Day of the Dead (33 page)

He landed a kick at the approximate location of the compartment from which the junk seller had pulled out the bundle to show the young woman. A rattling of metal came from inside. Capone's face turned white, and he tried his luck, playing the wrong card entirely:

“Brigadie', don't ruin me. I'm a father, with a family to provide for. I have some valuable merchandise in there; let's just do this, I'll give you half and you . . . you can return it to the rightful owners on my behalf. And we'll each go our own way.”

At first Maione couldn't believe his own ears. That half-man was trying to bribe him! He shut his eyes tight and counted to ten. Then he reached out his hand and grabbed Capone's arm in a vise grip. The man emitted a cry of surprise and pain.

“Listen up and listen good, you useless bag of bones: I'll break every bone in your body and then I'll throw you in jail, and I'll just say you resisted arrest. A lie for a lie, that seems like a fair trade. You aren't even worthy of looking me in the face, you know that? Much less doing business with me.”

The junk seller started stammering:

“But . . . but . . . B-Brigadie', what on earth did you think I meant? I would never dare . . . Let me go, you're breaking my arm!”

Maione loosened his grip and heaved a deep sigh. Then he resumed his relaxed tone of voice.

“All right, let's get this over with, since it disgusts me to have to talk to you. I'm not interested in you; you're practically worthless. What I want is information about the boy, and it'll go better with you if you tell me what I want to know, and right away.”

Capone looked thunderstruck.

“The boy? What boy?”

“Tettè, the boy from Santa Maria del Soccorso. The little boy you used to take on your rounds, the one who died.”

The junk seller was now completely confused; it was getting dark and that enormous brigadier seemed to be out of his mind, and he was really scaring him.

“Certainly! That boy was like a son to me. He used to help me out, I was teaching him the business, and . . . ”

Again, the vise grip.

“Capo', do you still think you can go on pulling my leg? I told you I want the truth! I know what you were doing, I know what you were using that poor child to do, that you sent him into people's apartments to steal while you distracted your little audience of idiot housewives with your gift of gab. I know everything.”

Cosimo felt like he'd fallen into a nightmare.

“But if you already know everything, what do you want from me? I'll say I'm sorry, I'll promise I'll never do it again! If you'll let me go . . . ”

“First, you have to tell me about the little boy. Everything you know about him, everything you did to him.”

The junk seller stiffened in terror.

“What is it you think I've done, Brigadie'? I absolutely refuse to stand by while you think this horrible thing! Besides, I heard that the boy ate poison—I had nothing to do with it!”

Maione looked at him gravely.

“Go on. I want to know what this child was like. And don't try telling me that he was like a son to you, because fathers don't send their sons out to steal.”

By now Capone had finally gotten it through his head that he needed to tell it straight, and do his best to shorten this nightmare:

“He was just a boy, Brigadie'. A boy, like thousands of other little boys, living on the streets. He never talked, and when he tried, he stuttered; but he was small, and he melted women's hearts, so he came in handy to me. I . . . I told him that if he told anyone anything about what we did, I'd hurt him, but I never would have, never. After all, it was hardly in my interest, was it? After I'd taught him how to do what . . . how to do what he did, why should I get rid of him?”

Maione was disgusted, but inclined to believe him.

“Tell me about the last few days. When did you last see him? Did you notice anything strange or unusual? Did you see anyone with him? Talk!”

“No, Brigadie', I haven't seen the boy since Thursday. I just assumed he'd gotten sick, he was so skinny, so weak, it always looked as if he was about to fall to the ground, or blow away with the breeze. I didn't know what had become of him, and I didn't go looking for him because I didn't have time. Then, the day before yesterday, his friend, Cristiano, the other boy from the parish, comes around, and he tells me that Tettè is dead and asks if I can take him to work in his place. That's how I found out he was dead. And there was never anyone with him, just that bastard dog that used to follow him everywhere. That's all I know, I swear it!”

The brigadier looked at him long and hard. He wanted to make sure that his contempt seeped into the man's soul and stayed with him, like a threat: if he found out that the man had lied to him, if he and the man crossed paths again, if he ever heard that the man had stolen or burgled or mistreated another living soul, that would be the end of him. Capone understood, and looked down.

“I can track you down, Capone. The same way I found you just now, I can track you down whenever I want. Remember that. And you'd better just pray to God that you haven't lied to me.”

The junk seller looked up again.

“I didn't lie to you, Brigadie'. It's one thing to steal, it's another thing to murder, or to let someone be murdered. I don't know anything about what happened to the child; and I wouldn't even know who to ask. I told you, he was just a child like so many other children, living on the street.”

On his way back to police headquarters, Maione couldn't seem to get the
saponaro
's last words out of his head: a child like so many other children, living on the street. With a shiver, he realized that he'd thought the same thing, when he couldn't seem to figure out the reason for Ricciardi's fixation on this death.

The thought terrified him: a child like so many other children. What if he, Maione, had died the same way his son Luca died, his son the policeman, stabbed to death by a criminal? Then would his children, his sons and daughters, have wound up like that, “like so many other children, living on the street”?

Once again, he thought, the commissario had been right. Children living on the street were somebody's children; in fact, they were everybody's children. And he, Maione, was ashamed not to have seen that right from the start. You can't write off a child's life with a couple of words in a police report. You have to understand it. And as their investigations had shown, some strange, dark things had happened in Tettè's short life.

As Maione went by the corner of Via della Tofa, where he'd found Ricciardi waiting for him that morning, he heard a faint whistle and instinctively turned around. Bambinella was waiting for him in the shadows, with a handkerchief on her head and wrapped in an overcoat that had been patched and repatched, mended and remended.

“Bambine', is that you? What are you doing here? Is something the matter?”

Bambinella the
femminiello
had a serious expression on her face that Maione had never seen before, with deep creases at the corners of her mouth.

“Good evening, Brigadie'. I need to talk to you.”

 

 

 

 

 

Signora? Signo', well, which one will it be?”
Livia shook herself out of her thoughts and for what seemed like the hundredth time tried to focus on the two dresses that the seamstress was showing her. This seamstress had been recommended to her by a new Neapolitan friend, the Marchesa De Luca di Roccatagliata. She was happy with the two samples, but she couldn't quite make up her mind as to which one she liked best.

But her mind was wandering chaotically, returning repeatedly to the rain-streaked window. The few words she'd managed to pry out of Maione had put her in a state of anxiety and alarm for Ricciardi, especially concerning his relationship with Dr. Modo, a subject of special interest to the secret police.

She'd gone to police headquarters specifically to let Ricciardi know, without saying it in so many words, that seeing the doctor socially could expose him to a very serious risk: it took next to nothing, these days, to find yourself shipped off to internal exile.

But then Maione had spoken to her of the dead boy, and this, too, had gone straight to her heart. She'd been a mother herself, if only for a short time, because her baby boy had sickened and died. The fact that a man could become so passionately involved in finding out the reasons for the death of a little orphan boy only increased her interest in Ricciardi, if such a thing was possible.

From the street below, along with the sounds of the pouring rain and passing cars, came the cheerful yells of the
scugnizzi
splashing in puddles. Anyone who feels love for children has a great deal of love to offer, she decided. She smiled at the seamstress.

“They're lovely, just beautiful; I'll take them both.”

In the same little café where he had met with Ricciardi earlier, Maione was sitting with Bambinella, who was warming her hands around a cup of tea. The expression on his informant's face worried him: Bambinella was usually all smiles, playful and affectionate in a vulgar fashion, given to rough humor and teasing; now she was serious, grim, pensive.

“Well, then, Bambine': What's going on, will you tell me? You're always telling me how dangerous it is for us to meet out in the open, and now I actually find you standing on the street corner by police headquarters saying you want to talk to me?”

Bambinella set down her teacup and picked up a napkin with her long fingers, her polished nails.

“Brigadie', it's about the death of the child, the little boy from Santa Maria del Soccorso. I heard something and, since it struck me as an interesting piece of information, I came to tell you about it. Did I do wrong?”

“No, no, you did right. It's just that you have a face . . . well, not the usual ugly face I'm used to seeing on you.”

Bambinella grimaced.

“I know, I just left the house the way I was, without even touching up my makeup. But if a girl is pretty, she's pretty no matter what, Brigadie'.”

Maione smiled.

“Exactly—if a girl is pretty. So tell me all about it: What did you find out?”

“All right, Brigadie', listen carefully: This morning that client of mine came by, the
verdummaio
, the strolling vendor who told me that he'd seen the boy with that well-dressed man, the man with the limp, you remember?”

Maione nodded.

“Go on.”

“Well, he'd already told me that he'd had the impression that the man and the little boy were having an argument, and that the man with the limp was holding him by the arm and rousting him, shaking him a little, in other words. He'd even thought about stepping in, because it seemed to him that the little boy needed help.”

“Yes, you already told me about that. So?”

Bambinella went on patiently:

“Well, today he told me that he'd seen him again, the man with the limp. He'd seen him come out of an apartment building, in Via Santa Lucia, number twelve; and he asked just who that gentleman was. The doorman, who was a friend of his, told him that the man lived there, and that his name is Sersale, Edoardo Sersale. He's a nobleman, and he comes from some venerable family or other, my client didn't really understand that part. The name rang a bell for me, and after the
verdummaio
left, I went down and talked to a girlfriend of mine who works in a bordello in Via Torretta.”

Maione spread his arms wide.

“I don't know what to say, you have a girlfriend working in every single corner of this city, as long as the place is sufficiently filthy and disgusting. Whorehouses, taverns, gambling dens, you name it.”

Bambinella nodded.

“It's true, Brigadie'. And it's a good thing, too, because as always I'd remembered correctly: my girlfriend had told me about one of their customers who was really hooked on one of the girls. I know her by sight, too; she's pretty enough, but if you ask me she's just a bit vulgar, with a pair of tits like this, and a mouth . . .”

Maione interrupted her vehemently:

“Listen, do you really think that I should be sitting here with you, at the risk of having someone see me and making me look like a fool, and being mocked until the day I die, just so I can find out what kind of tits a whore who works at the bordello in Via Torretta has? Will you get to the point, yes or no?”

“You're right, you're right, Brigadie', forgive me; that's just the way I am, I get distracted. In short, this client of the friend of my girlfriend answers the description perfectly, the limp, well-dressed, and so on. So I asked this girlfriend of mine if she could arrange for me to talk to the girl, whose name I'm not going to tell you—sorry, but I swore on Our Lady the Madonna of Pompeii, and as you know I'm a very religious girl. Well, to make a long story short, the name matches. And this guy Sersale is in trouble, too. Big trouble.”

Maione perked up his ears.

“What do you mean, in big trouble?”

“Well, he may be an aristocrat, but he's up to his ears in debt. He likes women, bordellos, and cards. He's gone through a fortune, and now he's in the hands of the loan sharks, and they've told him that if he doesn't pay up, every last cent, they're going to fix him good.”

“What does that have to do with the little boy?”

“Ah, that I couldn't say, you'll have to find out for yourself. But the fact remains that the girl said her friend had changed completely in the past few days. He was laughing and giddy like he used to be; he seemed to be happy again. He told her that it wouldn't be long now until he expected to have all the money he needed to pay off his debts and straighten out his situation. And when the girl asked him how he expected to do that, he said: I've found the boy. That's all.”