‘It’s me.’
‘Ciao, Marco,’ Virna said. ‘Where are you?’
‘Away. On a job.’
‘When’ll you be back?’
‘Maybe tomorrow.’
‘Shame. I’d hoped to see you before I left.’
‘Left?’
‘Yes. I’m going down to Gallipoli to stay with a friend of mine, Patrizia.’
‘You didn’t say.’
‘I wasn’t sure I was due any holidays. They make things so damn complicated at this club.’
‘How long are you going to be away?’
‘A month. I’m taking all the holidays I’m owed.’
‘I’ll miss you.’
‘To be perfectly honest, I wanted to spend some time away from you.’
‘And I thought we were growing closer.’
‘That’s exactly why. I want to think it over carefully.’
‘I understand.’
‘No, Marco, you don’t understand. I love you but I’m not sure that’s a good enough reason to stay with you.’
‘That’s a line I’ve heard before.’
‘You’ve got so many problems, and you’re always looking for more.’
‘Have a nice holiday, Virna,’ I said, clicking off.
I went back into the restaurant, where Max and Beniamino were chatting away merrily. ‘Another Calvados,’ I told the waiter.
‘You look like someone who’s just quarreled with a woman,’ Rossini commented.
‘Virna’s off on holiday to think about our relationship.’
‘But hadn’t you two got back together?’ Max asked.
‘That’s what I thought, too.’
‘As usual,’ Beniamino broke in, ‘you haven’t understood a goddamn thing. A couple of fucks doesn’t mean a relationship’s back on track. The problems that led to you breaking up in the first place didn’t just vanish while you weren’t seeing each other. And they’re not going to go away in the future, either.’
‘Well, thanks for your encouragement.’
‘Virna is a woman with very clear ideas about life, and she doesn’t like the way you lead yours. What she wants is for you to ditch your investigations and devote yourself to the club full-time.’
‘That’s just not possible.’
‘In that case, I can’t see how you can have any future together.’
‘Well, I can. I’m convinced we can find some way to make us both happy.’
‘Bullshit,’ Max said. ‘Delude yourself as much as you like, but Virna’s not a little girl anymore. If you don’t give her what she wants she’ll leave you for good.’
‘But what about Beniamino? He’s been with Sylvie for years and everything’s just sweet.’
‘Sylvie’s a nightclub dancer. She takes each day as it comes, just like we do,’ Rossini pointed out.
I looked at my two associates. ‘What’s got into you two this evening, anyway? Just happen to be in the mood for handing out two-bit words of wisdom?’
‘Not at all. It’s just that whenever you get lovelorn you become a total pain in the ass, and given that we’ve got our work cut for us out with this S and M business . . .’
‘Okay, I’ve got the message. I promise you won’t hear another word out of me about Virna.’
They both burst out laughing. Max looked at his watch. ‘Instead of talking crap, pay the bill. It’s time we went and had a word with the night porter.’
‘We’d like some information,’ I said with a friendly smile. The night porter, a bright-looking guy with fair hair, looked for a moment at the two banknotes, folded lengthwise, that I was holding tightly between my index and middle fingers.
‘I’d like to be of assistance to you, providing it’s nothing illegal.’
‘All we want to know is who rented room 208 on the evening of the sixth of June,’ I said, placing the money on the reception desk. ‘A simple glance at the register.’
He squirreled the notes away in his jacket pocket, then opened the register and flicked rapidly through its pages. ‘Here we are. The guest presented a driver’s license registered in the name of Mario Lo Bianco, who was born and resides in Monza . . . we even have a photocopy of the license.’
Max jotted it all down while the night porter made a fresh photocopy. ‘To your knowledge, did anything out of the ordinary happen that night?’ I asked.
‘Nothing. I was on duty and nobody brought anything to my attention.’
‘And how did the guest pay?’ Beniamino asked.
‘I’d have to check the bills.’
‘We’d really appreciate it.’
He vanished behind a door and returned after a couple of minutes. ‘Cash in advance,’ he said.
We could have guessed.
‘The room’s free,’ Max said, pointing at the key rack. There was a key attached to a number 208 tag dangling from a hook. ‘Could we take a look?’
‘No, I can’t do that.’
I placed a one-hundred-thousand-lire note on the desk. ‘We’ll only be a minute.’
‘Okay, but make it quick,’ he said, reaching for the key.
Room 208 was at the far end of the ground-floor corridor, right next to the emergency exit. The client must have left it ajar so Giraldi and Helena could slip in unobserved, and he had no doubt used the same door later to carry the woman out. Beniamino opened the door to the room without making the slightest sound. To get to the bed you had to walk past the bathroom where, according to Giraldi’s account, the kidnapper had been lying in wait to knock him out. From the description he’d provided, we’d come to the conclusion that the assailant had probably used a stun gun. Silent and effective. We reconstructed the scene, and realized at once that there was no way the supposed client could have attacked Giraldi without Helena seeing what was happening and screaming for help.
‘There must have been at least two of them,’ Rossini said. ‘One in the bathroom who put Giraldi out of action and another guy probably lurking back here, just out of sight, who took care of the woman.’
‘If that’s the case,’ Max reasoned, ‘we can discard one possibility right from the start. It can’t have been a serial killer. They hardly ever operate in pairs.’
‘We’ve got the photocopy of the driver’s license,’ I observed. ‘Maybe he’s our man.’
‘It’s a fake,’ Rossini stated categorically.
‘Probably is,’ Max added. ‘But we’ll still have to check it out.’
‘Then let’s do it immediately,’ I suggested.
We returned the room key to the night porter and went back to the car. My associates had refused to travel in my Skoda Felicia, which was slow and had no air-conditioning, so we had made the trip in Old Rossini’s Chrysler PT Cruiser. With its black metallic body and tinted glass, it looked like it belonged to a 1940s Chicago mobster. When I’d pointed out to Beniamino that it was too out of the ordinary to pass unobserved, he’d just shrugged. Any attempt to make him see reason would have been a total waste of time. A gangster of his generation would never give up his flashy car.
I inserted an Albert King cassette in the car stereo. Immediately, the intro to ‘Cadillac Assembly Line’ blared out. ‘This one’s for you, Beniamino,’ I said.
Rossini guffawed as he swung the car onto the Turin bypass and floored the accelerator. Max switched on the interior light so he could examine the photocopy of the driver’s license. ‘It’s not that clear. But it’s clear enough for us to establish whether Signor Lo Bianco is our man.’
Max handed me the photocopy and I found myself staring at the faded likeness of a man of roughly forty or—according to the information on the document—exactly forty-two years old. An unremarkable face framed by straight, parted hair, and a beard trimmed short.
‘It would be too neat if this was him,’ I sai
d.
‘I already told you. That license is a fake and the fact it’s a fake should make us think,’ Rossini said.
‘What about?’
‘Your everyday sex maniac doesn’t go to the trouble of using fake identity documents. He wouldn’t even know where to get them from.’
Max lit a cigarette. ‘We know there were at least two people in that hotel room and they have the right contacts with criminal counterfeiters. This kidnapping is starting to look like the work of a gang that has nothing whatever to do with sex.’
‘Maybe Giraldi has some debts outstanding with loan sharks or drug dealers.’
‘Maybe. But why make up the S and M story? He could have told a less complicated lie.’
‘You’re forgetting the photograph of Helena, trussed up like a salami and with pegs on her nipples. S and M has got to come into it somewhere.’
Old Rossini turned into a service area. ‘Could be. The problem is, what the fuck are we going to do once we’ve established that Signor Lo Bianco wasn’t involved in the kidnapping?’
‘I’ve got an idea,’ Max replied. ‘Helena was contacted by her kidnappers on the Internet. I figure that’s where we should start.’
‘What if they’ve covered their tracks?’
‘Then we’re fucked.’
We filled the tank, then drank a coffee in a bar packed with truckers, drowsy car drivers, prostitutes working away from their home patch, and other miscellaneous nighttime fauna. Even the girls behind the counter were tired. Their drawn faces clashed somehow with their colorful uniforms, and sweat-soaked locks of hair stuck out of their regulation little hats. They reminded me of Virna when she cleaned the floor after the last customers had left the club. I felt the urge to have a drink, but I wasn’t going to waste time asking for Calvados. I’d never seen a bottle of the stuff on any shelf in the bars that dotted the autostrada network.
I went down to the basement, following the signs for the toilets. A South American woman in her early thirties was sitting on a plastic chair between the door to the Gents and the door to the Ladies. There was a little dish for small change on a stool beside her. As I brushed past her she stared at me just to remind me that although I was allowed to piss for free a tip would be gratefully received. She stank of disinfectant. Stuck in that hole day and night, she had absorbed its smell. On my way out, I left her a ten-thousand-lire note. I’d charge it to Giraldi—travel expenses.
‘I’ve no change,’ the woman said.
‘That’s okay. Forget it.’
‘You must have had some good luck this evening.’
‘Not exactly.’
‘I’ll never be in a position to leave anyone such a huge tip.’
‘You never know,’ I lied. ‘Life can change.’
I found Max and Beniamino at the checkout, paying for sweets, cigarettes, and a Tom Waits cassette. There was a number on it I liked: ‘Fumblin’ with the Blues,’ and back in the car, I asked Max to put it on full blast.
We reached Monza at about two in the morning. We could hardly turn up at Signor Lo Bianco’s house at that hour, so we went to a hotel where Rossini was treated as one of the family. They gave us three rooms without even opening the register. From the night porter’s behavior, I could tell there was nothing unusual about this. It was the perfect hideout for anyone who’d just robbed a bank and needed to lie low till the cops decided to lift the roadblocks. A generous backhander would obviate any awkward questions relating to documents.
I stretched out on the bed and turned on the TV, selecting a local channel. An aged starlet was shouting herself hoarse in an effort to get viewers to splash out on authentic, antique Persian carpets. I’d heard she had taken to working for a shopping channel to fund her cocaine habit. From time to time a merciless close-up would throw her rosy-red nostrils into stark relief. She understood fuck-all about carpets and was reading the names off a piece of paper concealed in the palm of her hand. I had once seen Rossini beat up a fence who had walked up to him in a restaurant to offer him carpets that until a few days earlier had belonged to a wealthy local industrialist. The guy had been over-insistent and failed to realize that, as far as my associate was concerned, he was dealing in the wrong line of merchandise. Beniamino had invited him to step outside so they could discuss terms and punched him in the face with a right hook followed by a straight left. He had then told the fence that he didn’t like being disturbed at dinner and that, having recently seen a report on TV about the working conditions of children employed in carpet manufacturing, he could stick his Herats and Germetshes.
‘The smaller the hands, the smaller the weaving knots. Can you believe those bastards?’ Beniamino had explained to me, returning to our table.
Recalling that phrase now brought to mind another sort of knot, the kind used in the rope flower Giraldi had found in the hotel room where Helena was kidnapped. Max was right: that object was enough to give you the creeps. It was the product of pathological skill. At first I had assumed that Giraldi’s wife had been the victim of a lone sadist who had carried her off to a house of horrors and tortured her to death. But having seen the room where the couple had been attacked, that scenario no longer made sense. There had perhaps even been a third kidnapper waiting in a car in the car park, ready to make a quick getaway. But if it wasn’t some sex maniac, why had Helena been kidnapped?
I heard a knock at the door. It was Rossini, already dressed and shaved. ‘You didn’t even get undressed for bed,’ he said, tut-tutting.
‘I was thinking about Helena.’
‘The late Helena, you ought to say.’
‘Are you really that sure?’
‘After all these years, I’ve learned to trust my instinct.’
‘But we don’t yet have a motive for the kidnapping.’
‘So what? When there’s no money involved, whoever’s kidnapped always comes to a bad end. Come on, wash your face. Max is already downstairs having breakfast.’
Mario Lo Bianco lived in a huge block of apartments on the outskirts of Monza. It was 8 A.M. when I rang the bell. A woman in a dressing gown opened the door.
‘Is your husband at home?’
‘He left at six for the factory, like every other day.’
I showed her the photocopy of the driver’s license. ‘Is this him?’
‘No. That’s not Mario.’
‘Has he by any chance mislaid his license?’
‘No, he hasn’t, I’m sure of it. Excuse me, but who are you?’
‘The police, Signora. It’s just a routine check,’ I replied, walking away.
‘Drew a blank,’ I told my associates.
‘What did I say?’ Rossini said complacently.
‘Let’s go home,’ Max suggested.
‘What if we drove to Varese, dropped in on Giraldi, and had a look around?’
‘For the time being, let’s stay away from that guy. If, as I think, he’s told us a pack of lies, he’s probably under police surveillance,’ Beniamino said.
‘Right,’ Max said with a nod. ‘Let’s try the Internet first.’
We arrived home at around 11 A.M. Rossini said goodbye and went off to see Sylvie. For a moment, I envied him. Not only because he had a woman but also because I’d always liked Sylvie. On more than one occasion, when watching her perform her belly-dancing routine in nightclubs, I’d realized to my surprise that I fancied her. But I’d limited myself strictly to fleeting thoughts. The women of one’s friends are off limits. Besides, I knew I wasn’t her type.
I followed Max into his apartment. He switched on the computer and connected to the net, then tapped in the first of the website addresses that Giraldi had given him. When the home page came up, he ran down a list of dominators, dominatrixes, couples, male slaves, female slaves, transsexuals, fetishists, and switchers, and then clicked on female slaves.
‘H
elena’s ad is here.’
I moved nearer to the screen. ‘Model with a passion for live performance available to BDSM enthusiasts for photographic and video sessions. Excited and eager for new thrills and experiences and ready to submit, with my master present, to bondage and punishments administered by genuine and sophisticated experts. Can travel to North-Central Italy.’
‘Now what?’ I asked.
‘We take a look at the other websites.’
We soon found ourselves confronted with thousands of ads. Max began patiently to scroll through the pages. I tired of it within minutes.
‘Helena’s ad only appears on two websites,’ Max said after a while. ‘At least we’ve narrowed down our field of research.’
‘I don’t follow. What is it you want to do?’
‘If we want to find out what’s really happening on this scene, we need to hack into inboxes.’
‘Do you know how to?’
‘No, I don’t. But I know people who do.’
He picked up his cell phone and punched in a number. ‘Ciao Arakno, it’s Max. I need your help. No, I can’t explain exactly what it is, but you’d better bring some decent kit with you. Yeah, tomorrow’s great. See you there.’
‘Who were you talking to?’
‘A guy called Arakno. To him and his partner Ivaz, computers hold no secrets. They’ll help us to break into people’s emails.’
‘Can we trust them?’
‘Sure. I’ve known them a while. But we’d better lay in a couple of cases of Ichnusa beer, otherwise they can be a bit work-shy.’
‘I’ll tell Rudy to have some delivered. Judging by their taste in beer, they’re Sardinian, right?’
‘Correct. They’ll get a flight from Cagliari tomorrow. I’ll pick them up at the airport.’
‘So I suppose till then we’ve not got much to do.’
‘That’s right. I’m going to cook myself a decent lunch and then I’m off to the fair-trade association for a meeting. Do you want to stay and have a bite?’
The Master of Knots Page 3