The Puppeteer (11 page)

“You admit you lived with Maltese?”

“You’re a fool, Trotti. A peasant and a fool.”

“Seven disposable syringes—property of the Policlinico,
Milan.” Magagna unwrapped a plastic bag. “And about five grams of a white substance—looks like chalk.” He was grinning.

Guerra took no notice of him. She looked at Trotti. “It’s an escape.”

The cupboard doors were open. Magagna had emptied them of nearly all their contents—unwashed underclothes, scuffed shoes, one or two newspapers. The white powder, the syringes and the whisky stood to one side.

“And what is this?” Magagna had his head inside the cupboard. With both hands, he removed a thin plank of hardboard. “And what is this? And what is this?” Magagna held up a clothbag. He opened it and pulled out a disposable razor. “And a can of shaving cream.”

The girl stared out of the window. With the light on one side of her face, she was thin but strangely beautiful. An unobtainable beauty.

“And,” said Magagna, pulling out a packet, then undoing the envelope of plastic wrapping paper, “several pages of a handwritten manuscript.”

My father was arrested for the first time in September 1960. He spent several weeks in prison but by the second week of October, the investigating magistrate was forced—reluctantly—to admit that there was not sufficient proof against him. Papa was set free and for over a year he lived with us in Piacenza
.

If the enquiring magistrates and the officers of police found my father cold, I can only say that to his family he showed a completely different nature. It was as if the tragic events at Villa Laura had caused him to call into question his entire existence
.

He continued to work in his small dental surgery in via Marconi and it was possibly as a result of the publicity that the press had given him that his dental practice flourished. I do not recall ever having seen him so hard-worked. He was, I think, happy to dedicate himself to the work, for it enabled him to forget about the sword of Damocles that hung over him. As long as no culprit could be found for the murder, he knew that he remained the prime suspect. Papa worked very hard—and we were all grateful for the advantages that the money brought. Papa had always been loath to borrow—he had refused all the gifts that Grandfather Belluno had offered him when they had been on speaking terms—yet the lawyers’ fees had to be met. And this was in the days before you could murder somebody and then live the rest of your life on the royalties from the newspapers
.

Home life continued as normally as was possible. Mama was courageous and set us a fine example. I was still studying for my maturità at the Liceo Ippolito Nievo. Both parents were anxious about my success. They were determined that I should go to university—there was talk of Borromeo or even the Scuola Superiore at Pisa. Looking back, I must say that I think they set their standards a bit high
.

Papa, who had always been for me a distant person—someone who I could speak to rarely—now became for me almost like a school companion. When he was free from the surgery we would spend hours together and we would talk about life. Did he think, perhaps, that he was going to finish out his life in some wretched prison? We would talk about life and Papa was aware of having made a great many mistakes. He regretted the early years that he had frittered away. Sometimes he spoke about Palermo and he was ashamed of himself. Above all, I think he regretted having let down those people who had made sacrifices for him. He did not want me to make the same mistakes
.

Sometimes he spoke of his early years in Argentina
.

Mama, too, was very good to me. And to see us at supper in the small kitchen in via Marconi—the new refrigerator, the photograph that Uncle Orazio had brought back from his audience with the Pope, the fresh smell of homemade lasagne—no one would ever have guessed that we were at the center of a drama which continued to hold the nation’s attention
.

I failed the maturità
.

I don’t know why. I suspect that I did not study hard enough. In a strange way, being the son of the dentist Ramoverde bestowed upon me a kind of mystery that I enjoyed and that I made use of. I suddenly found myself very popular among the girls of my age
.

Papa was upset, even angry. I had let him down. Yet he never raised his voice or told me off. He wanted me to repeat the year. I refused. By now I was nearly nineteen and I had already decided I wanted to be journalist. I toyed with the idea of running away from home, of going to Argentina
.

Perhaps Papa saw in me something of the rebel that he had
once been. I was headstrong, and though this upset him, he was in his own way proud of me
.

It was Uncle Orazio who persuaded me to follow the path of reason. I went back to school in October and only three weeks later, Papa was arrested anew
.

Tenente Trotti of PS came with two officers. They gave Papa half an hour to pack
.

“I
CAN DRIVE
you home, Commissario.”

The smell of roasting coffee and car fumes hovered over the city.

“Take me to the station.”

For a while, neither man spoke. Magagna drove past the Alitalia terminal. The evening air was soft.

“I want you to keep an eye on her, Magagna.”

Magagna lit a cigarette. “Arresting her would have been the sensible thing to do.”

“It’s better to leave her free.” Trotti smiled. “You don’t trust her, Magagna?”

“A policeman shouldn’t trust anybody.”

“She had no reason to lie.”

Magagna shrugged. “We don’t know her real motives.”

“You think she’s involved in Maltese’s death?”

With the warm weather, the prostitutes had come out in force along the boulevards. A few cars were crawling by the curbside. The drivers hid behind sunglasses. Flat, emotionless faces assessed the young women, the cheap wigs and the short skirts.

“They were living together and so she probably knew what Maltese was up to. And she knows who killed him.”

Trotti sucked at his chipped tooth. “Shaving soap and some underclothes and a few pages of typescript don’t constitute proof of their living together.”

“But it explains why nobody knew where Maltese was living. Maltese was scared and he holed up with her. It makes sense. It wasn’t on a permanent basis—perhaps they weren’t lovers. But it was somewhere where he felt safe. Why else would he have hidden the manuscript with her?”

“The neighbors would have noticed him.”

Magagna inhaled thoughtfully and the red tip of the cigarette glowed. “There’s always a back exit—and perhaps she was in disguise. Maltese was living with her there at least some of the time. He went into hiding after the Night of the Tazebao. He knew his life was in danger and apparently nobody knew he and the girl were friends.”

Trotti turned and looked at Magagna. “Incidentally, how did you manage to find Guerra?”

Magagna shrugged and beneath the sunglasses the lips broke into a grin.

Almost against his will, Trotti smiled too. “Congratulations.”

“I’ve been with Narcotici for eighteen months. I’ve started to build up a nice circle of contacts.”

“Cocaine?”

Magagna frowned. “What?” He braked for the traffic lights at Piazzale Cinque Giornate and his face was tinted by the red light. Behind the police car a driver hooted impatiently.

“The powder you found—it was cocaine?”

“Heroin.” Magagna shook his head. “And poor quality. The sort of stuff that a buyer wouldn’t pay more than two thousand dollars for the kilo. In Afghanistan or Turkey.”

“And how much in Milan?”

Magagna shrugged. “Heroin is morphine that has been processed. Heroin is the stuff she’s killing herself with, the white powder, the stuff she’s got to buy. But Ragusa and his friends import morphine base and they transform it—that’s where the money is. A kilo of morphine can be converted into a kilo of heroin. What some tribal clansman in Pathanistan got paid two thousand dollars for can be sold—once it’s been transformed into heroin—on the street for anything between a hundred and twenty and a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.” He smiled.

“Narcodollars. And with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the prices have gone up—a seller’s market.”

“An expensive habit for the daughter of our late city architect.”

“Nobody made her stick the needle in her arm.”

“But once she did, she was hooked. An addict.”

“We’re all addicts of something or other.” Again the smile as Magagna let out the clutch and the car moved forward. “I know people who get irritable, who show withdrawal symptoms, who almost lose control of themselves if they’re not getting their dose of drugs … of glucose. In the form of rhubarb sweets.”

Trotti laughed. “Or women.”

“Commissario, I’m a married man. I hope you’re not attributing to me improper or immoral thoughts.” He threw the cigarette out of the window. “Nice legs, though. Pity Guerra’s an addict—although I quite like that cadaveric, underfed look. Better than when she was a fat lesbian.”

Trotti’s smile vanished. “I must get home.”

Trotti did not speak again until they reached Lambrate. Magagna parked. Trotti did not wait for him but walked directly onto the platform. It was lit up by the high sodium lamps. On the far side of the tracks stood a long, silent and immobile train. Incomprehensible words and characters were stenciled on the canvas tarpaulins. Beograd, Zagreb.

Magagna approached Trotti.

“I need to find Novara.”

“Go home and rest, Commissario. Maltese’s death isn’t going to go away. There’s no hurry and you should still be in bed. You don’t look well, your face is still bruised …”

“Maltese worked with Novara—and he knew he was risking his life when he gave information about the Banco Milanese and South America. Find Novara—and perhaps we find the explanation behind Maltese’s death.”

“You don’t need to wait for the train, Commissario. Please let me drive you home. I can get you back to your doorstep in under three quarters of an hour—and you won’t have to hang around waiting for the Diretto.”

“I want to go through Maltese’s manuscript again. I can do that on the train.” He paused. “Short, though.”

“Short?”

“For somebody who was a journalist—four pages. Short for somebody who knew that his life was in danger.”

“I’ll drive you home, Commissario.”

Trotti placed his hand on Magagna’s shoulder. “It’s kind of you—and I appreciate it. Forgive me, Magagna, forgive me. I realize what you’re doing for me and I’m grateful.” His face was haggard. “I know it’s not easy for you to take time off the Ragusa thing—I know that.”

A crowd of railway men stood chatting by the open door of the station bar. One wore a raincoat, the others wore their uniforms and their peaked caps of blue. They laughed. The station master held a red stick beneath his arm.

“Guerra knew me and so did Maltese. Yet when he sat down beside me in Gardesana, he didn’t say a word. I didn’t get the impression that there was any recognition. Why was he there? What was he doing?”

Magagna shrugged. “A coincidence.”

“I don’t trust coincidences when people are getting killed.”

“He wanted to speak to you but in private.” Magagna raised his shoulders.

“How did he know I was at Gardesana? The only person who could have possibly known that was Pioppi—or me.”

Magagna lit another cigarillo. A few minutes later, a pair of lights—red and angry, like the eyes of a dog in the gathering dusk crept into the station. The Diretto. Carefully, ponderously, it drew alongside the platform, pulling with it old, dirty carriages.

Magagna assisted Trotti onto the train and accompanied him to a wooden bench. “Sure you don’t want me to take you home?”

The yellow lights of the compartment were turned on.

On the platform, the station master threw away his cigarette. He put a whistle to his mouth.

“Novara,” Trotti said. “I’ve got to find Novara.”

The station master lifted the red stick.

H
E HOBBLED OUT
of the station.

It was not yet ten o’clock but the city was strangely empty.

There was a taxi. Trotti approached it. The man behind the wheel was reading a newspaper. He caught sight of Trotti and climbed out.

“It’s you, Commissario.” He gave Trotti a large, friendly grin that appeared anemic beneath the lights of the railway station. “You’ve hurt your leg.”

“I got into an argument.”

“You must let me take you home.” The man held open the door of the car and helped Trotti onto the back seat. “You don’t look very well.”

“It’s nothing.”

“The rowdy life you lead, Commissario.” He climbed into the driver’s seat and turned on the engine. “How’s your wife?”

“In America.”

“Lucky woman. And Pioppi?”

“At the university and working like a madwoman—determined to get thirty out of thirty for every exam she sits. Thirty summa cum laude.” Trotti added, “And she gets her thirty every time.”

“A clever girl.”

“She gets her intelligence from her mother.”

“And her determination from her father.”

The taxi was new and in good condition.

The driver took the car slowly down the empty road and turned left at the granite statue of Minerva—a stern figure standing above the rising swirls of mist. Angela, the transvestite, stood in a lonely pool of light at the curbside. He was dressed in furs and held his handbag close to his body.

“First time I’ve seen you in a long time, Commissario.”

Trotti shrugged. “Work,” he said.

They stopped at traffic lights.

“And the little girl?” Trotti asked.

The driver laughed. “No longer a little girl, our Anna. Quite a lady. Top of the class all the time—best marks in composition and English. She says she wants to become an interpreter and work at the FAO—whatever that may be.” He laughed, turned in his seat. The large, round face smiled at Trotti. The passing lights flickered across the pale skin. “And she’s like a mother to her baby brother.” He added, “I’ve got a lot to thank you for, Commissario.”