earnings, whether he has a clear conscience about how he uses the computer-anything. Hassle him a bit. Get a feel for what sort of a person he is.”
Blume indicated the next name on the list, Dandini, a car salesman. “I’ll talk to this guy, see who he is. Then one of us will check out the third guy tomorrow morning, or whenever. What’s his name?”
“Angelo Pernazzo. Perl scripting programmer.”
“I don’t even know what that is,” said Blume.
7 P.M.
Dandini turned out to be a man with black curly hair who looked like he was on the verge of bursting into a Puccini solo. Despite himself, Blume liked him almost immediately. He sold fat, ecologically criminal cars from a lot situated off the ring road next to Casale Lumbroso, and was just finishing off a sales pitch to a couple interested in a Volkswagen Touareg when Blume arrived. Blume allowed him to see them off, then he and Dandini went into a prefabricated hut, where Dandini loosened a wide yellow necktie and placed his bulk in front of a roaring air conditioner. He put his hand in his jacket, pulled out what looked like a sheet from a child’s bed, and dabbed his forehead with it.
“I heard thunder earlier. Rain would be nice, but then we have to wash all the cars, especially if it’s got sand in it.”
Dandini seemed genuinely pleased to meet Blume. Even when Blume pulled out his police identification Dandini continued to beam at him, and offered Blume a visiting card, as if completing a fair trade.
According to Dandini, being caught up in a swoop by the Carabinieri was quite the best thing that had ever happened to him.
He paused, a big expectant smile on his face as he waited for Blume to pick up the cue.
Blume obligingly expressed wonderment at the paradox.
Because-here Dandini clenched his fist-it brought it home to him that he had a serious gambling problem. He opened the top drawer, pulled out a white cardboard box, opened it, and offered Blume a puff pastry.
Blume declined. Dandini helped himself to one. The very next day, he and his wife sought help. They found a place on the Via Casaletto.
Some dry flakes of pastry and a cloud of sugar escaped his mouth and he stopped talking for a bit until he had things under control.
The people there were kind to him about his problem, but a bit harsh with his wife, who they said needed to change her superficial attitude. He didn’t get that bit, but they were doing much better. He hadn’t gambled in months. He had totally given up drinking, too, except on weekends and after a sale.
He thanked Blume for the interest shown by the police in these things. If it were up to him, there would be no more poker machines or lottery scratch cards either.
Blume wanted to know why he went to a dog fight. Did he not know it was cruel and inhumane and illegal?
“The odds,” said Dandini, shaking his large head slowly. “They had such great odds.”
Dandini said he had been in the office all day on Friday.
“Can anyone else confirm that?”
“Giovanni.”
“Who’s he?”
“My junior business partner. He’s gone to a customer’s to get some papers signed. He’ll probably go straight home after.”
“OK, maybe I’ll talk to him. Anyone else?”
“I made three sales yesterday. Well, I made one sale and signed the contracts of sale on two others. Maria, our secretary, was there. She draws up the ownership papers. She goes home at four.”
Blume took her number down. “When did you make the sales?”
“All morning. It takes a while, you know. The paperwork, showing them the car, putting on the license plate, waving them away. I was doing that from nine until lunchtime, then after lunch I made the third sale. It was a good day.”
“And you have the names of these customers. They can say you were here?”
“I hadn’t thought of that. Sure.” He pulled open a lower drawer and pulled out two folders. “These are the names, if you need them.”
A group of moneyed youngsters appeared in the forecourt, and Dandini looked at Blume longingly for permission to leave. Blume had not even begun to ask questions, but Dandini had solid alibis. In any case, he knew Dandini was not the man he was looking for.
19
SATURDAY, AUGUST 28, 7:45 P.M.
Blume made it back to the station just in time for the meeting. He went to his office. Someone, probably Ferrucci, had left two file folders closed with ribbon on his desk. He opened them, saw that they were profiles of Alleva and his henchman, Gaetano Massoni. He dropped them into his bag and went up to the conference room.
The furniture inside was minimal: no telephones, nor even telephone jacks in the walls. A projection screen, usually left open, was set against the wall flanking the door. To minimize the opportunities for the installation of permanent bugging devices, all the audiovisual equipment, including an extremely expensive projector, was set on a wire-framed cart that could be wheeled out of the room when not in use. It was a room designed for deniability.
He sat down, opened his bag, and read the files.
Renato Alleva, born 1966, in Genoa. This was already odd. The Roman underworld, like Rome itself, was provincial. Alleva was an outsider, and operated on sufferance. Alleva’s early career seemed to be that of a thwarted confidence trickster. Arrested in 1982, ’86, ’88, ’91, and ’95 for impersonating an insurance salesman, area manager for a supermarket, charity worker, business investor, and realtor, he was unmasked each time by his intended victims, who had called the police. As he never actually managed to take any money off anyone, the sentencing was light. In 1995, Alleva spent two months in the hospital with multiple fractures inflicted, it seemed, by relations of the old woman to whom he had tried to sell a temporarily unoccupied apartment on the Via Marco Sala. He spent the next eight months in Marassi prison. Blume looked at the mug shots of Alleva’s flat face with its cubic nose and pig eyes and wondered how its owner came to think he should try a career based on winning trust. But Alleva had learned from his mistakes. Going from confidence trickster to dogman had been a smart move.
Blume learned off Alleva’s charge sheet like he used to learn poems in school. He would remember it for as long as he needed to, then forget it. Sometimes faces, their crimes and, most often, their victims, got stuck in his mind’s eye, along with fragments of school poetry.
Lontano, lontano
Come un cieco
M’hanno portato per mano.
As for Massoni, the criminal record dated back to 1980, when Massoni was thirteen. The details of the charges brought against him in the years 1980 to 1985 were absent, “pursuant to the terms of Article 15 DPR 448/88” relating to the protection of juveniles. The comment was marked with an asterisk, which, Blume saw, referred to a footnote to the effect that Article 52 of Law 313/02 had since repealed this provision.
But not before Massoni’s youthful exploits, whatever they were, had been deleted.
Massoni didn’t let his eighteenth birthday slow him down. He had started out with arrests for criminal damage to a vehicle, resisting arrest, dangerous driving, and assault, for which he received noncustodial sentences and a suspension of his driver’s license. He was back eight months later after being caught driving, and the suspension on his license was extended. From 1990, Massoni seemed to be specializing in assault. He was arrested for inflicting bodily harm on would-be clients of a nightclub where he worked for a while as a bouncer, but the
