“I still don’t know what it means.”
Innocenzi said, “Suppose I confess a secret to you that allows you to destroy me, what would you do?”
“Destroy you.”
“Don’t try to be funny.”
“Who says I was joking?”
“I say you were. That’s how I’m going to take it.”
“Fine. So what should I do instead?”
“If I know you can destroy me, I’ll destroy you,” said Innocenzi. “You think it’s good to gain knowledge, but once you have it, you realize you were far better off without it. But there is no going back. So what do you do now? What you do is you hedge the risk. You tell me a secret that would allow me to destroy you. That way, I have less reason to fear what you might do. Intense fear leads to intense violence. If you spread the risk, you lower the violence.”
Blume said, “People have lots of secrets.”
“The more of their secrets I know, the less worried I am about what they are going to do, and the less inclined I am to treat them as enemies. Seeing as we live in decadent times, I get plenty of material. Even on people who think they’ve nothing to hide. People like Paoloni or Di Tivoli, say. The Russians have a word for that, too: poshlost.”
“Do you know much Russian?”
“I have Russian friends now. How times change,” said Innocenzi.
“Sometimes, just to remind the politicos and administrators and reporters and police and magistrates and all the others that I’m watching, I let slip a little something. A story appears in a scandal magazine about a certain politician in the company of a whore, the hidden interests of an anticorruption campaigner in property development. You remember Di Pietro and that gift Mercedes, made him stop going after Berlusconi? That’s kompromat at work.”
“And do people have things on you?”
“Sure they do. Even you do.”
“How?” asked Blume.
“You know I am vulnerable through my daughter.”
“Most fathers are.”
“You know my daughter is a gossipy, vain aging woman who had an illicit affair with a politician’s husband.”
Blume said, “That’s not much.”
“It is still something. Gives you some leverage, some kompromat power. Maybe you should balance things out, tell me something about yourself.”
“You’ll have to find that out for yourself.”
“Alec, maybe I know things already. But the situation is this. You were taken off the case, but you went to interrogate my daughter in her house. I give you the address of the culprits. I invite you here, treat you well. The way I see it, it’s time you reciprocated.”
Blume crossed his arms.
Innocenzi said, “It’s not corruption. I want you to reciprocate by doing what you were going to do anyhow.”
“Which is?”
“Continue working the case. Put it back on track.”
“To get the heat off you? You have the situation pretty much under control. Anyhow, I am not totally convinced you’re not behind it.”
“Yes, you are,” said Innocenzi.
“I don’t get it. You want me to stop talking to your daughter, fine. As far as I can see, you’ve got plenty of ways of making me stop, anyhow.”
“Sure, I have, Alec. But I want you to act of your own free will in the matter. My daughter, who has a strong sense of retributive justice, had grown very fond of that dog campaigner, Clemente. I didn’t approve of it, but, hey, peace and love, no?”
Blume waited.
“So when he got himself killed, she was very upset, came to me, asked what had happened, who was responsible, whether I might not be able to do something. We asked around. I personally spoke with Alleva, like I told you. The man had no idea what I was even talking about. He had nothing to do with it. I called in some favors, checked out the thinking of the authorities- nothing, except for reports that you and your friend Paoloni had reached the same conclusion as me, which was that it was random and could not be solved through the normal channels. Oh-Paoloni tipped Alleva off, you know that?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not convincing you, I can see that. Sometimes I can’t convince my own daughter. Manuela. She doesn’t believe me. She half thinks I had something to do with it.”
“Like she still has doubts about how her mother died,” said Blume.
Although Innocenzi did not change position, the comfortable posture he had been using was suddenly gone. The creases in his face seemed to smooth as he stared at Blume. He had blue-green eyes, like his daughter.
He held his gaze on Blume just long enough for Blume to understand that he stood no chance of staring him down.
“I don’t understand that, Alec. Now why would you say a thing like that? My dead wife. I don’t know. It has to be a cultural thing, you being an American. You can’t have thought it through before you spoke. Wow, what a thing!”
“All right, it was… irrelevant,” said Blume.
“And you’re not even apologizing. Amazing. What is relevant is for you to catch whoever killed Clemente.”
Blume felt his finger move and his brow furrow before he had a chance to stop himself, and Innocenzi caught the gestures.
“I see you’re surprised, I think I know why, too.”
“No. You’re over-interpreting,” said Blume.
“No. I am not. You are surprised I don’t already know who you are looking for. I know you have a theory of some sort that no one else does, but try as I might, I can’t get Paoloni or anyone else to give me the name of your suspect. It’s your thing, he says. Nothing to do with him. See? Paoloni is faithful as well as faithless. We humans are a mass of contradictions. Now, I’ll tell you what would be really fantastic, is for you to go and get this person who killed my daughter’s dog protector.”
36
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 5:30 P.M.
Innocenzi accompanied Blume back to the Land Cruiser, said something to the two men inside, then touched his elbow, shook his hand.
“My men say you go around unarmed,” said Innocenzi. “Is that wise?”
“Sometimes I carry, sometimes not.”
“I think you should have a weapon. Especially with that arm. You’re very vulnerable, Alec.”
“I’ll be OK.”
“Oh yeah? Ma ’ndo vai se la banana nun ce l’hai?” said Innocenzi.
His former abductors drove him back to where his car was parked outside Manuela’s apartment building. From there he drove back to the office.
Sitting alone at his desk, Blume looked at the address Innocenzi had given him. He felt aggrieved at not being able to trust even Principe. He sat down at his desk and made the first of several phone calls.
