“Maione, I’m going to have to ask you to go get changed, one more time. I need you to go someplace in civilian attire, and when you come back here I’ll tell you where. To pick up a package.”
Maione stood up, made a slight bow to Livia, and left the room. Ricciardi spoke to the woman:
“Thank you, Livia. You’ve helped me a great deal, you can’t imagine how much. But now I have to go: I have urgent business to attend to, some very important things to take care of.”
The woman sighed as she got to her feet.
“I get it, you’re sending me away: as usual, for that matter. But don’t think for a moment that I’m a woman who gives up easily. And it’s not something that happens often, that I want to get to know someone better. So, once again, resign yourself to it: I’m not easy to get rid of.”
Having said that, she left. Through the open door, Ricciardi caught sight of a lawyer who, craning his neck to see her better, tripped and fell in a cascade of files and documents.
XXXVIII
Sofia Capece decided that her husband would have to resign himself to it: she wasn’t going to be easy to get rid of.
She’d gotten out of bed repeatedly during the night, to go watch him sleeping on the sofa in the drawing room. It wasn’t like having him in her bed again, but she was a woman who knew how to wait: she’d already waited so long, she certainly wasn’t frightened at the idea of the few days that still separated her from a return to normal life. Because that was one thing Sofia was sure of: it was only a matter of time.
Mario had been sleeping fitfully: she’d heard him murmur, toss and turn, and sigh. At a certain point, she’d even had the impression that he was weeping. To her way of thinking, this was a good sign: it meant that deep inside he was conflicted, that a battle was being fought within him, and that she, Sofia, was sure to emerge victorious. As far as that went, the other woman was dead. She no longer existed.
Truth be told, this was not the solution that she would have hoped for: all too often she’d dreamed that her husband, recovering from the spell under which he’d labored for so long, would return home on his own two feet, contrite, begging forgiveness for the wrong he had done her. In her imagination, she saw herself as accommodating, sweet and gentle as ever, happy to take him back into her home and her bed, to offer him that domestic warmth that he might have forgotten by now, a warmth he was surely beginning to miss, as reluctant as he might be to admit it. She was still, in spite of everything, his wife. She’d sworn before God that she’d love him and honor him for the rest of her days.
She smiled as she fluffed the cushion and placed it back on the sofa. Mario had left the apartment before dawn, she’d heard his footsteps on the stairs and then out on the street. But he’d be back, she could tell. And after all, where else would he go? This was his home, this was his family. Her son came over to her to give her a kiss and say goodbye, he was going to school for the summer preparatory course; he was a boy any father would be proud of, and Sofia decided that the boy resembled his father more every day. Just one more reason for the man to return home. She told him not to stay out too late, because his father might be home in time for lunch.
Because she had turned to go back to the kitchen, she failed to glimpse the grimace on Andrea’s face. It was probably just as well, because the sight of all that hatred would only have frightened her.
Maione had found himself a place in the shadow of a doorway, right across from where the commissario had told him to go. The heat truly was infernaclass="underline" inside, in the atrium, there wasn’t a breath of air, while outside the sunlight was intolerable; so the brigadier, in civilian attire as his superior officer had ordered, had positioned himself right in front of the palazzo’s street door. He was starting to suspect, however, that this location might be the worst possible combination of the shortcomings of the two others. He was fanning himself with his cap, occasionally wiping his forehead with his handkerchief, and every few minutes or so pulling out his pocket watch only to discover that time was passing exceptionally slowly; the heat was slowing him down too, he thought.
Just a few yards away stood an ice cream cart; evidently the vendor had decided that rather than taking up a position in the nearby Villa Nazionale, where competition was particularly fierce, he’d do well to try it here: before long, the street would be thronged with children, most of them belonging to well-to-do families; therefore, they had money in their pockets and they were very, very hungry.
Not that Maione was any less hungry than they were; at least a dozen times he’d reached into his pocket for his coin purse and the ten-cent price of a lovely ice cream cone, cool and delicious, which he knew he’d gobble down in an instant. Still, even if he was dressed in civilian garb, he was there to work and he needed to resist all distractions. What’s more, every time he felt the pangs of hunger and thought about eating, a picture of the fruit and vegetable vendor Ciruzzo appeared before his eyes, thin as a needle, smiling broadly, and he could hear the voice of that idiot Lucia, remarking on what good shape he was in, even though he was the same age as Maione. What does that matter? he thought. You have the constitution you’re born with. And after all, with my weight, I can always sit on him and crush him. He smiled at the thought.
He checked the time again: it wouldn’t be long, he thought. He’d walked a long way, but he didn’t mind: he felt like a man of action; sitting in drawing rooms questioning people wasn’t something he wanted to do. He’d gone to a place near the Capece home, right where the commissario had told him: a small door in a blind alley, a dead-end vicolo, leading down into a dank, filthy cellar. He’d looked for a brick slightly out of place in the wall, finding it by touch, lighting matches in the darkness: he’d gotten his hands dirty, and then he’d rinsed them at a little spigot, splashing some water on his face as well. It had taken him some time, but he did find something, just as Ricciardi had said he would. He’d asked the commissario how he knew where it would be and he’d dodged the question; Maione suspected this had been another tidbit he’d picked up on his stroll through Fascist headquarters. And in fact, he was now waiting for a possible murderer to show up, and if nothing else, a person guilty of concealing evidence; under his sweaty arm he was holding a package wrapped in newspaper, containing a Beretta 7.65 pistol that in all likelihood had killed Duchess Adriana Musso di Camparino.
Ricciardi looked up from the form he was filling out and checked the clock: it was almost time. The early afternoon sun was beating down relentlessly and pedestrians were few and far between. From his office window came the screams of seagulls and, every so often, ship horns from the nearby harbor.
He thought that setting sail for somewhere else wouldn’t be bad at all. Any ship would do, perhaps a freighter, with a distant destination. And a new life, new landscapes, new circumstances. And yet, he mused, a man like him had nowhere to flee. The dead speak the same language everywhere, dully repeating their last thoughts; and they would certainly befoul the air he breathed no matter where he went. He could run away from everything and everyone, but not from himself: that was his curse. Through the doorway, left open in hopes of a crossdraft, he could glimpse the dead thief. I won’t go back, I won’t go back in there, he repeated, like always. From the scorched bullet hole in his temple oozed blood and brains. You’re going to persecute me forever, thought Ricciardi. Forever.
He sighed as he got to his feet; he had to go join Maione and his guest.
Rosa removed her hatpins and took off her hat, overheated but contented. She wasn’t accustomed to being outside in the heat of the afternoon, especially during the month of August, but circumstances had demanded it.