“Officer De Silvestri please . . .”
“Who should I say?”
“Deputy Chief Schiavone!”
Background noise. Footsteps in hallways, bursts of static. A printer in the distance, then more footsteps.
“Dottore?” came the familiar voice of Alfredo De Silvestri.
“Alfrè, what’s happening?”
“Do you remember that little research project you entrusted me with? The search for persons who might have escaped from prison, or else been recently released?”
“Of course I remember. By the way, I chanced upon a corpse. Or rather, they haven’t found the corpse yet, but we know for sure the man is dead.”
“Who?”
“Corrado Pizzuti. The one who was missing.”
“Then I was right about that.”
“All right, so tell me all about it!”
“A couple of weeks ago there was a prison escape. From the infirmary of Velletri prison. At the time, I didn’t give it much thought. But then I looked back on it, connecting it back to Pizzuti . . .”
“Who is it?”
“Enzo Baiocchi!”
Rocco hung up the phone without saying good-bye to his old friend from Rome. He rummaged anxiously through D’Intino and Deruta’s papers. All colored like so many rainbows, they looked like a class project done by a third-grade pupil. He found his officers’ last note. Corrado Pizzuti had stayed at the Hotel Piedimonte, in Pont-Saint-Martin, on the evening of May 9!
He turned pale.
“Why didn’t I read them before this, asshole that I am!” And he slapped his forehead with an open hand. Caterina watched him, the deputy chief’s eyes were glistening. He blinked his eyes rapidly, as if an electric shock were darting through his body.
“Listen, Caterina, I’m going to have to be away for a while, I need to go to Rome and—”
“No!” the deputy inspector protested. “You’ve just driven all the way to Abruzzo and back, you have dark circles under your eyes. Do you think you can leave me here with the dog to stand guard over D’Intino and Deruta? You have Antonio for that. And Italo, too.”
“Are you trying to keep me from—”
“I’m not trying to keep you from anything. I’m coming with you, and I’ll do half of the driving. But only if you explain to me just what’s going on.”
“The murder at my house. We may have a name to go with it.”
“All the more reason, I’m a cop, and I’m working on that case.”
“Caterina, I—”
“This isn’t a suggestion. It’s an order!”
Rocco smiled. “And since when does a deputy inspector give orders to a deputy chief?”
“Since the deputy chief in question has started thinking like a teenager high on Ecstasy!”
“You can’t come in uniform.”
“I have a change of clothes in my office!” And she shot out the door.
Rocco ran to the desk. He took the keys to the car. “Lupa!” The puppy came over to him. “Listen to me. Be a good girl with Caterina!” And he hurried out of the office.
THE VELLETRI HOUSE OF DETENTION STANDS ON AN ELEVATED plain not far from Cisterna di Latina, in the Agro Pontino, or Pontine Marshes. In the midst of that valley—once a marsh, since drained, originally inhabited by anopheles mosquitoes and butteri, or Italian cowboys, who challenged Buffalo Bill, but nowadays a stretch of countryside inhabited by Asian tiger mosquitoes and members of the Camorra who defy the Italian state—the prison looms high like a cement abscess.
Rocco knew the warden, and also a couple of guards. They conducted him to Pavilion C, the infirmary, where Enzo Baiocchi had made his escape sixteen nights earlier.
“He escaped from the ward by removing a bar from the window, and then in the courtyard he waited for the trash truck, he must have climbed onto it and made his escape . . .” said Francesco Selva, the prison warden, an extremely youthful-looking forty-year-old. “We searched his possessions. Nothing that could offer a clue. We went to talk to his daughter, who lives in Rome, on the Via Casilina, but she says she hasn’t seen him or heard from him. Let’s just say that she had a less-than-wonderful relationship with her father.”
“Do you mind if I take a look around myself?”
“Absolutely, be my guest.”
Selva took him down to the storeroom where they kept the convicts’ possessions. “They’ve cut personnel to the bone, and the place has turned into a colander. Nothing’s secure.”
Rocco nodded.
“Staffing levels are down by at least forty percent. Brutal hours for poverty wages. You tell me how we’re supposed to keep up . . .”
“They’ll declare a nice fat amnesty and kick a bunch of prisoners out onto the street. Like always.”
“Right. Can I tell you what I think?”
“Certainly, Francè.”
“They ought to legalize soft drugs. Do you know how the prisons would empty out?”
“I couldn’t agree with you more . . .”
They passed through two metal doors controlled from inside, and then, at last, a guard came toward them with a box. He entrusted it to the warden and then turned away. Francesco set it down on a metal table. “Okay, so this is the stuff that Baiocchi left us to remember him by.”
The deputy chief opened it up. A couple of T-shirts, a silver bracelet. A porn mag, and inside it a holy card. Saint Franco Hermit. “Was he religious?”
“He used to pray.”
“Strange place to hide a holy card, don’t you think?”
The warden leafed through the magazine. After the third image of fellatio he tossed the magazine back into the box. “Yes, I’d say so.”
“Saint Franco Hermit. Do you have an encyclopedia?”
“In the office.”
“IT SAYS HERE THAT HE’S THE PATRON SAINT OF FRANCAVILLA al Mare, Chieti province. That adds up,” said Rocco with the volume balanced on his knees, sitting in a green Naugahyde chair.
“What do you mean?” asked Selva from the desk where he was reading through the file of the now ex-inmate of his prison.
“Baiocchi was from Rome. Like his family, am I right?”
“You are right.”
“So why would someone named Enzo keep a holy card of Saint Franco Hermit? Does your file tell you what his father’s name was?”
Selva leafed through the pages. “His father’s name was Giovanni, his mother’s name was Concetta, a brother named Luigi, and a sister named Clara. No Franco, no Francis.”
Rocco turned the pages of the encyclopedia. “In fact, a religious man named Enzo, which is short for Vincenzo, would have a Saint Vincent holy card, wouldn’t he? Instead, Saint Franco Hermit. Who’s not even a saint anyone’s ever heard of.”
“So why do you say that it adds up?”
Rocco shut the encyclopedia. “It’s a message that he received from who knows who. He was trying to track down Corrado Pizzuti, obviously, and someone informed him where he could find him. So he’s the one who killed him.”
“Enzo Baiocchi killed . . . ?”
“He killed Corrado Pizzuti, a two-bit hoodlum. And he killed Adele Talamonti, a dear friend of mine.” Rocco set the encyclopedia aside. “I have to catch this guy.”
IT WAS A MAY NIGHT IN ROME, THE KIND THAT GRABS YOU BY the stomach and takes your breath away, when the scent of the linden trees finally overwhelms the smell of exhaust fumes, and the Tiber was no longer a slow ooze of slime moving lazily down to the sea but a ribbon of gold wrapped around a gift-wrapped present. The stars were all out, and so was the moon. From Furio’s terrace overlooking the Tiber Island, you could see the line of traffic along the Lungotevere and the pedestrians slaloming between the cars stopped at the red light. A girl was leading a balloon along on a string tied to her wrist. Furio came out with a tray and, on it, four mojitos. “Here you are . . .” And he distributed the glasses to his friends, then sat down. He lit a cigarette and listened. Seba was looking Rocco in the eye, while Brizi
o had his legs stretched out and was toying with a nail clipper. The wind was tossing the sago palms in their terra-cotta vases.
“All right, Rocco, we’re ready,” said Seba.
“I found out who it was. And unlike what you and Brizio have done, I share the information I obtain.”
Sebastiano sniffed. Brizio went on toying with the nail clipper.
“What can I tell you, Rocco? We figured out who had committed the armed robbery and—”
“I know everything. Luckily I have at least one friend who tells me things!”
Seba glared daggers at Furio, whose only response was to give him the finger.
“And what did you find out?”
“Enzo Baiocchi.”
Brizio and Furio leapt in their chairs. Sebastiano instead remained impassive.
“He escaped from Velletri prison sixteen days or so ago. Then he killed Corrado Pizzuti.”
“Corrado? Wasn’t that the guy who was driving the car all those years ago?” asked Brizio.
“The very same.”
Seba cracked his knuckles. “Did he do it to avenge his brother?”
“I’d say so,” Rocco replied. “And Adele paid the price.”
There was a long silence, a good solid ten seconds. Everyone was lost in thought.
“What are we going to do?”
“You promised me, Rocco. He’s mine.” And Sebastiano smiled, even though he had just uttered a threat. “I need to rip the heart out of his chest!” he added. “That’s what he did to me, isn’t it?”
Brizio nodded. Furio was looking at Rocco. He knew that the deputy chief wanted to be the first to lay his hands on the prey. And that he wasn’t going to give him up so easily. “Do you have any idea where he might be hiding?”
“No. I know that he has a daughter . . . She lives on the Via Casilina,” said Brizio.
“There’s no way that rat is holed up there. That’s the first place anyone would look for him. Where did he kill Pizzuti?”
“At Francavilla al Mare, Furio. A city in Abruzzo.”
“No, I can sense that he’s not in Rome.”
“Why do you say that, Brì?”
“Because it would be risky for him here. Too risky. A tip, a rumor as faint as that western wind, and he’d be done for! No, he’s holed up somewhere solid. Maybe he even went back up to Aosta, don’t you think?”
Furio looked at Rocco. It seemed as if he were asking whether Rocco still had the pistol within easy reach at all times. Actually, though, the handgun at that moment was locked in a desk drawer in his office.
“That’s true, he might head back up north. But now there’s a difference. He’s no longer a shadow. Now he has a first and last name!”
Sebastiano picked up his glass. He raised it. “To the death of Enzo Baiocchi, may he spit blood by the gallon!”
His three friends joined him in that toast.
“Que reste-t-il de nos amours . . .” Someone out in the street had just struck up an old French love song.
“These fucking tourists,” said Brizio, wiping his mouth with his shirtsleeve.
Saturday
He hadn’t been able to get a wink of sleep in his old apartment on Via Poerio. As he lay half awake, dreams and memories had piled up, along with sex fantasies and places he’d never been in his life but which he knew, strangely, like the back of his hand. It was all jumbled together in a tangled clump of brightly colored threads. It was pointless to try to sort them out; they were knotted together, and the best thing to do was to let his mind float free like a kite, allow himself to be possessed by this illogical sequence and watch it as if it were a film by a Czech director, without subtitles. He greeted the first faint rays of sunlight as manna from heaven, a vacuum cleaner that sucked away all those cobwebs, restoring a realistic view of the world. The bed, the furniture wrapped in plastic slipcovers, the walls of the room, Marina’s paintings, the three framed photographs of her, the armoire. He took a shower and walked out onto the balcony. He looked at the plants, uncovered the lemon trees under their winter shrouds. Rome spread out beneath him, with its gleaming roofs that reflected the early shafts of sunlight. A few clouds appeared in the distance, toward the sea. The flowers wafted their perfume into the air, and dozens of insects were buzzing power dives to their petals, ready to suck the nectar and dirty their feet with pollen. Rocco looked at his reflection in the window, in boxer shorts and undershirt. He had the sensation that he was the only thing in black and white around there.
WHEN HE GOT BACK TO AOSTA POLICE HEADQUARTERS, AFTER six hours in the car and with the taste of the cigar still in his mouth, Italo came toward him with an even more depressed look on his face. “Were you in Rome?” he asked him. Rocco nodded.
“Maybe it’s not important. But since yesterday I’ve been thinking over and over about it, and I finally remembered.”
“If you’d only tell me what the fuck you’re talking about, then maybe I could join in.”
“The escort, you know, the one in the photo.”
“Amelia. Well?”
“I was right, I’ve seen her before. And it wasn’t the night we broke into the Turrini property.”
“Oh, no?”
“No. I saw her outside the Hotel Pavone, in Nus, a few days ago.”
“Wait, didn’t you tell me that the Hotel Pavone was a place for lovers having illicit trysts? I don’t see anything strange about that.”
“No, neither do I, but it’s something I couldn’t get out of my head, and finally I’ve nailed it down.”
“Excellent, Italo. Good job!” And he slapped him on the back. He headed off toward his office. Then he froze with his hand on the doorknob. He turned around. Italo was heading toward the criminal-complaints office.
“Italo!” he called after him.
“What is it?”
“At the Hotel Pavone in Nus, you say?”
“That’s right.”
“But wasn’t that with Pietro Berguet?”
“Exactly. You remember? I told you that his wife had been right when she said that her husband was stepping out on her.”
Rocco nodded. “Where’s Caterina?”
“Her?” Italo said contemptuously. “She was up in the police chief’s office. Do you need to talk to her?”
“Yes, and right now!”
ROCCO SCHIAVONE AND DEPUTY INSPECTOR CATERINA RISPOLI got out of the car and started walking up Via Aubert.
“Let me understand . . . Lupa is at your apartment, right?”
“Right,” Caterina replied sarcastically. “And I’ll give her back to you when I’m good and ready!”
“Are you mad at me?”
“You bet I am! You took off and left me standing there like a complete fool. I was supposed to come with you to Rome! At least tell me who it is!”
“Not now. When you bring me back my dog.”
“If you want her, you have to come get her. I’m not at your beck and call. I’m a police inspector, not a dog sitter!”
Rocco sped up his pace. “You really resort to some ignoble extortion.”
“But at least I keep my word.”
“Are you sure that this perfume store is well stocked?”
“It’s the best one in the city, trust me. What did you say the perfume was called again?”
“Carnal Flower.”
“Never heard of it . . .”
“INDUBITABLY, SIR, YOU HAVE EXCELLENT TASTE.” THE woman behind the counter in the perfumery shop, slightly zaftig, dressed in an elegant knee-length navy-blue skirt-and-jacket ensemble, raised her finger to her lips accompanying the gesture with a complicit little smile. “I’ll get it for you right away . . .” Swaying dizzyingly down the row of shelves, she pulled out a drawer in a briar-wood cabinet. The dozens of mirrors in the shop echoed the same image of Rocco in a rumpled corduroy suit and a pair of Clarks desert boots of an undefined blackish hue and the deputy inspector’s uniform, which hung on her body with all the elegance of a burlap bag draped
over a Bernini statue.
“It’s an exclusive perfume for a special niche market . . . very, very commendable.” The woman came back to the counter with a box in hand. Black and red. “It’s a perfume by Frédéric Malle,” she whispered, as if they were discussing a shipment of heroin to be peddled on the streets of the city.
“Forgive my ignorance, I don’t know who that is,” said Rocco. “Have you ever heard of him?”
“No,” Caterina replied.
The shopkeeper’s eyes opened wide. “He’s the grandson of Serge Heftler-Louiche, one of the founders of the maison de parfums Christian Dior!” And as she shifted into a distinctly French pronunciation, she pursed her lips like a chicken butt.
“Mon dieu!” exclaimed Rocco.
“You see? Here, we’re not talking about just some perfume, but about perfume par excellence. I don’t have a tester, as you can imagine, this isn’t some supermarket perfume.” And she laughed at the very idea. “Would you care to sample?”
“May I?” asked the policeman.
“Bien sûr!” the woman practically shouted. She extracted the perfume bottle as if it were a holy relic, removed the top, and gestured for Caterina to extend her wrist. “Now be careful,” she said, “I’m only going to spray a tiny bit. On your skin. Whatever you do, don’t rub it!”
“No, no,” said Caterina, intimidated.
“You know? Many women, interested in getting a strong whiff of the scent, make the mistake of rubbing perfume on their skin, and then forget about it! There’s a radical change in scent. You have to give the essences enough time to settle into the dermis and interact with the skin. Let me have your wrist.”
Slowly, Caterina extended her wrist toward the woman, looking at Rocco, who rolled his eyes elaborately. He’d already had his fill of that whole routine.
Psst! A quick spray and the scent filled the room.
“It’s certainly very nice,” said Rocco. “Tuberose?”
The woman smiled happily. “Yes,” she said, closing her eyes as if confessing to who knows what sins. “Tuberose. The queen, the very symbol of the haute parfumerie! You have a sharp nose.” Then she looked at Caterina. “And excellent taste, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
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