Darkness for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone (20 page)

He's never told anyone at work that he lives here. He knows what they think of him: That he's there because of nepotism, that he doesn't need the 1,200 euros a month a policeman makes. A guy who could have snapped his fingers and had a job at any law office in the provincial town he came from, where his family might as well have been royalty with all the money they had. And all that gossip would be confirmed by the way he chooses to live; instead of renting a studio apartment, he lives in one of the finest hotels in the downtown area, where a room, breakfast included, costs more than his salary.

But Aragona has his reasons. He's served, flattered, fed magnificently, and they wash his sheets. He never has to tidy up after himself and there's even satellite TV, so he can watch the American cop shows he is so passionate about. And then it's all so secret agent to live in a hotel and drink dry martinis on the roof garden, the city stretched out at his feet, the traffic noise muffled by distance like faraway music.

Actually, there's also another reason. But to Mamma and Papà, who are only too happy to continue looking after their beloved son by sending a sizable wire transfer that the bank deposits punctually into his account every month, he hasn't mentioned it. The reason is Irina, the angel who, disguised as a waitress serving breakfast, brings him plates of scrambled eggs and bacon every morning.

He's never spoken to her. But sooner or later, as soon as the opportunity presents itself, he'll sweep off his blue-tinted eyeglasses and give her that famous look of his, as if he's only just noticed her. And, pretending to read the name tag that the girl wears pinned to her remarkable chest, only then will he say to her: Ciao, Irina. What are you doing for fun, after work?

Okay, he thinks, as he heads off to the elevator, his room key in hand, it's an immigrant's name. But not all immigrants are bastard sons of bitches like the one who's kidnapped the boy, right? You can't tar them all with the same brush.

We're heroes, fucking right, thinks Corporal Marco Aragona, trying out the look that he's planning to use on Irina in the elevator mirror.

Heroes aren't racists. And he certainly isn't one. Who could have ever said otherwise?

 

Heroes. Heroes with secret identities.

Because it's not necessarily the case that heroes seem like heroes.

Sometimes they seem like ordinary people, and they do it on purpose, so that no one will suspect they have special powers, so that none of the villains will suspect that at any moment they might find themselves face-to-face with the hero who'll throw them up against the wall, toss them into a cell.

Sometimes not even the people who live right alongside them know who they are, these heroes.

Perhaps they don't even notice them, they're so used to taking things for granted. Maybe even to those who love them, who've known them since they were small, maybe even to their own families, heroes don't seem like heroes.

Hidden behind their mundane alter egos, heroes can seem like something completely other than what they are.

Heroes, sometimes, are complete nobodies.

 

Alessandra Di Nardo, known to her friends as Alex, was sitting up straight, the way she'd been taught, watching TV. She didn't care much about whatever they were blabbering on about on the screen; she was listening with an eighth, or maybe even a tenth, of her attention. She was minding her own business.

She'd have gladly done without that ridiculous after-dinner ritual entirely. But it mattered to the general a great deal, her mother had explained to her, and if something mattered to the general, then no one else had the right to vote.

Alex lived with her parents. She could—she wanted to with all her heart—live on her own, in an apartment, however small, in any neighborhood in the city, ideally as far as possible from this one. But the one time, years ago, that she'd expressed that desire at dinner, breaking the silence imposed during meals because, as the general liked to say, you can only do one thing well at a time, so either you eat or you talk, the answer had been quick and decisive: Certainly, the general had said, when you get married.

That was the end of that, because Alex was never going to get married.

On the television, the guy that they always watched at that hour was talking; his voice was low and courtly, and he used the same tone on every topic, whether it was diets or politics or the economy. That night, the spotlight was on a famous murder, perhaps for the hundredth time. The scene of the crime was analyzed inch by inch, the psychologist sketched out a profile of the probable culprit, the magistrate outlined standard procedures, the criminologist laid out the evidence that had been overlooked by the dimwitted investigators who had taken on the case. Alex, with the tenth of her attention that she'd devoted to the show, realized how pointless all that talk really was, as if one crime were the same as another, as if it weren't true that each time, the weed of evil grew inside a soul in its own unique and twisted way.

She shot a glance over at the general; he had fallen asleep in his armchair, his mouth open and his head thrown back. He was getting old, she told herself with the usual incredible blend of tenderness, resentment, fear, and love that she felt for him. Her prison. The man whose opinion, to her, could be more damning than a verdict handed down by a court of law, seeing as they disagreed on everything.

Farther off to the side her mother had fallen asleep, too; her eyeglasses had slid down the sharp ridge of her nose. Alex knew that the minute she moved to get up, even if it was just to go to the bathroom, both of them would suddenly jump to attention like grasshoppers. Where are you going, sweetheart? her mamma would ask, in accordance with the general's silent command. Don't you like the show?

She decided that tomorrow, instead of coming home after work, she'd go to the shooting range. She only really felt like herself before a darkened hallway, a pair of soundproof earmuffs on, staring down the target with a bull's-eye on its chest. And when she had a regulation weapon in her hand, a gun that she'd modified all by herself. Six shots in a row, six bull's-eyes, and all around her, her fellow policemen looking at her in astonishment: a twenty-eight-year-old woman, slender and refined, with delicate features that made her look five years younger, who could shoot faster and more accurately than all the rest of them put together.

A passion for weapons was the only interest she shared with the general; the only thing that united a father and daughter who were otherwise opposites. He'd taken her to the gun range for the first time when she was ten. Her mamma's feeble protests—she had imagined her daughter partaking in more feminine pastimes—had proved as ineffectual as a spring breeze: For that matter, wasn't the general's wife the one who had been unable to bear him a son? And now what did she want, that he should resign himself to the idea that there would never be another Di Nardo in the army without even being able to share an innocent hobby like firearms with Alex?

Then she'd decided to join the police force, after boarding school. A decision that, deep down, though he gave no outward sign, the general had approved. What the old man didn't know was that it had been at boarding school, on a rainy night, that his blushing daughter had discovered her true nature with a particularly outgoing roommate.

Alex was never going to get married because Alex wasn't interested in men.

Alex liked women.

Unfortunately, she lacked the strength to be her own person, and for this, she hated herself. She hated herself because she had to go out at night to special clubs, because she had to wear a mask, because she had to pretend to be someone else in order to brush her fingers over soft flesh, to savor certain tastes.

She shifted uncomfortably in the armchair, tormented by a subtle quivering of the flesh. Nature. You can't fight nature, and she certainly didn't intend to. Still, it's hard to struggle against certain conditioned reactions, and the general was the father of all conditioned reactions. I wonder what you'd say about me, she thought, looking at the psychologist on TV with his green sweater, his checked shirt, and his tuft of white hair, if you were to analyze my profile. A good middle-class girl, shy and introverted, who's a crack shot and secretly sleeps with women.

For no real reason, her mind wandered to the Parascandolos, the burgled couple at the center of the investigation she was working with the Chinaman. A good guy, the Chinaman: practical, matter-of-fact, deductive. A first-class cop, and a reliable partner. Not one of those guys with wandering hands, like the ones she'd worked with at the station house she'd been expelled from for discharging her firearm. That was some story.

At Pizzofalcone, Alex got along with everyone. Pisanelli, Ottavia, even Romano, with his prickly personality: They were all her type. All bad apples like her, perhaps, but authentic. Even Aragona, rude as he was, was at least exactly what he appeared to be—and there were times when he was even likable. All of them were alone for one reason or another. Better to be alone, though, than to wind up hating each other like that couple who'd called in the burglary. Tomorrow, with the Chinaman, she'd go over to the Parascandolos' gym to take a look around. There was something not quite right about that burglary. The forensics chief had said so, too.

At the thought of Martone she felt a sudden ache in the pit of her stomach, a physical sensation so powerful that she was afraid it had actually made a sound, and that it would wake the general up, and that he'd look over at her with his usual probing glare. She was certain that the chief, with that beautiful ass lurking beneath her lab coat, was like her. And that, somehow—by smell, perhaps, or via some other signal unknown to others—Martone had identified her.

And as ridiculous as it might seem since she, Alex, had barely been able to speak, had made a fool of herself, she was certain that Martone had liked her. A lot.

Though maybe that was just an illusion. Maybe—no, almost certainly—her fate was to live all alone, caring for her super-centenarian parents, to quest, in the darkness, after the satisfactions of the flesh for the rest of her life.

That thought brought to the surface, from the fog of her subconscious, an image of the kidnapped boy. Who knows where they took you. Who knows how dearly you'll pay for the crime of being born someone's child. Just like me.

In response to her thoughts her cell phone vibrated in her lap, lighting up the dim shadows of the living room. On the display, she saw it was a text message from unknown number.

She typed in her passcode and read the text: “
Ciao
. I'm pretty sure I don't need to tell you who this is. I wanted you to have this number in case you ever felt like talking, or going out for a beer, or whatever. A kiss goodnight.”

She turned her phone off right away, positive that the color of her face and the sound of the blood throbbing in her ears were as bright and loud as a fireworks display.

You're right, she thought. You don't have to tell me who you are.

In the dark, she grinned like a wolf.

 

That's the way heroes are, you know.

No one can say who they really are. But when the time is right, they come out, and they'll be one hundred percent themselves in their battle versus evil. They're there, and they'll always be there.

You can be sure of it.

S
he walks into the room and lets herself collapse onto the chair. The bare bulb casts a chilly light on the room's desolation.

“Give me a cigarette. This is definitely the hardest part, acting without being an actress.”

He snickers: “Why, you were a star. I could hear you through the crack in the wall. It was a scene straight out of a major motion picture: I don't know how I kept from bursting out laughing.”

“Eh, you could have given me a round of applause, too. Here's the old man's number, the private number; that way you don't have to go through her.”

“Is it all that important, talking to him directly? There are things I don't understand about this job.”

“And in fact you don't need to understand them. He told you that, didn't he? The less you understand, the less you know, the better. Just do the things you need to do, like he explained.”

He shrugs: “As long as he pays us what he promised.”

“And not just the money, remember. New IDs, too: passports and identity cards, for me and for you. They need to be Russian, nothing that can be traced back to our past.”

“That's something I'm going to be sorry about, having to change our homeland. You have no idea what a pleasure it is when you come home at night, being able to speak in our own language instead of constantly having to struggle with these ridiculous words. I've always hated Italian.”

This time she's the one who laughs: “And in fact you don't know how to speak it at all, not even after how many years? Ten years that you've lived here?”

“Eight. And I didn't spend them listening to lectures. I had to make a living hauling bricks and buckets of mortar. Back home, I went to school as long as I could afford to, and I wasn't a bad student either. But I just can't manage to learn this damn language.”

“The important thing is that you manage to make that phone call. And the less you say, the less you improvise, the better.”

“Yes, he explained that to me. I have a sheet of paper with what I'm supposed to say. At least for this next phone call. The one to the old man.”

“Be careful: He's old and sick, but he's cunning as a fox. He'll try to deal with you, to bargain, to set traps. He expects us to demand money.”

“I know, I know. All I need to do is read what's written on the sheet of paper, slowly and calmly. For now, he hasn't given us any other instructions; he'll call me afterward and give us new instructions as needed.”