The Deliverance of Evil (51 page)

“Piccolo, put the gun away and put the cuffs back on him.”

Balistreri tried to remain icily calm, but the restlessness he felt a little earlier was slowly becoming agitation. Something was not right. It was as if the shocks of a distant earthquake epicenter were approaching.

The truth is never a straight line. The truth is a circle. The first letter, before Elisa Sordi.

. . . .

The call came on Angelo Dioguardi’s cell phone while he was out on Linda Nardi’s terrace. It was nearly five thirty in the afternoon.

He went back into the apartment. She was sitting on the sofa bundled up in a heavy sweater, even though it was warm outside.

“That was Father Paul. He needs to talk to me about something important. I’m supposed to meet him at San Valente in an hour.”

She nodded sadly. Perhaps the decisive moment had arrived. She smiled at him and caressed his hand tenderly. “Thanks, Angelo.”

. . . .

The road signs announced that the Sabaudia exit was less than a mile away.

“We’ve nearly reached our destination, Corvu. Take the exit for Sabaudia,” Hagi said. On her cell phone, Piccolo notified the officers in the cars in front and behind.

The five cars turned and took the long tree-lined avenue into Sabaudia’s white central square with its bell tower and blocky Fascist-era buildings.

They drove toward the beach. The seafront was full of cars, parked among the sand dunes, and beautiful villas overlooking the sea. They proceeded under the still blinding sunshine opposite the sea crowded with swimmers, surrounded by families dressed in swimwear and carrying ice cream and rubber rafts. Hagi had chosen the most absurd setting: here death could slowly fill the space that life occupied in the way that a colorless and odorless—but lethal—gas could invade a beautiful living room full of people.

“The gate to the next villa is open. Park in front of it,” Hagi said. He looked at Balistreri’s watch. “Good, it’s almost five thirty, so we’re slightly ahead of schedule. Now I can tell you exactly what to do so as not to make this a wasted trip.”

“And what do we have to do?” asked Balistreri patiently.

“My assistant is in the villa with the girl. Since five o’clock he’s been holding a pistol pointed at her temple, so if you attempt to enter, Fiorella Romani will die. You’ll have to let me go in alone and convince him you’re going to find out who killed Elisa Sordi.”

“No fucking way,” Corvu blurted.

“As you wish,” Hagi said calmly.

“Did your assistant know you’d be here at this time?” Balistreri asked.

“Of course. He knew he had to call your cell phone at one and he did so. If I don’t arrive by five thirty, he’ll kill her. As you can see, we leave nothing to chance,” Hagi said looking pleased with himself.

He’s enjoying himself; it’s his big show. But he’s got a surprise finale in store for us.

A five-year-old girl knocked on the car window, smiling and shaking an ice cream cone. Hagi waved at her. A man with few days to live, in handcuffs. And yet he was as happy and peaceful as a little kid on a field trip. Trouble was brewing. Balistreri had left Rome believing he had the situation under control: he knew who had killed Elisa Sordi, he knew who was waiting for them in Sabaudia. But now he wasn’t so sure.

“Give me your word that Fiorella’s still alive and will come out of there,” Balistreri said.

“I’ll need time to explain all the lies that were told in 1982 to my assistant and convince him that you’re getting to the truth. But I swear on my wife’s memory that Fiorella Romani will be returned alive to her family.”

“I can’t take off your handcuffs,” Balistreri said, “and I’ll stay outside and call out to you every so often. If you don’t answer, we’ll come in.”

Hagi smiled. “Okay, but don’t be concerned about my safety, Balistreri. My assistant would never harm me. And now I must go or it’ll be too late.”

They let him out. The thin little man in handcuffs was unsteady on his feet. He coughed and spat some blood onto the pavement under the brutal sun. Hagi paused a moment to contemplate the sea and the cheery scene around him. Looking at him in that moment, Balistreri felt certain that he, too, was suspended with Hagi in the no man’s land between life and death.

Then Hagi went in.

. . . .

Hagi had been inside for a half-hour. Balistreri, Corvu, and Piccolo waited nervously under a tree in the yard, a few yards away from sunbathers on the beach. The police had the villa completely surrounded. Chief of Police Floris was in direct communication by cell phone. Every so often Balistreri called in to Hagi, who replied, “Everything’s fine. We’re still talking.”

At five minutes past six, Hagi calmly came to the door. He addressed Balistreri.

“My assistant wants you to swear to him in person that you’ll be able to catch Elisa’s killer.”

Corvu said, “Captain Balistreri’s not coming in, and you’re coming out of there right now.”

Hagi looked at Balistreri. “I swore on the memory of my late wife that Fiorella Romani is inside here, alive. If you’ll come in, I swear to you that Fiorella will go back to Rome, alive. Otherwise . . .”

Balistreri knew that only by going into that house would the girl be saved. He looked at the beach, bubbling over with life, then at the dark door of the villa. He was ready to pay his debt. Absurdly, Angelo Dioguardi’s face on television and his senseless bluff came into his mind.

He was risking everything.

He turned to Corvu and Piccolo. “All right. If I don’t come out with Fiorella Romani after twenty minutes, break the doors down and come in.”

He saw Piccolo angrily wipe away a tear of frustration and heard Corvu swear in Sardinian. There were further discussions and objections, but Balistreri calmed down his deputy officers, then followed Hagi into the villa. It was six fifteen.

. . . .

At six twenty Angelo and Linda embraced on the landing.

“Are you sure?” she asked one more time. This was the point of no return.

“Yes,” he said, stepping into the elevator. He was gathering the chips and sweeping them toward himself as the decisive hand of the game was dealt.

. . . .

The house was cool and shady with the shutters closed and the lights out. They went into the living room. Fiorella was blindfolded, gagged, handcuffed, and tied to a chair, but she was alive.

“I’m from the police, Fiorella. I’m going to get you out of here and take you home in a few minutes.” She jerked mutely on the chair. Balistreri stroked her hair reassuringly.

Hagi was sitting in an armchair. The gun in his handcuffed hands was pointing directly at Balistreri.

“Sit down, Balistreri. We still have some things to say to each other before we say good-bye forever.”

Balistreri sat down opposite Hagi. He was ready to look evil in the face.

Today your life has to end in order to save an innocent girl
.

“I expect you to keep your promise, Mr. Hagi,” Balistreri said, indicating Fiorella.

“I always keep my promises, Balistreri. But I always avenge the wrongs I’ve suffered. This is our last meeting.”

He seemed like Lucifer in person. Dark shadows under his eyes, the thick eyebrows, his eyes a feverish red.

“Light me one last cigarette, Balistreri, and put it on that table without coming any closer.”

Holding the gun in one hand, Hagi took the lit cigarette in the other cuffed hand and stuck it in his mouth. The sunlight filtered in from outside, along with the muffled sounds of the beachgoers. The barrier between life and death was a flimsy wooden shutter discolored by the sun and the salt air.

Hagi inhaled the smoke greedily, at ease in the armchair. He was enjoying every moment of his victory. He seemed to be in no hurry at all.

“Why have you done all this, Hagi? Plotting with a maniac killer for an accomplice and also with the secret intelligence service, then all those deaths among your Romanian friends, too.”

“They were my troops, Balistreri, and they died in a war against your civilized people who are nothing more than deceiving bigots, whorish wives, and corrupt police, like those who plotted with Elisa Sordi and urged Alina to turn against me. But they will all pay for their guilt.”

“I can understand the vendetta against Valerio Bona, Anna Rossi, and the cardinal. And I can understand the one against me, because I let Elisa’s real killer go free. But what have the secret intelligence service, the Roma, ENT, and Dubai got to do with it?”

Hagi greedily took a few last drags on the cigarette.

“One year ago I was diagnosed with lung cancer. Incurable. I had to move quickly, and a war requires soldiers and allies, Balistreri.”

“But you unleashed the hatred of the Italian people on the Roma, you and the part of the secret intelligence service that lets itself be used that way.”

“The secret intelligence service used me and I used them, Balistreri. I wanted revenge, and they wanted to subvert once and for all the political bargain that’s kept this rotten country going for the past sixty years. They counted on doing it by setting off a wave of general and uncontrollable violence against the Roma people. We gave each other a helping hand with great pleasure.”

“That will never happen, however. The Italians have many defects; perhaps they are racist, hypocritical conformists and corrupt, but they’re opposed to violence. There will never be an uprising against the Roma, much less against Romanians.”

“You’re mistaken, Balistreri. Mistaken once again. The next death will be a truly dreadful one. The victim will be a young Italian woman, and she’ll be butchered to death. The Italians will certainly rise up.” He gave a diabolical smile and a sneer. “And you, Balistreri, will be on the front line leading the slaughter.”

You only deliver suffering to those who survive, not to the dead. Eternal suffering.

“You coughed on purpose while they were raping Samantha and while you were speaking to Vasile on the phone. You smashed the headlight on the Giulia GT on purpose to help the investigation along. And finally, you chose Nadia just because she was connected to you, to lead the police to you, so you’d be captured and brought here.”

Hagi’s ice-cold eyes stared at him in irony. The glow of his last drag on the cigarette lit up his face in the darkness. “Are you afraid at last, Balistreri?”

Hagi was only one half of the evil. The other half was the Invisible Man who had killed the girls and who had spared his life that night on the hill.

Balistreri felt the cold knife blade of fear pressing against him. He hadn’t feared death since that moment thirty-six years earlier when he had stopped liking himself. But this fear was worse than fear of death—he felt the fear of dying while still alive. A punishment demanded by the devil, not by God.

. . . .

The Invisible Man was feeling euphoric and a little depressed at the same time. In a little while his debt would be settled. By that evening all his enemies would be dead and his grand plan implemented. He thought about Balistreri at that moment miles away and allowed himself to smile.

Nothing compared with what he will suffer later. And later I will no longer have a mission to accomplish.

He had left Sabaudia at a quarter to three, when his informant confirmed the departure of five police cars from Regina Coeli, one carrying Marius Hagi. Before leaving he had had time to eat sea bass baked in salt with an excellent glass of white wine in a restaurant near the villa that looked out onto the sea.

He had arrived in Rome at five o’clock, in time for his first task, which he handled with great facility. Another debt paid, another enemy eliminated.

At a quarter past six he parked below the apartment. At twenty-five past he saw the man leaving in his car. The trick had worked. For an hour she would be alone while Hagi kept Balistreri busy in the Sabaudia villa. More than enough time to really enjoy himself and leave the traces of evidence collected by Hagi in Casilino 900 to implicate the Roma.

He decided to wait ten minutes, to make sure the other man didn’t come back. It was now six thirty. Another five minutes.

. . . .

At six thirty Balistreri suddenly got up from his chair. Hagi did nothing to stop him, only followed him with the pistol in his hand. He had understood what was going on: Hagi wanted to keep him there as long as possible, but was not authorized to kill him. This was Hagi’s pact with the Invisible Man.

He quickly crossed the hall and opened the door to the cellar. Immediately he smelled the sickening odor of death. He didn’t even think of taking out his Beretta. While he went down the wooden steps he felt every step taking him closer to both evil and the truth.

He came down into a dark humid place, Hagi behind him with the pistol in his hand. Light was filtering in from a door at the end of the room. The smell of death was coming from it. He opened the door wide.

Francesco Ajello was stretched out on his back, naked, his wrists and ankles bound to the four corners of a bed, his castrated testicles and penis stuck in his mouth. His guts had been torn out from a huge gash in his abdomen and were spread over the sheet and the tiled floor.

Balistreri staggered and retched. Hagi gave him a push and made him fall into the vomit, guts, and blood. Then he pointed the gun at him. “Stay right where you are.”

In a flash of understanding, Balistreri remembered that Hagi was only trying to stall for time and wouldn’t shoot him.

In desperation, he forced himself to get to his feet. Hagi stepped back three paces and put the pistol in his handcuffed hands up to his temple. He stared at him one last time, his demonic eyes burning with a lifetime of hate.

“The first letter is a Y, and you’re as good as dead, Balistreri.”

Then Hagi pulled the trigger. It was six thirty five.

. . . .

At six thirty five the Invisible Man again meticulously checked the pistol he had used a little while ago, the scalpel used for the incisions still dark with Ajello’s blood, and the skeleton keys he used to open the doors. He had forty-five minutes in which to simulate a break-in and a robbery. In a plastic bag he had hairs and fingernail fragments from two Roma in Casilino 900 that Hagi had given him.