After thinking it over, I pull the silencer off the gun and stick the gun down the waistband of my trousers.
I might be making a mistake, but I can’t bring myself to leave the apartment unarmed. The people I’ve interacted with for so many years have taught me that in certain desperate cases, the only satisfaction left to you is to take someone with you on your trip to the afterlife. I’ve always considered this school of thought to be utter crap, but I have to say that recent events have given me a new appreciation of its worth.
Right now, there’s only one handhold I can seize on in my attempt to make some sense of all this.
The last words Daytona uttered before he died: White Isis.
I have no idea what the White Isis has to do with this whole story. I have no idea whether it’s something or someone inside the public baths or if it’s something in the surrounding area. To make matters worse, the company has two locations in Milan, though the best known and most popular location is in the Galleria.
That’s where I decide to get started.
I put on a pair of sunglasses and take a look at my new appearance in the mirror. Anyone who knows me as Bravo would take a minute or two to link my name to this brand-new image. The people who are looking for me? Less than a second. I just hope I don’t meet anyone from either of those crews.
I leave the apartment without giving the key the final double twist for added security.
The hallway is empty, and in the elevator Luca is still a faggot and Mary is still a whore. The comment about Inter has been erased completely. Miracles of the soccer fan’s faith.
I head downstairs and walk toward the parking spot where I left the Fiat 124. It’s lunchtime and there’s nobody in sight. My stomach is starting to rumble and it may be necessary, once I get to the center of the city, to feed it a panino. I get in, start the engine, pull out, and head for the main gate.
The gate is wide open, so I’m not forced to get out of the car and fool around with keys and locks.
Once I get out in the street, I suffer an attack of agoraphobia. I have to make an enormous effort to keep going and resist the temptation to turn around, leave the car wherever I happen to be, and run headlong back to the safety of the apartment. I tell myself it’s only an anxiety attack, like the ones you get when you go scuba diving, when the air from the tanks doesn’t seem to be reaching your lungs. I force myself to breathe normally. Little by little, the fear subsides and I follow the traffic to the first Metro station I happen to find.
Today is Saturday, and there must be a huge crowd heading downtown. I’m more likely to go unnoticed. With my usual excessive caution, this time I double back and make multiple turns, twisting across the face of the street map of Milan, just to make sure nobody’s following me.
I decide to go and catch the Metro at the QT8 station, in Piazza Santa Maria Nascente, where there’s an adjacent parking lot. It’s a fair distance from Quarto Oggiaro, and just in case someone happened to recognize me, it would throw them off my track because they’d assume I was hiding out somewhere nearby. All this overthinking, all these precautions I’m forced to take, all these obsessive-compulsive rituals, are enough to drive me into a fury.
I tell myself that perhaps, in a way, that fury has been there all along. The events I’ve become entangled in are nothing more than a lens that has enlarged everything. A lens with a sharpshooter’s crosshairs etched into it. I’ve been maneuvered like a puppet, shoved this way and that like a piece of furniture, fucked up the ass without even the benefit of a joke or two, a little cajoling, and all with the clear intent of destroying me. They yanked me like a molar out of my indifference toward the world and toward myself.
Now that I’ve thought it through, ascertained the state of things, and accepted facts as they are, I’m armed and seething with fury. And I’m determined to take this thing as far as it goes. Which may mean I’m taking it straight to my grave, but at this point I don’t fucking care.
Now I want to know a name. I want to see a face in front of me.
What happens after that, for now, is a problem I choose to ignore.
I leave the 124 in the parking lot and I head for the Metro station marked by a familiar white logo: MM.
In the past, these two letters have been the object of fanciful interpretations by one and all. Daytona, Beefsteak, Godie, and the cabaret artists from the club. Now they seem like nothing more than an acronym for Mortal Misstep.
I walk down into the underground tunnel and discover to my relief that there are very few people. That’s good. I head over to the newsstand to buy a few Metro tickets and when I get there, I turn into a pillar of salt.
What I’m seeing isn’t Sodom and Gomorrah in flames, but a special edition of Il Giorno, with an identikit on the front page that does a stunningly good job of reproducing my features.
The banner headline is significant.
BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR THIS MAN
It’s lucky for me that in the sketch my hair is long and I’m clean-shaven, so I venture to approach the news vendor and ask for a copy. I also take the latest issue of La Settimana Enigmistica. The man hands it to me and takes my money without so much as glancing at my face. I’ve never felt such pleasure at the way people ignore other people.
I turn away and retrace my steps.
Shit.
That was the last thing I needed. I thought I’d have a little more of a head start. The fact that they’ve identified me comes as no surprise. The people behind this whole intricate plot have shown they’re not stupid. For that matter, the police aren’t stupid either, especially not when they’re handed such a carefully constructed chain of clues.
Now I don’t know what to do.
Maybe going downtown right now, when all the newsstands are filled with newspapers emblazoned with a reasonably good sketch of my face, might not be such a good idea. I don’t know how far along the investigators might be, but if by some chance they’ve figured out a link to the White Isis, rushing down to hang out near the place strikes me as a bad move.
The tiny gleam of light that had flickered into a flame now appears to belong to a candle stub that immediately died out. Now it’s pitch-black again and I’m stumbling around in the dark.
I decide to go back to my car and read the article.
When I open the door, a wave of heat pours into my face. I sit inside without opening the windows, as if those panes of glass were a barrier against the treachery of the outside world.
I start reading. At the same time, I start sweating without realizing it.
The investigation into what is by now generally referred to as the Massacre of Lesmo, for which the Red Brigades have claimed responsibility with an anonymous phone call that is still being checked out, seems to have come to a crucial turning point. This comes in sharp contrast to the investigation in the case of the Moro kidnapping, still apparently at a dead end. The murders at Monza seem to have been the work of one specific person, a man with a name and a face. That man is Francesco Marcona, also known by the moniker he uses in the milieu of the Milanese underworld: Bravo. He is currently a fugitive from the law. A search conducted in his residence in Cesano Boscone, in Via Fratelli Rosselli 4, turned up no evidence or material linking him explicitly to any subversive plots. Nor have the police found any photographs allowing them to work with a clear image of his face. Still, the investigators did find, in the pocket of a jacket he hastily abandoned in his escape, a gold watch believed to be the property of Paolo Boccoli, also known as Daytona precisely because of the watch in question. Boccoli’s dead body was found in an abandoned farmhouse on the outskirts of San Donato Milanese. He had been stabbed to death. The bloody murder of this major figure in the Milanese underworld comes on the heels of the killing of Salvatore Menno, another notorious ex-convict, murdered just a short time ago with one of the weapons that was later used in the mass killing in the villa of Lorenzo Bonifaci. All this leads the police to theorize that they were working as confederates in
the …
This major figure in the Milanese underworld …
I note bitterly that the description affords Daytona a qualitative leap in status that he was never able to achieve while he was alive. I go back to reading the article, which adds nothing new, doing nothing more than rehashing the facts, offering a clumsy reconstruction of the murders, emphasizing the importance of the victims, and theorizing with many a nudge and a wink just what the presence of the young women at the villa might signify.
I fold up the newspaper, open the car window, and light a Marlboro. I can feel the sweat dripping under my armpits. On my forehead, it’s turned into a crown of thorns.
I never dreamed I was so hopelessly cornered, that the frame could be so thorough and so complete. All my best and worst intentions have collapsed pathetically. The handgun I’m carrying is no longer a guarantee of anything: now it’s just a heavy object tugging at my belt and hurting my hip.
I decide to head back to Carmine’s apartment, and I just hope that no one recognizes me. I repeat to myself that in Quarto Oggiaro people mind their own business, but it’s fleeting comfort, gone out the window with my cigarette smoke.
I start the car and perform my various turns and switchbacks while checking in the rearview mirror, even more carefully this time. As I drive, I think. The smartest thing for me to do would be to call my lawyer, Ugo Biondi. Then go turn myself in, accompanied by him, in the hope that they’ll believe my story. Leaving aside the fact that today, on a Saturday, I wouldn’t know how to get in touch with him, there’s another aspect to the matter that holds me back. I’m afraid that this move might strike the police as a way of further muddling their investigation and creating confusion in a case that’s already sufficiently tangled.
In any case, the consequences would remain unchanged. Until proven otherwise, I’m involved in a terrorism case and I’d be held as a prime suspect until my innocence could be demonstrated categorically.
Which might take months or years. Or might never happen at all.
I spot the familiar silhouette of the massive apartment building in which I’ve taken refuge. I drive through the front gate and leave the car in the courtyard. There are a few people on the grass, but they’re far away and pay no attention to me. I walk into the lobby, and even though I’ve never done any fighting, I feel like a combat veteran after a battle: I hopelessly ride up in the same elevator I rode down in with such confidence.
This time I don’t bother to give the graffiti so much as a glance.
I walk back through the apartment door and close it behind me just as the hallway echoes to the sound of a door lock clattering open. It could be a woman taking her dog out for a walk or just a kid going downstairs to play. But I’m happy I made it inside without being seen.
Now the apartment in which I’m a prisoner and guest strikes me as even more bare and dreary. I take a step or two, take off my jacket, and go over and sit down on a couch that’s still encased in a slipcover. My back immediately adheres to this temporary upholstery and becomes warm and sticky. I lean my head back and look up at the pink ceiling, certainly a design decision of Carmine’s ex-wife.
A thousand thoughts alight and immediately flutter away again. At a certain point, maybe just to bring me back to earth, my body pipes up to remind me that I’m also a living organism with specific physiological requirements.
I pick up my copy of La Settimana Enigmistica and I head for the bathroom. There are things you do that, once you’ve repeated them a sufficient number of times, simply become conditioned reflexes. The bathroom still shows traces of my recent shower and haircut. There’s no Signora Argenti here, making sure that when I get home everything is neat and tidy and the floor has been swept.
I drop my trousers and sit down on the toilet. I light a cigarette and start leafing through the magazine. The first thing I see when I open it is the Page of the Sphinx, with a cryptic clue that I don’t even try to solve. I read on, looking only at the jokes and the curiosities. I get to a section called the Edipeo Enciclopedico—the Oedipal Encyclopedia—a series of questions of all kinds that allow the reader to test his general knowledge.
I run quickly through the questions, checking each one against the answers, which are given at the bottom of the page. I absorb them as simple facts, without giving too much importance to them. I’m halfway through the section when a question catches my interest. I check the answer and, as is always the way with lucky hunches, the solution comes to me at the speed of thought. In my mind all the letters of the Scrabble game are suddenly present on the board, forming a series of words with a complete meaning.
Actually just two words.
A first name and a last name.
18
I push the button and hear a bell ring inside. It’s a familiar sound. After what seems like an eternity, a voice issues from behind the door. It’s familiar too.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me, Bravo.”
The door suddenly flies open. An alarmed expression is stamped on Lucio’s face. The lenses of his dark glasses reflect the ceiling lamp on the landing. He gropes for my arm and drags me inside. He slams the door behind me as if he were trying to keep out the devil. His tone of voice is that of someone who believes that in spite of everything he’s done, the devil has still managed to get inside.
“Have you lost your mind? What are you doing here? Every policeman in Milan is looking for you. They’ve even come by to question me.”
“I know. But I need your help.”
Lucio takes a step back.
“Christ, are you trying to get me in trouble, too?”
“No. I’ve been forced to learn how to be careful. I checked to make sure no one was following me before I came up here. Don’t worry, no one saw me.”
He relaxes, but not so much that the tension is gone entirely. Perhaps, just as with Laura, he’s a little bit afraid of me.
He’s brusque and dismissive.
“What do you want?”
“I need you to help me solve the mystery.”
Astonishment. Resentment. Rage.
“Which one? Starlets going incognito in an opera libretto? You’re willing to risk prison for yourself and for me for a piece of bullshit like that?”
“No, that’s not what I was talking about. That’s easy. The solution is sunglasses—that is, sung-lasses. I’d even forgotten about it, think of that. I meant the other one, the mystery that you’ve posed all this time and that was far more difficult to decipher.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Lucio, how long have you been a member of the Red Brigades?”
He was walking over to the table. His uncertain gait suddenly comes to a halt, and he turns in my direction with a helpless, incredulous smile.
“Bravo, are you crazy? Me, in the Red Brigades? How on earth could I do it, in my condition—”
I interrupt him, with my voice and with a wave of my hand. So that he can hear me and see me.
“You’re not blind, Lucio. You never have been.”
He sits without speaking. He watches me from behind his lenses. Now I know that he can.
I go over and pull open the drawer and find the pictures of Lucio together with the other members of his alleged band. At this point I have to wonder if there was ever a musical group that called itself Les Misérables. I pull out the photographs and study the figures captured on the matte paper. Not to make sure—I have no need. Just to confirm that all our tricks and wiles, however refined they may be, one way or another, ultimately demand payment, perhaps with a twenty-year journey back to Ithaca.
Or a twenty-year prison sentence.
I toss those colorful rectangles onto the table, next to him.
“The photographs you showed me. The ones of you playing with your group, when according to you your eyes were already shot.”
Instinctively I wave my hand at the pictures.
“Your eyes are red in the picture. If there’s a red dot in the mid
dle of your eye in a photograph, it means your eyes are perfectly healthy. Isn’t it ironic? I found the solution in my weekly puzzler magazine, of all places.”
Lucio sits there, lost in thought for a minute.
Then he smiles.
At last, with a resigned gesture, he removes his glasses, revealing the glaring sight of his pupils covered with a white film. He cups a hand under one eye and lets the first contact lens fall into it. He does the same thing with the second lens. He squints both eyes a couple of times, finally free. He lays on the table that slight contrivance that has offered him enormous shelter for so many years now.
As if our movements were synchronized by a fate imposed from above, I extract the pistol from my waistband, with the silencer screwed on again.
Maybe that’s why Lucio recognizes it immediately. And he understands that, in this case, I’m quite willing to use it.
“Ah, so you found it, after all.”
His voice is relaxed, untroubled, and when he says it he’s simply acknowledging an obvious fact. It doesn’t seem to bother him a bit that the eye of the barrel is pointing straight at his belly. He’s a cold-blooded creature. I could hardly expect any other reaction from him.
“That’s right. As you can see, I found it.”
He crosses his legs. His movements are more fluid, now that the masquerade is over. Now that he can use his eyes and look reality in the face without having to hide.
“How did you figure it out?”
I shrug modestly.
“A series of details. Various minor oversights. Errors, marginal ones if you like, but add them up and it amounts to an ironclad case.”
“Such as?”
“Substituting another car for mine was a brilliant solution. The only problem was that it didn’t smell of tobacco inside. Whereas my car was driven by a regular smoker. At that point, I think you’ll agree, checking the serial number on the chassis was a brilliant idea on my part.”
He gives me that point with a complete absence of commentary. His irony, which once seemed like the armor of an otherwise defenseless man, seems to have vanished into thin air.