38
Out in the street, the situation had already changed. The shortorder cook stumbled on the edge of the doorstep and the yob he was ejecting took advantage of this momentary loss of balance to turn on him. He emerged from the ensuing scuffle holding an automatic pistol. Aurelio Zen stubbed out his cigarette and called in on his work mobile to explain the situation and order the immediate dispatch of a squad car. Rising from the table, he collided with the young woman he had been eyeing earlier, who was now rushing towards the door with the skinnier of the two waiters in hot pursuit.
‘And the bill?’ he called plaintively. ‘Over a hundred with the champagne!’
Zen followed the woman out to the street, where her companion had been grabbed and hoisted under the armpits by the punkabestia person, who was holding the pistol to the side of his head.
‘Back off or the puppy gets it!’ he yelled.
‘Police!’ Bruno retorted, keeping his distance and evidently uncertain what to do next. ‘Lay down the gun! You’re under arrest!’
The gunman didn’t even glance at him, his attention entirely absorbed by the imposing spectacle of the young woman closing in on him.
‘Put my boyfriend down this instant or you’ll have me to deal with!’ she shouted.
Apatrol car swept around the corner, light bar pulsing but siren stilled, and screeched to a halt a few metres away. Vincenzo Amadori surveyed the situation, then lowered his weapon, released Rodolfo and burst into laughter.
‘Ah, fuck!’ he said.
Flavia took the pistol from his fingers and handed it to Bruno. Nobody else approached Vincenzo, who stood swaying about, alternately screwing up and widening his eyes like someone learning a potentially enthralling new skill.
‘Are you a friend of his?’ Zen asked Rodolfo.
‘Who are you?’
‘A police officer.’
‘We share an apartment.’
‘What’s in the bag?’
‘Just some clothes he asked me to bring him.’
While Bruno, aided by his fellow patrolmen, handcuffed Amadori, Zen started looking through the contents of the duffle bag. He lifted out a striped cream silk shirt bearing the Versace label and held it up to the light of the restaurant’s neon sign. Several brown stains were visible on the right-hand chest panel.
Zen called Bruno over.
‘It looks like you may have been right about there being evidence in the bag.’
Bruno peered at the shirt, unimpressed.
‘A couple of wine stains?’
‘Let’s see what the DNA tests say. But if it’s blood rather than wine, as I have reason to suppose, then we’ll have stolen both the Curti and Ugo cases back from the Carabinieri, and you’ll be a sergeant next month.’
39
Tony Speranza woke up feeling like hell. Actually, he woke up feeling like hell every morning, but as he could never remember much about the day before, still less the days before that, this always came as a surprise.
He shuddered out of bed and padded through to the kitchen, where he cracked a bottle of Budweiser before proceeding to the living room and unmuting the TV, which had been on all night. A post-breakfast talk show for bored housewives was in progress, some hermetically groomed babe in a power suit. When Tony’s eyes finally focused, he saw that a title in the corner of the screen identified her as Delia Anselmi, personal assistant to the famous star branded as Lo Chef Che Canta e Incanta.
‘Romano’s new concept is just awesome,’ she was gushing. ‘To think that he’s actually been working in disguise at an ordinary neighbourhood trattoria, doing research for this fabulous new series. Returning to his roots, as he put it to me last night, Stella. And I want you to know that he was weeping!’
The buxom, genetically modified presenter beamed.
‘That’s just great, Delia! I want you both to know that we’re all weeping too, but we’re weeping tears of joy.’
‘Thanks for sharing, Stella! I’m really moved, and I just know that Romano will be too. I can’t of course disclose the location of the restaurant where Romano decided to go “back to the rock face”, as he put it to me. That would compromise the integrity and authenticity of the whole experience, but it’s also for legal reasons following Romano’s heroic and decisive intervention in the dramatic arrest of Lorenzo Curti’s assassin last night. But we will shortly be filming him there, fly-on-the-wall style, and the resulting series, Real Work , will be shown…’
‘…exclusively on this channel,’ the presenter put in.
‘…early in the autumn. I just know that this is a break-through concept that is going to entirely change the whole way we look at…’
Tony Speranza hit the mute button and shambled over to his phone. No messages from the Amadori family, despite the turn of the screw he had administered the day before by calling the Questura and shopping Vincenzo as Edgardo Ugo’s attacker. Of course, they might not have been told yet. The police were so inefficient. He returned to the kitchen, swapped the Bud for a Jack Daniels and then shambled back to collapse in front of the TV, surfing to a twenty-four-hour news channel which was showing footage of some botoxed presenter heavy-lipping a huge microphone as if it were a phallus. ‘Supercop from Rome Cracks Curti Case’ read the title. Tony’s hand darted for the remote control.
‘…can confirm that Vincenzo Amadori is in custody. He will face charges later today in regard to the murder of Lorenzo Curti and also the shooting of Professor Edgardo Ugo. Forensic tests indicate that the weapon used in both crimes is that which was in possession of the accused at the time of his arrest late last night by a crack team of Polizia di Statooperatives under the leadership of Vice-Questore Aurelio Zen. At a news conference earlier this morning, Dottor Zen and the officer in charge of the investigation, Commissario Salvatore Brunetti, stated that…’
He pushed the mute button again and glumly watched footage of two men, one in police uniform, the other in a suit and overcoat, addressing a group of journalists. Fuck, he thought. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. So much for his pension plan.
Then he had an idea.
It was about eleven o’clock when Tony Speranza arrived at the Questura. A blanket of cold, hard smog enveloped the entire city. Tony was wearing a powder-blue suit with a dark blue shirt and tie and black brogues. He was neat, clean, shaved and relatively sober, and didn’t care who knew it. He was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. He was calling for one million euros.
Tony stated his business to the sergeant at the desk, who asked him to wait and then made a number of whispered phone calls. About five minutes later, two armed officers in uniform approached the desk.
The sergeant said tonelessly, ‘Commissario Brunetti will see you now, Signor Speranza.’
The two officers escorted him up the wide staircase to the first floor. Neither spoke nor looked at him, but he was pleased-proud, even-of their presence. It proved that he was finally being taken seriously, with the respect that he deserved.
Having traversed a lateral corridor, he was ushered into a large office. There were two men present. Tony recognised them as the pair he had seen earlier on the TV news report. Better and better! He was going straight to the top!
The shorter of the men looked at him, but did not invite him to sit down.
‘We understand that you have come to claim the reward offered by the Curti family for information leading to the arrest of the killer,’ he said.
‘Correct.’
