As soon as Palma finished, Aragona sprang to his feet, ready for action. Lojacono, on the other hand, turned a gaze of mute supplication in the commissario’s direction; his commanding officer took great care not to meet his eyes, studiously looking elsewhere.
“I’ll drive, I know exactly where that is,” the young man had said, grabbing for the sheet of paper with the directions.
Palma had shrugged: “Do as you like, there’s no hurry; two squad cars are already on the scene, and the medical examiner and the forensic team are on their way. This time of day there’s a lot of traffic.”
Lojacono, putting on his coat, replied sardonically: “Oh, there is? When you have a minute, could you draw up a chart for me of the times when there isn’t a lot of traffic in this city? Maybe on August 15th, when the whole city’s at the beach?”
They’d taken a compact, unmarked car that had been parked in the courtyard. Aragona had the engine running before Lojacono got in the car, and he screeched out of the parking spot before the lieutenant’s feet were in the car.
“Aragona, have you lost your mind? Are you trying to run someone over? The way you’re driving, our first official act in this precinct will be to run over a few locals, and you know how much they love us already.”
The young man drove as if the streets were empty, causing the pedestrians in their path to bolt. Out of the corner of his eye, Lojacono saw a little old lady darting to one side just in the nick of time, with a leap worthy of a classical ballerina; he agreed wholeheartedly with the stream of angry dialect she showered in the driver’s direction, even if he couldn’t understand a single word.
“Calm down, Loja’, don’t worry. I took a course in performance driving, I know exactly what I’m doing.”
“Just where did you take this course, in prison? You heard him say there’s no hurry, didn’t you? Why the fuck are you going so fast?”
Aragona kept his foot on the accelerator.
“It’s quite an honor to work with you. Fuck, the man who nailed the Crocodile! For weeks, no one in this city talked about anything but you and how you made all the other precincts working on the case look like pieces of shit. You’re a legend!”
Clutching the door handle, Lojacono said through clenched teeth: “Not that it did me a lot of good, though. It’s not as if they let me go home.”
“Eh, well, that’s a horse of a different color. From what I’ve heard, someone back home thinks that, even if there’s no evidence against you, you must have been in touch with those people somehow. But don’t give up hope, if you do a good job, maybe they really will send you back home.”
Lojacono looked over at his colleague’s profile, watching him as he did his best to kill anyone who threatened to hinder his rapid progress.
“What do you know about my me and business, Arago’?”
“Ah, I know plenty, actually. I told you before, I used to work at police headquarters. That’s where all the documents wind up, and if you have the right connections, you can find out anything you want to know. For instance, when this opportunity opened up in Pizzofalcone, I read the files on all the characters the various precincts had volunteered in the hopes of getting rid of them. A fine assortment of losers.”
“In that case, why on earth did you volunteer? From what I’ve heard, you could have found yourself a much more comfortable berth somewhere else, no?”
“No, for me this place is perfect, believe me. Just think: a very serious crime took place here, which ruined the whole department’s reputation. They wanted to shut this precinct down, and sure enough, they sent us the worst cops they could lay their hands on. Are you with me so far?”
Lojacono had noticed that, when Aragona spoke, he slowed down ever so slightly; he decided he could stand the kid’s ravings if it meant saving the life of some innocent pedestrian.
“I’m with you. Keep talking.”
“You know what they call the people who work here, the other cops in this city? They call us the Bastards of Pizzofalcone. Don’t you think that’s great?”
Lojacono shrugged his shoulders: “I don’t think it’s anything, personally. What’s so great about it?”
The young man looked hard at Lojacono and just missed a bicyclist, who veered sharply away and rode right up onto the sidewalk.
“What’s great about it is that if we do something good, then we become heroes; and if we don’t do anything at all, then things remain as they were.”
“Listen, Aragona, don’t you care anything about doing a good job? What if someone wanted to be a cop just so he could be a cop?”
The officer put on an offended expression: “Why on earth would you say that? Of course that’s the most important thing. It’s just that a person has to think about his career too, doesn’t he? Certainly, if you’re someone they’ve put out with the trash—someone like the four of us—it’s harder to prove that you know how to do your job right. But that’s exactly why it’s so exciting.”
“Put out with the trash? That’s overstating things, isn’t it?”
Aragona turned serious.
“Listen to me, I’ve seen the files. I can tell you for sure, every one of us is tarred by some black mark. Take Di Nardo: the quiet girl, the one who loves guns. You know you’re not supposed to carry loaded weapons with the safety off inside the station house: that’s against the rules. Well, she actually discharged her firearm inside the building. And she came that close to killing another cop. Can you imagine?”
As he was being tossed between car door and seat, Lojacono was forced to admit: “Just think, that little girl. I would never have taken her for a pistolero. And the other guy, what’s his name . . .”
“Romano, Francesco Romano. You know what his fellow cops used to call him? They called him Hulk. Behind his back, though, or he’d rip their heads off. He can’t control his own strength, much less his anger. The third time he grabbed a suspect by the throat, they suspended him. When he went back on duty, they sent him straight here.”
Lojacono nodded.
“Mmm, he did seem a little on edge, that’s true. And we know everything about me. But what about you, Aragona? Do we know everything about you?”
The young man turned defensive.
“Well, my good Lojacono, in my case, the fact that I’m . . . that I have a certain name seems to have created overblown expectations. And when everyone’s looking over your shoulder, you wind up doing something stupid. Or other people make you do something stupid. But I don’t give a damn, and sooner or later I’m going to show everyone just how wrong they were. Maybe with your help. Well, here we are, this is the place. You see what I mean? It only took a couple of minutes.”
Lojacono catapulted himself out of the car.
“One of these days I’ll have to remember how you’re supposed to thank God for still being alive. Let’s make one thing perfectly clear: next time, I’m driving. Come on, let’s go.”
And they got out of the car, battered by the wind and the spray from the sea that reached all the way onto the street.