The Deliverance of Evil (28 page)
Margherita was staring at two old Japanese tourists. She watched as they threw coins into the fountain. “They’re holding hands, so sweet.”
“They’re probably wishing for another hundred years together,” Balistreri said sarcastically.
“Don’t you believe in love, Captain?” She blushed after she’d said it, as if she’d gone too far.
“In what sense?” he asked.
“Don’t you believe that a woman could come along and change your life?”
Balistreri was about to say something, but he was interrupted by a familiar hand on his shoulder.
“Michele.” It was Dioguardi with his usual open smile.
“Angelo, what are you doing here?”
“I started the new year with a high-stakes online poker tournament. And I came here to celebrate my first win of 2006.”
On his own. As I would be were it not for this little angel, Margherita.
“Sit down with us and have coffee with us,” Balistreri offered immediately, happy to have him there.
Angelo sat next to him and facing Margherita. He always looked like a great big kid. His hair was disheveled, his blond beard unshaven. He turned his blue eyes to Margherita.
Clearly, she liked him. She bombarded him with questions about his career as a professional poker player. Balistreri mentioned the charity work Angelo financed with the winnings. Angelo said nothing. He was looking at Margherita while Balistreri regaled her with stories about the early days of their friendship, their evenings together, the women they’d loved and lost, and how Angelo had been transformed from office worker to world poker champion, while the Balistreri was growing old and gray in an office. Then he told her about the first time they’d met in Paola’s apartment, when Angelo gave everything he had in order for Balistreri to get a woman into bed.
Margherita laughed. “Angelo, shame on you.”
“He was engaged,” Balistreri said. “And unlike me, he’s always believed in love.”
Angelo looked startled, as if he’d been accused of something.
“And did you ever find love?” Margherita asked.
Balistreri listened to them absentmindedly, as if he were sitting at another table. They liked each other, obviously. He feigned a call from the office and left the restaurant. He knew where he wanted to go.
Now he was on the hunt for murderers, not love.
. . . .
It wasn’t far away. He was happy to walk in the cold evening to the pavement outside the open nightclub entrance. It was here that Papa Camarà had died, his stomach slit open by a knife. He recognized the corner from where the motorbike had emerged. Forty feet. The rider had waited with his engine just turning over before the insulting the Senegalese. And then, perhaps, he came back to kill him. A murderer who was very stupid. Why insult him precisely at the moment when there was a witness?
It was early; there were still few customers at the tables. The waiters were chatting quietly among themselves. He ordered something to drink, then called the bartender over to his table. Pierre wasn’t frightened by his badge. He was a laid-back guy with a pleasant manner, and he showed no surprise when Balistreri told him he was there about Camarà.
“Did you have any reason to speak to him that night?”
“No, some other cops already asked me. I bumped into him a couple of times when he was going to the restroom and coming up the stairs again in a hurry. Ajello—the manager—likes to have the main entrance covered at all times.”
“Is there another entrance?”
“Yes, in the alleyway. But it’s always locked; the manager’s the only one with the keys. He uses it to let in the guests who go to the private lounges. There’s two of them, one large and one small.”
“And that night?”
“There was a party in the larger one after one o’clock. Friends of the manager’s son, who was also there. The manager came from Perugia to welcome the guests and let them in the rear entrance.”
“Whose party was it?”
“Some rich girl from Rome celebrating her eighteenth birthday. She’s friends with Fabio, Ajello’s son.”
“I understand you had a different manager before.”
“Yes, Corona. Poor thing. It was horrible the way he was killed. Not that he had a happy life.”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you married? He was, and it wasn’t a happy marriage. Because of that bitch of a wife he lost everything.”
“You mean this place?”
“Not just this place. Corona was stockholder in a company that runs a whole bunch of nightclubs. She wanted him to make more money, and she didn’t care how he did it.”
“So he did things a good manager shouldn’t do,” Balistreri said.
Pierre nodded. He looked sad, sincerely upset about Corona.
“He was in trouble with the finance police. Some business over slot machines that weren’t registered properly for tax purposes. The problem was that the money ended up in Mrs. Corona’s account, not in the shareholders’ account,” Pierre explained.
Then the bartender stiffened. A well-dressed and distinguished looking forty-year-old was approaching the table where they sat.
Pierre made the introductions. “Mr. Ajello, our manager. Captain Balistreri, police.”
The man held out a freshly manicured hand. A gold Rolex, diamond cufflinks, a Marinella tie, a custom-monogrammed shirt, clearly expensive shoes.
Ajello said to Balistreri, “If you’re not in a hurry, why don’t we have a drink in the private lounge?” He wanted to get away from Pierre.
They walked down a long hallway at the end of which was a bathroom and a security door. On either side were the two private lounges. They entered the smaller one. Leather armchairs and sofa, bar, DVD player, and video projector.
“Very nice,” Balistreri said. “I’ll just take a glass of water.”
Ajello pointed to one of the armchairs and brought him a glass.
“This room is reserved for our most important guests. People too well-known to mingle with the general public in the main room.”
“Actors?”
“Soccer players mostly, some television personalities, politicians seeking privacy,” Ajello said with ill-concealed disdain for such people. “People who don’t blink at spending five thousand euros on champagne in a couple of hours.”
“Was there someone here the night Camarà died?”
“No, only the large room was occupied. A party for one of my son’s friends.”
On the glass coffee table sat a huge ashtray and a large wooden box. Ajello opened it.
“Cuban cigars. Real ones,” he said, pointing to them. “I don’t smoke them myself, but they tell me they’re very good. Help yourself.”
Balistreri shot a glance at the box’s contents. There were five compartments and five cigars, each cigar attached by a silver thread to a small pocket lighter with a stylized dancer in blue, the nightclub’s logo. A gift for customers.
“I’ll stick to my cigarettes, thanks. Is there something you want to tell me?”
Again he flashed that condescending smile. “To be frank, Captain Balistreri, I found your officer’s curiosity a little over the top. It was like being interrogated by the finance police. Thousands of questions about ENT, its shareholders, the previous manager. Nothing serious, but a little strange for a murder that has nothing to do with us.”
“Mr. Ajello, I don’t think you’ve taken into consideration the fact that Camarà’s killing could have something to do with the Bella Blu, or its business associates, or the previous manager, or yourself.”
“We have no enemies. We’re extremely careful to do everything by the book.”
“But the finance police found unregistered slot machines here.”
Ajello waved his hand as if brushing away a fly. “An oversight by Sandro Corona, the previous manager. He left several slot machines unregistered back from the time when there were no regulations. Nothing serious, Captain Balistreri. Don’t tell me you’re one of those narrow-minded puritans who thinks anyone who doesn’t pay every cent he owes should be in jail? Corona failed to pay a little money, completely by accident.”
“So tax evasion only counts when there are millions of euros at stake?”
Ajello maintained his composure. He stared at Balistreri as any wealthy lawyer with good contacts would stare at an ill-dressed, aging civil servant.
“Corona didn’t understand life, Captain Balistreri. And in order to live life well, you need to understand it.”
“Or maybe he did understand it, but someone close to him was putting pressure on him,” Balistreri said.
Ajello looked at him more closely.
“Do you know Mrs. Ornella Corona well, Mr. Ajello?”
Ajello weighed the question. “I knew her well when I acquired the ENT shares she inherited from her husband.”
“So you knew her before that, but less well,” Balistreri said.
Ajello shifted uneasily. He stalled by getting up and going to the drinks cabinet.
While he poured out a whiskey, Ajello spoke with his back to Balistreri. “We used to go to the same gym.”
Well done. All doors now open. We went to the same gym, and we didn’t so much as say hello to each other. Or else we went to the same gym and frequently fucked in the bathroom.
They said good-bye with feigned politeness. Outside the Bella Blu he called a taxi, noticing a gray saloon car parked on the corner. Two men were calmly smoking cigarettes inside, totally uninterested in him.
They know their presence is enough to let me get the message, because I know the house style.
. . . .
He was at Piccolo’s before midnight. Rudi came to open the door wearing a sweatsuit twice his size bearing the initials G. P.
“The officer resting on the sofa, sir.” Balistreri tried to suppress his annoyance at the protective tone.
Rudi seemed different. He looked ridiculous in Piccolo’s sweatsuit, but seemed more at ease, no longer afraid. Balistreri tried to show his indifference.
Piccolo also seemed to be calmer. The latest events must have worn on her. Instead she was only sad for Nadia. Otherwise she seemed rather pleased with herself, like a schoolgirl who had just received a perfect report card.
“Rudi is making me rest on the sofa all day, even though I could go out. I don’t have a fever anymore.”
“In Albania you only go out after a whole day without a temperature,” Rudi said, sounding like a wise old aunt.
“Yes, but we’re not in Albania, and I have things to take care of in the office,” Piccolo said.
“You need some rest and some time to think,” Balistreri said.
“Captain, would you like something to drink? Rudi, get him a glass of mineral water.”
“How do you like it here, Rudi?” Balistreri asked.
“I like it very much. But I also have to get back to work, and not at the Bar Biliardo.”
“Because of Marius Hagi?”
“No, I already told you, Hagi has never done anything to me. But Mircea and Greg are a different story.”
“They beat him up, the bastards,” Piccolo put in.
Balistreri shot her a questioning look.
“The morning before Ramona left. They wanted something from her, but she didn’t know anything. They beat up Rudi to get her to talk.”
Rudi served Balistreri a glass of water and sat on the sofa next to Piccolo. He was smoking nervously.
“They said Nadia had stolen something valuable. They were sure she’d given it to one of us because they hadn’t found it in the apartment,” Rudi explained.
Balistreri nodded. “Look, Rudi, you’ve already told us that—unlike Nadia—Ramona was very tidy. But when you went in everything was a mess.”
“Mircea and Greg were looking for something.”
“And they didn’t tell you what it was?”
“No. I don’t think they even knew themselves, but they were convinced Nadia had stolen something valuable.”
“All right. Now listen, Rudi, you used to clean up after Nadia, right?”
Rudi gave a sad smile. “Yes, she was really messy. I’d put her things away, and she called me her little brother.”
“And she gave you presents.”
“No, Nadia didn’t have money for presents. But she was nice to me, as was Ramona.”
“She never gave you anything? Maybe something she’d picked up somewhere?”
Rudi seemed to remember something. “But Mircea said it was something valuable,” he murmured.
“Maybe not valuable in economic terms, Rudi. Valuable because of its meaning.”
Rudi went pale and put his hand in his pocket. He handed something to Balistreri.
“Jesus Christ,” exclaimed the head of the special team as he took the blue lighter from Rudi’s hand. The stylized dancer on the side of the lighter winked at him.
Morning
“T
HAT’S INCREDIBLE,” CORVU SAID.
“Isn’t it?” Balistreri agreed, lighting his first cigarette of the day and opening the window on the cold morning of the first work day of the new year. “Well, it seems incredible, but I don’t believe in coincidences. Rudi had completely forgotten about the lighter, because it wasn’t really worth anything. Nadia gave it to him on December 24. He thought she’d found it lying around and given it to him as a present in exchange for the favors he did for her.”
“But we can’t rule out a coincidence,” Corvu said. “Nadia could have gotten the lighter from a client who went to the Bella Blu.”
“That wouldn’t explain the frenzied way Mircea and Greg were looking for it, and someone was still searching for it in the Via Tiburtina apartment when they were surprised by Piccolo and Rudi.”
“Captain Balistreri’s right. Nadia must have picked it up at the Bella Blu herself,” Piccolo said. “Except those freebies are only handed out in the private lounges, not the club itself. They’re attached to the Cuban cigars reserved for important customers. Therefore, Nadia was in Bella Blu’s private lounge on the night of December 23.”
“It could have happened before December 23,” Corvu said.
But Piccolo had all the answers. “In that case, Mircea and Greg would have gone looking for it earlier. No, Nadia comes out of the restaurant alone around eleven thirty, and then later she’s in the Bella Blu’s private lounge, where she pockets the lighter, which she then gives to Rudi.”
“Maybe Mircea was waiting for her outside the restaurant and they went to the Bella Blu together,” Corvu suggested.
“No,” Piccolo said. “Rudi told me that the night Mircea came back with Greg just after Ramona, who was feeling ill. That was around midnight. That means he left the restaurant and went straight home.”
“So someone else picked up Nadia,” Corvu said.
“They were sitting at the table for two and a half hours. Mircea kept on ordering drinks. That’s a bit odd for an uncontrollable guy who’s in a hurry to get into bed with somebody,” Piccolo said. “Then he hits her because, he says, Nadia won’t have sex with him. He gets pissed off and leaves. Does that seem credible?”
“So you think Mircea wanted the waiter to remember he was there and then left? Why would he want to kill time like that?”
Balistreri had let his two deputies continue back and forth while a dark cloud was gathering in his mind. “In order to deliver the girl to someone else,” he said.
The two of them looked at him in surprise. They’d all but forgotten about him in the heat of the discussion.
“In order to deliver her to someone who took her to Bella Blu,” concluded Corvu logically. “But how did they knew about the disappearance of a lighter? It’s almost impossible.”
“It’s perfectly possible,” explained Piccolo. “I went to Bella Blu early this morning and talked to the cleaning woman. The private lounge runs like a hotel minibar and has to be refilled. She checks it every morning and makes a list of what needs to be replaced. And she clearly remembers that on the morning of December 24, a cigar and its lighter were gone. It’s written down on the stock sheet.”
“Who gets the stock sheet?” Balistreri asked.
“Pierre the bartender restocks the lounges. But anyone can get a look at the sheet.”
Silence. Each of the three was considering the consequences of this line of reasoning and coming to the same inevitable conclusion.
Someone had noticed the stock sheet. Someone who knew that the private lounge had been occupied the night before and knew Nadia might have taken the lighter. So Mircea and Greg were told to look for something, but not exactly what, because they couldn’t be allowed to know the whole story. And they couldn’t know about the Bella Blu.
Piccolo finally spoke. “Someone who didn’t want to run the risk of any link being found between Nadia and the Bella Blu.”
Corvu added, “Someone who knew that Nadia was already dead.”
Balistreri’s thoughts wandered darkly further back and further forward in time. Something had begun a great distance away and was slowly, but inexorably, coming closer.
. . . .
Linda Nardi was about to do something that her editor would not have encouraged and that Balistreri wouldn’t have approved.
She crossed the sunny center of the city on foot around noon. She came to the Trevi Fountain, which was packed with tourists. Graffiti covered the surrounding walls, and there were political posters pasted up all over. A small truck parked next to the fountain displayed a smiling face and the words
Augusto De Rossi for Deputy Mayor
next to an image of Casilino 900 and the words
Only integration can stop the violence
.
At the restaurant, she took a good look around. Nadia had left the place before midnight on December 23. According to what Balistreri had told her, the waiter had said she’d wrapped herself up in a raincoat that was too big for her and then waited outside for a bit. Did she not know where to go? It was possible, but the large sign of the Piazzale Flaminio subway station was visible a few yards to the right. Instead, after a while she’d gone toward Piazza del Popolo, where there were taxis, but no subway stop. Could she have taken a taxi?
Nardi stepped inside. An elderly waiter came up to her and she showed him her press card. “Are you Tommaso?”
She noticed the waiter’s gaze falling on her breasts and tried to suppress her annoyance.
“The police have already been here,” he said.
“I need you to try to remember something,” she said, handing him a fifty-euro note. He quickly tucked it into a pocket.
“What do you want to know?”
“I want you to tell me exactly what the girl did after the Romanian guy left.”
“How should I know? There were other people around. I was covering all the tables.”
“Can you remember for her sake?” Nardi asked gently.
“After that piece of shit had left, I thought she’d leave, too, but instead she went into the ladies’ room. When I saw her again she’d already gotten her raincoat from the coatroom and put it on.”
“Did she have a purse?”
“No, a small knapsack.”
“You don’t remember anything else?”
Tommaso looked at her with a half-smile. “You know, I think she’d changed. Her clothes, I mean. In the bathroom.”
“She changed her clothes? How could you tell if she was wearing the raincoat over them?”
“Well, I’m not sure. I just had that impression.”
“Do you remember what she was wearing when she came in?”
“Torn jeans.”
“All right. And on top?”
Tommaso thought for a moment, and then his face lit up. “That’s why I said she’d changed. When she came in she was wearing a big baggy turtleneck sweater.”
“And when she left?”
“Well, there was no turtleneck poking up out of the raincoat, and no jeans showing at the bottom. Also, before she went out she put on a pair of gloves, which seemed odd to me because it wasn’t cold that night.”
She’d changed into a low-cut shirt and a miniskirt to go to a nightclub. She was dressed for somebody’s pleasure.
Linda Nardi felt both better and angry when she left the restaurant. She looked toward Piazza del Popolo. That was where Nadia had gone that night. She’d gone to meet whoever was waiting for her.
Going out to meet her fate.
. . . .
Margherita appeared stood at in the doorway slightly out of breath. “Excuse me, but I have to take the afternoon off. May I?”
Balistreri could see she was nervous. “No problem, but would you slip downstairs and get us two coffees first, please? Make mine a decaf.”
“No coffee for me,” Corvu said. “I’ll have a grapefruit juice.”
Balistreri gave him a disgusted look. “Grapefruit juice? Before lunch? You’ll burn a hole in your stomach.”
“I’ve given up coffee,” he said firmly.
“All right, Margherita, a coffee and a disgusting grapefruit juice. Can you send Coppola and Mastroianni in and ask them what they want from downstairs as well?”
Coppola and Mastroianni listened closely to the latest.
“We should talk to Ramona again,” Mastroianni said.
“And Ornella Corona,” Coppola said.
“Mastroianni, arrange to get the Iordanescu girl back to Rome—we’ll pay her airfare. I’ll take care of Ornella Corona.”
“I don’t see why I can’t,” Coppola objected.
“Because you have to talk to the American tourist—Fred Cabot.”
Coppola didn’t like the idea of another conversation with the American and the linguistic humiliation that went with it.
“Cabot’s back in America by now,” he objected again.
“We’ve got his number. Call him up.”
Cursing silently, Coppola nodded.
“And there’s another thing I want to know from Carmen, the victim’s girlfriend. What kind of urinary infection did he have?”
They all looked at him in amazement.
“Captain, there’s no way I’m asking personal questions like that!”
“Very well, you can go and question those shepherds in prison,” Balistreri suggested.
Coppola said, “All right, I’ll get in touch with Cabot and go and talk to Carmen.”
“Good. Corvu and Piccolo will question the two shepherds, along with the public prosecutor.”
Corvu raised a hand. “We have authorization from the judge to get the names of ENT’s shareholders from the trust administrator now that there’s a direct link to the crime.”
Afternoon
Corvu was in a very good mood. It worried Balistreri to see him so happy and confident, as if his deputy’s reliability depended on insecurity. Falling in love might make him take his job less seriously.
They were early for the appointment, which was for two o’clock, so they mingled with the people swarming toward St. Peter’s Square, bought two slices of pizza, and made their way toward the great dome, which stood out against a sky that was finally blue after so much rain. Young Roma women with their children were chasing after the tourists. The citizens of Rome recognized them instantly and steered clear.
The main office of the ENT trust was on the third floor. There was a nameplate on the door, and a pale secretary led them into an imposing office.
A gentleman of a certain age, who introduced himself as Davide Trevi, was waiting for them. On his business card he was identified as
CHIEF
ADMINISTRATOR
. The card provided a telephone number and an e-mail address, but no cell phone number.
“Naturally, gentlemen, we are willing to cooperate. If you’d like to explain what you need, within a few days I’m sure we can provide it.”
Corvu shook his head. “We need something very simple—just one thing. But we need it now.”
“As you can imagine, we have our protocol to follow.”
“Mr. Trevi,” Corvu said, “one of the nightclubs run by ENT is linked to a murder, possibly two murders. We need to know the names of the shareholders.”
“I understand, but you are aware that we have the right to see any official request before supplying the documents requested. With all due speed, of course.”
Balistreri stood up and went to collect his raincoat from the hallstand.
This shit is accustomed to all kinds of problems and to resisting them, procrastinating. We won’t get anything in the normal way.
“You say that you need some time, Mr. Trevi. Very well, please take it. However, these two murders could be linked to a previous one and the sequence could well be followed by another.”
Alarmed, Corvu shot him a glance of strong disapproval.
“Captain Balistreri means to say that we can’t exclude the risk of a recurrence.”
“I mean to say,” Balistreri said, interrupting Corvu sharply and staring into Trevi’s eyes, “that if by any chance there is another victim and we ascertain any link whatsoever with ENT, then we will rigorously check how you used the intervening time.”
Like Pasquali, Trevi was used to weighing the pros and cons. Unlocking a drawer, he took out a gray file with ENT written on the spine and drew out a sheet of the trust’s white letterhead.
“This is our authorization to act as agent,” he explained. “There’s only one shareholder who’s entrusted us with ninety percent of the ENT shares. The authorization is tacitly renewed every year in the absence of a written order rescinding it.”
“And who is this shareholder?” Corvu asked.
Trevi allowed himself a little smile. “ENT Middle East, a company registered in the Dubai Free Zone, United Arab Emirates.”
Balistreri and Corvu looked at each other, stunned. “But there must be a name on the authorization,” Corvu insisted.
“The ENT Middle East administrator is Nabil Belhrouz, a Lebanese man. Here is his contact information in the Emirates.”
“His address is a post office box,” Corvu protested.
“That’s how they do it over there, but there is the name of the company’s sponsor, Free Zone Media City. We have the address for that.”
“And how often are you in touch with Mr. Belhrouz?”
“I’ve never seen him or spoken to him,” Trevi said. Then, seeing their faces, he added, “That’s actually very common. Trusts are employed by people who don’t want to be known. No client comes here to us. Mr. Belhrouz’s signature was obtained by an Italian notary who has a counterpart in Dubai.”
They made a photocopy and left his office. As they passed by the secretary’s desk, Balistreri saw the light for Trevi’s external phone go on.
. . . .
Linda Nardi was walking in the cold air of the early afternoon, lost in her thoughts. The lives of these women meant nothing to anyone. She knew this scenario very well. The politicians never gave a damn about any Italian deaths, let alone a Romanian prostitute. And the police cared even less.
And Balistreri, an ex-Fascist now working for justice? Can I trust him?
Graffiti was beginning to appear on the walls saying
ROMANIAN
MURDERERS,
ROMA
GO
HOME,
LET’S
BURN
THE
TRAVELERS’
CAMPS
. No distinction between the Roma and the Romanians. Rather, the fact that the victim was Romanian and the presumed murderer a Roma gypsy only served to link them in people’s opinion. And the political party posters had already leaped into the argument, milder in tone but the same in substance. The opposition laid all the blame on the city council and promised they would dismantle the camps as soon as they were in power. The mayor’s party underlined what had already been done and what would soon be done. Faces and names of senators, MPs, city assessors—all had something to promise. The electoral implication of these circumstances was a juicy bone for some, a bitter pill for others. No doubt there were those among the politicians who were hoping cynically for another Samantha Rossi.