Everyone in Their Place

XXVII

Walking through the city streets with Bambinella wasn’t the greatest, as far as Maione was concerned; the incredibly piercing voice and the dozens of friends the man had, which required affectionate billing and cooing and lengthy, nerve-racking pauses on the cobblestones, exacerberated the effect made by the dubious appearance, the garish colors, and the heavy makeup.

Moreover, it could hardly be healthy for the transvestite to display publicly his close contacts with the police, albeit with no one other than the brigadier; the world of the vicoli frowned on these contacts, even on the part of those who had nothing to do with the darker dealings of the underworld, but might simply be aware of them. By common agreement, then, they made an appointment to meet directly in La Torretta, the poor quarter close to the waterfront, at Mergellina. That was the location of the brothel where Gilda worked, the Capeces’ former maid who’d enjoyed such brilliant career advancement.

Maione was the first to arrive. He’d stopped at a fruit and vegetable shop, where he devoured two plums and an apricot; it actually seemed to make him hungrier. He’d insisted on paying, despite the proprietor’s protestations: no, he had it in for the entire professional category of grocers now-an extension of his antipathy toward the notorious Ciruzzo, the skinny and intrusive fruit and vegetable vendor.

The fact that he’d arrived early only worsened his already bad mood. The brothel, in fact, was located on a cross street of the broad Viale Principessa Elena; hardly a main thoroughfare, in other words. He found a place to wait in the shade of a tree, thirty feet or so away from the entrance with a brass plaque, on which was engraved: “Casa di Madame Yvonne.” There was quite a coming and going, and every soldier, sailor, or office clerk who went in or came out shot him a look somewhere between the scornful and the concerned: what was a uniformed brigadier of the Neapolitan police department doing there loitering in the shade of a tree? Was he noting down the identity of everyone who frequented the house, or was he laying the groundwork for a raid? Or was he simply working up the nerve to go in himself?

Finally Bambinella showed up, swinging her hips on her stiletto heels, wrapped in a tight-fitting red-flowered dress.

“Forgive me, Brigadie’, but I had to stop twice to get something to drink, it’s so hot you wouldn’t believe it.”

Maione wanted to speed things up.

“Sure, sure, that’s fine. But let’s go in, all we need now is for your girlfriend to be busy, and the two of us to be seen sitting together in the waiting room.”

The entrance to the brothel was through a small wooden door and up a steep staircase. At the top of the stairs, they were greeted by an old woman with a broom and a bucket in her hands, cleaning an already spotless landing.

“Never once do they let you clean in peace; never a moment of calm and quiet, day and night,” she grumbled ungraciously, stepping aside to let them pass. Maione thought better of telling her he was there on official police business, but he shot her a hostile glare that she returned in full.

At the end of a hallway wallpapered in red silk there was a large room with sofas and chairs lining the walls, dominated at the center by a large wooden dais and desk. Behind it sat a middle-aged woman whose hair was dyed a red not found in nature and whose face was so made-up that it would have been impossible to recognize her when she woke up in the morning. As soon as she saw Maione and Bambinella walk in, she got out of her chair and strode toward them with a grim, furrowed brow.

“Buona sera, Brigadier. Excuse me, but I should inform you that in my house, only my own young ladies are allowed to work. If you’re here for a threesome, I can certainly let you choose two of my misses, but I absolutely cannot allow you to bring. .”

Maione broke in brusquely, stemming her flow of words:

“No, Signora, forgive me but you seem to have misunderstood. I’m not here to enjoy myself, I’m here strictly on police duty.”

The woman put on a worried face and took a step back.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. My operation is in strict compliance from every point of view: taxes, health certificates. The receipt book for all the services rendered and paid is available for your inspection, just say the word. .”

Maione started to lose his temper.

“Enough, Signora, be still: who asked you anything? I’m just here to talk with a signorina who I understand works here, according to what the signore-” pointing to Bambinella, who quickly corrected him: “Signorina. .”

The woman gave Bambinella a disgusted glare, and then turned back to Maione.

“Why, are you suggesting that one of my young ladies has broken the law? I can guarantee the utmost supervision under my roof, but once they’re outside of my control, responsibility for their actions. .”

The brigadier seriously considered leaving a five-fingered handprint on the thick layer of greasepaint that covered the madam’s face.

“Signora, no one’s done anything wrong here. Unless I decide that you’re trying to interfere with a police investigation, and if I do, then I’ll wrap you up, along with all your young ladies and that bad-mannered concierge sweeping out on the landing, and slap you behind bars for a while.”

His tone was abrupt; the woman lowered her head as if he’d just slapped her on the back of the head.

“At your orders, Brigadie’,” she said obediently.

Ricciardi had found the street door, though not without some difficulty. Nocturnal landmarks are provided by the lamplighter; in the light of day everything looks different. He stepped into the courtyard and the welcome shade, and noticed a doorman’s booth close to the main entrance. The doorman himself was walking toward him, a tall and powerful-looking young man, asking him in a peevish voice what he might be looking for. Ricciardi identified himself:

“I need some information. Who lives in this building?”

The young man looked him up and down. From inside came the sound of scales being practiced on a piano, frequently breaking off for mistakes. The answer was slow in coming; the two men looked each other in the eye. Finally, the doorman said:

“Why, who are you looking for?”

Ricciardi understood that he needed to eliminate this stumbling block promptly.

“Listen: if you want to answer my questions, we can get this over with and I’ll stop bothering you. If you want to play games, then I’ll come back on official business and we’ll take you someplace where I can make you talk whether you want to or not. That’s up to you.”

There weren’t many citizens out there likely to resist Ricciardi’s will when he hissed his determination eye-to-eye, with unwavering intensity. And the doorman certainly wasn’t one of them. He blinked once and replied:

“At your orders, Commissa’. Ask away.”

The policeman was duly informed that this apartment building, not far from the Conservatory, was occupied by two families with small children, an elderly retired widower, and several female music students from a small town in the southern region of Lucania.

“They’re the ones you can hear practicing,” the man pointed out.

On the second story were the offices of a shipping line, which were closed at that time of year.

“As far as you know,” Ricciardi inquired, “was there a party last night? Did someone have a reception, with music and guests, that might have gone on until quite late? With prominent guests?”

The doorman shrugged.

“I couldn’t say, Commissario. I don’t live here, and when I lock up at night I go straight home, I have little kids myself. Still, if you tell me that there was a party here until late, I would have thought someone would complain this morning. That seems odd to me.”

Ricciardi was starting to think that his exhaustion, the night before, had played a trick on him; or perhaps he might have misremembered the building. Just as he was about to thank the man and go looking for another similar front entrance, the man said:

“Unless. . sometimes they stay late, on the top floor. Still, music would strike me as odd.”

“Why, who lives on the top floor?”

Instinctively lowering his voice and looking up, the doorman murmured:

“The Fascist Party’s on the top floor. Fascist Party headquarters.”

Maione and Bambinella followed the expansive derriere of Annunziata Caputo, alias Madame Yvonne, up another steep flight of stairs; then they walked down a narrow corridor, with closed doors up and down both sides, at the end of which was a small room with a large window from which, if you craned your neck, you could glimpse the sea. The air was cool and clean and slightly briny, and in the distance you could hear the cries of children playing and seagulls swooping.

In the middle of the room there was a table, around which sat a few young women, laughing, smoking, and chatting. Some of them were bare-breasted, most of them were seeking a little cool air near the window. When the brigadier walked in, even though he was accompanied by the maîtresse, there were little squeals of fear; the girls covered themselves as best they could and retreated to the far end of the room. But Madame spoke to them in a reassuring voice:

“Don’t worry, young ladies, the brigadier isn’t here to arrest anyone. He just wants to talk to. .”

Maione interrupted her in a weary voice:

“Let me guess, Signora: that’s Juliette right there, no?”

Seated on a sofa against the wall, off to one side, a half-naked young blonde was hungrily consuming a large chunk of bread dripping with tomato sauce.

“Brigadie’, please forgive me, but this morning we literally had a parade through here. A freighter came in, and there were more than three hundred sailors who haven’t seen dry land for a year. Genoans, Portuguese, Russians: a veritable Babylonia! I haven’t managed to get a bite to eat all day, now I have a moment to recover. I hear that it’s the same in every bordello in Naples.”

Bambinella listened raptly to her friend, as if she were describing a safari in equatorial Africa, and darted proud glances at Maione from time to time.

“No, don’t think twice, in fact I hope you don’t mind that we showed up at this time of day without calling ahead. The brigadier, here, just wants to ask you a couple of questions, you answer freely, and don’t worry: I can vouch for him.”

Maione snorted in annoyance, shooting rapid, suffering glances at the uneaten chunks of bread and tomato still littering the table.

“Eh, so it’s come to this: I need a recommendation from Bambinella! Now then, Signorina: what’s your name?”

The girl proved to be amiable and intelligent. Her name was Gilda, just as Bambinella had said, and she came from the Rione del Vasto, a neighborhood behind the train station. The fifth-eldest of nine children, she’d gone to work as a housemaid at age sixteen because her family could no longer afford to feed her. Now that she was twenty-two, she earned enough in her current line of work to maintain her four younger siblings and her mother. Their father had vanished, three years earlier, and had never been heard from again. “Either he’s dead or he shipped out,” she said, her jaws working industriously all the while, and without a hint of regret.

When she decided to become a housemaid, she’d been hired immediately by the Capece family, whose income was climbing along with the brilliant newspaper career of the head of the family. Gilda described a time that was not so much wealthy as hopeful, a household full of penny-pinching as well as laughter. “But it wasn’t weird,” she said, “because the signora helped me with the housekeeping and I helped her with the children.”

The Capece family had two children: Andrea and Giovanna; Andrea, the boy, was the elder of the two. When Gilda decided to quit after the first year, Andrea had been twelve and Giovanna was seven.

“So now,” Maione calculated, “they’re sixteen and eleven.”

“Yes,” said Gilda. “And he’s become a handsome young man. I wonder if I’ll find him on top of me in here, some of these days.”

Gilda knew what Andrea looked like now because every so often, up until a couple of years ago, she’d gone by to say hello to the Capece family; she had fond memories of her time there.

“But then I didn’t want to go back. The last time was just too weird,” she said again.

Maione didn’t understand.

“What do you mean, too weird?”

Gilda seemed to shudder at the memory, despite the heat.

“It was like going to pay a call on a family of dead people, Brigadie’. Everything was different.”

“How, everything was different how? What do you mean?”

The girl hesitated before answering. Bambinella, who was sitting beside her and holding her hand, squeezed it quickly to encourage her. She looked over at her friend and went on:

“The family I remembered was poor but they were happy. They treated me like a daughter; we were always lauging together. The signora would sit down next to me and teach me everything, how to cook, how to sew. She used to say that later on, once I’d found a husband and started a family of my own, I’d know how to do it all. Then I. . well, my life went the way it did. I don’t regret a thing, eh. But I expected that Signora Sofia, the wife, would dress me down, that she’d tell me I’d done wrong.”

“So what happened?”

“Instead, when I went to see them, she sat me down in the drawing room, like a grand lady. I felt uncomfortable, I wanted to go sit in the kitchen. But she insisted, she said, come sit in here. You made the right decision, I’m the one who chose the wrong life. And the apartment. .”

Maione was sensitive to every detail.

“The apartment? What had happened to the apartment?”

The girl tossed her yellow-tinted head of hair.

“No, no, nothing had really happened. It was all the same. But still it seemed. . dead, everything was dead. The little girl sitting at the table, studying, white as a sheet, she barely said hello to me. The boy, Andrea, gave me a big strong hug, and then he left the room, right away, as if he was ashamed or something. But the signora talked and talked to me, I thought she’d never stop.”

“And what did she talk about?”

“She talked about the old days, about when I lived there with them. She talked about her husband, as if he was dead though, as if he was a memory from long ago. Without hatred. She didn’t say anything to me about it, but maybe she knew that I’d heard all about the affair with the duchess. Everyone’s heard about it. And her, too, Brigadie’: her eyes were empty. As if they’d taken her heart out of her, her stomach, her brain, everything inside her. And that’s why I said, before, that it seemed weird to me. And that I don’t ever want to go back there.”

A long silence followed. Bambinella was stroking her girlfriend’s hand, as if she were consoling her for some loss. While Gilda was telling her story, she’d never altered her tone of voice; but now she wore an expression of profound sadness. The splotches of tomato sauce around her mouth made her look like a little girl playing at being a grown-up.

After a pause, Maione asked:

“Now listen to me carefully, Gilda: do you remember by any chance whether there was a pistol in the apartment? Think as hard as you can and try to remember: this is important to us.”

The girl was about to answer the question, then she stopped. She looked at Bambinella, and then at the brigadier, and said:

“The master of the house served in the war, he was an officer. His pistol is locked up in the desk drawer, one time he showed it to me to throw a scare into me, and he had a good laugh at my expense, too. But he keeps it locked up, and he has the only key.”