Gang of Lovers (25 page)

In Giulio's mind there was no doubt that all these events were linked and that they'd emerged from the illegal investigation conducted by Marco Buratti into the kidnapping of Guido Di Lello.

He searched house and workshop from top to bottom, but the only impression that he gathered was that Toni and Furio must have been a couple of freaks, given the impressive number of pornographic magazines and movies.

When he emerged, he had to struggle to choke back a panic attack that was about to knock him to the ground, an attack triggered by the wave of rage at having been used by that fool Buratti.

After regaining control of his breathing, he called him.

“How's it going, Alligator?” he started out in a friendly voice.

“Just fine. How are you?”

“Damned worried about the fate of our local
vino novello
,” Campagna replied, working himself up. “I don't drink it myself because I'm horrified at the thought that the vinification takes place with the aid of carbonic maceration. Do you know how that works?”

“No, but I'm sure you're about to explain it,” Buratti replied, resigned.

“Whole bunches of grapes are placed in a stainless steel tank and exposed to a carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere. Chemistry, modern technology . . . you tell me what that has to do with the age-old art of winemaking. But that aside, the problem is that in Italy the law allows vintners to make it with just 30 percent
novello
grapes and the rest with standard wine. And that undermines the reputation of Italian wine because in Japan, for instance, they drink only Beaujolais Nouveau, which is 100 percent
novello
grapes.”

“And all this keeps you up at night,” the Alligator said, needling him.

“No, what's really pissing me off is your silence and unless you start talking right now I am personally going to see to it that you wind up in another kind of stainless steel tank, better known as prison.”

“You really have a nasty personality, Campagna.”

“And you're a dangerous man,” the cop shot back angrily. “What's going to tip the scales of justice when I march you into a courtroom to be tried for the crimes you've committed?”

“Why don't we just drink a glass together first and have a healthy exchange of views on the subject?”

The inspector named the same bar in the Vicenza shopping center where Buratti had met Gemma and Martina.

Buratti understood that Campagna knew more than he should, but it still might be nothing more than a coincidence. “I was there recently,” he said cautiously.

“I know that,” the inspector replied. “The security cameras got footage of you from every conceivable angle, but I'd still like to know what you were talking about with the wife of the now missing Giorgio Pellegrini and her girlfriend.”

“Missing? Really?” Buratti asked, surprised.

“Stop being an asshole,” the cop said. “Let's meet at Livio's place in half an hour.”

“Why do you always pick the worst bars in the Veneto?”

“Evidently you've been gone for a while. Now it's run by a couple of second-generation Chinese who speak our dialect. A splendid example of the integration we're all in favor of,” he said before hanging up.

Campagna was the first to arrive and he took up his post. The couple behind the bar knew him and served him an excellent Sauvignon from Trentino that the policeman had demanded they keep in stock, or else he'd shut the place down. A short while later that shameless scoundrel Buratti made his entrance.

“I'm really pissed off,” Campagna reiterated when the Alligator took a seat across from him. “And I want to walk out of here with a version of events that's going to keep lots of conscientious cops and carabinieri from having to waste time searching for the truth of a case to which you already know the solution. You get it?”

The ex-blues singer nodded. “I can supply you with the answers you're looking for but I'm not giving you any information about my own investigation.”

The cop started to lose it. “Your investigation? Policemen do investigations, at best you gather gossip from the underworld you live in.”

Buratti snorted. “Well, just don't start getting too curious about the gossip, okay?”

“Who killed Togno and the two kid brothers?” asked Giulio.

“Have you already identified them?”

“No. It takes time to analyze human remains but I'm an old-school cop and it didn't take me long to get it. So who did it?”

“Giorgio Pellegrini.”

“And he's still alive.”

“Yes.”

“He was the boss, right?”

“Yes.”

“Is he dead too?”

“No, he just left.”

“Who killed the professor?”

“Toni and Furio. And they enjoyed it.”

“And why did they wind up killing each other?”

“The split on a ransom; a rather lively argument ensued over the percentages.”

“So there was more than one kidnapping.”

“That's right. But the professor's kidnapping was the only one that went wrong.”

Campagna finished his drink in silence. Every so often he'd pop a potato chip into his mouth. “What I know is worthless,” he said. “I can't go to the chief of the Mobile Squad and tell him that I met an informant in a bar who told me these things. I need a solid lead.”

Buratti held up his index finger. “Don't you ever dare call me an informant again, or I'll walk out of here and you'll never see me again.”

“You just remember who I am,” Giulio threatened. “And what I can do to you.”

“Sometimes you're just an overbearing asshole.”

“You want me to beat you bloody?”

“You want me to give you a ‘solid' lead, so you can go back to police headquarters and make a nice impression on your boss? Or not?”

“I'd appreciate that.”

“But then we go our separate ways, once and for all.”

“That depends on what crimes you commit. I'd recommend you avoid armed robberies.”

The Alligator told him to go to hell with an irritated wave of the hand, and then told him he knew where the professor was buried.

“Where?”

“In the Centra brothers' vegetable garden.”

 

The next morning, with the help of a small excavator, the remains of Guido Di Lello were unearthed. Without waiting for the results of a DNA test, the discovery was announced in a press conference which Inspector Campagna failed to attend because he was too busy hunting for Pellegrini. In the absence of any concrete evidence, he hadn't been able to include Pellegrini's name in the report but he wanted to find out where he'd gone into hiding so he could keep an eye on him and arrest him for the first crime he committed. And in fact, he had no doubts: someone like Pellegrini would never abandon his criminal career.

“It's just a matter of time,” he'd repeated to himself over and over throughout the course of the day. Time. The time of a policeman who drags himself from one crime to the next, a cop who gets up every morning and searches for the motivation necessary to go on, fooling himself into believing that the government and the people still have even a shred of respect and consideration for the work that he does.

I'
d called Giannella Marzolo and told her that the case was solved and that I could finally provide answers to the questions that had been tormenting our shared client for far too long now.

“I read in the news that the professor's corpse had been found. Apparently it was an anonymous phone call,” the attorney said.

“The usual tip-off.”

“Oriana isn't ready yet,” Giannella explained. “I'll let you know as soon as she is. And I believe you're going have to wait for the rest of your fee, as well.”

“No problem.”

The attorney called back in mid-November. In the meantime, Max was released from the hospital, Christine went back to France to be with Luc, and old Rossini watched over our safety.

The fat man's convalescence, as he followed the doctor's diet to the letter, was an excuse for putting off all decisions about our future. The tempests that had swept over us in those last few years had stripped us of any taste for or sense of daily routines, so now we pretended to be excited to rediscover their joys.

Attorney Marzolo had given us the use of her home for the meeting with Oriana Pozzi Vitali. The Swiss woman had put on a few pounds but there was no doubt that she looked healthier.

“Did Guido suffer?” she asked in a low voice.

“Unfortunately he did,” I replied. My clients have a right to the truth, however painful.

I summarized our investigation for her. Every now and then she'd break into my account with a slight wave of the hand to ask for an explanation.

Once I was done she sat without speaking for a long time, evidently trying to let every single word soak in.

“I have one last question,” she said. “Did Guido die because I refused to pay?”

“Yes,” I replied, well aware that I was being merciless. “The boss wanted to punish you. It was a cruel and pointless act, but he was offended by your behavior.”

“And this boss died in the fire that burned down the house?”

“No. He's on the run.”

“He's an evil creature, he'll keep hurting people.”

“I can't go into the details but I can assure you that, unlike in the past, he's going to have to be on his guard now, because his life is in danger.”

“Cold comfort,” she objected.

“He traded survival for the truth about your Guido. He was cunning,” I explained, more convinced than ever that Beniamino had made a mistake by ignoring my pleas to kill Pellegrini. I was certain that the day would come when we would regret not having broken our own rules.

The woman changed the subject. “I've arranged to pay your fee.”

“Thank you.”

“And I've decided to throw in the apartment in Padua.”

“But why?”

“I want the place to be inhabited by someone I know. The idea of strangers moving through the rooms where I was once happy, however briefly, is just too bitter a pill.”

“I'm truly grateful.”

Oriana Pozzi Vitali stood up, grabbed her bag, and walked away without so much as a backward glance. Her behavior didn't offend me, quite the opposite. She'd hired me to do a job and she'd paid me the agreed upon sum. Truth for cash. And then we'd each go our separate ways.

 

My way led to Padua, where Max and Beniamino were waiting for me. But I wasn't in a hurry. I wanted to catch my breath. I felt the urgent need of a woman's love. And the compass of my outlaw heart directed me to Berlin, where I joined La Triade, an all-Italian organ trio led by the “mayor” of the blues, Antonio Santirocco.

It had been a long time since I'd last encountered a group that was authentically “possessed by the devil's music.”

Every concert was an event in which each number was given a different interpretation. The mayor was on drums, Bob, a gray-haired bespectacled fifty-year-old with a degree in philosophy was on keyboards, and Babe, just forty and a well-known photojournalist, was on guitar.

We all became good friends. Every so often I gathered the courage to go onstage and perform the old songs in my repertoire as if I was telling stories. And that's how I met Huri, a Turkish-German whore in her forties, in Hamburg. She was pretty, sweet, and irresistibly charming. I noticed how she stared at me as I recalled a love story from high school, then she invited me to sit at her table where she was drinking all alone, and finally we got in her car and fled south, drunk and happy.

Huri actually was fleeing. It wasn't the first time, either. The problem was that she had done nothing to prepare and her pimp Günther tracked us down in Stuttgart in a squalid one-star hotel with an unlikely name: the Edelweiss. It was popular with prostitutes and the night clerk sold us out for a couple of fifty-euro notes.

Günther's musclemen had come with very bad intentions, but my girl managed to calm everyone down by begging their forgiveness and promising to work twice as hard from now on. I got away with nothing worse than a cracked rib.

Before leaving, Huri blew me a kiss. “I'm on the street again,” she said with a shrug.

I'm on the road again
. I left that rat's nest without regrets and by no means proud of myself. My affair with Huri had been a mistake from the start. For both of us. And in any case, it wasn't what I needed. I put the blame on the alcohol and bought a train ticket to Berlin. But I never got there.

Around Leipzig I got a phone call from old Rossini.

“There's a guy who's looking for you. He says he's in trouble.”

“Who is he?”

“An old friend.”

In our jargon, that meant we'd met him in prison.

“From your tone of voice, it doesn't seem like he's someone you particularly like.”

“He's actually a pretty nice guy but he works in a sector we don't particularly like.”

“Then tell him to go to hell.”

“It's not that simple and after all, this is your decision. This is your problem. He wants to hire you as a peacemaker.”

That detail caught my interest. “Fine. As soon as I find an airport, I'll catch the first flight out.”

Beniamino hung up. And I started searching for information on the web on my smartphone. Now I was in a hurry to get back. A damned hurry.