Blood Curse Read online

  “So what did Petrone tell you about him?”

  Maione laughed.

  “Ah, Commissa’, this story’s a rib-tickler. Now then, Passarelli the accountant is sixty years old. He lives with his mother, who’s eighty-seven: normal so far. The accountant has been engaged to marry a certain Signorina Liliana, who lives nearby, since he was twenty. A forty-year engagement, Commissa’! And do you know why they never got married? Because Signora Passarelli—the would-be mother-in-law, in other words—was opposed to it. And since she controls every penny, and is old but never seems to die, the two of them are just waiting.”

  “And why was Passarelli having his cards read by Calise?”

  “That’s the funny part: to find out when his mamma’s going to die! In fact, she’s been on her deathbed for twenty years now. Petrone knows the housekeeper of the old woman’s doctor; that’s how she was able to gather the information Calise needed to read his cards. Unbelievable.”

  “All right, all right, bring him in. Who’s next?”

  “A young woman, a certain Colombo. It was only the second time that she’d been to see her, with regard to a matter of the heart, which I’ll tell you about later. Our real problem comes with the next woman, a prominent lady from Santa Lucia, Emma Serra di Arpaja. This one’s serious business: one of the chief patrons of their little establishment. Petrone couldn’t tell me anything about her. That one always met directly with Calise. Maybe there’s nothing worth knowing. I wanted to ask you: what should I do? Should I have her summoned along with the rest of them? Or should we approach this one with a bit more discretion? I wouldn’t want to kick up too much dust and have the top brass start kicking up a fuss.”

  Ricciardi snorted in annoyance.

  “How many times have I told you that I don’t want to hear that kind of talk! If there’s an investigation to be done, we do it. Have her summoned along with all the others. Then, if they try to throw a wrench in the works, we’ll find a way of kicking them in the head. And the last one?”

  “Iodice, a pizzaiolo from the Sanità quarter. This one doesn’t have to do with the cards; he owed her money. But the promissory note has vanished. I checked. Maybe he paid up and left, and that’s why he’s in the notebook.”

  “Or else he murdered her and took the promissory note. We’ll see. Bring in Passarelli.”

  The accountant Umberto Passarelli didn’t believe in fate, which was a rather remarkable thing for a man who went to have his cards read. He believed that the course of events was largely determined by the way a man dealt with things. The rest depended on whether the day got off to a good start or a bad one.

  And so he paid the greatest possible attention to the things that happened in the first hour after he woke up in the morning, considering them to be unequivocal indicators of the marks that day would leave on his life, and he prepared himself for the remaining twenty-three hours with the appropriate amount of brow-furrowing. Those signs, however, were not always easy to interpret.

  That morning, he had awoken to the sound of a number of vigorous knocks on the street door: bad luck. However, he had been the only one to hear them, and Mamma had gone on with her melodious snoring: good luck. Two policemen in uniform: bad luck. But they were polite: good luck. They wanted him to come down to police headquarters that very same morning: bad luck. But they hadn’t placed him under arrest, nor were there any charges outstanding against him: good luck. At least, not yet, they had added: bad luck.

  And so, Umberto Passarelli, who cautiously entered Ricciardi’s office with a courteous “May I come in?” had decided to adjust his usual strategy in accordance with a wait-and-see attitude.

  He was a skinny little man, his perennial nervousness betrayed by any number of tics, the most irritating of which consisted of squeezing his left eye shut while simultaneously pulling his lips back on the left side of his face: it looked as if he were winking and starting in fright at the same time. Diminutive gold eyeglasses, stiff collar, shirt cuffs dotted with tiny ink stains.

  A careful comb-over had been raked across his otherwise bald pate. The light breeze that came in through the window immediately began toying with it, lifting it now and again. Ricciardi was reminded of the procession on the Feast of Pentecost back home in his village, where the participants acted out the arrival of the Holy Ghost with fluttering strips of cloth on their heads.

  After taking down his identifying information, the commissario asked the accountant whether he was aware that the Calise woman had been murdered.

  “Yes, of course, I read about it in the newspaper. Such a shame. Quite inconvenient.”

  “Inconvenient?”

  “Why certainly, Commissario. You see, now I—and who knows how many others like me—will need to find someone else who can help us. And it’s no easy matter, believe you me,” he said, with a wink of his eye, “finding someone you feel you can trust to tell you what to do.”

  Ricciardi furrowed his brow.

  “What do you mean, ‘tell you what to do’? Did you do whatever the Calise woman told you?”

  The man’s left eye quivered.

  “Of course I did, Commissario. Otherwise, why would I go to see her? After all, with what I paid . . .”

  “And just how long had you been her . . . her client?”

  “For a year. I’d go to see her roughly once a week.”

  “On what pretext? That is to say, what was she giving you advice on?”

  The corner of the man’s mouth jerked toward his neck.

  “Well now, you see, Commissario, I live with my mamma. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a wonderful woman, an extraordinary person, and she has no one but me. So I have to look after her, and it isn’t always easy, because she has serious health problems, she’s very old, and she has a bad temper. If you ever heard her yell . . . it’s enough to wake up the whole neighborhood.”

  “I understand. And what does the Calise woman have to do with your mother?”

  “Nothing, it’s just that I’m a very methodical person. I like to be able to plan my schedule, know what’s going on, set dates.”

  “And so?”

  Eye, mouth.

  “And so, it would help me to know, that is, more or less, you understand, when my mother will shuffle off this mortal coil. My fiancée—because I’m engaged, in case you weren’t aware—a lovely young lady who is infinitely patient, will need some advance notice to prepare her trousseau, and then there’s the ceremony—you have no idea how much is involved. I don’t want to make you think that I’d like for Mammà to die, heaven forbid. Still, a couple needs to be able to think ahead. There’s also the period of mourning to observe, at least two years for a mother. And of course the apartment is full of medicine; she doesn’t like the furniture; some changes will need to be made. We’ll have to get the nursery ready as well.”

  Maione, who had done his best to hold himself back throughout the interview, broke in.

  “Ah, you have children?”

  Comb-over, mouth, eye once, twice.

  “No, but both my fiancée and I would like to have a big family.”

  “And just how old is the young lady?”

  Eye, mouth, eye. An instant later, an uncertain tremor in the comb-over.

  “She’s two years older than I am, sixty-two. But she looks so much younger than her age. For now, I can’t even take my pension and retire, until . . . until . . . things are sorted out.”

  Ricciardi shot Maione a look of reproof.

  “And how did the Calise woman seem when you saw her? Did you notice anything unusual about her, was there anything she said . . .”

  Passarelli put on a thoughtful air, enlivened by a crescendo of tics.

  “No, Commissario, I don’t think so. Maybe a little quieter than usual. Not so much as a hello, just the daily update on Mamma’s health. But on that she was extraordinary! Just think, she told me the same exact things the doctor had said the day before! I couldn’t breathe a word about her to Mamma, but if I c
ould, we could have saved the doctor’s fee entirely!”

  Ricciardi looked at the heaving shoulders of Maione, who had turned to face the window. The commissario shook his head.

  “All right, Passarelli, you can go. Make sure we know how to get in touch with you, though; we might need to talk to you again.”

  The accountant stood up, sighed, winked, twisted his mouth into a grimace, sketched out a courtly bow, and turned to leave. As he left the office, his comb-over waved good-bye charmingly from a distance.

  XXXVI

  In front of the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie the sidewalk was crowded with busy people rushing in all directions, the stores were still open, and the air was soft and sweet.

  Sitting on the church steps, calm and composed, was Rituccia. She was waiting. If you looked at her closely, you could tell that she wasn’t begging for coins. She’d have selected a more strategic location if she were, closer to the church entrance or right by the street. Instead, the little girl sat just outside the cone of light cast by the streetlamp swaying over the middle of the street, where she was unlikely to be seen at all. She’d turned twelve, but she looked younger than she was, and she knew that was an advantage; the less she stood out, the better. That’s how it had been ever since her mother had died, when she was still just a little girl, left alone with her father.

  Alone with her father.

  She felt a long shiver run through her in the already warm air.

  She’d given a lot of thought to what had to be done. To how to fix things. For Gaetano and for herself.

  The solution would be painful and difficult. It wouldn’t be easy to do what was necessary, and the aftermath would be hard as well. Not because she’d be lonely. If anything, that part would come as a welcome change. She sighed.

  She saw him hurrying through the crowd, out of breath. His floppy cap covered his swarthy face and his hands were still spattered with mortar, as were the trousers he wore, which ended mid-calf. Thirteen years old already, but Gaetano Russo also looked younger than his years, unless you looked in his eyes.

  He sat down next to her, as usual without so much as a hello. Just two children sitting on the church steps, but in their eyes they were a hundred years old between them. She looked at him, and he finally spoke.

  “Things have gotten better. They did what you said they would, both the guappo and that pig at the place where she works.”

  She smiled briefly. Simple. Men were all the same.

  Tears welled up in Gaetano’s eyes.

  “She was so beautiful. And now . . . damn them.”

  She squeezed his hand.

  “What about the rest?”

  He lifted his head and looked at her. His dark eyes, glistening with rage and tears, glittered in the darkness like the eyes of a wolf.

  “Everything just like we said. You’re sure? Tomorrow?”

  She nodded. Her eyes still, staring straight ahead of her. Mamma, understand what I have to do. If you can see me, I’m sitting on the steps of a church. If you can hear me, you know what’s in my heart. And what’s on my body, almost every single night. Ever since you went away. I have to do this, Mamma. You understand, don’t you?

  A gust of wind came up from the sea. Perhaps that was what drew out the solitary tear that rolled down her cheek.

  Maione was drying his tears with his handkerchief.

  “Commissa’, that guy just kills me. Children, he wants children! He’s sixty, she’s sixty-two, and he wants children! That young lady is out of luck; the mother is going to live another hundred years, plus two years for mourning. She’s out of luck, the blushing young fiancée! If you ask me, we’d better keep an eye on Passarelli. Any minute now he’s going to put a pillow over Mammà’s face and that’ll be the end of her. And then the lovebirds can elope!”

  Ricciardi shook his head with the half-grimace that on his face constituted a smile.

  “People are strange, all right. No one ever seems to see himself the way he really is. All right, who’s next?”

  Maione tucked his handkerchief away and picked up his notebook.

  “We don’t know much about this one. The young lady is named Signorina Colombo; another girl accompanied her to the appointment, an old client of Calise’s, who hadn’t discussed them with Petrone yet. The girl who accompanied her had seen her about a matter of the heart . . . her fiancé was far away . . . then, apparently, she got married. So Petrone assumes the other one came for the same kind of problem. Calise usually spent two or three sessions delving into the matter and then she’d tell the porter woman what she’d found out, and Petrone’d start investigating. On the day of the murder, she was just getting started on this one. Shall I show her in?”

  Ricciardi felt a strange sense of uneasiness wash over him. He looked around; his office was no different than usual. He passed his hand over his eyes; maybe he was coming down with a slight fever.

  “Yes, have her come in.”

  And Enrica walked into his office.

  When, several months earlier, Ricciardi had found himself face-to-face with this same young woman at the vegetable cart, he had stared at her for a moment. Just a fleeting moment: but in his mind, in his imagination, and in his dreams he had relived that instant countless times.

  One of those moments whole lives are built around. One pair of eyes meeting another for the first time.

  For normal people. But he knew he had no right to be normal.

  After all the time he had spent thinking about that moment, like a man sentenced to life imprisonment or shipwrecked on a desert island, he’d been led to believe that he’d be ready if he ever happened to run into her by chance. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

  Enrica was just as petrified as he was. The summons to police headquarters had aroused her curiosity but it hadn’t frightened her; she had no reason to be afraid. On her way there, she had run through the events of the past few days in her mind and come to the conclusion that it must have something to do with an episode that she had recently witnessed: four young Blackshirts roughing up an elderly man in the street and calling him a defeatist. Nothing too serious, but these days you could never know what you were dealing with.

  And now she was sitting across from the man whose silhouette she glimpsed every night, at the exact same time without fail, the man who haunted all her dreams, her most secret yearnings. Staring once again at those crystal-clear eyes in which her heart seemed to be reflected.

  Maione looked up from his notebook and blinked. An unnatural silence had fallen over the office. Even the piazza outside the window was silent. A rare thing at that time of the day.

  The springtime went mad with delight. It loved those moments when blood coursed silently through the veins.

  The brigadier looked at the two of them as if he were a spectator, waiting for something to happen. Then he let out a cough.

  The noise resounded like an explosion. Ricciardi leapt to his feet, his rebellious lock of hair dangling over his forehead, his ears flame red. He opened his mouth, shut it, and opened it again. Finally he said, “Please, have a seat,” only the words didn’t come out. He cleared his throat, loudly, and repeated the invitation.

  She said nothing; it was as if she’d fallen under some kind of spell. She couldn’t believe her eyes. She felt like running away but instead she just stood there, with her hands gripping her handbag in front of her chest as if to protect herself, her hat fastened in place by two hatpins, her mid-calf skirt, and her low-heeled shoes. Absurdly, a voice in her head began cursing her for not choosing a different dress, something more modern, and for not wearing makeup.

  Ricciardi had remained standing beside his desk, uncertain whether to step forward or back. He also had the impulse to run; he eyed the window appraisingly, seeing as the door was occupied by her. He gazed beseechingly at Maione, who had never seen Ricciardi in such a state.

  The brigadier came to his senses and finally intervened, bringing that surreal vignette
to life.

  “Signorina, prego, take a seat. We’ve just asked you here for some information. This is Commissario Ricciardi. He has some questions he needs to ask you.”

  XXXVII

  Officers Camarda and Cesarano stopped at the corner of the vicolo. The former once again consulted the sheet of paper he held in his hand and nodded a confirmation to his fellow officer. They turned onto the narrow lane and walked toward their destination: a pizzeria.

  They were relaxed. All they were doing was serving a summons to headquarters for an interview, or possibly to serve as a witness—who could say? It was their last assignment of the day, easy as pie, and then their shift would be over and they could go home.

  One of them had two children; the other, three.

  Now they were both sitting down. Maione towered over them, like a referee in a boxing ring. The physical impasse had been resolved, but not the psychological one. Ricciardi still made no motion to speak, and Enrica was sitting as if she’d just been embalmed. Maione, with his back to the wall, was forced to intervene yet again.

  “Now then: Signorina Colombo, Enrica, residing at Via Santa Teresa degli Scalzi 103. Is that you?”

  Enrica slowly turned her face toward the brigadier.

  “Buongiorno, Brigadier. The fact that you delivered the summons into my hands and I signed to confirm receipt must mean something. Yes, that’s me.”

  Her tone of voice was a shade icier than she might have liked, but she had every reason to be angry. After waiting all this time for him to approach her, she was stewing over the fact that she was meeting the man of her dreams thanks to a subpoena, a “summons for interview concerning matters referenced,” in the words of the document delivered to her that morning.

  Maione had run out of formalities with which to fill the time. He looked over at Ricciardi and waited for him to start asking questions, but the commissario showed no sign of wanting to talk. He just sat there, mute. The brigadier was worried, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask his superior officer whether he was feeling well.