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  He coughed again. Ricciardi emerged from his reverie and shot him an indecipherable glance.

  It was becoming clear to Maione that he would have to conduct the interview himself, even though he had no idea why that should be the case. It was as if the commissario were in the presence of a ghost.

  “Signorina, do you know a certain Carmela Calise: a tarot card reader by profession?”

  So that was the reason for the summons. Enrica had heard about the murder from her girlfriend and it had horrified her. That poor unfortunate woman. She’d seen her just the day before she was murdered; and what a horrible way to die. But this thought was immediately followed by the feeling that she’d been caught in the act, along with a scalding sense of shame: then, he knew! He knew that she had consulted a tarot card reader; perhaps he thought she was a stupid ignoramus or, even worse, a blasphemous disbeliever, who’d turned to a witch to help her solve her problems.

  She tensed her lips, eyes flashing lightning from behind her tortoiseshell eyeglasses.

  “Yes, certainly. I heard about the . . . unfortunate thing that happened. I’d seen her the day before. What of that? Is it illegal?”

  Maione blinked at this unexpectedly aggressive tone.

  “No, of course not. We just wanted to know whether there was anything that, I don’t know, might have struck you as odd. In the way that Calise behaved; was she any different than usual?”

  Different than usual! As if she were a regular customer, a habitual visitor to that squalid, foul-smelling apartment. She had no intention of sitting there and allowing herself to be insulted.

  “Look, Brigadier, I’d only been there one other time, when a girlfriend accompanied me. So I have no idea what Calise was usually like. I can tell you that she asked me a lot more questions than I asked her, about . . . about a matter that is my own personal business. But I didn’t notice anything strange.”

  Maione shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

  “And when you entered the apartment, or as you were leaving, did you notice anything in particular?”

  Enrica felt like dying: because of what Ricciardi must be thinking; because he refused to speak to a word to her; because she was being made to look like a perfect fool; because of her damned eyeglasses, and because she hadn’t worn any makeup. All she knew was that she felt like bursting into tears.

  “No, Brigadier, just that the porter woman greeted us with a total lack of discretion, staring at me right in the face as if she were trying to remember who I was. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d rather go. I don’t feel very well.”

  Maione, who couldn’t think of anything else to ask, looked at the stone reproduction of Ricciardi sitting at his desk, and waved her to the door with one hand.

  Enrica stood up and headed toward the exit. Of course, that’s when the miracle took place: the pillar of salt suddenly came to life and leapt to its feet, reaching its hand out in Enrica’s direction.

  “Signorina, Signorina, wait! I have a question I need to ask you, please, wait!”

  Ricciardi’s tone of voice made the hair on the back of Maione’s neck stand on end. He’d never heard the commissario so muddled, and he never wanted to hear it again. Enrica stopped mid-step and turned around slowly. She spoke in a low and faintly trembling voice.

  “Go ahead and ask.”

  Ricciardi ran his tongue over his dry lips.

  “Were you . . . did you . . . what exactly did you ask Calise? What were you trying to find out? Please, what was it?”

  Maione started at Ricciardi in astonishment. He thought the commissario was about to explode. But Enrica, though shaken by that heartfelt plea, was unwilling to make a deal with fate.

  “I don’t believe that’s any of your business. Good day.”

  “But I beg you, I implore you . . . I have to know!”

  I beg you? I implore you? Had he lost his mind? Maione would have gagged the commissario, if he’d been able. Enrica looked at him and felt a surge of tenderness fill her heart. She resolved the situation in the way that woman often decide to resolve awkward matters, when they don’t know where else to turn. She lied.

  “A health problem.”

  And she walked out, with a faint nod.

  Enrica’s exit was followed by an extremely awkward moment for Maione. He didn’t have the courage to ask Ricciardi what exactly had just happened, nor could he pretend that that stunning spectacle had gone entirely unnoticed.

  The commissario had fallen back into his chair, eyes wide open, staring into space, his hands limp on the desktop, his face as white as chalk.

  Maione took a half-step forward, coughed gently, said something about having to use the latrine, and left the room, head down.

  Ricciardi couldn’t believe it. He’d fantasized endlessly about the possibility of their actually meeting, even though the idea terrified him. How could have acted like such an idiot? He, a man accustomed to routinely gazing upon scenes of death and mayhem, had been incapable of carrying on a normal conversation for a couple of minutes. And now she was gone, offended, furious, thinking the absolute worst of him.

  He was despondent.

  Enrica was walking at a good clip, going back up Via Toledo toward Via Santa Teresa. The aromatic air blew against her, as if mocking her pain.

  She was despondent.

  She might have expected anything from that interview, but not that she’d come face-to-face with him, of all people. So, he was a police commissario. But now how could she make him understand that she wasn’t the aggressive person she had seemed in his office? What a fool she’d been, what a fool. She’d allowed herself to be swept away by her anger at being caught red-handed, and, what’s worse, dressed like a member of the women’s army auxiliary corps out of a book by Carolina Invernizio.

  She hadn’t been capable of giving him a smile, a kind world, a pretext for an invitation. And what was worse, she’d been unable to think up anything better than a health problem in her attempt to avoid coming off as a gullible romantic. Now he’d think he was dealing with an invalid, a consumptive perhaps, and that would be the end of his nightly appearances at the window. Oh, what a fool.

  In the wind, with the promise of flowers wafting down from the forest, Enrica walked, tears running down her face.

  XXXVIII

  When he came back into the office, Maione found the usual Ricciardi waiting for him. Inscrutable, composed, lost in thought. Though perhaps just a bit more downcast.

  “All right, Maione, let’s move on. This day is proving tougher than I would have expected. Who do we have now?”

  The brigadier consulted his notebook.

  “Now then: next is Antonio Iodice—a pizzaiolo from the Sanità, a client of the loan-sharking branch of the operation. Here’s the story: Iodice used to have a pushcart, one of those carts where you yourself often stop for lunch, and he was doing reasonably well; our boy’s a hard worker, always cheerful, always out working, even in the worst weather. Then he opened a sit-down restaurant of his own, taking over the place from a blacksmith who closed shop, borrowing the money from Calise. But things didn’t go all that well, and according to Petrone he’d already asked for an extension on his loan terms twice, and that night he was going to have to ‘pavare’—that is, pay up.”

  The commissario seemed to be having difficulty focusing.

  “And did he pay? Did you check the papers in the biscuit tin?”

  Maione nodded his head yes.

  “Yes, Commissa’, I checked it again, and as I think I already told you, there’s nothing under his name. Forgive me, Commissa’, but if you don’t mind my asking, are you sure you’re feeling well? No, it’s just that, it’s not like you ever have that much color in your face, but right now you’re so pale you look like a corpse. If you’d like, we can just leave off here for to the day and start over again tomorrow. After all, Calise is in no hurry.”

  “I look like a corpse, do I? No, trust me; it takes a lot more than this to look like
a dead man. Take a look and see if this Iodice has come in. Let’s keep going.”

  He spotted the policemen at the end of the street from his spot on the balcony, where he was leaning on the railing, trying to figure out the right thing to do, how to react. He saw them advancing toward him, like a pair of gray insects in the midst of the colorful crowd of strolling vendors, women, and children walking down Via Santa Lucia in search of the year’s first sea breezes.

  He immediately knew why they had come. They’d come for him. Somehow, they’d uncovered tracks that in his naïve foolishness he’d surely left behind. He smiled at the irony of fate. A rank beginner. The most famous criminal lawyer in the city, a professor at the most prestigious university in Italy for jurisprudence, every magistrate’s greatest fear, known as “the fox” in court—only to be caught red-handed. And for what? For love.

  Because, say what you will about Ruggero Serra di Arpaja, you couldn’t accuse him of lying to himself. He knew that what had driven him to that situation hadn’t been an attempt to protect his good name, his prominent position, or his social standing. No; it had been love for his wife. The same woman who for a long time now had barely spoken to him, indifferent to his feelings, their home, and the reputation attached to the name she bore. A woman who shamelessly flaunted her own adulterous affair.

  And yet he loved her still. With all his heart. Her smiling face appeared before his eyes, the silvery sound of her laughter echoed in his ears, and he decided that it had been worth going all in if it meant he might be able to hold on to her.

  The two policemen had come to a halt in front of the palazzo’s street door and were speaking with the doorman, whose livery was even more spectacular than their uniforms. Ruggero watched as they handed him an envelope and then turned to go. What could this be about? He summoned the housemaid with her perennially frightened expression and told her to hurry downstairs to retrieve the document.

  A minute later, he was turning over in his hands a summons to police headquarters addressed to Signora Emma Serra di Arpaja.

  For the first time in many months, a meager smile appeared on his lips. Perhaps all was not lost.

  Given the delay on the part of the patrol that had been sent to fetch the pizzaiolo, Ricciardi had informed Maione that he preferred to head out immediately to the home of Ridolfi, the invalid. He lived not far from headquarters, in one of those aristocratic palazzi on Via Toledo, which had been subdivided into apartments a few years earlier due to the economic misfortunes afflicting the venerable family that had once owned it.

  Even though Ricciardi had little regard for the city’s aristocracy, he still felt a certain discomfort at seeing the interiors of those venerable residences so brutally gutted; it gave him the unpleasant impression of a huge dead animal, its carcass apparently intact and the viscera teeming with hundreds of parasites.

  As he walked the short distance together with Maione, he tried to rid his mind of the powerful emotions that he had just experienced: meeting Enrica, speaking to her, looking into her eyes. Dreams he’d nurtured for months, realized in a way that was at such sharp variance with how he’d imagined them.

  The doorman did nothing to conceal his open hostility; yes, Professor Ridolfi was at home. He’d hurt his leg. Yes, they could go up and no, there was no elevator. Top floor, apartment twenty-one.

  Huffing and puffing, Maione recounted to the commissario everything the Petrone had told him: Ridolfi taught Latin at the high school. He’d been going to see Calise for a year, give or take. He’d been widowed because of an accident: his wife had been using a powerful solvent and had died in a fire that had broken out. He was talking to Calise because he wanted to know whether he’d succeed in tracking down a bundle of family memorabilia, items of no intrinsic worth but great sentimental value, which had gone missing after their downfall. He was convinced, and the Calise and Petrone partnership was glad to agree, that he would find out where it was from his late wife, who would speak to him through the old woman’s tarot cards.

  The porter woman had told Maione that every time Ridolfi came to see Calise, he had a good hard cry, and that, in her opinion, he’d fallen because he’d been unable to see the steps through the tears in his eyes. He was a wonderful person, an authentic gentleman. It had thrown a real scare into the two women; he had tumbled down an entire flight of stairs, head over heels, that morning.

  They knocked on the door, which had been left ajar, loudly asking permission as they stepped inside. They found themselves in a small parlor, clean and nicely furnished. Ridolfi was sitting in an armchair upholstered in green satin, with his left leg bandaged and splinted, propped up on a footstool. He held a book in his hands.

  “Prego, come right in. Forgive me if I don’t get up. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

  He had noticed Maione’s uniform, but his face showed no signs of worry. Ricciardi had no trouble cataloguing him: fifty years old, neatly dressed and groomed, but not dandyish, with a black tie, a stiff collar, and a well worn-in smoking jacket. A face with regular features, melancholy eyes, black eyeglasses somewhat the worse for wear. Not someone who’d stand out in a crowd.

  “Buon pomeriggio, Professor; good afternoon. Sorry to bother you, but we have a few questions to ask concerning Carmela Calise.”

  “Oh, yes, I read about it. What a terrible thing. I was there just the day before. In fact, it was there that I fell down the stairs. A bad sprain; at the hospital they told me they’ll remove the bandages a month from now. It’s inconvenient, and if it weren’t for the help I get from the doorman’s wife . . . Of course, it’s an extra expense. But compared to certain terrible misfortunes, you come to think of yourself as being lucky. Isn’t that right, Signor . . .”

  Maione intervened, politely. He liked this man; he struck him as a decent person.

  “Commissario Ricciardi and Brigadier Maione of the Mobile Squad, at your service, Professo’. Tell me, what was the reason for your visit to Calise the other day?”

  Ridolfi sighed and shook his head.

  “Brigadie’, old age is a miserable thing. And loneliness is even worse. Since my wife passed away a year ago, I haven’t thought about anything else: only her. We never had children; it was just the two of us, and now I’m all alone. Unfortunately, she knew where all our memorabilia were stored, and I haven’t been able to find them. They’re little things, objects worthless to anyone else, but it would mean a lot to me to have them.”

  As he went on talking, the man’s eyes welled up with tears that slowly dissolved on his face. His voice remained even and low in tone; there were no sobs or sighs, just tears.

  “That’s why I went to see Calise. At first, just because; it was almost a game, something to get me out of the house. Then . . . then she started reading things in those cards that only my Olga and I knew. And I started to think that, just maybe, there might really be a way to talk to her again. To meet again in this world, before being reunited in the next.”

  Ricciardi looked at this man. There was something about him that stirred a sense of uneasiness in the commissario. He couldn’t put his finger on it exactly, but he didn’t detect the notes of genuine grief in his words. Perhaps it was the fact that he never varied his tone of voice as he spoke, as if he were reciting a litany he was well acquainted with. Perhaps it was his hands, which weren’t trembling at all. Or perhaps it was that silent stream of tears. Suddenly, Ricciardi felt parched.

  “Professor, could I bother you for a glass of water?”

  “But of course, commissario. You’ll have to get it yourself, though; my leg prevents me from being the hospitable master of the house I ought to be. Make yourself at home; the kitchen is through that door. The drinking glasses are by the sink.”

  Maione started to get to his feet to fetch him a drink, but Ricciardi gestured to him to stop. He walked into the kitchen.

  He was running the water when he glimpsed something moving out of the corner of his eye. Sitting in a corner, clearly visible in th
e shaft of sunlight filtering in through the window, was Ridolfi’s late wife.

  More than a year and he could see her clearly. She hadn’t faded a bit, and there were still plumes of smoke curling lazily off her scorched flesh. The emotion she felt in her final moments must have been extremely powerful. The skeleton was covered with tattered flesh, and there was no sign of her clothing except for a strip of fabric dangling from her shoulder. Her cranium glistened, the color of roast almonds. One eye socket had been left empty when the eyeball popped from the heat; the other eye, still intact, rolled crazily. The charred lips revealed a cloister of teeth that almost seemed to glow against the blackness, they were so white. To one side, a gold premolar tooth emitted a faint sparkle in the afternoon sunlight.

  The head turned to face Ricciardi and stared at him with its one remaining eye; the hands folded in her lap, the legs reduced to a pair of charred sticks of wood, folded with a strange, bloodcurdling gracefulness. They looked at each other, the corpse and the commissario, the latter still holding the glass under the stream of water as it overflowed, running over his hand.

  “You’re a whoremonger,” the woman said, “a filthy bastard and a whoremonger. You can cry on command. You tell me that she’s your true love and I’m the angel of the hearth. Well, when you get home tonight, you’ll find a nice hot fire waiting for you. You wanted my mother’s jewelry, but it’s at the bottom of the sea. You wanted the jewelry, but what you’ll get is a nice hot fire, tonight, you and your whore.”

  The blackened skeleton threw its skull back and laughed. The woman had died laughing, devoured by flames. The angel of the hearth and she had set herself ablaze. Ricciardi noticed a shock of blonde hair at the back of the ravaged neck. He turned off the faucet, set down the glass without drinking from it, and went back into the parlor.