The Deliverance of Evil (21 page)

“Three visits,” Piccolo said.

Colajacono had a boxer’s crooked nose, and the nostrils flared now. His thin mouth stretched into a sneer. He turned slowly to Piccolo.

“That’s right, that fucking Romanian whore. She came three times, as if we had nothing better to do.”

“Tell us about the first time,” Piccolo said evenly.

“She came early Christmas morning. It was still dark; Tatò and I were there alone. I opened the door and this whore started jabbering away about some other whore who hadn’t come back. I didn’t give a fuck, obviously. I didn’t even let her into the station. I had bigger things to worry about.”

“On Christmas?” The disbelief in Piccolo’s voice was plain.

“Listen, sweetheart, we deal with scum like her every day at our station. We’ve got Casilino 900 with six hundred and fifty of them, and it’s not the only camp in our precinct. These people are criminals. They’re animals. If we didn’t watch them day and night, they’d be attacking all the women, children, and elderly in the neighborhood. We’ve got our hands full.”

“Still, you should have let her file a report,” Piccolo insisted.

Colajacono shot her a scornful look. “You have balls to sit here in your fancy office in the center of Rome and tell me what I should have done. Litter’s the worst crime you see here. Street sweepers in paradise, that’s you.” He spat on the floor. His lawyer whispered something in his ear.

“Tell us what you felt when you opened the door and saw Iordanescu there,” continued Piccolo.

He looked at her in annoyance. “What did I feel? What the fuck should I have felt?”

“I don’t know,” Piccolo replied. “Surprise, fear—”

“Fear?” Colajacono interrupted, and his lawyer placed a hand on his arm. “Me, scared of a whore?”

Balistreri stuck a half-smoked cigarette in his mouth. It was the signal agreed with Piccolo. It was time to hand over.

“You weren’t surprised to see the young woman at the station?” Balistreri asked.

Colajacono looked at him and for the first time hesitated. In the end he decided that it was wise to have an escape route ready.

“Well, a little, yes, in the moment.”

“And wasn’t the young woman surprised to see you there?”

Colajacono’s lawyer interrupted. “Captain, this conversation is taking a cryptic turn that I don’t like at all. Just be direct with your questions.”

“The question was crystal clear, but I’ll repeat it: given that Deputy Captain Colajacono wasn’t surprised to see Iordanescu, even though he’d already met her, we were wondering whether Iordanescu was surprised to see him there in uniform, having met him a few days earlier in plain clothes outside a nightclub.”

The lawyer quickly turned to Colajacono. “Don’t say a word.” Then he turned back to Balistreri. “The voluntary statement session is terminated. If you want to ask additional questions, follow the proper procedures.”

Colajacono raised his huge form up and, standing a few inches taller than Balistreri, placed himself in front of him, staring at him with open disdain.

“Well, are you going to arrest me, or am I free to go?” His breath smelled of garlic and whiskey.

Balistreri lit his cigarette. The interview was over. What disturbed him more than Colajacono was the clearly visible Italian newspaper mentioned in Mastroianni’s report. He knew what it meant.

. . . .

As a youth, Coppola had been a warehouseman at the NATO base in Naples and had learned a little English. So for him to be given the job of asking a few questions of the witness who had observed the fight outside the Bella Blu between the bouncer Camarà and the motorcyclist was a gratifying recognition of his linguistic ability. Thus he switched from Romanian prostitutes to a young American professional who worked for a multinational, a category that in Coppola’s mind consisted only of superior beings.

Midmorning, the bar in Piazza di Spagna was full of the citizens of Rome who were both wealthy and idle. The north wind had cleared the sky, which was now an intense blue, and you could look down below on Piazza del Popolo, filled with tourists. They sat outside under the veranda next to a gas heater that made the temperature acceptable.

Fred Cabot was in his thirties, a young man with a likable manner. Coppola immediately reassured him that he was fluent in his language. “I speak American,” he said.

Cabot ordered a juice and Coppola ordered a cappuccino and a cream-filled pastry.

“I love Rome. Houston, where I come from, is very modern. Everything is so old here.”

Between Cabot’s Texas accent and the fact that, as Coppola was quickly realizing, his English was pretty rusty, Coppola could only understand half of what Cabot was saying. He pulled out a sheet of paper. He’d written out the questions with the aid of a dictionary. The waiter brought their order.

“Please tell me about the night of December 23.”

“Well, you know, it was late. I’d been to a bunch of clubs and I was drunk.
Ubriaco, sì
? I wanted one last drink.”

“And some girls?” Coppola asked with a wink.

The American laughed. “Yeah, but a drink first.”

“What time did you arrive at the Bella Blu?”

“I think it was two o’clock, maybe a little later. This black guy was at the door and he wanted to pat me down. He was just starting when a motorcycle stopped in the middle of the road and the rider yelled something, and then he rode away.”

“What did he say? What language?”

“I don’t really know. Italian or Spanish, I guess. It was something bad, though, because the black guy was angry,” Cabot recalled.

“Where did the motorcycle come from?”

“Well, I’m not sure, but my impression is that it was just around the corner. I heard the engine starting.”

“Did you see the person?” Coppola asked.

Cabot thought about it. “The guy wore a helmet.”

Not having understood a word, Coppola held up a hand in desperation to stop him. He pulled out a pocket dictionary and with a melancholy air looked up “whore.” With surprise he found it meant “prostitute.” A prostitute in a helmet, that is, a crash helmet. And then he seemed to recall that “queer” meant a homosexual. This was a real tangle—a prostitute in a crash helmet on a bike with a gay guy.

“But how did you know she was a prostitute?”

Cabot looked at him as if he’d just swallowed the cup as well as the cappuccino. Then he burst out laughing.

“No, no,” he said, trying to contain himself. “‘Wore’ is the past tense of ‘to wear.’ He had on a helmet.”

“Okay,” Coppola said, not fully understanding, “so this person yelled at the black man. The black man yelled back. He got on a motorcycle and went away.”

Cabot nodded.

“And do you remember the motorcycle?” Coppola asked.

“It was a nice bike. Fast. But it was kind of strange.”

Coppola shook his head sadly. His English needed refreshing. He’d understood that the bike was large, but for the rest he needed a dictionary. With some relief he said good-bye to Fred Cabot, who was leaving for the United States the following day, yet with the clear feeling of his having missed something important.

. . . .

Giulia Piccolo was unsettled. The decision to bring Rudi home had been made on the spur of the moment. Now, in the cold light of day, the positive side to it was still there but the problems had also become clear. The most troubling of these wasn’t what other people might think, but why she had made the decision. She felt lonely, that was true. Indeed, she was lonely, and had been for a long time, ever since the moment Francesca had left. And Rudi was excellent company—sensitive, witty, gay, and very handsome.

Where does a good-looking Albanian homosexual fit into the mess your life’s in? Serious wounds can’t be healed by the dying. Neither one of us is what we’d like to be and together we’re even less where we’d like to be.

She arrived at the restaurant around ten. She’d telephoned the manager to make sure that he’d be there at that unusual time with the waiter who’d served Mircea and Nadia. She was greeted by a well-dressed man in his forties in a jacket and tie, whose shoes were in need of cleaning. The waiter, on the other hand, was nearer seventy than sixty, and below his slightly greasy white jacket the zipper of his black pants was open.

“I’m Carpi. I’ve been waiting for you.”

The restaurant was quite large and had two dining areas, one for smokers. The menu was translated into English, French, and Japanese. In other words, it was a typical tourist spot in the historic center. The walls were lined with photos of actors and actresses who had probably never set foot in the place.

Carpi pointed to the waiter. “Tommaso here served them. He recognized the couple from the photos you sent.”

Piccolo turned to the seventy-year-old. “Did you recognize him or her?”

“I remember the girl very well. She was pretty.”

“All right,” Piccolo said. “Now tell me everything you can remember from the moment they came in, starting with what time it was.”

“I’m not sure of the exact time, but they had a reservation. He said he’d booked a table in the smoking section, and he made a stink about it. Luckily we’re never full, so I was able to accommodate them.”

“And where did they sit?”

Tommaso led her to the smoking section and pointed. “I offered him a table in the middle and he said he wanted to have his back to the wall. Like a Mafia don or something. You know how Romanians are.”

Piccolo could have done without the commentary. “What did you do?”

“I switched tables and gave him the one he wanted. Then I took their order. She spoke in Romanian and he translated. He ordered penne all’arrabbiata, but she didn’t order a pasta course.”

“You remember an order from a week ago?”

“He busted my balls about that, too. He said the penne weren’t spicy enough. Basically, he did nothing but complain from the minute he set foot in the place.”

“Did they talk to each other?”

“He did all the talking, but they were pretty quiet.”

“Anything else unusual that you remember?”

“Well, yes. To begin with, he was taking it really easy—they were here for more than two hours. You know, couples usually only stay here a short time; they eat and then go off to—”

“Tommaso!” said Carpi, rebuking him.

“But the guy went on sipping away at the wine until he’d finished the bottle, while the girl drank only water. Then he ordered dessert, then coffee, some bitters, then a whiskey. And then in the end he raised his hand to her. You know how those Romanians treat women. These people really don’t know how to treat a lady. An Italian would never dream of—”

“Did he actually hit her?” Piccolo asked.

“Not exactly. I was in the other room, but I heard him yelling at her, and then a loud sound, like a slap. So I went in and she was holding her face in her hands and everyone at the other tables was looking at them. And the man turned to the other customers and said, ‘Mind your own fucking business.’ Then he left two fifty-euro bills on the table, got his leather jacket from the coatroom, and left.”

“And the girl?”

“She sat there for a while, as if she didn’t know what to do.”

“How much was the bill?” Piccolo asked.

Tommaso looked at Carpi. “I don’t recall.”

“More or less,” Piccolo insisted, “given that the girl ate little and drank water . . .”

“Probably around seventy euros,” Carpi said.

“Did you bring her the change?”

“Yes, I remember she left a good tip.”

“All right.” Piccolo turned to Carpi. “Would you have a look through the receipts for that evening?”

Useless question, Piccolo. Imagine them giving an official receipt to foreigners.

After a moment, Carpi came back with a receipt for eighty euros.

“Tommaso, what time did the Romanian leave?” Piccolo asked.

“About eleven thirty.”

Piccolo held the receipt out to Carpi and pointed to the date and time:
December 23, 10:15 p.m.

“Couldn’t you find something a little more believable?”

The manager blushed and returned to the cash register.

She asked the waiter, “Did you escort her to the door?”

“I saw her leave. She was wearing a raincoat that was too long for her—it touched the ground.”

Nadia didn’t own a coat. She’d borrowed Ramona’s.

“And did you see which way she went?”

“She stood outside and looked around, as if she was thinking about where to go. Then she nodded to someone and turned left toward Piazza del Popolo.”

. . . .

Corvu was worried about Balistreri. After the Samantha Rossi business and the stuff about the camps, now there was Colajacono, too. The possible indictment of a deputy captain of police who was extremely popular with his colleagues and locals was not going to go over well.

He had checked and everything was confirmed. On December 24 the four Romanian employees had left Marius Travel and arrived at Casilino 900 a little after six. But Hagi had stopped by his house to pick up presents for the children. Colajacono’s alibi checked out, too, but in both men’s stories there was a gap of one hour—enough time to pick Nadia up on Via di Torricola.

Corvu was dissatisfied though. Investigative work was undertaken with one percent intuition and ninety-nine percent sheer analytic drudgery. You could only develop an intuition on the basis of analysis, and the facts were so damned few.

At ten o’clock he was told that the Ukrainian prostitute who had seen the vehicle had arrived. Corvu had permission to use Balistreri’s office instead of his little glass cubicle when he had to make an impression on anyone brought in for questioning.

The girl was slender and petite, with a lively little face that was both kind and makeup free under straight black hair with purple streaks. She looked even younger than her twenty years.

“What’s your name?” Corvu felt a little embarrassed. He had been expecting a slut and she was more like a schoolgirl.

“Natalya. What’s yours?”

Suddenly taken aback by her familiar manner, Corvu blushed and stammered as he said “Graziano.”

He offered her the armchair in front of Balistreri’s desk and sat down in the one next to it. He didn’t want to sit in Balistreri’s swivel chair and intimidate her.