I PRESENTED MYSELF PUNCTUALLY AT eight in the morning at the Homicide office, ready to put up with Teodori’s displeasure. Vanessa shot me a smile while she finished applying black polish to a long fingernail. It was the first time I’d seen her in a miniskirt.
I gave her an admiring glance. “You’re looking pretty this morning.”
“I’ve got an appointment with my landlord. I’m behind on my rent.” She said it seriously, without looking at me, as she finished off her nails.
Teodori was in his office with a cappuccino and a brioche. His watery eyes were more yellow than usual and his cheeks were pale. But he was cheerful, even smarmy. He wanted something.
“Come in, Captain Balistreri. Do take a seat. Would you like my secretary to get you a coffee?”
I declined; his sudden kindness made me suspicious.
“There’s been some progress,” he began, dunking the pastry in the cappuccino so that some of the coffee overflowed onto his desk. “We have the autopsy results. Death definitely occurred on Sunday, a few hours after the game at the latest. The pathologist can’t pinpoint the time exactly, but based on the state of decomposition and taking the Tiber’s water temperature into account, he’s sure it wasn’t any later than that.”
He paused for effect. “So, the murder took place between six thirty, when Elisa Sordi left Via della Camilluccia, and midnight.”
I understood very well why this was good news for Teodori. All the illustrious suspects had an alibi, while Valerio Bona did not. I decided Teodori’s good humor was such that I could risk smoking in his office, and I lit a cigarette. He didn’t even notice.
“The victim has multiple lesions, hematomas from heavy blows, stab wounds, cigarette burns, and bites. It was long and painful. At least half an hour. She suffocated after a cloth or a cushion was placed over her mouth.”
“Were the wounds inflicted before she died?” I asked.
“The hematomas, yes, including the one that fractured her cheekbone and her right eye socket. As for the bites, the cuts and the burns, it’s hard to know given the state of the body. Also, some of the cuts and bites may have been caused by branches or by rats. There’s one other important point, however: there was no sexual violation.”
I took in the information with some surprise.
“No penetration in any orifice?” I asked, incredulous.
I hadn’t realized Vanessa had come in to take away the cappuccino cup. She stood there, a mocking smile on her face, waiting for Teodori’s answer. It was the second time something like this had happened to me, but Teodori’s secretary was a very different person from Elisa Sordi. She was merely amused by the question’s obscene nature and by our embarrassment.
“Would you like anything, Captain?” she asked as she picked up Teodori’s empty cup.
I gave an explicit glance at her long legs in order to make my response crystal clear.
“Not for the moment, thanks, Vanessa. Perhaps something a little later, though.”
The young woman went out and Teodori, a little unsettled, continued speaking.
“It’s a good thing you were with Dioguardi the whole time; otherwise I’d be forced to consider you a suspect, especially given your history with women.”
His tone was jocular, but not entirely. And I didn’t like that kind of joke, even less coming from someone like Teodori.
“Chief Superintendent Teodori, I’ve never hit a woman in my life, let along cut one or suffocated one. And unlike the man we’re looking for, I enjoy good old-fashioned penetration.”
Teodori handed me the pathologist’s report.
“Not so fast, Balistreri. One more thing has come to light. Read it for yourself.”
Signs of pregnancy terminated in the previous fifteen days.
No different from the rest, neither more nor less. This was my first thought, transgressive and cruel, accompanied by a small sense of relief, which was shameful. Elisa, like all the rest, was no saint. And in part she was asking for it.
“We need to interview all her male friends. At school, in her neighborhood, Valerio Bona,” said Teodori.
“And those living on Via della Camilluccia, of course.”
Strangely, Teodori smiled.
“Certainly, Via della Camilluccia as well, but let me handle that.” He put on a bold and courageous face.
Now I understood all his tiptoeing. Cardinal Alessandrini must have kept his promise. But the pressure from the Vatican’s high spheres was suppressed, and it all came down to Teodori’s courageous and independent decision. Nevertheless, he didn’t want me under his feet with my doubts about those illustrious citizens.
“How’s your daughter, Claudia, feeling?” I asked him point-blank.
He jumped. He couldn’t meet my eyes.
“I don’t follow. What’s my daughter got to do with anything?” he asked.
“Nothing. Just asking. Any good news from the medics? Or from Coccoluto or the judge?”
I wanted to make it very clear to him that I wouldn’t accept any obstacles tumbling down from on high that he was obliged to submit to because of his family troubles. I didn’t give a shit about his concerns.
There was a long silence, and then Teodori looked at me. “Captain Balistreri, my daughter’s eighteen. She lost her mother six years ago to cancer. I’ve never had enough time to spend with her, and she’s had trouble both in school and otherwise. This year she failed her exams. Ten days ago she also failed her driving test, but that evening she snuck off with my car and went to a club by the beach with a friend. They were dancing and drinking all night, and they took some pills. On the way home the car slammed into a tree. My daughter suffered minor injuries, but her friend died. They’re saying my daughter had the pills before they went out, but she insists someone drugged her drink in the club. As you know, there’s a difference.”
He was hoping to attract my sympathy, him and his stupid spoiled daughter, but I’d seen far worse in Africa. Children of three years old wandering the gutters under the open sky, stomachs swollen with hunger, flies clustered around their eyes. I’d never had even a crumb of compassion for the debauched Italian bourgeoisie.
Teodori was forced to accept my presence on the job. The senator had already invited us over and was expecting us at ten o’clock sharp in his private offices on Via della Camilluccia. Teodori made me promise not to ask any indiscreet questions. As if there were discreet questions in a murder investigation.
As I was leaving, Vanessa handed me a business card. “In case you have an urgent need, Captain Balistreri.”
On it was her telephone number.
. . . .
The private offices occupied the first and second floors of Building A, underneath the count’s penthouse. We took a car, and we were at the gate within ten minutes. Teodori parked outside, the first sign that he intended to respect the powers-that-be. Gina’s daughter opened the gate and said that the count’s personal secretary was expecting us on the second floor. I looked toward the terrace and saw the usual reflection. I immediately lit a cigarette and made the usual sign of greeting mixed with disrespect.
“Who are you waving to?” Teodori asked with alarm.
“The count’s son, Manfredi.”
He looked startled. “You know Manfredi?”
“We’ve seen each other a few times from a distance.”
Teodori’s uncertain look betrayed all his tension. He was being forced to take me there against his will and now things were coming out that he didn’t understand.
The Count’s personal secretary was what you would have imagined: an elderly man with gray hair, impeccably dressed with the monarchist party’s badge in his buttonhole. He led us into a drawing room, which was furnished with a few items of antique furniture that were clearly valuable. On the walls hung paintings of great land and sea battles. Heavy curtains blotted out the sunlight. A wealth that was very different from the Roman bourgeoisie; this was aristocratic opulence, dark and serious, and in some ways menacing.
We waited standing, looking at the paintings. Teodori seemed intimidated, as if those painted battles were there to warn him about what was in store for him. The wait was only brief, however; one of the count’s many fixations was punctuality.
I had already met him, but this time the effect was more striking. His cold black eyes sat above an imposing hooked nose, below which was drawn the subtle lines of his lips, mustache, and a well-groomed goatee. He was half a head taller than I was and towered over someone the size of Teodori. While he was shaking his hand I noticed his restrained repugnance over the head of the investigation’s careless appearance.
When it was my turn the grip was stronger than before. He stared briefly into my eyes. “If you wish to proceed with this case you will have to do so in a dignified manner. At least in this residential complex.”
So the little monster with the binoculars had tipped him off about my excesses. Besides, it was his way of giving us confirmation that at any moment he could have chucked us out and blocked the case. I held my tongue.
A waiter brought coffee and bottled water for the count, who turned to Teodori.
“I’m somewhat perplexed by this visit. I agreed to meet with you because the minister of the interior explained to me that there’s been pressure from the other side of the Tiber to clear up any possible implications in this sad business of the girl.”
He said “the other side of the Tiber” with a look of disgust. The minister of the interior had asked the count for a favor. Small favors between the powerful. All for the sake of that girl. In those few words and the way he pronounced them was revealed the count’s vision of the world. A no-account plebeian, probably of loose morals, as those people always were, had gotten herself killed, most certainly by another plebeian, and it had all happened far away from the residential complex on Via della Camilluccia.
“Thank you,” Teodori said. “We’ll be quick.”
“I can give you the next half-hour, then I’m off to Parliament for a vote.”
“Then I’ll get right to it. Did you know the young woman in question, Elisa Sordi?” Teodori began.
“One of my employees, Valerio Bona, gave me her résumé. I recommended her to the cardinal, but I hadn’t met her. I don’t normally have any contact with these people.”
He said it exactly like that, these people.
“You didn’t even know her by sight? She worked here for a pretty long time,” I put in.
“I may have crossed paths with her in the courtyard, but honestly, I take very little notice of the other building. The two buildings are quite separate, as you can surely see.”
“Turning to Sunday, July 11,” Teodori said haltingly.
“Please proceed.” The count knew perfectly well what this was about, but he wanted to make him feel even more ill at ease.
“We’re trying to reconstruct the movements of all the people present in the residential complex on that day,” Teodori explained.
“And can I ask what this has to do with a crime that was committed some ways away by people who have nothing to do with us?”
Teodori explained apologetically, “Well, it would be extremely useful to be able to reconstruct the victim’s whereabouts that day. If anyone saw her—”
“What time did she arrive on Sunday?” asked the count, cutting him off.
He wasn’t rude, but emphasized with every gesture that we were wasting his time without any reason and that he would decide when the conversation was over.
“Her card was punched at 11:00. Before that she went to Mass with her parents. Then she took public transportation to the office.”
“I had already left. My parliamentary group was meeting at the Hotel Camilluccia, five minutes from here. I got there at half past ten. I returned home a little after fivein the afternoon. I encountered Captain Balistreri below. He was chatting with the concierge. I took a shower, got dressed, and went out again with my wife and son at about a quarter past six. At the time, Captain Balistreri, you were leaving with Cardinal Alessandrini and Mr. Dioguardi.”
I nodded in agreement and the count continued.
“I went to the minister of the interior’s office for a short meeting we had scheduled some time ago. I came back here a little before the start of the game—I had invited several party members over for dinner. Coming back, I crossed paths with Cardinal Alessandrini, who was also coming home. My guests had already arrived. We watched the game and later celebrated quietly on the terrace with a toast.”
Teodori watched me uneasily. He had no idea how to proceed, and if it had been up to him we would have left there and then.
I spoke as gently as I could. “Did your wife and son come with you to the minister of the interior’s office?”
The question signaled a new turn in the conversation. The count shot me a quick glance and then turned to Teodori.
“I understood that you wanted to know whether any of us had seen the girl here.”
“Or anywhere,” I said, without allowing Teodori to respond.
This time the count’s eyes met mine and remained there, but I read no embarrassment or fear in them, just a brief glimmer of respect.
“Do you think a member of my family could have had anything to do with that girl?”
He was alluding to the vast social gulf between the Banchi di Aglieno family and someone like Elisa Sordi.
“Perhaps a chance encounter? Assuming they weren’t with you at the minister’s.”
The count smiled. “No, no matter how often the Minister’s my guest here, this was a brief meeting to discuss some work. I dropped my wife, Ulla, in the city center, near the ministry. The shops were open in the area and she wanted to take a walk. She came home alone by taxi.”
“And your son?”
“Manfredi left at the same time we did, on his motorcycle. He went to do a little weight training at his gym, one of the few in Rome that’s open on Sunday afternoon. He came home a few minutes after I did, just before the game started.”
We had reached a critical moment. “We also need to speak to your wife and your son,” I said.
There was a long moment of silence. I had the impression that the count was weighing the pros and cons. To prohibit an interview with his family would create embarrassment, with the Minister being leaned on by the Vatican, and this would mean in some way contracting an awkward political debt for him. He decided it wasn’t worth the trouble.
“Of course, but I must warn you that Ulla is very upset about what happened and my son, Manfredi, as perhaps you know, has issues and must be treated carefully.”
“Perfectly clear, Count,” said a thankful Teodori. “We’ll be as brief with them as we were with you.”
“Then I will escort you upstairs—they are both at home.”
The penthouse was as large as it was gloomy. Dark parquet floors, heavy curtains, antique furniture. A long hallway led to two drawing rooms in succession. The first was covered in tapestries depicting battles in the Italian colonies and big game trophies from Africa and South America. The second was a museum of eighteenth and nineteenth-century furniture interspersed with modern black leather sofas. I was struck by the total absence of mirrors or any reflective surfaces. The count sat us down in another room while his personal secretary went to get the wife.
Ulla arrived immediately, as if she’d been forewarned. She was wearing a fancy sweatsuit, the expensive kind that’s not made for sweating. Her hair was gathered in a short ponytail, which made her look younger, but the tiny lines etched around her mouth and her stunning blue-green eyes showed that she was over thirty, and that her life wasn’t without stress. She didn’t mention our brief encounter beside the pool, and we introduced ourselves.
She had little to add. On Sunday morning she left the apartment early to go to Mass. I caught a flash of disapproval on the count’s face. She returned at eleven and noticed Elisa, a beautiful young women she’d seen before, talking to Gina Giansanti..
“I didn’t leave the house for the rest of the day. I slept a lot, because I was exhausted and guests were coming over to watch the game. When my husband returned at about five thirty, I gave final instructions to the cook and then went out with him to take a walk. He dropped me off on Via del Corso. It would have been six thirty, or maybe a little later.”
“Did you by any chance see Elisa while you were walking downtown?” asked Teodori.
“No, absolutely not.”
“Did you buy anything?” I asked.
She looked at me a little surprised, as if she was making an effort to remember.
“No, nothing. I hailed a taxi in Piazza Venezia and got here about a quarter past eight, a few minutes after my husband.”
“Was Manfredi already home?” I asked.
“Manfredi got here soon after, about eight twenty. He always stays at the gym for at least an hour.”
I understood why Manfredi didn’t like the company of strangers and mirrors as soon as I saw him enter the room. Apart from that face, he was a normal kid: he was muscular, with powerful but not excessive pectorals and biceps, and almost as tall as me. But from the neck up he was a disaster area, a terrible trick of destiny. A harelip and mauvish birthmark as large as an apricot disfigured his face up to the swollen eyelid of his left eye. He had smooth black hair down to his shoulders and kept it over his face to cover the disfigured part. The only visible eye was very striking, having the same sea-green color as his mother’s.
“The cop who makes funny faces,” he said. He had the guttural voice of a young man who hadn’t yet learned to control his hormones. He hadn’t yet learned his father’s art of self-control, but certainly displayed a good amount of aggression.
“Superintendent Teodori and Captain Balistreri want to ask you a few questions, Manfredi,” said the count.
The young guy said nothing, but waited for us. In the air I picked up on something I knew very well: the apparent calmness of someone who’s making an effort to contain his anger, an exercise in which I was highly specialized.
I observed this muscular young man with the disfigured face and wondered what thoughts passed through his head every day. It wasn’t enough to get rid of mirrors to accept himself—perhaps he had to eliminate the negative reactions of others. Who could tell? A glance too many, a girl’s giggle. An opinion was forming inside me. For just a second I wondered if it was an opinion or a prejudice. But I was used to trusting my instincts.
“It would be of great help to us if you could tell us whether you saw Elisa Sordi on Sunday,” Teodori said. I wasn’t happy with this opening shot, but I refrained from making a comment.
“I saw her from the terrace through my binoculars,” Manfredi replied without a moment’s hesitation.
“Binoculars?” exclaimed Teodori, taken somewhat by surprise.
“They were a gift from my father. The same ones the Italian Royal Navy used.”
“And on Sunday you saw Elisa Sordi from the terrace through your binoculars?”
“Yes, three times. I saw her arrive around eleven. She spoke briefly with Gina and waved to my mother. Then I saw her leave about one, and she came back around two.”
“Was she alone?”
“She went out alone. She came back with the guy who works on my father’s computer.”
“Were they arguing?” Teodori asked hopefully.
For a moment Manfredi brushed aside the lock of hair from the left side of his face. I believed it was so he could better observe the idiot in front of him.
“I could see, but I couldn’t hear anything. The kid was waving his hands, but I don’t know if they were arguing.”
“What was she wearing?” I asked all of a sudden.
I saw a shadow cross the count’s face, but he couldn’t veto that kind of a question.
Manfredi didn’t even glance my way.
“Blue jeans, a white sleeveless blouse, and low-heeled casual shoes.”
“Was she wearing a bra?”
There was no need to look at the count to feel his hostility. I saw the embarrassed look Ulla gave her son. Manfredi didn’t blink an eye.
“Yes, I remember seeing a strap fall down her arm.”
As I had presumed, he was very observant.
“I truly do not understand what this type of question has to do with the matter,” said the count.
“We didn’t find the girl’s clothes at the crime scene. Every detail is important, including whether she was wearing underwear.”
Manfredi gave me a challenging look.
“Obviously, I couldn’t say whether she was wearing panties or not.”
There was no trace of irony in his voice; he wanted to get back at me for the way I’d acted in the courtyard.
“Manfredi!” Ulla said.
“Manfredi,” the count repeated, “this is no time for jokes.”
“I’m sorry,” he said evenly. “I only wanted to help the police.”
“Think back to Sunday,” Teodori said. “Did you ever see Elisa close up?”
“No. Right after lunch I went to my room to rest. The air conditioning was on. I was tired and I fell asleep. I only woke up when my father got home, just before six. Then we went out together about half past.”
“And you went to the gym, and obviously you didn’t see her there,” Teodori suggested helpfully.
“I didn’t see her. I came home in time for the game, which I watched in my room.”
“Alone?” Teodori asked.
“I don’t like crowds. The living room was full of people.”
“And did you go out after the game to celebrate?” continued Teodori.
“I just said that I don’t like crowds,” the kid replied testily.
“Was there anyone in the gym with you?” I asked. Teodori looked nervous, but the count was calm.
“Just my personal trainer.”
“Did you have a session scheduled with him?”
“We always see each other on Sunday afternoon from six forty five to seven forty five, when the gym’s deserted.”
“Of course, you don’t like crowds,” I said, knowing the remark was cruel.
The kid said nothing. He stared at me with his tough-guy attitude, rendered grotesque by his deformed lip and the mauve birthmark on the left side of his face covered by his long hair. The moment had arrived. I could feel Teodori champing at the bit, wanting to get away. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing more to ask.
I turned to the count.
“I know that your son spoke with Elisa Sordi before Sunday, July 11, and I’d like to ask him some questions that would aid us in our investigation. But these are sensitive matters. I think it would be better if we spoke to Manfredi alone, without his parents present.”
Teodori turned pale and desperate, as if we were on one of the sinking ships in the pictures on the wall.
“These are routine questions,” I explained. “But we have to ask them, especially since we believe that your son spoke to the victim alone at least once in her office.”
The count looked at Manfredi, surprised. His tone was icy.
“In her office?” he asked his son.
More than any fear in his tone, it was surprise and disdain that his son, the future Conte dei Banchi di Aglieno, should be gossiping with a little slut from the suburbs. He would have found it more dignified if I’d said Manfredi had taken her to the banks of the Tiber, hit her, knocked her around, suffocated her, and thrown her in the river, rather than wasting time chatting with the worthless girl.
Manfredi looked at his father, then at his mother. Finally, he stood.
“Let’s go to my room,” he ordered, never letting down his guard. Teodori, clearly upset followed us hesitatingly down the length of the half-shadowed hall.
Manfredi’s room was at the end of the hall. It wasn’t particularly large. The ceiling was midnight blue and the walls were completely covered with posters, many of them for heavy-metal bands: Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motörhead, and Venom. The figures in the posters did not show their faces. They wore masks or had their backs turned. Unexpectedly, there was a photograph of his school class on the wall and I could understand why immediately. Manfredi was half hidden behind the teacher; you could see only his muscular body and the unblemished side of his face. There were no reflective surfaces in the room—the glass in the windows was nonreflective. There was a door to his private bathroom. The light outside entered weakly through the single window covered by a thick curtain.
There were a good many books, a lot for a young kid, and evidently all read. Among works of history, philosophy, and art, and collections of prints of ancient Rome, I recognized Mein Kampf and Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil. The last time I had seen those works I was in my own bedroom in Tripoli. On the wall, scrawled in black felt-tip in an angry adolescent’s hand, was the aphorism I remembered well: The great epochs of our life come when we gain the courage to rechristen our evil as what is the best in us.
Manfredi leaned against a wall, as far away from us as possible. Then he turned directly to me.
“So, what else do you want to know?” he asked me.
“Just if and when you spoke to Elisa Sordi before Sunday, July 11,” Teodori said meekly.
“Of course I spoke to her. So did everybody around here, everybody our age, at least. Even the young priest with the red hair spoke to her. Or do you think I’ve got less right than a priest to talk to a pretty girl?”
Terrified, Teodori mumbled something incomprehensible. Now he really was in a painting on the living room wall, aboard a sinking ship.
“You had as much right as any of us,” I said, looking him straight in the eye. “As for hoping it would go beyond talking, well, that’s another story.”
His biceps flexed and his pectorals swelled. I watched the open palms of his hands. There were posters of martial arts movies on the walls, too, and I had no doubt the kid had more than a passing knowledge of the subject.
He told us calmly how he had first met Elisa Sordi. He knew what time she arrived in the morning. On that particular morning it had been raining, and through his binoculars he saw that she didn’t have an umbrella. His account matched the story Elisa had told Valerio Bona.
“What did you talk about?”
“She asked me what I was studying. I told her I was doing classical studies at a private school. We just talked for a minute. She had work to do.”
“Four Saturdays ago you went to see her in her office.”
“She told me I could come by anytime.”
He spoke as if this was the most normal thing in the world. As if a monster like that could hold any interest for a young goddess like Elisa Sordi. Perhaps the boy thought his family status gave him a special right over any peasant woman admitted into that paradise. A kind of modern ius primae noctis.
“Are you saying Elisa Sordi wanted your company?”
I put all the irony and incredulity I could into the question. He looked at me a long time while the only sound in the room was Teodori’s labored breathing. This kid was going to hate me forever, whether he was guilty or not.
“I’m telling you what happened. If you don’t believe me, that’s your problem.”
“All right. And what did you talk about?”
His smile made his face look even more grotesque.
“About true and false emotions. About love.”
The little monster was trying to palm me off as if I was a child.
“You talked about love? Could you be more specific, please? It’s important. Who said what?”
“There was something preying on Elisa’s mind; she was upset. I think there were problems with that guy who followed her around.”
“Did she say so?” Teodori asked hopefully.
“Not really. She did say that anyone who kept seeking the impossible in love would only end up unhappy.”
My thoughts went back to the autopsy results. Signs of termination of pregnancy carried out in the previous fifteen days. A relationship that had been going on for some time—her period was late, a pregnancy test, then abortion. The conversation with Manfredi probably happened when the pregnancy was already discovered, several days before the abortion.
“Did you have sexual relations with Elisa Sordi?” I asked him point-blank.
Strangely, he had to stop and think. “I assume you’ve already considered that and determined it was impossible,” he replied sarcastically.
“You could always have raped her,” I said brutally.
“Captain Balistreri, that’s enough! I don’t approve of these tactics,” Teodori said. Then he turned to Manfredi in an attempt to seem impartial.
“Ignore that comment, please. But you do need to answer Captain Balistreri’s question.”
“No,” said Manfredi, “I don’t need to do anything. I’m not answering anymore questions. I didn’t kill Elisa Sordi. Whoever did was luckier than I am.”
What on earth did that mean? Was he just referring to his face? There was no way of knowing. We took our leave with many apologies on Teodori’s part. The count and Ulla were nowhere to be seen. The count’s personal secretary saw us out, like a bouncer hustling a drunk customer out of a bar.
. . . .
We went back to Homicide in the car, myself at the wheel. Neither of us said a word. Then I saw the tears flowing silently from under Teodori’s dark glasses.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him. I was used to women’s tears, and no longer gave them any thought, but coming from a grown man they got on my nerves.
“I’ve been on the force more than thirty years, Balistreri. And now, at the age of sixty, I find myself in this terrible situation: my hands are tied, and a young guy like you treats me like a fucking piece of shit.”
His words contained both rage and humiliation. In a flash I realized that this was the pain of an ordinary, decent man reduced by circumstances.
“Don’t worry, I won’t say a word to anyone and Coccoluto will help your daughter out.”
“Right, Coccoluto will help her out—if I look the other way in this investigation,” he said bitterly.
So doubt had crept into his mind as well, after seeing Manfredi—his face, those muscles, that room with its violent posters, Mein Kampf—and hearing about his sweet little talks with Elisa.
“That’s the price your conscience has to pay if you want Coccoluto to invent an imaginary dealer to save your daughter from the charge of murder.”
“But he really exists, damn it!” he exploded in rage. “Claudia told me his name, but I swore not to tell anyone because she’s afraid of what this animal will do. He hangs out with a dangerous crowd.”
I looked at him in silence. Yellow tears. We only suffer like this for our children. I thought back to my father and what he went through because of me. And what I went through because of him. And Elisa Sordi’s parents expecting justice. I was an insensitive shit, but I could sort this problem out. I didn’t give a damn about any dangerous drug dealer, having seen far worse. And all of a sudden I felt sorry for Teodori and his yellow eyes.
I rested a hand on his shoulder.
“Teodori, why don’t you pretend I’m not the police and tell me the name of this dealer?”
. . . .
After talking to Teodori, I found out more from a former colleague in the secret intelligence service. Claudia Teodori’s dealer was a small fry by the name of Marco Fratini. He came from a good family. A drop-out from a private religious university, he was a handsome guy from one of Rome’s wealthy neighborhoods and fond of the club scene. Except that one day, after skipping yet another exam, the father hits the roof and cuts him off completely. The good little bourgeois kid isn’t studious but he’s clever, so he immediately comes up with an alternative source of income. Given his clean appearance and excellent social contacts, he becomes the perfect pusher of amphetamines in the most fashionable clubs. He then discovers that some of those pills, dissolved in beer on the sly, make the girls easier to bend to his desires.
I could easily have picked him up and beaten the truth out of him. The only real danger was the gang that supplied him with the merchandise. To have them lose an important sales channel purely on account of saving Claudia Teodori could have led to even more serious consequences for the girl. I needed a plan.
. . . .
“Once you’re in the car, don’t take more than a minute, Vanessa. I don’t want you putting yourself into any danger.”
She laughed. “He’ll be the one in danger. But please explain, Captain—what can I do in a minute?”
I told her, running my fingernails from her knee up her thigh: “Anything to get it over with in a minute.”
She gave me a malicious look. “Captain, for years I had a boring boyfriend, especially in bed. So I learned a couple of tricks to speed things up. Should I describe them, so you can choose exactly what I should do to this little prick?”
“Theoretical discussions of sex aren’t my thing. Just be careful.”
The Striscia di Mare club in Ostia was packed with the youth of Rome and the surrounding area, all of them there to dance on the sand to Olivia Newton John. I arrived around midnight with three trusted colleagues, chosen for their impressive builds and beat-up faces. We made our way through the sea of mopeds parked outside the entrance. The bouncer had been notified beforehand and let us jump the line to a chorus of muttering and curses.
The dance floor on the sandy beach held an ocean of writhing figures. The guys were stripped to the waist, the girls mainly in shorts and tank tops or bikini tops. Many were stunning, but Vanessa naturally stood out, her magnificent legs shooting out from a pair of black leather shorts. She was the only one wearing ankle boots on the sand, and the tightly clinging top advertised her toned and muscular shoulders and arms. Her hands were decked with rings and ended with very long, black-polished nails. It was a costume I had suggested myself.
Fratini spotted Vanessa as soon as she hit the dance floor. He watched her dance alone, drinking beer from a bottle. She looked promising to him, I could tell. Of course, the extra handful of pills the guy from Marseilles gave him as a tip for his services as a dealer would come in handy for softening up this unbelievably hot girl.
He moved in with his gleaming smile as Vanessa was getting another beer from the bar by the dance floor.
“I’d pay anything for a private dance with you,” he said, leaning close to her at the bar. Vanessa looked at him and gave a laugh.
“Maybe, but first let’s see how you do in public.”
They danced for nearly half an hour before he succeeded in dropping two yellow tablets in her beer. I was at the other end of the bar and gave her the sign that everything was going according to plan.
Vanessa began to behave exactly as Fratini expected her to. She was uninhibited, wild. When he invited her to go for a walk, she accepted readily.
They went out into the dark parking lot, where a cool breeze was coming in from the sea. Fratini was ecstatic. No little yellow pills for him, of course—that stuff made you lose control, like that idiot Claudia Teodori who had crashed her car.
As usual, he’d parked a little way off. He opened the back door of his BMW to reveal its white leather seats.
“Get in,” he ordered.
Vanessa was laughing giddily.
“Get in yourself,” she said teasingly. Then she pushed him down onto the seat and crouched between his knees.
Fratini laughed and tried to undo her shorts, but she brushed her long black fingernails from his knees up to his crotch.
“Ladies first,” she said in a promising tone.
She pulled his jeans and his underwear down to his knees and began to stroke his penis. Her ten black painted nails were pin points of pleasure. Then she took him into her mouth.
“Damn, you’re driving me crazy,” Marco Fratini groaned.
He came in less than half a minute. Immediately after he did, Vanessa herself began to moan, but in a different way. Then she threw up in his lap. Fratini drew back, looking, horrified, at his penis—covered in a mixture of vomit and sperm, which was now dripping all over the BMW’s white leather seats. Vanessa collapsed in a heap, heaving, froth bubbling from the side of her mouth. A moment later the other rear door of the car opened and two strong hands grabbed him by the armpits and lifted him from the car. A shove made him trip over the jeans that were still around his ankles. He fell half-naked to the ground.
Terrified, he found himself facing me and my three accomplices, who looked more like ex-cons than policemen. Trembling, he tried to stand and pull up his jeans, but another, more forceful shove was enough to send him back to the ground.
I bent over Vanessa, who gave me a wink.
“It’s bad,” I said to my accomplices seriously, “but no ambulances. If the boss finds out, we’re fucked. Take her to the car. Her stomach needs to be pumped.”
“She’ll tell her father,” one of my three guys said, playing his part.
“No, I’ll talk to her later. She’ll keep her mouth shut. If she doesn’t, her father will have her hide and then ours. He’ll rip the balls off this fucker here and feed them to him.”
Lying half-naked on his back on the cobblestones, scared shitless, Fratini began to sob. One of my guys carried Vanessa to another car and took her away.
“Who are you?” Fratini mumbled, trembling all over.
I gave him a pitying look. “You just drugged and raped the only daughter, the underage daughter, of a capo in the Magliana gang. We were supposed to keep an eye on her, but the little bitch gave us the slip and hooked up with you, dickhead.”
Marco Fratini saw that he was already dead. He’d always been unlucky; now he’d drugged the underage daughter of a dangerous criminal. Him, a former university student from a good family! They’d tear him to pieces.
“But I didn’t did do anything to her,” he whimpered.
I ripped the jeans brutally from his ankles and pulled out the yellow tablets. His sobs turned desperate.
“You’re in the deepest shit possible. Even if we do everything we can to keep that spoiled little slut’s mouth shut, she’s used to doing just whatever the fuck she wants. And if there’s a guy who turns her on she keeps coming back for more.”
“But I’ll disappear. I’ll leave, I swear!”
He was on his knees, pulling up his briefs.
“Like we’re going to fucking run that risk,” I said to the two gorillas on either side of me.
“If we beat him to death here in the parking lot, they’ll think it was just a fight outside a club,” one of them observed.
“That way he’d be out of our hair forever,” added another, totally calm.
“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking the blackjack I’d taken from my pocket, “but we don’t have much choice. To be on the safe side, we either put you six feet under or in prison. But we can’t send you to prison, so that only leaves one choice.”
Fratini had pissed himself and was trembling like a leaf. He raised his hand like a kindergartener. “But maybe I can send myself to prison,” he said.
In great detail he told us about how he’d drugged Claudia Teodori and the accident that followed. A girl had died. If he confessed to having put pills in her glass without her knowing, then they’d give him a good few years in jail. He wouldn’t ask for any extenuating circumstances.
After consulting briefly with my two accomplices, I advised him that we also had important friends in the police, that we would check his story and if he was lying we’d be back to rip his balls off ourselves.
When we deposited him in front of the police station in Ostia, he thanked us with tears in his eyes.
A short time later, while Fratini was making a full confession about the pills he’d secretly put in Claudia Teodori’s beer, Vanessa and I were alone on a boat moored in Ostia’s harbor. It belonged to a wealthy uncle of hers.
The sea breeze provided a bit of relief from the suffocating heat. We sat on the deck drinking ice-cold beer.
“What was the most difficult part?” I asked her.
She laughed, now a little drunk.
“Having to swallow that pill you gave me to make me throw up. Shit, Michele, it made me really sick.”
“Without my little pill you’d have had to swallow something a lot worse.”
She picked up a rope and held it out to me. “Do you know how to tie knots? It’s important on a boat.”
She wrapped the rope around my wrists, rapidly tied it into a double knot to secure me, and then knotted the rope tightly to the rudder.
“Good,” she said, sitting back down. “Now you won’t fall into the sea.”
She took off one ankle boot. Her toenails were painted black to match her fingernails. She stretched out her leg and began to run her foot up my thigh.