Big Italy Read online

  ALSO BY TIMOTHY WILLIAMS

  The Inspector Piero Trotti Novels

  Converging Parallels

  The Puppeteer

  Persona Non Grata

  Black August

  The Anne Marie Laveaud Novels

  Another Sun

  The Honest Folk of Guadeloupe

  Copyright © 1996, 2015 by Timothy Williams

  Published by

  Soho Press, Inc.

  853 Broadway

  New York, NY 10003

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Williams, Timothy.

  Big Italy / Timothy Williams.

  ISBN 978-1-61695-578-6

  eISBN 978-1-61695-579-3

  1. Police—Italy—Fiction. 2. Murder—Investigation—Fiction.

  I. Title.

  PR6073.I43295B54 2015

  823’.914—dc23

  Interior design by Janine Agro, Soho Press, Inc.

  v3.1

  questo libro è dedicato agli amici londinesi

  a Guglielmo Buck

  Carlo Piede

  Juan

  il vero Tim Williams

  Dr. Doom

  Jules

  l”Imperatore di Notting Hill

  DB detto the Woolgatherer

  inglese italianizzato diavolo incarnato!

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Glossary

  1: Clean Hands

  2: Bassi

  3: Magagna

  4: Sandro

  5: Domenica Del Corriere

  6: Crime Passionnel

  7: Radiator

  8: Baobab

  9: Moka Sirs

  10: Interpol

  11: Lamborghini

  12: Virginity

  13: Bianca

  14: Eva

  15: Linate

  16: Anna Maria

  17: Autostrada

  18: Canal

  19: Brewery

  20: Daughter

  21: Phone

  22: Funeral

  23: Cyclamen

  24: Corollary

  25: Friend

  26: Bureau

  27: Pigsty

  28: Twin Udders

  29: Coffee

  30: Scola

  31: Widow

  32: Mistress

  33: Tram

  34: Press

  35: Cocaine

  36: Journalist

  37: Anna

  38: Cortina D’Ampezzo

  39: Motives

  40: Magagna

  41: Cavour

  42: Mirror

  43: Merenda

  44: Venezuela

  45: Terrone

  46: Pretext

  47: Abuse

  48: Quarenghi

  49: Paolo

  50: Methuselah

  51: Utet

  52: Thermal

  53: Fountain Pen

  54: Piemonte

  55: Santa Corona Unita

  56: Motta

  57: Hybrid

  58: Angel of Death

  59: Lab Coat

  60: Pendolino

  61: Sacristan

  62: Pediatria

  63: Dinosaur

  64: Umberto Giordano

  65: Tangenziale

  66: Charlemagne

  67: Donnaiolo

  68: Knowledge

  69: Cousins

  70: Coma

  71: Esselunga

  72: Giuda

  73: Prontuario

  74: Karaoke

  75: Congo

  76: Favors

  77: Milan

  78: Shakespeare

  79: London

  80: Track Record

  81: Surly

  82: Mani Pulite

  83: Grison

  84: Snail

  Other Books in This Series

  Glossary

  ANTISOFISTICAZIONE: Nucleo Antisofisticazione, Italy’s health and safety department

  ARMA: Arma dei Carabinieri, a military corps with police duties

  AVVOCATO: lawyer

  BUONA SERA: good evening

  CAMORRA: a Neapolitan criminal organization

  CARABINIERI: Italian national police force

  CASA CIRCONDARIALE DI CUSTODIA PREVENTIVA: remand prison

  CASA DI RECLUSIONE: prison

  CASERMA: station

  CASSA DEL MEZZOGIORNO: a government-funded endeavor to stimulate economic growth in Southern Italy

  CELERE: riot police

  CHI L’HA VISTO: a television program dedicated to missing persons and unsolved mysteries

  CHINO: Elisir di China, a hot drink

  DEMOCRAZIA CRISTIANA: a Christian democratic political party, the successor to the Italian People’s Party

  DESTRA NAZIONALE: an Italian right-wing political party

  DIRETTRICE: director (f.)

  DONNAIOLO: womanizer

  DOPOLAVORO: after-work recreational club

  ESCHIMESE: a hooded anorak popular among left-wingers in 1970s Italy

  FESTA PADRONALE: annual festival of saints

  FIGLIO DELLA LUPA: the youngest sector of the Fascist party youth group (ages 6-8)

  FOTOROMANZO: comic book

  LA GIOCONDA: the Mona Lisa

  I PROMESSI SPOSI: an Italian historical novel by Alessandro Manzoni, published in the 1820s

  IN BOCCA CHIUSA NON ENTRÒ MAI MOSCA: a proverb directly translating to, “A fly never entered a closed mouth,” implying that silence is often best

  INGEGNERE: engineer

  LANGHE: a hilly region in Piedmont

  LASCIA O RADDOPPIA: an Italian game show, translating to Leave It or Double It, that aired from 1955–1959

  LEGA: alliance/union, often short for Lega Nord, a regionalist party centered around the Po

  LEGA LOMBARDA: a regionalist political party in Lombardy

  LEGHISTI: belonging to a lega (see two above), especially Lega Nord

  LOTTA CONTINUA: a non-terrorist extreme leftist group

  LOTTIZZAZIONE: government-mandated allotment of funds

  MANI PULITE: a national judicial investigation into Italian political corruption in the early 1990s

  MATURITÀ: high school diploma

  MEZZOGIORNO: Southern Italy

  MINESTRA: soup; the same old stuff (idiom)

  MINISTERO DELL’ INTERNO: Department of Internal Affairs

  MINISTERO DELLA GIUSTIZIA: Justice Department

  ‘NDRANGHETA: an Italian criminal organization based in Calabria

  OSPEDALE: hospital

  OSTETRICA: maternity ward

  PALAZZO DI GIUSTIZIA: courthouse

  PARTITOCRAZIA: the hijacking of institutions by the party system

  PENETRAZIONE MAFIOSA: pervasive mafia thinking

  PIANO REGOLATORE: city planning

  PIZZAIOLO: pizza chef

  POLICLINICO: hospital

  POLIZIA DI STATO: national police force

  POLIZIA STRADALE: highway patrol

  PROCURATORE: prosecutor

  PRONTUARIO: short for Prontuario farmaceutico, or the Physicians’ Drug Index

  PSICHIATRIA: psychiatric ward

  PUBBLICA SICUREZZA: Italian police force

  PUBBLICO MINISTERO: public prosecutor

  QUESTORE: chief inspector

  QUESTURA: police headquarters

  REPARTO OMICIDI: homicide division

  REPUBBLICHINO: Republican

  REPARTO RIANIMAZIONE: intensive care unit

  SANGUE DI GIUDA: a sparkling red Italian wine

  SANITÀ: health

  SACRA CORONA UNITÀ: a criminal organization from the Puglia region in Southern Italy<
br />
  SCUOLA MEDIA: middle school

  SEZIONE FEMMINILE: women’s branch

  SEZIONE VIOLENZA INFANTILE: child abuse division

  SEZIONE VIOLENZA SESSUALE: sexual assault division

  SOCIOLOGIA: sociology

  SOSTITUTO PROCURATORE: deputy prosecutor

  STAZIONE CENTRALE: central station

  TANGENTOPOLI: the network of corruption revealed by Mani Pulite, deriving from the Italian term tangente, which means “kickback”

  TANGENZIALE: an expressway common to urban areas that allows vehicles to circumvent city traffic

  TENENTE: lieutenant

  TERZA MEDIA: the eighth grade

  TORRE CIVICA: a tower equipped with bells (not to be confused with a bell tower, which has religious implications) that became symbolic of economic and military power in European cities

  VU COMPRÀ: a term for immigrant street vendors, directly translating to, “Do you want to buy?” in a Neapolitan dialect

  1: Clean Hands

  Monday, 29 November 1993

  SIGNORA SCOLA HAD left a message asking him to ring her, but an Elisir di China was what Trotti most needed now.

  There had been a time when Trotti used to stay in the Questura working until all hours of the night. In those days, Agnese and Pioppi frequently dined without him and he would creep, tired and hungry, into a sleeping house. When Pioppi was a student at the liceo, months could go by without his ever seeing his daughter.

  Now Commissario Piero Trotti rarely got home late.

  In the last few years he had imposed a routine upon himself. He normally returned to the empty house in via Milano before eight o’clock.

  A china before supper, he told himself, and then the walk home to burn off the extra calories. He knew he was putting on weight, but during the winter months Trotti enjoyed the feeling of warmth the hot toddy produced in him.

  One of the rare pleasures of life.

  He came out of the main entrance of the Questura and the burly policeman saluted briskly. “Buona sera, Signor Commissario.” He wore a leather jacket and his beret was pulled down to his ear.

  “I hope you’re wearing tights under those trousers, agente.”

  “I’m from Bolzano.” The man laughed. “Never been afraid of the cold.”

  “Salve!” Trotti gave him a wave. He pulled on the zipper of his English waxed jacket as he went down the steps into Strada Nuova.

  It was dark and the overhead lamps cast their tinted light into the foggy street. Trotti turned right, pulling his scarf up to his chin and headed towards the Po.

  His last winter in the Polizia di Stato.

  After a lifetime in the Questura, Trotti could now enjoy those simple luxuries that he had systematically denied himself. Money in his wallet and no longer anybody to tell him what to do. Even Pioppi, now that she had a child of her own, had ceased to give orders to her father.

  He softly whistled an air from Andrea Chénier to himself.

  Although Strada Nuova was the center of the pedestrian zone, it was full of evening traffic. Rush hour and the municipal buses rumbled past, heavy with their load of passengers and misted glass. Passengers going home to minestra, Berlusconi and bed.

  Trotti took the turning right and let the noise of the Strada Nuova fade behind him. Here the fog dulled every sound, dulled the fall of his shoes on the wet cobblestones.

  Two hundred meters.

  He could feel the damp fog working into his trousers and he longed for the dry cold of the hills.

  He turned into Piazza Vittoria and along the empty, echoing porticoes. The door of the Bar Duomo was misted and twinkled with the light beyond. Trotti pushed the brass handle, to be met by the familiar smell of coffee, spirits, moist clothes and by the soft music of the radio.

  “Buona sera, commissario,” the barman said cheerfully, catching sight of Trotti through the crowd. “You’re on time.”

  The barman stood in front of a serried row of bottles. Advertisements—Amaro Ramazzotti and playing cards from Treviso—had been carefully stuck to the tinted glass of a long mirror.

  The mirror threw back Trotti’s unsmiling image.

  One or two coated backs moved aside and one or two heads nodded an evening salutation as Trotti went past, heading to a far table where nobody was sitting.

  On the wall hung the price list in felt, with inserted white characters. Beneath it was a shelf and a vase of dried flowers. On the pink cloth of the table lay a discarded copy of the morning’s Repubblica, stiffened by a wooden rod.

  Trotti unfurled his scarf and unzipped his jacket before sitting down. He rubbed his hands, the warmth quickly returning. He picked up the paper. The reading glasses that Pioppi had scolded him into buying on his last visit to Bologna remained resolutely in his pocket while Trotti held the newspaper at a distance, trying to keep the print in focus.

  A few minutes later, silent and discreet, the barman moved from behind the bar and transferred a saucer of cashew nuts and a glass of steaming Elisir di China from a steel tray on to the table. A slice of lemon had been clipped to the rim of the glass.

  “The evening paper, commissario.” The waiter slipped the sheets of La Notte into the metal clasp.

  Trotti mumbled absentminded thanks as he scanned the front page of the paper.

  The inquiries continued. Nearly two years of Mani Pulite and there were still more resignations in Milan.

  The waiter turned on the wall light. “Anything else you need?”

  “Milan.” Trotti shook his head, speaking to himself. “Moral capital of the Republic.”

  “Times change, commissario.” The waiter smiled philosophically, picked up an overflowing ashtray and went away with the crumpled Repubblica.

  “Thank God soon I’ll be retiring,” Trotti muttered.

  (In the 1970s, during the Years of Lead, when nothing was sure in Italy, Trotti had entertained a nostalgia for the certainties of his childhood, for the certainties arrogantly paraded by Mussolini and the Fascists. Then the adult Piero Trotti had longed for the distant, innocent time of his childhood when things were simple, when values were black and white. A time when you knew where you stood.

  Of course, it was wishful thinking—but during the Years of Lead, with people being blown up on trains or outside factories, Trotti needed to believe in something.

  Twenty years on, Tangentopoli and Mani Pulite had put paid to any idealism. Now there was nothing to believe in.

  Nothing. Neither in the Fascist past, nor in the future of democracy. The politicians had taken the money and they had left nothing other than their cynicism and their debts. Nothing.)

  “Mind if I sit down?”

  Trotti glanced up. “You really have to?”

  “Always so courteous, commissario.”

  Trotti returned his attention to the Milan newspaper. “I gave up being courteous years ago.”

  2: Bassi

  THE MAN WAS a lot younger than Piero Trotti, in his mid-thirties. He wore a camel-hair coat and was removing matching leather gloves. He had slow, dark eyes, broad shoulders and a prominent Adam’s apple. Black hair brushed forward to hide incipient baldness. His complexion was doughy; the result of a lack of sunlight and exercise.

  Trotti continued reading the paper.

  His name was Fabrizio Bassi and for ten years he had been a policeman—in Gorizia and then in the city—before leaving to set up his own detective agency.

  “Another?” Bassi pointed at the half-empty glass of china in its steel frame.

  Trotti looked up. “If you wish to talk, I’m sure there are many people who’d enjoy your company a lot more than me.”

  Bassi sucked in his cheeks. Despite the cold, his shirt collar was undone and the blue tie loose at his neck. He cultivated the appearance of a television detective. There was even an overlay of American to his flat, Lombard intonation. He liked to claim he was from Brooklyn. According to his identity card he was from Pieve del Cairo.

  Trotti retur
ned his attention to La Notte.

  Leaning forward, Bassi asked, “Commissario, have you thought about my suggestion?”

  On the Milan pages, there was an article about a teacher of a liceo classico who had been arrested for accepting a bribe. Two million lire in exchange for the maturità examination.

  Trotti sipped the hot drink. “As I recall, you had your answer last week.”

  Bassi sat down on the edge of the chair opposite and placed a magazine on the tabletop. “There’ve been developments.”

  “Why do you keep bothering me?”

  “It would be to your benefit.”

  “For nearly forty years I’ve had my colleagues imposed upon me from above. Why on earth do you think I should wish to work with you, Bassi?” A chilly smile. “Soon I’ll be a free man, and can choose how to live my life as I please.”

  “I’m not asking you to marry me, commissario.”

  “I’m still married.”

  “You and I could work as a team.”

  “I can’t help you, Signor Bassi.”

  “We can collaborate. Don’t you see your name alone would mean so much? Your name alone would be a source of income for both of us.”

  “My name means a lot to me.”

  “We used to be friends, commissario.”

  Frowning, Trotti held up a finger. “You used to work under me.”

  “I worked with you. On the Biagi case. And later, when you sent me to Turin about the murdered train conductor. You used to say I was reliable. ‘One of the best’—that’s what you used to say, Commissario Trotti.”

  Trotti returned again to La Notte.

  “You helped me, commissario, when I was thrown out of the Questura. When the Questore kicked me out.”

  “Please leave me alone. Please go.”

  “You’re going to retire?”

  “Button your coat and put your gloves on. Please, Signor Bassi. Take your magazine. Kindly leave me alone.”

  “You’re going to leave this city that you love and that you’ve worked in for so many years? You’re going to move into the hills and live among your animals?”

  “You have an objection?”

  In exasperation, Bassi started tapping the tabletop with the magazine. “We could make money.”

  Trotti lowered the newspaper. “I don’t need money, Signor Bassi.”

  “Everybody needs money—particularly if you’re living off a state pension.”

  “Then I’ll have to sell freshly laid eggs.”

  For a few seconds the two men looked at each other in silence.