Marco Vichi - Inspector Bordelli 04 - Death in Florence (15 page)

When he opened his eyes, it took him a few moments to realise what was different: he couldn’t hear the rain. It had stopped raining. Light filtered through the slats of the shutters, and he could see the hands of the clock. Quarter past eight. He got up slowly, took a long shower, and went out. A stiff wind made his hair stand on end. The streets were deserted except for a few old women on their way back from mass. He walked to Piazza Tasso and ducked into Fosco’s bar, one of the few in the neighbourhood that was open on Sunday. The jukebox was already blaring a song by Celentano.

‘Coffee, Inspector?’

‘You read my mind …’

‘Life treating you well?’ Fosco asked, busy with the espresso machine.

‘Let’s not exaggerate. And how are you?’

‘Getting along all right. I work like a fool and all my money goes to the government.’

‘It’s not easy for us Italians to grasp, Fosco, but the state is
us
.’

‘Us or them, the money flows out like piss either way.’

Fosco had set up the bar a few months earlier with the proceeds from years of smuggling and selling stolen goods, activities he hadn’t really ceased, truth be told. Everybody in the neighbourhood knew it, and everybody respected him. On the back of his hand near the thumb he had a tattoo of a die with the number 5 face up, symbolising the criminal underworld and the time he’d spent in jail. And yet to look at him he could have been a retired schoolteacher embittered by life. Bordelli had known him since before the war and had never had the displeasure of arresting him.

‘Looks like Colonel Bernacca finally got it right this time,’ he said, to change the subject.

‘Let’s hope it lasts,’ Fosco muttered, setting a steaming espresso cup down on the counter. Seated over in a corner and nodding off was Stecco, who by that hour had already knocked back several glasses of wine. Bordelli nodded in greeting to him and gulped down the coffee.

‘Got a token, Fosco?’

‘Go ahead and use my phone,’ said the barman, inviting him behind the counter.

Bordelli phoned the station to find out whether there was any news. Tapinassi read him Piras’s and Rinaldi’s radio communications: the butcher had gone out at 6.30 a.m. in his Fiat 850, taking his hunting rifle with him. There was hardly anyone about at that hour on a Sunday morning, and so it hadn’t been easy trying to tail him without being noticed. Panerai had gone as far as Cintoia Bassa, not far from La Panca. He parked the car on a side path and went up the hill on foot, rifle slung over his shoulder. Piras hadn’t felt like following him into the woods; not only would he have risked being discovered, but he would have had to hide in the bushes and perhaps been shot at. He and Rinaldi had retreated a bit along the Cintoia road and stopped the unmarked car at a point from which they could see the butcher’s 850. They were still there now and would probably remain there for a few more hours. Bordelli told Tapinassi he’d come by the office a little later and then hung up. He returned to the other side of the bar.

‘Thanks, Fosco.’ He sighed, pulling out his wallet.

‘For what?’

‘What’ve you got to smoke?’

‘The usual stuff, Inspector … Rothman’s, Chesterfield, Pall Mall, Stuyvesant, Lucky Strike, Turmac …’ Needless to say, they were all contraband.
²⁷

‘I’ll try the Turmac, I’ve never smoked them before,’ said Bordelli, laying a one-thousand-lira note down on the counter.

‘Red or white?’

‘Red …’ said Bordelli, choosing at random. Fosco disappeared behind a little door and returned with the cigarettes.

‘The coffee’s on the house,’ he said, giving him the change. The inspector thanked him and went out of the bar, lighting a cigarette in the doorway. He headed off down the pavement, crushed by a feeling of resignation. The wind blew in warm gusts, bringing a vague smell of dead leaves from the hills. He was never going to find Giacomo’s killers. The butcher had lost his phone bill while searching for mushrooms or hunting. Simple as that. There was no point in tailing him any longer. The inspector had let himself be seduced by a telephone bill, pinning all his hopes on that silly piece of paper. He was in the dark again and would probably never come back out. Unless some saint interceded and gave him a hand, the boy’s killers would get off scot-free. It was a pill too bitter to swallow.

He walked past his own block of flats and continued on as far as Borgo San Frediano. Hearing a woman call his name, he looked up. The powerful Signora Aneris was waving a large hand, holding a panino worthy of a stonemason in the other. Bordelli waved back. He’d never exchanged a single word with her, but they always said hello like old friends.

He pushed open the glass door to the shop of Santo Novaro, the barber who never laughed. They called him the Undertaker around the neighbourhood, and he knew it and was proud of the fact. Nobody had ever seen him laugh, but his eyes burned with a harsh Sicilian irony. Proud and handsome, he looked like a miniature copy of Amedeo Nazzari at the time of
‘A plague on him!’
²⁸

‘
Bacio le mani
, Inspector.’
²⁹

He’d come to Florence as a boy with his parents after the war, but still amused himself playing the Sicilian.

‘Ciao, Santo.’

They shook hands. Santo’s was bony and as hard as an olive branch. There were no other customers in the shop, and Bordelli settled into the swivel chair. The Sicilian covered him in a light blue canvas sheet, which he tucked in round the neck, then he grabbed a pair of pointed scissors.

‘A little trim?’

‘But not too much.’

‘I hope you don’t want to become a hippy, Inspector,’ said Santo, taking his first snips.

‘I have to confess I wouldn’t mind, if only I were thirty years younger.’

‘Men should be men.’

‘In the olden days men used to wear their hair long, too,’ said Bordelli, looking at him in the mirror. Santo remained silent for a moment, contemplating the inspector’s words, but without interrupting his work. After each snip he would scissor the air emptily, making a nervous, swishing sound that was quite familiar to Bordelli’s ears and set him at ease. He was looking in the mirror and thinking of the salesgirl. If only he were thirty years younger …

‘I know some things I wish I didn’t,’ Santo whispered gravely.

‘What things?’ Bordelli asked with a shudder, as if the Sicilian were about to reveal the names of Giacomo’s killers.

‘Cowlicks,’ said Santo, still snipping.

‘Cowlicks?’

‘Cowlicks, Inspector. They’re passed on from father to son, like sins.’

‘Explain yourself, Santo.’

‘There are fathers who aren’t their sons’ fathers, and sons who aren’t their fathers’ sons. Cowlicks never lie. I see them, and I know.’

‘What do you know?’

‘I could give you a list of all the sons in the neighbourhood who are not in the right family.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Unfortunately, yes, though I’d rather not know.’

‘Tell me something, have you ever come across a son of mine?’ Bordelli asked, smiling, though waiting for the barber’s answer with a certain apprehension.

‘Don’t worry, Inspector, I won’t tell anyone,’ said Santo, still serious.

‘You’re only joking, I hope?’ said Bordelli, slightly worried.

‘Of course I’m joking; in fact I’m going to tell the whole neighbourhood.’

‘And who’s the bogus father?’ Bordelli asked, to keep the game going.

‘I am …’ said Santo, raising a shining scimitar. Before it came down on his head, Bordelli woke up. The barber was shaking him by the shoulder.

‘You snore like a tractor, Inspector.’

‘What’s that? …’

‘Put your head under the tap, I have to wash your hair.’

‘What? Ah, yes …’ muttered Bordelli, leaning forward as if to lay his neck down on the guillotine. Santo rubbed his soapy head hard, twice, then rinsed. He turned on the hair-dryer and two minutes later the inspector’s hair was dry. Looking at himself in the mirror, Bordelli barely recognised himself, so clean and well groomed. The barber removed the light blue sheet and brushed the hair clippings away from his neck.

‘Now you look like an American actor, Inspector.’

‘Haven’t you mocked me enough today, Santo?’ Bordelli said, standing up. At that moment a man came in, dragging behind him a little boy with a defeated expression on his face.

‘I want you to shear this lamb,’ the man said with a frown.

‘It’s
not
long,’ the boy muttered, pushing the hair behind his ears as if to hide it. Santo and Bordelli silently looked on.

‘You look like a monkey,’ the man said scornfully.

‘It’s not long,’ the boy repeated, huffing in frustration.

‘Damned Beatells …’ the man said, emphasising the last syllable.

‘It’s Bea-
tuhls
, not Bea-
tells
,’ the boy said, correcting him.

‘You make me feel ashamed.’

‘I don’t want a crew cut …’ The child was about to start crying.

‘Can’t you see how disgusting it looks?’

‘I like it this way,’ the boy muttered gloomily. His father cuffed him on the back of the head.

‘That’s enough whining, now just get over there and shut up.’ And he unceremoniously pushed his young son into the smaller chair, emitting a long sigh by way of conclusion.

‘Taper it high, please … the Beatles be damned.’

Then he dropped on to the bench and opened the day’s edition of
La Nazione
.

‘The butcher returned home at twenty past eight with a hare and two pheasants.’

Piras had dark circles under his eyes, which seemed to express the same feeling of resignation as Bordelli felt. The inspector ran a hand over his face, looking disconsolate.

‘We’re chasing shadows, Piras.’

‘We’re doing the right thing.’

‘We’ve been tailing day and night some poor idiot who cuts up meat for a living, a butcher who still knows the words to Fascist songs by heart and flirts crudely with every woman he sees …’

‘There’s nothing else we can do right now, sir.’

‘Don’t you think it’s time to forget about him?’

‘And do what?’

‘That’s not a good reason for wasting time.’

‘Let’s wait a few more days, Inspector.’

‘What for?’

‘I don’t know, but … Just think about it. If you had killed a little boy, what would you do? You’d sit tight and keep a low profile for a while, no? If in fact the butcher had anything to do with the murder, he certainly wouldn’t take the chance of doing anything out of the ordinary … even if he wasn’t aware he was being followed.’

‘Why, do you think he might be aware?’

‘You never know, sir. Maybe he’s wise to us and is playing dumb. He might not be as stupid as you think.’

‘We can’t go on for ever like this, Piras.’

‘Ten more days …’

‘One week, and not a day more. If nothing turns up, no more butcher. There are other things we could be doing … Probing pederast circles, for example, or plastering the boy’s picture all over town, offering a reward …’

It would have been useless, and he knew it. He had to resign himself. Nobody was going to pay for Giacomo Pellissari’s death. He put a cigarette in his mouth but gestured to Piras to let him know that he wasn’t going to light it. The telephone rang. It was Rosa.

‘Hello, monkey. How are you? You have no idea how much Briciola has grown! She’s become a proper little demon, climbing up curtains, jumping on beds, getting into everything … The most lovable little pest you’ll ever see. But what a terror! Even Gideon’s afraid of her, big as he is … But what did I want to tell you? Ah, yes … I’ve decided that tonight you must invite me out to dinner … To a good restaurant, mind, the kind where they uncork the wine in front of you. Come by to get me at half past eight … And don’t be late. I hate waiting for men.’

‘Rosa, what’s got into you?’

‘Don’t tell me you won’t be here before nine …’

‘I’m sorry, but I’m really not up for going out tonight.’

‘If you’re worried about the money, I’ll pay for it myself, don’t worry.’

‘It’s not that …’

‘They really don’t make men the way they used to, dammit!’

‘Be a sport, Rosa.’ Bordelli sighed, chewing his unlit cigarette. Rosa unfurled her little-girl voice.

‘Come on, monkey, you don’t want to leave your dear Rosina alone at home, do you? The one who gives you all those nice massages and wants so badly to go and eat in a good restaurant? You’re not really so heartless, are you, you big, ugly teddy bear?’

‘All right, you win. I’ll ring your buzzer at half eight. But don’t take an hour to come down, I beg you. I hate waiting more than an hour for a woman …’

‘I’ll be right on time, ciao ciao, darling,’ said Rosa, hanging up.

The inspector dropped the receiver into its cradle, imagining the restaurant bill, and looked at Piras in resignation. The Sardinian stood up.

‘I’m going to the radio room, Inspector. So you can smoke in peace.’

‘Do you really find it so disgusting?’

‘I sincerely hope that one day you’ll find it disgusting too, sir,’ said Piras, and he limped out of the room.

Bordelli left the station on foot and went to have a bite to eat in Totò’s kitchen. Knowing he would be eating out that evening, he decided against Panerai’s steak, which was lying in the fridge. He tried to eat as lightly as possible, fighting off an insistent Totò, who wanted to stuff him as usual. He managed to avoid drinking the rue-flavoured grappa that the cook had shoved under his nose, and escaped at last from that place of perdition.

He felt like stretching his legs a little, and instead of going straight back to the office, he went for a walk in the centre of town. After drinking another coffee in San Lorenzo, he kept wandering aimlessly about. There was a great deal of bustle at that hour on a Sunday, and as he walked amid the crowd he heard a father talking to his little boy of about ten, whom he held by the hand. The man was dressed expensively and wearing a hat, a big gold wristwatch and very shiny shoes. He spoke softly to his son, teaching him the ways of the world, and the boy listened with his mouth half open.