Morning
THANKS TO THE THREE-HOUR time difference, they were back in Rome before lunchtime.
The night before in Dubai, Balistreri had decided not to go after the SUV. The taxi driver was already terrified, even though he didn’t know exactly what had happened. A car chase along the roads of Dubai wasn’t a good idea. It could have ended in a shooting, which would have turned into a diplomatic incident. He had ordered Corvu to write a report saying only that Belhrouz had had a fatal accident after getting drunk at dinner. No mention of the meeting at his house, the hit-and-run SUV, or the driver who mysteriously picked them up at the airport.
It wasn’t only Belhrouz’s accident that was troubling him. He was also worried about the driver who knew about their arrival and intended destination. We always know where you are, who you’re with, and what you’re talking about. Certainly their conversation with Belhrouz either at the ENT offices or at dinner had been heard. And it had decreed the young lawyer’s fate.
A warning—a card dealt—from someone who feels untouchable. They knew he would recognize the style, because he had practiced it for years. The threat was real, concrete. Whoever entered the circle was at risk. It was essential not to involve others in the game. It was now necessary to choose between his life or finding out the truth.
Once I wouldn’t even have given it a thought. But today I don’t want anymore regrets, any more sins to atone for.
Piccolo met him at Leonardo da Vinci airport with Nadia’s file. She seemed excited about something, which to Balistreri always spelled trouble. As they drove toward the center of Rome, there was none of the usual traffic. Schools were closed, offices were operating with smaller staffs, the well-heeled were skiing in the Alps, and others were vacationing in the Roman hills.
Balistreri gave Piccolo the short version of the Dubai events. Then she reported on what had been happening back in Rome.
“The autopsy indicates that she died quickly on the night of December 24. Sexual intercourse, no signs of violence. Then strangulation. The other shepherd confirms Vasile’s version of events. And now that he knows we’re dealing with a murder, I don’t think he’d lie. Vasile didn’t pick up Nadia on Via di Torricola.”
Corvu said, “Which means someone else picked Nadia up, took her to Vasile, who was drunk, they had sex, and then he strangled her.”
“There’s only one problem with that,” Piccolo said.
“Vasile’s left wrist,” Balistreri said.
Piccolo looked at him in surprise. Corvu said, “Colajacono sprained it, so what.”
Balistreri shook his head. “No, when Colajacono grabbed Vasile’s wrist, he squealed like a stuck pig. Vasile must have already been injured.”
“Maybe he sprained his wrist in the act of strangling Nadia,” Corvu said.
“Unfortunately, that’s not the case,” Piccolo said. “The doctor who examined him said the sprain was at least ten days old—you can tell by what’s left of the swelling. Vasile maintains that he injured himself playing soccer with some friends, and the other shepherd confirms it. He says that during the recent burglaries he had to do the driving and heavy lifting because Vasile couldn’t.”
“That’s not possible,” Corvu burst out. “That means Vasile didn’t kill her. Whoever picked the girl up killed her, too.”
“Yes,” Balistreri agreed.
Corvu was skeptical. “But, Captain, that would mean this hypothetical killer goes to great lengths to get himself a Giulia GT that can’t be traced to him, then he picks up Nadia without being seen. He takes her as a present to the shepherd so he can have sex with her. He waits there until the shepherd’s finished, and then strangles her?”
“Well, before he strangled her, he waited for Vasile to get good and drunk and fall asleep,” Balistreri said. “Does that remind you of anything?”
Piccolo and Corvu stared at him incredulously.
“I know who it was,” Piccolo said.
“Me too,” Corvu said.
“Not me, and I bet you two will come up with different names,” Balistreri concluded.
Our preconceptions, our certainties. Disaster’s taught me to be wary of them.
. . . .
Pasquali was less impeccably dressed than usual. The difference lay in the details. One shirt cuff protruded more than the other from his jacket sleeves. The part in his hair was crooked, as if he’d combed it hurriedly after a night of adulterous sex, thought that could almost certainly be ruled out in Pasquali’s case.
He listened in silence to Balistreri’s report, which omitted being tailed, the driver at the airport, Belhrouz’s promise of help, and the SUV.
“Are you asking to go to the Seychelles now, Balistreri?” He wasn’t sarcastic—just sour.
Balistreri shook his head. “It’s a dead end. We’ll never find out who the real ENT shareholders are.”
“It may not have any bearing on the crimes against Nadia and Camarà anyway,” Pasquali said.
Balistreri refrained from pointing out that there were three crimes. Talking about Samantha Rossi to Pasquali would only create more problems.
He changed the subject. “Pasquali, I know that this evening there’s an important council meeting and that you’ll be seeing the mayor and the chief of police. Could you please explain things to them?”
Pasquali nodded and made a face, as if he’d just bitten his tongue.
“The time frame in politics isn’t the same as the time frame for police work. To move Casilino 900 and the other camps would require a kind of bipartisan agreement that doesn’t exist right now. And the Vatican is opposed to it. Would you prefer us to take the Roma out to the middle of the Mediterranean and drown them?”
“Pasquali, it’s gone okay this time because the victims were a Romanian prostitute and a Senegalese bouncer. If it had been two Italian girls from good families we’d be in deep trouble.”
Pasquali brushed the image away with a brusque gesture, as if to exorcise it.
“That’s what we need men like Colajacono for. No one’s going to be lynching any Roma.”
Balistreri shook his head. Pasquali couldn’t possibly believe what he was saying. Another crime linked to the Roma would become a political football.
“Pasquali, with all due respect, I wouldn’t be too sure. Someone has an interest in stoking the fire of intolerance. And racism in Italy does exist. Take a tour of the schools or the tiers of certain stadiums.”
“Nevertheless,” said Pasquali, cutting him short, “the outcome of this evening’s meeting is truly in the balance. It only needs one vote more or less on one side or another.”
“Listen, Vasile did not kill Camarà. He wasn’t at the Bella Blu on the night of December the 23, he was with his three accomplices emptying the villas whose proprietors had left for the Christmas holidays.”
“And you believe people like that?”
“No one is going to lie for someone like Vasile and run the risk of being charged as an accomplice to murder.”
“But he killed Nadia.”
Balistreri told him about the sprained wrist.
“That doesn’t make a big difference,” Pasquali said. “They’re all in it up to their necks: Roma, Romanians, Casilino 900. You should be investigating those people.”
Balistreri felt a vague sense of unease. Pasquali was pushing the absurd. And when an intelligent person did that, it meant he had a hidden agenda.
Afternoon
The telephone call from Morandi came out of the blue. Hagi wanted to have an informal talk with him. They agreed to meet at Bar Biliardo immediately after lunch.
On the bus to Via Tiburtina, Balistreri realized that it had been less than a week since his first visit. And yet the neighborhood looked different. The Christmas decorations had been taken down, and the political posters had been put up in their place. He saw them from the bus as it drove past. Attacks on the council, the mayor’s labored and heartfelt defense. Everyone blaming each other, everyone saying that the integration model was the wrong one, no one coming up with a solution. They were even prepared to speculate about more deaths.
The strategy of tension was the product of lofty minds. This was a tactic of mediocre ones, a real mixture of the incapable, the profiteers and the common criminal.
He looked around him in the bus and saw only old people and non-EU immigrants. No one suspicious was tailing him. He concluded that they knew who he was going to see and that the trail had no interest for them. It was ENT that was the sensitive issue, certainly not the Bar Biliardo and Hagi and his acolytes.
There was a new bartender. Hagi was waiting for him with Morandi in the billiards room, which was closed to the public. He was coughing more than usual, but he looked happy. He made no mention of Rudi’s disappearance, and he offered Balistreri a coffee. They sat down by a billiard table.
“Do you play?”
“When I was a kid we played in Sunday school, but only with our hands—playing with cues was forbidden.”
“In my country, back in Galati, we thought playing with your hands was for queers.”
Hagi was in no hurry and Balistreri didn’t want to pressure him. Besides, the ENT trail having proved a dead end, they were waiting for the autopsy results and for Ramona Iordanescu to come back to Italy.
Hagi spoke first. “I’m worried about Mircea. You think he may have had a role in Nadia’s death. Can I ask you why you believe that to be the case?”
And can I ask you your motive for asking me? Is it part of your mission as protector of those two delinquents?
“First I want to ask you something. If you answer honestly, I’ll answer your question.”
“Fire away, Balistreri,” Morandi said, stroking his gold Rolex. “I’ll decide whether my client will reply or not.”
Balistreri turned to Hagi. “Mircea and Greg were accused of two murders in Romania the year before you brought them to Italy. Two retired employees of the ministry of the interior.”
Hagi remained silent.
“They were released from prison thanks to the best lawyer in Romania and then acquitted. I was wondering who paid that lawyer.”
Hagi didn’t wait for Morandi’s go-ahead. “Obviously it was me. As I’ve already told you, I owe my life to their parents. And when they asked me to help their sons it was my duty to intervene. It was a debt of honor that I had to pay.”
“Even if it meant helping two murderers?”
“There was no evidence against them. Only a witness who said he’d seen them near the farm and then retracted his statement. They would have been set free anyway, perhaps after ten years in jail. In Romania we don’t have any protection for what you call civil liberties.”
As he was shaken by a cough, Hagi’s eye peered into the soul of the special team’s boss.
Balistreri remembered the last encounter with Linda Nardi and the Romanian’s forbidden subject, so he asked: “Would your wife, Alina, have approved, had she been alive?”
Marius Hagi now wore a tougher expression. “I’ve already told you I don’t want to talk about that.”
“You’re the one who asked to see me. And now we’re no longer dealing with an investigation into a person’s disappearance, Mr. Hagi. There’s at least one murder involved.”
The man squelched of his mocking laughs. “And what does the death of my wife in 1983 have to do with the death of Nadia in 2006?”
There was something in Hagi’s feverish eyes that was difficult to decipher. It certainly wasn’t fear. It seemed more like a mocking threat. Balistreri rose to leave.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Hagi reminded him.
“And you didn’t answer mine.”
“Then I’ll just keep wondering. Good-bye, Balistreri.” He coughed and lit another cigarette.
“I’ll show you out, Balistreri,” Morandi offered.
On the pavement outside the Bar Biliardo, among harmless housewives carrying shopping bags, Balistreri received confirmation of what he had suspected.
Morandi was smiling, almost friendly, as he shook his hand. “It’s freezing here in Rome, Balistreri. You should have taken a vacation and stayed in Dubai a little longer.”
. . . .
Piccolo was waiting for him not far from Bar Biliardo. It was cold and almost dark, but her leather jacket was unzipped.
“I hope you haven’t been down in any basements,” he said.
“I did better than that and worse, sir. If we can step into a café I’ll tell you over a nice hot cup of tea.”
When they were sitting down she pulled out a notebook. “I wanted to double-check a few things.”
“About what?” Balistreri asked, feeling apprehensive.
“About Colajacono and Tatò.”
Balistreri was relieved. The important thing was to keep his deputies away from any risk, and after Morandi’s warning he was sure that those risks were serious. But they had to do with the investigation into ENT, not the world of prostitutes, pimps, Roma, shepherds, and violent, racist policemen. No one tailed them there; they could do what they wanted.
“All right, let’s hear it.”
“So, let’s start with that fateful December 24. Before they finished their shift at nine on the morning of December 24, Colajacono told his men, Marchese and Cutugno, that as a reward they could skip that evening’s shift. They accepted—a little surprised, but happy. Colajacono notified his right-hand man, Tatò, that they’d be standing in together for the two young policemen. Are you with me so far?”
“I have a few questions already, and I need a cigarette, but you can’t smoke in here, so I’ll just listen.”
“Right. But why does he want to take their shift himself? In order to set an example, he says—to show the young policemen that their higher ups make sacrifices for them. True? Let’s say it is—it fits Colajacono’s personality. But why force Tatò, his faithful sidekick, to work on Christmas Eve? Because the two of them are bachelors, he says. And we can go along with this as well. What do you say, Captain?”
Balistreri really wanted to go outside and smoke. He urged her on. “Fine, Piccolo. Let’s try another hypothesis. Colajacono has his own reasons for being on duty that night and also a reason why he wants Tatò there with him. However, we’d have to show that the reasons he’s given aren’t the truth, or find some evidence of the real reason.”
“When I questioned Tatò he was worried, then relaxed, and then worried again at the end of the meeting.”
“So you think he lied about something at the beginning and at the end of questioning?”
“At the start we were talking about Colajacono’s idea of their taking the night shift. I checked the registry office records. Actually, Colajacono lives alone in Rome—his parents are already dead and his closest relatives live outside the city. But not Tatò. He’s from the South, so his parents don’t live in Rome, but he has a younger sister in the city who lives by herself. She works as a cashier in a supermarket.”
“But we don’t know if they usually spend Christmas together.”
“We do now,” Piccolo replied triumphantly. “Since Tatò move to Rome they’ve spent every Christmas Eve together. I sent Mastroianni to the supermarket where she works. She was really upset when her brother told her that he couldn’t come over. They got into a fight.”
Balistreri said, “I need a smoke—let’s go outside.”
He had two cigarettes left because of the flight—and he really needed them.
Outside it was almost dark; the lights were on in store windows. The Roman neighborhood was swarming with people coming and going in the supermarkets, shops, and bars. There were a large number of immigrants in the area, and there was angry graffiti about the camps on the walls. That evening the city council was expected to reach a decision with a very narrow margin.
His train of thought was full of heavy consequences that Balistreri had no wish to discuss at that moment. He limited himself to asking a question: “Why did he choose Tatò?”
“Because the alibi’s false and only Tatò would go along with it,” Piccolo said.
“What alibi are you talking about?”
“The one Tatò’s giving Colajacono . . .”
“An alibi for what?”
Piccolo looked at him in surprise. “What do you think? For Nadia’s kidnapping and murder.”
“No, that doesn’t hold up. You said yourself that Tatò was relaxed while telling you about it, so according to your interpretation, he wasn’t lying.”
Piccolo showed her irritation. “Not necessarily. Suppose Colajacono was in the Giulia GT on Via di Torricola at six thirty in a hat and sunglasses.”
“That’s precisely why it doesn’t hold up.”
Piccolo finally saw his point. “Shit, you’re right. He would have said that Colajacono was at Mass too between six and seven to give him an alibi.”
He let her chew on that for a moment, then he said, “I think both of them are lying. But we still don’t know exactly what about. And we don’t know why.”
Piccolo looked as if she still had something important to say. She walked on in gloomy silence.
They found themselves outside the Torre Spaccata police station. “Did you bring me here on purpose?” Balistreri asked.
Now Piccolo avoided looking him in the face. “I’ve done something, Captain Balistreri.”
Balistreri was seriously worried, but the reality was worse than anything he could have imagined.
He listened with growing horror to the account of the exploits of Linda Nardi and Giulia Piccolo at the Marius Travel agency and then at Casilino 900. He was angry, but what could he do? Slap her? He risked getting hit back. Send her packing from the special team? He’d lose a formidable member of the team. Giulia Piccolo was just like the young Michele Balistreri. Besides, Linda Nardi was the one who was really at fault. She seemed so polite and gentle, but she had a spine of steel. Finally, he realized that he was angry not with the two women, but with Colajacono, for what he had dared to do to Linda Nardi.
That pig had no right to go anywhere near her.
. . . .
He sent Piccolo back to the office and went into the police station. Colajacono’s door was open. The deputy captain was sitting with his feet up on his desk; he was chewing an unlit cigar. He made no move to get up or offer Balistreri a seat when he appeared in the doorway.
Colajacono pointed at the piles of paper on his desk. “Look at this, Balistreri. More than one hundred crimes reported. Nothing a big shot like you has to worry about. Purse snatching, petty theft, a little breaking and entering, a few stolen cars. And in ninety percent of the cases the perpetrators are your friends the Roma.”
Balistreri didn’t respond. Colajacono swung his feet to the floor. “What do you want? I’m warning you right now, we’re on my turf here, so don’t piss me off.”
He was very sure of himself. He must have found a way to solve the problem with Linda Nardi and Piccolo.
Balistreri stood right in front of him. “Someone on the morning of December 24 was scared. A small object from a nightclub had disappeared. Nadia had stolen it. So this person asked you to stay in the station and slow down the investigation into Nadia’s disappearance. This person told you the girl had been with a politician as part of a blackmail scheme. You’d already helped out with something similar. But actually they were buying time to retrieve the object.”
Colajacono shrugged, unmoved. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Balistreri. If you have any proof, show it to me. Otherwise it’s all hot air. Business as usual for you bureaucrats.”
“By turning away Ramona Iordanescu, you held up the start of an investigation for several days. I have proof of that.”
“Doesn’t matter. Nadia was already dead. The autopsy report says she was killed before nine on the evening of December 24. It doesn’t change anything.”
“It might have made it easier to catch the killer,” Balistreri said.
But Colajacono didn’t bat an eyelash. “Vasile’s the murderer. We’ve caught him and he’s in prison. And it’s thanks to my informants, certainly not yours.”
He’s being sincere; they’ve made an idiot out of him and caught him in a trap. He really believes it was the shepherd.
Images of Colajacono tearing the clothes off of Linda Nardi were torturing Balistreri. It had taken him many years and much remorse to manage his anger and become a good policeman, sensible and prudent. But that thought was too much for him.
He looked Colajacono straight in the face and said, “Vasile did not strangle Nadia.”
Colajacono was taken aback for a minute by Balistreri’s tone of conviction. Then he pulled himself together. “Yet more conjecture from an intellectual policeman, Balistreri. Listen to me: go back to your office in the city and thank God I’m not decking you right now.”
He stripped Linda, this prick of a racist, this animal in policeman’s uniform.
Anger prevailed completely over prudence. The words slipped from him without control, as they had so many years ago.
“Vasile’s left wrist was sprained several days before Nadia was killed. That was why he screamed so much when you grabbed him. We have the medical report. There’s not the slightest possibility that he strangled Nadia.”
Madness, Balistreri, sheer madness. They should expel you from the force.
He saw Colajacono turned pale and suddenly get. He jumped to his feet and got in Balistreri’s face. “What the fuck are you talking about?” he hissed, closing in.
Balistreri moved to the door. He could take Colajacono, but he hadn’t regressed that far. A fight would have marked the end of the investigation, or at least his role in it. He chose to land a verbal uppercut instead.
“You fucking moron. They had you stay here with Tatò so you wouldn’t have an alibi for the time they murdered Nadia.”
The effect was a lot worse than a physical uppercut. As he made his way toward the main entrance, he gave Colajacono a last look. He was as white as a sheet, leaning against the wall, staring into space. He had understood he was sitting at a card table where the stakes were too high for him.
. . . .
When Balistreri returned to the office late in the afternoon, Margherita told him that Corvu needed to speak to him urgently.
“Have him come into my office.” He pointed at the flower in the glass on her desk and winked at her. She blushed.
Corvu had the agitated manner of a high-school student the day before final exams.
“Captain, I’m being followed.”
Balistreri cursed under his breath and felt anxiety as well as anger growing inside him for the members of his team who were too enterprising.
“Followed where? Weren’t you supposed to be in the office today?”
Corvu looked at the floor. Balistreri had come to expect this kind of loose-cannon behavior from Piccolo, but not from Corvu.
The deputy hastened to explain. “First, I analyzed all the data we have on Nadia. I spoke to Forensics and asked for any information. There were traces of bodily fluids that point to DNA from a single party. It’s definitely Vasile’s DNA.”
He took Balistreri’s silence as encouragement to continue.
“Then I compared the alibis of all the possible suspects between six and nine on December 24.” He held out a chart.
Balistreri saw “solid alibi” written beside the names of Greg, Mircea, Adrian, and Giorgi and “incomplete or unsupported alibi” written next to those of Hagi, Colajacono, Tatò, and Ajello. The last name caught him by surprise.
“How do you know what Ajello did on the evening of December 24?” he asked. He didn’t like seeing that name there.
“I called ENT and Ajello’s secretary said that he was coming back from Monte Carlo this evening. So I said that we urgently needed to check the books of Bella Blu in order to get confirmation of the date that Camarà was hired. She got in touch with Ajello, who said it was okay.”
“And you went over to ENT?”
Corvu was looking at his shoes. “With Mastroianni,” he whispered.
Balistreri gripped the arms of his chair until his knuckles were white, and he clamped his lips so tight he crushed the unlit cigarette he had stuck in his mouth
Damn Corvu! And damn Mastroianni with his big-time Italian hotshot looks!
When he felt he had regained control over himself and was ready for the worst, he said, “Tell me exactly what happened.”
Corvu continued to address his shoes.
“We went there by bus. When we got to ENT I introduced Mastroianni to Ajello’s secretary as an accounting expert. She had put Bella Blu’s books in a meeting room. She offered us some tea, and Mastroianni left the room with her a couple of times on the pretext of making some photocopies. Then he asked her what some abbreviations meant. He kept talking to her. She was distracted and flattered, of course. I excused myself to go to the bathroom.”
“And you checked his calendar.” It wasn’t a question.
Corvu nodded. “Ajello’s last appointment in his office on December 24 at six thirty. Then the diary was empty until seven, when it said ‘Grand Hotel: Cocktails.’”
Balistreri groaned softly. Then he waited in silence, resigned.
“I called the Grand Hotel and asked for the manager with the excuse that I was from the finance police and I was auditing a catering company. I asked if there had been a reception there in on the evening of December 24. They told me that every Christmas Eve there was a cocktail party at at seven for the members of a charity group that raised funds for a humanitarian organization. It’ll be easy to check whether Ajello was there and whether he wrote a check.”
Balistreri stood, and Corvu took a step backward. “Corvu, you will not do one more thing that involves ENT, Bella Blu, or Ajello. If you step out of line I’ll send you back to the Sardinian mountains to count goats. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Captain,” Corvu mumbled.
“Now tell me why you think you’re being followed,” Balistreri ordered.
“I noticed him when I was on the bus, coming back. He was the only one to get on with us. I didn’t see him on the way there, but it was the same guy who was following us the other day.”
Evening
There wasn’t a minute to lose. The actions of Piccolo and Corvu and his own words to Colajacono had flipped the switch on a ticking time bomb. He summoned Coppola and Mastroianni.
“I want you to follow Colajacono and not let him out of your sight. Take turns and don’t let yourselves be seen. Now get a move on.”
“I wanted to tell you that I haven’t tracked down Fred Cabot yet, but I spoke to Carmen again and she mentioned something strange,” Coppola said.
“I don’t give a shit, Coppola. One of you has to be outside the police station before Colajacono’s shift ends, and it’s almost eight.”
Mastroianni raised his hand like an elementary school student with good comportment. “Coppola will have to go first. I need to be at the airport at midnight to bring in Ramona Iordanescu to spend the night for security purposes.”
“But I’ve got my son’s basketball game. Tonight’s the championship,” Coppola protested.
Balistreri tilted his head at him. “Coppola, there will be other games. Stick close to Colajacono and don’t let him out of your sight. This is important.”
Coppola reacted just as Balistreri expected. “Captain, you’re right. Ciro will play in lots of championship games. I’ll follow Colajacono to the gates of hell.”
Left to himself, Balistreri went over again what they knew. Bella Blu had been chosen as a meeting place to introduce Nadia to someone. Then a real disaster happened. By pure coincidence, Camarà had a urinary tract infection and urgently needed to pee. He went down to the toilet. As he passed the private lounge, he saw Nadia with someone. The person who’d organized Nadia’s death for the following day sensed he was in danger. And so he did away with Camarà, faking an argument with a motorcyclist.
But that wasn’t enough. On the morning of December 24, the cleaning woman noted that a lighter in the private lounge needed replacing. They called whoever had been with Nadia in the lounge, but he didn’t know anything about it. A link between Bella Blu, ENT, and a future crime was absolutely unacceptable. They figured they’d find the lighter on Nadia when they killed her, but they didn’t. They panicked and called Mircea and Greg, figuring that Ramona must have it, but in order to protect Bella Blu they didn’t say what they were looking for. Rudi would have given them the lighter if he’d known they wanted it.
What troubled Balistreri most was the inevitability. Up until December 23, nothing had happened that would compromise Bella Blu, ENT, or its shareholders. They could have waited. They didn’t have to kill Camarà right away, or Nadia. They could have changed their plans. But it was as if there had been no other choice. Despite all the risks, the plan had to move forward. So Camarà died, Nadia died, and they beat up Ramona and Rudi in order to find the lighter. They continued to search for it in Nadia and Ramona’s room and happened to be surprised by Piccolo and Rudi.
He was exhausted from thinking about it. He couldn’t shake the powerful image of Colajacono trembling and pale as a ghost. He had to do something to stop what he himself had set in motion. He picked up the phone and called Linda Nardi.
. . . .
Both the police and the carabinieri armed themselves with the Beretta 92 nine-millimeter Parabellum. The gun was military issue and not available to civilians. The 92FS was the latest version; that was what most police officers with fewer than fifteen years of service carried. Balistreri had the 92SB, a model that was a little older but still in use.
Reluctantly, he took the weapon from his office safe. He cleaned it, loaded it, put the safety catch on, and slipped it into his holster, which he fastened under his left armpit. He’d learned to shoot when he was a kid, but guns weren’t associated with happy memories for him. He hadn’t touched a weapon with the intention of shooting it for many years. But now old ghosts, the dangerous crowd he’d run with before, were looming on the horizon.
He made his way through the city center on foot, while a few customers were leaving the shops that were about to close and people shivering with cold were beginning to slip into restaurants. There was a pleasant drizzle again, and when he got to the Pantheon his hair was wet and plastered to his forehead.
She was already there. She was wearing a dowdy raincoat and below it a sweater and baggy pants. The contrast between her childlike face and her old-lady clothes was greater than usual. Yet Linda Nardi was thirty-six, neither a child nor an old lady.
He got straight to the point.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed, Ms. Nardi?”
She considered that for a moment, as if it were a serious question. “Pretty soon no one will give any thought to Nadia, or Samantha, or the other young victims, or the family members who mourn them.”
He stared at her. A beautiful woman, polite and kind, but incorruptible in her principles and therefore dangerous. In her eyes was the steady calmness of those who are right.
The eyes of someone I loved, the values that I lost.
The thought took him back forty years. Something collapsed inside him. It felt like the distant shock of an explosion at the bottom of the ocean when it finally reaches the shore.
“You’re crazy.”
They both knew what that “crazy” meant. The word that had slipped out was an impossible bridge over the raging torrent between them.
What do you think you’re doing, Balistreri? You’re an old man. Don’t make yourself any more ridiculous to others than you already are to yourself.
She smiled at him, the first real smile she’d given him since they’d met.
“Finding out the truth is part of my life, part of what I am. I never knew my father, and I still don’t know why. I was an aggressive child. I used to hit my classmates, boys and girls.”
Balistreri said, “I don’t believe you.”
“I can show you pictures. I was an early bloomer, physically and psychologically. I was fully developed at age eleven. I went to a private middle school, the Charlemagne School. The upper school was there as well, the older boys. I didn’t have a father, so I went looking for an older boy to take his place. At least that’s what the psychologist said when all the trouble began.”
“What kind of trouble?”
She shook her head, lost in an unwelcome memory. Balistreri knew how hard those could be to dispel.
“There was a problem and I had to leave the school. Fortunately, love heals all wounds. My mother’s love, that is. She helped me get better. She took care of me until I was able to go back to school. And I got good grades once I went back. It turns out I really am intelligent.”
“And it’s precisely because you’re intelligent that you should understand that tracking down a murderer isn’t a journalist’s job. Leave it to the police.”
She nodded. “Colajacono is going to give me the name before midnight. I promise I’ll give it to you immediately.”
He paused. He really didn’t want to ask for anything more, but he had to. “I need another favor.”
This time again she listened to him without any interruption. She placed no conditions on doing what he asked. They left each other soon after in the Pantheon’s deserted piazza. He had wanted to hug her in the rain but instead let her go with a brief good-bye.
. . . .
While he was walking home in the rain he was struck by a feeling of disquiet. Halfway there, he decided to stop in a bar that was still open near the Termini main railway station. It was full of foreigners. The Asians were crowded round the slot machines, the East Europeans were drinking shots of spirits, and the Africans were trying to sell counterfeit designer bags to the few passersby shivering with cold. All of them were smoking, not caring in the slightest that it wasn’t allowed in the bar.
Balistreri lit his last cigarette of the day. The surrounding square was intermittently illuminated by the headlights of the few cars in circulation. It was a little after midnight.
He called Coppola. “Colajacono’s still in the station. He went out to the little restaurant opposite with Tatò and then they came back. I promise I won’t lose him.”
“Thanks, Coppola. That’s great.”
Coppola added, “By the way, my son scored thirty-two points and his team won.”
“Are you sure he’s really yours, Coppola?” They laughed and hung up.
Then he called Mastroianni.
“I’m with Ramona. We’re coming in from the airport now.”
“Mastroianni, I want to talk to her immediately. Meet me at the bar on the Via Marsala side of Termini station.”
. . . .
He had of course imagined a different and more private setting for questioning Ramona Iordanescu, but there was no time to lose. An official interrogation in the barracks or in the office was impossible without the public prosecutor present, so they found themselves sitting at a little table in the bar filled with people, smoke, and muffled voices.
The photo with Nadia taken in front of St. Peter’s hadn’t done justice to the girl’s statuesque figure. The harsh features of her face were immediately belied by her adolescent’s manners. She was making eyes at Mastroianni, which was no surprise. She asked for two cream-filled pastries.
“I just love these,” she said, wiping a bit of the filling from the corner of her mouth.
“You can have as many as you like,” Mastroianni said.
“All right,” Balistreri cut in, “but meanwhile let’s have a little chat.”
Ramona nodded, her mouth full of cream and flaky pastry.
“You don’t need to worry about this. Tomorrow we’ll have a meeting with you and Deputy Captain Colajacono. Immediately after that, Mastroianni will take you to the airport and you can go back home,” Balistreri said.
He read the fear in the young woman’s eyes. “He’ll go straight to prison on the charge of being an accessory to Nadia’s murder and won’t come out for many years,” he said, trying to comfort her.
Mastroianni and Ramona both looked startled. “Accessory to murder, really?” Mastroianni asked.
Balistreri ignored him and spoke directly to Ramona.
“Tell me about the apartment near Cristal. Did it have a false ceiling or a real one?”
“I don’t understand,” Ramona said. Mastroianni explained the question to her.
“I don’t know. How can you tell?”
“By the lights. Where the ceiling wasn’t covered by the mirror was there a regular light fixture or spotlights?”
“Spotlights?”
Another explanation from Mastroianni.
“Yes, pink spotlights.”
For filming from above. Real pros.
“All right, then what happened?”
“I did as Colajacono said. Well-dressed man at Cristal offered me a drink. We went to apartment. He wanted to be slave. I did my job. He was very happy and gave me hundred-euro tip, then went away.”
“Would you recognize this man if you saw him again?”
“Every bit of him,” she said. She giggled.
Balistreri took out his BlackBerry and looked for the e-mail Mastroianni had sent from Iasi. He frowned as he read.
“Ramona, you said that Colajacono wanted to convince you that Nadia was safe with the man she got into the car with. Is that exactly what he said?”
He felt Mastroianni was about to interrupt and signaled him to keep quiet.
“Yes, I’m sure. He said exactly that.”
“And you told him that she had gotten into a car?”
Mastroianni was rhythmically tapping his cup against the saucer. Balistreri shot him a warning glance.
Ramona appeared to be making an effort to remember. “Well, I said that Nadia and I worked as pair, that we didn’t get into car ever if other not there. Then I told him I was away with limp-dick client and on return I found Nadia gone. And that I waited and also asked other girls about her.”
“Did you tell him what the other girls said to you?”
“No, he said not to piss him off.”
Mastroianni was shifting in his chair. Balistreri, irritated, leaned over and whispered to him, “If you have to go to the bathroom, go ahead.” Mastroianni stood and left the table.
“What’s happening?” Ramona asked, disconcerted.
“Nothing. He has to go to the bathroom. So, you hadn’t told him about the car.”
This is what happens when you delegate questioning to the inexperienced and you sit in your comfortable office and read about it via e-mail. You’re a fool, Balistreri. And stupid Mastroianni thinks he can get the right answers from a woman without asking the right questions.
Then he remembered the mess Corvu had made, and Piccolo. In the end, the only one who hadn’t messed up was Coppola. He really should have thanked Coppola rather than teasing him. He picked up his cell phone to call Coppola, but at that moment a loud cry of joy rose up from the Romanians. They began cheering and toasting each other.
Balistreri turned to look at the television, expecting to see a replay of a goal in a soccer game. Instead, the face of a news anchor filled the screen. He managed to hear the closing words.
“By only one vote, the city council has postponed moving Casilino 900 and the other camps, committing itself however to seeking a path forward with all the concerned parties having input. The council has received the Vatican’s approval.”
He leaned closer to catch the interviews that followed. The mayor said that he had been pleasantly surprised by De Rossi’s unexpected vote against the move. A brief interview with De Rossi followed.
“Deputy mayor,” the journalist said, “the vast majority of voters, including those you represent, did not wish to see the move postponed.”
“Each one of us must answer not only to voters, but to his own conscience,” De Rossi said pompously, staring into the television camera.
Now even more furious, Balistreri turned away and found Ramona opposite him looking at the screen in astonishment.
“But that—” she stammered, pointing to De Rossi—“that’s my dirty pig from Cristal.”
Balistreri was already dialing Coppola’s number. Coppola answered immediately. His car engine was audible on the other end.
“Where are you?” Balistreri shouted so loudly that the whole bar turned to look.
“Take it easy, Captain. Everything’s okay. I’m following those two bastards.”
Balistreri took a deep breath, trying to control himself. “Can you tell me where you are?”
Coppola’s voice was just above a whisper. “Colajacono and Tatò are driving to the shepherd’s old farmhouse, where we found Nadia. I can barely hear you. I’m losing you.”
The line went dead. Balistreri felt a sharp pain in his chest that left him breathless. He leaned against the table, his sight dim and his hands trembling.
What an inglorious death, Balistreri. A heart attack in this shithole. Maybe you’ll crap your pants as you go.
But he didn’t die. Mastroianni came back. Balistreri said, “Give me your keys—I need a car with a siren. You can call a taxi. Take Ramona to the station, and don’t either one of you move from there.” Thirty seconds later he was driving at breakneck speed through the pouring rain toward the city’s eastern outskirts.
He was there in twelve minutes, at ten to one, consumed with anxiety. He parked in the same place as Piccolo did on the night of San Silvestro, halfway up the hill, where the potholed road became a boggy unpaved lane. Coppola’s car was now parked up there, and a little ahead, in the same place as a few nights earlier, was Colajacono and Tatò’s car. He tried calling Corvu’s number. There was no signal. He swore—Piccolo had already told him about that. The nightmare was repeating itself.
It was a good thing Coppola always had his gun. He remembered what Coppola had said on the subject: “It makes me feel taller. Plus, my son thinks I’m important when I come home and take my holster off from under my jacket.”
Balistreri had no flashlight. He took off his jacket and his holster and began to run up the hill with his gun in his right hand and his cell phone in his left to light the way. His shoes slipped in the mud. Drizzling rain wet his forehead and the leaves on the low trees scratched his face.
He realized he was afraid, and the thought made him even more afraid. He was afraid for Coppola and for himself. He was afraid of dying too soon, before he had atoned for what he’d done wrong.
He was about to start up the hill toward the clearing when he heard Coppola’s voice at the top.
“Put your hands up.”
There was total silence for a few seconds, then all hell broke loose, with gunshots and shouting. He looked toward the clearing, which was dimly lit by an oil lamp. Tatò was lying on his back by the door. The shots were coming from inside the farmhouse and behind it and from an oak tree twenty yards ahead on the left. That had to be where Coppola was. He made it up there and saw Colajacono, terrified and in handcuffs, taking refuge behind the trunk of the huge tree.
Mircea was giving orders in Romanian—he heard him calling out to Greg, Adrian, and Giorgi. He managed to understand what he was saying—“There’s only one.” He was tempted to call out to Coppola, but that would have been doubly damaging, revealing not only that he was present but exactly where he was.
A burst of gunfire sounded from inside. Then he saw the silhouette of Adrian, who run off behind the old farmhouse, firing like crazy.
Balistreri came out into the open, taking advantage of the element of surprise, but his hand was moving in slow motion, a last show of resistance before he squeezed a trigger after so many years. Coppola came out from behind the tree, took two quick side steps and, holding his Beretta in two hands, opened fire as they had taught him at the police academy. Adrian fell with his arms open as Coppola quickly took shelter again.
Giorgi came running and shooting at Coppola from the other side of the building, while Mircea covered him from inside.
Balistreri felt his own hand stiffen on the trigger while Coppola shouted at him to take cover. He stood rooted to the spot in a daze, watching Coppola come out into the open. He fired a single shot that struck Giorgi in the head.
“Captain, get behind the tree!” Coppola shouted at him. Balistreri shook his head and started to run. He was almost there when Mircea’s bullet hit him in his left side, making him twist in a half-pirouette. As he limped forward, he saw Greg coming toward him under Mircea’s covering fire.
Who would have thought you’d die like this, petrified with fear?
Coppola went down on one knee and rolled toward the oak tree, firing like crazy. Greg fell face up in the mud, shot through the heart.
Your son will be so impressed. You’ll never have to wear lifts in your shoes again.
Coppola quickly got up to return to safety. The bullet hit him between the shoulders. He fell forward and began to crawl toward the oak tree.
Balistreri swung toward the spot where he thought the shot had come from. As he hesitated, another bullet from Mircea in the farmhouse hit him below his right knee. The tree was only two yards away, but he would never get there with his leg broken and his side split open. In that moment, he met Colajacono’s eyes.
“Help him,” he ordered, pointing to Coppola lying on his back on the ground. Despite being handcuffed, Colajacono dragged Coppola behind the tree as if he weighed nothing. Then he came out into the open again and with more effort dragged Balistreri behind the tree, too. Oddly, the shooting had stopped.
Coppola’s wide-open eyes were staring at him and a stream of blood was trickling from his mouth. “You’re a big man, Coppola. Ciro will be proud of you,” Balistreri told him. Coppola nodded in agreement, then closed his eyes.
Balistreri was losing a lot of blood. He knew he was going to faint at any moment. He tried not to lose consciousness and to control the savage hatred coursing through his veins.
Now I’m going to kill these fucking animals. Colajacono’s right. We need to clear this scum out of Italy.
Suddenly, he was not afraid. His mind was clear, conscious that there was only one thing he could do.
“Haul me up and hold me by the waist, without blocking my arms,” he said to Colajacono, who nodded in a daze.
The deputy captain held Balistreri upright while he leaned all of his weight on his left foot. Despite the handcuffs, Colajacono’s strong arms managed to keep him balanced.
He steadied himself. He knew he had only one shot. With Mircea hidden and himself in the condition he was in, he would have no more than one chance. He saw the flickering light in the farmhouse and Mircea’s shadow falling across the wall in the shelter of the corner next to the window. He weighed the rock, calculating the distance: twenty or twenty-five feet.
He needed a loud thud. Strength in the right hand, accuracy with the left. As a boy in Africa he had won shooting contests firing from his left hand because with his right there was no question, it wasn’t even fun.
Picture the target your mother gave you as a present when you were seven. The bear’s head appeared only for a moment in the little window. And in that moment you went pow! You only know how to shoot and punch, Michele. Just like your father used to say.
The pain was getting worse; the bleeding wouldn’t stop. He felt his head spinning and knew it was now or never. He gripped the Beretta in his left hand. He pushed forward and let fly, as he did when he was a boy to get the crows out of the eucalyptus tree. The rock drew a perfect arc in the air and hit the farmhouse wall right next to Mircea’s head. He jumped forward in surprise. The bullet went straight through his eye. Balistreri saw Mircea’s shadow totter and fall.
Colajacono could no longer hold him up. Balistreri collapsed on the ground, and in the last moments before losing consciousness he thought he saw a shadow come out of the woods and slowly approach him. His eyelids were open just a slit. Through that slit he could see Colajacono’s boots in the sloppy mud. He wasn’t sure if it was real or a dream. The deputy captain’s voice came to him from a thousand miles away.
“Get these fucking handcuffs off me.”
The other voice was a whisper. “Don’t worry, officer, it’s coming now.”
“What are you talking about? What’s coming now?” Colajacono hissed.
The whisper grew fainter as Balistreri lost consciousness. “Your death.”
Balistreri fainted before he could hear the shot being fired.