Back to Bologna (18 page)
37
‘Remember what I said about us being left free to concentrate on public order issues?’ Zen murmured to Bruno sarcastically.
He jerked his thumb back over his shoulder.
‘Here’s your chance to make the big arrest that brings promotion.’
The patrolman rolled his eyes.
‘It’s just one of those little
punkabestia
creeps who hang out under the portico of the Teatro Communale and in Piazza Verdi. We don’t bother much with them. The drug dealers take care of the really violent ones. They don’t want any trouble on their turf.’
‘Neither, apparently, does
lo chef
,’ Zen remarked as the troublemaker passed their table on his way to the front door, escorted by the foreign cook who was screaming ‘Out! Out!’ and prodding the younger man in the back with what was presumably some kitchen implement.
‘Holy Christ!’ said Bruno. ‘That’s Vincenzo Amadori.’
‘What a charmer.’
‘What do we do?’
Zen shrugged.
‘No longer our case, is it?’
‘Don’t forget your stuff, Vincenzo!’
The cry came from the boyfriend of the young woman whom Zen had noticed earlier. He had grabbed the blue nylon duffle bag he had brought and was now squeezing through the tables towards the door.
‘There could be evidence in that bag,’ said Bruno urgently. ‘We should take him!’
Zen lit a cigarette. Time to buy a new pack, he thought. The tobacconists would be closed by now, which just left the machines.
‘Suit yourself,’ he said. ‘There’ll be a lot of paperwork, you can say goodbye to the rest of your evening, and in the end the Carabinieri will get all the…’
But Bruno was already on his feet and gone. Ah, youth!
38
Out in the street, the situation had already changed. The shortorder cook stumbled on the edge of the doorstep and the yob he was ejecting took advantage of this momentary loss of balance to turn on him. He emerged from the ensuing scuffle holding an automatic pistol. Aurelio Zen stubbed out his cigarette and called in on his work mobile to explain the situation and order the immediate dispatch of a squad car. Rising from the table, he collided with the young woman he had been eyeing earlier, who was now rushing towards the door with the skinnier of the two waiters in hot pursuit.
‘And the bill?’ he called plaintively. ‘Over a hundred with the champagne!’
Zen followed the woman out to the street, where her companion had been grabbed and hoisted under the armpits by the
punkabestia
person, who was holding the pistol to the side of his head.
‘Back off or the puppy gets it!’ he yelled.
‘Police!’ Bruno retorted, keeping his distance and evidently uncertain what to do next. ‘Lay down the gun! You’re under arrest!’
The gunman didn’t even glance at him, his attention entirely absorbed by the imposing spectacle of the young woman closing in on him.
‘Put my boyfriend down this instant or you’ll have me to deal with!’ she shouted.
Apatrol car swept around the corner, light bar pulsing but siren stilled, and screeched to a halt a few metres away. Vincenzo Amadori surveyed the situation, then lowered his weapon, released Rodolfo and burst into laughter.
‘Ah, fuck!’ he said.
Flavia took the pistol from his fingers and handed it to Bruno. Nobody else approached Vincenzo, who stood swaying about, alternately screwing up and widening his eyes like someone learning a potentially enthralling new skill.
‘Are you a friend of his?’ Zen asked Rodolfo.
‘Who are you?’
‘A police officer.’
‘We share an apartment.’
‘What’s in the bag?’
‘Just some clothes he asked me to bring him.’
While Bruno, aided by his fellow patrolmen, handcuffed Amadori, Zen started looking through the contents of the duffle bag. He lifted out a striped cream silk shirt bearing the Versace label and held it up to the light of the restaurant’s neon sign. Several brown stains were visible on the right-hand chest panel.
Zen called Bruno over.
‘It looks like you may have been right about there being evidence in the bag.’
Bruno peered at the shirt, unimpressed.
‘A couple of wine stains?’
‘Let’s see what the DNA tests say. But if it’s blood rather than wine, as I have reason to suppose, then we’ll have stolen both the Curti and Ugo cases back from the Carabinieri, and you’ll be a sergeant next month.’
39
Tony Speranza woke up feeling like hell. Actually, he woke up feeling like hell every morning, but as he could never remember much about the day before, still less the days before that, this always came as a surprise.
He shuddered out of bed and padded through to the kitchen, where he cracked a bottle of Budweiser before proceeding to the living room and unmuting the TV, which had been on all night. A post-breakfast talk show for bored housewives was in progress, some hermetically groomed babe in a power suit. When Tony’s eyes finally focused, he saw that a title in the corner of the screen identified her as Delia Anselmi, personal assistant to the famous star branded as
Lo Chef Che Canta e Incanta
.
‘Romano’s new concept is just awesome,’ she was gushing. ‘To think that he’s actually been working in disguise at an ordinary neighbourhood
trattoria
, doing research for this fabulous new series. Returning to his roots, as he put it to me last night, Stella. And I want you to know that he was weeping!’
The buxom, genetically modified presenter beamed.
‘That’s just great, Delia! I want you both to know that we’re all weeping too, but we’re weeping tears of joy.’
‘Thanks for sharing, Stella! I’m really moved, and I just know that Romano will be too. I can’t of course disclose the location of the restaurant where Romano decided to go “back to the rock face”, as he put it to me. That would compromise the integrity and authenticity of the whole experience, but it’s also for legal reasons following Romano’s heroic and decisive intervention in the dramatic arrest of Lorenzo Curti’s assassin last night. But we will shortly be filming him there, fly-on-the-wall style, and the resulting series,
Real Work
, will be shown…’
‘…exclusively on this channel,’ the presenter put in.
‘…early in the autumn. I just know that this is a break-through concept that is going to entirely change the whole way we look at…’
Tony Speranza hit the mute button and shambled over to his phone. No messages from the Amadori family, despite the turn of the screw he had administered the day before by calling the Questura and shopping Vincenzo as Edgardo Ugo’s attacker. Of course, they might not have been told yet. The police were so inefficient. He returned to the kitchen, swapped the Bud for a Jack Daniels and then shambled back to collapse in front of the TV, surfing to a twenty-four-hour news channel which was showing footage of some botoxed presenter heavy-lipping a huge microphone as if it were a phallus. ‘Supercop from Rome Cracks Curti Case’ read the title. Tony’s hand darted for the remote control.
‘…can confirm that Vincenzo Amadori is in custody. He will face charges later today in regard to the murder of Lorenzo Curti and also the shooting of Professor Edgardo Ugo. Forensic tests indicate that the weapon used in both crimes is that which was in possession of the accused at the time of his arrest late last night by a crack team of Polizia di Statooperatives under the leadership of Vice-Questore Aurelio Zen. At a news conference earlier this morning, Dottor Zen and the officer in charge of the investigation, Commissario Salvatore Brunetti, stated that…’
He pushed the mute button again and glumly watched footage of two men, one in police uniform, the other in a suit and overcoat, addressing a group of journalists. Fuck, he thought. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. So much for his pension plan.
Then he had an idea.
It was about eleven o’clock when Tony Speranza arrived at the Questura. A blanket of cold, hard smog enveloped the entire city. Tony was wearing a powder-blue suit with a dark blue shirt and tie and black brogues. He was neat, clean, shaved and relatively sober, and didn’t care who knew it. He was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. He was calling for one million euros.
Tony stated his business to the sergeant at the desk, who asked him to wait and then made a number of whispered phone calls. About five minutes later, two armed officers in uniform approached the desk.
The sergeant said tonelessly, ‘Commissario Brunetti will see you now, Signor Speranza.’
The two officers escorted him up the wide staircase to the first floor. Neither spoke nor looked at him, but he was pleased–proud, even–of their presence. It proved that he was finally being taken seriously, with the respect that he deserved.
Having traversed a lateral corridor, he was ushered into a large office. There were two men present. Tony recognised them as the pair he had seen earlier on the TV news report. Better and better! He was going straight to the top!
The shorter of the men looked at him, but did not invite him to sit down.
‘We understand that you have come to claim the reward offered by the Curti family for information leading to the arrest of the killer,’ he said.
‘Correct.’
‘As it happens, the person we believe to be the killer is already under arrest. On what basis are you therefore claiming the reward?’
Tony had rehearsed this scene many times on the way in and had his answer ready.
‘Your case against Vincenzo Amadori rests on the fact that at the time of his arrest he was holding the gun used to shoot not only Curti but also Professor Edgardo Ugo. That is merely circumstantial evidence. I, on the other hand, have definitive proof that Amadori was indeed in the place and at the time that Ugo was shot. On the basis of the information that I possess, there can be no doubt that he will be convicted of that crime. But since the same weapon was used in both incidents, and was in his possession, it follows that he must have shot Curti too. It will be an open and shut case.’
The taller man now spoke.
‘Just what is the nature of this information, Signor Speranza?’
Tony laughed lightly to indicate that he hadn’t been born yesterday.
‘I would naturally only be prepared to disclose its full extent once the payment of the reward has been agreed by the Curti family. But I can reveal that it involves electronic surveillance techniques with a logged computer record and will stand up in court.’
He smiled at the two officials.
‘We’re talking the information age equivalent of blood on the hands.’
The taller man glanced at the uniformed officers, who had remained in the room, one to either side of Speranza.
‘All right,’ he sighed. ‘Take him down to the cellars and sweat it out of him. The works, okay? I want every detail by three at the latest. Including the stuff he’s forgotten he knew.’
The uniforms moved in and grasped Speranza by either arm in the manner known to pulp fiction as ‘vice-like’. It did indeed feel very vicious.
‘But…but…but…’ Tony spluttered.
The official smiled enigmatically.
‘The criminal always makes one fatal mistake,’ he said. ‘You came here demanding a reward on the basis of having proof that the person who murdered Lorenzo Curti also shot Edgardo Ugo with the same gun.’
‘But it’s true!’
The other man nodded.
‘It’s certainly true. What you overlooked, however, is that it’s your gun.’
Tony looked at him in complete bewilderment.
‘Mine? But how can you know that?’
‘Ah, that might well have taken some considerable time. The weapon had almost certainly been acquired on the black market, and was not officially registered. Fortunately, however, we were in possession of a clue that eventually led us, after a sleepless night and much profound cogitation that tested our professional skills as never before, to the irrefutable truth.’
Tony laughed bravely.
‘You’re bluffing! What clue?’
‘Your name is engraved on the barrel,
signore
,’ said Aurelio Zen.
Michael Dibdin
Back to Bologna
Michael Dibdin is the author of sixteen previous novels, including
Medusa, And Then You Die
,
Blood Rain
, and
A Long Finish
. A native of England, he now lives in Seattle, Washington.
BOOKS BY MICHAEL DIBDIN
IN THE AURELIO ZEN SERIES
Ratking
Vendetta
Cabal
Dead Lagoon
Così Fan Tutti
A Long Finish
Blood Rain
And Then You Die
Medusa
Back to Bologna
OTHER FICTION
The Last Sherlock Holmes Story
A Rich Full Death
The Tryst
Dirty Tricks
The Dying of the Light
Dark Specter
Thanksgiving
FIRST VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD EDITION, SEPTEMBER 2006
Copyright © 2005 by Michael Dibdin
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain by Faber and Faber Limited, London, in 2005.
Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage Crime/Black Lizard and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dibdin, Michael.
Back to Bologna / Michael Dibdin.
p. cm.
1. Zen, Aurelio (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Police—Italy—Fiction. 3. Bologna (Italy)—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6054.I26 B33 2006
823'.914—dc22
2005056363
Author photograph © Isolde Ohlbaum
eISBN: 978-0-307-27816-6
v3.0
