“No, Commissa’, how could I pay her? Here, aside from the little one-room place on the ground floor and a few pennies every month, I don’t get a cent; we have to struggle to make ends meet. There was no way I could have paid Donna Carmela.”
“So money never changed hands between the two of you?”
A brief hesitation. Her eyes darted from right to left.
“No, I already told you. What money are you taking about?”
Ricciardi sat in silence. He went on staring the woman in the eye. Maione stood next to her chair, towering over her. On the windowsill, there was a fluttering of wings. A pigeon perhaps.
After nearly a minute, Ricciardi spoke again.
“What kind of person was she, the Calise woman? You knew her well, better than anyone else did. Maione here has asked around, and it seems that no one had any contact with her at all-the usual story. But you saw her every day. Did she have a family? What were her habits? Tell me all about her.”
As Nunzia felt the viselike grip relax, she was visibly relieved. She decided to show herself to be as cooperative as possible. She shifted in the chair, causing the wood to creak loudly as she moved her enormous posterior.
“She was a saint, Donna Carmela. That’s what I told you the other day and I’ll say it again now, and anyone who says otherwise doesn’t deserve to go on living. I swear it on the head of my poor sick girl, on her very soul, innocent angel that she is.”
“Sure, a saint and an angel, I get it. Which would make this a little patch of heaven. Tell me about the Calise woman’s life, and kindly refrain from changing the subject.”
“Well, she didn’t have any family in Naples. She wasn’t married, and she never mentioned any brothers or sisters. She was from some small town, I don’t even know the name. Once or twice a girl came here. Donna Carmela told me that she was a distant relation, but then I never saw her again. She never even told me the girl’s name. She had a gift, this ability to foretell the future, and she used it to help people. She did so much good.”
Maione broke in.
“And all this good she did for her fellow man, she did it free of charge, is that right? Out of the goodness of her heart.”
Petrone looked up at the brigadier, offense showing in her eyes.
“What harm was there if people chose to give her a small gift out of gratitude? She never asked for money; she’d say, if you want to give me a token of appreciation, I thank you for it. People were satisfied with that arrangement.”
Ricciardi raised an eyebrow and looked around the room.
“And just what did she do with these gifts? This place hardly seems luxurious to me. What did she do with the money?”
“How am I supposed to know, Commissa’? It’s not like I could read Donna Carmela’s mind.”
“You couldn’t read her mind, that’s fine, but you knew what she thought and what she felt, you told us that yourself. Or at least, your daughter did. So I’d imagine a little something filtered back to you, didn’t it?”
The woman sat up straight in her chair.
“No, never, Commissa’. Perish the thought. I loved Donna Carmela. Per senza niente. No strings attached.”
Ricciardi and Maione looked at each other. This was going nowhere. The commissario sighed and once again fixed his transparent gaze on Nunzia, looking her in the eye.
“Petrone, let’s be perfectly clear. We have all the evidence we need to prove that you were doing business with the deceased. We know that she not only read cards, but was also a loan shark. And that she gave you money.”
This time it was the woman’s turn to sit in silence, caught once again in the grip like a vise.
After what seemed like an endless pause, Nunzia spoke in a low, hard voice, meeting Ricciardi’s eyes.
“No proof. You got no proof. Talk. It’s all just empty talk.”
Without taking his eyes off her, Ricciardi nodded a signal to Maione, who dropped the little bundle he’d found under the mattress onto the tabletop. Written on the bundle was one word: Nunzia.
Attilio Romor knew he wasn’t particularly bright and could often be distracted. But he knew he truly excelled in the few areas he was competent in. One of those areas, the most important, was women.
When he could have possessed Emma, he’d made her wait, letting her desire swell within her. Gradually dismantling all her self-confidence, methodically testing her resistance, sapping her will, until she was finally putty in his hands.
A hundred, a thousand times he had read slavish devotion in her gaze, had felt the irresistible yearning grow within her, the desire to become his possession, something he owned. By now he knew with absolute certainty that he had become the center of her world, that he was the only reason she woke up in the morning. He couldn’t be wrong about this. No, not at all.
As he went on carefully combing his pomaded hair, he smiled at the image that he saw reflected in the mirror; Emma would soon beg him to find a way for them to be together forever. She would provide him with prosperity, comfort, and finally, revenge. All he had to do was play his cards right, and wait.
XXX
Filomena walked uphill from the Via Toledo in the direction of the Vico del Fico. She had her shawl wrapped over her head, downcast eyes, and her face covered as usual. She walked briskly, skirting close to the walls.
The wide overcoat concealed her shape. Old shoes, an ankle-length skirt.
The usual masquerade, her suit of armor to protect her from the eyes of her predators: if you lack claws, hide.
She raised her head for just an instant as she came up to the last few yards of pavement separating her from the Via Toledo, and there he was, loitering at the corner: Don Luigi Costanzo, the picture of elegance as always in his light-colored suit, his hat pushed back on his forehead to reveal his swarthy brow, his mustache. Leaning back, shoulders resting against the wall, one hand in his pocket, the other at his side, holding a cigarette.
In the distance, Filomena saw two construction workers walk by, bowing so low before the guappo as they passed that they were practically crawling on the ground. Fear and power. She didn’t want to be afraid anymore.
As she slowed her pace, she thought of Gaetano. He’d been at the construction site for two hours already, carrying bucketfuls of gravel, balancing his way across wooden planks perched sixty feet above the street. She trembled at the thought of the risks he took, but work was work and in those difficult times, one didn’t have a choice. She felt a surge of anger that sprang from her frustration at having to see her son, still just a little boy, being forced to fight for scraps of food.
As she walked with her eyes on the ground, she regretted not being the whore they said she was. They would have lived better, she and her son. Perhaps in luxury, the luxury that came with a lover. She’d be respected, too. Money brings respect. She’d no longer be a whore; she could be a lady instead, with silk dresses and a fashionable haircut. Perhaps even a house to live in. Warm blankets to ward off the cold. Real mattresses. And Gaetano, smart boy that he was, could go to school.
How many nights, when the wind rattled the door, trying to make its way into the basso, or the heat almost suffocated them and rats scurried past, the masters of the vicolo, had she choked back her doubts and her tears?
But some people are born to do that sort of thing. She, on the other hand, had been born with a beauty that made it impossible for other people to believe that she lived only to care for her son, to make ends meet, and to hold on to the memory of a husband carried away by a coughing fit and a burst of blood.
She had almost come to where Don Luigi was standing. He saw her, flicked away his cigarette, and took a step forward to bar the path. The usual confident smile, the same piercing eyes.