[Ricciardi 09] - Nameless Serenade

by Maurizio de Giovanni

  In the brief period she’d had to instruct her on the geography of the quartiere, Rosa had given Nelide a few basic indications. For instance, she had told her that the fruit and vegetable shop overlooking the street charged its customers the overhead required to maintain the facilities, so it hardly seemed wise to shop there. Better to shop from the strolling vendors, who had lower prices and fresher produce, which they purchased directly from farmers in the provinces.

  That day, on account of the weather, there were only half a dozen or so stalls set out for business, clustered in a recess just off the street, a sort of blind alley that offered a modicum of shelter. There was the woman selling ricotta, with a little nanny goat tethered by a rope; a young man with three crates of fresh fish, a pizza vendor with his furno, as Neapolitans call the metal container that held his delicacies, keeping them warm; not one but two hot chestnut vendors, a boy and a little old man who glared at each other, competing to see who could outcry the other to attract customers for their wares; last of all, two fruit and vegetable stands occupying the two furthest ends of the little marketplace.

  There was a crowd of housewives and young women milling around in front of the first of these two stalls, laughing and elbowing each other in the ribs, listening as a fine baritone voice earnestly implored in rhyming verses a certain Mariú to speak words of love to him. Nelide didn’t even slow down as she passed, striding briskly in the direction of the other fruit and vegetable vendor, a gentleman with a substantial gut, nodding off over his merchandise, a cap pulled low over his eyes.

  As the fine baritone voice saw her pass by, he broke off his singing, to the great disappointment of its audience, and exclaimed: “Buongiorno, Signori’! And where would you be heading, without even stopping to say hello?”

  The females clustering around the singer all turned in unison to see just who those words were directed at, and when they saw that it was Nelide, they started in a collective moment of surprise.

  One woman said: “Oooh, Madonna santa, who is this, my aunt Agata?”

  The wisecrack prompted an outburst of general hilarity, but the young woman maintained her composure and continued on her way. At that, the fine baritone voice made his way through the group of adoring female listeners, revealing the handsome features, the curly head of hair, and the large dark eyes of Tanino, also known as ’o Sarracino, the prince of strolling vendors and the unconfessed dream of every marriageable young lady, and most of the married women, in the neighborhood. Nelide constituted the only stain on his otherwise spotless career as a serial seducer: it was unthinkable that she should continue to display such a clear and uncontrived lack of interest toward him.

  In a vaguely offended tone of voice, he insisted: “Signori’, I’m talking to you. Didn’t you hear me?”

  The young woman shot him a quick, grim glare and replied: “I have things to do, I’m not here to waste my time.”

  Tanino straightened his shoulders.

  “What are you saying, is a smile a waste of time?”

  One of the onlookers turned to the girlfriend standing beside her: “If that one smiles at you, she’d kill you.”

  Again, there was a burst of laughter. But Nelide hardly seemed to notice and, under her breath, as if speaking to herself, she said: “’U munno è spartuto a metà: na metà va a fateà e nata metà passa o tiempo a te jurecà.”

  Tanino blinked rapidly, since he hadn’t understood a single word Nelide had said. The spirit of Rosa, on the other hand, nodded in grim satisfaction; her niece spoke exclusively in proverbs from the Cilento, and the one she had just uttered meant this: The world is divided in two, one part works hard, the other spends its time judging you.

  The young woman who had just cast aspersions on Nelide’s no-doubt dangerous smile once again elbowed her neighbor in the ribs.

  “You hear that, Luise’? A magic spell. No doubt about it, that one’s a witch!”

  Before the next wave of laughter could be unleashed, Tanino turned toward her and asked her: “Mari’, do you really have nothing else to do, this morning? I served you your fruit, now why don’t you get back to work cleaning your signora’s house. Shoo. Have a good day.”

  Maria, who was very attractive and who prided herself on being one of the handsome fruit-and-vegetable vendors’ favorites, flushed bright red, clearly offended. Then she shot an angry glare at her unlikely rival, who didn’t deign to return her glance, spun on her heels, and marched off. One after another, the women scattered, finally persuaded that the morning’s entertainment was at an end.

  At that point, Tanino took another step in Nelide’s direction and unfurled his most seductive voice.

  “Signori’, why don’t you come to my stand, if you’re looking for the finest produce? What harm did I ever do to you?”

  The young woman went on pressing the eggplants with expert fingers, as if she hadn’t heard him. Then she half-lifted her head and grunted: “Senza cà truoni, cà nu lampa.”

  Rosa’s ghost nodded again in open appreciation. There’s no point thundering, if there’s no lightning, Nelide had said. In practical terms: Don’t waste your words, they’ll do no good.

  Tanino threw both arms wide, in exasperation.

  “Signori’, can’t you talk like a normal person? I can’t understand you!”

  Nelide looked up at him.

  “I don’t come downstairs to watch a show. You dance and sing, I have a soup to cook. If you want to sell me vegetables, then do your job and be a vegetable vendor. Otherwise, go on and be a singer.”

  For someone like her, that had been a tremendously long speech. Poor Tanino stood open-mouthed. The other fruit-and-vegetable vendor, the one with the cap pulled down over his eyes, stirred out of his slumber and gazed around him, bleary-eyed. Nelide told him what she needed, haggled briefly over the price, paid the price she considered right, ignoring the man’s loud objections, and turned to head back home.

  Tanino snapped out of his reverie and, speaking to the young woman’s stout back, began to sing: “Parlami d’amore, Mariú; tutta la mia vita sei tu! Gli occhi tuoi belli brillano, fiamme di sogno scintillano . . . ” In other words, “Speak to me of love, Mariú; you are my life, my everything! Your lovely eyes glitter, dreamy flames they spark . . . ”

  Nelide didn’t bother to turn around. Rosa’s spirit was thoroughly pleased.

  XIX

  Ricciardi and Maione decided the time had come to look this Sannino in the eyes, the man that everyone seemed to believe was the murderer. Experience had taught them that all too often the members of the victim’s family came to conclusions that strayed greatly from the reality of what had happened, but what if they were right in this particular case? If Sannino really was the killer, then it was their duty to keep him from getting away scot-free just because they had taken their time before questioning him.

  Maione, however, was pretty sure that the suspect’s freedom of movement was rather limited.

  “Commissa’,” he said, “Sannino is probably the most famous person around just now, along with the Duce and that movie actor, the one who sings Parlami d’amore, Mariú. Everyone knows his face, he’s always in the newpapers. Anywhere he goes, people recognize him.”

  Ricciardi was less confident.

  “Are you so sure, Raffaele? For instance, I have no idea of what he even looks like. Maybe we ought to see him right away, and then we might even have a chance to talk to the import-export agent, Martuscelli. In fact, let’s send someone right over to get him and bring him in to police headquarters, that’ll save us a few hours. Did you find out where he lives, this boxer?”

  “Certainly, Commissa’. He’s staying at the Hotel Vesuvio. All it took was the usual three phone calls: the rich and famous always seem to stay at the big hotels along the waterfront. Do you want to drive over, since it’s raining, or shall we walk?”

  The commissario made a face. When Maione got behind the wheel of a car, he was a perfect, if blithely unaware, public menace. Far b
etter to brave the rain than risk likely death.

  “Come on, it’s just drizzling,” he replied. “Maybe it’ll help us clear our minds.”

  The route from police headquarters to the Hotel Vesuvio was lovely, truly lovely, even in that weather. First, they crossed the large piazza and then continued toward the water, running slightly downhill. Then they walked along the harbor front, leaving the ships and boatyards on their left. As they walked, their eyes took in the spectacle of a vast expanse of gray, uneasy water tossed by the wind, with the island emerging from the mist, facing the long hooked spit of land that projected from the base of the mountain. Ricciardi perceived the sounds of nature and the noises of the city as a single whole, amalgamated with the briny air and the rain that came in from all directions, rendering useless any attempt at staying dry. Here and there, he could see ladies struggling to brace their umbrellas against the wind and businessmen hurrying along, clutching their lapels shut around their necks.

  Cars whizzed past, splashing waves of water onto pedestrians and receiving in return yells of indignation and shouted curses. Horses trotted along apathetically, hauling the burden of their existence from one stop to another along a route that resembled a cruel sentence more than anything else.

  Maione, unlike the commissario, was not especially inclined to appreciate the beauty of that spectacle. He couldn’t help but think of Gustavo ’a Zoccola, his fate and his children. And of Bambinella. He wondered what he could do, what he ought to do, to fix the plight into which they both had fallen. And in the meantime, his mind kept proffering him an image that was seemingly incongruous: a boy with red hair and freckles, laughing with his toothless mouth open wide.

  Beneath the awning that extended out over the front entrance of the hotel, a young uniformed bellboy stood at attention, awaiting guests, indifferent to the chill and the rain that angled in on him from the side. Maione looked him up and down with something approaching distaste: he was displaying a martial pose that he would have dearly loved to see in his officers, though none of them seemed capable of assuming even the palest of imitations. The young man accompanied them in to a concierge in a black tailcoat who might easily have passed for a high minister of the king. When the man realized that he was not speaking to guests, he glared at them with suspicion, while a faint look of haughty contempt appeared on his face.

  “Are the gentlemen expected? Do you they have by any chance an appointment or a note requesting their visit? Because otherwise I can’t possibly bother Signor Sannino.”

  Maione was in no mood to strike up a diplomatic negotiation: he was cold, sleepy, and he might be running a slight fever; his trousers were drenched with rain and his shoes were soaked; he had worries and concerns.

  Before Ricciardi had a chance to stop him, he reached his big meathook of a hand over the counter, seized the spiffed-up lackey by the shirtfront, and yanked the man toward him.

  “Listen here, penguin: we’re from the police. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of us: the PO-lice. We aren’t suppliers, we aren’t casual visitors. We aren’t guests and we aren’t here to sell you anything. We are, and I’ll say it again, policemen. What’s more, I’m a policeman on a short, very short fuse. So now, if you’d be so kind as to summon this Signor Sannino lickety-split, that would be great. Otherwise, as God is my witness, I’ll make you pay for all the treatment I’ve received at the hands of all your snooty colleagues over the past two years. And I’ll make you pay dearly.”

  Ricciardi considered the scene that Maione had just made to be out of line, but he chose not to weigh in then and there, deciding to save the lecture he intended to deliver to his subordinate for some other time.

  “You follow me?” Maione went on. “Nod your head, in that case. Very good, thank you.”

  As soon as the brigadier released him, the poor man lurched backward, straightening his bowtie as he did so.

  After he regained a modicum of composure, he said: “Forgive me, Brigadier, it’s just that since Signor Sannino has been a guest here, there’s been a steady procession of journalists who want to see him. One of them actually dressed as a priest, can you believe it? Just look over there.”

  Maione and Ricciardi turned to look in the direction that the man’s trembling forefinger was pointing and they saw a group of people with cameras hanging on straps around their necks and notebooks in their hands on the other side of the street; they were staring hungrily at the hotel’s front door while trying to shelter themselves from the spray that the wind was kicking in off the sea. There were even two women among the reporters and photographers.

  The concierge went on: “It’s been a veritable siege. And Miss Wright, our guest’s private secretary, was quite categorical: He must not be disturbed on any account. So I assure you, it was not out of any disrespect that I . . . ”

  Ricciardi reassured him.

  “We understand entirely. In fact, allow me to apologize for my colleague’s somewhat brusque manners. It’s just that we’re in the middle of a rather delicate investigation and we don’t have a lot of time.”

  For a moment, Maione lowered his head, contrite, then tossed in: “Well, are we going to call this Signor Sannino or not?”

  The doorman gestured to a bellboy and gave him a set of instructions. After a few minutes, which Maione spent carefully avoiding the commissario’s gaze, the sound of a woman’s high heels rapidly descending the stairs reached them.

  The woman was tall and fair-haired; she wore a red jacket with rounded hems, nicely tapered to offset her florid bosom and soft curves. She was pretty and she knew it, as was proven by the proud blue eyes she turned on Ricciardi, looking him right in the face and choosing him as her interlocutor.

  “I’m Penelope Wright. You can call me Penny. What can I do for you?”

  She spoke perfect Italian, though with a heavy American accent. All the same, the commissario was able to detect a note of uneasiness in her voice.

  He bowed his head briefly and said: “My name is Ricciardi, and I’m a commissario at police headquarters. This is my colleague, Brigadier Maione. We need to ask Signor Sannino a few questions.”

  The woman’s concern became still more evident.

  “Mister Sannino is resting, and I’d rather not disturb him. Couldn’t you ask me?”

  Maione lost his patience once again.

  “Signori’, if we could just ask you, we already would have. We need to see Sannino. Him and no one else.”

  Penny Wright batted her long eyelashes. Ricciardi decided that there was something reminiscent of Bianca about her, even though she lacked Bianca’s natural elegance.

  “I understand. But I must repeat, Mister Sannino is resting. Last night . . . he didn’t feel well. He only got to sleep very late. So you’d be ever so kind if you . . . ”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Ricciardi noticed that the reporters had crossed the street and were now crowding outside the glass doors, and that the usher was struggling to hold them back.

  “Signorina,” he said, “we really would prefer not to have to go to the magistrate to get a subpoena for his appearance at police headquarters. Just imagine how inconvenient it would be to have to go all the way over there, with . . . with all the traffic there is out in the street.”

  Maione smiled ferociously, as if he’d just heard the trumpets sounding the charge of troops riding to his rescue. Penny shot a glance at the small crowd clustered around the front door and said, with a sigh: “Let me go upstairs to see whether he’s awake yet.” Then she hurried off, tracked by the ravenous eyes of the newspapermen.

  A few minutes later, a man appeared: powerfully built, with a lithe step. His well-made double-breasted suit was dark gray, and did little to conceal his broad shoulders and muscular arms; his hands, too, were large and strong. Out of the collar of his shirt, fastened with a gold pin, a large neck projected, rising to support a face disfigured by old scars.

  He walked over to the two policemen and extended his hand: “I’m
Jack Biasin; Jack is just short for Giacinto. I’m Vinnie’s manager. Penny told me that you want to speak to him: what’s all this about?”

  Maione turned to look at Ricciardi; his face was a portrait of astonishment: “What is this, are they pulling our leg, Commissa’? What do we have to do around here, stand in line as if waiting to be allowed into the theater? Ticket taker, usher, cigar vendors?”

  Ricciardi shook his head: “All right, we’ll leave, thanks all the same. In a very short while, Signor Sannino is going to receive a mandatory subpoena to appear at police headquarters, which will be delivered by two police officers who will have orders to escort him in.” He nodded his head. “That way we can throw a little work to the boys outside. Have a pleasant day.”

  He turned to leave, but he was stopped by a voice that rang out from the staircase.

  “Hold on. I’m right here.”

  The reporters outside let out a roar; one of them tried to bolt through the door but was thrust back by a hulking bellboy hurrying to the aid of his colleague at the door.

  The man who had spoken descended the last few steps and walked over to Ricciardi. He was fairly tall, about six feet even, with a narrow waist and broad shoulders; a physique that was similar to that of the man with the disfigured face, but more harmonious and lithe. His face was olive complected, his cheekbones high, his eyes dark and deep; his nose was knocked to one side and under his right eye there was the unmistakable sign of an old scar.

  Ricciardi noticed that he wore a tailor-made suit, but that it was rumpled; his trousers were stained around the knees and the brown jacket was torn at the right pocket. The shirt was buttoned wrong, and the tie was loose.