Ricciardi waited, concealed in a recess between two buildings.
When it became clear to him that there would be no point in trying to chase after sleep, he’d gotten out of bed, put on his clothes, and left the apartment while the night was still far from yielding to the dawn.
The deserted streets had walked with him, his rhythmic steps echoing in the cool damp air that still lacked a clear identity, in that indecision so typical of spring, when it feels as if it’s still hovering between winter and summer. Every so often, Ricciardi would cross paths with some night owl returning home, tipsy and giddy, or else early birds riding rattletrap bicycles.
No shortage of dead people out and about, not that there ever was. A little boy at the end of Via Foria, who had fallen off the back of a streetcar where he’d hitched a ride, cadging a free trip to who knows what useless destination, with a huge dent in the back of his head and a broad bleeding wound on his back where he had been dragged along the pavement, who kept muttering prophetically: Maronna, Maronna, mo’ caro ’nterra— Madonna, Madonna, I’m going to fall down. A motorcyclist near the crossroads of Via Sant’Anna dei Lombardi and Via Toledo, wearing a leather helmet and a pair of oversized goggles from which ran a black tear of blood, laughing obscenely as he said: Faster, even faster. Any faster than that’ll kill you, Ricciardi retorted bitterly, to himself.
The commissario was very familiar with that hour that really wasn’t anything at all, that seemed never to pass, that was no longer night but not yet morning. That hour was a territory with its own weather and its own people, with borders and lights and shadows that would vanish soon enough, leaving no trace. He knew it well, because often his dreams took his breath away and he was forced to wander the streets, in search of a peace that he knew to be little more than a mirage for his tormented soul.
The grief and pain of others became his own. The curse was simply this: it was impossible for him to nestle comfortably in that cocoon of selfishness that everyone is endowed with at birth. Everyone, except him.
Why that fate had been visited on him was something he’d never know. The motorcyclist who had gone too fast, the reckless little boy who’d taken a tumble off the streetcar, and the thousand others just like them were free now: not him. And he never would be free.
He thought of Viper. Ever since he’d learned about Modo he hadn’t thought about her, but then what had happened to his friend demanded urgency, and for the rest of the day that investigation could wait.
It was a strange murder, though. Usually, they had to look for a motive, something that might have driven someone to commit such an atrocious act, so contrary to human nature; here there was a veritable jungle of motives.
A murder dictated by passion, but carried out in a rational manner: otherwise the murderer would have left some trace of his or her presence, some bit of evidence, an object; he’d have made some mistake—that’s always what happens when you let yourself be swept away by an emotion that clouds the mind to the point of murder. But instead, nothing. There was nothing.
Maybe the murderer really had been good. Or maybe he had just been lucky. Ricciardi just couldn’t say.
In the end, he’d found the place and he’d settled in to wait.
As he was waiting for his audience with Achille Pivani, he thought back to the circumstances that had first led him to make the man’s acquaintance. The previous summer, during his investigation of the murder of a noblewoman, he’d chanced upon evidence of an intimate friendship that the woman’s stepson was carrying on with a strange party functionary, a man from the north whose duties were top secret and who seemed to possess enormous knowledge about anyone and everyone: even about Ricciardi himself.
On that occasion he’d understood that Fascism was a very complex phenomenon, and that the seemingly fanciful tales that circulated about OVRA—the notorious secret police agency that beat back all anti-Fascist activities, real or imagined, with stealthy brutality—were, if anything, understating the case. Through a dense network of informants, made up for the most part of ordinary citizens, strolling vendors, doormen and concierges, office clerks and housemaids, OVRA gathered information and reports that revealed a picture of practically everybody’s social and political attitudes, first and foremost those of prominent members of society. And once the picture was clear, OVRA struck mercilessly.
Pivani was a slender, impeccably dressed man, about forty years old, with a calm voice, well educated and intelligent; their conversation had seemed to Ricciardi something like a fencing match, a sort of pas de deux, during which neither had grazed the other, though both were poised over a potentially lethal abyss. In other circumstances, in another universe, the commissario might even have liked that unhappy, introspective man; but Pivani had the sinuous, death-dealing charm of a rattlesnake.
Ricciardi remembered quite clearly that at the end of the one conversation he’d had with Pivani, right in party headquarters, the building outside which he was now waiting, the man had urged him to try to persuade Modo to rein in his public statements. He’d never forgotten those words, which had, with the benefit of hindsight, echoed in his mind as a threat as soon as he’d learned from Maione just how his friend had been arrested. Now he was going to ask for an explanation of what had happened, even if it meant putting himself at risk.
A man in a black shirt showed up whistling a tune, unlocked the front door, pulled out a chair, and sat down at the entrance, digging a sheet of paper and a cigar butt out of his pockets. Two other men showed up shortly thereafter, and after a few wisecracks they headed off upstairs; a window swung open on the fifth floor, where Ricciardi remembered the party offices were located.
He had decided in advance that he would only make himself known when he saw Pivani arrive, so that he woldn’t have to spend much time in the midst of hostile Fascists. He didn’t have to wait long: after a couple more minutes, a subdued voice came out of the shadows behind him and said:
“Buongiorno, Commissario. Quite the early riser, I see; but then, that’s not unusual for you, from what I’ve heard.”
Without turning around, Ricciardi replied:
“Buongiorno to you, Pivani. The wise man never puts off till tomorrow what he can do today, as they say. I need to speak to you, and urgently.”
The voice from the shadows murmured:
“So I see. I should tell you that I was expecting your visit, though perhaps a little later in the day; and that it struck me as best, both for you and for me, not to speak in my office. There’s a café that opens early, right here on the corner. You head on over, and I’ll join you in a few minutes: probably best not to be seen walking together in the street.”