Reasonable Doubts (14 page)

And then there was the matter of the lifting of the sequestration order. The fact that he had gone personally to get it out of the pound. There must have been something still in the car that the customs police had missed, something that had to be disposed of as quickly as possible.

That was if Paolicelli really had nothing to do with it. Because it could also be that Macrì had been sent by the organization to safeguard a member - Paolicelli - who’d had the misfortune to end up in the clutches of the law.

I told my friend what I was thinking and he nodded. He had been thinking the same.

“And now what are you going to do with this information?”

Right. What was I going to do?

I said I would have to think about it. Perhaps, with this as a starting point, I could find out more, maybe by hiring a private detective. The fact was, I hadn’t the faintest idea what to do.

When the time came to say goodbye, Colaianni told me he’d really enjoyed seeing me again and talking to me. He said it in a vaguely frightened tone, as if he didn’t want me to go. I felt both saddened and embarrassed.

And I wanted to get away. Away from that unexpected fragility, that despair, that sense of defeat.

As I took the ramp to get onto the autostrada I was thinking about my friend Colaianni.

About the things he’d said to me - other than the information about Macrì - and the glimpses of distress that he could barely conceal. I wondered what would have become of his life - of our lives - by the next time we met.

Then the half-deserted autostrada swallowed everything.

21

What did I want to do with this information? Colaianni had asked me.

I didn’t know, I’d replied. And it was true, I didn’t. I had no idea what I could do with it. I knew now that Macrì was an associate of Mafiosi and drug traffickers. But, when you came down to it, this didn’t greatly improve our situation.

I didn’t know what to do and that was why I didn’t go to see Paolicelli and tell him what I’d found out. If he was innocent I didn’t want to arouse any unfounded expectations. And if he was guilty - my doubts had returned with a vengeance, as I’d talked to Colaianni-I didn’t want to play the sucker any longer than I had to.

For the same reason, and for others I didn’t want to admit even to myself, I didn’t call Natsu. Even though I had to restrain the impulse lots of times.

I thought of calling Tancredi, but then I told myself I’d already taken more than enough advantage of our friendship. And besides, I didn’t know what to say to him, apart from asking him for advice yet again.

Several days passed in this absurd way.

Then one evening, as I was leaving my office to go home, I heard my name being called. I looked up and saw Natsu in an off-road vehicle. She gave me a shy smile, and made a gesture with her hand, inviting me to join her. I looked
round, like someone who has something to hide, crossed the road and got in the car.

Yes, I did have something to hide.

22

“Shall we drive to the sea?”

I said yes. We went along streets that were unusually free of traffic. She drove smoothly, sitting comfortably, deep in her seat, both hands on the wheel, her eyes on the road. For a moment it occurred to me that this was the car in which the drugs had been carried. Then I remembered that the police reports had mentioned a different make and model.

“You’re surprised.”

It was a statement, not a question. So I didn’t reply, just shrugged my shoulders. I let her talk.

“I had a job on for tonight. Then something went wrong and it was called off. But there was no time to warn the babysitter. So when she arrived I decided to go out anyway, and I thought maybe you’d like to go for a drive and a chat.”

That evening I wasn’t exactly talkative. For the first time she took her eyes off the road - we were outside the city now - to see if I was dead or just asleep.

“Shouldn’t I have?”

“You did the right thing. I’m pleased.”

She put on a bit of speed. The engine droned, and the car darted forward. She asked me if there was any news for her husband.

I felt a twinge of unease at the question. It was an abrupt reminder of the fact that I was a lawyer and she was the wife of a client of mine who was in prison.

Leaving out a few details - how I’d got hold of the information, and from-I told her what I’d discovered about their former lawyer.

She listened to me in silence until I’d finished. In the meantime we had stopped on a low cliff over towards Torre del Mare. The surface of the water was as black and calm as ink. In the distance the intermittent beam from a lighthouse could be seen.

When Natsu was sure I had nothing else to add, she said, “And now what will you do?”

“I have no idea. In itself the fact that the bastard was arrested - and then acquitted - doesn’t get us anywhere. I mean, I don’t know how to use this information in court.”

“But he put himself forward without either of us contacting him. That must surely mean something.”

“Theoretically, yes. In practice, the only thing that’s clear from the papers on this case is that you appointed him and your husband confirmed the appointment.”

“But they told me—”

“I know, I know. But what do we do? Do I call you to testify at the appeal hearing that a man stopped you in the street and advised you to appoint this lawyer you didn’t even know called Macrì, and you followed his advice? Apart from the fact that even if it was true-I mean, even if the judges believed it was true - it wouldn’t get us anywhere, the prosecution could simply say that your husband’s accomplices told you which lawyer to appoint. And we’d be in the same position as before, maybe even a bit worse off.”

I avoided saying that this could be the prosecution’s version, or it could be the plain truth. I was sure she’d thought of that herself.

At that precise moment I had an idea. It was a crazy idea,
but with Natsu still silent, I started thinking about it. Yes, I told myself, it might be worth a try, in fact it might be the only thing we could try. Then she interrupted the course of my thoughts. “You know what the worst thing is for me?”

“Not knowing the truth?”

She looked at me in surprise for a few seconds, until she remembered the game of wishes. She searched in her bag, took out a packet of cigarettes, lowered the window and lit one.

She smoked it in silence. Savouring every mouthful and letting the smoke waft away into the surrounding darkness. When she’d finished, she closed the window and shivered, as if only just becoming aware of the cold.

“I’m hungry, but I don’t want to be cooped up in a restaurant.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“Of course, like all men who live alone, your larder is full of tins and crap like that.”

I told her she shouldn’t believe the stereotypes. No, I didn’t have a larder full of tins. I had fresh, healthy food in the fridge and if I wanted I could even whip up a quick dinner.

So she said all right, let’s go to your place. Ruthlessly suppressing the qualms of my conscience, it struck me that, when you got down to it, there was nothing wrong with the idea. Nothing had to happen. And anyway, it wasn’t my fault. I mean, she’d made all the moves. She’d waited for me outside my office, taken me for a drive, suggested coming to my place. It really wasn’t my fault. If it had been up to me, nothing would have happened.

A heap of bullshit that stayed with me all the way to my apartment.

“What’s that?” It was the first thing she said as soon as she stepped inside the door. She was referring to the punchball hanging in the middle of the room which served as both the hall and the living room. A somewhat bizarre thing to have as part of the furnishings, I admit.

“One of my neuroses. Every evening I come home and punch it for half an hour. Look at it this way. It’s better than getting drunk, taking drugs or beating the wife and kids. Which I don’t have anyway.”

“It’s nice here. Do you like books or are you just a messy person?”

She was referring to the books piled around the sofa and strewn all over the room. I’d never thought about it, but I told her I liked to have them on the floor because they kept me company.

She spotted the kitchen and headed straight for it.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m looking to see what’s in the fridge. I’ll make something.”

With a certain self-importance, I said I’d already sampled her cooking and now, whether she liked it or not, it was her turn to sample mine. She had accepted the risk when she came to my apartment. If she liked, she could stay with me in the kitchen while I was cooking but it was strictly forbidden for her to touch anything.

There wasn’t very much there. I’d exaggerated a bit when I mentioned having lots of fresh food. But I had what I needed to make my speciality. I called it spaghetti
al fumo negli occhi
. Meaning the cook - in this case, me - throws smoke in people’s eyes, tries to appear more skilful than he really is.

“I’ll make pasta. That’s the most I can rustle up without advance warning.”

Even
with
advance warning, to tell the truth. But I didn’t say that.

“Pasta and wine are fine. What are you making?”

“You’ll see,” I said, and immediately felt ridiculous. Who the hell do you think you are, Guerrieri? This woman is a professional chef, you idiot. Just get on with it and cook the food.

I fried garlic, oil and chillies in a pan. While the spaghetti was boiling I grated some pecorino, chopped some basil, and stoned and sliced a few black olives. I put the pasta, very
al dente
, into the frying pan and added the pecorino and the rest.

Natsu said she liked watching me cooking, which made me tingle all over. A nice but dangerous sensation. I didn’t reply, quickly laid the table, told her to sit down, and carried over the brimming plates.

We ate, drank and chatted about nothing, with the punchball standing guard over us.

When we had finished eating, I put on
Shangri-la
by Mark Knopfler. Then I took my glass and went and sat down on the sofa. She stayed on her chair. When she realized what the disc was, she said she liked ‘Postcards from Paraguay’ a lot. I put the glass down on the floor, reached for the controls and fast-forwarded to track 10.

She came and sat down next to me, on the sofa, just as the song was starting.

One thing was leading to the next
, the voice sang.

Spot on, I thought.

It was the last rational thought I had that night.

23

I didn’t have to be in court the next day. I sent Maria Teresa to the courthouse to get some things sorted out at the clerk of the court’s office. Not that any of them were urgent, but I needed to be alone.

I had a few things to think over. Quite a few things.

In the first place, I felt like a shit for what had happened last night. It wasn’t that I’d been taken by surprise, or that I hadn’t had a pretty good idea what might happen. If I’d had a modicum of moral sense, I told myself, I wouldn’t have taken Natsu home with me.

I wondered what I would have said if someone had told me a story like that and asked me what I thought. I mean: what I thought about a lawyer who fucked the wife of one of his clients while that client was in prison.

I would have said that lawyer was a piece of shit.

Part of me was looking for excuses for what had happened, and even finding a few. But overall, my inner prosecutor was winning this case hands down. He was so far out in front that I felt like asking him where the hell he’d been last night when I needed him.

I remembered an after-dinner conversation with some colleagues, some years earlier. We’d had a lot to eat and drink. Some of us were little more than boys, others older, people we’d trained with.

I don’t know who told the story. It was a true story, he said, which had happened a few years earlier.

There was this guy in prison, accused of murder. An almost hopeless case. He needed a lawyer. A very good one, considering the situation he was in.

But he didn’t have the money to pay for a good one. In fact he didn’t even have money to pay for a bad one. What he did have was a beautiful wife. One evening she went to see an old, famous and very good lawyer, who was also a notorious womanizer. She told him she wanted him to defend her husband but didn’t have the money to pay him. So she suggested payment in kind. He accepted, fucked her - repeatedly, in the office and outside - defended the guy and managed to get him acquitted.

End of story, start of discussion.

“What would you have done?”

Various answers. There were some who thought it hadn’t been very good form to do it in the office. Good manners mattered, damn it, whatever the situation. It would have been better to go to a hotel or somewhere else. Others, though, considered that fucking her on the desk was consistent with the nature of the contract they’d entered into. A few timidly expressed ethical qualms, and were howled down.