The Colombian Mule (12 page)

The lawyer's eyes fell open with surprise. ‘Celegato. He used to be a client of mine. I defended both him and Corradi when they were tried for the murder of those two police officers. As far as I know, he is—or was—Corradi's best friend.'

Max, Rossini and I glanced at one another. We couldn't tell Bonotto about our direct line to his client, but we now possessed an explanation for the way Nazzareno had behaved on the phone the previous day.

‘That explains,' said Rossini, thinking aloud, ‘how the cop, Nunziante, found out that Corradi killed the two patrolmen in Caorle.'

The coffees were brought in, giving us some time to arrange our thoughts.

‘How are you thinking of proceeding?' the lawyer asked.

‘Well, given the involvement of the law enforcement agencies, with the greatest possible circumspection,' Max replied.

‘For the time being, we can reasonably assume Celegato struck a deal with the police and Finanza to frame Corradi. But before we make any kind of move, let alone anything involving the courts, we're going to have to clarify every single aspect of this case. And that is going to entail some careful investigative work.'

‘We don't have a lot of time,' Bonotto objected, sounding worried.

Beniamino opened a packet of cigarettes and looked the lawyer in the eye. ‘The quickest way would be to drop in on Celegato and ask him to tell us what's going on. I'm sure he'd cooperate, but if he's in that tight with the cops, we could end up in trouble ourselves, at which point there would be nothing more anybody could do for your client. You're going to have to be patient, Avvocato.'

‘Go and talk to Nazzareno,' I urged the lawyer. ‘Get him to tell you every last detail that might possibly be of help to us. Talk to the investigating magistrate too, and see what you can find out.'

‘Okay.' Bonotto buzzed his secretary and asked her to bring in the file relating to the trial for the jeweler's shop robbery in Caorle and the killing of the two patrolmen.

He flicked through it and then handed me a newspaper cutting with a photo of the two accused men. ‘Unfortunately I can't help with Celegato's present whereabouts. At the time of the trial, he was still living in Venice at his mother's place.' I shook his hand. ‘Don't worry. Finding him is the least of our problems.'

 

After lunch, as we savoured our liqueurs, we discussed the best way to handle Corradi. I had wanted to broach the subject earlier, but Old Rossini hadn't wanted to spoil his enjoyment of the pastissada de cavàl that Max had prepared for us, or indeed the bottle of Amarone that he had decanted an hour earlier, treating it as if it were holy water.

‘I don't wish to talk about piece-of-shit snitches while I'm eating delicacies,' Rossini had stated, leaving no room for argument.

As the Calvados, vodka and grappa came round for the second time, I glanced at my watch. ‘Our telephone appointment is in ten minutes,' I said.

The time galloped past, and when I dialled the number I just had to hope everything would go okay.

‘Ciao, Alligator,' Corradi said, sounding like a zombie.

I dispensed with greetings. ‘Your best friend. Bruno Celegato. It's thanks to him you're in prison. And you also have him to thank for tipping Nunziante off about the two patrolmen. What are you going to do?'

‘I don't know. I still can't believe it.'

‘I can understand that it came as a blow, but we really need something we can work with. I mean, if we could just find out the terms of the deal Celegato has struck with the cops, maybe we could find a way of getting you out of prison.'

‘I know nothing whatsoever about it. I had no idea he was trafficking coke.'

‘What about his trips to Japan?'

‘Sure, he always talked about that. It was Bruno who first got me interested in Colombian women.'

‘There's really nothing more you know?'

‘I give you my word. After the Caorle job, we decided to quit working together. All I knew was what he kept telling me up until just a few days before I was arrested, which is that he was involved in nothing but prostitution.'

‘Do you at least know where he lives?'

‘Yeah. Mestre, Via Tevere twenty-one, third floor.'

‘What car does he drive?'

‘A yellow Saab convertible.'

‘Don't go blurting this all out to Victoria. Nobody must know we've identified him.'

‘I have no desire to talk about this to anyone.'

I hung up. ‘So there we have it. We don't know a fucking thing.'

Max put the lid back on the pastissada. ‘There's nothing for it. We'll have to tail him.'

‘Shit,' I said. ‘That's the part of this job I hate the most. It's time-consuming, boring as hell, and utterly unpredictable.'

Rossini pulled on his overcoat. I did the same. There was no point complaining.

*

Via Tevere was a side-turning off Via Cà Rossa, a long road that snaked its way through Mestre and then out to a district known as Favaro Veneto. It wasn't the best place for a stakeout. Both the police and the Carabinieri had barracks in the neighbourhood and the streets were patrolled constantly. We had parked my Skoda about fifty meters from the block of flats where Celegato lived, in a spot that gave us a good view of his car.

As the third squad car went past, Rossini erupted in irritation. ‘Look, Marco, we can't stop here. In half an hour at most, they'll be asking us for our ID.'

‘You're right. What we need is a van.'

Rossini knew just where to look. There was a friend of his back in Punta Sabbioni who, despite his clean criminal record, had a weakness that he needed at all costs to keep from his wife. And, as it happened, he owed Rossini a lot of favors.

Three quarters of an hour later we drove into Punta Sabbioni. Rossini told me where to drop him and asked me to wait in the car-park of a restaurant he pointed out to me. When I saw him pull up in a little Japanese van, I knew the whole stakeout was going to be utter torture. There was a sign on the side that read: ‘Pescheria Irma. Fresh and deep-frozen fish and seafood.'

I lowered the car window. ‘You can take that right back where you found it. I've absolutely no intention of stinking like a mullet for the rest of my days.'

Beniamino wagged his index-finger at me. ‘You've made up your mind to piss me off, right? I've put my entire business on hold for this crappy investigation of yours and you have the nerve to play the fine-nosed fop?'

‘There's no way we can stay shut up in that thing for hours on end.'

He flashed a deadly smile at me. ‘Yeah? Go tell that to Corradi.'

I got out of the car and into the van. The stench was intense even in the driver's cabin. But when we got to Mestre and parked outside Celegato's place, and there was no choice but to hide in the back, it was like being pitched into the hold of a fishing-boat. Rossini never batted an eyelid. I took out a cigarette and stuck it in my mouth. Absent-mindedly, Rossini pulled it back out and threw it on the floor. ‘No smoking in here,' he said, ‘these goods are perishable.'

‘Tell me you're joking.'

‘Not at all. Right now I quite fancy a cigarette too, but we can't. The owner of the van would notice and that would mean bye-bye van.'

I looked at him as if he were raving. ‘Do I take it you're intending to use this trashcan for other stakeouts?'

‘Sure. The fishing trade is a great cover here in Mestre.'

By the time Celegato decided to go out, it was almost ten o'clock. He looked nothing like the photo Bonotto had handed us but closely fitted the description that the Colom­bian had given the police. We slipped out of the back of the fish-van and climbed into the cab. Celegato got into his Saab convertible and headed for the centre of town. There he stopped, went into a bar and played billiards till around midnight. He then came out, got back into his car and drove to the train station. After circling a couple of times, observing the hookers, he stopped to talk to a blonde in her early twenties, probably an Albanian. They haggled over the price and the exact nature of the services, then the woman got in and they drove to a nearby hotel and went inside. A little later he drove home.

‘We'd better hope this was one of his duller days,' I commented.

Rossini fidgeted with his bracelets. ‘Given the number of cops in this neighbourhood, we can only really stake out his flat after about four in the afternoon, once it starts getting dark. And unless we get lucky, this isn't going to get us anywhere anyway.'

The second day, Celegato left home a little after six in the evening. He took the main road for Treviso, floored the accelerator, and in a matter of seconds had vanished.

The third evening, when he got into his yellow Saab, we switched to Rossini's car which we had parked nearby. We didn't want to lose all trace of Celegato two evenings running. He led us to the same bar and the same hotel as the first evening, though this time the girl had jet-black hair.

The fourth evening, he took the autostrada and headed towards Milan. He exited at Padova West and drove to a little village close to the city's industrial estate. Then, indicating as he turned, he swung sharp right into the car-park of a private swingers' club.

‘This guy's got nothing but sex on the mind,' I snapped. Rossini made himself comfortable, tilting his seat back a little. ‘Well, isn't he the lucky one! Sylvie's starting to suspect I have a lover.'

To our surprise, Celegato left the club a mere twenty minutes later. ‘That's odd,' Rossini commented. ‘As an unaccompanied man, it costs you three hundred and fifty thousand lire to get into this joint.'

We followed Celegato back to Mestre where he picked up the same blonde girl as on the first evening. I gave my associate a nudge. ‘It looks like he didn't go to that club for sex after all.'

‘Right. Starting from tomorrow, we can wait for him there. I'm positive he'll show up.'

I smiled with satisfaction. Not so much because we were finally making some headway with our investigations, more because we could at last jettison the stinking fish van. I was sick of going home every night and stuffing all my clothes into a plastic bag to drop off at the cleaners the following morning.

At La Cuccia, I found Max and Victoria sitting at my table, chatting. Virna intercepted me as I made my way over to join them. ‘She's been waiting for you for a while. She must have something really major to tell you.'

‘Just bring me a drink, please. And don't make yourself ridiculous.'

Max handed me the chair and clapped me on the shoulder by way of greeting. Victoria stood up and shook my hand. She was wearing a long knitted dress, low-slung shoes with buckles, and her hair was gathered in a thick plait. As always, she looked absolutely beautiful. She turned to me with a sad, shy smile. ‘I just dropped by to see if there was any news.'

‘No, none yet, I'm afraid.' Glancing up, I caught Virna's stare and so hurried to add, in a diplomatic tone of voice,

‘Don't trouble yourself to come by, Victoria. The minute we find anything out, we'll let you know.'

She leaned her head to one side and tugged at a ringlet that had escaped from her plait and was lying against her neck. ‘I was hoping you had found out something about that man who takes girls to Japan.'

I decided to close the subject. ‘It turned out to be a false lead. Nobody knows anything about it.'

Victoria stood up, calmly pulled on her leather coat, and did up the buttons. Another doleful smile and then she left.

Max poured himself some beer. ‘Corradi's nights must be hell, lying there and thinking about her.'

I glanced at Virna, who had taken good care not to bring me the drink I had ordered. ‘I hope Victoria will stay away from now on. My girlfriend doesn't like having her around.'

‘I've noticed that. All the same, I wouldn't bank on Victoria staying away. She confided in me that she can't bear being all alone in that big empty house. It gives her the jitters. So in the evenings she does the rounds of the nightclubs, looking for someone who can sympathize with her situation . . . She'll be back.'

‘All we need is a prison widow on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Listen, Max, I think we're onto something. I'll just get myself a drink and then I'll tell you all about it.'

After Max had heard me out, he took a long gulp of beer.

‘I reckon you're right to keep an eye on the swingers' club. Celegato is acting really strangely. Have you ever been in a swingers' club?'

‘No, I haven't, but Beniamino told me he has a few times. Apparently there are lots of small, low-lit rooms full of people having sex, any way the mood takes them. Mainly it's couples. The way it works is that entrance tickets for couples are relatively cheap, about a hundred and fifty thousand lire, whereas men who turn up on their own, like Celegato, have to part with three hundred and fifty thousand each.'

‘It would be a perfect venue for a rendezvous.'

‘Or to take delivery of a consignment of coke.'

‘Right. But we must also keep an eye on the bar and the hotel where he takes the hookers. He goes there too often . . .'

‘I'll call Rossini tomorrow and suggest he take a closer look. After all, the swingers' club doesn't open till nine in the evening.'

 

The next day, Rossini turned up just in time for dinner. Max wasn't in the mood to cook so we had to make do with a simple plate of pasta.

I grated some Parmesan over my tortiglioni. ‘Did you manage to get that information I asked you about this morning?'

‘Yes, I did,' Rossini said. ‘I dropped in on Toni Vassallo. Do you remember him? When we were in prison in Padova, he was in cell twenty-six.'

I stopped chewing. ‘Of course I remember him. He's the guy who got shot in the back by some jeweler and ended up in a wheelchair.'