Blood Curse

XXXIX

When they got back to headquarters, they found the officer on duty at the front door waiting for them in the middle of the courtyard. They realized that something serious had happened.

“Brigadier, Commissario, forgive me. We got a phone call from Pellegrini Hospital; Camarda and Cesarano are there. Someone’s been seriously wounded. A knife wound. They said that if possible, you should hurry over right away.”

The two men looked at each other and took off at a run.

The awkwardness that had lingered in the air between them after the interview with Enrica was completely swept away. Now their thoughts were focused entirely on Camarda and Cesarano, on their children and their mothers.

When they arrived in the hospital courtyard and found both men standing before them, they felt an enormous surge of relief. Maione, expansive as always, actually rushed forward and threw his arms around them. Ricciardi in contrast stared intently at two women, one young, the other older, standing in a corner, shaded from the afternoon sun. They were so pale and grief-stricken that it was as if the Deed were showing him two souls that had committed suicide over the loss of some loved one, the very picture of sorrow. The young woman was pressing a tear-soaked handkerchief to her mouth, while the older woman seemed to be carved out of marble, her gaze lost in the void, one hand clutching the black shawl that covered her head tight to her throat, the fingers of the other hand intertwined with those of the young woman.

“What happened?” he asked Camarda.

“Commissa’, we walked into the pizzeria of this Antonio Iodice. We were ready to deliver the summons-here it is, I still have it in my pocket. So anyway, we were laughing and kidding around, because our shift was almost over, which reminds me, my wife must be starting to worry by now. We walk into the restaurant. There wasn’t much of a crowd. The lady over there”-and he pointed to the young woman weeping-“that’s Iodice’s wife; she was serving tables. It smelled good in there. . it was lunchtime. We walk in, as I was saying, and the lady comes up to us and she asks if we want something to eat. We wish we could, we say to ourselves, then, ‘No, Signo’, is this the pizzeria of Antonio Iodice?’ I barely have time to get the name out of my mouth when the pizzaiolo, who turns out to be Antonio Iodice, lets out a horrible shriek.”

Cesarano broke in.

“You wouldn’t have believed it, Commissa’, nice and loud, ringing out in the silence, came this shriek that froze the blood in our veins, as God is my witness. I couldn’t really understand what he was saying. It sounded like ‘my children,’ or something of the sort. I thought he was going to attack us, and I went to grab my revolver.”

Back to Camarda.

“I was facing toward him; I saw him pull this long knife out from under the counter, you know the kind I mean, the kind they use to slice meat. Brigadie’, I swear to you, with the flames of the pizza oven behind him, he looked like a soul in hell. So then he raises this knife and plunges it into his chest.”

Cesarano went on.

“Madonna Santa, it was a horrible thing to see. First he plunges it into his chest, then he drives it in deeper and deeper. Everyone was screaming, running around: it was a madhouse. We didn’t have time to stop him; we tried but we weren’t quick enough. He drove it in all the way, right to the handle. He said ‘forgive me,’ and then he closed his eyes. Camarda, here, got next to him. .”

“That’s right, I got to him first. Cesarano was holding up the signora, his wife, who kept screaming ‘my love, oh my love, what have they done to you, Toni’,’ but he’d done it all himself right in front of everyone. Anyway, I could see that, even with all that blood everywhere, blood coming out of his chest and out of his mouth, he was still breathing. Madonna, Commissa’, he was as white as a sheet. So I lifted up one of the tables, me and Cesarano here; we swept pizzas, plates, and glasses onto the floor. .”

“We got him up on the table and we carried him here to the hospital. And what a procession it was, out on the street, Brigadie’! It looked like a funeral, except everyone was running. They’re operating on him right now. We got here just in the nick of time; Doctor Modo was just about to finish his shift.”

Ricciardi looked over at the women again; they stood at a certain distance, across the courtyard.

“So the younger woman is his wife, then?”

This time, Camarda replied:

“That’s right, Commissa’. The older one is his mother, I think. She came straight to the hospital and so far she hasn’t uttered a word.”

The rehearsals had been interrupted, to the evident annoyance of the director and lead actor; he would have gone on rehearsing and re-rehearsing the same scene for eternity. A maniacal perfectionist, thought Attilio, or perhaps simply a narcissist.

The female lead, even uglier than usual, had threatened to relieve herself in the middle of the stage unless she was given a break. The whole crew laughed and, bitter pill though it was to him, that overweening buffoon had been forced to give in to her demand. Romor took advantage of the opportunity to get a breath of fresh air and smoke a cigarette in the vicolo behind the theater. The playwright’s brother joined him.

“So, Atti’, what do you say? That good-looking lady with the dark eyes, the one who always sits in the first row of the second balcony? She hasn’t been in for a couple of nights. Is she sick or something?”

“No, Peppino. I broke it off. We’re going our separate ways.”

“Oh, that’s a shame! She was so pretty! And she struck me as something of an aristocrat, a woman with money. How did that work out for you, in the end?”

Romor heaved an indifferent sigh, gazing off into the darkness.

“You know, it’s just the way I am: I can’t stand to have someone breathing down my neck. Sooner or later, they all wind up the same. And that’s when I figure it’s time to make a change.”

The usher stuck a worried face through the door.

“Hurry, come on; it’s already the second time he’s called for you!”

Exchanging a glance of irritation, the two men threw away their cigarettes and went back inside.

In the half-darkness of Vico del Fico, Filomena was waiting.

She had finished making dinner for Gaetano, who would soon return home from the construction site. She had changed the dressings that covered her wound. She’d had a couple of neighbor women over who had become strangely friendly in the aftermath of the incident. And now, Filomena was waiting. She wasn’t waiting for Gaetano to return home-or at least, that wasn’t all she was waiting for. She was waiting for Brigadier Maione to pay a call.

She kept telling herself that it might be useful for everyone to see him coming through the neighborhood, both mornings and evenings; that the presence of the corpulent officer might keep some unexpected backlash at bay, strange reactions from someone like, say, Don Luigi Costanzo, and that in any case a little protection was a fine thing for a change, instead of always having to fend for herself, the way she had all her life.

But none of that was the truth. The truth was quite different. Maione hed met Filomena in the aftermath of her disfigurement, and his glances and his voice made her feel like a woman, without the fear that had long accompanied that feeling. This was a new sensation, and she liked it. And so, she was waiting. Doing her best not to think about the ring that she had seen on his left hand.

Sitting in the kitchen, the French windows that led to the balcony left ajar to let in the spring air, Lucia Maione was waiting. This too was something new; or at least, it was a change from the last three years. She’d brushed her hair; she’d even asked a girlfriend what she knew about Linda, the hairdresser who took care of the neighborhood women’s hair and skin.

She had rummaged through the chest of drawers in search of a floral dress that she knew her husband liked, and had discovered to her amazement that it was actually a little loose on her now. She had spent the whole afternoon cooking her famous genovese, an onion and meat sauce that filled the house with its aroma for two days but which the family devoured in two minutes.

The children had looked at her in surprise and apprehension. Then they had smiled at each other and for once had decided not to go out into the street to play, but instead gathered in their room, to see what would happen when Papà came home.

And now, sitting in the kitchen, a little bewildered perhaps but determined to win back her rightful territory, Lucia waited.

Enrica, with her heart in her mouth, was waiting.

Since coming home from police headquarters, she had shut herself up in the darkness of her bedroom. Lying face-up on her bed, her pillow wet with tears, she thought about what would happen later that evening. Her mother had knocked repeatedly; she had pretended she didn’t feel well, absenting herself from dinner.

What would he do? Would his silhouette appear behind the closed window? Backlit by the yellowish glow of the oil lamp, his brilliant eyes shining in his dark silhouette like the eyes of a cat, eyes that filled her with warmth? And her: would she be able to maintain the same calm and tranquility as any other evening, moving slowly among her objects, the things that gave her a sense of safety? And what would he think, now that he had seen her up close and discovered her shortcomings, the thousand defects that he’d never had a chance to notice before?

Enrica thought about the look in his eyes, astonished, almost frightened; and now perhaps he thought she was ill.

In the desolation of a thousand fears, Enrica waited.

In the hospital courtyard, Concetta waited. Her husband was inside those walls. The man she had always loved, the father of her children, was dying, and might already be dead. She’d never forget the faces of those two policemen, first smiling, then horrified; she’d turned around to see the flash of the red blade by the light of the oven. She’d heard his scream; then the blood, all that blood.

Concetta was waiting to learn whether her life was over. Whether the hope she was clinging to-the only thing keeping her body erect, her heart beating, her lungs drawing in air-would endure. Her eyes puffy with tears, staring fixedly at the closed door behind which Tonino was fighting for life without even knowing it, Concetta went on hoping.

And she waited.

Now that darkness had fallen, Ricciardi decided to approach them. No one had gone home, not even Cesarano and Camarda, even though their shift had been over for hours. The two women’s atrocious yet dignified grief and sorrow had nailed everyone to the spot in the courtyard, awaiting reports from the operating room where Doctor Modo was still working on Iodice.

In a departure from custom, no one had showed up to comfort the family members. Something entirely out of the ordinary had happened, and people were waiting to see what had really transpired before running the risk of getting involved.

The commissario decided that what Iodice had done, even though it certainly suggested he was directly involved in the Calise case, did not necessarily amount to a confession. He had learned from many similar occasions in the past that the arrival of a pair of police officers could drive even innocent people to act rashly. Perhaps the pizzaiolo had other crimes on his conscience, or maybe he was just afraid. Ricciardi addressed the man’s wife.

“Signora, I’m Commissario Ricciardi of the Mobile Squad. I wanted to ask if there’s anything you need. What can I do to help you?”

The woman, recoiling to the safety of her mother-in-law, looked at him, wild-eyed. Ricciardi guessed at her facial features, a delicate beauty ravaged by suffering.

“Yes, there is something you can do. I beg of you, try to find out how my husband is, what they’re doing to him. They won’t tell us anything, and whenever we try to go inside, they kick us out. We have to. . I have to find out what to tell my children; they’re at home waiting for me.”

Her voice, broken with tears, struck Ricciardi as the voice of a strong-willed woman, decisive and direct. He nodded and walked inside.

Just as he was approaching to the door to the clinic, it swung open, and out came Doctor Modo.

“That’s right. You walk out of a ward full of blood and pain and what’s waiting there to greet you? The ugly mug of a policeman. And what a policeman. The happiest cop of them all.”

Ricciardi knew Modo well enough to recognize the signs that he was exhausted, one-liners aside. The doctor’s face was creased and furrowed, and underneath his blood-spattered lab coat his collar was unbuttoned, his tie loosened, so that his neck, red with effort and strain, was left bare.

“True, but don’t worry, I’m not here to arrest you. Not yet, anyway. Well, what can you tell me about Iodice? His mother and his wife are outside. I didn’t have the heart to tell them he was in your tender care.”

Modo smiled at him wearily.

“Your sense of humor is simply delightful. Have you ever thought of going into vaudeville? You’d be an unequaled comedian. If they take you on, I’ll sign up as a cancan dancer in your act. Besides, you already make me dance for free as it is. Do you realize that I never finish a shift at anything like a normal time of day without you or Maione showing up with some little gift for me at the last minute?”

“Okay, fine, I promise that afterward I’ll let you cry on my shoulder as long as like. Actually, you know what? I’ll treat you to a pizza. Even though, with all the overtime you’re taking in thanks to us, you’re getting paid three times what I earn. But now, just tell me how Iodice is doing.”

“Ah, is that his name, Iodice? Well, I can’t say if he’ll make it. The knife blade missed the artery by a hair and that’s kept him from dying for the moment. But it went right into his lung. Plunged straight in, like the guy meant it, up to the handle. It was a good thing the men who brought him here had the brains not to try pulling it out; that would have done massive damage. It was a long and difficult operation, and he’s lost a lot of blood. He’s asleep now, and we need him to stay that way for the next twenty-four hours, so forget about trying to talk to him. We’ll see how he is tomorrow. That is, if he lives until tomorrow. Now tell me, who stabbed him?”

Ricciardi was trying to guess what could drive a man to do such a thing, if not the certainty that his situation was hopeless.

“He did it himself. Like those Japanese warriors, you know. Those ritual suicides.”

Modo shook his head.

“Incredible. The more I work with the dead, the less I understand the living.”