He shivered at the thought of his own loneliness. It was as if he had suddenly found himself on a mountain peak, with no paths he could take to seek out help. And yet he truly needed it. He, a man who had studied so much, unfailingly advising his clients on how to extricate themselves from intricate legal traps, couldn’t see a solution for himself.
And yet, he mused, he’d worked it out perfectly, a perfect example of premeditation. One contract, two jobs performed, one payment. What does one do, esteemed law students, when there is no way of determining whether the service contractually agreed upon has indeed been performed?
He noticed that the shoes he’d worn the day before had left marks on the carpet. He’d have to remember to tell the servant girl to scrub them out. Or perhaps, for once, he might have to do the scrubbing himself.
Rituccia was waiting for Gaetano, on the steps of the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie. Their place. She waited with her hands in her lap, neatly composed, like a grand lady who’s just ordered tea. He’d told her that he would ask his foreman, the Mastro, permission to show up at the construction site a little late, so that he could speak with her. The way they used to. Because these days, what with him working and her keeping house, they practically never saw each other anymore.
Of course, they only needed to rendezvous for a minute, outside the front doors of the adjoining bassi in which they lived, to tell each other everything that had happened. That was how well they knew each other; a glance, a half-word would be plenty. Even just a expression.
She saw him coming a long way away, with that distinctive, gangly stride that made him seem off-balance, something she’d teased him about so many times in the past. It always made him mad; Gaetano didn’t know how to joke around. Rituccia shoved over on the step. He gave her a look.
“Again?”
She lowered her gaze. He clenched his fist and punched himself in the leg, with silent force. That’s how he let out his rage.
“I’ll kill him. This time, I’ll kill him.”
Rituccia said nothing. Without lifting her eyes from the ground, she reached out her hand and brushed her fingers across Gaetano’s knee. They remained motionless in that position for a long time. He was breathing furiously, his eyes reddened in his swarthy face.
“What about you?” she asked, looking him in the eyes.
A moment passed, then Gaetano nodded his head yes and looked down at the step.
They stood there in silence. After a while, he spoke.
“There’s a police officer. He was with her, last night.”
Rituccia started in shock and seized his hand. Her glance betrayed a concern that verged on terror.
“There’s nothing to worry about. He has the usual puppy-dog look. Guappos, police officers. The usual look.”
Whereupon she smiled, reassured. She put her head on his shoulder.
XXII
Doctor Modo appeared in the doorway between the autopsy rooms and the waiting room, and there he found Ricciardi and Maione, just arrived from headquarters. The doctor was drying his hands with a handkerchief, his lab coat splattered with unmistakable stains.
He looked like a little boy about to run out into the street to play soccer.
“Oh, what nice visitors! Welcome, friends; have you come to take me out to breakfast?”
With a nice broad smile, satisfied.
Ricciardi looked him up and down.
“Yes, but please take off your butcher’s uniform first. As it is, people turn away when we walk by and make hand gestures to ward off evil, and let me tell you, some of those gestures are hard to look at. The last thing we need is to show up for a stroll through Pignasecca market with Doctor Frankenstein.”
“Here’s the Ricciardi I love best: cheerful, optimistic, a lover of light reading. Have you tried reading Carolina Invernizio, or that author who goes by Liala? Or Pitigrilli; I see his books being carried around by all the idiots who passionately support your regime.”
“My dear intellectual friend, for your information, I don’t have time for reading-and I’m more optimistic than you are, since you see a future darker than the present. Come along, and I’ll treat you to an espresso and a sfogliatella pastry, as promised.”
Outside, Pignasecca market had already reached a fever pitch of activity. From the ramshackle stalls a roar of singsong voices touted the wonders of whatever merchandise happened to be available that day; rickety pushcarts pushed their way through the crowd; dozens of dark-skinned, half-naked street urchins, their heads shaved to ward off lice, darted from one vendor to another, trying to steal a bite to eat.
As the trio moved through the crowd, people obediently stepped aside, as if pushed away by a silent bow wave. Two policemen and a doctor-the latter a professional butcher of corpses. What could possibly bring worse luck?
They came to a café in Piazza Carità and sat down at a small table inside, near the plate glass window. The moving picture of the busy city outside suddenly became a silent one.
Ricciardi gestured to the waiter: three coffees and three pastries. “Well? Any news about how the Calise woman died? Don’t tell me she died of consumption.”
Modo snorted with a smile, lit a cigarette, and crossed his legs.
“You might show a little respect for the work that other people do, for a change. Between you and Brigadier Maione here, I haven’t been able to leave that dump of a leper colony I work in for the past two days. If it weren’t for the fact that I want to be at the hospital when someone sends you there, so that I can personally put you out of your misery, I would have already fled the country. To Spain, for instance, where they truly appreciate doctors; otherwise they line them up against a wall, give them a last cigarette, and good night, nurse!”
Maione broke in, ironically, feigning an afflicted tone. “Dotto’, forgive us, it’s just that the sight of all that lady’s blood. . It was too much for me, and you know I don’t trust anyone else’s work. After all, when you find a shop that provides good service, you go back. Am I right?”
“Go on, keep jerking me around, since that’s become our national pastime. Of all my faithful clients, luck had to send me the two most down-at-the-heels cops in all of Naples! Well, listen, I’m a gifted physician, understand? Your lady friend, for instance, Brigadie’, I’d love to see what my colleagues who boast about their academic titles would have done with her face. I operate in the hospital for ideological reasons, not because I couldn’t have any position I wanted in any one of the best private clinics!”
Ricciardi was baffled.
“Shop, lady friend, clinic. . what are you two talking about? Who is this lady friend of Maione’s?”
The brigadier’s plump face had turned red as a watermelon.
“No, what lady friend? That woman I told you about yesterday, Commissa’, the reason I had blood all over my jacket, remember? I don’t know her; that is, I’d never met her before yesterday. I took her to the doctor, here, because she was badly hurt.”
“Damned right, she was badly hurt! They’ve ruined her for life, is all! And she was a stunningly beautiful woman. Believe me, Ricciardi: a living cameo. An honest-to-God cameo, carved in mother-of-pearl. But why on earth has our good brigadier turned so red? Did someone slap him in the face? Or could it be he’s in love?”
“Trust me, Maione has a wonderful family waiting for him at home; he’s not a lonely dog like the two of us. So he’s not going to fall in love anytime soon. Let’s just say that a cop is a cop, on duty or off.”
Maione looked up in silent gratitude for Ricciardi’s help. But the commissario did not return his glance.
The doctor went on, stretching out his legs under the table and clasping both hands behind his head.