I Will Have Vengeance (11 page)

“All right then, send Bassi in. There's something I need to understand.”

V
ezzi's secretary appeared, dapper and elegant as always; hair neatly parted in the centre, freshly shaved, gold-rimmed glasses that he nervously kept adjusting on his nose.

“Should I be worried, Commissario? I'm not a suspect, am I? I'll remind you that I spent the evening sitting next to the theater director, in the front row.”

Ricciardi made a slight wave of annoyance, as if to chase away an insect.

“No, Bassi. I wouldn't say so. But there is one thing I'd like to know. You said that, to please Vezzi, an assistant had to ‘be able to disappear at the right moment, leaving him free.' Explain it to me more clearly. What does that mean, exactly?”

Bassi seemed caught off guard. He adjusted his glasses on his nose with his right index finger.

“Exactly? Well, in practical terms it means that the Maestro insisted on . . . well, discretion. You had to understand him even before he spoke, like all individuals endowed with a big ego.”

“Look, Bassi, I asked you a specific question. Believe me, we're not in a convent here; there's nothing we haven't heard in this place. I know you meant something by it and I demand that you tell me what it was.”

Bassi instantly lost his self-confidence. He went on speaking in a submissive tone.

“The Maestro had his weaknesses. Who doesn't? He was a man who sought gratification, anywhere, no matter what the circumstances. And he liked women: especially those of other men. I often thought that he couldn't stand the idea that a woman might prefer someone else. Anyone else. So he took her. Or tried to take her. Though normally he managed to.”

“But wasn't he married? Isn't it his wife who is arriving by train?”

“Well, married so to speak. His wife is, in a word, the kind of woman . . . she was a singer, you know. A contralto. She gave it up when they married, ten years ago. Then, after the death of their child—from diphtheria, five years ago—they virtually stopped speaking to one another. They each led their own lives. But you see, Commissario, the Maestro was a personal friend of
Il Duce
. The family cannot be destroyed. So formally they stayed together. But only formally.”

“I see. So Vezzi busied himself elsewhere. And here, in Naples? How was he, these past days? Did he do anything, did he go anywhere?”

“I don't know, Commissario. When he . . . was busy, the Maestro simply dismissed me. He'd say: ‘I have no further need of you; I'll see you at seven, or eight, or nine,' whatever. I understood, and I kept away. Still, there was always something to do, so . . . ”

“And in the past few days did he dismiss you?”

“Yes, on Monday, the day of the dress rehearsal.”

“And did he say anything to you?”

“Yes, something odd: he asked me where you caught tram number seven from.”

As soon as Bassi left, Ricciardi asked Maione what route tram number seven followed. The Brigadier went off for a few minutes, and when he returned, he was the usual font of information.

“So then,
Commissa'
: there are two number seven trams. The red seven, that leaves from Piazza Plebiscito and goes to Piazza Vanvitelli, on the hill above the Vomero; and the black seven, that starts at Piazza Dante and also goes to the Vomero, but to Piazzale di San Martino. Antonelli told me and he knows all the transportation routes in the city, proving that those guys in the records department don't do a thing from morning till night. Now, the black seven is called the ‘poor lovers' tram,' because it leads to a little wood with panoramic views of the city, where he says couples who can't afford a room get together. The red seven, on the other hand, is used by those who work in the centre and live in the new houses. Which one would Vezzi have taken?”

“The black seven. For certain.”

So Ricciardi decided to fill the time remaining before the arrival of Vezzi's wife and his manager by making a quick on-site inspection of the black seven line. In actuality, he admitted to himself, it was also an excuse to avoid giving Garzo a report that by now was overdue. He didn't like the idea of presenting sketchy or incomplete theories, but neither could he concoct a story out of whole cloth and pretend he was on the trail of a murderer he had already identified. So he told Maione to stay there and hold down the fort, in case someone came to make a spontaneous statement, and set off on foot towards Piazza Dante.

The wind had lessened a little, and clouds were thickening: maybe it would rain. Early in the afternoon the street was crowded with pedestrians and street vendors. For sixty years now its name had been Via Roma, but for Neapolitans it was and would remain Via Toledo, like when it was built under the Spaniards. And it would remain the boundary, the throbbing border line between the two souls of the city, which was alternately invaded and possessed by one or the other. The shouts and calls of vendors split the air, urchins ran barefoot, chasing one another. Beggars sat huddled beside the walls of buildings, near the entrance to churches. On the left side, the maze of numerous back alleys intersecting the street revealed the desolate, volatile scene of the old Quartieri Spagnoli.

As he walked along, Ricciardi continued to reflect: why the tram? A carriage, or one of the city's fifty taxis, would have been a more logical choice. Or even the funicular, the beautiful, modern Funicolare Centrale that had been open for three years; the real reason why the new quarter was becoming increasingly populated, attracting the attention of the middle class more and more. But otherwise, the Vomero was still farmland, with flocks of sheep and goats and farmsteads. And a few beautiful aristocratic villas, for vacationing in the clean air.

The only reason why Vezzi would have preferred the tram was anonymity. So he wouldn't be recognized. Why? Because the tenor's intention wasn't simply to take a nice vigorous walk. Rather a different kind of walk. Ergo a courtesy visit to some aristocratic friend could also be ruled out.

The tram station in Piazza Dante was right at the base of the long incline that led to the Vomero. Ricciardi bought a ticket and sat down near a window. On the street, toward Port'Alba, he saw the vision of a Camorrist mobster who had been stabbed during a settling of accounts. His killer had quickly been arrested: a young man who had aspired to make his way up in society and instead would rot in prison for thirty years. The image of the dead man, big and tall, his hands on his hips, was laughing his head off. Literally, because his neck was slashed from ear to ear; you could see the blood gurgling through the wound and bubbles of air from his last breath. He was mocking his murderer and his lack of courage: a fatal miscalculation. With a jolt, the tram started off.

As it climbed, the houses gradually thinned out, though Ricciardi observed numerous building sites. A city under construction, which a little at a time was taking over the countryside. The previous year's earthquake had led to needed reinforcing and restoration; there had been some collapses and some deaths, though it was Irpinia, some distance away, that had been devastated. But there were also new buildings, new streets and roads. Other districts to keep an eye on, additional wealth and new crimes and offences, the Commissario thought with a sigh.

The cold wind gradually grew stronger as the tram clambered up the hill, trudging along; Ricciardi could tell from the swaying of the vegetation, that was now more dense. Trees, shrubs, cultivated fields, dirt paths leading into the countryside; here and there a villa surrounded by palm trees. On either side of the road—the tramway running down the middle of it—were occasional shacks with women washing clothes and children playing outdoors. A boy with a dog and two goats tied to a rope was selling ricotta cheese and bread to a small group of bricklayers at a construction site. One of them, standing a little apart, had his head bent in an unnatural way. The Commissario looked away: one of the thousands of workplace accidents, which no one ever heard about.

The tram reached the end of the line, in the new square in front of the military prison. Ricciardi approached the man in the ticket office and asked if there was a boarding house or hotel in the immediate vicinity. When he got directions, he set out towards a small, low building not far away, where a green metal plate bore a yellow inscription: Pensione Belvedere.

The landlady was initially suspicious. Then, when he showed his ID, she admitted that she recalled the portly gentleman who “spoke like a foreigner, a northerner,” who had come on Monday, the twenty-third. He had remained in his room for three hours, and had been joined by the signora. The signora had arrived on her own, they had not come together. Yes, she had said “his room”: the gentleman had rented it for three months, paying in advance. Did the Commissario wish to see it?

Ricciardi found himself in a clean room, with a magnificent view from the window. No personal items, except a shaving brush, soap and a razor near a sink in the corner. No trace of any female presence, nothing in the chest of drawers, nothing in the armoire other than a new dressing gown, apparently never worn. He fingered it, as if wanting to feel its texture. On the shoulder, a long blonde hair.

As he was leaving, the Commissario told the landlady that she could consider the room vacant, since the tenant was not coming back. The woman did not hide her disappointment.

“I was hoping he would renew. Even though he didn't answer me when I asked him. He left in a hurry.”

“What do you mean, renew? Didn't he pay for three months, starting Monday the twenty-third?”

“No,
Commissa'
. Three months, beginning last December twentieth. That was when they came for the first time. Work was still underway on the new piazzale.”

“And the woman who joined him? Was it always the same one?”

“Yes, Commissario. Always the same one. You could tell she was young; she came on her own, separately.”

“Can you describe her?”

“No, truthfully, no. She wore a hat, a scarf, a heavy coat; I never saw her face. She didn't even respond when I greeted her, I never heard her voice. Too bad, though; he seemed happy. And what nice tips he left me!”

The news shed new light on events, Ricciardi thought as he walked down the slope leading to the panoramic piazzale and the belvedere. Vezzi had come to Naples in December, then: so that was the other time Bassi had hinted at. That was the detail that had been tickling his intuition, that he had not been able to put his finger on immediately. But there was something else in what don Pierino had said, that still wouldn't come to him. What was it?

The tram wouldn't leave for another fifteen minutes. He decided to check out the view from the new belvedere. The city stretched out below him, under a sky increasingly heavy with rain. Seeing it like that, as the first lights began to appear, it did not look like it was seething with passions or emotions. But Ricciardi knew how many layers there were, beneath that apparent tranquillity. No crime, only safety and well-being dictated by the regime. So it was ordained, by decree. Yet the dead kept vigil in the streets, in homes, demanding peace and justice.

He went up to the low wall: beneath him, the winding steps of Via Pedamentina which from San Martino led to Corso Vittorio Emanuele. A long, charming street, which flanked a slope of dense vegetation. The hanging lamps that illuminated the steps swayed in the wind. But the late afternoon rays still lit up a small park with benches, a trysting spot for lovers who could not afford a room for three hours much less for three months.

Ricciardi saw two couples on the benches. A sailor was trying to embrace a girl who laughingly pushed him away. And a slim, elegant young man, perhaps a student, was holding the hand of a woman who stared at him dreamily. Ricciardi looked away. A short distance from the sailor he saw a man sitting on the ground holding both arms tightly around his stomach as if hugging himself. A yellowish foam bubbling with air oozed from his mouth. His eyes were glassy. Even from a distance like that, the Commissario could make out his words: “
I can't live without you. I can't live without you. I can't live without you . . .
” He poisoned himself, Ricciardi thought. Barbiturates, acid, bleach. Does anything ever change?

A little further back the body of a young woman swung from a branch, hanging from a piece of cloth, a scarf maybe. She looked like a belated winter fruit, like a bunch of grapes that had escaped the harvest and had not yet dried up. Eyes bulging, her face purple, her tongue horribly swollen and bluish, hanging from her bloated lips. Her neck stretched by gravity's pull, legs and arms limp and composed. She kept repeating: “
Why, my love? Why, my love
?” A place for lovers, Ricciardi thought. He had seen others “haunted” like that: people went to seek peace where they had been happy, not knowing that there was no peace, even in death.

As he observed the living and the dead, he recalled the advertisement for a wonder drug, which he often saw in the newspaper. Before and after treatment.

Before and after love.

The tram sounded its horn. His expression unchanged, Ricciardi turned and began slowly walking up the slope.

T
he church of Santa Maria degli Angeli was freezing. The wind whistled relentlessly down the nave and inside the dome, where light filtered in from a sun that shed no warmth. In the pews in front of the altar several old women intoned an endless chant in the mangled words of a forgotten language, imploring God's mercy and that of the saints.

In the back, a woman was hiding in the shadows. Her head was bowed, and her blonde hair and her face were concealed by a large black shawl. She was hiding her beauty, her body, her blue eyes. She would have liked to pray, but she didn't have the heart.

She looked up at the fresco on the dome, stained with dampness, depicting paradise.