Ricciardi didn’t have to wait long, once he was back in his office. He was sitting at his desk, his thoughts lost in a reconstruction of what had happened, when Maione knocked at the door.
“Commissario, he’s right outside. When he saw us coming, he tried to run, but I’d brought Special Agent Palomba, you know him, that kid is fast and he caught him right away. The crowd messed him up a little, those guys, you know what they’re like, savages. We had to fire a couple of shots in the air, and that quieted them down.”
Ricciardi said:
“I was expecting him. Bring him in.”
The door swung open and two officers brought in Pietro Coppola in shackles, the younger brother of Peppe ’a Frusta, Joey the Whip.
As soon as he saw the commissario, the man started right in:
“Commissa’, what does all this mean? To come and take a respectable citizen out of his home, on Easter Sunday, what is this, the moving pictures? And after all, I’ve been perfectly forthcoming the whole time, would you explain to me . . .”
Ricciardi raised one hand to halt the river of words.
“Coppola, let’s not waste any time, let’s just skip the part where you get indignant. The more straightforward our conversation, the less painful this will be for all of us. You should understand that to bring you in, and in shackles, we must have good evidence.”
“Commissario, you’ve got it all wrong! I don’t have anything to do with it, I was just covering up for my brother, who . . .”
Ricciardi opened one of his drawers and set down an object on his otherwise empty desktop. The man fell silent; his lips kept moving as if he were murmuring something, but no voice emerged.
A long silence ensued, at the end of which Coppola slumped forward, as if his soul had left his body. The officer at his side held him up and, at a signal from Ricciardi, sat him in the nearest chair.
The man’s gaze was fixed on the object on top of the desk: the inlaid wooden brush, in which what looked like long blond human hairs were tangled.