The Deliverance of Evil (29 page)

At the newspaper offices, Linda learned there would be an important city council meeting the following day. For the first time, a majority was prepared to vote to move the camps outside of Rome immediately. If the mayor and the council wanted to avoid an electoral massacre, they had no choice but to go along with it.

She was now about to do something that both her editor and Balistreri would not only have disapproved of, but forcefully deplored. She was prepared, having brought along something to use as a weapon, but it was still a dangerous business. This was a part of her she knew well, ever since she was a girl asking her mother questions she couldn’t answer.

Linda demands the truth, even when it could do a great deal of harm.

The Marius Travel office was closed for lunch. Behind the glass door she could see two young men, who had to be Mircea and Greg, eating sandwiches and drinking beer. Two ordinary employees. No one would have thought they were exploitative pimps or perhaps worse.

When she knocked on the door, the taller of the two glanced at her, sizing her up. She smiled winningly.

Mircea opened the door, then locked it behind himself after he’d let her in. They looked at her with condescension.

“Actually, we’re closed,” Greg said, “but for you we’ll make an exception.”

Linda flashed her press card. “I’d like to speak to Mircea.”

They stiffened a little, but then Mircea snickered and signaled to her to take a seat in front of the desk at the back of the room. Linda was aware they couldn’t be seen from outside, but there was nothing else she could do. Mircea sat opposite her and Greg at her side, blocking any escape route. She saw the key was no longer in the lock.

“What is it?”

“I’d like to ask about your dinner with Nadia on December 23,” Linda said calmly. She was not afraid.

“What will I get if I talk?” Mircea asked, staring at her breasts.

“If you provide useful information, I’ll give you a present.”

“What kind of present? Money?”

After a huge effort, she managed to give that smile again.

“All right then,” said Mircea. “It’s very simple. Me and Nadia went there on the Metro, about nine. We ate, argued, I left there and called Greg, who was nearby in an arcade. We took the Metro and were at the Bar Biliardo by midnight. You can ask the Albanian bartender and the other girl, Ramona, who were there.”

“What were you arguing about?”

He looked at her in a provocative manner. “Nadia had said she was tired and that I’d promised her a night off. So she didn’t want to have sex. And I don’t waste my time with women who don’t want to have sex.”

“Why did you take her out to dinner then?” Her tone was polite, understanding, as if she were speaking to a child who had confessed to eating chocolate in secret. She knew Mircea was only voicing what most men thought.

“If I’d known I wouldn’t have wasted my time and my money.”

“So if you hadn’t known she wasn’t willing to have sex with you, you would have skipped dinner and taken her straight to Piazza del Popolo at eleven thirty.” She said it softly; she knew she was courting danger.

Mircea hesitated and glanced at Greg. His chair squeaked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mircea said at last.

“Are you familiar with a nightclub called Bella Blu?”

Mircea’s face relaxed and he looked relieved. “Never heard of it,” he said.

“Okay, tell me about Cristal. You know that club, right?”

“Yes,” Mircea replied. “Greg and I go there once in a while.”

“Some beautiful pieces of ass there, like you,” Greg said with a wink.

“You took Ramona there,” Linda said to Mircea. She could feel the danger clearly as she got close to the crucial area, but she had to press on. She tried not to look at the door and confined herself to taking out her cell phone with its send message ready and pressing it as she transferred it from her bag to her pocket.

“Maybe. I don’t remember.” Mircea gave her a threatening look; Greg was so close to her that he was almost on top of her.

“You had to introduce her to a policeman, Colajacono, and he had to introduce her to someone else,” Linda said.

Greg was on his feet. He walked over to the glass door and drew the blinds.

“Does Marius Hagi know about Cristal and Bella Blu?” she asked, looking Mircea straight in the eye.

Mircea grabbed her hand and squeezed hard. “Fuck you, bitch.”

She stared back at him. “Let go of me,” she said flatly, and he did.

Quickly, she reached into her bag and aimed a can of pepper spray at Mircea. She pressed the button, and sprayed it in his eyes. As Mircea staggered back screaming, someone began knocking energetically on the glass door.

“Who the fuck’s knocking like that? Fucking . . .” swore Greg, pulling back the blind.

He instantly recognized the mountain of muscle with the pistol in her hand and jumped back a step. He still remembered the blow she had landed on his solar plexus. He pulled out the key, quietly opened the door, and let Linda Nardi go over to Giulia Piccolo’s side.

. . . .

While they were walking back to the office after the visit to the trust administrator, Corvu called Media City in the Arab Emirates on his cell phone. He got Belhrouz’s number and asked to be put through to him. Not only did Belhrouz answer his phone, but he spoke surprisingly good Italian and said that it would be no problem to meet them in Dubai the following day.

Soon after, Corvu’s cell phone rang. He lowered his voice as he answered. “Yes, of course, but I can’t take you to the amusement park tonight. I’ll see you later.”

“Was that your niece?” Balistreri asked sarcastically. Corvu blushed and said nothing.

Balistreri stopped in front of a shop window to tie his shoelace. “You’ve got a good memory for faces, right, Corvu?”

“Of course. I never forget a name or a face.”

“Then take a look.”

Corvu looked in the direction indicated by Balistreri and was appalled to find himself staring into a window display of sexy lingerie. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

“Check out the reflection,” Balistreri said, turning to the other shoe. “Across the street, next to the lamppost.”

Corvu stiffened. “The guy with the newspaper?”

“Yes.”

“He was outside the pizza place when we bought two slices.”

Balistreri nodded and set off at a brisk pace.

“Coppola had a feeling he was being followed when he visited Ornella Corona,” Corvu recalled. Plus there was that gray sedan Balistreri seen outside Bella Blu, but he didn’t mention that.

And I saw a gray saloon outside Bella Blu. And other little things . . .

“All right, let’s leave it there,” he said. “You head back to the office.”

“Aren’t you coming?”

“I’ll see you there later. I have to go see Pasquali and explain why we’re going to Dubai. But first I have to make the acquaintance of an attractive woman.”

. . . .

Bottom, one-hundred-percent. A woman who’d let you do anything you wanted while she filed her nails and then, when you’re finished, she’d start to polish them.

One glance at Ornella Corona was enough to confirm for Balistreri that Coppola was infallible reader of people.

Her dark black hair, smooth and shiny, was gathered in a ponytail that fell to her hips. Her distant and bored eyes regarded him without curiosity. The watch with the eye and eyelashes winked from her slender wrist.

“Are you sure you’re the famous Michele Balistreri? You don’t look like a supercop.” She wasn’t the least bit sarcastic.

“Shall I show you my badge?”

“I believe you. You just don’t look like a hard-boiled detective, or a character out of one of those British mystery novels.”

“You were expecting someone with a pipe and mustache?”

Instead you get someone who looks like a retired punch-drunk boxer
.

Ornella Corona smiled and Balistreri could easily imagine how many men she had knocked out with a smile like that. It wasn’t a real smile, more like “I’ll let you play with me awhile if you like, but when I get bored, you’ll be dismissed.”

She moved like a former model when she brought him something to drink and when she bent down to sit on the large sofa, folding her long legs sheathed in leggings beneath her. She wore no bra under the baggy cotton shirt.

“You can smoke if you like, Captain Balistreri.”

“Do you smoke?”

“That’s one bad habit I don’t have, but I don’t mind the bad habits of others.”

All right. Let’s play. Just for a while.

He could smell nail polish in the air, and the fingernails on the middle finger, index finger, and thumb of her left hand were painted dark purple. “I interrupted your manicure,” he said.

Ornella Corona didn’t even look at her hands. She said, “Every couple of weeks I change the color, but I only paint some of my nails.”

“I see that,” he said, indicating her left hand with his chin.

“I’m left-handed,” she said, holding up her hand, “so I use these three fingers for creative things. Holding a paintbrush or a pen.”

Balistreri tore his gaze away. He wondered what he would have done at one time with a woman like Ornella Corona and her three purple fingernails. Various hypothetical activities came to mind, none of which attracted him at that moment.

I’ve become a sinner in thought and omission. How sick . . .

She was going on in the same tone. “That man of yours who came to pay a visit, the little one.”

“Detective Coppola.”

“Yes. He asked an awful lot of irreverent questions.”

Damned maniac . . .

“My apologies for him. Sometimes when he sees a beautiful woman, Detective Coppola sometimes—acts less than professional.”

She laughed. “Silly me. I meant to say ‘irrelevant.’ I get all mixed up sometimes.”

Balistreri said, “I have a question for you that I’m pretty sure he didn’t ask.”

“Is it relevant or irreverent?”

“Relevant. We now have reason to believe that it was no accident that the crime took place at Bella Blu. And therefore any questions regarding Bella Blu are relevant.”

“But I haven’t been there in ages,” she protested, suddenly serious.

“Not since you sold your ENT shares to Mr. Ajello?”

“Even before that, even when my husband was still alive. I can’t stand that place.”

Ornella Corona stood up. She walked gracefully to the bar cart and poured a glass of grapefruit juice with her back to him. The leggings fit her toned backside like a glove.

You have to turn around. I want to see your face, not your behind, when I put the question to you.

She sat down again, and she leaned forward toward Balistreri. The baggy shirt sank lower, and he was offered a clear view of the sight that must have tortured Sandro Corona and plenty of other men.

“Did you already know Ajello before your husband died?”

“Yes,” she replied immediately. Then, after a short pause, she added, “That is, I knew Fabio Ajello, the lawyer’s son. We took spinning classes together at the Sport Center.”

Balistreri nodded. “You met Fabio Ajello through his father, I imagine.”

“No, the opposite. It was Fabio who introduced me to his father when he came to lunch at the Sport Center.”

“How old is Fabio?” Balistreri asked. Immediately he regretted the question. He’d given her the reaction she wanted.

Now she’s laughing at me. An old fool who’s thinking the unthinkable. And she’s amusing herself by having me think it.

“Nineteen, or so. He finished high school a year late and is still trying to decide which university course he should take. He’s not a minor—I’m sure of that,” she finished, giving him with the most innocent look in the world.

He had one more chance.

“How long have you been going to the Sport Center?”

“Five years.”

“And Fabio Ajello?”

A slight hesitation. To lie or not to lie. She decided not to. The gym would have log books, of course.

“He’s a member of the water polo team. I think he’s been on the team since he was a little kid.”

“How did you get to know a little kid when you were a young married woman?”

“I knew his mother, Mrs. Ajello, and I met Fabio through her. Then Fabio grew up and gave me swimming lessons. Then one day he introduced me to his father.”

“The father who some years later acquired your husband’s ENT shares.”

She remained silent. That was her way. Evasiveness instead of a lie—only a few privileged people can allow themselves to do this in a relationship where the powers are unequal. Balistreri imagined the good soul of Sandro Corona in this woman’s grip and felt sorry for him.

“Ajello’s been in the business a long time. Was he the one who got your husband involved with ENT in the first place?”

He cursed himself straight away. His best card, the only ace left in the pack, played far too soon. And all because of male solidarity with a dead man he’d never met.

Morally done in by this siren. Perhaps physically as well.

Ornella Corona was no longer smiling. She was considering her options. She could have told him to get lost, but she was too clever to fall into that trap. One was obvious. She could say “It’s none of your business, Captain Balistreri. What’s all this got to do with Camarà?”

Naturally she was too clever to make a mistake like that. So she chose her usual tactic, evasiveness. Finally she said, “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

She wasn’t confirming she’d known Ajello before 2002, nor that she had introduced her husband to him. She hadn’t confirmed it was Ajello who had introduced Sandro Corona to ENT. Nor had she confirmed it was Ajello who had suggested the life insurance policy that had allowed her to buy the very nice apartment where they were sitting.

Her answer neither denied nor confirmed anything. He could now ask more detailed questions, go deeper, dig further, back her into a corner. She knew this, so she was cannily showing him her breasts. And he was looking at them, though he was thinking of Linda Nardi and the vertical crease that etched her forehead each time he let his gaze wander in that direction.