Vipers (15 page)

What about Enrica? She too called him out of that room; and she was sweetness itself, the possibly illusory charm of a normal life, made up of small, sweet things, caresses, simple wonderful moments of mutual understanding.

Both women loved him, perhaps. Each in her own way. What about him? What did he feel, behind the veil of fear where he hid, incapable of looking love in the eyes?

Then he saw Livia's face again, beautiful and pained, as she bit her lip to keep from crying, the woolen beret fetchingly tilted to the right, atop her short hair. While all around her the world ground to a halt, and he listened to the beat of his own heart and the voice of the suicide who kept repeating:
Our café, my love, our café, my love
.

He slowed his pace and then came to a stop, just a few hundred feet short of home.

 

Enrica thought: love me.

As her hands, with calm determination, lay out the slices of pork on the cutting board, and her fingers sprinkle a pinch of salt over them.

Love me.

Rosa, sitting just a yard or so away, had told her: with your heart, not your head. And Enrica had floated out of the kitchen, out of her time and the world, and she'd sailed toward her true love to speak to him with the voice of the ever-growing emotion that filled her soul, with all the courage she lacked.

Love me.

As her hands carefully crumble the chunks of
caciocavallo
, the aged cheese so typical of the land that had seen her love grow from boy to man.

Give me the life I want, she told him; give me a home of our own, a place that doesn't seem too much like mine or too much like yours, a place that understands the spaces of our motion and our rest.

Give me the walls and the rooms, and I'll give you curtains and carpets. Together, let's fill our memories, let's bring the things that we had when we were waiting for each other without knowing it, and the new things we'll find together: let each and every one, be it a picture frame, a vase, or a chair, remind us for the rest of our lives of the moment when we chose it, as it gazes at us, silently.

Love me.

As her hands caress the prosciutto, seeking chunks with just the right mix of fat and lean, protein and flavor.

Love me.

Because I am the one who will give peace to your sorrow, whatever it may be, from whatever dark place and long-ago time it may come. I am the one who will watch over you as you toss uneasily in your sleep, who will silently stroke your forehead until I see the skin uncrease and grow smooth, until I hear your breathing calm itself.

As her hands carefully clean the
malevizzi
, the tender little thrushes caught in the branches of the olive trees where her true love played when he was a boy.

Love me.

And give me two children, so they won't be alone for the rest of their lives. Let them have your eyes, those wonderful eyes, the color of salt waves on the rocks on a sunny morning, but without the sorrow. Let them have your fine tapered hands, and my tranquility, my faith in the future. Let them have your sensitivity and my gentleness. Let them have your acuity, and my openness to the world around me.

Love me.

As these hands arrange laurel leaves and thin slices of lard around the
malevizzi
, and as they sprinkle them with the sauce of olive oil, lemon juice, and white vinegar, which these same hands prepared earlier.

Because I'm the one who protects your happiness. The one who will fight for your happiness.

Love me.

Rosa, pretending to be asleep, smiled.

 

Ricciardi waited in a doorway until he saw Enrica leave his building. Only after she stopped and surveyed the street, somewhat sadly, and went back into her apartment building, closing the door behind her, did he move.

J
ust as they were getting ready to leave for Vomero, where Viper's family lived, Ricciardi and Maione received an unexpected visit from Vincenzo Ventrone.

In his features and his demeanor, this was a very different man from the swaggering, self-confident person they'd met the previous morning. He held his hat in his hands, nervously twisting the brim. His face, pale and feverish, bore the marks of two sleepless nights. His mustache drooped inertly around his bloodless lips.

“I heard that you were at the shop, last night. I'm sorry that I wasn't there, but I've really been feeling a little tired and I'd rather not let the customers see me, right now. For that matter, my son, whom you met, is well able to run the company. To tell the truth, there are times when I think that if I weren't around, things might go even better.”

Maione, though he had instinctively disliked the man, felt a twinge of pity.

“A very accomplished young man, your son, no doubt. You can count on him.”

“Yes. I'm lucky to have him. I've thought about it quite a bit, you know. I understand that from your point of view, I . . . in other words, it could have been me. But it wasn't me, you'll see that: I have faith in you. But that's not why I'm here now.”

Ricciardi and Maione waited until the merchant felt strong enough to continue. He seemed truly overwrought.

“She . . . Viper, you know. I really don't know how to describe her, what kind of woman she was. You go to places like that out of curiosity, and in search of fun. To keep from thinking. Then you find yourself buying time, it's the only place where you pay for time, where you buy a person's time so they'll listen to you. And so you start to talk. The first time, for a minute, the next time for five. And then it even happens that you find yourself just talking.”

The strain was unmistakable; it must have been a challenge to express his feelings, there in police headquarters, and in the presence of two policemen.

“For me, and I won't be surprised if you don't believe me, this was a loss. I'm not saying she was dearly beloved—I have a son, as you know. But Viper . . . Maria Rosaria, was a friend. A dear friend.”

Maione broke in, in a subdued, cautious tone of voice:

“Why on earth are you coming here to tell us these things?”

“Right. Right. Why am I coming to tell you?”

The question he had asked himself fell into a pool of silence. Then he said:

“Madame Yvonne explained to me, yesterday, that the doctor . . . in other words, that you're done with the corpse, in the sense that we can proceed with the interment of the deceased. That's right, isn't it?”

Ricciardi replied, hesitantly.

“Yes, I imagine so. The doctor is done with the autopsy, he told me so yesterday, so I believe that you can, yes, certainly.”

Ventrone nodded.

“As you know, I work with religious men and women, so I have friends who can explain things to me. Catholic ritual denies religious interment to several categories of people: Freemasons and those who belong to heretical sects; suicides; anyone who dies in a duel; manifest public sinners. Unfortunately Viper was a member of that last category.”

Ricciardi broke in:

“Ventrone, I don't see what we can . . .”

The merchant raised one hand:

“I beg you, don't interrupt, this is already very difficult for me. Last night I got practically no sleep; but at a certain point I dozed off, and I saw Viper, the way she was when . . . when I saw her the last time, in other words, still alive. And she spoke to me, she asked me to make sure she was given a Christian interment. That's right, those exact words, give me a Christian interment, she said. And I understood that I need to do something for her, to keep her from being tossed into a ditch who knows where.”

He sighed, and then he went on:

“Tomorrow, as you know, is Holy Thursday, the start of the Sacred Paschal Triduum. A normal funeral procession is unthinkable, the so-called respectable citizens would raise an outcry. I've spoken to several of my friends, people I've worked with for decades and who, by the way, owe me money: there's a confraternity, a congregation that would be willing to accept the body for interment in a collective chapel, but under her own name. A Christian interment.”

He repeated the phrase, as if it were a curse word.

“The procession will have to take place in the morning, at a very early hour, to ensure it passes unobserved. The girls who worked with her, who were her family, will be there, they want to be there. And so will Madame, naturally. I'll pay for everything, I've already made all the necessary arrangements, but I won't be able to attend: I have certain duties toward my son, toward my company, and to the memory of my wife. I can't possibly be there. But I owe her this, to ensure that she's buried as she would have wanted. It's a matter of mercy and simple humanity.”

He seemed to be on the verge of tears. Maione and Ricciardi exchanged a glance, but they were at a loss for words. Once Ventrone had recovered somewhat, he went on:

“When they reach the cemetery, delivery of her body will be taken by the men of the congregation, and they'll see to all the rest. There will also be a priest, who'll remain inside the chapel to avoid being seen, and he'll give the blessing. I paid him too. All I had to do was pay, you know? All you ever have to do is pay.”

There was an palpable bitterness in the man's voice.

“Nonetheless, they explained to me that this anomalous movement of the girls, all together, has to be authorized by police headquarters. They're prostitutes, and the fact that they're going out into the street together could technically be seen as a form of solicitation. But we know that that's not what's going on, don't we? They're simply friends who want to accompany a woman on her last journey. I beg you, Commissario: I beg you as I've never begged anyone else in my life. Ensure that she's not alone, in this journey. She was a woman who never did anyone any harm, in her all-too-brief existence. She doesn't deserve that.”

After thinking it over, Ricciardi said:

“Don't worry, Ventrone. I'll be there. No one will interfere with Viper's funeral procession.”

 

As they were walking to the terminus of the streetcar that would take them to Vomero, Maione said:

“Commissa', are we certain that this is a good idea? I mean, presiding over the funeral procession of a whore. Sure, I understand, many of them are good people; but they're still whores. And if anyone were to see you, and then went and told that idiot Garzo? The last thing we need is for you to be accused of patronizing bordellos.”

Ricciardi walked with his hands in his pockets, his eyes fixed straight ahead of him.

“What Ventrone said made quite an impression on me, you know? We're investigating everyone else, all the people who might have killed the girl, but we're not investigating her at all, or very little. What did she want from life? What had she decided about Coppola's marriage proposal? And Coppola himself, for that matter, who was he and what did he really want from this woman? That's why we're going to the village where they both grew up: to understand who Maria Rosaria Cennamo was, before she became Viper.”

Maione wasn't convinced.

“Forgive me, Commissa', but I still don't understand what the funeral procession at seven in the morning has to do with anything, and why you think you need to be there yourself.”

Ricciardi smirked.

“You know as well as I do, Raffaele. There's nothing like a funeral, if you want to understand who a person really was. The faces of the people who attend, and the names of the people who don't, will give me some very interesting information. At least I hope they will.”

They reached Piazza Dante, the point from which the city's streetcars departed for all the main destinations.

Although it was hardly late in the morning, the broad open space was already filling up with people heading here and there, in part encouraged by the weather, which, as opposed to the day before, was warm and sunny. There were university students and lovely young women getting ready to catch the Number 2 streetcar, which would take them to the quiet little streets down by the water near the Cape of Posillipo, where they could talk and kiss in secret; vendors of dairy products and pots and pans who were loading their merchandise onto the Number 6 streetcar, destination Torretta Market; and
scugnizzi
who were getting ready to catch hold of the back of the Number 11 streetcar, heading for Portici and the black sand beaches of that district.

Maione had done his homework:

“Commissa', we can choose between two possibilities: we can either catch the Number 7 Red, which will take us to Antignano, climbing up by way of Infrascata, or the Number 9, which goes to Arenella by way of Via della Salute, but then we'd have to walk part of the way at the end. What do you say, which streetcar should we take?”

Ricciardi shrugged.

“Whichever one leaves first. Ask the conductors. I don't know the area, so I wouldn't be able to say. But why don't you just find out about the return schedules, I don't want to take all day on this.”

“Commissa', when has anyone in this city ever known a schedule for the departures and arrivals of the streetcars? If you ask me, no one ever will. It must be some kind of state secret. In any case, if you had a word once and for all with that idiot Garzo and had him give you a car . . . are we or are we not the mobile squad? But mobile how, by riding streetcars?”

Ricciardi adored Maione, and he valued all his qualities, including those the brigadier himself didn't realize he possessed, but he was also well aware of the man's one grave defect: his inability to admit that he was incapable of driving a car, and that when he was behind the wheel he became a very serious risk to public health and safety.

He decided to leave him in the relative bliss of ignorance.

“Forget about it, Raffaele, you can understand that after the crash I was in on the Day of the Dead, I have a certain aversion to automobiles. Let's just take a nice ride on the streetcar.”