A Florentine Death (9 page)

'Of course. As long as it's nothing else. You're not short of money, are you?'

'No, Daddy, don't worry. You give me more than enough.'

'What about the Panda? It must be ready for the scrapyard by now. Are you sure you don't need another car?'

'It's fine, and anyway I don't use it much in Bologna. When I go to Florence, I take the train.'

'Wise idea. Saves crossing the Apennines. This has nothing to do with that young American your mother told me about, does it?'

'No, Daddy. He's just a friend. Everything's fine.' 'What about Cinzia?' her father asked, with a hint of disappointment. 'Everything fine there, too?' 'Yes, really. Don't worry'

Did they know? she wondered for the umpteenth time.

And her torments started over again.

Cinzia hadn't come, and she didn't know whether to be pleased or upset. She remembered the apartment they shared, which had once seemed like paradise and now increasingly seemed as suffocating as a prison. Like her attic room, where she had spent that first, agonising night. The thought of going back scared her, but at the same time she wanted once again to be clasped in the hungry arms of her childhood friend.

Perhaps that was the problem, she said to herself in a sudden moment of lucidity. That they weren't children any more. That they had become women. But who really wants to grow up in a world like this?

That night, she slept badly.

She dreamed of Cinzia at the age of thirteen in her first communion dress. She came into Valentina's room, smiling happily. Valentina was naked and ashamed. She tried to hide, but Cinzia wouldn't let her. Then she laughed and asked her if she wanted her spotless white dress. She turned her back on her and let it drop to the floor. Then she turned again and, hiding her private parts with her hands, started walking languidly towards Valentina. Valentina stared, enraptured by her friend's immature body and paralysed by her shameless exhibitionism.

Cinzia laughed, coarsely. In her hands she was now clasping a huge, hideous penis.

Valentina screamed in her sleep, but did not wake up.

The scream had smashed the image to smithereens. In her dream, she made a huge effort to put it together: she wanted to suffer again. But the fragments refused to obey. The dark hair was replaced by blonde hair, the satanic grin by a reassuring smile, the hideous penis by a male appendage as innocuous as the ones you saw on marble statues in museums.

In Valentina's sleep, it was the face and body of Mike Ross she now saw.

It snowed all day in Santo Stefano and the pistes remained closed. Still confused by that strange night, Valentina hung about the hotel, giving a hand to the waiters and cooks. She did not call Cinzia, not knowing what she would say to her, and Cinzia did not call her.

Nor did she call on the days that followed.

On the 28th, though, Mike phoned again. 'I've found the perfect Christmas present for you,' he announced. 'What is it?'

'A little apartment. As it happens, it's the apartment above mine. It's a bit of a distance from the university, but still better than going backwards and forwards from Bologna.'

'I don't understand.'

'You've only got your thesis still to finish, isn't that right? You don't need Bologna any more. You should be living in Florence. For your research. And this is a great opportunity. The way the prices are here

'But you can't just decide like that, Mike, off your own bat.'

'I don't know how you Italians do it, but I always think that if you don't make a move right away, by tomorrow it's already too late.'

'Listen, it's not as simple as that.'

'Well, do as you want. But they're only holding it for me one more day. I gave my word. Let me know.' 'I'll think about it. And thanks anyway' 'Let me know,' he repeated.

Not even half an hour had passed - half an hour of anguish and uncertainty - when the mobile rang again. 'Valentina?' It was Cinzia. 'Hi.'

'Why didn't you call me?' 'You didn't call me either.'

Valentina was surprised at herself. She was dissolving inside, she realised that she had wanted this phone call more than anything in the world, and yet she had found the courage to answer back.

'When are you coming back to Bologna?'

'Do you care?'

Silence.

'I can't hear you.'

'You haven't answered my question.'

'I don't know. After Twelfth Night, I think.'

Are you having fun?'

Are you?'

'Oh, you know, the usual.'

'Listen to me, Cinzia. I don't know if I want to go back to Bologna. I've been offered an apartment in Florence . . .'

'Your journalist friend, I suppose?' Cinzia's tone had become curt and defensive.

'He doesn't matter. What matters is what I think.'

And what do you think?'

'I don't know. Honestly, I don't know. I have to think of my future and

And you don't see your future with me, is that it?' Silence.

'So that
is
it.' She sounded offended.

'I told you, I don't know. I came here to think and so many things have happened. Strange things
..."

'Well, maybe it's just a question of making your mind up. We have to do that sometimes, in life. I made my mind up early. Maybe too early. I made my mind up that I wanted you. And I still want you. Now it's up to you.'

'I want you, too, but—'

'You see? There's a "but". In love there shouldn't be any "buts". I shouldn't have to tell you that. The truth is, you've already made your mind up. Not the way I was hoping for, but I'm not going to beg. What's the point? Unfortunately, I know you too well. Better than you know yourself.'

'Maybe that's true. You've always known too much. Right from the start. Where to touch me, how to turn me on. You made me yours, totally yours, only yours, too much yours . . .'

'And you made me yours, don't forget that.'

'Do you really think that? If that's true, then why can't I leave Bologna? Why can't I have a man as a friend?'

'Because I don't want to lose you.'

'Maybe that's not enough. Nobody wants to lose the jewel they wear round their neck, but how do we know the jewel is only happy round that particular neck?'

'That's a bit much, comparing yourself to a jewel - and I've hardly been able to show you off. This isn't a society that accepts lesbians gladly. And that's what we are, don't forget that. If it's someone else's turn now, all I can do is wish the two of you good luck. But remember: there are jewels and there are jewels. Some are cursed, and bring bad luck to anyone who puts them on.'

That was all Valentina needed. Twenty minutes later, she called Mike.

The next day she left.

3

It was two o'clock in the morning on 9 January 2000 at the Central Park disco in the Parco delle Cascine. The music was deafening. The place was full to bursting, as it was every Saturday night. The ventilation system had been turned full on, to try and get rid of the white clouds of smoke that hung in the air. From time to time, multicoloured beams of light swept the room.

Leaning against a pillar, with a glass of whisky in his left hand and a lit cigarette in the other, Pino Ricci, a
Squadra Mobile
officer in Serpico's section, was looking around with a bored expression on his face.

Malicious rumours had been circulating for a while at Headquarters that he moonlighted as a bouncer at the Central Park on Saturdays. When Ferrara had heard the rumours, he'd shrugged his shoulders. 'He certainly has the body for it! Six and a half feet tall, built like a tank. Just looking at him is enough to scare you. Maybe they pay him just to be there.' But the rumours had never been proved.

'Hi, Pino!' came a familiar voice from behind him. 'They can't be paying you much in the Squad.'

He turned.

And smiled.

'We're used to it, Spiderman, it's part of our job.'

Fabio Nuti was an old friend. They'd known each other as children, but then their ways had parted. Pino had entered the police force and Spiderman had gone in the opposite direction. Famous from his days as a burglar for his agility at climbing the fronts of houses - hence the nickname - he was now a pusher. His speciality was selling ecstasy in discos.

The two of them hadn't seen each other for more than a year, ever since Spiderman had been arrested on his way back from Naples with a quantity of pills he had hoped to sell that weekend. It must have been a tip-off, he'd thought when he was stopped at the exit from the Florence South tollgate by an unmarked car carrying plain-clothes carabinieri from the drugs squad and asked to follow them to their barracks, where they had dismantled his brand new Rover piece by piece.

'So, Spider, how were things inside? Five-star service?'

'Fuck off, Pino. You try it some time, and tell me how many stars you'd give it.'

'Hey, just kidding. I'm pleased to see you.'

'I don't like that kind of joke, Pino, especially coming from a friend.'

Pino decided to change the subject. 'What's new on the prison grapevine? Anything hot for me? Anything that'll make me look good?'

'What?' Fabio hadn't quite heard because of the loud music.

Ricci repeated the question.

'Don't make me talk, Pino. I don't want to do that any more. People have started to cotton on. In stir, you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife.'

'What do you mean?'

'When they took me to sector A, where they keep the remand prisoners, I swear people were looking at me suspiciously. Most of the people there were pushers, and they all knew me. Some of them had been arrested because of me. I was shit scared! When I got out of solitary, after the deputy prosecutor had interrogated me, I asked to be transferred to the other wing, where they keep convicted prisoners. Some of them I knew quite well. There was even one of the accomplices of the Monster of Florence there. He was on his own in the cell opposite mine.'

'The one Chief Superintendent Ferrara put inside.'

'Yes, that's the one. I felt sorry for him, he's quite sick. It's no joke being in prison when you're over seventy'

'Don't forget what he did when he wasn't yet a decrepit old man, and how many families suffered because of him.'

'That's true, Pino, but when you're in prison you see things differently. Deep down we're all human beings.'

'Not all of us, Spider. People who commit certain crimes don't belong to the human race any more. But let's not talk about that, I'm fed up with all that shit about the Monster. So, nothing at all to tell me? Damn it, doesn't anyone talk any more in the slammer?'

Spiderman seemed reluctant to answer.

Pino needed to re-establish their old bond. 'Let's go to the bar, Fabio,' he said, smiling. ‘I’ll buy you a drink to celebrate your return to civilisation.'

Spiderman followed him.

'Two whiskies, Lucio,' Pino ordered, pretty sure he knew what Fabio would like. He was right, though his friend was quite specific: 'Make mine Glenn Grant.'

They took their two glasses and walked back to the pillar where they had met.

Pino drank a little of his whisky and asked, 'How are things with Gabriella?'

'Drop it, Pino, I don't want to talk about it. I hadn't been inside a month and the bitch had already taken up with another guy.'

'Shit! I thought you two were getting on so well

'So did I, until I got out. It's not easy for a woman to stay faithful to you when you don't come home, especially when you're locked up in prison and nobody knows when you're coming back. Anyway, let's drop it. I'll give you something, even though you don't deserve it. You didn't do anything to make things easier for me. You forgot all about me.'

'I'm just an ordinary police officer. You can't ask me for the moon.'

'I know, but if you'd talked to your boss he could have put in a good word for me.'

'Right, and then I'd have had to tell him you were my informant! My boss needs to know the information, not the source.'

Fabio nodded.

'So, what have you got for me? I hope it's clean . . .'

'You should tell the Homicide people to keep an eye on Antonio Salustri, the owner of the shop in Santo Spirito where that assistant was murdered. You know the one I mean, right?'

'Sure. You're talking to the right person, I'm working on that case. I'm not in Narcotics any more, Sergi wanted me in his squad. You remember Sergi, don't you?'

'Sure - Serpico. Is he still a hippy?'

'Oh, yes. You'd expect to see him on the barricades. Same long hair and beard, same casual clothes.'

'What a guy! I really can't see him as a policeman. He should be in the movies! How does he stand working with idiots like you?' Fabio laughed, and Pino joined him.

And why should we keep an eye on this Salusto, or whatever you said his name was?'