The Salamander, page 2
‘If you say so… Wait a moment! Who are you? I don’t even know your name.’
‘Matucci. Carabinieri.’
‘Carabinieri! … There’s nothing wrong is there?’
‘Nothing at all… Normal procedure with an important man like the General.’
‘Who’s going to make all the arrangements, tell his friends, that sort of thing?’
‘The Army.’
‘So, what do I do? Just sit around here?’
‘There’s one thing you could do. People will telephone. Take their names and numbers and we’ll arrange for someone to call them back.”
‘I’ll still be paid?’
‘Don’t worry. You have to be paid. It’s the law… I meant to ask you something else. Where did the General dine last night?’
‘At the Chess Club.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Of course, I’m sure. I had to know always where he was. Sometimes there were calls from Headquarters or from the Ministry… Another drop?’
‘No, thanks, I’ll be on my way.’
‘And you’re sure about the money?’
‘I’m sure. And you’ll remember to record the telephone calls?’
‘Trust me, friend. The General did. I never let him down. You know, he was as cold as a fish; but I’ll miss the old bastard. I really will.’
The fellow was becoming maudlin now and I was ready to be quit of him. I scribbled a receipt, picked up the bag of documents and walked out into the thin spring sunshine. It was ten minutes after one. The shop-keepers were closing their shutters and the alleys were busy with Romans homing for lunch and siesta.
I have to tell you frankly I don’t like the Romans. I’m a Tuscan born and these people are first cousins to the Hottentot. Their city is a midden; their countryside a vast rubbish tip. They are the worst cooks and the most dyspeptic feeders in Italy. They are rude, crass, cynical and devoid of the most elementary graces. Their faces are closed against compassion and their spirits are pinched and rancorous. They have seen everything and learned nothing, except the basest arts of survival. They have known imperial grandeur, papal pomp, war, famine, plague and spoliation; yet they will bow the knee to any tyrant who offers them an extra loaf of bread and a free ticket to the circus.
Yesterday, it was Benito Mussolini, drunk with rhetoric, haranguing them from the balcony in the Piazza Venezia. Tomorrow it might be another. And where was he now, at this very moment on Ash Wednesday, in this year of doubtful grace? … One thing was sure, he wouldn’t be standing like Dante Alighieri Matucci, flat-footed in the middle of the Campo Marzio.
I shook myself out of the reverie, walked half a block to my car, tossed the documents on to the seat and drove back to the office. I might have saved myself the trouble. My two senior clerks were out at lunch; number three was flirting with the typist and the data bank was out of action because the power supply had been interrupted by a two-hour strike. There was a message from the Ministry of the Interior requesting ‘immediate contact on a most urgent matter’. When I called, I was told that my contact was entertaining some foreign visitors and might possibly be back at four o’clock. Body of Bacchus ! What an oafish lot ! Judgment Day might come and go, the Maoists might even now be storming the Angelic Gate at Vatican City, but the Romans must finish siesta before they did anything about it.
I dumped the bag of documents on the desk and shouted for number three clerk to sort and collate them. Then, because the strike had put the elevator out of action, I climbed three flights of stairs to the forensic laboratory, where there had to be someone alive, even at lunch time. As usual, it was old Stefanelli who, according to local legend, slept every night in a bottle of formaldehyde and emerged fresh as a marmoset at sunrise every morning. He was a tiny wizened fellow, with wispy locks and yellow teeth and skin like old leather. He must have been ten years past retirement age, but still managed by a combination of patronage and sheer talent to hang on to his job.
What other technicians burst their brains to learn, Stefanelli knew. Sprinkle a peck of dust in his palm and he would name you the province and the region and even make a reasonable guess at the village from which it came. Hand him a swatch of fabric and he would fondle it for a moment, then tell you how much cotton was in it and how much polyester, and give you a list of the factories that might have made it. Give him a drop of blood, two nail clippings and a tress of hair and he would build you the girl who owned them. He was a genius in his own right, albeit a tetchy and troublesome one, who would spit in your eye if you crossed him, or slave twenty-four hours at a stretch for a man who trusted him. He read voluminously and would bet money on his technical knowledge. Only a very new or a very vain junior would bet against him. When I came in, puffing and sour-faced, he greeted me, exuberantly.
‘Eh, Colonel! What have you got for Steffi today? I’ve got something for you… Death by suffocation … green alkaloids in the blood … no punctures, no abrasions, no apparent means of entry into the blood system. Five thousand lire if you can tell me what it is.’
‘Put it that way, Steffi, and I know I’ll lose my money. What is it?’
‘It’s a shell-fish. Comes from the South Pacific. They call it the Cloth of Gold. On contact, the fish injects microscopic needles full of alkalide which paralyse the central nervous system. Case in point – a marine biologist working with the Americans in the South Pacific… If you’re interested, I’ll send you a note on it.’
‘Thanks, Steffi, but not today. I have troubles on my own doorstep.’ I fished out the salamander card and handed it to him. ‘I want a full reading on that: paper, penmanship, the meaning of the symbol and any prints you can lift. I want it fast.’
Stefanelli studied the card intently for a few moments, and then delivered himself of a peroration
‘The card itself is made from Japanese stock – fine quality bonded rice. I can tell you who imports it within a day. The penmanship – fantastic! So beautiful it makes you want to cry! I haven’t seen anything like it since Aldo the Calligrapher died in 1935. You remember him, don’t you? Of course, you wouldn’t. You’re too young. Used to have a studio over near the Cancelleria. Made a fortune forging stock certificates and engrossing patents of nobility for fellows who wanted to marry wealthy Americans… Well, Aldo’s dead, so he can’t help you. We have to go to the files to find who’s in practice now… The design? Well… it’s obviously a salamander, the beast that lives in the fire. What it means here, I don’t know. It could be a trade-mark. It could be a tessera – a member’s card for a club. It could be adapted from a coat-of-arms. I’ll put it up to Solimbene… You don’t know him. Old friend of mine. Works in the Consulta Araldica. Knows every coat-of-arms in Europe. He can read them like another man would read a newspaper.’
‘Good idea. In fact, why don’t you do some copies now, before the others get back from lunch. I’ll need one for my own inquiries anyway.’
‘Where did you get this, Colonel?’
‘General Pantaleone died last night. I found it in his bedroom.’
‘Pantaleone? That old fascista! What happened to him?’
‘Natural causes, Steffi … and we’ve got a notarized certificate to prove it.’
‘Very convenient!’
‘Very necessary.’
‘Suicide or murder?’
‘Suicide.’
‘Eh! That smells bad.’
‘So, Steffi, for the present, this business is between you and me, and the Director. Keep the card in your own hands. No files, no discussion in the laboratory. Dead silence until I tell you.’
Stefanelli grinned and laid a bony forefinger on his nose – the gesture of knowing and agreeing a conspiracy.
‘I don’t like Fascists any more than you do, Colonel – and we’ve got our share of them in this Department. Sometimes I wonder if we’ve got any democrats left – or whether we ever had any in Italy – except you and me. If we don’t get a stable government soon, we’ll get a colpo di stato, with a Fascist in the saddle. The week after that there’ll be civil war – or something very like it – Left against Right, North against South. I’m an old man. I can smell it in the wind… And I’m scared, Colonel. I have sons and daughters and grandchildren. I don’t want them to suffer as we did …’
‘Nor I, Steffi. So we have to know who steps into the General’s shoes. Get busy on the card. Call me day or night as soon as you have anything.’
‘Good luck, Colonel.’
‘I’ll need it… Ciao, Steffi.’
Now I was at a loose end. I could make no sense of the Pantaleone documents until they were listed and collated with the General’s dossier. The Director was the only man to whom I could talk freely and he was out of the office. I could, of course, call on Francesca, the little model who was always available after midday. But that would leave me drugged and dozy for the rest of the afternoon. I settled for a cup of coffee in a bar and then drove out to Parioli to see Lili Anders.
Her apartment was on the third floor of a new condominium, all aluminium and glass, with a porter in livery and an elevator panelled in walnut. The place had cost, according to the lady’s dossier, sixty million lire; the upkeep according to the contract was a hundred and twenty thousand a month. The fiscal records of the Comune di Roma showed that Lili Anders was taxed on a visible standard of living of a million lire a month. Since she paid the tax without demur, it was obvious she must be living at twice the scale assessed. I was keeping an apartment, a servant, a three-year-old Fiat and an occasional playmate on six hundred thousand a month less taxes and I thought Lili Anders was a very fortunate woman. By the time I came to ring the bell, therefore, I was feeling bad-tempered and resentful. An elderly house-keeper, dressed in black bombazine and starched white linen, confronted me like a true Roman, laconic and hostile:
‘Yes?’
‘Matucci. Carabinieri. I wish to see the Signora Anders.’
‘You have an appointment?’
‘No.’
‘Then you’ll have to come back later. The Signora is asleep.’
‘I’m afraid I must ask you to wake her. My business is urgent.’
‘Do you have any identification?’
I offered my card; she took and read it slowly, line by line, then swept me into the hallway like a pile of dust, and left me.
I waited, grim and dyspeptic, but touched with a sour admiration for this ancient matron, whose ancestors had tossed rooftiles on popes and cardinals and puppet princelings. Then Lili Anders made her entrance. For a woman in her middle thirties, she was singularly well-preserved; a little plump for my taste, but still most definitely on the right side of the hill. For a woman who had just been sleeping, she was beautifully turned out; every blonde hair in place, no slur in the make-up, no wrinkle in skirt, blouse or stockings. Her greeting was polite but cool.
‘You wished to see me?’
‘Privately, if that is possible.’
She passed me into the salone and closed the door. She prayed me to be seated and then stood herself by the mantel under an equestrian portrait of Pantaleone.
‘You are, I believe, from the Carabinieri.’
‘I am Colonel Matucci.’
‘And the reason for this visit?’
‘A painful matter, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh?’
‘I regret to inform you that General Pantaleone died early this morning.’
She did not weep. She did not cry out. She stared at me, wide-eyed and trembling, holding on to the mantel for support. I moved towards her to steady her; but she waved me away. I crossed to the buffet, poured brandy into a goblet and handed it to her. She drank it at a gulp, then gagged on the raw spirit. I gave her the clean handkerchief from my breast pocket and she dabbed at her lips and the front of her blouse. I talked to her, quietly:
‘It’s always a shock, even in our business. If you want to cry, go ahead.’
‘I will not cry. He was kind to me and gentle, but I have no tears for him.’
‘There is something else you should know.’
‘Yes?’
‘He died by his own hand.’
She gave no sign of surprise. She simply shrugged and spread her hands in a gesture of defeat.
‘With him it was always possible.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘There were too many dark places in his life, Colonel; too many secrets; too many people lying in wait for him.’
‘Did he tell you that?’
‘No, I knew.’
‘Then, perhaps, you know this. Why did he choose last night to kill himself? Why not a week ago, or next month?’
‘I don’t know. He had been moody for a long time, a month or more. I asked him more than once what was troubling him. He always put me off.’
‘And last night?’
‘One thing only. During dinner a waiter brought him a message. Don’t ask me what it was. You know the Chess Club – it’s like being in church, all whispers and incense. He left me at the table and went outside. He was away about five minutes. When he came back, he told me he had had a telephone call from a colleague. Nothing more was said. Later, when he brought me home, I invited him in. Sometimes he stayed the night, sometimes he didn’t. This time he said he had work to finish at home. It was normal. I didn’t argue. I was tired myself, anyway.’
I took out the photo-copy of the salamander card and handed it to her.
‘Have you seen this before? Or anything like it?’
She studied it intently for a few moments and then shook her head.
‘Never.’
‘Do you recognize the animal?’
‘Some kind of lizard … a dragon, perhaps.’
‘The crown?’
‘Nothing.’
‘The words?’
‘What they say … “One fine tomorrow, brother” … that’s all.’
‘Have you ever heard them before anywhere?’
‘Not that I can remember. I’m sorry.’
‘Please, dear lady! You must, in no sense, reproach yourself. You have had a grievous shock. You have lost a dear friend. And now… How to say it! … I have to distress you still further. It is my duty to warn you that from this moment you stand in grave personal danger.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Then permit me to explain. You have been for a long time the mistress of an important man, whom certain elements have considered an explosive man. A mistress is presumed to be a confidante, a repository of secrets. Even if the General told you nothing, others will believe he told you everything. Inevitably, therefore, you will come under surveillance, under pressure, possibly even under threat.’
‘From whom?’
‘From extremists of the Right and of the Left, persons who are trained to use violence as a political weapon; from foreign agents, operating within the confines of the Republic; even – though I blush to confess it – from officials of our own Public Security. As a foreigner, residing here on a sojourn permit, you are especially vulnerable.’
‘But I have nothing to tell! I lived a woman’s life with a man who needed comfort and affection. His other life, whatever it was, I did not share. When this door closed on us, the world was shut out. He wanted it so. You must believe that.’
She was shaken now. Her face seemed to crumple into the contours of middle-age. Her hands fumbled restlessly at the balled handkerchief. I leaned back in the chair and admonished her.
‘I wish I could believe you. But, I know you Lili Anders. I know you chapter and verse, from your first birthday in Warsaw, to your latest despatch to one Colomba, who is a printer and book-binder in Milan. You identified yourself, as usual, by the code-word ‘Falcone’. All the members of your network are called by bird-names, are they not? You are paid by Canarino from account number 68-Pilau at the Cantonal bank in Zurich… You see, Lili, we Italians are not really as stupid or inefficient as we look. We are very good conspirators, because we love the game and we make the rules to suit ourselves… Another brandy? I’ll have one myself, if you don’t mind. Relax now, I’m not going to eat you. I admire a good professional. But you are a problem, a real problem… Salute! To your continued good health!’
She drank, clasping the glass in both hands as if it were a pillar that would support her.
‘What happens to me now?’
‘Eh! That’s a very open question, Lili. As I see it at this moment there are two alternatives. I take you into custody on charges of conspiracy and espionage. That means a long interrogation, a stiff sentence and no hope even of provisory liberty. Or, I could leave you free, on certain conditions, to continue your comfortable life in Rome. Which would you prefer?’
‘I’m tired of the game, Colonel. I’d like to be out of it. I’m getting too old.’
‘That’s the problem, Lili. You can’t get out. You can only change sides.’
‘Which means?’
‘Full information on the network and all your activities, and a contract with us as a double-agent.’
‘Can you protect me?’
‘As long as you’re useful, yes.’
‘I was a good mistress, Colonel. I kept my man happy and gave value for money.’
‘Let’s try some more questions then. Who arranged your first meeting with the General?’
‘The Marchesa Friuli.’
‘What is her code-name?’
‘Pappagallo.’
‘It suits the old girl. She even looks like a parrot. What was your directive?’
‘To give early warnings of any attempt at a coup d’état by neo-fascist groups, and of actions designed to provoke it.’
‘Such as?’
‘Acts of violence planned against police or Carabinieri during labour demonstrations, bomb attacks that could be attributed to Maoist or Marxist groups, the spread of disaffection among conscripts and new levies in the armed services, any contacts, secret or open, between the Greek regime and officials of the Republic of Italy, shifts of influence or changes of political groups in the Italian High Command.’
