The Salamander, page 7
He was not modest about them either. He labelled every exhibit as if it were a museum piece, described the genesis of the design, the particulars of the stones and their setting, and whenever he could, the name and title of the person who had commissioned it. The older houses sniffed at such vulgarity, but Fosco demolished their snobbery at a stroke.
‘I want my jewels to be talk-pieces. How can a woman talk about what she doesn’t know. I explain my work and thus emphasize its value. Right or wrong? Look at the result! I carry no dead stock. I am liquid after every exhibition….’
After this one, it seemed, he would have money running out of his ears. We were about half-way round the gathering when Lili tugged at my sleeve and pointed to the catalogue. The section she indicated was entitled, ‘A Fantasy of Rare Beasts’ and referred to a collection of jewelled butterflies, birds and animals to be worn as brooches, pendants, clasps, buckles, earrings and symbolic guardians of women’s chastity. Lili was pointing to number 63 of which the description read:
‘Salamander. Brooch in the form of an heraldic beast. Emeralds in pavé. Crowned with brilliants and ornamented with Burma rubies. Adapted from a calligraphic design. Commissioned by Cav. Bruno Manzini, Bologna.’
The piece itself was twenty feet away, laid on a bed of black velvet, in a small show-case, mounted on a pillar of alabaster. It was not a gaudy jewel, but the craftsman had preserved the character and sweep of the original calligraphy, so that when I compared it with the card there was no shadow of doubt that the designs were identical.
I drew Lili away from the show-case into the crush of people round the buffet. At the same moment, the Cavaliere Bruno Manzini entered the gallery with the Principessa Faubiani at his side and a small retinue of friends in attendance. Fosco greeted them effusively, snapped fingers at his minions to bring them champagne and catalogues and then led them on his own personal tour of the masterworks.
Immediate problem: how to confront Manzini before he left the gallery. I had him under my hand here. Once he left, I could be chasing him all over the peninsula. On the other hand, with the Press and the gossips of the city turned out in force, I could not risk a scandal. Leaving Lili at the buffet, I made my way to the entrance where an agreeable young man was deputizing as host for Fosco. I flashed my card at him.
‘Carabinieri. Who is in charge of your security guards?’
‘Over there, by the stairwell, tall fellow with grey hair. There’s no trouble, I hope?’
‘None. Just routine.’
I drew the tall fellow into the shadows and showed him my card too, but this time I made sure he read it carefully before I instructed him.
‘This is important. We can’t afford a mistake. You will take me to Fosco’s private office. I’ll give you a note to the Cavaliere Bruno Manzini. You will escort him to the office, then leave us alone. Stay outside the door and let no one in while we’re talking – clear?’
‘Clear. There’s no trouble, I hope.’
‘No trouble. I’ve noted your security arrangements. First class.’
He was happy then. He led me to Fosco’s office – a fairy bower done in Pompeian red. I scribbled a note to Manzini on the house note-paper. The text was respectful but cryptic:
‘Regret intrusion but have urgent and official communication. Please accompany messenger to office.
Matucci SID.’
He was with me in three minutes, cool and condescending as ever. He would not sit down. He had guests waiting. He demanded that I state my business and be done with it.
‘My business is still the late General Pantaleone.’
‘So?’
‘Shortly before he died, he received a communication which was, in effect, a dossier of his past life.’
‘And what has that to do with me?’
‘Attached to the dossier was this card. You will note the design – a crowned salamander. We have established that the design corresponds exactly with exhibit No. 63 in the Fosco catalogue. We are confident you will wish to explain the connection.’
‘Why should I wish to explain it, Colonel?’
‘A matter of national security is involved.’
‘Is that fact or opinion?’
‘Fact.’
‘And you could establish it as such to my satisfaction?’
‘I believe so.’
‘Is there any suggestion of criminal activity in this case?’
‘As yet, none.’
‘Then what do you want from me, Colonel?’
‘At this stage an informal discussion.’
‘When?’
‘Now, Cavaliere.’
‘Quite impossible. I am occupied with friends.’
‘Afterwards then. At your hotel, perhaps?’
‘My dear Colonel, I am seventy years old. By midnight I am near to dying. You would get no sense out of me at all. Say, nine in the morning at the Grand Hotel, and I’ll do my best to enlighten you. Now, may I be excused?’
‘Some questions before you go, Cavaliere.’
‘Yes?’
‘The salamander, what does it signify?’
‘Survival. It was my code-name during the war. The rest is too long to tell you now.’
‘The inscription?’
‘That’s a long story, too.’
‘The beginning of it then, if you please.’
‘The beginning and the end, Colonel. Pantaleone was my half-brother. Only he happened to be conceived on the right side of the blanket.’
I stared at him, open-mouthed like an idiot. He smiled at my discomfiture and made a small gesture of deprecation.
‘Please! I am not trying to make theatre, only to show you that we do need time to be clear with each other. Agreed?’
‘Agreed.’
‘Now, Colonel, will you answer one question for me?’
‘If I can, yes.’
‘Who killed Pantaleone?’
‘The death certificate states that he died of a cardiac arrest.’
‘But that’s what kills us all, Colonel.’
‘Exactly.’
‘No other comment?’
‘None. Until tomorrow, Cavaliere.’
‘My compliments, Colonel. Goodnight.’
Why didn’t I hold him? Why didn’t I hammer him with questions while I had him off-balance? I told you before, this was a very special one, the best of the breed. Off-balance? Never for an instant. I was the unsure novice, groping for hand-hold and foot-hold on a bare mountain. Besides – let me make it plain to you – this is Italy, where the law goes back to Justinian, and half of it hasn’t been dusted off for centuries, and the rules of the game are written in sand. Three people in Manzini’s retinue could immobilize me for a month by lifting a telephone. Twenty names at Fosco’s party could consign me forever to the limbo of the retired list. And if you’ve ever tried to collect a debt or enforce a claim against the Republic, then you’ll know what I’m talking about. In China, they drowned their enemies in a bath of feathers. Here in Italy, they stifle them with silence and bury them under a tumulus of carta bollata.
It was still only ten-thirty. I rescued Lili from the crush at the buffet and carted her off to dinner at a place I knew in Trastevere, where the food was honest Tuscan, the wine was honourable and the waiters were proud to serve you, and there was a great open fire for the winter and an arbour of vines for the summer nights. There was music, too; a skinny, plaintive fellow with a guitar, who would come to your table, when you were ready for him, and sing the soul out of your body with the old songs of the South. I was known here, but not for my trade, only because I prized the cook, and sometimes drank enough to sing and strum a song or two while the sad fellow ate his supper.
I had friends there: Castiglione, who used to be a great locksmith until the arthritis got him; Monsignore Arnolfo Ardizzone of the Vatican Secretariat of State, a cleric, knowledgeable and discreet, who had renounced marriage to serve God and adopted the bottle as the only mistress acceptable to Mother Church; Giuffredi, the poet, who wrote satires in Romanesco which nobody read any more; and Maddalena, who sold yesterday’s roses at five hundred lire a bloom and was said to own a whole apartment block on the Tuscolana. True or false? I had never cared to inquire. This was one place where I was myself – whoever that might be. I accepted everyone at face value. I used no one. I paid the score and was welcome in the house. Enough! Everyone needs a bolt-hole. This was mine.
I tried to explain all this to Lili as we walked the last hundred metres through lanes hung with laundry and came out into a tiny square guarded by a dusty virgin in a glass case. I wanted to explain, which in my trade is a weakness. She seemed happy to listen, holding close to me as we stepped over foul runnels and spilt refuse, while the cats of the quarter slunk back into the shadows. Sometimes, when the rare light fell on her face, she looked like a young girl. When she crossed herself at the shrine of the little virgin, she looked like a peasant woman, weary from a long day in the fields. You may not believe me, but I did not care. I was not hunting now, I was simply glad not to be alone.
When we were settled at the table, with bread and wine and a fresh candle, Lili leaned across to me and laid her hands on mine.
‘You look different now, Dante Alighieri.’
‘How?’
‘At Fosco’s you were tight, wary, like a fox. Now you are loose, free. You greet people like human beings. They, too, are glad to see you.’
‘This is Trastevere, my love. Across the river. You know what these people call themselves? Noantri – we others. They refuse to belong to anyone but themselves.’
‘I like that. For now, we, too, are noantri. Please, may I have some wine?’
‘I may get drunk and sing.’
‘I’ll sing with you.’
‘And who will drive us back across the river?’
‘Perhaps we won’t go back – ever again.’
It was a happy thought and we nursed it with all sorts of fantasies through the zuppa and the pasta and the griglia and the dolci. We embroidered it with the music of the plaintive one as he perched on the stool next to Lili, and played her the curiosities of his repertoire – The Song of the Washerwomen of Vomero; Friend Don’t Trust the Spinster; The Undressing Song and the Tale of the Lecherous Clogseller.
Midnight came and we were still singing. At one-thirty in the morning we were vaguely drunk, and the waiters had begun to wilt; so we wandered into the square, said goodnight to the lonely virgin and strolled towards the riverside car-park. Lili said, drowsily:
‘Do you know something?’
‘What?’
‘I want to go to bed with you; but I don’t want to go home.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because home is yesterday. I want to forget it.’
‘And tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow starts when the sun comes up, and this place will be ugly and smelly and full of sad people afraid of each other and you’ll be all wise and wary again.’
‘So let’s drive out along the ring-road. There’s a place I know….’
‘Anywhere you say, caro mio. Anywhere you say.’
‘I have to make a phone call first.’
‘Why?’
‘I left your number with my duty officer. I’ll have to check in and give him a new one.’
‘There’s no escape is there?’
‘We escaped tonight.’
‘So we did. But you still have to telephone….’
‘Please, Lili.’
‘Please, just kiss me….’
In case you’re hoping – as I was – for a happy tale of love and lechery, forget it! The evening of liberty ended with that kiss. I called Headquarters from the corner phone booth. The time was 0210 hours. The duty-officer told me agent Calvi had not made his hourly call. What did I want done about it? I ordered two cars of our mobile squadron, one to pick up Stefanelli, one to meet me at the lawyer’s office. I flagged a passing taxi, bundled Lili into it and sent her home. Then I climbed into my own car and drove like a madman across the sleeping city.
The office of Doctor Sergio Bandinelli was on the fifth floor of a large modern block on the Via Sicilia, only two hundred metres from the bustle of the Via Veneto. When I arrived, one car of the mobile squadron was already parked outside the entrance. The second, carrying Steffi and his little black bag, came hurtling round the corner a few seconds later. Before we entered the building, I gave a few sharp directions to the squadron leaders: this was a high security matter; no police, no Press, no curious sightseers; two men standing by the cars, one on guard with the concierge, three to accompany Steffi and myself to the fifth floor. Then we rang the bell.
The porter, bleary-eyed and grumbling, opened the door, and immediately launched into a babble of questions. We flashed our cards, left him still babbling and took the elevator to the fifth floor. Bandinelli’s office was in darkness, the door was closed but unlocked. I entered first and switched on the lights.
The scene was curiously tranquil. Doctor Bandinelli lay stretched on a leather settee. Agent Giampiero Calvi was seated in a chair behind the desk, head pillowed on his arms. On the desk beside him was a Moravia novel, a loaded pistol, two ham rolls, a hard-boiled egg and a flask of coffee. The coffee was warm. The two men were stone-cold. Old Steffi sniffed the air, made a brief examination of the bodies and pronounced his verdict.
‘Dead. Cyanic acid gas. Pistol or pressure-pack.’
I examined the safe. The seals were broken, the door was open, the Pantaleone papers gone. The immediate temptation was to plunge into action; forensic procedure, interrogation of witnesses, all the rest of it. It was a temptation hard to resist for any man with police training, but in my work it could be fatal to a sensitive project. I picked up the phone and called the Director’s private number. He answered with surprising promptness. I told him:
‘… We’re in trouble. Documents missing and two bundles of dirty linen for immediate disposal – one of them ours.’
‘So … ?’
‘As soon as the situation is tidy, I’ll report in person!’
‘When might that be?’
‘Before breakfast, I hope.’
‘I’ll expect you for breakfast then – the earlier the better.’
Steffi cocked his head and cackled at me, for all the world like an ancient scruffy parrot.
‘When everything’s tidy! Eh! So now we’re in the miracle business!’
The boys from the mobile squadron were fidgeting on their feet, waiting for me to make some decisions. The problem was that every decision carried highly explosive consequences. If I made a big scene with police procedures and interrogations, the Press would come swarming like wasps to a honey-pot. Once they found the Pantaleone papers were involved, they would immediately start asking questions about Pantaleone’s death and hasty burial. On the other hand, if we could not interrogate freely, we would be grievously handicapped in reconstructing the events of the evening, and, therefore, in our search for the Pantaleone documents. Besides, there were two bodies to be disposed of in a convincing, if not legal fashion. Steffi was right as usual. Willy-nilly, we were in the miracle business. So it was time to get the ritual started.
The first problem was to get the two bodies out of the building without fuss or comment. I sent Steffi down to question the porter in his own cubby-hole, out of view of the entrance. Steffi’s talk would hypnotize a fighting-cock. I counted on having the porter so bemused that he would miss a herd of elephants six feet from his nose.
Next we emptied Bandinelli’s pockets and Calvi’s as well. The boys of the mobile squadron carried the bodies into the elevator, rode them to the ground floor and bundled them into the waiting cars like a pair of late drunks. One car drove Bandinelli’s remains to the casualty department of the Policlinico; the other deposited Calvi at the hospital of the Blue Sisters. In each case the story was the same; the mobile squadron had found a man lying, apparently unconscious, in an alley. They were consigning him to hospital while they pursued inquiries as to his identity. Dead on arrival? Dear me! Then give us a receipt and hold him in the mortuary while we complete our inquiries !
It sounds naïve! Then let me explain that even if your grandmother, with all her documents in her purse, falls sick on the Corso and is carted off to a public hospital by some street samaritan, it may well take you the best part of a week to trace her. We have small talent for administration at the best of times; but our public health service is a mess beyond description. Unless you go to an expensive private clinic, you my find your blood report really belongs to a ballet-mistress and your urine was supplied by a fellow who caught clap at Fregene. So, by all the rules of the game, two unidentified bodies should stay unclaimed until we were ready to deal with them.
While Stefanelli was questioning the porter, I drank Calvi’s coffee and ate one of his ham rolls, while I examined the entries in his notebook.
20.00 hrs.
Bandinelli’s staff left.
20.30 ”
Completed indexing of Pantaleone documents. Locked and sealed safe in presence Bandinelli. Signed receipt for papers and keys. Bandinelli left.
21.00 ”
Telephoned duty-officer H.Q.
21.25 ”
Office cleaners arrived.
21.55 ”
Office cleaners left.
22.00 ”
Telephoned duty-officer H.Q.
23.00 ”
Telephoned duty-officer H.Q.
23.36 ”
Made final check of fifth floor.
