Vipers (27 page)

Ricciardi nodded, somewhat uncertainly.

“So what you're saying is that, through Livia, I should get into touch with this person, is that right? By asking to meet, having a talk with him . . .”

Pivani laughed:

“No, no, you've got it wrong, completely wrong! He doesn't exist, any more than I exist. He would never talk with you, he'd even deny ever having had any contact with your lady friend. You mustn't even try to enter into contact with him, in fact, if you did, that would be highly detrimental to the doctor's wellbeing, because it would reveal a weakness in the system, which is of course impossible. The only way is to arrange for the lady to speak with him. He is . . . like a guardian angel, he can only interact with her, and no one else.”

Ricciardi thought quickly.

“But what if she were unwilling to help me? What if she had . . . certain reasons to feel resentful toward me?”

Pivani shrugged philosophically.

“In that case, the doctor's fate would be sealed. I can't think of any other possible way of saving him.”

The commissario stood up, leaving a bill on the table.

“Let me treat you to this coffee, Pivani. You keep showing yourself to be different than you ought by rights to be. And I have to thank you for your advice. One last question: how much time do I have?”

Pivani pulled a watch out of his vest pocket and held it at arm's length.

“My God, I'm going blind with old age; I'd say half a day, maybe a whole day. And let me thank you, Ricciardi, for the coffee: if I actually had drunk it—which is to say if we had ever really met, which obviously is something that didn't happen—I'd have said that it was excellent.”

M
aione found it impossible to believe that only a day had passed since Viper's funeral, in part because of the sleepless night he'd just spent.

The dog had refused to come upstairs; he was sitting in the courtyard, motionless, as if waiting for someone, and that's how the brigadier found him the next morning—his water bowl in front of him, his food untouched—when he went downstairs early in the morning to go see Bambinella. The animal immediately trotted after him, following about fifty feet behind, and followed him to police headquarters, stopping at the corner of Via Imbriani and Via Toledo, exactly where he had waited for Ricciardi the night before.

To the brigadier, the presence of the dog was a constant, urgent reminder of the fact that the doctor was a prisoner. The animal, with his level, intense gaze, seemed to be saying: how dare you do the same things you usually do, the work you do every day, when right now someone could be transporting “him” far away, in chains? How can you let everyone prepare for the holiday, let them bake and buy pastries, when for all we know “he” may be spending Easter in a cell?

The brigadier missed his mock fights with the doctor, the constant exchange of insults. He was not at all willing to give them up, and he was ready to break the world open with his bare hands: but he had to act as if nothing were amiss, because it was impossible to know whether the Fascists had spies even inside police headquarters, and whether they might hasten the process of transferring the doctor if they thought that the commissario and Maione were taking steps to prevent it.

At eleven, when his anxiety and concern for Ricciardi, who still hadn't shown up, and for the time that went ticking inexorably past made it hard for him to breathe normally, he decided to go early to call on Bambinella.

In general, he took care to travel the route to Via San Nicola da Tolentino late at night, to minimize the chances of being seen on his way to pay a call on the
femminiello
. He did it to protect her, well aware that in that city even an empty
vicolo
could have hundreds of watchful eyes, and as many attentive ears, and most important of all, hundreds of mouths eager to report to the wrong people that an oversized police brigadier was on his way to gather information. That day, however, he was willing to run the risk: the situation demanded it.

Luckily, Bambinella was ready for him and had been watching for him from the window. As soon as she saw him coming up the hill she started waving her long fingers, with their painted nails, shrieking like an eagle; Maione decided that that idiot wanted to alert the whole neighborhood and waved angrily at the
femminiello
to shut up, then walked in through the street door and climbed the steep stairs. He took them two at a time, which took less than half the time and left him more than twice as out of breath; by the time he got to the top of the stairs, he couldn't get out so much as a word.

“Ah, here you are, Brigadie', it's a good thing you got here early, any minute now one of my clients, the one who works as a fishmonger, you know the one, he brings me fresh anchovies when he doesn't have the money, which is always, his wife is a harpy who takes every last cent from him, of course, she is his wife, she does have every right, but still he's in love with me and he can't resist, so what's a girl supposed to do, shouldn't I take pity on him? And after all, anchovies are as good as money, it's something to eat, no? But are you all right, Brigadie'? You're white as a sheet. Why don't you sit down, and I'll get you a glass of water. I have big news for you. Believe you me, when Bambinella gets busy she always gets what she's after. That's why I told you this morning that I had to get ready: this wasn't information I was going to find through one of my girlfriends, this information was coming directly from a client. Here, there you go, drink this. Do you feel better now?”

Maione drank down the water in a single gulp, and finally felt his heart climb down from where it had been pounding between his ears and return to its normal spot. In a hoarse voice he said:

“Bambine', I'm going to tell you once, and only once: don't start digressing. Get it? No digressions, or I swear that's the end of you, even if it means I don't get a speck of information. So tell me, now, just who is this client of yours? Is he reliable? And what did he tell you?”

“Brigadie', all right, I promise not to digress: but you have to let me talk the way I talk, otherwise I might skip some important detail that could be useful. Agreed?”

Maione sighed, resignedly.

“Go on. Do it for the sake of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who will soon rise from the grave: go on. But do it before Easter, I beg of you.”

Bambinella giggled.

“You're always joking around! All right then, a year or so ago I met this man, not exactly young, from Taranto. Well dressed, a gentleman. I met him in a store run by a girlfriend of mine that . . . oh well, I'll get on with my story. This man comes up to me and gives me a pinch on my bottom, it was hot out and I was wearing that little light dress, the black one with the red pattern, you know the one that I mean? No? Do you want to see it? All right, I'll go on with my story. Anyway, that day I was a little on edge and instead of just laughing it off, I hauled off and slapped him one in the face, all five fingers,
bam!
Silence falls in the store, everyone's looking at us, and he puts his hand up to his face and you know what he does? He gives me a great big smile and says: ‘What a temper!'”

Maione ran a hand over his face.

“Bambine', I've made up my mind. I'm going to have to kill you. Please don't take it the wrong way, but I just have to kill you.”

Bambinella raised one hand.

“No, Brigadie', you can't kill me, first I have to finish my story. So we start seeing each other and he becomes a customer of mine. I should tell you that nearly all my customers come in part just to talk, because their wives won't listen to them and, as you know yourself, I am a very good listener.”

Maione began coughing violently.

“Hey, Brigadie', for pete's sake, don't choke! So anyway this guy starts telling me about how he used to be in the militia and then they transferred him here and gave him a new assignment; he even tells me what it is but then and there I forgot. But then, just yesterday, when he was supposed to come see me, he comes by to tell me that he can't because he has something else to do. And what did he have to do? Go on, ask me, ask me: what did he have to do?”

Maione rolled his eyes skyward and, resigned, repeated in a singsong that was a fair imitation of the
femminiello
's voice:

“And what did he have to do?”

“He told me: I have to take delivery of a shipment that's going to be brought in by certain colleagues who've come down from Rome. From Rome, you get it?”

The brigadier suddenly became very attentive.

“What does that mean? It could be anything.”

“No, Brigadie'. It can't mean just anything. Because when you got here, I finally remembered my friend's assignment. And do you want to know what my friend's assignment was?”

“Bambine'!”

“Oh, I'll tell you, okay, I'll tell you: he's in charge of the temporary detainment of arrestees for political offenses. In practical terms, he's the superintendent of the secret—he says ‘special'—division of the militia in charge of the barracks where they keep the prisoners they plan to send into internal exile, like on the islands of Ponza or Ventotene. He's told me the story lots of times, but I just listen out of one ear because I've always got plenty of things of my own to think about . . . but for you, and just for you, that one ear works perfectly well!”

“So how can you be so sure that the doctor is there? If the shipment was coming from Rome, then that can't be him, because they picked him up down here.”

Bambinella giggled again, her fingers covering her mouth.

“Good work, Brigadie', I thought the exact same thing. But I also thought that my friend could provide me with a little information. You should know, and this detail is important, that there's this one thing I do to him that he loves, something that, let's say, requires both sides of my nature, the womanly side but also the . . .”

Maione leapt to his feet:

“Halt! Hold everything! I don't want to know what you do with your friends, I'm only interested in knowing what he said.”

Bambinella pretended to fan herself:

“Oh,
mamma mia
, Brigadie', you're such a bore! Let's broaden our views a little, after all this is 1932, not the Middle Ages! Anyway, it didn't take much, given my beauty and my special qualities, to find out that those guys came down from Rome just to pick up someone from Naples. And that this certain someone was none other than our dear doctor.”

“And how can you be so sure?”

Bambinella put on a solemn expression.

“Brigadie', don't you dare doubt my talents. When I tell you that I know, it's because I made him get out the documents and check for that name: he carries the documents with him everywhere in a little locked briefcase because he told me that he's worried that if he leaves them at work someone will steal them.”

Maione stared at her, horrified.

“Don't you realize the risk you ran? What if he thinks, I don't know, that you're someone who's trying to dig up secrets or something like that?”

“No, Brigadie', don't worry about a thing. I wouldn't have made it to my age out on the streets in a city like this if I wasn't a girl who knows how to take care of her own business. I told him that a girlfriend of mine was supposed to be operated on tomorrow at Pellegrini hospital by this very doctor, and that he was the only one she trusted because his assistant was an ignorant donkey, and that someone had told us that they'd taken Modo away in a black car. And believe me: at times like that, if I want, a guy like that, I can get him to recite the recipe for
casatiello
bread backwards.”

“What can I say to you, Bambine'? You are my saving grace. I'm bound to kill you, one of these days, but you're still my saving grace in the meantime. Now, I need you to tell me just two more things: where is he, and how long will they be keeping him there?”

Bambinella put on a sad expression.

“Here comes the bad news, Brigadie'. They're holding him with a dozen or so other prisoners that they rounded up in the past fifteen days, at the barracks of the port militia. He says that there's a large room for that purpose in the cellar. They'll keep them there until the arrival of the ship that will transport them to the island of Ventotene.”

Maione rubbed his hands together.

“That's bad news only to a certain extent. He's still here, and I know that barracks, the commissario and I were there at Christmas on an investigation. All we need is enough time to figure out what to do next.”

Bambinella sighed.

“The really bad news, Brigadie', is that the ship is coming in the day after tomorrow. Right on Easter Sunday.”

W
hen he got back to headquarters, panting and out of breath, Maione found Ricciardi waiting for him by the front entrance.

“Come on, let's go. I'll buy you lunch.”

The brigadier immediately understood that his superior didn't want to be in the office when they talked about what had happened to Dr. Modo; on the one hand he appreciated his caution, but on the other, it seemed worrisome: the commissario wasn't usually so circumspect.

When they reached the corner of Via Toledo, the dog, sitting in the shade, got to his feet and followed them. Heading toward Gambrinus, Ricciardi said:

“He hasn't moved from that spot since this morning. It's as if he knew.”

Maione grumbled:

“Well, maybe he really does know what happened. And he'd like to tell us, but he can't.”

When they reached the café, they found a table inside. It was lunchtime by now, and the place was almost full. There was no piano because it was Good Friday, but music was provided by a strolling violinist who was playing for coins just out front of the café's veranda. The air was mild and sweet-smelling, the sun was warm and bright.