The Villa of Mysteries Read online

  Costa looked at Falcone. He wished the inspector wouldn’t play his cards so close to his chest so often. It was coincidence. But that didn’t mean they should reject it.

  “We could hand out her picture to the media,” Costa suggested.

  “And say what?” Falcone asked. “This is a girl who hasn’t been seen by her mother since this morning? Do you want us to look like fools?”

  “I don’t care what we look like.”

  Peroni patted Costa on the back. “Think about it, Nic. What’s there to go on?”

  “Circulate the girl’s picture internally,” Falcone ordered, walking for the door, watching Teresa Lupo glower at him from the sofa, her arms still round the mother. “Make sure it gets seen all round. And pull out whatever CCTV footage we’ve got of the Campo. We can look at that later. You could be right, Nic. I just don’t feel ready to jump straight in at the moment. Besides, we’ve got an appointment.” He scowled at Costa. “And note that word ‘we.’ Keep your friend from the morgue out of this. She’s got other work to do.”

  These days when Emilio Neri went out on his rounds he left most of the muscle work to Bruno Bucci, a muscular thirty-year-old hood from Turin. Bucci had been on the payroll since he was a teenager running dope dealers around Termini Station. Neri liked him, as an employee and as a man. He was taciturn, loyal and dogged. He knew when to talk and when to shut up. He never came back until the job was done, whatever it took. If Neri felt like slapping someone around personally, Bucci didn’t mind holding the yo-yo still, making sure he didn’t get any stupid ideas just because the individual rearranging his face was pushing sixty-six and wheezing and croaking like a set of malodorous old bellows.

  Sometimes Neri wondered why Mickey hadn’t turned out this way. If that had happened, he’d feel a whole lot easier about what would become of his empire when he was too old to stay in the driving seat. Which could be sooner rather than later the way he was starting to feel. It wasn’t a question of age. Neri felt sure he could carry on for a good decade more without handing over the reins. Something else, boredom maybe, or a sense of being out of place, bothered him. The big house, the servants, even Adele lounging around like a pampered plaything . . . all these accoutrements of wealth and power now seemed unreal, almost improper, silky bars for a prison that threatened to drown him in luxury.

  He ought to be thinking about the transition. He knew that. The problem was Mickey’s character. The kid did as he was told, mostly, but he was always chasing something on the side too, pursuing private scams that he liked to keep to himself. Neri had found himself forced to clean up this kind of mess—dope, women, money—too often. Mickey never lied when confronted like that. Neri just had to know to ask the right questions. He could put up with that when Mickey was twenty. Now it was getting tedious. Maybe there was some kind of a trade-off he could work. Bucci got to run the business, Mickey could sit back and take his cut from the proceeds.

  Neri thought about this from Bucci’s point of view. He knew what any decent working-class hood with ambition would do in that position. Wait till the old man was out of the way then take the lot, leaving the spoilt brat to drive a cab or wake up dead one morning more likely. Maybe that was the way of the world, Neri reasoned. He’d have done the same. Families were imperfect entities. Nothing said they had to last forever.

  They spent the morning chasing up debts around the city, Neri fuming all the time about the way Mickey and Adele squabbled in his presence, wondering whether he ought to punish them both. He couldn’t get them out of his head and he couldn’t figure out why. His mind wasn’t as quick as it used to be. Was there something going on that he should have seen? Some new scheme of Mickey’s? He sat back in the rear seat of the armoured Mercedes and closed his eyes, wishing to hell he didn’t have to worry about those two constantly. The bitch ran up a small fortune on credit cards. He footed every penny of the gigantic bills that fell through the door each month. Mickey was no better. The kid seemed consumed with a desire to own anything that possessed an internal combustion engine. He’d been through four sports cars in as many months, dabbled with a plethora of two-wheeled vehicles and was only cut short from buying a four-seat Piper Comanche when the owner of the flying school discreetly rang Neri on his mobile to warn him of the deal his son was trying to nail down. Then there were the women. All shapes, all sizes. All colours, all backgrounds. The only thing they had in common was the money they consumed with a vengeance, and none of that was Mickey’s.

  In his own way, Neri loved them both. Or, more accurately, he thought, enjoyed owning them, having them dependent upon him in every way. In return they were supposed to stick to the rules, and one of those was never to display their antipathy towards each other in his presence. But they just couldn’t bring themselves to do that one small thing, and the resentment he felt was growing by the minute, making it impossible for Neri to concentrate on the work in front of him. On one occasion he broke off from watching Bucci beat the shit out of some cheating Termini pimp to call Mickey and find out what the louse was doing to earn his keep. All he got was the recorded message from the mobile. Later he’d got Bucci to pin down Toni Lucarelli, a Trastevere barkeeper who was siphoning off the dough Neri was due in order to pay for some piece of Algerian skirt on the other side of town. Neri punched Lucarelli a few times in the face, not hard, because his heart wasn’t in it. Lucarelli was a nice guy. He just wanted more fun than his wallet allowed.

  Then the stupid barkeeper spoiled everything by breaking down and blubbing instead of taking it like a man. Neri wanted to let the big guy from Turin loose on the jerk, crying like a baby there in the storeroom of his crummy little bar. But he couldn’t get the picture of Adele out of his head: cold, heartless Adele, who knew more tricks than a woman of her age ought to, looking down on his son like he was nothing, so cold it was deliberate, as if she were laughing about something. He told Bucci to rough up Lucarelli just a little then called her and didn’t get through there either. It was a hell of a day. Life would be so simple if he didn’t have to go around like this, with a bodyguard dogging his footsteps all the time. You couldn’t be the boss and expect not to have enemies. All the same, sometimes it made life hell.

  Neri didn’t beat up anyone else after that. He just let them look at Bucci and ask themselves how it would feel. At lunchtime, when he’d had what was supposed to be his pleasure, he called in to see an old friend on the staff at the Vatican. They talked about a different side to Neri’s business: offshore funds and tax havens, covert bank transfers and double taxation schemes. Then they ate lunch in a small trattoria around the corner, one run by a man Neri had once employed, so he never ever paid the bill. The man from the Vatican skulked off back to work after a single plate of spaghetti carbonara, worrying he’d been seen. Neri hung on for some lamb with chicory and then zabaglione and still he couldn’t get Mickey and Adele out of his mind.

  Then came the phone call about what was happening in the Questura. He tried to cast his mind back sixteen years. He made some notes on the little pad he kept inside his jacket pocket: names, events, people to call. Everything went into the book. He needed it all the time these days. His memory wasn’t what it was.

  “To hell with it,” he grunted, staring at the empty plates in front of him. “It’s history. I am too old and too rich to let this shit get me down.”

  When he came out into the side street close to the Piazza del Risorgimento Bruno Bucci was sitting on the wall next to the black Mercedes looking odd. Neri finally worked out what it was. There was emotion on his large, featureless face. He was pissed off.

  Neri walked over and sat next to him on the brickwork. It was a nice day. Spring was working its way into the world. There was some blue sky, a touch of heat. Pretty girls walked by in dresses that had some colour. Some of them had long, brown legs. They got fake tans these days, he guessed, or maybe their boyfriends took them to the Caribbean for some sun and plenty of bedroom stuff. There’d been a time when Emil
io Neri felt sufficiently free of the shackles of labour to do the same himself.

  “Car’s fucked,” Bucci said. “Won’t start.”

  Neri shook his head and stared at the big, black hunk of metal. “All that money. And what does it get you? Why do I bother with this?”

  “I phoned the garage. They said two hours. Tomorrow I’m going to go round. Explain a few things in person.”

  Neri looked into Bucci’s brown eyes. Most of the time they appeared dead but that was just an act. Bucci was a smart guy. He didn’t miss a trick.

  “You do that,” he said, patting one of his big knees. “Tell you what. Life’s too short for this crap. Take the afternoon off. We’re done. It’s spring. Go back and see that pimp. Tell him he should give you a little something extra, keep us sweet.”

  Bucci twisted inside his tight grey suit. “That’s nice, boss. But I don’t need that kind of thing. Not now. Not that I don’t appreciate the offer.”

  Neri looked at him and thought again of Mickey. “You’re some guy, Bruno. I like the fact you’re working for me.”

  “Me too. Let me find a cab. I’ll bring it round here. Go back with you.”

  “No!” Neri laughed. “I meant what I said. It’s spring. Wake up a little. Feel alive. I’m done chasing debts for the day. Bores me stupid sometimes. You go enjoy yourself. Take some chick out this evening. On me.”

  “That’s kind of you,” Bucci answered. His brown eyes were dead again. “But I’m not supposed to leave you on your own.”

  Neri’s face fell into a scowl. “What’re you talking about? You make me sound like some old cripple or something. You think I can’t look after myself?”

  Bucci was worried. “No, boss. It’s just . . . you always said . . .”

  “Fuck what I always said! I’m saying something different now. Who the hell’s gonna try something on me here anyway? Also, the way I intend to go home—” Neri grinned. “A man’s gotta feel free sometimes, Bruno. You understand that?”

  “How’re you getting home?”

  “A unique form of transport. I’m going to catch a bus from round that corner. I want to look in the eyes of a few strangers, try to see what makes them tick. Haven’t done that in years. It’s a mistake. You get isolated. You forget how to read people.”

  “A bus?” Bucci repeated.

  “Yeah. Why not?”

  Neri hesitated. He hated throwing his personal problems onto other people. “You mind if I ask you something?”

  “No.”

  “That stupid kid of mine, Mickey. And Adele. What do you think I should do about them, huh? They’re driving me crazy.”

  Bruno Bucci shuffled uncomfortably on the wall. Neri watched him, wondering at the discomfort a few simple words could cause, not quite sure he could believe the slight flush that was creeping up the cheeks of the man from Turin.

  “Cat got your tongue? Did I ask the wrong question or something?”

  “I’d like to help, boss,” Bucci said eventually. “You know that. If there’s ever anything I can do . . . you’ve just got to ask.”

  “That you can do!” Neri laughed, still struggling to work out Bucci’s reaction. “What are you talking about, Bruno? I was asking your opinion. This is my problem. A son I love. A wife I love. And the two of them can’t stand the sight of each other. You think I’m going to ask you to fix it. Jesus—”

  “I don’t have an opinion.”

  He slapped Bucci’s shoulder. “Yeah. Right. You northern guys. You think you’ve got the answers to everything. Just don’t want to say it, that’s all.”

  “Got me there,” Bruno Bucci replied, brown eyes staring into Neri’s face with no visible emotion in them at all.

  “Here.” Neri flashed him some big notes. “You’re right. It’s my business. I never should have put you in that position. You go have fun. Whatever. I don’t care. ‘You’ve just got to ask . . .’ You guys kill me sometimes.”

  Bruno Bucci pushed himself up and came off the wall, counting the notes.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  Neri watched his broad back disappear down the street. “Humility,” he said to himself. “That is what the world is lacking today.”

  Then he walked round the corner into the square, wondering how long it was since he sat on a bus, trying to remember what it felt like to be young, trying to separate several conflicting strands of thought in his head.

  The benign mood didn’t last. There was a queue. There were foreigners, pushing and shoving and asking stupid questions. It took ten minutes for him to work his way inside the doors. By the time Emilio Neri was on the 64 his mind was back where he had left it an hour before, stuck inside a foul mood, thinking about his stupid family.

  There were no seats either. Not until a man not far short of his own age, smartly dressed, constantly smiling, stood up and offered his own.

  Neri looked into the stranger’s face, wondering why he’d been stupid enough to refuse Bucci’s offer of a cab and climb on board this thing in the first place. Because you’re an old fool, he thought to himself. And maybe they’re starting to know it.

  The man couldn’t stop smiling. It was beyond Neri why anyone would smile on a stinking, overcrowded bus. He couldn’t wait for the thing to lurch across the bridge and into the Via Arenula so he could waddle home along the Via Giulia.

  “Use the seat yourself,” Neri growled. “I don’t need it. What makes you think I do?”

  “Nothing,” the man said, still smiling. He looked like a confidence trickster or some two-bit actor in the Fellini films “I just thought—”

  “You thought wrong,” Neri snarled.

  And so he clung to the strap, wishing all the way that he’d fallen into the seat and taken the weight off his sweating feet. There was some black teenager in it now, headphones clamped to his skull, a hissing noise emerging from them.

  He got off at the Via Arenula, in a big jostling crowd. He had to wait almost five minutes to cross the busy road. When he got home he was out of breath and stank of sweat, Mickey and Adele’s fighting still in his head, jostling for attention with the call from inside the Questura.

  The house was empty. He wanted them there. When the phone rang he knew an ancient corpse really was rising, in a way he’d have to anticipate, couldn’t hope to avoid.

  Twenty minutes after leaving the Teatro di Marcello Nic Costa and Gianni Peroni followed Falcone’s car into a narrow private lane off the Janiculum Hill, the sprawling piece of parkland that rose up from behind Trastevere and overlooked the river.

  Peroni downed the remains of his second porchetta panino of the day, brushed the crumbs off his jacket into the floorpan of the Fiat and said, “You know, I like the way you drive, Nic. It’s careful without being over-cautious, sensitive to circumstances and a little rash if required. When I’m restored to my true position I will offer you a job, my boy. You can drive me anywhere. Most of the guys I have spend their time bouncing off other vehicles which is a little unsettling for a sensitive man like me.”

  Then he unwrapped a chocolate bar and took a single bite before sticking it in his pocket, half-eaten.

  “You’re going to put on weight eating like that,” Costa observed. “It’s not natural.”

  “Been the same weight for fifteen years. I burn it up inside, what with my nervous tension and all. You just see the exterior me. Calm, unflustered, ever-vigilant, ugly as a horse’s ass, just what I want you to see. But inside I’m a tortured cauldron of torn emotions. I’ve got traumas that can burn off any amount of carbohydrate and cholesterol I throw at it. You watch. You seen so much as an extra gram on me since we started this relationship?”

  “No.”

  “Also, you should be aware that meat—even the shit they sell under that name in Rome—and bread, they’re the best antidote there is against this flu thing. Forget all that crap about fruit and vegetables. You ever seen a chimpanzee? Fucking things never stop sneezing. Or doing the other thing. Sometimes simultane
ously.”

  Costa thought about this. “I’ve never seen a chimpanzee sneeze.”

  “You need to develop your powers of observation. Now do you want me to come in and hold hands with you for this or can I just stay in the car and nap awhile? What with mummified bodies and Roman history lessons this has been a tiring day for a nocturnal animal like me.”

  Peroni took the cigarette packet out, saw Costa’s face and thought better of it. “OK. OK. One concession a day is all you get. About the English kid, Nic. Falcone’s doing all he can in the circumstances. Putting the picture around. Getting the CCTV. I mean, I’m no detective but what this mother says seems so vague.”

  “Things often are. Isn’t it that way in vice?”

  He shook his head. “Not really. We’re law enforcement, not detection. We just try to keep a lid on everything, make sure no one truly innocent gets hurt and the dope stays out of the equation as much as possible. I’m not like you. I’m a kind of social worker if you want the honest truth. You got to remember. If it comes down to violence and worse it all falls out of our hands anyway. We’re just licensed informers who hand on some gossip you people can use. A popular job, you’ll agree.”

  “And when you want some information?”

  “I ask,” Peroni replied. “Straight out front. I’m a good asker. No messing. It’s the only way. So let me say this again: What’s the problem? You want to spend a little more time around the mother? A man should always consider his sex life, but I told you. Ask Barbara out. She’s a nice girl.”

  “Meaning?” Peroni could be too direct for his own good. Too observant too.

  “Meaning I saw the way you looked at the English woman. Don’t get me wrong. She’s great-looking in a kind of second-hand way. Older than you, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Not my type. Too much of something—booze maybe, and bad dreams—been through her head.”

  “I just think there’s more to it,” Costa replied. Peroni hadn’t heard as much as he had. Or maybe he was uncharacteristically slow off the mark.