Big Italy (12 page)

L
IKE DRIVING THROUGH
watery anisette.

Trotti sat beside Pisanelli in silence. It was freezing in the old Citroën and Pisanelli concentrated on his driving, leaning forward over the steering wheel, trying to peer through the thick fog now whitened by the street lamps.

They went under the ring road, finally completed after twenty years, and took the turning for Melegnano. No sooner had the last lamp fallen behind them than the fog became an almost impenetrable pitch-black.

Pisanelli drove slowly, following the line of the ditch that separated the provincial road from the rice fields.

Occasionally a voice spoke over the two-way radio Pisanelli had installed in the car. A woman’s voice, reassuringly metallic and timeless.

Trotti looked at the speedometer. The needle wavered at thirty-five kilometers per hour. Trotti huddled down into his waxed jacket; he felt dirty, and beneath a pair of trousers he was still wearing his pajamas. His feet were cold under the two pairs of unmatching socks. There was sleep in his eyes.

Too old to be driving across the Po valley in the middle of a December night. The taste of sweet coffee mixed with bile rising from his stomach.

They traveled without speaking for twenty minutes, only once overtaking another vehicle, a bundle of a man sitting astride a squat Vespa that was immediately engulfed into the fog behind them.

Through the darkness, suddenly strangely near and quite silent,
Trotti saw the revolving blue lamp; then the red taillights. Finally he saw the spotlight. It was directed downwards and it was only at the last moment that he caught sight of its uncertain rim on the cold, wet earth.

“Thanks for fetching me, Pisa.”

Pisanelli did not reply. He pulled the aging Deux Chevaux on to the edge of the road, the front wheel only centimeters from the open ditch. Trotti had to wait for Pisanelli to get out before he could slide across the seat. He caught his sleeve on the stupid gear lever.

Polizia di Stato and a car of the Polizia Stradale. There was also another van, and in the flashing light Trotti read the inscription:
ASSESSORATO ALL
’
ECOLOGIA/PROVINCIA DI MILANO
.

The lamp on the police Campagnola was pointing down into the water of the stream. Two men in city shoes were leaning over the corpse. One looked up and recognizing Trotti, gave him a weary smile. “You got here fast, Rino.”

Piero Trotti had seen his first corpse at the end of the war, and during his years in the Questura, Trotti had subsequently been required to deal with many dead bodies, some in an advanced state of decomposition. Each time the sight of death remained a shock. The sudden, abrupt end. The indignity. The complete futility of death—or perhaps worse, the implicit, unmentionable corollary: the futility of life.

A dead body was always a painful sight. When the dead body was a friend or an acquaintance, it was still more painful—a lot more painful. A face that he had once known, features that Trotti had once recognized, now frozen into terminal immobility. An end to the familiar intonation, an end to the mannerisms, the ticks, to the shared moments, to the shared passage through this life.

Trotti knew it was Bassi even though Pisanelli had not spoken a word.

He tried to force himself into adopting the well-worn professional approach. A matter of habit, but a habit that now deserted him. Before the reality of the pale face, the lolling tongue and the sightless eyes, the damp black hair no longer able to hide Bassi’s incipient baldness, Trotti felt angry and ill.

(Despite the cold, Trotti could smell the stench of the polluted water.)

He crouched down and he noticed that Bassi was wearing his camel coat, that the tie was still undone at his neck. Even
in death, Mister FBI had been faithful to his American models, only instead of the end coming in exotic Flatbush, Brooklyn, or beneath the Verazzano Bridge, Fabrizio Bassi had been dispatched, shot in the head and possibly drowned, in a foul-smelling tributary of the Lambro, between the dark rice fields and the Strada provinciale 22 to Melegnano.

The ambulance arrived, lit up by two revolving blue lights. An orange strip and a schematic snowdrop along the side. Two men jumped out from the rear.

Trotti turned back to Pisanelli, who was leaning against the bonnet of the Campagnola. “Pisa, give me one of your Esportazione.”

“W
HY DID YOU
come looking for me, Pisa?”

“Thought you might be interested.”

“Three years that I haven’t worked on a murder case.”

“Bassi was a friend of yours, wasn’t he?” Pisanelli said sourly. He was driving with caution, following the irrigation ditch.

At regular intervals, they drove past a billboard advertising furs or parmesan cheese or Pirelli tires, standing in isolation like abandoned sentinels, caught in the yellow beams and then forgotten. It was still another half-hour before the sun rose to the east. Pisanelli added, “Poor bastard.”

“Bassi was never my friend.”

“He worked for you, commissario.”

“You worked for me. Nobody’s ever accused us of being friends.”

“Thank you for those kind words.”

“Bassi was kicked out of the Questura.”

“You know why, commissario.”

“Because it suited the Questore and all the Questore’s Socialist friends.”

“Socialists? I’m not sure I know that word.”

“You should do, Pisa—they ruled this country for long enough.”

“And now they’ve gone the way of the dinosaurs. Only to be replaced by new dinosaurs.”

“I thought you voted for the Lega Lombarda.”

“Of course I did. We’ve now got a bright new Lega mayor but it’s really not too hard to see the Leghisti are just the same as the Socialists. The same or worse.” Pisanelli suddenly grinned. “There
was talk of bringing out a commemorative stamp to Bettino Craxi, our Socialist prime minister—only they were afraid people would spit on the wrong side of the stamp.”

Trotti smiled perfunctorily.

“The Questore had Bassi thrown out of the police because Bassi was screwing the mayor’s wife.”

“The Questore was jealous?”

“A couple of weeks ago Bassi came looking for me.”

“I know.”

The radio continued softly emitting its metallic monologue, only now it was a man’s voice.

“How do you know?”

“He told me.”

Trotti turned and looked at Pisanelli. In the feeble light of the dashboard, he looked prematurely aged and weary; Pisanelli was gnawing at his lip.

“Bassi talked to you?”

“Yes, commissario.”

“What did he tell you?”

“Seemed to think we were friends.” Pisanelli shrugged and then fell silent.

“We?”

“Bassi for some strange reason believed you and I were friends.”

For a moment, Trotti did not speak. He could feel Pisanelli’s resentment and for once he did not know what to say. Or perhaps Trotti could not bring himself to say the words he should have said a long time ago.

“Thanks for coming to fetch me, Pisa—even if it meant destroying my cyclamen plant.”

“I’ll buy you another one.”

“What made you come looking for me?”

Pisanelli pursed his lips.

“Why, Pisa?”

“Bassi wasn’t very intelligent.”

“Not if he thought you and I were friends.”

“Not very sharp. And perhaps he wasn’t particularly honest. He wasn’t my cup of tea. A womanizer with a dick bigger than his brain.”

“I wouldn’t know. Both organs atrophied away many years ago.” Trotti grimaced. “In my case.”

“Too many boiled sweets.”

“Why d’you come out to via Milano and pull me out of bed?”

“Away from your seventy-two-year-old girlfriend?”

“You’re talking about my cousin.”

“Incest?” Pisanelli grinned again and steam rose from his nostrils. “Best to keep it in the family.” He continued to peer at the road.

Trotti sighed.

From time to time a truck went past in the opposite direction, trundling northwards to the metropolitan area of Milan, to the sprawling, sleeping hinterland.

Trotti had forgotten that his feet were cold, he had forgotten the taste of the cigarette and the bile rising in his throat. “What made you come for me? I thought you were angry with me.”

“They treated Bassi like dirt. He’d done nothing wrong—other than getting into bed with the wrong woman. They kicked him out of the Polizia and he had to go into private investigation. Cheap divorce work that I wouldn’t even give to my dog. And instead of finishing out his career in the Questura, warming his fat backside on a radiator like the rest of us, drinking instant coffee and grappa, he’s now dead in a ditch.”

“You didn’t know he was dead.”

“I knew it was Bassi—and I knew he’d seen you.”

“Thanks,” Trotti said simply. “I appreciate your thinking of me.”

“You want me to drop you off in via Milano?” Pisanelli asked flatly. “You’ve got mud all over your pajamas.”

“Are you hungry?”

Pisanelli shook his head without taking his eyes from the road.

“I thought you were angry with me, Pisanelli.”

“What on earth for, Commissario Trotti?”

“Angry with me because you’re not married.”

Pisanelli hesitated, bit his lip and was about to speak when Trotti held up his hand. “Perhaps we should have a look at Bassi’s bureau first.”

“I’m thirty-nine years old and I’m still unmarried. A single man, commissario, with no wife and no children to go home to. I think I’ve got a lot to thank you for.”

“Let’s go to Bassi’s place.”

“I’ve got better things to do, commissario. Like sleeping.”

Trotti started to laugh. “You shouldn’t have got me out of bed, Pisa. Now let’s go to Bassi’s office.” He slapped the younger man’s shoulder. “Then I can treat you to breakfast. Care for a rhubarb sweet?”

“Y
OU THINK BASSI
’
LL
complain? He’s dead.”

They had reached the first suburbs of the city, the apartment blocks that had been built in the seventies before the piano regolatore began to slow down the sprawling concrete.

“You know where he lives, commissario?”

They were about a kilometer from the Visconti castle, in a well-kept quarter of the city. Trees, public gardens, sufficient parking space for the cars along the streets. “On the left, Pisa. You see that mini-supermarket? Turn left and then you go over the canal.” Trotti’s face was drawn. “You can park over there, next to the van.”

Pisanelli brought the Citroën to a halt, turned off the engine but left the soft crackle of the radio. Together the two men got out into the cold morning and crossed the street, headed towards a four-story building.

Through the swirling cold fog drifted the smell of baking bread.

It was now seven o’clock and there were already people around. Men in winter coats were leaving home, climbing into their cars or walking briskly towards the nearby bus stop.

In this part of town there was no litter on the streets.

“Ten hours of sunlight,” Trotti said. “I hate the winter.”

“Why don’t you retire to Argentina? I thought you had an uncle in Buenos Aires. You’d be happy there.”

“And my pigs?”

They went through a small gate and approached the varnished front door of the building, via Nazioni Unite, 7. There was a camera above the nameplates.

FBI—Fabrizio Bassi Investigations was on the fourth floor.

“You’re going to attract attention, commissario?”

Trotti did not answer but pressed one of the bells.

After a few moments, a small sheet of metal slid back and the peeping, black eye of a camera squinted at them. There was a red light and the squeaky sound of a woman’s petulant voice.

“ENEL.”

As if offended, the camera withdrew and the sheet of metal slid back into place. Another short silence while the two men looked at each other.

Pisanelli smiled. In the feeble light, his face seemed less tired.

Then a click and the front door was released.

“You never told me whether you’re still carrying that Beretta?” Trotti asked as he pushed back the door and they entered the building. It smelt of polish and paint. A couple of bicycles leaned against the stairs.

From somewhere a voice was calling, “Who is it?”

“Electricity, signora. Reading the meters.”

“At this time of the day?” the disapproving female voice replied and there came the angry snap of a door being closed.

They went up stairs of polished marble. The banisters were of iron with a wooden handrail.

“Nice place to have an office.”

Trotti said, “Bassi lives here.”

“You’ve been before, commissario?”

“At the time of his problems in the Questura, I came here.”

“Why?”

“In eighty-eight or in eighty-nine. Time goes by so fast.”

Pisanelli said, “Not for Bassi—not anymore.”

They reached the top floor. Here the apartments were smaller than those on the lower floors because of the slope of the roof.

Pisanelli pointed to an old brass name plate on the left-hand door.
FAMIGLIA BASSI
. “I didn’t know he was married.”

“Divorced,” Trotti said tersely and knocked noisily on the door. “Like most policemen.”

“Or unmarried.”

Trotti knocked again.

No sound.

They waited a minute before Trotti turned the handle.

“Don’t you even have a warrant, commissario?” Pisanelli’s breath was warm on Trotti’s cheek.

The door did not budge. Trotti turned the handle in the opposite direction, leant slightly against the glazed wood and the door moved slowly, ponderously.

The two men entered the apartment.

Pisanelli held a small pistol in his right hand.

“Y
OU
’
VE GOT GLOVES
?”

Pisanelli shook his head. “A Kleenex.” His voice was strained and he seemed out of breath. His fingers were white around the butt of the Beretta.

Trotti took a pair of shabby leather gloves from his coat pocket. “Put these on before you turn on the switch.”