Livia had made sure that the apartment house’s front entrance would be manned by her driver after the building’s doorman locked up, to be sure that Falco’s long-awaited arrvial would be noted immediately; in the end, her precautions proved pointless: around three in the morning, the phone rang right by her head; she’d curled up in the armchair and dropped off into a light and troubled sleep.
She jerked awake, emerging suddenly from the confused dream she was having. She answered the phone on the second ring, her throat twisted in anguish.
On the other end of the line, a man’s voice spoke, cold and metallic:
“The package you’re waiting for will be delivered in one hour at the San Gennaro wharf, down at the port. Be there to take delivery.”
She couldn’t tell whether it was Falco’s voice, but she suspected it was not. He hung up before she had a chance to reply. She stood up fast, and her spine protested painfully; massaging her back, she went to summon her chauffeur.
The sharp rapping at Ricciardi’s office door found him wide awake, all his senses alert, tormented by a growing tension. A rumpled Maione looked in through the half-opened door.
“Raffaele? What are you doing here, if you’re not even on duty?”
“Commissa’, I just couldn’t bring myself to stay at home. At a certain point, the hundredth time I’d tossed and turned in bed, Lucia told me: listen, go to headquarters, at least that way I can get a little sleep. And then there was the dog, out in the courtyard, who would howl every so often, like a wolf. So I got dressed and we came over here, me and the dog.”
Ricciardi already had his overcoat on.
“Is there news?”
“Yes, the Signora’s driver just got here. He says that we have to be at the San Gennaro wharf, down at the port, inside an hour; it’s the wharf next to the militia barracks, remember? The man doesn’t know anything else. He left, saying that he had to hurry back to his boss.”
“All right, let’s go. And let’s hope that Livia stays home, there’s no reason for her to risk it.”
Maione smirked:
“If I know anything about her at all, I’ll bet that the Signora isn’t the kind to mind her own business.”
The journey from police headquarters to the harbor was a brief one: it took them less than fifteen minutes. They decided not to take any officers with them: either things would go smoothly or they wouldn’t go at all. Behind them, at the customary distance, the dog was following silently, one ear up, trotting along close to the walls.
Maione said:
“Happy Easter, Commissa’. Happy Easter.”
Although it lay shrouded in darkness, the port was still bustling with activity. Two ships were loading cargo, with groups of longshoremen making their way up gangways carrying enormous wooden crates on one shoulder, while steam from the ship engines curled upward from the smokestacks. Another vessel was just docking, amid the shouts of the men mooring it. A number of fishing trawlers were returning from their day’s work, gathering the nets that were left dragging overboard until the last moment.
The barracks of the port militia, named in honor of Benito Mussolini, stood darkened except for the front entrance and two windows, lit up on the ground floor. From a distance it was possible to make out the silhouettes of two sentinels standing stiffly at attention, on either side of the front door.
Maione and Ricciardi set themselves up in a niche halfway between the barracks and wharf number 2, where a medium-sized vessel was tied up, the engines idling quietly, rumbling softly in the night, like a phlegmy old man lying fast asleep. There were no signs of activity onboard, but there was a light on deck.
Ricciardi looked around. Not far off, in the flat water just off the wharfs where ships were loaded and unloaded, he glimpsed the ghostly image of a young man under the surface, his arm tangled in a hawser that had kept him there long enough to drown. The image of the man had almost entirely dissolved, so he must have died some time ago. From his black mouth, wide open and gasping for a breath of air that had never come, the young man kept uttering the word: Beer! In an imperative tone of voice, as if he were sitting in a tavern and calling it out to a passing waitress. The commissario wondered why on earth, as the filthy harbor water was filling his lungs, the man’s mind had turned to the name of that beverage. But he sought no answer: he’d given up years ago trying to understand the procedure of last thoughts; he only wished to never listen to another one. Never again.
After a few minutes, a hundred yards or so away, they saw a car pull up, let someone out, and then pull away again. The brigadier nodded his head at the commissario, as if to say: See? I told you so. Shortly thereafter, Livia walked over to them.
Even after nearly two days without a wink of sleep, she was enchanting. She wore a pair of slacks, flat shoes, and a lightweight dark wool sweater; her hair was short and she wore a beret, which would have made her appearance more masculine, but her generous figure and lithe gait left no doubts about it: she was more womanly dressed as a man than were practically any of the women in evening gowns who filled the Teatro San Carlo for gala events.
“Nothing yet, right? We’re early, he should be here in half an hour.”
Ricciardi scolded her harshly:
“What are you doing here, Livia? You shouldn’t have come. This could be dangerous, don’t you know that? To be down at the port, late at night, is already dangerous under normal conditions: but tonight, with everything that’s going on . . .”
The woman shot back in a no-nonsense tone:
“I hardly think you have any right to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do. And after all, my contact arranged this, and the doctor—if everything goes smoothly, and I certainly hope it will though I can’t be sure of it—will be released if and only if they see me. Therefore, actually, you should be thanking me for having come; as for your being glad to see me, well, that’s something I’ve given up hoping for.”
Maione coughed with embarrassment. Ricciardi replied, in a more considered tone of voice:
“I’m grateful to you, very, very grateful indeed. I’m grateful that you took care of all this, and for putting yourself on the line. Don’t think I don’t know, and I’m very sorry for the anger you feel toward me. Even if I can hardly blame you for it.”
The brigadier called out to get their attention.
“Look out, there’s movement in the barracks.”
Livia looked around and pointed to a stack of empty crates:
“Hurry, let’s hide behind that stack.”
The front door had swung open, and now a line of men was shuffling out. There wasn’t enough light to make out their faces. From the way they held their arms crossed in front of them, it was clear that the ones in the middle were in chains or handcuffs, and the men around them, craning their necks cautiously, must be their guards. As soon as the longshoremen loading one of the ships tied up along the wharf saw the line of men emerge from the barracks, they set down their crates and hightailed it aboard the ship; Maione decided that it must be a healthy habit for them, avoiding being witness to those processions.
Now Ricciardi was upset: if it turned out that Modo was in that line of men, then their efforts to free him had failed. Livia realized what he was thinking, laid a gloved hand on his arm, and squeezed gently.
It was the dog who alerted them, hidden a few yards away by a tangled pile of ropes. He let out a short yelp, drawing their attention to a pair of figures that had just stepped out of a side entrance to the barracks, and were now heading toward them.
Ricciardi started to stand up and leave his hiding place, but Livia stopped him with a hand, whispering:
“Don’t move. I’m the one who has to go, otherwise they’ll get scared and refuse to release him.”
She got to her feet and walked toward the two men, while the others proceeded in single file toward the waiting ship.