The Marshal's Own Case, page 5
Titi’s head was dark and curly, his lips full and red, a black choker encircled a thick neck.
‘After all these years,’ he said, wafting heavy perfume in through the car window, ‘I knew you’d fall for me in the end.’
‘If I ever get the urge,’ Ferrini said, ‘you’ll be first on my list.’
‘Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. I suppose something’s up or you wouldn’t be here.’
‘Where did you get that ring, for a start?’ Ferrini asked, glancing at the hand clutching the lowered glass. The hand with its long, varnished nails had three or four rings on it, but one was a very large cluster of what looked like real diamonds.
‘Oh God! Not that old story.’
‘You tell me. Got a receipt for it?’
‘Have I hell got a receipt for it! Do you keep receipts for every piddling thing you buy?’
‘I can’t afford piddling diamond rings.’
‘Change your job, then.’
‘Get in.’
‘You’re kidding!’
‘Get in. And think yourself lucky. Worse could happen to you if we leave you here.’
It was as if he’d touched off a fuse. He got into the car all right but spitting with fury. Both the abuse and the perfume hitting them from the back seat were overpowering.
‘Shut up, Titi,’ Ferrini suggested, ‘or you’ll be done for abuse to a public official, you know that.’
‘I’ve no right to call a shit a shit, have I, not being a human being like you! Why don’t you take a walk up the Via Tornabuoni and stop one of those rich bitches on her way into Gucci’s. Ask her for the receipt of all the jewellery she’s wearing and see what happens. I work for my money, you know that? Work!’
‘Shut up, Titi,’ repeated Ferrini mildly, ‘there’s worse things happening in the world. One of your little band’s been murdered, chopped up in little pieces all neatly packed in plastic bags. You’re safer with us tonight than out working.’
‘You’re making it up.’
‘Not me. You ask the Marshal here.’
Titi didn’t, which was just as well. The Marshal, never loquacious, was totally out of his depth and struck dumb.
‘So,’ Ferrini went on, ‘any of your little friends missing?’
‘I don’t think so . . .’ The fury, so suddenly ignited, had evaporated on the instant. He seemed as easily distracted as a fractious baby.
‘Anybody at all who’s not been around for a day or two, whatever the reason?’
‘You expect me to help you? In spite of—’
‘That’s right. Help yourself more likely, unless you fancy ending up in pieces in a plastic bag yourself. Could have been one of your clients and your turn next. Now, come on, let’s hear it.’
Titi gave a little grunt of disgust. When the Marshal turned to look he was gazing out of the window as if thinking of something else but he suddenly leaned forward and tapped Ferrini on the shoulder.
‘Gigi’s not there, she should be by that bench.’
They drove on slowly and another figure glided forward, sliding a bare leg out from under fur wraps for their inspection.
This time it was Titi who opened his window, calling in a low, drawling voice, ‘Hey . . . Mimi, come here a minute . . .’
Mimi, recognizing Ferrini, muttered, ‘Oh hell!’ and covered the bare leg.
‘There’s been this dreadful murder,’ Titi warned sententiously, ‘and Gigi’s not at her place.’
‘So what? She went to Spain with that bitch Lulu. They were both booked in at the clinic three days ago.’
‘Anybody else missing?’ put in Ferrini.
‘I don’t know . . . Paoletta, but she went down to Sicily, her grandmother died.’
‘Nobody else?’
Nobody else. They drove on, repeating their question, sometimes forced to queue for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour behind a line of cars while their quarry emerged and retreated, argued, cajoled, and more often than not ended with a shake of the head, sending a car on its way and letting the next one approach. They seemed to turn down nine offers out of ten and only once, after waiting what seemed an age, did a half-naked figure climb into one of the cars to be driven away just as they got near the front of the queue.
‘Damn . . .’ Ferrini drove on along with the other disappointed clients. ‘Well, we’ll pick him up tomorrow morning along with anyone else who hasn’t shown up tonight. We’ve got them all listed.’
‘That’s right! Like we were criminals! Listen, I’ve never had the slightest brush with the law—’
‘Me neither. And what we do’s not against the law, is it? Well, is it? Some of my best clients are lawyers—and some of them are cops, too!’
For they now had two passengers filling the small car with two conflicting perfumes and two intermingled streams of abuse. They didn’t get back to Borgo Ognissanti too soon for the Marshal. The other two cars on the job had got in before theirs and deposited their haul in one of the larger offices. Ferrini added their two. The noise was deafening. The Marshal hung around near the door feeling useless and deeply embarrassed. It was his habit, when not doing anything in particular, to stand stock still, with his bulging expressionless eyes fixed on some undefined point in the middle distance. It wouldn’t do here. No matter where his gaze rested it was bound to be met by some of that bare ambiguous flesh, its femininity so brusquely contradicted by quarrelsome male voices, one of which suddenly addressed him.
‘Is looking enough or you want to touch?’
‘Keep your mouth shut,’ warned his nearest neighbour. ‘What’s the use of getting yourself into trouble for no reason?’
‘I’ll say what I feel like! Just because we’ve been dragged in here like a bunch of crooks doesn’t mean I’ve no right to speak. Hey! Ferrini! If a nun gets murdered I suppose you break into the convent at three in the morning and drag the other nuns round here for a going-over, right?’
Ferrini looked up from his desk where he was going through the papers of a huge, silent blond.
‘Shut up, or you’ll wait till the last if not longer.’ He lit a cigarette and carried on quietly, showing no sign of ill humour, only rubbing occasionally at his weary eyes.
‘Name.’
‘Giulietta.’
‘Your real name.’
‘Fabiano, Giulio.’
‘Haven’t seen you before. How long have you been in Florence?’
‘Since the summer.’
‘Before that?’
‘Milan.’
‘Address—what the devil’s the matter now?’
A quarrel had broken out in one corner of the room and it was turning into a hair-tearing fight.
‘Marshal, do you mind?’
By this time all the others were joining in, shouting at the tops of their voices. They all seemed to have it in for a rather undersized creature sporting a pile of upswept chestnut curls. As the Marshal stepped forward slowly, mortified at the thought of having to touch any of them, somebody snatched at the topknot of curls, which came away leaving behind a head of straggling black locks. All the others roared with derisive laughter and the one who had recently made an attack on the Marshal turned on him again now to protest.
‘Look at him! A dirty little transvestite! Look at the beard under all that make-up! I refuse to be in the same room as a nasty little pervert like that! Well? Look at him!’
Baffled, the Marshal turned uncertainly to Ferrini who suggested: ‘Take him next door, will you, or we’ll have no peace.’
The straggly-haired boy was snivelling. The Marshal led him away pursued by hoots of derision.
‘You want to lock him up! There ought to be a law against men who go about dressed as women!’
‘Trying to pass himself off as one of us!’
‘Must be some sort of nut!’
The Marshal shut the door on the racket, relieved to have an excuse to escape. The office next door was dark and empty. He took the boy in there and switched the light on.
‘Sit down.’
He sat down himself and regarded the snivelling boy. He was a pathetic sight enough denuded of his curls; his beard was visible as his catty accuser had pointed out. His lips were smudgily painted and mascara was running down his cheeks mixed with tears.
‘Bitches,’ he said, wiping his nose with the back of his hand.
The Marshal, who had understood nothing of what the quarrel was about, offered him a handkerchief in silence.
‘Thanks. I’ve a right to earn a living same as them, haven’t I? Well, haven’t I?’
‘Do you?’
‘Eh?’
‘Do you make a living?’
‘Enough to manage. I can pay my rent and eat. Nothing to compare with them.’
‘Hmph.’ He didn’t understand what the difference was. He stared at the boy. As far as it was possible to tell, he did have breasts under his cheap short frock but the only difference that was clear to him was that those large doll-like perfumed creatures next door had something theatrically grotesque about them which terrified him, while this kid was only pathetic.
‘Couldn’t you get some sort of job, an ordinary job?’ he asked.
‘I did have one but it wasn’t enough to live on so I got fed up. What’s the difference, as long as I can manage?’
The Marshal gave it up.
‘Documents.’
‘They’re next door on the other chap’s desk—you won’t make me go back in there?’
‘No.’ The Marshal had no wish to go back in there himself so there was no danger of that.
‘They can get really vicious, some of them.’ He had stopped crying and was now rubbing away the mess of lipstick, mascara and tears with the Marshal’s handkerchief. When he finished he offered it back.
‘No,’ the Marshal said hastily, ‘keep it.’
‘You haven’t got a cigarette, have you?’
‘I don’t smoke.’
‘I never carry anything with me except my documents and I keep them inside my clothes. Once I was robbed by a client, do you know that? People say that we’re the ones who do that sort of thing and it’s true that it happens sometimes, but I’ve never stolen a penny from anybody. People have no idea what somebody like me has to put up with—once a man tried to strangle me. I got away because we were out in the open, in the park. If we’d been in his car he’d have killed me. I don’t like getting in their cars if I can help it, it’s dangerous.’
‘It’s also against the law.’
‘Eh?’
‘Obscene act in a public place. You should know that.’
The boy shrugged. ‘In the park at that time of night? Who’s to see? Anyway, it’s still a public place whether we’re in the car or out of it.’
‘You never take them home?’
He shook his head. ‘My landlord lives above me. I don’t want to lose my flat, and anyway, I share it with two others, so . . .’
‘This man who tried to strangle you—when was this?’
‘Last summer.’
‘You know that somebody’s been murdered?’
‘No.’
‘Why do you think you were brought here?’
He shrugged again. ‘How should I know? Listen . . . I don’t feel so good . . .’
It was true that his limbs were shaking and he was looking pale and sickly now that his face was cleaner. The Marshal stood up and went round to him, taking a grip on his wrist and looking hard into his eyes. Then his huge hand turned the puny arm gently to expose the needle scars on the inside.
‘Let me go.’
The Marshal let him go and sat himself on the corner of the desk. ‘Not just rent and food, then. This as well.’
But the boy’s attention was drifting as his need increased.
‘Will they give it me back? It was only enough for me and I need it . . . You could get me some anyway. There’s plenty here, I know that.’
‘You do?’
‘I know they keep plenty here, to give to informers. I’ve heard. For God’s sake . . . I feel sick!’
To the Marshal’s relief Ferrini knocked and came in.
‘I’m about finished. Here.’ He gave the boy his identity card. ‘Hop it.’
The boy stood up but didn’t leave. His eyes were fixed on Ferrini, pleading.
‘Hop it,’ repeated Ferrini, ‘before I change my mind and charge you.’
The boy emitted a faintly audible groan and slunk out.
‘He’ll likely find what he needs before dawn,’ observed Ferrini. ‘Shall we go back next door?’
‘How much stuff did he have on him?’ the Marshal asked as he switched off the light.
‘Too much for it to be his own. Kids like him are often used as small-time pushers, selling to their clients. But what’s the use? The prison’s choc-a-bloc and putting him inside would only serve to shorten his life. By the look of him he hasn’t got much of a life expectancy as it is—Lord, what a stink of perfume. I’ll open the window.’
They sat down together at the desk and looked at the results of their night’s work: a list of names and addresses, a packet of heroin and a large diamond ring.
‘It was stolen, then?’
‘The ring?’ Ferrini laughed. ‘Yes and no. It’s listed as having been stolen from a very well known Florentine jeweller. On the other hand, the very well known Florentine jeweller is a regular customer of Titi’s—I’ve seen them together in his Mercedes many a time. No doubt he thought he could be clever enough to make Titi a fancy present and claim it on his insurance.’
‘What will you do?’
‘Give it back to him and leave the rest to Titi, who was none too pleased, I can tell you. He’ll get it in the neck next time they get together.’ Again he laughed. ‘It’s a rum world!’
He fished in his pocket and pulled out a rather squashed packet of cigarettes. The Marshal watched him light up. He liked this man, so very different from himself. A relaxed, comfortable, grey-haired man who laughed so easily and could chatter away to anybody, even to those . . .
‘Is something wrong?’
‘No, no . . .’ The Marshal pulled himself together. ‘I’m dropping with sleep, to tell you the truth.’
‘Not used to these long nights, eh?’
‘No, not at all. I was thinking . . . well, it’s a good job you are used to . . . I don’t know much about this sort of thing, I don’t mind telling you, and as for running this case . . .’
‘Oh, you’ll soon get into it.’
The Marshal wasn’t at all sure that he wanted to ‘get into it’ but he didn’t say so. He only said, ‘That quarrel that broke out, for instance, about the boy—’
‘Ah yes. Thanks for getting him out of the way or all hell would have broken loose!’
‘But why?’ the Marshal insisted.
‘Why? Because he was a transvestite. They don’t think much of transvestites, our friends.’
‘I see.’ It was clear from the Marshal’s large, puzzled eyes that he didn’t see at all. ‘It’s just that, to be honest, I thought they were all transvestites.’
‘Transsexuals. Half-way house, as it were. You get some transvestites with these silicone breasts like that kid but they’re not on any hormone treatment, still got normal male hormones, body hair and so on and certainly still think of themselves as men. Your transsexual, like our Titi, is a female or reckons to be— only one detail that’s anomalous. A lot of them reckon that once they’ve made enough money they’ll have the final operation and retire from business to be fully-fledged females.’
‘But . . . some of them seem to have plenty of money now . . .’
‘Oh, they have that, plenty. But they can’t have their source of income cut off, can they? Their customers wouldn’t want them any more.’
‘It beats me what they do want . . .’ The Marshal’s face was red.
‘De gustibus non disputandum.’
‘No, no . . .’
‘Right. Well we have a list here of who’s missing from the scene. Nobody, at first sight, who seems to be our victim as they’ve all got a reason for their absence, but we must check all those reasons out. I’ll start first thing tomorrow morning with Gigi and Lulu who should be in the clinic in Spain, make sure they’re there. Sorry— you should be deciding, but I thought as I know the surgeon . . .’
‘Whatever you think . . . What surgeon?’
‘The one who does their breasts. They all go to the same clinic in Spain. I’ve talked to this chap before when I was working on the last two cases, so he knows who I am.’
‘Then you do it, yes. How many of these cases have you worked on?’
‘Three altogether. Unsolved like this one will be, I suppose, but we have to go through the motions. I’ll call the clinic tomorrow. They have to go back there, you see, every so often. It’s not a one-off job like their faces. You noticed their faces?’
‘No . . .’ The Marshal had barely noticed anything, he’d been so embarrassed.
‘Noses and cheekbones have to be fined down. That they get done here in Florence; there’s a very good plastic surgeon they almost all patronize. Now, there’s Paoletta whose real name is Paolo Del Bianco, supposed to have gone home to Sicily for granny’s funeral, and this other one . . . where is it . . . Giorgio Pino—another Gigi who, they say, has transferred his operations to Milan. Our chaps up there will know. That leaves Carla. I know Carla, she’s all right. Carlo Federico, said to have the ’flu. Only two minutes away from you if you want to go and have a word.’
The Marshal didn’t want, but he had to be seen to be doing something. He couldn’t leave everything to Ferrini, much as he would have liked to. So he said, ‘All right’ and was relieved that soon after that Ferrini seemed to think they’d had enough for one night.
He knew, when he got home at half past five in the morning, that Teresa was only pretending to be asleep. But if she noticed that he spent an inordinate amount of time under the shower, scrubbing away at himself as if he’d fallen into a midden, she made no comment. He slept peacefully enough until his usual time of waking, then passed a few uncomfortable hours trying to sleep through the noises of morning, achieving only troubled dreams and a sweaty, aching back. He had another shower.
