The Bastards of Pizzofalcone (28 page)

I wonder if they'll figure it out. I wonder if they'll come for me in the end. In any case, I'll remember that snap till the end of my days, that much is certain.

No regrets. You shouldn't have turned your back on me, you shouldn't have said that word.

No.

No one turns their back. Not on me. And another thing, you don't block the path of true love. The path of true love, and someone like you who's read lots of books ought to know this, can't be blocked. Love can only be seconded, encouraged, applauded. Love is a prima donna, the star of the show: love doesn't like to be belittled, to be hidden backstage and told to wait.

And above all, you don't turn your back on love.

And then the sea. I walked, you know, after the snap. I walked and walked. I was invisible, in the midst of all that wind that turned into sea in the air.

I had some thinking to do, and I needed to be alone. If I think when I'm alone, I find the solution. I always find it.

This is the third night. I don't need to walk, tonight. Tonight I'm staying home, in peace and quiet.

And I remember the word, that
no
, the word that you said to me. And your face, sad and weary. And your back.

Who knows, maybe you wanted me to do it. Maybe you even expected it.

The third night: starting today, according to statistics, a 60 percent drop.

The third night.

Snap.

If only I could get some sleep.

 

 

O
ttavia got to the office very early. She had told Gaetano that her presence at that predawn hour was required, but the truth is that she was simply trying to spend as little time at home as possible.

Since the incident at the swimming pool, which she had in any case managed to keep her husband from finding out about, Riccardo had become more oppressive than ever. He never let her get so much as an inch away from him, he followed her everywhere, he hung on her arm, even keeping her from cooking or doing housework. When she went to the bathroom, the boy sat outside the door and slowly began banging his head against the wooden door, bong, bong, bong, one blow a second like a grandfather clock. It drove her crazy. By leaving for work hours before her son woke up, she'd spared herself the need to push him away, in his mute efforts to keep her from leaving at least for that day. And, a hidden part of her reminded her with annoyance, it had spared her Gaetano's umpteenth attempt to make love.

She said good morning to a sleepy but impeccable Guida on duty at the front door; the police officer's metamorphosis was so unmistakable that she couldn't help but ask herself once again what had turned him into a model policeman. She walked into the large group office, and the half-darkness of the ongoing battle between night and dawn was broken only by a faint glow coming from the partially closed door of the commissario's office.

She thought of some official intrusion, an unannounced inspection. When that horrible mess had happened with the confiscated drugs and her coworkers who turned out to be dealers, the inspections, from various agencies and offices, from magistrates, the police, even secret organizations accredited solely with anonymous faxes, had come thick and fast. But that was over, wasn't it?

She peered through the gap in the door. She could just glimpse a bit of desk, with a lit table lamp; a number of documents scattered across the desktop; a pen and a highlighter; three fingers resting on a sheet of paper. Not moving.

Ottavia felt her heart surge in her chest.

When she was sixteen years old, she had walked into the office of her father, a lawyer, to show him a portrait, a cartoon of him that she had drawn herself. She was good at drawing, and she had a special relationship with her father. She was the last of four children and the only girl; she and her father adored each other.

She had stopped cold in the office door, cartoon in hand, mouth frozen in a smile that would never be the same. She'd stopped cold in the door of the office, staring at the corpse of her father, cut down by a heart attack, his head sprawled over the papers on the desk, one hand lying on the desktop. She'd never drawn anything again.

She felt that twenty-five-year-old horror suddenly bloom afresh in her heart, as new as if it had been born in that instant. She let out a dry sound, something halfway between a scream and a groan, her hand over her mouth, eyes staring wide at Palma, who lay sprawled out in the exact, identical position as her father had the last time she'd seen his body, except for when she and her mother had dressed it for his final journey.

But when she let out that brief shout, the supposed corpse of the late Commissario Luigi Palma, known to his friends as Gigi, sat up with a start and gazed around in bewilderment, his eyes bloodshot and his appearance even more rumpled than usual. Draped over his forehead was a shock of hair, the mark left by the edge of his desk cut across his face like a knife wound, two days' worth of scruff on his face, a deeply wrinkled shirt. Ottavia thought that she'd never seen anything so beautiful in her life.

“I . . . what . . . who . . . oh, Ottavia,
ciao
. I'm afraid I fell asleep. What time is it, anyway?”

The woman struggled to calm her breathing and checked her watch.

“
Buongiorno
, commissario. I'm sorry to have frightened you, it's very early, it's . . . a quarter to six. You must have fallen asleep, when a person comes in to work too early . . .”

Palma yawned, rubbed his eyes, and slowly came to. Then he said: “No, I'm afraid not. Yesterday I just never went home. Luckily, since I know myself, I keep a change of clothes here in the office, underwear and a clean shirt. And everything I need to shower and shave. Sad, isn't it? This is what becomes of you, when you let your work become more important than the rest of your life.”

Ottavia moved away, hesitantly.

“Well, I'll leave you to your things. I'll head back to my desk and start up the computers.”

Palma stopped her with a wave of his hand: “No, no, wait a minute. Keep me company. Let me send down for something from the café across the way, the one that never closes, even at night. What'll you have, a cappuccino, a pastry?”

He already had the phone in his hand; Ottavia felt uneasy, but she took a step forward into the office.

“Just an espresso, thanks. In the morning I just drink a glass of milk at home, I'm trying to . . . well, I'm paying attention to what I eat.”

Palma switched the order around, asking for a
caffe latte
, a sweet roll, and a glass of orange juice for himself.

“That's a mistake, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. And another thing, I don't mean to speak out of turn, but you don't need to lose so much as an ounce! I think you're perfect exactly as you are. Sit down, sit down right here.”

Ottavia blushed at the compliment and, hating herself for it, sat down primly across the desk from him.

“Thanks, but I'm afraid that's not the case, I need to lose a few pounds. But, if you don't mind my asking, why on earth . . . that is, is there some problem, some reason that you had to stay in the office overnight?”

She didn't know what to say to him. It seemed to her that the fantasies, the thoughts she'd been entertaining for the past few days were no longer a form of escape from her unsatisfactory life, but an explicit message, branded in fire on her face; she hastened to assume a serious, professional expression.

Palma seemed happy for the chance to engage in a little conversation, and he cleared his desk of documents, restoring at least the appearance of order to his workspace.

“No, no. That is, you understand, there's always so much to do, four-fifths of the work we do is bureaucracy, and someone has to take care of it. And after all, these first weeks are crucial if we're going to persuade the police chief not to close down the precinct.”

Ottavia was astonished: “But . . . I thought the danger had passed. Four new employees have been assigned, and we're now fully staffed . . .”

“I'm afraid not, at least not yet. The police chief was very clear: unless we manage to regain lost ground, especially in terms of winning back the neighborhood's trust, they'll do away with us. There are still some, both at police headquarters and in the prefecture, who would be only too happy to cannibalize this precinct's resources and redistribute them. And after all, as you no doubt know, there's a carabinieri barracks quite nearby, and so . . .”

Calabrese felt a stab of anxiety in her gut.

“What about us, is there nothing we can do?”

Palma looked up at her. With his hair still unkempt, his shirt rumpled, and the mark on his face, he looked like a little boy who had just come home from an afternoon of playing soccer in the street. The woman felt a wave of tenderness sweep over her.

“You're all doing great work, and that's the most I can ask. The guys working the field are doing fine, and you and Pisanelli are providing the kind of support I'd been hoping for. Sure, if we're able to get our hands on whoever murdered the notary's wife in a hurry, that would be a tremendous help. But I'm afraid that, unless we're able to make some significant progress by next week at the very latest, they're likely to take the case out of our hands. There are too many important people breathing down our necks on this thing.”

The woman tried to offer some words of encouragement: “But the Chinaman seems—at least to me—like a good detective. Maybe what happened with the Crocodile was more than just dumb luck, in spite of what the usual gossips like to say.”

Palma laughed: “The Chinaman, eh? I've heard him called that myself, old Lojacono. Truth be told, he does look Asian, with that face of his. No, no question, he really is good at what he does. I saw him work on that case, you know: all the rest of us kept looking in the wrong direction, and he was the only one who'd understood it all. If only we'd listened to him earlier . . . Oh well, we can only keep our fingers crossed and our hopes up. What about you, though? What are you doing here so early?”

Ottavia looked down at the tips of her shoes, embarrassed.

“I . . . oh, I don't know, I just couldn't sleep and instead of tossing and turning in bed, I thought I'd come in and get a few things done. I'm doing a little research for Di Nardo and Romano on that architect, Germano Brasco. He's very powerful, he gives work to lots of companies, he has projects all over, and I . . .”

Palma looked at her with greater interest. He'd sensed that the woman had just tried to change the topic of conversation, and that triggered his curiosity.

“Why are you having trouble sleeping? You aren't having problems with your son, by any chance?”

Ottavia raised her head, abruptly, furrowing her brow: “No, certainly not. And wait a minute . . . what do you know about my son, sir?”

The commissario raised both hands: “Forgive me. I . . . I read the personnel files, and . . . but it's none of my business, that was intrusive, I apologize.”

Ottavia sighed, sadly.

“No, no. I should be the one apologizing. It's just that . . . it's really hard, you know. Sometimes other people's pity is even harder to take, that's all.”

“I understand, I really do. I had a brother, older than me by a year, who had Down syndrome. He hasn't been around for a long time now, he died when he was twenty; my folks had a hard time handling him, they may have been ashamed of him. But I loved him and I spent lots and lots of time with him. When he died I was still just a kid, but it was the biggest tragedy of my life. Certainly, I wasn't his mother, so a lot of the ramifications are probably beyond me; but it's hard, and I can understand better than most.”

Impulsively, Ottavia asked: “But what about you, sir, don't you have children?”

“You don't seem able to use my first name, do you? But just you watch, I'll bring you around. I'm stubborn. But no, I don't have any children. And as you can see, I don't have a wife either to worry about what's become of me if I don't come home at night. I'm divorced.”

Now it was Ottavia's turn to feel awkward: “Oh, forgive me, commissario. I had no way of knowing . . .”

Palma laughed and ran a hand through his tousled hair.

“Oh, don't mention it, it's been three years. By now I'm used to it. And honestly I remember my divorce as a genuine liberation, the final months were pure hell! Being married can be worse than prison, you know.”

Worse than prison, thought Ottavia. Much worse. At least there's an end date on a prison sentence, and you can count the days off on your calendar. Then she added: “No question, though, if all you do with your liberty is take advantage of it to sleep in the office, it might have been better not to get it in the first place, don't you think?”

Palma thought it over: “You know, Ottavia, a person can spend a lot of time at the office for one of two reasons: either because he doesn't have a lot else to do outside, or else because he likes being there. Likes being there more than he likes being anywhere else. Don't you think?”

Just then, in the nick of time, a very sleepy waiter from the bar appeared, carrying a tray precariously perched in one hand. He excused himself as he walked into the room.

“Oh, at last, here's our breakfast! But now I expect you to split this pastry with me. Otherwise I'll have to assume that you find me so disgusting, just having woken up, that you're trying to get out of my office as quick as you can.”

And he shot her a wink.

Ottavia laughed. Well, good morning, she thought to herself.

Well, good morning, Palma thought to himself.

T
he bomb went off midmorning, and just at the right time.