Blues for Outlaw Hearts and Old Whores

by Massimo Carlotto

  “Know what I think,” remarked Beniamino, imperturbable, a few hours later, after I’d finished replaying my conversation with Angela Marino word for word. “Even if they torched our chances of hiding out with my old associates in what used to be Yugoslavia, we could always count on the guys who stayed in Beirut. But I don’t have the slightest intention of running. As far as I’m concerned, the plan doesn’t change.”

  I turned to Max. The Fat Man had been listening silently, chain-smoking.

  “I can’t stand the idea of an official from Interior threatening to throw me in jail regardless of my actual guilt,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “Moreover, using my health to raise the specter of incarceration is frankly unacceptable. And the knowledge that her crusade is fueled by someone as deplorable as Giorgio Pellegrini and his desire for vengeance drives me mad. But that’s not all. I spent a large part of my life hoping to see a happy multitude achieve their dreams. Instead I find myself surrounded by legions of individuals who are dead inside, who are resigned to being robbed of their lives.”

  “So?” Old Rossini prodded.

  “So, in a world as cruel as this, you have to survive. Whatever the cost,” he replied. “It’s a question of dignity.”

  TWO

  Old Rossini departed for Punta Sabbioni. He couldn’t stomach hearing the details of Martina and Gemma’s murder. Ever since losing Sylvie he had changed; violence against women had made him fragile.

  The CD that Max the Memory stuck in the computer was a commodity of the digital age. Once upon a time we’d have had to flip through a file as thick as my hand, stuffed with arrest reports and photocopies of faint images. Now all you needed to do was scroll down and you had the results of the investigation as good as the originals.

  First we watched the Forensics video taken at the scene of the crime, La Nena’s cellar.

  The camera zoomed in on the neat wood racks lined with bottles of wine and liqueurs, then fell uncompassionately on the victims’ naked bodies. Their hands and feet were bound with strips of nylon that had cut into their flesh. That’s how they work: the more you move, the tighter their grip. To judge by the women’s disfigured bodies, the torture must have been unbearable. That was child’s play compared to the mess that the piano wire had made of their necks. A sophisticated weapon beloved by hit men of a certain standing. The murderer had pulled it taut till it severed the artery. Though Gemma had already died of hypoxia, her blood, pumping from her terrified heart, had come gushing out, as evidenced by the hematic trail.

  Homicide detectives had proof that there was more than one killer. They’d come across bloody footprints from three sets of shoes, different in shape and size. Eight, ten and a half, and thirteen. Details useful in a criminal court, but for the time being they merely attested to the investigators’ scrupulousness.

  The scene was straight out of Grand Guignol. The killers had wanted to send a clear message, and it couldn’t not have been addressed to Giorgio Pellegrini.

  “There was at least one other man on lookout,” concluded the Fat Man.

  “And another in a getaway car, ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble,” I added. “The restaurant is in a pedestrian zone, the first street they could have parked on was less than a block away. A thirty, forty second run with cops on their heels.”

  The investigators had drawn the same conclusion, and thanks to the camera of a well-known jeweler, a car had been identified parked at the entrance of a building at the exact time the killers were in the restaurant. Inside, a man, the top half of his face deliberately shielded by a Dodgers cap. He’d been forced to move by a resident who wanted to open the door to her building. The woman hadn’t noticed anything unusual.

  The quality of the forgery was proof that the car and driver were connected to the crime. The car was in fact a perfect replica of a vehicle that already existed. The model, color, and plates matched a Korean Berlina belonging to an unsuspecting radiologist from Milan.

  “Why go to all that trouble?” wondered Max.

  “Standard procedure,” I said. “They always follow the same steps, they never improvise.”

  A deputy commissioner had profiled the perpetrators: “Based on the intelligence we’ve gathered, we believe these were foreign criminals with military training who belong to a highly sophisticated multitiered organization, probably mafia related.”

  It was in fact the absence of identifying clues that led them to believe the culprits were soldiers operating within a robust organization. They’d moved like ghosts. The dense network of cameras surveilling the city center—worthy of Orwell’s worst nightmare—hadn’t caught a trace of the suspects. The killers must have sent a scout to stake out a way to arrive at the restaurant without being caught on tape.

  Investigators watched footage from banks and retailers, besides their own and the footage belonging to local police, dating back a week prior to the crime. Nothing.

  Questioning the staff revealed that, like Pellegrini before them, the two women only stayed at the restaurant after closing time on Wednesdays, when they’d spend a few hours taking wine inventory. They’d always done good business and had chosen the middle of the week to avoid running out over the weekend.

  Their assailants were aware of this little detail, which enabled them to bring the women down to the cellar knowing that they had the time and quiet they needed to act without being disturbed.

  Martina and Gemma had been spied on. Yet the waiters hadn’t noticed anyone who could have let the suspects in. Their accounts were all the same: they had nothing to report, there was always a lot of work to do, and their only concern was serving their customers’ needs.

  Their alibis were questioned thoroughly shortly after the bodies had been discovered. Investigators initially suspect people “close” to the victims, after which, absent a lead, they widen the scope of their investigation.

  The clients were left alone. None was called in to testify. La Nena was, in every respect, “well patronized.” Politicians, entrepreneurs, investors, loan sharks, economic representatives for the mob—everybody did business at their tables. That wasn’t exclusive to Pellegrini’s restaurant. As every wiretapping record proves, in Italy shady business gets done in style, over lunch and dinner. Clinking glasses is synonymous with clinching a deal.

  So as not to cause unnecessary trouble or embarrassment, the police solicited information from a former colleague at the Guardia di Finanza who had left his unit to pursue a career as a real estate broker. The man, a regular at the restaurant, assured them the patrons would lead them astray.

  But the investigators already knew that. Clearly, Padua wasn’t the place to search for the culprits.

  The informants hadn’t been helpful either. Reading the various reports managed to break the somber mood. Even if their names weren’t printed, they were easily recognizable, and now we had a list of every snitch in the city. In truth we’d already had a good idea about who they were. The one surprise was a guy who sold secure phones. He’d been a supplier of ours up until a couple years ago, when we dropped him because he got too expensive. We’d known him for a while and occasionally had a meal together. He was a nice guy with a fatal flaw: He was obsessed with go-kart racing. Once he got started on the subject, you had to clear out. When he raised his price, we took offense and told him to get lost. But we’d been wrong. He’d actually been doing us a favor.

  “He didn’t want to sell us out to the cops,” I said, “that’s why he found an excuse to keep us away.”

  “That explains a whole string of arrests among the local coke and heroine dealers,” said the Fat Man. “They blabbed away thinking their phones weren’t tapped, and the whole time Narcotics had their numbers.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t give a damn about those scumbags.”

  We wouldn’t circulate the information. There wasn’t a single upstanding outlaw left who dese
rved that kind of courtesy.

  The autopsy was required reading; we didn’t want to overlook any important details. But all it revealed was how cruelly the two victims had been tortured.

  We watched footage from the search and seizure of the house where they lived, the same place they had once lived with Giorgio Pellegrini. His presence there bordered on obsession. The whole place was walled with framed photographs, objects belonging to him displayed like artwork. The most ostentatious example of the power he wielded over his wife and mistress was a white room furnished with a spin bike and a sang-de-boeuf leather armchair. The women painted their nails the same color. It wasn’t hard to imagine Handsome Giorgio sprawled out, relishing the sight of one of his women grinding away at the pedals.

  In the closets, his clothes and shoes were kept in perfect order. Evidently, Martina and Gemma secretly held out hope that their master would reclaim his throne and bend them to his will. Even were he able, I thought, he’d never return. His cover had been blown, and Pellegrini didn’t operate without a good front.

  Several hours later the Fat Man’s desk was littered with empties, an ashtray full of butts, and the rubbery remains of takeout pizza. It was my fault. The Fat Man had wanted to cook, but to me that seemed a waste of time.

  I opened the window to air the room. “The cops did a stellar job, followed every possible lead,” I remarked. “That is, every lead they could while still respecting standard homicide procedure. That’s why Marino gave us the file.”

  “I don’t follow. Go on.”

  “She wanted to make clear to us the limits of their investigation. To identify professional killers of that ilk you have to look for information in criminal circles, circles the police don’t have access to.”

  “Because they don’t have spies or moles.”

  “Exactly. The ladycop is banking on our know-how,” I said. “Those guys are after Pellegrini, and Marino wants them out of the picture because Handsome Giorgio is working undercover on who knows what operation. Nothing should distract him from his main objective.”

  “We tried to kill him too,” said Max, frowning at the memory of our failure.

  “Fortunately the witch doesn’t believe we can pull it off. She has too much contempt for us to consider us a threat to her man.”

  “Must be something big. I can’t believe the lengths the police have gone to keep the press at bay,” said the Fat Man. “Two women murdered like that are honeypots for the media. But they’ve been led astray by fake news. Journalists found the case so uninteresting, it didn’t even make the local blotter.”

  I suddenly understood what my friend was driving at. “No leaks!” I blurted. “There wasn’t the usual, inevitable news leak.”

  “The commerce of reports and juicy details. From politics to small-town crime, there’s never any shortage of indiscretion. Yet nothing’s gotten out.”

  “Marino must have terrified the station and the DA’s office. Or maybe a government heavy contacted the high-ups at the newspapers and television stations.”

  Max nodded. “The story doesn’t exist. That’s why they have to ensure our silence at all costs.”

  A shiver ran down my neck to the bottom of my spine. Fear. “At least we know when they’ll give us the slip.”

  We stared at each other and smoked. There was nothing left to say.

  “Where do we begin?” I asked.

  “La Nena,” Max answered without hesitating. “The killers moved confidently both outside and inside the restaurant. They could count on a scout who knew what was what, so there’s no doubt he went there more than once. Pellegrini taught the staff to be discreet, and they didn’t make an exception with the police, but I’m sure they’ll be of help.”

  The Fat Man was right. After all, that place was Pellegrini’s acknowledged domain. Behind the facade of a high-end wine bar and restaurant operated a hardened criminal.

  It was also the venue of choice of Sante Brianese, Pellegrini’s old attorney, who’d risen through the ranks, from the courtroom to the Regional presidency and eventually to Parliament, only to be convicted on several charges at the end of his career. Graft and criminal conspiracy related to the so-called major infrastructure schemes. Word among the crooks in Veneto was that Brianese and Pellegrini had been in bed together for some time. It appears Giorgio used to procure party girls for the politician and his business associates, and that in exchange the lawyer tipped him off about where to invest his money. Just rumors. But I was inclined to believe them: two people that crooked were bound to conspire together.

  We re-read the statements of the two chefs, the three assistant chefs, the dishwasher, and all seven waiters. Among them the name Giampaolo Zorzi leapt out at us. He didn’t have a prominent position, but everyone said he was the closest to Pellegrini and therefore also to the “ladies,” as the wife and mistress were called. He was the first one hired and still held the same job. Modest pay raises over the years, no career ambitions. Self-effacing, always present. The classic right-hand man. Pellegrini had probably met him before taking over the restaurant, though they had not met in jail; the man’s record was immaculate.

  I called Rossini. He picked up on the second ring. Despite the time, he was on the jetty outside his house, smoking in the fog.

  “You could cut it with a knife tonight,” he said.

  “Can you be here tomorrow morning?”

  “Nine o’clock. I’ll bring pastries.”

  Max shook his head, appalled. “Not before ten. I’m bushed.”

  “O.K.,” chuckled Beniamino, hearing the Fat Man. “But I’ll be there empty-handed. They’re no good after nine.”

  “Give me a break.”

  “The bakery has its rules,” he answered flatly, “just like everything else in this world.”

  Old Rossini was in a lousy mood and ready to carry on aimlessly. It was happening with greater regularity every time he returned to that pretty house by the sea. It was full of memories, the most trifling of which tore him from bed and drove him to spend the small hours of the night torturing himself.

  I hung up and sent a text to Campagna asking for more information about the waiter. He answered immediately. We’d talk the next day over breakfast.

  I left Max splayed on the divan watching the nightly news and retreated to my room. My mind was assaulted by images of pain and death, and I detoxed on Danielle Nicole and her rock-inflected Kansas City blues. I drank top-shelf Calvados to help me sleep.

  For a change, the inspector and I met downtown in the back of a café off the square. Once upon a time the place had been a coffee shop, and it still fronted like one too, grinding franchise beans.

  The owner owed the inspector a string of favors for liberating her from a loan shark boyfriend and smoothing things over with the bank. Campagna was a good man, no question about it, but he was also a tortured, bizarre, depressed cop, a loose cannon that we couldn’t, unfortunately, do without.

  The cop was scanning the street, his back against a barred window.

  “Starting today I’m at your service,” he said, not turning around.

  “Sorry?”

  “They’ve relieved me of all my duties,” he explained faintly, “and tasked me with ensuring your ‘mission’ is a success. Obviously they refuse to put a single word of that in writing.”

  “So, when the time comes to make a clean sweep, they can say you were working with us.”

  Campagna changed the subject. “My only regret is a case I was losing sleep over. We found out that the ’Ndrangheta has been taking over failing companies, pretending to save them, then forcing them to buy a mountain of merchandise that gets diverted elsewhere.”

  “So the suckers who trusted them are drowning in a sea of shit, right?”

  “They defrauded 47 people. Families crushed by debt, good people desperate, knowing they’ll never recover.
” I’d never heard him this bitter. “I busted my ass trying to nail the bastards that ruined them, and just when we’re about to issue arrest warrants, they have the nerve to sidetrack me so that I can babysit three washed-up crooks.”

  By “crooks” he meant us, obviously. Campagna continued to dispense with common courtesy and misread the situation. Or else it was a put-on. In any case, he clearly remained far from the idea of forming an alliance to save himself.

  “What did you find out about Giampaolo Zorzi?” I asked.

  He finally deigned to turn and look at me.

  “His older brother Marco was Giorgio Pellegrini’s cellmate in San Vittore,” he replied. “We can assume he was the one to recommend him for the waiter job. His loyalty was guaranteed.”

  “Not like he went on to a great career.”

  “Depends on what you mean. Maybe he’s clever, maybe playing the faithful servant made him rich.”

  A young waitress arrived with breakfast. She was nervous and kept her eyes on the floor. Our silence made the situation worse, and she practically ran away after setting the tray on the table. The inspector extended his arm. “I arrested her when I was working Narcotics. Freaks out when she sees me.”

  “Makes me wonder how you treated her.”

  “Badly, Buratti, badly,” he said testily. “I was lenient when it came to pot, but that kid was dealing ecstasy and deserved to go to jail.”

  “How long was she inside?”

  “Two years, eight months. But now she’s out and, as you can see, she’s found work.”

  “You got her the job, didn’t you?”

  “I know her mother. She owns a little laundromat. My wife’s been her client for years.”

  I took a bite of my pastina di riso. Exquisite stuff. You ask me, pastries that good can only be found in Padua and Verona.

  “Were you joking about Zorzi being rich or did you find hard evidence?”

  “His partner earns a little more than 800 euro a month working part-time at a tailor, but, turns out, she owns three large apartments that she rents to university students. Three hundred a month for a bed.”