A Fine Line (6 page)

“Among other things, the position of president of the court falls vacant in the next few months. As you can imagine, I stand a good chance of getting it. Or maybe I should say:
I would have stood a good chance
. With this thing pending, unless we deal with it very soon, my chances are close to zero.”

Again that uncontrolled grimace of disgust.

It was my turn to pour myself some more wine, after refilling his glass.

“What would
you
do?” he asked as he drank.

“We could present a motion in accordance with article 335 and see what they reply. Just a try, obviously.”

According to article 335 of the code of criminal procedure, anyone who supposes he is being investigated can present a motion to the prosecutor asking if his name appears on the register of those under investigation. The prosecutor is obliged to divulge the information unless the investigation is in any way confidential, in which case he can take advantage of this confidentiality for three months.

Larocca shook his head slightly. “I don't know. I think if we present a motion, all we'll do is put them on the alert. They're bound to claim confidentiality, and for at least three months I'll be sat here stewing, wondering what nasty surprise they might have in store for me. It'd drive me mad.”

“An alternative would be to take it as read that the process is under way – we don't have to indicate any source – and ask for you to be examined.”

I had barely finished speaking before he had already started shaking his head again.

“You're not convinced by that either.”

He didn't reply immediately. He pushed back his smooth, thin brown hair, which was falling over his forehead, breathed in greedily, almost violently, as if suddenly hungry for air, then put his hands together. “I heard about that remarkable cross-examination of yours in the second division court, when you demonstrated that the charge was a slander. My colleague Basile says you must have carried out a very thorough investigation. He doesn't see how you could have gathered certain information without help from the police.”

“Oh yes, it was a trial for sexual assault. A case that should never have come to court. The investigation was a good one, I agree.”

“I don't want to ask you anything that will interfere with professional confidentiality, but I imagine you must have
used a private detective.” He let a few seconds go by before continuing: “Or else you have some… useful contacts?”

“I know a very good private detective. She's the only one I trust. And I think she has… useful contacts, as you put it. Including among the police.”

“Is she an ex-policewoman?”

“No. She's not your average detective. She used to be a journalist. You may remember her, she was always hanging around the courthouse years ago, as a crime reporter: Annapaola Doria.”

“Doria, of course I remember her. Pretty face, good figure. Now that you mention it, it's true, I haven't seen her around for a while. Why on earth would a journalist become a private detective?”

“I tried asking her once, and I soon realized it was best to drop the subject.”

“But you say she's good?”

“Very good. She gets results others don't even dream about.”

“What would you say if I asked you to carry out a preemptive investigation, using this woman, to find out more about what's going on before we take any formal steps with the Prosecutor's Department in Lecce?”

“What are you thinking?”

“I don't have any specific ideas. Anything we manage to find out – about the Mafioso and about the case they're building – will help us to decide what to do next. I know several people in the police. In theory, I could ask any of them, but I don't think they can be trusted any more about these things. It's a tricky business. You talk to someone you consider a friend, and the first thing he might do is write a duty report and take it to the Prosecutor's Department. Better to strangle it at birth, don't you think?”

Strangle it at birth. The expression bothered me. I had to make an effort to suppress my disquiet and say, all right, I'd talk to Annapaola and ask her if she was in a position to carry out that kind of investigation. I wasn't sure it was possible, I wasn't sure what she'd reply, but I'd try.

“To be on the safe side, I'd like to formalize this, if you have no objection.”

“Of course not.”

“Then I'll immediately prepare a proxy document giving me authority to carry out investigations – I'll make it general, without going into details – and you can sign it now. That way you won't need to come back here. I'll call Annapaola tomorrow.”

“Don't discuss it with her on the phone.”

“Don't worry.”

Ten minutes later, I was walking Larocca to the door. On the threshold he hesitated for a moment.

“Guido…”

“Go on.”

“I want to be treated like any other client. You'll incur expenses with your detective. Can I pay you an advance? I insist on it. If you can tell me how much—”

“You
will
be treated like my other clients. But right now, it's after eleven and I think it'll be a bit difficult for me to take the money and write you a receipt. For the moment, it's time to go home.”

8

The next morning was full of things to do at the courthouse, the kind I hate. Engaging an expert for a pretrial hearing; examination of an individual in the police cells; hearings related to building violations. As far as possible, when there are tasks of this kind I delegate Consuelo and Maria Teresa, my other colleague, or, for simpler things, one of the trainees. That morning, however, there were too many things to do. We all went to the courthouse together at nine and got back to the office around lunchtime.

“Who drank a whole bottle of wine?” Maria Teresa asked, a few moments after going into the kitchen to make herself a salad.

“A client. A new one. We drank the bottle between us, talking about his case. I'll tell you about it later. I didn't take any girls to the sleeping quarters, I swear.”

Maria Teresa rolled her eyes and shrugged her shoulders.

“I can't find Annapaola Doria's phone number,” I said, dismissing the subject of my nocturnal drinking bouts in the office with my clients. “Can you get it for me, please?”

“Do you want me to call her for you?”

“No thanks. I'll do it.”

Annapaola answered at the second ring. “Guido Guerrieri!”

“Am I disturbing you? Is this a bad time?”

“On the contrary. At moments like this, it's great to get a phone call.”

“What you mean by
moments like this
?”

“I've been stuck in a van for the past two hours, glued to a pair of binoculars and a camera with a telephoto lens. My only company is a flask of water and mineral salts. I thought it'd be better than grappa in the circumstances.”

“So maybe you can't talk?”

“Yes, I can. I'm a hundred metres from the target. I can talk and watch. Especially as I have to be here for quite a while. Dammit.”

“The target?”

“I'm waiting for a guy to come out of a place where he shouldn't be. One of those cases that puts food on my table, even though they aren't really my passion.”

“Marital infidelity.”

“Technically, no. Not until there's a law on gay marriage.”

It took me a couple of seconds to get my head round this. “They even ask you to investigate infidelity in homosexual couples?”

“Much more than you might imagine.”

“Why? It can't be used in court.”

“Even hetero couples often don't know what to do with these investigations, legally speaking. You know as well as I do they can only be used to reduce the amount of alimony in a divorce settlement. They want proof their suspicions are correct, they want photos, they want things they already know to be confirmed. They want to feed their resentment. It's just another form of masochism. Then, of course, they throw the photos in their partner's face or throw them out of the house or walk out themselves, it all depends. An expensive and rather crazy kind of satisfaction. But it's fortunate for me, because at least fifty per cent of my income comes from crap like this.”

There were a few moments' silence. I was thinking about what she had said, while she was catching her breath.

“Sorry to go on like that, but I was about to go out of my head. The guy still hasn't come out and I'd like to be somewhere else. A long way away. But I assume you wanted to tell me something, you didn't call to give me moral support.”

“I need to talk to you about a possible assignment. It's a rather delicate matter. When can we meet?”

“Are you in the office in the afternoon?”

“I've been in the office in the afternoon for over twenty years.”

“Excellent. Then you won't mind waiting for me. I don't know what time I'll be free, it depends on this bastard. As soon as I'm done, I'll go home, take a shower, and come to see you. If you're busy with clients, I'll wait. That's what I'm best at, after all.”

“Waiting?”

“Waiting. Bye, Avvocato, I'll see you later.”

The job must have lasted quite a while because it was after seven by the time Annapaola got to the office. She wore faded jeans and a black leather jacket, and was carrying a menacing-looking wraparound black helmet.

“How did the surveillance go?”

“I took at least a hundred photos, then a really long shower. Sometimes I wonder why it's so hard for me to find an honest job.”

“But you enjoy it, don't you?”

“I did at first, but I get bored easily. What did you want to talk to me about?”

I told her about the case. She sat motionless in the armchair, listening attentively without so much as a nod, until I had finished.

“Let me see if I've got this right. You'd like me to make some enquiries, ask a few questions, talk to—”

“I don't want to know who you talk to, assuming you're able to talk to someone, and also assuming you accept the assignment.”

“Okay. You want me to ask someone you don't want to know the name of if there are proceedings pending at the Prosecutor's Department in Lecce against Judge Pierluigi Larocca for the offence of corruption, if they originated in the statements of an ex-Mafioso named Capodacqua who's cooperating with the law, and… what else? It's okay to smoke in here, isn't it?”

“Sure. It reminds me of the good old days when I used to smoke. This office has never had the privilege of being immersed in the bluish smoke that hovers in the light of evening. I quit some time ago, when I was still in the old place.”

“What poetry.
The bluish smoke that hovers in the light of evening
. Who are you, Szymborska? If you like, I can roll one for you, too.”

“Best not. Do you like Szymborska?”

“Very much.”

“Me too. I'll get you an ashtray and open the window.”

She rolled her cigarette, lit it, smoked half and let it go out.

“If you don't want to do it, I'll understand. I already told Larocca that I couldn't guarantee you'd accept. I know I'm asking you for something a bit out of the ordinary, but on the other hand I understand the man's state of mind. For someone who does that kind of job, it's quite a blow to find out you're implicated in something as nasty as that.”

“You like the sound of your own voice, don't you? Did I say I don't want to do it? I was just… emphasizing the unusual
nature of the assignment. That doesn't mean I'm not going to accept. It'll cost you, though.”

“Larocca insists on making a down payment.”

“Congratulations,” she said, relighting her cigarette. “You've told me what he told you, but you haven't told me what you think.”

“I don't think anything. I don't have enough to go on yet.”

“He isn't a pleasant man.”

“Not really, you're right about that. But I'd be quite surprised if I discovered that he took a bribe to get someone released.”

“Why?”

“Maybe I'm biased in his favour, but I find it hard to believe that someone so competent and with such an illustrious career behind him would run the risk of squandering it all for a bit of extra cash, like any old crook. I'm not saying I consider him morally incapable of doing so. I have no idea. For me, it's a matter of… personal strategy, intelligence, the ability to weigh up the pros and cons of situations. He's an intelligent man, and an intelligent man wouldn't do something as stupid as that. That's how I see it, anyway.”

“They say he might become the next president of the court.”

“Precisely. Who'd risk an opportunity like that for something so petty?”

“Okay, let's try. It'll do me good to get away for a few days from betrayed husbands seeking revenge. I'll ask a few questions around and see what comes up. As soon as I find out anything – or as soon as I realize I won't be able to find anything – I'll give you a call. And thanks: it was nice to smoke a cigarette in peace in a place that's not a balcony or the door of a restaurant.”

9

Every now and again people ask me, with the guarded expression reserved for eccentrics, why I carry on boxing. The implication is: now that you're the age you are, maybe it's time you learnt to play golf and stopped engaging in fisticuffs with guys young enough to be your sons. Depending on the moment, my mood and the person asking me the question, I reply: that it's as good a way as any other to keep fit; that I practise boxing because it's a literary sport (possibly throwing in a quote from Hemingway or, if I want to seem self-important, George Bernard Shaw); that I like having conversations with the punchbag I keep in my living room; that I appreciate the picturesque ambience of the gym, the characters you run into there, even the smells, which are often not very pleasant.

There's an element of truth in all these answers, but the real reason – which I almost never give – has to do with the magic power of ritual.

I continue to box because the always identical liturgy of training takes me back to a mythical period in my life, when I was a boy and the world was a place that glittered with possibilities. In that world, in that mythical territory, twice a week I would go to the gym, empty my bag, change, skip with the rope, do press-ups and pull-ups, shadow-box, then bandage my hands, put on my gloves and work on the punchbag, try out techniques with an opponent, and at the
end of that always identical sequence I would take a shower and let the pains and tiredness slip away along with the shampoo and cheap shower gel, while my head was empty and free and light and everything was perfect. So much for Monsieur Nizan and his disciples.

Nowadays, twice a week, I go to the gym, empty my bag, change, skip with the rope, do press-ups and pull-ups, shadow-box, then bandage my hands, put on my gloves and work on the punchbag, try out techniques with an opponent, and at the end of this always identical sequence I take a shower and let the pains and tiredness (and the fear, which I didn't know about in those days, because as a boy you're immortal) slip away along with the shampoo and the shower gel.

For an hour and a half, twice a week, I'm the boy I was many years ago. An explanation you don't really want to give when you're talking to someone in a bar.

I was doing pull-ups, counting the repetitions with stifled groans, when I heard the phone ringing in my bag. I considered ignoring it, but when I saw it was Annapaola I changed my mind. I moved to the door of the changing rooms, away from the sign saying
The use of mobile phones is forbidden. Offenders will be punished
, which in a boxing gym sounds quite menacing.

“Hi.”

A few seconds' silence, then: “Were you jogging, or do you just get excited when you hear my voice?”

“I'm a bit out of breath… I'm at the gym.”

“I have to talk to you, I have some news,” she said, leaving the sentence hanging.

“What kind of news?”

“I'd rather not talk about it over the phone.”

“Okay. I just need to take a shower, and then I'll join you.”

“Better if I come there. It's complicated, getting to my place. Where is the gym?”

I told her the address: a godforsaken spot in the heart of the Libertà district.

“That's not a place for mummy's boys. What gym is it?”

“Boxing. Why should it have been a place for mummy's boys?”

“I'd have said you were the kind of guy to go to a fitness club in the city centre, with all that ridiculous apparatus and bored women who go there to get picked up.”

“This is the perfect place to get picked up. If you like men with squashed noses and bad grammar.”

She gave a brief, harsh laugh. “See you in half an hour.”

Exactly half an hour later, Annapaola was outside the gym with her black leather jacket, black helmet, black shoulder bag and carbon-coloured motorbike. She wasn't exactly inconspicuous.

“Take this,” she said, holding out another helmet, also black.

I wasn't dying to go by bike. I don't like motorbikes in general, I don't like riding on them as a passenger, and above all (no offence) I don't like riding as a passenger with a woman at the controls. It's not a sexist prejudice. Rather, it's a kind of post-traumatic phobia. Once, many years ago, I let myself be persuaded to go out with a girl who looked like Gene Wilder, smoked big joints and rode her brother's Enduro 600 without having any aptitude. She was convinced that doing stupid, reckless things while under the influence of cannabis and laughing smugly while I begged her to stop was an effective seduction technique. Inevitably, we ended up plunging down an embankment. Luckily, neither of us was hurt, but the bike was ruined. The adventure ended with the arrival of an ambulance, a breakdown truck and her
brother, the owner of the bike – or what remained of it. He took me aside and, with an inquisitorial expression, started asking me repeatedly who was driving when the accident happened, while ignoring my answers. At the fourth repetition of the question, I told him in a neutral tone that if he asked me again I'd smash his face in. There followed a few seconds in which he must have been wondering about the meaning to ascribe to the expression
I'll smash your face in
. Joke? Metaphor? Genuine threat? I don't know what interpretation struck him as the most appropriate. I only know that, after throwing me a final, not very cordial glance, he turned and walked away.

I never saw him again, just as I never saw any member of that family again.

The episode didn't increase my liking for motorbikes, especially not motorbikes ridden by girls who looked like Gene Wilder.

It should be said that Annapaola didn't look anything like Gene Wilder, but all the same I had a moment's hesitation when she told me to put on the helmet and jump on. Now, though, I didn't have much choice: I should have thought of it earlier and told her that we could meet at my office. So, with little enthusiasm but trying to appear as casual as possible, I obeyed.

Annapaola rode very differently from Eleonora – the girl I'd tumbled down the embankment with.

Calm, careful and fast. Relaxing, almost. The bike glided between the cars, producing a muted roar like the friendly cry of a domestic pet. A big cat purring. For about ten seconds I even closed my eyes, breathing in almost voluptuously the smell of her leather jacket.

“Where are we going?” I asked, barely raising my voice.

“You haven't had dinner, have you?”

“No.”

“If you like, we could go somewhere quiet where we can talk and have a bite to eat. I'm starving. But if you don't think that's very professional, we could go to your office and talk on an empty stomach.”

I felt like laughing. In itself the line was nothing special. It was the
way
she said it. That's always the case. With jokes and with almost everything else.

“Let's go and eat. As long as the bar association doesn't hear about it.”

She rode calmly for a few minutes, leaving behind her the Libertà district, sailing through the Murat district and its square, regular streets, running between the lighted windows of the shops selling clothes and shoes and electronics, skimming past the groups of young people starting to gather in front of the nightclubs. I could have gone on a journey with that bike and that rider. I could even have dozed off. How great to cross the country and the cities, ride along the coast, without being imprisoned by the windows of a car.

“Are you still there? Or have you fallen off and will I have to turn round and pick you up?”

“I almost never go by motorbike. I was enjoying the ride.”

A couple of minutes later, she stopped outside a wine shop. “We've never eaten together. I hope you're not a teetotaller?”

“As a child, I was.”

“Where we're going, they don't have wine. We have to take our own, if you don't want to drink just tea. Wait for me.”

She went into the shop and came out with a wrapped bottle. She gave it to me and we set off again. After another three or four minutes we arrived at our destination, in front of an old door in Via Celentano – one of the streets of the city most populated by Africans. I decided not to ask any
questions and just wait. Annapaola pressed the entryphone a couple of times. Nobody answered, but soon afterwards a boy with an olive complexion and Middle Eastern features appeared and propped the bike in the entrance.

“Let's go up,” she said. By this point, not asking questions had become a matter of principle, so I followed them in silence up the dimly lit stairs as far as the second floor. Over one of the doors that faced the landing, there was something written in Arabic. The boy opened the door and let us in. I found myself in a restaurant with low lights, dark wooden tables and chairs and a frieze of small indigo bricks around the walls. There were a few customers having dinner, the air smelt of spices, and an Arab tune was playing.

A man of about fifty who looked like the boy came towards us.

“Hello, Khalid,” Annapaola said.

“
Ahlan
, Anna.” He turned to me with a very slight bow. “At your service,” he said, making a ceremonious gesture with his hand.

“Thanks, Khalid. I brought wine, can you open it for us?”

“Of course. Will you order or shall I see to it?”

“Is there anything you don't eat?” Annapaola asked me.

I shook my head and she told Khalid to go ahead.

“What is this place?” I asked her when we were alone.

“A private club, sort of.”

“And you're a member?”

“Sort of.”

“I see. Sort of. Is the food good?”

“The only other place I've eaten such good Middle Eastern cuisine was in Beirut. The only drawback is the thing about wine.”

She was right. The dinner was amazing. So amazing, in fact, that I forgot the reason we had met.

When the last glass was drained, the last piece of baklava swept away and the table cleared, it struck me that the moment had come to talk about work.

“Fantastic food. Maybe you have something to tell me.”

“Do you want the narghile?”

“Better not, or I might feel like having a cigarette.”

“When did you quit?”

“Almost ten years ago. But right here and now, I'd smoke half a packet.”

She looked at me for a few seconds, as if checking that my words didn't hide a double meaning.

“Your client is in trouble,” she said. “Serious trouble.”

“So there are proceedings in Lecce?”

“The Prosecutor's Department did its investigation, along with the customs police, and even filed a petition for a custody order.”

“Are you joking?”

“To be precise, the Prosecutor's Department asked for your client to be put under house arrest on a charge of judicial corruption. Luckily for him, the judge who received the petition rejected it for lack of evidence.”

“I assume it's pointless to ask if you're sure of your information.”

“I assume it is.”

“And I assume it's pointless to ask you how you got hold of it.”

“Someone owed me a favour. That's how it works. Exchange of favours, exchange of information. Or rather, not to be hypocritical:
traffic
of information.”

“And after the petition was rejected, the Prosecutor's Department didn't contest the decision?”

“It did. That's why I'm able to tell you about it.”

“This isn't my evening. I don't understand.”

“The Prosecutor's Department contested it and the documents were sent to the appeal court, which, apparently, hasn't yet fixed a date for the hearing. It'll take several weeks, but you would have found out soon enough anyway, when you received notification of the appeal and the date of the hearing. The person who helped me owes me several favours, but wouldn't have told me the whole story if there hadn't been this new development.”

“A harmless infraction of the rules, in other words.”

“Although I wouldn't feel very sure of that as a line of defence in any possible trial for breach of confidentiality.”

“Nor would I. Did he pass on any papers? The prosecutor's petition, the judge's ruling…”

Annapaola looked me straight in the eyes as if I had made a really inappropriate request. This lasted a few seconds. In the end she leaned down to the big bag she had placed next to her chair, opened it, took out a red folder and passed it to me. Without changing her expression.

“Consider them copies released on an emergency basis. Which influences my fee, obviously.”

I took the folder. It was cheap and anonymous, without writing or logos. Before opening it, I measured the thickness of it between my fingers. An old habit, a neurotic little game: I try to guess by touch the number of sheets of paper in a file. I usually get quite close.

“About thirty.”

“I'm sorry?”

“Nothing. I was saying the number of pages out loud.”

I glanced at the papers. The petition for the custody order was much longer than the judge's ruling. I resisted the temptation to start reading there and then.

“I can keep them, right?”

“I told you they'll cost you extra. So of course you can
keep them. If by any chance the customs police come to your office to notify you of the date of the hearing, put them neatly through the shredder. You do have one in your office, don't you?”

“Couldn't I have a memory stick with the files instead?”

“Memory sticks are dangerous. Files leave more traces than a dog in mud; anyone who's any good can track down the computers they come from, even when you think you've deleted everything. Good old printed papers are more manageable. After they've been through the shredder, there's no way anyone can put them back together, except in films.”

“I'll see you home,” she said when we were out in the street.

“There's no need, thanks. I can get there on foot in five minutes.”