Big Italy (2 page)

On the wall hung the price list in felt, with inserted white characters. Beneath it was a shelf and a vase of dried flowers. On the pink cloth of the table lay a discarded copy of the morning’s
Repubblica
, stiffened by a wooden rod.

Trotti unfurled his scarf and unzipped his jacket before sitting down. He rubbed his hands, the warmth quickly returning. He picked up the paper. The reading glasses that Pioppi had scolded
him into buying on his last visit to Bologna remained resolutely in his pocket while Trotti held the newspaper at a distance, trying to keep the print in focus.

A few minutes later, silent and discreet, the barman moved from behind the bar and transferred a saucer of cashew nuts and a glass of steaming Elisir di China from a steel tray on to the table. A slice of lemon had been clipped to the rim of the glass.

“The evening paper, commissario.” The waiter slipped the sheets of
La Notte
into the metal clasp.

Trotti mumbled absentminded thanks as he scanned the front page of the paper.

The inquiries continued. Nearly two years of Mani Pulite and there were still more resignations in Milan.

The waiter turned on the wall light. “Anything else you need?”

“Milan.” Trotti shook his head, speaking to himself. “Moral capital of the Republic.”

“Times change, commissario.” The waiter smiled philosophically, picked up an overflowing ashtray and went away with the crumpled
Repubblica
.

“Thank God soon I’ll be retiring,” Trotti muttered.

(In the 1970s, during the Years of Lead, when nothing was sure in Italy, Trotti had entertained a nostalgia for the certainties of his childhood, for the certainties arrogantly paraded by Mussolini and the Fascists. Then the adult Piero Trotti had longed for the distant, innocent time of his childhood when things were simple, when values were black and white. A time when you knew where you stood.

Of course, it was wishful thinking—but during the Years of Lead, with people being blown up on trains or outside factories, Trotti needed to believe in something.

Twenty years on, Tangentopoli and Mani Pulite had put paid to any idealism. Now there was nothing to believe in.

Nothing. Neither in the Fascist past, nor in the future of democracy. The politicians had taken the money and they had left nothing other than their cynicism and their debts. Nothing.)

“Mind if I sit down?”

Trotti glanced up. “You really have to?”

“Always so courteous, commissario.”

Trotti returned his attention to the Milan newspaper. “I gave up being courteous years ago.”

T
HE MAN WAS
a lot younger than Piero Trotti, in his mid-thirties. He wore a camel-hair coat and was removing matching leather gloves. He had slow, dark eyes, broad shoulders and a prominent Adam’s apple. Black hair brushed forward to hide incipient baldness. His complexion was doughy; the result of a lack of sunlight and exercise.

Trotti continued reading the paper.

His name was Fabrizio Bassi and for ten years he had been a policeman—in Gorizia and then in the city—before leaving to set up his own detective agency.

“Another?” Bassi pointed at the half-empty glass of china in its steel frame.

Trotti looked up. “If you wish to talk, I’m sure there are many people who’d enjoy your company a lot more than me.”

Bassi sucked in his cheeks. Despite the cold, his shirt collar was undone and the blue tie loose at his neck. He cultivated the appearance of a television detective. There was even an overlay of American to his flat, Lombard intonation. He liked to claim he was from Brooklyn. According to his identity card he was from Pieve del Cairo.

Trotti returned his attention to
La Notte
.

Leaning forward, Bassi asked, “Commissario, have you thought about my suggestion?”

On the Milan pages, there was an article about a teacher of a liceo classico who had been arrested for accepting a bribe. Two million lire in exchange for the maturità examination.

Trotti sipped the hot drink. “As I recall, you had your answer last week.”

Bassi sat down on the edge of the chair opposite and placed a magazine on the tabletop. “There’ve been developments.”

“Why do you keep bothering me?”

“It would be to your benefit.”

“For nearly forty years I’ve had my colleagues imposed upon me from above. Why on earth do you think I should wish to work with you, Bassi?” A chilly smile. “Soon I’ll be a free man, and can choose how to live my life as I please.”

“I’m not asking you to marry me, commissario.”

“I’m still married.”

“You and I could work as a team.”

“I can’t help you, Signor Bassi.”

“We can collaborate. Don’t you see your name alone would mean so much? Your name alone would be a source of income for both of us.”

“My name means a lot to me.”

“We used to be friends, commissario.”

Frowning, Trotti held up a finger. “You used to work under me.”

“I worked with you. On the Biagi case. And later, when you sent me to Turin about the murdered train conductor. You used to say I was reliable. ‘One of the best’—that’s what you used to say, Commissario Trotti.”

Trotti returned again to
La Notte
.

“You helped me, commissario, when I was thrown out of the Questura. When the Questore kicked me out.”

“Please leave me alone. Please go.”

“You’re going to retire?”

“Button your coat and put your gloves on. Please, Signor Bassi. Take your magazine. Kindly leave me alone.”

“You’re going to leave this city that you love and that you’ve worked in for so many years? You’re going to move into the hills and live among your animals?”

“You have an objection?”

In exasperation, Bassi started tapping the tabletop with the magazine. “We could make money.”

Trotti lowered the newspaper. “I don’t need money, Signor Bassi.”

“Everybody needs money—particularly if you’re living off a state pension.”

“Then I’ll have to sell freshly laid eggs.”

For a few seconds the two men looked at each other in silence.

“Commissario, I need your help on the Turellini affair. It’s important.”

Trotti looked at the younger man. “Important for you.”

“With your help, we could identify Turellini’s murderer in next to no time. You’d be paid—you’d be generously paid. Turellini’s family wants the killer identified and they don’t mind paying good money.”

Trotti set the paper down on the table without looking at Bassi.

“Good money you can buy the best hens with.”

Trotti stood up. He had not finished his drink.

“Best goats and best hens and best goddamn pigs to sniff out the truffles up in your hills.”

Trotti placed a five thousand lira note on the table.

“You’d better have a look at this, Trotti,” Bassi said testily, snatching up the magazine and stuffing it into the pocket of Trotti’s jacket. “Might find it interesting.”

Piero Trotti pulled on the coat in silence. At the bar, several men turned to look at him. The barman nodded and gave a faint smile.

Brushing past the private detective, Commissario Trotti went out into the cold night and the fog of the city.

“A S
OUTH
A
MERICAN
transvestite, for God’s sake, a Peruvian, and I was getting a hard-on. In the sidings behind the Stazione Centrale.”

“A transvestite almost got elected Miss Italia,” Trotti said without taking his eyes from the colander of pasta and the steaming water that poured through the holes into the flat sink. “Anyway, I never told you to go to Milan, Magagna.”

“Twenty years ago, Italians would go to Amsterdam or New York, and they’d say it could never happen here, people shooting up in the street. Not in Italy—good food, good wine, good women. And we’re all Catholics. Who needs drugs?” Tenente Magagna was sitting on one of the upright kitchen chairs, his folded arms on the table.

“Who needs AIDS?”

“Heroin. Milan’s one of the worst damn cities in the world, Trotti. Two thousand declared cases of HIV. Declared—that’s not counting the addicts that are dropping off like flies at Porta Ticinese. You’d think the bastards’d have the sense to leave their veins alone. Dream on. No crack, no cocaine. It’s heroin.”

The kitchen window misted with rising steam.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the city of Milan subsidized the war in Beirut. Heroin, Trotti.”

“You sound like a manifesto for the Lega Lombarda.”

“Enough heroin to buy a Kalashnikov for every ayatollah.”

“I didn’t tell you to go to Milan, Magagna,” Trotti said, concentrating on preparing the meal. “You were doing good work here.”

“I should never have left Pescara.” The younger man caught his breath. “Pescara—I sometimes wonder whether I’ll ever get back there.”

“You have a holiday due.”

“Get back to living, commissario. Not for the holidays but forever. Take the wife and the boys.”

“You think things are better in the South?”

“I should never have come to Lombardy.” Magagna rapped the Formica table-top with his knuckles. “And to think I voted for the League at the last election.”

“You’re a Southerner.” A pained sigh.

“Pescara’s not part of the South.”

Trotti briefly ran cold water on to the tight coils of spaghetti. “Milan’s part of the South, Magagna. Italy’s the South—ever since we kicked out the Austrians.”

“You voted for the Lega, too, commissario?”

“I gave up voting years ago—and never noticed the difference.”

Magagna shook his head. “Italians just can’t enjoy themselves anymore. Money, drugs, sex—whatever happened to the old pleasures?” He got up from the chair and turned on the television.

“Like starving, Magagna?” Trotti went to the stove, gave the tomatoes a final stir before tipping the spaghetti into a glass dish.

“Your problem, commissario, is you’re too …”

“My problem’s I don’t have any problems.” Trotti winced. “I’m happy.”

“Happy?”

“Another ten months and I retire.”

“Happy? You’ll be bored out of your wits. Are you going to live with your daughter?”

“Her husband’s looking for a job in Milan.”

“Must be mad.”

“Worse places than Milan, Magagna.”

“I can only think of Sarajevo.” The large face clouded. “If I have to get out of Lombardy, it’s for my boys.”

“Come back here. You were happy here. And from next September I’ll be out of your hair.” Trotti nodded to a parcel on top of the old Zanussi refrigerator, next to the noisy clock. “There’s a little present for Mino.”

“If I didn’t know you, I’d think you were human.”

“How’s Mino?”

“Eight years old and he thinks his parents were born yesterday.”

“I’ve always thought you were born yesterday.” Trotti took dishes from the oven. “And his little brother?”

Magagna smiled proudly. “An angel.”

“There’s a bottle of wine from the hills in that cupboard. Instead of telling me about your voluptuous transvestites, perhaps you could remove the cork.”

“Wanted to whet your appetite.” Magagna shook his head. “I swear to God, Trotti, I’d never’ve guessed it was a man. For heaven’s sake, I saw the nipples.”

“And nipples still get you excited?”

“You don’t have a libido, commissario?”

Trotti frowned.

“And you’re going to get excited over goats and chickens in the hills?”

“I’m a happy man.”

“You could’ve fooled me.”

“Peace of the senses, Magagna.”

“You’re a miserable old bastard. You’ve always been miserable, you’ve always complained. You’ve always been an old man.”

“Every morning I wake up and I’m glad to be alive apart from the occasional toothache. I’m smiling as I make my coffee.”

“The last time you smiled was during the Rome Olympics.”

Trotti laughed. “One of the best, Magagna.” Uncharacteristically, he slapped him on the shoulder. “I never understood why you wanted to leave this place, damn you.”

“A wife, a child, commissario. Promotion—a man needs promotion to survive.”

“I don’t need any of that. I don’t need transvestites. I don’t need AIDS. I don’t need being told what to do by younger men.” He laughed. “And I don’t need nipples.”

“Not sure I approve of your peace of the senses.”

“I’ve been like a mouse running after cheese. And now I discover there’s no cheese. No cheese and no mousetrap.”

“You’ll die of boredom.”

“I’ll be free.”

“You’ll die of boredom in the hills, with just your animals to talk to,” Magagna said. He had set the labelless bottle between his thick thighs and now the cork came out with a noisy pop. “I think I’ll stick to Peruvian transvestites.”

“I
WAS BORN
in Acquanera but I went to school in Santa Maria. We used to see the American bombers on their way back from Milan.”

“They didn’t try hard enough.”

“From the hills we could see Milan burning. Castellani was telling me over eighty percent of the buildings in Milan were hit by bombs or incendiaries. Didn’t try hard enough? Consider yourself lucky you’ve never lived through a war, Magagna.” Trotti made a gesture of irritation. “I lived in Santa Maria for eight years with my aunt and my cousins Anna Maria and Sandro. We were poor, but there were no bombs.”

“That’s where you intend to spend the evening of your life? In Santa Maria?”

“The afternoon of my life.”

Magagna had turned on the old television set to catch the local news on RaiTre. The volume was low and the picture flickered, unwatched by the two men at the kitchen table.

“With Sandro,” Trotti said. “Together we’re doing the old place up. There’s an architect he knows in Brescia. We should be able to make something really beautiful. An old house—the foundations are more than three hundred years old. On the edge of the town, in a grove of chestnut trees. It’s where our grandparents used to live. And it’s where I spent the happiest years of my life—despite the war.”

“You’d be a lot happier on Lake Garda, commissario, at your villa.”

“The Villa Ondina belongs to my wife.”