F
OR THREE DAYS NOTHING
new developed. We had tracked down all of Elisa Sordi’s friends in her neighborhood and at school, questioned them, gotten their alibis, and checked telephone records. Result: zero point zero. No one regularly saw Elisa Sordi except Valerio Bona. No one knew she was at work that day except Valerio Bona, Dioguardi, and the inhabitants of the residential complex on Via della Camilluccia.
The last person to see Elisa Sordi alive, just after five o’clock, was the concierge, Gina Giansanti, who was in India and couldn’t be reached. But the fact had been reported by her directly to me and confirmed by Cardinal Alessandrini, to whom she had delivered Elisa’s work.
It was impossible to find out anything about Elisa’s abortion. After abortions had narrowly escaped becoming illegal again in the previous year’s referendum, the few clinics that performed them had thrown up a wall of secrecy; then there were the countless doctors and clinics that performed them on the sly. Abortion might have technically been legal in Italy, but it still felt clandestine.
Thankfully, my contacts in the secret intelligence service had made good use of those seventy-two hours. The information on Antonio Orlandi and Gianni, aka Jan Deniak, was interesting. When you dig for information, you find things. Always.
Besides volunteering for Alessandrini, Antonio Orlandi was a gym teacher in a private middle school. I went to see him in San Valente around seven in the evening, when he’d just begun his shift, taking advantage of Father Paul’s absence. The kids were playing soccer, boys against girls, with Orlandi in goal.
It was still hot: you could hear the cicadas, and the cool of sunset was still a few hours off. The grass was overgrown, the white house where the kids lived was flaking, the single tree was pathetic. And yet there was a happy, positive atmosphere. Orlandi joined me under the tree. He was just over thirty with a clean and tidy air about him, though he came across as being perhaps a little too tidy.
“Your colleagues have already questioned me, several times,” he said. He was turned away from me, watching the kids’ game as intently as any World Cup final.
“Children are wonderful, aren’t they?” I said casually.
“Sure,” he replied. “All children are angels.”
An answer straight out of the catechism. “Which do you like better, little boys or little girls?”
He looked at me, alarmed. “Aren’t you supposed to be asking me about Father Paul’s whereabouts on the day of the match?”
“No, my colleagues have already taken care of that. Father Paul got here before six. You took the kids off on a treasure hunt, and when you came back around eight Father Paul was here and supper was ready. Then you watched the game, put the kids to bed and about midnight you went to sleep yourselves. Is that right?”
“Yes, that’s right,” he said, now more at ease.
“How did you get your teaching job, Mr. Orlandi?”
Orlandi lit a cigarette and I did the same. He took his time answering.
“Cardinal Alessandrini told me the position was open,” he said. I knew this already; I was only interested in the difficulty he had in spitting it out.
“Had you taught before?”
“I’d been a fitness instructor in a gym, but I had a physical education teaching degree.”
“Did you apply for any public school jobs?”
“No,” he said.
“Why not? Everyone else does.”
He said nothing. I was torturing him.
A boy and a girl started to squabble. Orlandi got to his feet.
“Sit back down and answer my questions,” I ordered. “Those kids you have no business teaching can work things out by themselves.”
He looked at me, stunned. “What do you mean? Those children—”
I interrupted him as sharply as I knew how.
“At the age of seventeen you went to a parish on the city outskirts. You were charged with acts of obscenity in a public place in the presence of a twelve-year-old girl. What’s a person with your record doing working here?”
I saw him stagger. He sat down heavily on the seat, his face in his hands.
“I didn’t do anything,” he murmured.
“Bullshit. The police report says you had your pants down.”
“It was a public park. I was taking a leak behind a tree, the girl wandered away from her aunt, and she saw me.”
“I don’t think so. You were given a six-month suspended sentence. You avoided the charge of soliciting a minor because you were a minor, too, and because your lawyer was very good. He was paid for by the Vatican Curia.”
“I never touched her, and it’s never happened again,” he said, terrified.
“You were given a pardon by Cardinal Alessandrini. If it weren’t for him you wouldn’t be teaching and you certainly wouldn’t be here.”
“That’s true,” he mumbled, “but what’s this got to do with Father Paul?”
It was a stupid question. Orlandi was a pervert. Not to mention an idiot. If he was lying about Father Paul’s alibi, he had good reason to do so.
. . . .
Jan Deniak worked in the evening as a bartender in a club in Trastevere. I called Angelo to come with me, as we’d seen very little of each other and I was missing his company. He agreed to come, but I could sense the split between us hadn’t completely healed.
We drove up in the Duetto with the top down around ten. Piazza Trilussa was crowded with drunk people. We couldn’t get anywhere with the car. The kids didn’t give a damn about the cars wanting to get through; they continued to down their beers in the middle of the road and didn’t even turn round.
“Let’s leave it, Michele. We can park along the river, and it’s only a couple of steps to the club.”
I honked the horn at a little group blocking the way. A girl squealed and dropped her bottle of beer. The big guy she was with turned around.
“Hey, shitheads, stuff that horn up your ass.”
I was already out of the car, but the group continued to hurl insults. I turned to the tall guy. “What did you say?”
Something in my tone or my look warned him off. “Well, is that any way to behave?” he said, while the others got quiet.
I took the bottle of beer from his hand and spilled the contents on the ground.
“Get out of the way right now,” I ordered.
It was over the top. As with Valerio Bona, I was able to lead him where I wanted. I saw him let fly, and I ducked. Then I let fly back with an uppercut. The blow hit him right in the solar plexus and he doubled over, gasping desperately for breath. I was waiting for him to react again; I really wanted to hurt him. I felt a rage inside me, strong and powerful. The guy had nothing to do with it, but I was careful not to finish him off, so I could continue hitting him. At a certain point, Angelo put a hand on my arm.
“Michele, please.”
His look of suffering got to me. He knew where all the anger came from. I went back to the car and without looking around, I put it in reverse while the guy, still on the ground, was trying to catch his breath. The road along the Tiber was packed with cars, so I parked on a zebra crossing; seeing as I wasn’t going to pay any fines, and given I was on duty—not out on a bender like those degenerate young thugs. They were Italy’s nouvelle riche, the Italy of the 1980s: easy money, tanning salons, fancy gyms, night clubs, weed for the poor, coke for the rich.
The club was impassable, the crowd spilling over outside. Beer, laughter, mopeds passing by, the smell of marijuana. The bartender all muscle in the black T-shirt was our Jan Deniak. One of those Poles who, thanks to the pope, had said good-bye to Communism’s crap. A well-built athletic bartender. I wanted to observe him a little before I acted.
“Paola and I broke up,” Angelo said out of the blue.
So that was why he’d agreed to come with me. Was he trying to make me feel guilty? No, Angelo Dioguardi was anything but mean. Something unbearable must have happened; unbearable, that is, for my sensitive friend, not for a cynic like me. Our very behavior on that awful night had been unbearable, so unbearable as to wreck Angelo and Paola’s relationship.
“What does that mean for your job?” I asked, though I could guess the answer.
“I’ve given notice to the cardinal to find someone to take my place. I don’t want to work there anymore.”
“Bullshit, Angelo. You’re not responsible for what happened.”
I said it in a rage; if there was any responsibility it was mine. I was the policeman, not him. He shook his head, but said nothing. I could hardly recognize him. I tried to make him laugh.
“You could always make money from singing. With your voice you could fill any piano bar in Trastevere.”
“No, I’m going to make money playing poker. Gambling’s my real talent. And with the proceeds I’m going to make charitable donations, if I’m successful.”
“So you’re going to go pro?”
I had no doubt about his exceptional ability, but it was a tough world. For a nice guy like him it didn’t look too promising.
“They won’t eat me alive, Michele. I can look after myself, you’ll see.”
“Shame. I was counting on your presence in the piano bars to help me pick up women. Now that you’re a free man we can team up.”
I was trying to make him laugh, but the joke fell flat.
It must have been nearly impossible for Angelo Dioguardi to live with the guilt. He was a Catholic who believed in the last judgment, while I was a cynic who didn’t believe in anything.
. . . .
Jan Deniak wasn’t happy to see my badge. No one, guilty or innocent, was ever really happy to see a policeman’s badge, but especially not a young immigrant in his place of work. He told the other bartender he was going to step out for five minutes, and then he led me through the fire door to a deserted backyard behind the bar that was filthy, strewn with garbage bags. I could still hear the laughter and the mopeds outside, but we were alone.
“I’ve got five minutes,” he announced, flexing the overdeveloped, veiny muscles in his arms and shoulders.
I laughed. “Would you talk that way to the police in your wonderful communist homeland?”
He gave me a surly look. “I know my rights. I can turn around and go back to the bar whenever I like.”
“And I can ask you to come down to the police station and hold you there for twenty-four hours. Have you learned the word
homicide
since you arrived in Italy?”
“What are you talking about?” he said, cutting me off. The bastard had balls, I had to give him that. I had to soften him up a bit before we got to the point.
“Anabolic steroids and other substances used to juice the muscles.”
There was a moment of hesitation. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
It was satisfying still having friends in the secret intelligence service. The lives of ministers, entrepreneurs, ordinary citizens, and criminal suspects were an open book. Jan Deniak was unlucky. Normally, no one would have been interested in him. But he was the personal trainer to a famous surgeon for whom he also did special sexual favors, and in exchange he received illegal drugs that he then sold at exorbitant prices to wealthy clients in the gym. Unfortunately for him the famous surgeon happened to be the brother of a minister under surveillance by my former colleagues.
“So, let’s talk about Sunday, July 11. Do you remember that day?”
“Of course—you won the World Cup.” He was relieved by the change of subject. Poor deluded fool.
“And you did weight training with Manfredi that evening from seven to eight, half an hour before the start of the match. There can’t have been many people in the gym.”
“Only Manfredi and me. I already said that down at the station.”
“Bullshit. Time to start telling he truth.”
He sneered and flexed.
“Oh, you’re a tough guy, is that it?”
He hadn’t noticed the rubber nightstick I slipped from my left sleeve. The blow to his right elbow paralyzed his arm and put him in obvious agony. I gave him a second blow to the kneecap before he could utter a sound.
The rubber nightstick is a wonderful tool, because it leaves no visible marks.
Jan fell to his knees, screaming in pain. “I’m going to fucking kill you, you bastard.”
I gave him a slap on his forehead with my open hand so that he rolled over in the middle of the garbage. While he was trying to get up again, moaning in pain, I showed him the first photograph.
“You must be really good at giving blow jobs, Jan—the surgeon looks very pleased here.”
He opened his eyes wide. He was still gasping for breath. I kicked him in the balls, but not too hard.
“Look, your Polish friend in the Vatican doesn’t approve of swearing. And neither do I.”
I waited while he tried to get up. After several attempts, he leaned heavily against the backyard wall so that he wouldn’t fall over. I showed him other photographs. These depicted his friend handing him boxes of drugs. His eyes flickered from the photos to my face and back.
Leaving nothing to chance, I added, “The friends of mine who took these photos get really mad if anyone files a complaint. And if they get really mad they don’t make a report—they just do away with people.”
“What do you want from me?” he asked, now with a good deal of humility.
“I told you before: I want the truth. Manfredi was in the gym with you from seven and eight. Right?”
His hesitation was enough to give me the reply I wanted, but not enough to resolve the question for Teodori, the prosecutor, and the chief of police. Jan Deniak was between a rock and a hard place, and he was paralyzed. I had to help him choose.
“You’re in big trouble, Jan. You won’t go to prison for giving blow jobs to the surgeon, but you will go to prison for trafficking in anabolic steroids.”
He looked at me. “Manfredi and I were there, I swear. We had an intense session, and it was a very hot day.”
The phrase was left dangling. I took a little while to understand. He was sharper than he looked.
“Doesn’t the gym have air-conditioning?” I asked.
Jan even managed a quiet laugh. “Sure. It’s a luxury gym. No one could train in this heat.”
That was that. Jan Deniak preferred being charged with giving false evidence to any possible trouble for Manfredi and the count. I had a full house with aces.