For All the Gold in the World (21 page)

I opened my eyes and saw Inspector Campagna, who was, for the occasion, wearing a white and light-blue Hawaiian shirt, sitting on the edge of my bed waving a pair of handcuffs.

“I've never understood people who go to a restaurant and then complain to the staff because the portions are too large,” he began while his colleagues started turning the room upside down. “Why don't they just mind their own fucking business? They complain so much that they talk the proprietors into making portions smaller, and then we're all worse off. If there's too much pasta, think of your health and leave it on the plate. Don't you think so, Buratti?”

“You come all the way down here with your boyfriends to discuss this bullshit?” I asked, my mouth fuzzy with sleep.

“And to take you back to Padua where the pleasure of your presence is requested at police headquarters for a nice little chat.”

“What's going on, Campagna?” I asked, a little worried now.

“Nothing,” he replied as he handed me my trousers. “It's just that you still don't know how to behave at the table and now we're going to give you a slap on the wrist.”

 

Padua. Interrogation room at police headquarters.

It was lunchtime, and no one had shown up yet. They'd locked me up in the usual cubbyhole that reeked of sweat, coffee, and stale cigarette smoke, in defiance of Italian law. Of course they'd confiscated my cigarettes.

I was pretty sure they were watching me through the usual two-way mirror. They wanted to make me think I was in real trouble, the kind of trouble that lands you first in court and then in prison for a certain number of years. Maybe it was even true. Maybe Gigliola Pescarotto, the widow Oddo, had decided to rat me out, or else the idea had come to Nicola Spezzafumo. The only thing I had to do was wait to find out just what was happening.

I managed to maintain the calm required for the situation only because I'd been through this kind of thing before, and I knew the world of law enforcement down to the last detail. Deep down, though, I was scared to death. Scared of going to prison.

After another couple of hours, the monotony of which had been interrupted only by a shouting match with the guards standing sentinel to get them to take me to the bathroom, a babe who might have been a cover girl showed up, accompanied by Campagna.

She was blonde, with a ponytail, perfect features, long legs, and tits and an ass that looked as if they'd been drawn by a master illustrator. She sat down across the table from me, smoothed down the hem of her designer skirt suit, and looked me up and down with an assertive air.

Then she gestured to Campagna, who hastened to turn on a small tape recorder. It must have been a very good brand, because you could hear both my voice and Pellegrini's perfectly.

I heaved a sigh of relief. The situation I was in wasn't all that serious after all.

“Giorgio Pellegrini has started using the SIM card of the cell phone that he had when he was still in Padua,” the official explained. “That's why we were able to record the phone call.”

The bastard had to have known that the investigators would be ready to listen. I wondered why he'd chosen to bring them into the middle of all this. Maybe so he could inform them of his innocence. Or else, no, that son of a bitch had decided to frame me and hand me over to the cops. Distracted by my complex reasoning, I missed the beginning of what the good-looking female cop was telling me and interrupted her very politely, asking if she could start over again from the beginning.

“Are you dimwitted? Stupid? Do you suffer from some kind of mental pathology? Or did your mother give you syphilis during pregnancy?” the woman asked, speaking in machine gun bursts in a strong Milanese accent. “Do you think we had you brought so we could chat? Or do you just think that we don't deserve your attention?”

Any thoughts of kindness suggested by her attractive appearance vanished at that moment. “With whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?” I asked.

She pointed to her underling. “With Inspector Giulio Campagna,” she replied, her voice flat.

“What's that mean?”

“Haven't you figured that out by now?”

I, too, knew that game. The only way to defend yourself was to interrupt the stream of questions, because you'd never get an answer. Just more questions.

The official waited for me to respond, then went straight to the point. “We want you to accept Pellegrini's offer and investigate the murders. With your friends, of course. We won't interfere.”

I would have liked to know whom she meant with that “we.” And, after all, it was pretty clear that it was going to end badly for everyone, and not just for Pellegrini. There wasn't a single good reason to offer her our heads on a silver platter. We'd have done their dirty work for them and all we'd get in exchange would be a cell with a view of the yard in a maximum-security prison. That is, unless the whole deal was so filthy that the only thing to do was clean house, top to bottom, an operation that would involve executions and shallow graves.

“No,” I said, addressing Campagna.

“No?” the policewoman echoed, raising her voice and jumping to her feet. “Listen good, you miserable piece of shit,” she hissed. “Unless you do exactly as I say, your friends are going to wind up in prison. We know where they are and the minute they touch land we'll search the
Sylvie
and find just enough kilos of heroin and cocaine to bring down a minimum sentence of fifteen years. Rossini's a tough character and he can do the time, even if he'll go straight into a hospice when he's released, but Max, with his health problems, won't survive more than four years, five, tops.”

She reached out her hand and Campagna gave her a file, which she slapped under my nose. It was Max's hospital chart. It looked like the original.

“We've had it examined by one of our experts,” the policewoman went on. “What I tell you is the truth and I can assure you that we'll make it our business to ensure that every day behind bars will be a ‘special' one for him.”

Maybe she was bluffing. Or maybe she wasn't. I was too confused to figure that out. I tested the ground by, again, refusing outright.

“The little turd has a pair of balls on him,” the woman commented, feigning admiration. She leveled her forefinger at me, straight and long as a gun barrel. “Meanwhile, you'll be out, free and at large. We'll circulate a rumor that you were the one who sold out your friends, and that you're now a police informant.”

“No one's going to fall for that,” I shot back ferociously.

Campagna walked over and leaned close, placing a hand on my shoulder. “She's not like normal human beings,” he said, referring to his superior officer. “She comes from another planet where playing dirty is the rule. She'll screw you unless you do what she says.”

“She'll screw us whatever we do,” I thought to myself.

The woman burst into a forced laugh. “Campagna, you're as pathetic as those shirts of yours. I'm going to ask the chief of police why on earth he lets you wear them. Now get out of this room.”

The inspector obeyed, paying no heed to the insult.

The official sat down again. “All right then, Buratti, what's your decision?”

“It seems to me I have no choice.”

The lady cop gave me a long, hard, derisive look. “You're all the same,” she commented; then she ordered me to send a text to Pellegrini, accepting the case and the money.

“Exactly what do you want from us?” I asked in a low voice.

“I want you to stay out in plain view.”

I pretended I hadn't understood. “Explain yourself.”

“I want you to investigate. Or at least pretend to. We don't care which,” she explained in a bored voice. “The important thing is that you give the impression you're searching for whoever committed that double murder, and that Pellegrini fall for it sufficiently that he stays in touch.”

“You don't need us to arrest him.”

“True enough. But we have other priorities.”

“And we're the pawns who can be sacrificed.”

“I'm glad to see you understand. For that matter, you have quite the bill to pay. I don't know how on earth you've managed to stay out of jail these past few years, but the time has come to put an end to your fucking shenanigans.”

The policewoman's flat sincerity made my blood run cold. “You don't have any evidence against us. Not even a hint of a lead, otherwise you wouldn't be playing dirty tricks like planting drugs aboard the
Sylvie
.”

“We've collected a series of rumors that could turn into the pages of a deposition any day now.”

“Horseshit.”

She shook her head. The ponytail brushed her shoulders. “I'm sorry to give you more bad news, but Giorgio Pellegrini told me all about the Swiss woman and your activity as unlicensed investigators. A nice little story worth three life sentences without parole. One apiece.”

Suddenly it dawned on me. That piece of shit was once again angling for judicial immunity so he could go back to playing the model citizen, and he'd made himself available to the cops. As a show of good faith he'd told them, in his own way of course, the “truth” about the events that had forced him to run from the law. But that would never have been enough to keep him out of jail. Pellegrini must have offered them a much tastier dish—probably that he'd been operating as an undercover agent, and that something had gone horribly wrong, and that it had cost Martina and Gemma their skins.

I looked the woman in the eye. I was certain that the idea of dragging us into it had been hers. Pellegrini had sold us down the river and she had come to the conclusion that we might turn out to be useful.

“Pellegrini lies as easily as he breathes,” I said. “He's fed you a line without giving you any evidence.”

“We don't need any,” the policewoman reminded me. “And in any case, Giorgio is so convincing that it's a pleasure just to listen to him.”

She pulled my cigarettes and lighter out of my jacket pocket. “Smoke, Buratti. I know it's what you need more than anything else right now. Then you'll leave and get something strong to drink. Calvados, of course, which you'll savor while listening to that negro music.”

That contemptuous display of details about my private life managed to drag a smile out of me. The conceited policewoman had read our files and listened to secondhand gossip, but hadn't the slightest idea who we really were. She judged us according to parameters straight out of the police academy, things that didn't apply to us. Our outlaw hearts noticed the difference, rendered the abyss that separated us impossible to bridge.

Now an official from who knew which division of the intelligence services was convinced she had me by the balls, taking it for granted that I'd talk my friends into stooping so low as to work for them, to march toward the enemy fire like so many puppets on strings. She had no idea how wrong she was. We had no generals, no masters dominating our lives.

“It strikes me as unnecessary to point out that we'll keep you on a long leash, but don't try to take advantage,” the policewoman added from the door. “We're fast at picking up runaway shitheads.”

 

Island of Prvic´, Dalmatia.

The tourists had already left for the season and the bay where we'd dropped the
Sylvie
's anchor was dark and silent. The water was chilly and still.

I'd reached my friends, hightailing it out of Padua the exact moment they let me go. I'd picked up an emergency cell phone and alerted them.

We'd arranged to meet in the port city of Å ibenik, which I'd reached by train and bus. That's where Beniamino and Max had picked me up.

I wasn't on the run. The policewoman's words were to be considered with the utmost seriousness. It was just that we needed a little time to talk and make some decisions that were of fundamental importance to our future.

The situation was deadly serious. The minute I came on board I apologized to my friends for having been careless enough to entertain a conversation with Pellegrini.

“You couldn't have guessed it would turn out to be a booby trap,” said Max.

The salt air had done him good and he'd lost a few pounds. His face was baked by the sun and his long hair hung down his neck. Rossini, too, was looking well. His smuggling operation was back up and running, moving goods and people across the Adriatic, and the fat man had been keeping him company.

“It was going to happen sooner or later,” had been his only comment, as he uncorked a bottle of Istrian Malvasia.

We indulged in a lavish dinner before settling down to deal with harsh reality. A long and exhausting discussion during which I was forced to repeat over and over every last word uttered over the phone and at police headquarters.

A little before dawn, in the parlor of the
Sylvie
, silence fell as Max set about making the first espresso of the new day.

“There's only one sure thing about this situation, and that's that once again Giorgio Pellegrini is the linchpin of some obscure criminal operation,” he reflected as he filled the demitasse cups.

“And his death would have the benefit of clearing the table,” old Rossini put in. “All we should do now is find him, kill him, and then settle matters with that bitch from the intelligence agency.”

“And the same for Martina and Gemma's murderers,” I concluded.

Neither of my friends objected. The plan was drawn up or at least sketched out, and there was nothing more to add. Max turned on the radio and tuned it to a station that was broadcasting the six o'clock news. Beniamino switched on the winch and hoisted the anchor.

I went on deck and sat on a chair in the stern to enjoy the view of the sea, the sky, and the island. After days of tension I finally felt tranquil. I didn't have the faintest idea how things were going to turn out, but I'd share my friends' fate and we'd hold our heads high. I couldn't hope for better.