Liar Moon (3 page)

He could see Turco’s stout figure emerging from behind the line of poplars and starting back. The urgency of his heavy step made Guidi hope he’d recovered the bullet casing, but it was a far larger object that Turco carried in his hand. Guidi walked up to meet him.

“Another shoe, Inspector,” Turco announced, holding the find aloft.

Guidi nodded. “It matches the one we have, all right.”

“What in the world is
stu lazzu di furca
doing, dropping shoes as he goes along? It don’t make any sense, Inspector.”

“It certainly
doesn’t.
”

Following Turco and his handlebar moustache, Guidi examined the area where the shoe had been found. Invisible from the hut, beyond the row of poplars ran a deep irrigation ditch, which a man could easily straddle. Ice was already forming on its banks of yellow grass.

“Not on the ground, Inspector,” Turco pointed out. “Up there.” And he showed the fork of a lonesome mulberry tree behind the poplars. “The shoe was wedged in there, as if the madman had been sitting in the tree at some point.”

“He might have fired at the farmer from up there, too.”

The first shoe had been found nearly two miles away, stuck between two rocks along an overgrown country track. The anchoring of it had seemed significant to Guidi at the time, and now this. “I don’t think he
lost
the shoes,” he told Turco. “He left them behind for some reason.”

“For us to catch him?”

Guidi lifted his shoulders in a shrug, his usual response to uncertainty. “He lets us know he’s been there, that’s all.”

Bora was not at the Lago army post when Guidi called. Lieutenant Wenzel, Bora’s second-in-command, understood no Italian. He kept a freckled, unfriendly young face squared at him and would not volunteer any information. When Guidi gave him a scribbled message for the major, he took it and without a word walked to place it on Bora’s desk.

On his way out Guidi paused to listen to the threatening growls of dogs from the small fenced yard behind the building. There Bora kept his German shepherds, he knew. A soldier was trimming willow bushes on the side of the command post.

Guidi was careful not to stare, but he noticed that the army BMW parked on the street had a clear bullet hole through its windshield. Dirt was packed in dry clumps around the tyres and under the bumper, as if it had been run off the road. Guidi’s quiet observation was cut short by a soldier who eased him away with a whisked motion of his rifle stock.

 

Bora contacted Guidi only on Tuesday, when he agreed to meet with him within the hour in downtown Verona.

“The dogs, you may have for one day,” he said as they shook hands on the city sidewalk. “If your fugitive is still around Lago or Sagràte, they’ll find him. As for the shot to my windshield, since you ask, I would be glad to ascribe it to your lunatic. But I’m afraid he has nothing to do with it.” This was as close as Bora got to mentioning the partisans. “No one was hurt, but the windshield is going to be damned hard to replace.”

In the nine weeks they’d known each other, Guidi had never seen Bora embarrassed or at a loss for words. Not even when he’d come to introduce himself formally on the fateful 8th of September – the day when the King’s government armistice with the Allies precipitated a German takeover of Italy. Curiously, the major’s first visit had been to Monsignor Lai, head of the local parish, where he’d spent twice as much time as he would at the police station. Less than twelve hours later, a partisan grenade
launcher had struck Bora’s car while on patrol. They’d met again two weeks after that, when against medical advice Bora had left the hospital, looking like death. Since then they’d spoken occasionally, as their respective positions required. And Guidi still wondered why one as decorated as Bora should be assigned to such an unimportant place in the Venetian plain.

As they stood across the street from the downtown flat where Lisi’s widow lived, Guidi felt a provincial’s discomfort with the bustling elegance of the neighbourhood. Even a thousand days into the War, rows of canopied store fronts and chic restaurants lent colour to the pale baroque façades of the buildings. The elegant Green Market Square, Lords’ Square, the Roman gate known as Porta Borsari were all a stone’s throw from where he and Bora stood. But Bora looked perfectly at ease, as he probably would even if Romeo and Juliet were to walk by him to reclaim their city.

Guidi had the unwarranted but distinct impression that he and Bora could never like each other. Whether or not it mattered, he felt self-conscious, because Bora was observant but revealed little about himself. Other than that he attended mass frequently during the week, Guidi had heard he was upper class, Scottish on his mother’s side. And married, judging by the wedding ring he wore on his right hand.

Just now Bora was congenially surveying the windshield of his parked BMW, as if the hole in it were a conversation piece. “Why do you look at me that way, Guidi? Rifle shots are my business, and these days it’s easier to replace a German major than a German windshield.”

“I was actually thinking about Lisi’s widow, and what we ought to ask her.”

“Well, she lives right there.” Bora’s gloved hand pointed at the corner of one of the parallel streets feeding into the Corso on one side, and into the avenue leading to the medieval centre on the other. Clara Lisi’s wrought-iron balcony occupied the entire second floor of the building. “There, where you see oleanders still in bloom. But we’re half an hour early, so – come.”

Taking from the car the leather briefcase Guidi had seldom seen him without, Bora instructed the driver to park further down the street, and with his quick limp started toward a nearby café.

Guidi was still looking at Clara’s doorstep, where a plain-clothes man stood guard.

“Yes, he does smack of police.” Jovially Bora read his mind.

The café had gleaming windows (free of ugly tape and supports despite the air raids), waiters in white frocks and the delightful, unforgettable aroma of real coffee. Guidi could not help asking himself what it would cost to order anything here.

“My treat, of course,” Bora was saying. “I don’t like waiting in the street.” With a soldier’s unspoken prudence, not lost on Guidi, he chose a table from which he could keep an eye on the entrance. There he sat, oblivious to the customers’ furtive looks at his uniform. “By the by, Guidi, I went to see the widow’s car at the city garage. It certainly has a bad dent, which could have been caused by collision with metallic framework such as the invalid’s chair. The angle and height of the damage are about right, too. You are of course welcome to inspect it
yourself.” With a nod Bora called the waiter. “I can also add something to the information I gave you on Sunday.”

After they ordered – Guidi would have the luxury of a cappuccino, Bora black coffee – Bora took out a typewritten sheet from his briefcase. “You wanted to know how Lisi lost the use of his legs. According to my sources it happened during the Fascist March on Rome twenty-one years ago. The accident was unrelated to politics, it was a car wreck on the way to the capital, but it attracted Mussolini’s interest and was much publicized at the time. Got Lisi started in active politics, in fact.”

“Really.” Guidi noticed that in his courteous and indifferent manner Bora referred to Mussolini by name and not by title, as he’d not once but twice spoken of “Hitler” and not the
Führer.
And he addressed Guidi with
lei
, not the regime-imposed
voi
. It would seem strange, except that other subtle traits were combining to make him wonder about the German’s political orthodoxy.
Watch out
, he told himself.
Maybe he does it on purpose to gauge
my
loyalty
. “It was a good career choice for Lisi,” he observed. “He’s done well for himself ever since.”

“Bloody well, indeed.” Bora sipped coffee, keeping uncommunicative eyes on the few people at the surrounding tables. Guidi felt sure this unafraid wariness clung to him at all times, with perhaps other concerns he chose not to share.

Scanning Bora’s notes, he asked, “Were there any children from the marriage?”

“No, but not for the reasons you might surmise.” Bora put down the demitasse. He grinned an unkind boyish grin, but it was a veneer on his circumspection. “The old man was insatiable in that regard. ‘The Blackshirt Satyr’
they called him in Verona. It seems he liked them all, but servant girls were his speciality.”

“You don’t say.” Letting the excellent drink make slow, warm inroads into his system, Guidi found he rather enjoyed being treated. “Traditionally a good reason why the neglected wife should consider doing him in.”

“I’m not so sure. I doubt that she didn’t know his habits. She was his secretary prior to their marriage five years ago.”

“How old is she?”

“Twenty-eight. Thirty years his junior.”

Guidi balanced the cup in his hand, inhaling the pleasurable warm scent from it. More and more, Bora’s light-hearted talk appeared to belie rising tension, only detectable by the contrast between words and an increased stiffness of neck and shoulders. With a glance Guidi tried to communicate that he was aware of the alarm, but Bora did not acknowledge him, so he gave up the effort. “Is the woman good-looking, Major?”

“We’ll find out soon enough. Here’s a photo of
him.
” Guidi received the snapshot of a heavy-set man, weighed down by inertia but still maintaining traces of enormous physical vigour. His features were insolent without being brutal.

“A self-indulgent mouth, don’t you think?” Bora said the words staring directly at Guidi, though his peripheral vision was no doubt taking in what went on in the section of the room behind Guidi’s back.

“Physiognomy can be deceptive.”

“Do you think so?”

“I know so. Cruelty and immorality are not reflected on one’s face any more than mercy or good mores, Major.
All you have is features. If you are blessed with the
right
ones, you needn’t worry about visual detection.”

“I disagree, but then you’re the expert.”

Guidi played with his spoon in the cup, worried by Bora’s survey of the place and his unwillingness to give a motive for it. At last, following guardedly the object of Bora’s attention, he saw that it rested on a sallow-cheeked young man with a cloth bag on his knees, seated two tables away from them. The young man seemed immersed in a colourful issue of
La Domenica del Corriere
.

“Anyone suspicious?” Guidi leaned forward to ask.

“No, never mind.”

“It has to be
something
, Major.”

Bora put an American cigarette – a Chesterfield, it seemed to Guidi – in his mouth. “Just tell me what you found out. Cigarette?”

“No, thank you. Well, I’ve managed to do some checking on Lisi’s bank account. He was in fact exceedingly well off, even for one who’d been grubbing in the political trough for years. I can’t figure out what his additional sources of income were, but they’re undeniable. Real estate, government bonds, investments in the Colonies. No matter what large sums were withdrawn, larger yet deposits were made. No order to them, no apparent connection. Can’t tell where the money came from, or where it went. He might have spent some money on women, but who knows how much.”

“Perhaps enough to keep their mouths shut.” Bora took one more slip of paper from his briefcase. “These are the addresses of two midwives. I’ll follow up on them tomorrow or the day after, as I can. Through the Verona
carabinieri
, I ferreted out of a subordinate the
titbit that abortions were performed on two underage country girls known to Lisi some time ago. An arrest followed in relation to the second case: the girl was more than five months along, and died of peritonitis after the operation. When the
carabinieri
pressured her, in self-defence the midwife let slip the name of the prospective father, and lost her licence more quickly than she would have otherwise. Lisi’s name remained publicly spotless in the process. This was in 1940, and the woman has just got out of jail.” Bora let some cigarette smoke out of his lips, as if blowing off an insect flying around him. “I had no idea what leads cleaning women will give you for a price.”

The scent of American tobacco wafted temptingly close. Guidi regretted not having accepted a smoke. “So,” he said, “it could have been revenge.”

“Only if the midwife had a car at her disposal to run Lisi down.”

Guidi did not laugh. “We should interrogate the present housemaid. According to my sources, she speaks of Lisi as some sort of a saint. Amiable toward everybody, good-natured, generous. All he lacked was a halo, listening to her. She blames arguments and separation on the wife, whom she heard threatening him.”

“Oh?” To Guidi’s horror, Bora squashed the expensive cigarette in the ashtray, only half-smoked. Relaxing his shoulders a little, he asked, “Did the wife say she was going to run him over with her Alfa Romeo sports car?”

“No, but close. A couple of weeks ago Clara was reportedly overheard yelling at him that she would make sure he wouldn’t be wheeling around much longer. They were
arguing about money, but the maid could not eavesdrop closely enough to find out more.”

“It seems she eavesdropped well enough. How’s the wife’s bank account?”

“Good. She’s set up, no reason to complain there. Lisi provided her with an ample settlement when they parted ways four months ago. She got to keep jewels, furs, the silver and the car, although he asked her to return his ‘beloved late mother’s gold brooch’. She was also given the flat we’re about to visit.”

“I wonder if
she’s
got a lover or two.” Bora glanced at the wristwatch he wore on his right arm. He motioned to the waiter for the bill, paid it and stood up from the chair.

Guidi resented that glibness. “You’re a gossip, Major.”

“Why? I’m not passing judgement. I’m just doing Colonel Habermehl’s bidding, remember?” Seconds later, Bora, turned elsewhere, was telling him, “Don’t move. Stay seated, Guidi, don’t move.”