Gang of Lovers (11 page)

“The whole deal: wigs, costumes, repertoire. They tried to be just like them, but they were sort of pathetic. He justified it with the kind of extended mental masturbation I couldn't even begin to repeat back to you,” Robutti explained while hunting for a video on YouTube.

Campagna held out for two minutes then asked his colleague to spare him the rest. He'd seen enough. “I just can't seem to figure the guy out,” he confessed.

The other man shrugged. “A small man,” he repeated. “A conceited blowhard. The world we live in is pretty much infested with guys like him. The smart ones climb to the top, have successful careers. They get elected to parliament, they get academic chairs at top universities, or seats on the boards of banks and major corporations. Now, I'm not interested in talking about politics, all I want to do at lunch is gossip, but why do you think this country is falling apart?”

Giulio nodded with conviction, because he was certain that Italy had already lost out once and for all. In fact, he was trying to persuade Ilaria to study abroad, and secretly hoped she'd never return home at all.

But he hadn't taken a train all the way down to Rome to discuss politics and national destinies, so he forced Robutti to go back to the topic of the case at hand. He told him about the man's secret affair without specifying his lover's identity, and he talked about the considerable organizational and operative capabilities of whatever gang it was that had kidnapped and murdered the professor, all of which culminated in a very specific investigative query: That is, as far as his own experience and the information he'd gathered went, could the conspiracy to commit this criminal act have sprung from the circles in which Guido Di Lello moved?

“I'm afraid I'd honestly have to rule that out,” his colleague replied after a short pause, “but I can't be a hundred percent certain of that, because just as honestly I'd have to say that even if we had an entire team of investigators working on it, we'd still never know. First of all, because too much time has gone by, and next because it would be practically impossible to prove that supposedly confidential information had been overheard by the wrong people. You're going to need to narrow the hunt to Padua, where the first crime was committed: the kidnapping itself.”

Campagna had been hoping for a different answer, but he knew Robutti was right. The fact was that his city was full of closed-circuit surveillance cameras and citizens who were all too willing to testify in court. But the professor had stepped off the train and vanished into thin air. And now it was his job to get back on that same train and go home in search of a clue, any clue at all.

“I hope you're taking me somewhere that serves good Roman cuisine.
Pasta all'amatriciana
,
spaghetti alla carbonara
. . .” Giulio said, changing the subject.

“Not on your life! I'm from Savona. A fellow Ligurian has started a trattoria here that makes me think I'm back at my mother's table.”

Giulio couldn't manage to restrain a grimace of disappointment. Robutti shook his head and snickered. “All right, all right, I'll take you out for a
rigatoni alla pajata
that's out of this world. But you don't know what you're missing . . . for that matter, you're from the Veneto and you all are certainly anything but gourmands, all you have is a couple of pathetic ragtag recipes.”

“Don't push it,” Campagna said, mock-menacingly. “Other­wise I'll keep certain pieces of gossip to myself that, I assure you, are juicier than the
capòn magro
.”

I
wondered why Campagna had decided to dress like a country bumpkin. It wasn't just that he had terrible taste in clothes; it was clearly a conscious choice. There was a time in my life when I dressed like a blues singer from Louisiana but the reason was that I was trying to stand out, trying to tell the world I had once been a musician, after jail had thoroughly ruined my singing voice. Now I missed my python skin boots, the belts with buckles that weighed in at close to two pounds of scrap metal, the stovepipe jeans, and the garishly colored raw linen shirts, but at a certain point the basic imperatives of survival had forced me to start dressing like everyone else. That change hadn't been painless. I'd started shopping in clothing stores where the clerks did their best once they understood I was a hopeless case, and I just let them try.

But Campagna did everything imaginable to stick out like a sore thumb, even though you'd expect a plainclothes cop to do the opposite. The new generation of European criminals had become more discreet, sartorially speaking, and the inspector violated the boundaries of good taste both for an on-duty cop and for a criminal. Like every eccentric, he proudly made his home in no-man's-land.

That's what I was thinking about while I waited for him in the parking lot of a buffet-style restaurant in an industrial park. Max wasn't talking. I'd practically had to arm-wrestle him into coming to meet him, and the last thing he wanted to do was be introduced to a cop.

“Campagna knows that you exist and that you and I are both working on this case,” I'd said, exasperated, after his thousandth objection. “And after all, it's better for there to be the two of us listening to what he has to say.”

The inspector had phoned ahead from the train on his way back from Rome. He needed to meet with me, urgently. I was hoping he was bringing good news until the instant I saw him step out of his car. The twist in his lips spoke clearly of weariness born of a long trip made in vain.

Max and the cop shook hands without introducing themselves.

“These days, it takes just over three hours to reach Rome by train,” the policeman began, as if chatting with someone at the bar. “That means you can get up at six and by midmorning you're already in the offices of the Mobile Squad, where an amiable fellow cop can sweep away any hopes you might have of figuring out anything about this fucked-up case. And rightly so. The Roman trail is useless. Even if the whole thing had its origins in the academic world, there's no way we can track it down.”

Campagna pressed a hand to his stomach. “I can't seem to digest the
rigatoni alla pajata
that I ate.”

“That happens when you forget to include cloves,” Max explained in the tone of voice of a know-it-all. “At least one clove for every pound of intestine. Veal tripe, of course. I wouldn't recommend beef tripe.”

The inspector shot him a look too admiring to be real. “You sure know about cooking. That's not mentioned in your file. A passion you developed recently to help you get over some larger political defeat?”

The fat man sat openmouthed, aghast at the detective's shameless presumption.

“Don't take the bait,” I warned him. “The inspector is a bit of a prankster, he's just pushing your buttons.”

Campagna put on a tense smile and went on talking about the case. “What doesn't make sense to me is that there were no witnesses to the kidnapping. And yet it was broad daylight and there were plenty of cameras along the route, to say nothing of all the passersby.”

“Maybe he just showed up at an appointment he should have skipped,” the fat man put in.

“Maybe,” echoed the detective. “The only investigative lead I'm inclined to suggest is to check out the most recently formed gangs. I won't be able to dedicate myself to it full-time since my boss just told me that I need to focus on a team of Italian-Albanian armed robbers, so don't expect results anytime soon.”

“All right,” I said. “Let's hope we have better luck.”

“What's your plan?” asked the inspector.

“We still don't really have one,” I told him honestly.

“After all, your Swiss matron will be paying for whatever you do,” he quipped acidly. “And I'd love to know just how much.”

“Let's get out of here, Marco,” said the fat man, clearly offended, heading for the car that we'd picked up at the dealership just a few hours earlier. “We're just wasting our time.”

I held out a hand to Campagna, who clasped it firmly. “You just can't get over the idea that, since you're a cop, you're a cut above us,” I said in a weary tone of voice.

He shook his head. “You're wrong, Buratti; I just can't stand the idea that you guys are pocketing more money than I take home, and all completely off the books, because you don't have so much as the hint of a license in your pockets.”

I turned on my heels and went over to my partner.

“And you made me travel all this way so I could listen to that lunatic cop insult me?” Max said, indignantly.

I waved to him to shut up. “I want to enjoy the ritual of turning over the engine, I want to fill my ears with the roar of a Å koda engine,” I said, improvising freely just to cut the tension.

“And your mental health is even worse than his,” the fat man hissed ferociously. “We drove all over the Veneto region like a couple of idiots in search of this jalopy.”

“What jalopy?” I objected. “This is a 2001 Felicia, from the last year of production.”

“Even the dealer didn't want to sell it to you.”

“Because he wanted to sell me a brand-new model.”

“Do you know that we're the only people even driving a Felicia? There aren't any more on the roads these days. Every­one's gotten rid of them.”

“That's not true. I'm pretty sure that my friend the guitarist Paolo Valentini is at the wheel of his pride and joy right now.”

“Just like this one? Green with an orange trunk lid?”

I snorted. “As soon as I have a spare minute I'll take it in to the body shop to have it repainted. Don't harp on it. It's a car that no one notices, no one gives it a second glance.”

“Fine. But have you noticed that this September is a hot one and a little humid too from time to time, and your Felicia didn't come equipped with air conditioning?”

“If I buy you dinner, will you stop making me pay for the bad mood Campagna put you in?”

He turned suddenly to look at me. “Is it that obvious?”

I nodded. “You need to bury it under just the right amount of food and wine, Max. Choose a restaurant from the list our client provided.”

With a certain effort he pulled a rumpled notebook out of his back pocket. “Signora Oriana Pozzi Vitali and Professor Di Lello enjoyed a table at seven restaurants in the surrounding area. They even went to a few of them more than once.”

The fat man tossed the notebook against the inside of the windshield. “Fine, I may just be in a bad mood, but this idea of a pilgrimage to the various restaurants seems ridiculous.”

“If we start applying this approach to our investigation we can just give up right now.”

“Who do you think might have noticed them?” the fat man insisted. “And even if they did, so what? You think some guy saw them eating and talking and just decided to put a gang together and kidnap Di Lello?”

“You're probably right, Max,” I admitted, doing my best to make him think. “But we have nothing to go on and just a short while ago Campagna showed up empty-handed. Experience has taught us that you should never overlook anything.”

He lit two cigarettes and handed me one. “Fine. Just don't make me talk to that cop again.”

“He's less of an asshole than you think he is. He just hasn't managed to keep up with the times and he feels out of place.”

“Spare me that nonsense, Marco. And head for the highway. We're going to Vicenza to have some
baccalà
.”

“Isn't it a little too hot for salted cod?”

“No,” he replied tersely. “And don't embarrass me with these awkward questions while we order. Leave it to me and everything will go smoothly.”

 

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Three days, three restaurants. No complaints in terms of the quality of the food or the waitstaff, but they were completely wasted expeditions as far as the investigation was concerned. We doled out princely tips to waiters and valet parking attendants only to be told that no one remembered the professor, even though his picture had been published in plenty of newspapers and broadcast on TV. No one had ever noticed any questionable characters, save the usual coke dealers and high-end whores, but by now those were just part of the scenery. One restaurant was equipped with closed-circuit TV cameras but the tapes were erased every week. Just to satisfy our curiosity, we paid to view the last three days. Hours and hours of boredom.

Friday night we went to La Nena. Reservations were required for dinner but luckily a couple had cancelled just a few minutes before we walked in. As they started us off with an excellent prosecco, Max and I exchanged a glance and a grin. That place really was patronized by the crème de la crème: outsourced industrialists and the professionals who serviced them with the adroit agility of tightrope walkers, low-end politicians with “bribe me” stamped on their foreheads, shopkeepers whose businesses were kept afloat by a little loan sharking on the side accompanied by sales clerks decked out like paid escorts. A portrait of Veneto—deeply ingrained and impossible to uproot—as greedy, vulgar, and parasitic.

The owner of the place was drop-dead handsome with an irresistible smile that everyone swooned over. He moved from table to table as if he were a movie star.

He stopped by ours too. “Everything all right?” he asked, eyeing us with an entomologist's clinical scrutiny. “I'm the owner and you can call me Giorgio.”

“A pleasure,” said Max. “We're just taking a look at the menu.”

“Take all the time you need. And if you need any advice don't hesitate to call me,” he said, before moving on to the next table.

The whole place was impeccable. Every detail was born of a very specific idea of how to run a restaurant. The guest should feel perfectly at ease while enjoying a regional cuisine reinterpreted by a young chef, fresh off a round of awards and television appearances.