Black August Page 9

  “He lives on the top floor. Signorina Belloni was fond of his two daughters.”

  “Signor Boatti visited her a lot?” Pisanelli looked up awaiting her reply with a raised eyebrow.

  “The only man I ever saw her with was Signor Boatti, Commissario.”

  “That struck you as quite normal?”

  She caught her breath. “Quite normal.”

  Soon after, Trotti and Pisanelli took their leave. “I have to drop in on Signor Boatti,” Trotti said. “If you meet him, I’d rather you didn’t go into any details about our conversation, signorina.”

  Laura nodded thoughtfully and slipped her narrow feet back into the espadrilles. She accompanied the two policemen to the door.

  As they went up the stairs, Pisanelli said softly, “You’re not telling me, Commissario, that you can leave a bolognese sauce as good as that in the refrigerator for eight days.”

  22: Lancia

  “Tema Sturbo.”

  The three men sat in the car. Pisanelli held one hand on the steering wheel. Trotti seemed to have fallen asleep yet from time to time he would click the sweet in his mouth against his teeth. The inside of the car smelled of sweat, garlic and Trotti’s cherry sweet.

  “Tema Sturbo,” Pisanelli repeated, worrying at his teeth with a worn toothpick, disappointed that nobody laughed at his joke. “Cicciolina’s car—a Tema Sturbo.”

  Boatti was in the back seat. In his soft, educated voice he dictated something into a hand-held recorder. From time to time he belched softly.

  It was hot and there was very little draught through the car, even though the windows were wide open. What breeze there was brought the petrol fumes from via Matteotti. It was nearly midnight and Pisanelli had parked the blue Lancia Delta on the edge of the forecourt of the railway station. The car was just beyond the circles of light cast by the overhead lamps.

  “Thanks for fetching me, Commissario,” Boatti said after switching off his machine.

  Trotti did not open his eyes. “I have an interest in your book—if you ever write it.”

  The occasional rumble of a train shunting on the far side of the long wall.

  “I’ll write it.”

  “You got the address?”

  Boatti said, “The school’s closed, but I managed to talk with the porter. There used to be a teacher at Rosanna’s school who left about three years ago. Now lives in Ventimiglia. The porter believes there was something between him and Rosanna. Man called Taleri—Achille Taleri. Has a grown-up son.”

  Trotti nodded, without opening his eyes.

  There were very few people about; some railway workers coming off duty, their blue uniforms crumpled and creased after the day’s summer heat. A tramp who had gravitated towards the station, having nowhere else to go. At this time of night, there were no travelers. It was late and before dawn, only a couple of international trains, heading for Genoa or Venice, France or Yugoslavia, full of tourists, full of light, would thunder through the provincial city without ever slowing down.

  In their sidings, the brown, local trains for Vercelli or Codogno or Alessandria humbly awaited the early dawn.

  The end of another rainless day. Another seven days to the Ferragosto.

  “Tema Sturbo.” Pisanelli yawned noisily without putting a hand in front of his mouth. The smell of garlic grew stronger. He tapped his teeth with the toothpick.

  Nobody seemed to be paying any attention to the car. It had ordinary plates and only the whiplash aerial indicated that it was in any way different from the other half dozen or so cars beside which it was parked. Trotti would have appreciated the air conditioning, but by running the motor they would have attracted unnecessary attention.

  “What exactly are we doing now?” Boatti asked.

  “Waiting.”

  “I can make a note of that?”

  The rear of the car was opposite the station wall and a series of identical posters, some advertising a football match that had been won and lost many months earlier, others announcing a Spanish circus.

  Deposito bagagli. The overhead sign burned in neon isolation above a doorless entrance and a sulfurous water pump.

  The front of the Lancia faced the square, ready for departure. “Tema Sturbo . . . Te masturbo.”

  Nobody laughed.

  Pisanelli shrugged. “I thought you might like a joke or two in your book, Boatti.”

  No reply.

  Offended, Pisanelli picked up the night vision binoculars. “Nice little body, the Roberti girl. Very lithe.” He made several broad sweeps along via Trieste. “I think she was interested in me—in my animal magnetism.” The view was partially hindered by the intervening fir trees and the film posters in the small square that stood between the station and via Trieste. Southwards, towards the Po, rose three illuminated towers, three pieces of postmodern architecture, replicating the medieval towers that had once populated the city. Three tubular structures, white except where the concrete had been chipped away to reveal the reinforced steel frame.

  (The columns had been built when three lime trees had died, probably from the petrol fumes in via Trieste.)

  Pisanelli whistled. “More whores,” he said without removing the binoculars from his eyes.

  “What have you got against whores?” Trotti opened his eyes and turned towards Pisanelli.

  “Who could want to fornicate in this heat?”

  “Husbands whose wives have gone off to the coast.”

  Boatti whispered, “My wife’s going off to the coast tomorrow.”

  “The Nigerian girls are doing a special summer offer, Boatti, if that’s what you want. You see that black girl over there . . .”

  Trotti said, “You think that prostitutes are a special race, Pisanelli?”

  “There’s no need to get angry, Commissario. I just don’t understand anybody wanting to screw in this weather.”

  “What were you going to do with your psychiatrist after the cinema, Pisanelli?”

  “She’s not a psychiatrist.”

  “Worse crimes than being a prostitute.”

  For a moment, Pisanelli sulked. “I like women, Commissario. That doesn’t mean I need to make love to all of them. And what they give me, they give me because they want to. I don’t pay.”

  “Why were you so aggressive with Laura Roberti?”

  Pisanelli ignored the question.

  Trotti took another cherry sweet from the packet.

  “You can’t buy women,” Pisanelli said with hurt dignity.

  “You were gratuitously unpleasant towards Laura Roberti.”

  “Of course you can buy women, Tenente Pisanelli.” It was Boatti who spoke. “We buy women all the time. With money and with everything else. Women buy us with their looks—and with their bodies. There’s no such thing as a free gift in nature. If you want something, you have to pay for it, one way or another.”

  “A philosopher, Boatti?”

  “No one gets the free screw.”

  “You don’t believe in love?”

  “A woman knows if you desire her body. She will always want something in return. She opens her legs, you open your checkbook. Or worst still, you open your front door, your soul and your life.”

  “The last romantic, Boatti,” Trotti said. He had closed his eyes again.

  “Women are the same as men, no better, no worse.”

  “Women find me sensitive,” Pisanelli said.

  Via Trieste was about ninety meters away. Much of the zone was well lit and they could see the scantily clad women—coffee-colored Brazilians and dark Nigerian women in high heels and strangely outdated mini-skirts—except when a car coming off the ring road slowed down and the driver or his passenger haggled with the girl over her price.

  “Angela.” Pisanelli handed the binoculars to Trotti.

  “Poor
bastard.”

  It was Pisanelli who laughed. “Poor bastard? Angela is richer than you or me, Commissario. And now with all this AIDS, he refuses anything more risky than a hand job. Angela’s nearly forty years old and he doesn’t want to jeopardize his retirement.”

  The transvestite stood in a doorway and was talking to one of the prostitutes. He wore a mini-skirt and held his yellow handbag behind his back.

  “He’s got a son doing athletics at CONI in Rome.”

  In the back seat, Boatti laughed. “Angela’s lucky.”

  “Lucky to be homosexual?”

  “Most male prostitutes are old at twenty. Maybe he’s got something that the others haven’t got.”

  “A sphincter and years of practice,” Pisanelli said.

  “Or perhaps he hasn’t got something the others have got—like a viral infection.”

  Boatti was interrupted by Trotti holding up his hand. “Here comes Beltoni.”

  The atmosphere within the Lancia suddenly grew tense, expectant. Trotti ceased to click the sweet in his mouth. He put the large binoculars to his eyes, resting the front edge on the windscreen.

  Behind him, Boatti leaned forward, forearms propped against the driver’s backrest.

  “In the T-shirt.”

  The figure walking along via Trieste must have been between thirty and thirty-five years old. He had his hair in braids, like the footballer Gullit. He walked with a light, skipping gait, as if about to break into a run. Basketball shoes.

  He nodded towards the whores as he went past. His greetings were not returned. Angela turned his back on him. The man went towards the lights of the Bar il Re, where viale Vittorio Emmanuele came out on to the railway square. A few late drinkers—mainly railway workers—sat at the small tables set out on the pavement, almost on the road’s edge, to catch the slight breeze along the viale.

  Beltoni approached a table.

  “Should have something,” Trotti said.

  “There hasn’t been much stuff in the city for a couple of months.”

  “Who says?”

  “Narcotici.” Pisanelli bit his lip. “They’re not going to be very pleased with your elbowing in on their terrain.”

  “They won’t even know. If . . .”

  “You really think Rosanna Belloni’s sister’s on drugs?”

  “How else do you think they keep them quiet at that place in Garlasco?”

  “Tranquilizers, Commissario—not the hard stuff.”

  “Maria Cristina’s been away from the home for several weeks. Probably they gave her a supply of tranquilizers, but that doesn’t mean she’s been taking them. She needs something—and perhaps she’s been needing money.”

  “So she attacked her sister?”

  Trotti was silent.

  “Maria Cristina was capable of killing her sister?”

  “I wonder if there’s a connection between the river suicide and Maria Cristina’s disappearance.”

  “Why should there be?”

  “Where is Maria Cristina?”

  “Because she’s disappeared . . .”

  Trotti held up his hand; the man in plaits had suddenly stopped—an animal that had scented an enemy lying in wait. He was two meters from the first table. He took a small, hesitant step and then turned away. He went back in the direction he had just come, now walking faster. The skip had disappeared from his gait.

  Boatti asked, “He suspects something?”

  “No reason to.” Trotti took his eyes from the binoculars. “Beltoni pays his dues.” He glanced at Pisanelli, who was now sweating profusely even though he had at last removed his suede jacket.

  “He’s meeting somebody,” Pisanelli said simply.

  An African man—a vu comprà with shining white teeth who had been standing near the entrance of the Il Re, an empty glass in his hand—came out on to the pavement and, taking the same direction, walked towards the whores. He carried a leather satchel on one shoulder.

  A Volkswagen coupé with four young men pulled up alongside the curb. One of the men said something and a whore replied with an obscene gesture. The prostitute had light brown skin.

  (Most of the Brazilians were male transvestites.)

  In the back seat, Boatti was fanning himself.

  The man in plaits had gone into a doorway. Only a part of him was visible through the binoculars. He was soon joined by the African.

  “Turn on the engine.”

  It was not possible to see the transaction from the car.

  “Let’s get going,” Trotti whispered harshly.

  Pisanelli had switched on the ignition. Behind him, Boatti gripped the seat.

  “It’s Beltoni I want,” Trotti said. “Okay, Pisa, but slowly.”

  Almost silently the car slid across the empty piazza. Halfway towards the via Trieste, Trotti said, “Now.”

  Pisanelli accelerated, the wheels screeched. He flipped on the headlights and the two men were caught in the circle of light. The African’s eyes were as white as his teeth. Beltoni instinctively raised a protective arm to his eyes.

  The African turned and ran.

  The Lancia took the curb at a right angle. The car bounced and for a moment Pisanelli could have lost control.

  Above the roar of the engine, a whore was screaming in Portuguese.

  Pisanelli slammed on the brakes before reaching the wall. A controlled skid.

  Boatti whispered hoarsely, “My God!” He still held the recorder in his white hand.

  The dealer was trapped in the door entrance by the snarling Lancia. The exhaust pipe sent grey, swirling fumes into windless air.

  The prostitute in need of a shave continued to scream.

  23: Caliber 7.65

  “Cuffs, Pisanelli.”

  “You shit.”

  Trotti held the gun against the nape of his neck.

  “Hands against the wall, legs apart.”

  Beltoni smelled of old sweat and unwashed clothes. Pisanelli frisked him.

  “What’s your name?”

  “I’m clean.”

  “Clean? You have to be joking.”

  A hesitant crowd had gathered, prostitutes and passers-by; they stood at a respectful distance from the car. The Lancia blocked the pavement; the motor was still on and, like actors on an empty stage, the three men were caught in the bright light of the headlights. Trotti could feel the silent hostility of the onlookers. One of the transvestites was still screaming Brazilian insults.

  “What’s your name?”

  “You know my name, Trotti—you and all the pricks of the Questura.”

  Pisanelli thumped him with his left hand as he took a caliber 7.65 from the man’s pocket and whistled. “Some heavy artillery, Commissario.”

  “Where did you get this?” Trotti asked.

  “It’s not mine.”

  “Where’s it from?”

  “A friend gave it to me—ten minutes ago a friend gave it to me. It’s not mine—you know me, Commissario, you know I don’t carry guns.”

  “I don’t know you—and the way you smell, I don’t want to know you.”

  “Bastards.”

  “Pisanelli, put the cuffs on him. We’re taking him. A year—six months if he’s lucky. Keep him off the streets for six months, we’ll be doing a lot of people a favor.”

  “For God’s sake, that gun’s not mine.”

  “Check his pockets for illegal substances.”

  “I’m clean.” He shook his head and the braided hair danced on the grubby forehead.

  “Nothing that a fumigation can’t solve.” Trotti was out of breath. “Look in his shoes.”

  “Why don’t you take the nigger?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Take the nigger, he’s got the stuff.” The whining voice was mark
ed by a strong Milanese accent. The eyes appeared unnaturally large and bloodshot. “I haven’t got anything—it’s the niggers who deal. Why don’t you take the vu comprà?”

  Boatti was still sitting inside the car, the rear door open and one leg on the ground. His round face was pale.

  “Hurry up, Pisanelli. Look in his shoes.”

  The dealer’s breath was fetid, an unpleasant mixture of hunger, alcohol and cigarettes. Beltoni did not wear socks. From the inside of the left basketball shoe Pisanelli removed a flick knife. Pisanelli was still frisking the pockets of the jeans when the man kicked backwards, trying to turn his thin body.

  “Bastards!”

  The kick was not very powerful, it merely grazed the side of Pisanelli’s head.

  “Leave me alone, you bastards.”

  Trotti, without losing hold of the gun—the Beretta that Pisanelli carried in a holster—punched the man in the small of the back. Then, as Beltoni turned, Trotti kneed him in the groin.

  Beltoni grunted, slumped forward and Pisanelli snapped the cuffs around the white, narrow wrists.

  “Scum of the earth.”

  Pisanelli finished frisking the man. “Ah.”

  “What?”

  Pisanelli looked up at Trotti. His face was damp with sweat and still taut with emotion. He grinned without conviction. “Jackpot!”

  In his left hand, he held a thick wad of one-hundred-thousand-lire notes.

  24: Camomile

  The stubs of the Muratti cigarettes stood to attention, like black-headed soldiers in a long line across the kitchen table. A couple of saucepans were in the sink and the ceramic was splattered with the remains of food. Under the sink, tomato sauce had trickled down the side of the plastic bin and onto the floor.

  Eva was in the bedroom, asleep, lying diagonally across the bed. The side lamp was on. A couple of magazines lay open on the carpet. The shutters were closed and the room was stuffy with the smell of musky perfume, nail varnish and cigarette smoke.

  Trotti went back into the kitchen and put hot water in a saucepan. While waiting for the water to boil, he tidied up. He removed the cigarette filters and started washing the dishes.

  He was pouring the boiling water onto the camomile when Eva appeared in the doorway. She was fumbling with a cigarette. She had found one of Agnese’s dressing gowns—a present from Trotti when they were in Bari—and had put it on without tying the cord. The gown hid Eva’s breasts but not the dark triangle of her pubic hair.