Darkness for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone (9 page)

Standing behind her, Scarano rested a hand on her shoulder, caressing it lightly. Palma turned to him: “What about you, Signor Scarano? You didn't recognize anyone in that figure, did you?”

The man looked up. His head of thick salt-and-pepper hair, the beard of the same color, and his massive build all made him look like an aging gorilla, but the watery eyes behind the thick lenses and his low voice were sharply at odds with that image.

“No, Commissario. She's not familiar to me at all. But there's one thing I'm certain of: Dodo, even though he's a very sweet child, would not have gone so willingly with a person he'd never seen before. He would have asked Sister Beatrice for permission, at the very least. So it seems likely that he knew whoever it was, and well.”

Though he'd whispered the words, they landed like a bombshell. Eva turned to look at him and said: “You're right, Manuel. You're right! Dodo wouldn't have just walked off with some stranger without a word to anyone. So we need to search among our own . . . among . . .”

Lojacono broke in: “I'm afraid it's not that simple. This woman might very well have told him that you were waiting outside in the car. Or that she had something to give him and that he could come back in right away. We don't have any footage of what happened outside, we don't know how your son was taken.”

Aragona confirmed that point: “Precisely. There are no security cameras on that stretch of road. No banks, no jewelry stores. Only a broken-down old bar, a newsstand, and a flower shop, and no one saw anything. They must have moved quickly; they probably had a car waiting. They threw him in and took off.”

Eva began to sob again, while Alex, Ottavia, and Piras looked daggers at Aragona.

The magistrate reclaimed control of the situation: “Signora, have you notified the boy's father? It's his right to know about . . . about what's happened.”

Eva looked up, some of her lost pride recovered.

“Dottoressa, I waited to be sure about what is sadly turning out to be the truth. It's not easy to say something like this to a man you haven't talked to for years, except to discuss practical matters.”

Piras, who wasn't renowned for her diplomacy, replied brusquely: “If you don't think you're up to it, we'll inform him ourselves.”

“No, no need. I imagine that's my job. I'll call him from home. What else should I do, in the meantime?”

It was Palma who spoke next, in a gentle voice: “You should try to get some rest, though I know that's probably too much to ask. I can imagine your state of mind. But do make sure your phone lines are open, and that your phones—both your landline and your cell phone—are in working order. And warn all those who might be contacted by whoever the kidnappers turn out to be, which means not only your ex-husband, but also your father.”

“Why my father?”

“Because from what we understand he's very fond of the boy, and he's a prominent man. They might assume he'd be most responsive to any eventual demand.”

“My God, you're already thinking of . . . of a ransom, is that it?”

“We have to take every possibility into consideration, Signora. And make sure we're ready for whatever happens. I'm going to give you a card with my personal number; please call, no matter what time. And I ask you to think about who Dodo might trust so completely that they could easily lead him away. And here, too, if you happen to come up with any ideas . . .”

“I'll let you know right away, of course. And I'll let my father know, too, tomorrow morning: he'll be asleep by now. He's a sick man, wheelchair-bound.”

 

After Eva and Scarano left, no one dared speak in the communal office.

Piras addressed them all: “What impression did you get? It doesn't seem to me that she has the slightest idea who it could have been.”

Palma agreed: “I'm with you on that. But what her boyfriend said strikes me as important: Unless Dodo is especially sociable—and he's not a boy with a tendency to play pranks—it's quite unlikely he would have gone away like that.”

Piras sighed.

“All right. I'll give orders to monitor closely both Borrelli's phones and Dodo's grandfather's. In the meantime, Palma, keep me informed. It certainly does seem that this precinct, in its new incarnation, is being put to quite the test. We'll talk tomorrow morning.”

After a quick glance at Lojacono, she briskly exited the office.

T
here are nights.

Nights you arrive at as if to the top of a mountain, your eyes leaden with exhaustion.

Nights full of nothing, when all you want is to sleep face-down, surrounded by the familiar, stale smells of home.

Nights when you need to shut the rest of the world out, nights heavy with a tremendous weight that won't let you breathe while you try your best to keep the fingers of darkness from getting in through the cracks in the windows and tunneling all the way to your soul.

There are nights.

 

Private Giovanni Guida, before going to bed, performs a careful inspection.

That's what he likes to do, to make sure that everything is shipshape: doors locked, windows open just a crack if what's wanted is a breeze, gas turned off, water too. He usually does it after his wife's gone down for the night, when he turns off the television set after surfing one last time through channels 1 to 6 to see whether anything big has just happened.

Private Giovanni Guida is a cop. He might have remembered the fact late, that's true, and it's true that for too long he'd believed himself no more than a pencil pusher, for better or worse, a pencil pusher who could therefore afford to leave a button undone, or complain about the pain from his sciatica. And he'd put on a bit of belly, too, Private Giovanni Guida, just to underline his professional status, or lack thereof. As for his hair, that's long gone, so it's a good thing he now shaves his head completely, which makes a man look strong, refined, and ageless.

Then a lieutenant shows up from Sicily, and later Private Giovanni Guida hears the gossip about him, about how a gangster back home turned state's witness and accused him of passing information to the Mafia, serious charges, and anyway this guy shows up, and he looks at him, Guida, with those Chinese eyes of his, and in fact that's what they call him, the Chinaman, and with just a few sharp words this guy reminds him that he, Private Giovanni Guida, sent to Pizzofalcone because no one else wants to go there, to the place where that mess with the Bastards took place, is a cop.

And from that day forth the private turns back into a cop, and starts studying the regulations, starts working hard because, even if he's just standing guard at the front door and answering the phone, and talking to the people who come in to file complaints and ask for information, that, too, is a job for a cop.

As he walks down the dark hall, enjoying the silence of a safe and secure apartment, Private Giovanni Guida nears his children's bedroom.

He has three children, Guida does: a young lady age thirteen, another girl just seven, and a little rascal four years old. The girls sleep in a bunk bed, the young delinquent in a trundle bed, against the far wall. The oldest girl sleeps curled up, her face to the wall: She always sleeps that way. The second-oldest sleeps on her back, mouth open, and he tucks the sheets up to her neck: She always kicks the covers off, and ends up with a sore throat. The tiny criminal sleeps on his belly, arms thrown wide: He takes up twice as much room even when he's sleeping, the way he does in his father's heart. He looks down at him, Private Guida does. How quickly a little devil becomes an angel, he thinks: Just let him fall asleep.

Out of his memory, a grainy black-and-white face leaps before Private Giovanni Guida's sleepy eyes. Where were you going, Dodo? Where was that devil with the hoodie over her head taking you? Why aren't you in your little trundle bed, turning from a devil into an angel like the other boys?

Private Giovanni Guida silently gets the chair from the little homework table, brings it over to the little devil's bed, and sits down.

He wants to gaze his fill, while two tears slip slowly and unexpectedly from his eyes.

 

There are nights.

Nights that betray you, that come in seeming peace and turn out to be full of war and pain.

Nights that enchant you with a false joy, that lure you in with an embrace, and then treacherously stab you in the heart like assassins in the dark, for no good reason.

Despairing nights that seem placid, that might carry a fresh, illusory air about them, that might come with a faint music that you fail to recognize until it's too late, and by then you're already in, and all hope is lost.

There are nights.

 

Ottavia had been kicked in the face.

That was what the video of the boy in the museum had done to her.

Kicked her in the face.

Because Ottavia, standing out on the balcony of her apartment watching the night roll past in the street below, has no doubts: The boy on the screen turned to look at her.

And anyway, why should he have turned to look up at that camera, the only working camera in the whole run-down security system? Why turn around if there was nothing to see, if he was walking briskly toward the exit, perfectly content, heading toward who knows what fate, hand in hand with his kidnapper? Why, if not to remind her, Ottavia, what a shitty mother she really was, what a shitty wife she was, what a shitty woman she was?

Those tiny, grainy eyes in black and white, those two tiny dots fluttering among the other dots, barely recognizable, stared in mute reproach right at her, Deputy Sergeant Ottavia Calabrese, warning her not to kid herself: It was perfectly clear what she had in her mind and her heart. So she could just cut out pretending to be perfect, loving, and maternal, because he, the boy on the screen, knew exactly who she really was.

The residential street, seven stories below, sat deserted, waiting for dawn so it could begin pulsating once again. Her husband, Gaetano, slept peacefully, lulled by his uncompromising conscience, by the purity of his feelings and by his complete unawareness of the things she felt. Damn you. You and your perfection. You and your infallible respect for positions and prerogatives. You and your incontrovertible certainties, the certainties of an engineer who supervises a team of fifteen. Damn you. And damn me, for not loving you enough, and maybe for never having loved you at all.

With a shiver, Ottavia clutches the collar of her jacket around her neck; she'd thrown on a light coat over her pajamas when she stepped out onto the balcony, suddenly hungry for fresh air.

You know, boy on the screen, more and more often these days I feel as if I'm being suffocated. Who knows, maybe I have a heart problem, I read on the Internet that this could be one of the warning signs. But maybe it's just my sense of guilt.

How old are you, boy on the screen? Ten, or perhaps a hundred. Maybe you know everything, maybe you know that you can climb straight into my heart by sneaking through a computer monitor. Maybe you're three years younger than Riccardo.

Riccardo, who's sleeping like a rock in his bed, taller, stockier, stronger than other boys his age. Riccardo, developmentally disabled, with the mind of a three-year-old child. Riccardo, who may never say anything but that one, blunt word:
mamma
,
mamma
,
mamma
. Over and over, endlessly.

Mamma.

What kind of a mamma are you, Ottavia Calabrese? What the hell kind of mother are you really, with all the sorrowful praise you get for washing him, dressing him, taking him to the pool and looking on during his lessons, feeding him and wiping his mouth, the mouth of your son who sits on the floor outside the bathroom when you lock yourself in so you can cry in secret. What kind of mother are you, surrounded by all this praise, you who'd rather be anywhere but in the clutches of a family that is your prison, that is your life sentence?

Ottavia's mind travels through the night to Palma, the commissario she can't even speak to on a first-name basis. That off-kilter smile, his unkempt hair. A man, nothing more and nothing less. A man like any man.

Or perhaps like no man.

Or perhaps a lifeboat in a stormy sea.

Or perhaps the last train, at the end of the night.

Go ahead and look, boy on the screen. Go ahead and look deep down inside me. Uncover my most hidden thoughts, and help me to bring them up to the surface. Help me to see, help me to understand who I am. Who I was and who I've become.

With a last glance out into the darkness, Ottavia goes back inside.

 

There are nights.

Nights full of luminous threads like headlights on the highway that travel strange paths on their way to intersecting.

Nights suspended between one day and the next, unaware of what came before and of what will follow.

Nights capable of knocking down memories and building new dreams, with bastard flavors that nevertheless have new meanings.

Nights that make you think you can bring the past into the future, that the past might be a load that, instead of crushing you, becomes a driving force.

There are nights.

 

Lojacono, his fingers knit together behind his head, lies looking up at the ceiling while through the half-open casement window comes the sound of someone playing the piano.

He doesn't know why the hell it is but in that city, one way or another, there's always music playing. Good or bad, poorly recorded or tinny, coming from a radio under the cacophony of shouts and traffic—if you listen, you can always hear music.

At first, when he'd been catapulted into that city from the smoking rubble of his old life, he'd hated this fact. To tell the truth, he'd hated everything about the place. Now he was used to it, and from time to time, he'd seek it out, the music, and he was happy when he found it, concealed under some other noise, folded beneath the sound of a moped motor backfiring or a marital squabble. This time it was some guy practicing the piano in the middle of the night; anywhere else, he'd be risking his life, would have been ripped limb from limb by some exhausted neighbor, but not here. You could say anything you wanted about that city, but it wasn't intolerant.