolically.
“Did Farideh tell you where they’d be landing this boat?”
“Fiumicino.”
“And do you also know when they were setting sail?”
“You’ve busted my balls quite sufficiently with all your questions.”
Malatesta raised his voice.
“When were they leaving?”
“How would I know?! They were just leaving.”
Malatesta turned his back on her and called Silvana in from the corridor to take Alice back to her cell. As she left the interview room, she intentionally slammed into his shoulder.
“So what are you going to do now, eh? Are you going to try to destroy Farideh’s life too, you damned animal?”
“What I do is no longer any concern of yours, Savelli.”
He stopped in a dive bar on Piazza Conca d’Oro. It wasn’t even noon yet, but as far as he was concerned, it might as well have been midnight. After reviewing the dusty shelves behind the bar, he pointed to a bottle of Johnnie Walker. It had been with that red-labeled bottle that as a boy he’d exorcised his first burning disappointment in love.
“A shot?”
“The whole bottle, thanks.”
He got back into his car, grabbing the neck of the big bottle in his right hand, like the most pathetic stumblebum alcoholic, while with his left hand he extracted his cell phone from the inside jacket of his flea-bitten, tattered jacket. He’d turned it off on his way into Rebibbia and on his way out he’d decided not to switch it back on.
Let it remain mute.
He felt a fever raging inside him. His eyes were burning. If de Candia had questioned him, he wouldn’t have known what to say to him. He was blinded, damn it. What had he learned from Alice? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. That informal conversation that he’d bet his last few cards on had been a complete washout. Maybe Alice was just continuing to lie to him because, like all liars, she adjusted her “truths” only when her bluffs and serial omissions were no longer defensible. Or maybe what Silvana’s nose told her was right, the same thing that his head, in a remote corner of his hypothalamus, continued to tell him. That girl had been pushed into that situation. The Neri and their nihilist violence had nothing to do with her. And after all, that story about the phone call to Farideh made a certain amount of sense. Could it be that that too was simply a charade calculated and planned out in advance? How could she have known that someone was going to ask her point-blank about that phone call?
His temples were bursting. He opened the door of his apartment and decided not even to turn on the light. He slipped a CD by Eric Dolphy into the stereo.
“Tenderly.”
A sax solo that could rip your heart out of your chest.
Perfect notes for the agony wracking his soul.
He turned up the volume, just a few decibels below the threshold that made the thin glass in the panes of the kitchen windows shake. He pulled a dozen tiny ice cubes out of the freezer, filled one of those colorful Coca-Cola glasses that you can earn with loyalty points at the supermarket with the blessed liquor. He threw first his jacket, then his shirt and white T-shirt, all of which smelled terrible, into a corner. He rummaged through his dresser until he found and put on an A. S. Roma T-shirt with the number 10 of Francesco Totti. The captain.
Sitting, legs spread wide, on a kitchen chair, he started drinking, hoping that that swill would help him shut his eyes. And that Tenderly would take care of the rest.
Maybe he fell asleep. Or maybe he just remained in a cataleptic trance for some unquantifiable period of time.
He was awakened by the harsh, insistent sound of the buzzer from downstairs.
He dragged himself over to the intercom. His speech was slurred and his tongue was scratching against his palate.
“Who is it?”
Alba’s voice was fuzzed over by the electric contact that he’d never bothered to have fixed.
“It’s me, Alba.”
“We can talk tomorrow.”
“Wait, Colonel. Let me come up.”
“You really had better not.”
“It’s important.”
“As far as I’m concerned, nothing is important any more. At least not until tomorrow morning.”
“It’s about Alice Savelli.”
“I already know everything. More than everything. Lots more.”
“It’s a video.”
He pushed hard on the button that opened the door downstairs, and heard the lock make a loud clack.
Malatesta left the front door of his apartment ajar and decided to wait for Alba in the kitchen. He was having trouble staying on his feet.
“Can I come in?”
“Anyone home?”
There were two voices. A woman’s, and that was fine. But the man? Who the fuck had Bruni brought along with her? He whipped around.
Brandolin. The young Carabiniere Brandolin. And what the hell had happened to him?”
The young man walked into the kitchen, and as he approached Malatesta he apologized for not being able to salute him with convincing military smartness. His arm was in a sling, one eye was swollen and half-shut, and he had the posture of someone with a broom rammed up their ass.
“I hope you’ll forgive me, Colonel, but I have a couple of broken ribs and I have to be careful how I move my torso . . . ”
“What happened to you? Did you slip and fall in the shower?”
“Yesterday, at St. John Lateran. The riot squad kind of outdid themselves.”
“Were you in plainclothes?”
“No, I was off duty.”
“And what were you doing there? Don’t tell me that you’ve become a Rebel Dragon, too. Because I can handle the world turned upside down, but this would just be too much. Brandolin in Occupy.”
“I was filming. And that’s why they beat the shit out of me, Commander. The riot squad wanted to take away my videocamera.”
“And just what were you filming? Why were you there filming in the first place?”
Alba broke in.
“As I was telling you over the intercom, Colonel, the video. Brandolin filmed all the incidents in the street, and in particular the arrest of Alice Savelli on Via Cavour and events leading up to it.”
Marco lurched up out of his chair. His head was suddenly clear. Shrouded in his Totti T-shirt, he poured a glass of whiskey for Brandolin. Who shook his head no and went on talking.
“I don’t know if what I did was right, but
the night before the demonstration, in the barracks, I heard Marshal Terenzi working out details on the phone with Anacleti. He was reassuring him. They were talking about Savelli. The marshal was saying: ‘I’ll take care of that whore,’ please excuse me, ‘myself tomorrow. I’m going to give her the full treatment. And then they’ll throw away the key. And when I’m done, you immediately inform you know who that the woman who’s been arrested is the girlfriend of that piece of shit,’ please excuse me again, ‘Malatesta.’ I really do apologize, but those were the exact words he said.”
“Please, go on.”
“So yesterday I decided to go to the piazza and keep an eye on everything that Marshal Terenzi did. And I saw how they framed that poor girl. She never did a thing wrong. She was standing off to one side shouting ‘Fascists’ at the guys who were wrecking everything. The marshal and some of his colleagues massacred her in cold blood. Then I saw Terenzi bend down to pick up a bunch of steel ball bearings and slip them into a black jacket.”
Marco swallowed.
“Are you certain about what you’re saying? I mean, first of all, are you certain that the person Terenzi was talking to on the phone was Anacleti?”
“Absolutely certain. He called him by name. ‘Rocco,’ he kept saying.”
“And were you really able to videotape everything you saw?”
Brandolin set the videocamera down on the formica kitchen table. And he started running the video.
Malatesta insisted on watching it three more times. It was all true. All absolutely true. It took him a little while before he could reorganize his thoughts.
“Listen, Brandolin . . . ”
“I know, Colonel, I’m sorry. I should have come sooner, but they only released me from the hospital at 3 A.M. last night. And this morning, when I tried to get in touch with you at the office, the capain told me that no one knew how to get in touch with you.”
Now Alba was smiling. And he was smiling, too. For the first time in two days. He slipped off the Totti T-shirt, and stood there bare-chested. Then he started rummaging through his drawers in search of a clean shirt. He turned to look at the captain, noticing that her cheeks were blushing slightly. A blush that he recognized.
“Alba, listen. The sailboat is called Runa . . . ”
“Sailboat? What sailboat, Colonel?”
“Forget about that. Just tell me this: do we have anyone in the coast guard? I mean to say, anyone in the national operations room, here in Rome?”
“I have a friend. Let’s say a young man I haven’t known all that long, who might . . . ”
“How close a friend is he?”
“We’ve gone out . . . we’ve been going out for a while now.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about, Alba. What I mean to say is: can you ask him a favor? And I mean a big favor. Because there’s no more time for official requests and pieces of paper. I need the position of a sailboat called Runa, which sailed from some Greek island, name unknown, four or five days ago, on a course for the port of Fiumicino. We need to use every method known. GPS location, any possible reports from our harbor offices, maritime registries. I want to know where the boat is now. And when it’s going to dock here, you got that?”
“Got it.”
“How smart is this friend of yours?”
“He’s smart and he’s fast, Marco.”
“Fast?”
“I’d say yes, he’s fast. He’s not the kind of guy who wastes a lot of time chatting. At least, he didn’t with me.”
Malatesta felt a stab of jealousy, mixed with a tingling that he recognized as excitement. Which made him feel alive. Finally alive, by God. He looked at his watch. It was three in the afternoon.
“Then call him up, Alba. Call him right now.”
He turned his cell phone back on, and it started vibrating insanely with all the missed calls. There was a text message, too.
General Thierry de Roche. But he didn’t have the nerve to look. He closed his eyes while he brought his thumb down on the envelope icon.
“I heard about Savelli. What’s going on?”
Marco stared at Brandolin.
“Can I ask you one last favor, kid?”
“At your orders, Colonel, sir.”
“This video, two copies. One for General de Roche and one for the prosecuting magistrate de Candia. Take it to both of them, in person.”
XLVIII
Marco pulled the wool watch cap down over his ears, plunged his hands into the deep pockets of the heavy navy peacoat, and stared out at the mouth of the channel, the ancient Port of Trajan that cut Fiumicino in two, with its wharves practically deserted in the early darkness of a November evening. Perhaps it was fate that everything should happen right in that place, he thought to himself. He turned and walked slowly toward a white Fiat Ducato van parked at the end of the northern wharf, just beyond the breakwaters lit up by the faint glow of the interior lighting of the Bastianelli restaurant. Behind those broad plate-glass windows overlooking the sea, epic pages had been written in the black history of Rome. Now Russian oligarchs and arab sheiks ate there. For that matter, as he traveled the world, it had become clear to him that this is what we Italians had become: dressmakers, tailors, and cooks.
He pressed to his lips the tiny microphone concealed in the lapel of his peacoat and checked one last time with Lieutenant Gaudino that the device was ready. Twenty or so men, both ROS personnel and local cops, along with two police dog teams formed a semicircle around the ground that gave access to the channel. Their running lights off, three “sharks”—Carabinieri police speedboats—sketched out a large semicircle a mile across in the waters around the old port.
“Northwest to Northeast, do you read me?”
“I read you loud and clear, Northwest.”
“I’m proceeding on foot along the wharf toward the white Fiat Ducato parked at twelve o’clock.”
“Received, Northwest. Active coverage. We only see one man in the vicinity of the vehicle.”
Alba’s boyfriend in the coast guard had done an excellent job. Smart boy, that kid. He’d worked hard and it showed. For that matter, Malatesta had no difficulty understanding his motivation, when he thought about Alba’s ass. In just a couple of hours he’d managed to identity the Greek port from which the Runa had set sail, and after that, the rest had been relatively straightforward. The GPS signal had allowed him to reconstruct the course of the boat that had sailed from Folegandros five days earlier. Since it had entered Italian territorial waters, the Runa was being tracked by a scout plane. The fish was swimming obediently into the net. And at that point, they only had to draw the mouth shut tight. Another half hour, and the Runa would have finished her last voyage.
In spite of the hooded down coat pulled over his head, Malatesta instantly recognized the corpulent gentleman who was leaning against the hood of the Fiat Ducato, looking out at the mouth of the channel, his back turned to him. He called out his name when he was just stone’s throw away.
“Tito Maggio, why what a nice surprise!”
The fat man whipped around and a surge of adrenaline lit up his cheeks, which were purple with the cold.
“Colonel! Mamma mia, what a coincidence. And what are you doing out here tonight?”
Malatesta pulled out his pack of Camels and offered him one.
“I’m just like the little kids, Tito. Every so often I like to come back to ride the amusement park rides. You remember this place, don’t you?”
“Of course I do, Colonel. They even shot Romanzo Criminale here. I just love that flick, Colonel. I’ve seen it three times.”
“Still, it strikes me you didn’t understand much of it. All friends of Libano here, eh?”
“No, what are you saying?”
“Certainly, that’s what I’m saying. So tell me, now, what are you doing here?”
�
��I’m here for work, Colonel.”
“Oh, really?”
“I have to buy fish. I’m just waiting for the trawlers to come in. You know it, I only sell live seafood.”
“Of course you do.”
The cigarette that Tito was clutching between his fingers was shaking like a blade of straw in a windstorm.
“Are you cold, Tito?”
“No, why?”
“You’re shivering.”
“Oh, really?”
“You’d better be careful. You’re not as young as you once were.”
“You have a point, Colonel. But work is work.”
“That’s the truth, you think I don’t know? In fact, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to stay here and keep you company.”
“Wait, you’re going to wait here too, Colonel?
“Sure, I’ll wait for the fishing boats to come in, here, with you.”
“You shouldn’t go to all that trouble. I can—”
“Who’s going to any trouble? I just suddenly got an urge for seafood, maybe a few fresh tattlers. The way you make them. I think I’ll buy a nice crate of them for myself. What do you call them at the restaurant? Totani dell’Imperatore, no? The emperor’s tattlers. Delicious. What’s the recipe. Let’s see: chickpeas, bean, boiled potatoes and then, wait, it’s coming to me . . . ”
“Rosemary.”
“That’s right, rosemary.”
“But maybe—”
“Maybe?”
“No, Colonel, I’m starting to think that this isn’t the right night for it.”
“For tattlers?”
“No, it’s just that . . . It seems to me that . . . It’s gotten late. I’m starting to think I might go home. In fact, yes, I’m going home now.”
Maggio started to pull open the door of the Fiat Ducato. Malatesta grabbed his arm, clamping down so hard it hurt.
“Where are you going, Tito? You just don’t have the patience it takes. These fishing boats will come in eventually, won’t they? Didn’t you say yourself they would be coming in? And after all, where do you need to be? It’s Monday.”
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