“If I pulled out a phone, called up a car to have you arrested for assault of a police officer with a deadly weapon, aggravated ab-” Blume stopped. He could see a look of genuine boredom in the old man’s gray eyes. “So, you want me to come with you?”
“That would be by far the best solution. But I want to emphasize that this is something you are doing of-”
“My own free will. So you said.”
The tracksuit behind him moved impatiently. “Can we get out of here? People can hear things.”
“Good point, Fa.” To Blume he said, “If you came with us, it would make things easier. You get in your own car, there’s no telling who you might call. Maybe you’d take a wrong turn, spend the next hour trying to find us again, especially since you would be driving with one arm.”
“I have an automatic transmission in that car. But you have persuaded me. Where am I voluntarily going with you?”
“Mr. Innocenzi’s.”
Blume thought about it. “OK. I wanted to talk to him anyway.”
“Happy coincidence.”
The three of them walked out under the midday sun and climbed into a double-parked Cherokee. The older man sat in the back with Blume. They drove north along the quays of the Tiber, then turned right to head into the center. A traffic policeman began flapping a red-and-white stick shaped like a lollipop at them as they entered the blue zone. They slowed down to let him see the permit on the windscreen. The traffic policeman signaled at them to go on.
They crossed the center. As they drove up Via Veneto, Blume’s reluctant captor pulled out a cell phone and told someone they were almost there.
They arrived at their destination, on Via Po, in the embassy district of the city. The driver pulled the car up to the curb.
“There. The house with the green door. Just one bell. Ring it.”
He opened the car door and Blume stepped out.
34
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 5 P.M.
Patience, thought Blume. He would take a small kudos loss on the way he had been brought here. Another youth in another velour tracksuit, zipper undone to reveal a hairless shining chest, opened the door before he rang or knocked. The youth stayed by the door as Blume walked into a hallway lined with framed motion picture stills of Alberto Sordi, a stylized picture of Mussolini, and a futurist poster of fast red cars.
From the far end of the corridor, someone said “He was great, wasn’t he?”
Blume looked down, his eyes adjusting to the dimmer light, and saw Innocenzi. He had seen him in plenty of photos and even on TV. He was wearing a green silk shirt, white cotton pants, a pair of Chinese kung-fu slippers.
Blume said, “No. I hate Sordi. Hate his movies, hate his voice. All that Romanaccio shit.”
Innocenzi seemed taken aback. “Wow. You’re the first person I have met to take that attitude. Maybe you need to be a true- blood Roman instead of an American to appreciate the man. But he’s gone now, may his great soul rest in peace. Also, I was talking about Mussolini.”
Blume reached Innocenzi, who held out a hand in greeting. Blume thought about it, then took the proffered hand, which was as hard as a seashell.
“Great,” said Innocenzi. “In here.”
He left the door ajar as he followed Blume into the room, which was furnished as if a teenage hippie from the 1970s had moved into the drawing room of a spinster from the 1920s and simply added stuff without ever taking anything out.
A lava lamp sat on lace draped over a mahogany dresser, a huge old-fashioned stereo with yellow lights sat blinking on a polished flat-topped wooden trunk. A small shrine to the Sacred Heart was attached to the far wall. A few LPs were fanned out over the floor: Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, Cream, Lucio Battisti. Silver candlesticks, cigarette papers, a green plastic clock, and a cigarette rolling machine were reflected in the large oval mirror of a vanity to Blume’s left. Hanging on the wall behind was an old poster with a stylized dove symbol.
Slightly off-center was a square card table topped with green felt, marked with burns and with stains from the rims of glasses. Innocenzi pointed Blume into a chair, pulled one up himself, sat at the opposite end of the table and said, “You’ve been paying visits to my daughter.”
“Yes.”
“Even though you’re not on this case?”
“Yes.”
“You’re something else, know that?”
Blume didn’t feel like he had any explaining to do, so he sat silent. Innocenzi, who seemed to be lost in contemplation, did the same. Innocenzi’s breath smelled of garlic and mint. The stubble sat on his face like grains of wet black sand. His age was most visible from two creases running diagonally from his high cheekbones down the side of his face, giving a triangular and simian shape to the area between his upper lip and nose. He still had plenty of hair, but he kept it too long at the back, and too black for his sixty-eight years. It was high time, Blume felt, the Italians came up with their own word for mullet.
A chandelier with bulbs missing hung from the ceiling. The light from the window was muted by half-closed wooden shutters. A sofa made from extruded aluminium and hard plastic upholstery sat in the middle. What the hell did the boss spend his millions on?
After a while, Blume said, “If we’re not going anywhere with this, I may as well go.”
Innocenzi made a slow chopping movement with his hand. “No, no, no. Stay there. I was just getting to know you in person, and maybe I have something to tell you about your cop killers, Alleva and Massoni.”
“As you said, it’s not my case.”
“You want me to give someone else the information?” Innocenzi sounded disappointed.
“That’s not what I said.”
“Well, as it happens, I already did. I told Inspector Paoloni where to find Alleva and Massoni. I told him-let me see-on Wednesday, was it? Whatever day the funeral was. I can tell from just looking at your face that this is news to you. I can also tell that you’ve been betrayed. You know what people do when they’ve been betrayed? They wrinkle the top of their nose. And with your nose, it’s very easy to see. So Paoloni didn’t tell you?”
“What did he do to them?”
“You’re not in the picture at all, are you? Good. I like to break news. So Paoloni turns up at the address I gave him, in an unmarked car. He waits for a bit and four other cops, two from your place, two from Tor Vergata, or so I heard, meet at the bottom of the street, around one o’clock at night.”
“Have you got the names of these cops?” said Blume.
“Serenity and patience, Commissioner. I’ve got more than that, as you’ll find out if you let me finish my story.” He waited to see if Blume wanted to interrupt again, then continued: “We’ve got a few people watching. They were there because I trust them and wanted to reward them with some light entertainment. The cop from Tor Vergata had a battering ram. The others have weapons which I don’t think are standard issue for you people. Colt revolver, one had. Scared of dropping shells, I suppose. No masks or bala-clavas, just upturned collars. So they burst into this apartment and scare the living Jesus out of a foolish barman who thought he could skim on the poker machines we installed in his premises. My people said the barman and his wife squealed like two pigs when they burst in.”
“What did they do to them?”
“Your colleagues? Nothing. They wanted Alleva and Massoni, didn’t they? They just got out of there as quickly as possible. You should have seen the looks on their faces.”
“You were there?”
