She tensed her lips, eyes flashing lightning from behind her tortoiseshell eyeglasses.
“Yes, certainly. I heard about the. . unfortunate thing that happened. I’d seen her the day before. What of that? Is it illegal?”
Maione blinked at this unexpectedly aggressive tone.
“No, of course not. We just wanted to know whether there was anything that, I don’t know, might have struck you as odd. In the way that Calise behaved; was she any different than usual?”
Different than usual! As if she were a regular customer, a habitual visitor to that squalid, foul-smelling apartment. She had no intention of sitting there and allowing herself to be insulted.
“Look, Brigadier, I’d only been there one other time, when a girlfriend accompanied me. So I have no idea what Calise was usually like. I can tell you that she asked me a lot more questions than I asked her, about. . about a matter that is my own personal business. But I didn’t notice anything strange.”
Maione shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“And when you entered the apartment, or as you were leaving, did you notice anything in particular?”
Enrica felt like dying: because of what Ricciardi must be thinking; because he refused to speak to a word to her; because she was being made to look like a perfect fool; because of her damned eyeglasses, and because she hadn’t worn any makeup. All she knew was that she felt like bursting into tears.
“No, Brigadier, just that the porter woman greeted us with a total lack of discretion, staring at me right in the face as if she were trying to remember who I was. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d rather go. I don’t feel very well.”
Maione, who couldn’t think of anything else to ask, looked at the stone reproduction of Ricciardi sitting at his desk, and waved her to the door with one hand.
Enrica stood up and headed toward the exit. Of course, that’s when the miracle took place: the pillar of salt suddenly came to life and leapt to its feet, reaching its hand out in Enrica’s direction.
“Signorina, Signorina, wait! I have a question I need to ask you, please, wait!”
Ricciardi’s tone of voice made the hair on the back of Maione’s neck stand on end. He’d never heard the commissario so muddled, and he never wanted to hear it again. Enrica stopped mid-step and turned around slowly. She spoke in a low and faintly trembling voice.
“Go ahead and ask.”
Ricciardi ran his tongue over his dry lips.
“Were you. . did you. . what exactly did you ask Calise? What were you trying to find out? Please, what was it?”
Maione started at Ricciardi in astonishment. He thought the commissario was about to explode. But Enrica, though shaken by that heartfelt plea, was unwilling to make a deal with fate.
“I don’t believe that’s any of your business. Good day.”
“But I beg you, I implore you. . I have to know!”
I beg you? I implore you? Had he lost his mind? Maione would have gagged the commissario, if he’d been able. Enrica looked at him and felt a surge of tenderness fill her heart. She resolved the situation in the way that woman often decide to resolve awkward matters, when they don’t know where else to turn. She lied.
“A health problem.”
And she walked out, with a faint nod.
Enrica’s exit was followed by an extremely awkward moment for Maione. He didn’t have the courage to ask Ricciardi what exactly had just happened, nor could he pretend that that stunning spectacle had gone entirely unnoticed.
The commissario had fallen back into his chair, eyes wide open, staring into space, his hands limp on the desktop, his face as white as chalk.
Maione took a half-step forward, coughed gently, said something about having to use the latrine, and left the room, head down.
Ricciardi couldn’t believe it. He’d fantasized endlessly about the possibility of their actually meeting, even though the idea terrified him. How could have acted like such an idiot? He, a man accustomed to routinely gazing upon scenes of death and mayhem, had been incapable of carrying on a normal conversation for a couple of minutes. And now she was gone, offended, furious, thinking the absolute worst of him.
He was despondent.
Enrica was walking at a good clip, going back up Via Toledo toward Via Santa Teresa. The aromatic air blew against her, as if mocking her pain.
She was despondent.
She might have expected anything from that interview, but not that she’d come face-to-face with him, of all people. So, he was a police commissario. But now how could she make him understand that she wasn’t the aggressive person she had seemed in his office? What a fool she’d been, what a fool. She’d allowed herself to be swept away by her anger at being caught red-handed, and, what’s worse, dressed like a member of the women’s army auxiliary corps out of a book by Carolina Invernizio.
She hadn’t been capable of giving him a smile, a kind world, a pretext for an invitation. And what was worse, she’d been unable to think up anything better than a health problem in her attempt to avoid coming off as a gullible romantic. Now he’d think he was dealing with an invalid, a consumptive perhaps, and that would be the end of his nightly appearances at the window. Oh, what a fool.
In the wind, with the promise of flowers wafting down from the forest, Enrica walked, tears running down her face.
XXXVIII
When he came back into the office, Maione found the usual Ricciardi waiting for him. Inscrutable, composed, lost in thought. Though perhaps just a bit more downcast.
“All right, Maione, let’s move on. This day is proving tougher than I would have expected. Who do we have now?”
The brigadier consulted his notebook.
“Now then: next is Antonio Iodice-a pizzaiolo from the Sanità, a client of the loan-sharking branch of the operation. Here’s the story: Iodice used to have a pushcart, one of those carts where you yourself often stop for lunch, and he was doing reasonably well; our boy’s a hard worker, always cheerful, always out working, even in the worst weather. Then he opened a sit-down restaurant of his own, taking over the place from a blacksmith who closed shop, borrowing the money from Calise. But things didn’t go all that well, and according to Petrone he’d already asked for an extension on his loan terms twice, and that night he was going to have to ‘pavare’-that is, pay up.”
The commissario seemed to be having difficulty focusing.
“And did he pay? Did you check the papers in the biscuit tin?”
Maione nodded his head yes.
“Yes, Commissa’, I checked it again, and as I think I already told you, there’s nothing under his name. Forgive me, Commissa’, but if you don’t mind my asking, are you sure you’re feeling well? No, it’s just that, it’s not like you ever have that much color in your face, but right now you’re so pale you look like a corpse. If you’d like, we can just leave off here for to the day and start over again tomorrow. After all, Calise is in no hurry.”
“I look like a corpse, do I? No, trust me; it takes a lot more than this to look like a dead man. Take a look and see if this Iodice has come in. Let’s keep going.”
He spotted the policemen at the end of the street from his spot on the balcony, where he was leaning on the railing, trying to figure out the right thing to do, how to react. He saw them advancing toward him, like a pair of gray insects in the midst of the colorful crowd of strolling vendors, women, and children walking down Via Santa Lucia in search of the year’s first sea breezes.
He immediately knew why they had come. They’d come for him. Somehow, they’d uncovered tracks that in his naïve foolishness he’d surely left behind. He smiled at the irony of fate. A rank beginner. The most famous criminal lawyer in the city, a professor at the most prestigious university in Italy for jurisprudence, every magistrate’s greatest fear, known as “the fox” in court-only to be caught red-handed. And for what? For love.