She disappears back down the hall. She returns fully dressed just as I finish pouring the espresso into the demitasse cups. She leans over her bag again and I see her slip the handgun into it. Then she joins me at the table. We don’t talk about whatever it was that just happened. I don’t know what it meant to her. For me, it was the answer to a question. And I choose to believe that it was exactly what I think it was.
She takes a sip of her coffee, unsweetened. Then she sits there, staring at that cup of steaming black liquid. The time has come to say things. And she knows it.
She starts talking without raising her gaze.
“Bonifaci was a very powerful man. More powerful than you could ever possibly imagine. Over time he had built up dossiers that he used to control most of Italy’s political and business elite. Photographs taken during the orgies at his villa, documents that gave proof of involvement with organized crime, evidence of corruption and malfeasance in the administration of public funds, illegal financing of political parties.”
Carla looks up at me.
“There was more than enough evidence in those dossiers to send an embarrassing number of people to prison for years. The kind of thing that would have decimated this country’s governing class. Bonifaci manipulated everyone for years as if they were so many puppets on strings. To his own advantage, of course. Then he decided to take things a little too far, push a little too hard. Somebody decided that the time had come to uproot the source of his power once and for all.”
“How?”
“It’s obvious. By getting the dossiers that he possessed.”
She drinks the last of her coffee and lays the cup down on the table. There are no coffee grounds at the bottom in which to read the future. The future is a child of the present, and for the two of us there may never be one.
But that’s not the point.
Right now I just want to understand the past.
Carla knows that and deep inside she has decided that it’s a fair request.
“There was a massive coalition of power and wealth ready to move against Bonifaci. Gabriel Lincoln, his right-hand man, had been corrupted with an astronomical bribe and was willing to cooperate. Unfortunately, Bonifaci fired him. Maybe he got wind of something. Or else perhaps it was nothing more than a manifestation of that sixth sense that certain individuals seem to possess.”
“I understand all that. What I don’t get is how the Red Brigades fit in.”
“We needed a cover organization to carry out the operation. The Red Brigades are in a very tough situation right now. The police are breathing down their neck because of the Moro kidnapping and they need support and money. In exchange, they were willing to supply men. The person who organized all this arranged to obtain contacts inside the organization. He made certain promises in exchange for other promises.”
“Are you telling me that there are people in the panorama of Italian politics who would be willing to abandon Moro to his fate just to get help in laying their hands on those documents?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. The outcome would be mutually beneficial. On the one hand, it would give the Red Brigades a new victory in their armed struggle. On the other, Bonifaci would be eliminated as a danger to those who feared him most.”
I stand up and light a cigarette.
“But who would guarantee that once they got their hands on the dossiers and found out what was in them, the terrorists wouldn’t use them as a weapon and make them public?”
“Me.”
She said it with disarming simplicity. As if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“I became involved in this operation for two reasons. First of all, because I work for a sector of the SISDE and I’m thoroughly trained. Second, because I’m a pretty girl. I was the contact with the Red Brigades, and at the same time I was the right person to gain the trust of the only man who had access to Bonifaci’s villa.”
“Me.”
I too utter that one-syllable word with disarming simplicity. An inevitable consequence of the fact that it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
“That’s right. You.”
Carla allows herself a mirthless smile.
“When I found out that you lived across the landing from Lucio, I couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t planned. It was coincidence, pure and simple.”
She pauses, still incredulous at the way that chaos and chance govern the world.
“The one person who was indispensable to us in getting to Bonifaci lived just a few steps away from one of the people who was assigned the job of getting to him.”
Everything seems so simple and innocuous, in Carla’s calm and methodical account, now that it’s no longer real life but past history. Still, she’s explaining the reason she left a trail of murdered people behind her. There’s no gore in her words, just descriptions and memories.
“We learned about you from Lincoln. He told us that from time to time you sent girls to the villa in Lesmo.”
“And so you lured that poor devil Daytona into your camp.”
“That’s right. It seemed like the softest way of introducing myself into your circle of acquaintances. Getting to you through someone you trusted. From that moment on, you were under surveillance day and night.”
I break in.
“I know this part.”
I explain to her briefly how I figured out the truth. How I was rescued from Tulip, how she waited for me outside the Ascot, what happened with the car and its replacement, how I figured out where Daytona’s hideout was, the handgun in the door panel. As I tell my side of the story she watches me, focused, attentive, as if she were trying to puzzle out aspects that extended well beyond my words.
She doesn’t know it, but there are more wrinkles to it than she could ever imagine.
But that’s another story. Now there are other things that I want to know. I ask the question that most fills me with fear, the question that has been tormenting me ever since I heard the first news report about the massacre. With the certainty that if there is an answer, it will haunt me till the end of my days.
“What happened in Bonifaci’s villa?”
Carla lets her eyes wander the room. Maybe she’s gauging the difference between the bare space in which we’re sitting and the opulent luxury that surrounded her that night. Maybe there are images unspooling before her eyes that she’d just as soon forget. What I can only imagine, she has to remember, and she will have to deal with those memories for a long, long time to come.
“Can I have another cup of coffee?”
I stand up, go into the kitchen, and start to rinse out the espresso maker. I think I understand why she asked me for another espresso. She’d prefer not to have anyone see her face while she’s telling this part of the story.
Her voice reaches me as I fill the little aluminum basket with ground espresso.
“During the party I had left a French door open. When Lucio and the others arrived, bringing Laura with them, I was already holding a gun on the girls, Bonifaci, and his guests.”
I press down on the fine dark brown powder with the little espresso spoon.
When Lucio and the others arrived, bringing Laura with them …
That means that the men in the security detail were all already dead. And that the poor girl was dragged out there to be a human sacrifice to the Gods of Political Expediency. Perhaps by the very man for whom she’d decided to begin a new life.
Carla goes on. I twist the Moka pot shut.
“Gabriel Lincoln told us that the vault was hidden in the cellar. Lucio and I went down with Bonifaci. He insisted there was no such thing as a safe room and a vault in his cellar, so I shot him in the leg to convince him to open it.”
I light a match and turn on the gas. The pale blue flame licks at the base of the espresso pot.
“At that point Bonifaci gave in. He told us where the vault was and gave us the combination. When we opened it, Lucio shot him.”
The flame f
lickers and undulates with a hypnotic power, as do Carla’s words as they waft in from the other room.
“Inside the vault we found what we were looking for. We packed up the dossiers and then we went back upstairs. When we got there, there were only corpses in the drawing room.”
I see that the dark liquid is beginning to bubble up, under the tilted-back lid of the espresso pot. I lower the lid. I wait for the sound of the last spurts gurgling in the throat of the percolator. I turn off the flame, pick up the pot, and go back to the other room.
Carla is motionless, her arms flat on the table, her gaze lost in the middle distance. I pour espresso into the cup on the table in front of her. I fill my cup too.
“Chico and Alberto went straight to your apartment building to replace your car. I went with the others to the house on Via Rivoltana with the dossiers.”
Carla reaches out and picks up the demitasse. She sips her coffee.
I realize that I don’t want my coffee. I just want Carla to finish her story.
“Tell me about Lucio.”
Actually, I want to ask her about that night. The night she …
Her voice breaks into my thoughts.
“Lucio was tired. I could see that he really couldn’t stand the life he was leading. He was sick of living in hiding, of being a virtual prisoner, a captive of his disguise. All of his ideological discourses were concocted to use on other people, just so much smoke and mirrors. A life in hiding and on the run just wears you down, and sooner or later you look for an alternative. Any alternative, whatever the price, as long as you can hold your head up and live in the light of day. I started sleeping with him and I won him over, because I was certain of one thing.”
“What was that?”
“That once he got his hands on those documents, he’d recognize that they offered him the alternative he’d been dreaming of. And so I pretended to be his accomplice in exploiting them.”
“Which means?”
“Keeping the documents for ourselves. With those papers in our possession, we would have as much power as Bonifaci. They would become our insurance policy and a bottomless well of cash.”
She finishes her second cup of coffee. I light another cigarette.
“Everyone’s dream. Freedom, immunity, money.”
She looks at me.
“There was just one problem.”
I wait in silence for her to confirm what I had already guessed.
“I was equally certain that Lucio would use me to eliminate the others and then, once he’d achieved that objective, he’d get rid of me too. So I had no choice. Either him or me.”
I tap the ashes from my cigarette into the coffee cup. They sizzle faintly when they hit the liquid. There’s one more thing I want to know.
“What motivated you to take part in this thing?”
“The same reasons that everyone does everything. Money. A chance at power. Take your pick.”
She looks at her hands.
“A lot of things that don’t make any sense now.”
She pauses and then her eyes are on me again. I don’t know what she’s looking for in my face. I don’t know what she’s finding there. I take a last drag on my Marlboro and then douse it in the demitasse.
There’s one last question, the most important one of all.
“What do you plan to do now?”
Carla shifts uneasily in her chair.
“I don’t know exactly.”
In silence, my eyes follow her as she stands up and walks over to the suitcases lying on the floor. She points to them with one hand.
“But one thing I do know is that if I do hand over this material to the person who sent me to get it, within the hour I’ll be a dead woman.”
I look at her. I get back the exact same look.
We’ve become twin mirrors.
In her eyes is a foreshadowing of the only certainty available to every human being. I see the weariness and disenchantment you see in combat veterans, in people who have snuffed out the lives of others and now realize that it was all pointless. But who still have to fight for their own lives.
Carla suddenly regains the decisive tone of voice of someone who’s just made a decision.
“Give me a six-hour head start and then go to the police.”
“What am I going to tell them?”
“Everything that happened.”
“They’ll never believe me. I have no alibi and I don’t have a scrap of evidence.”
“You’ll have both.”
Carla leans over and snaps open the lock of one of the suitcases. It’s filled with rigid file folders of different thicknesses and colors, each one closed with an elastic fastener and bearing a label on the front. She flips through a number of them before she finds the one she’s looking for. She pulls it out, opens it, skims it rapidly. She lays it on the floor. She relocks the suitcase and takes a jacket out of her bag. When she stands up, she’s holding the file in her hand and is wearing the jacket.
“This file contains documents and evidence that will get the person who organized all this dead to rights. There’s enough evidence here to nail him to whatever wall happens to be closest. This is your new life insurance policy.”
She walks over and lays the file on the chest of drawers. Then Carla goes back to the suitcases.
“The other files will be my policy.”
“Where will you go?”
“The less you know, the better.”
Her face tells me that where she’s going is a mystery to her too. I hope that wherever it is, it’s a place where she can be at peace. But I’m certain it won’t be.
“Do you have money?”
“Yes. There was plenty of money in Bonifaci’s vault. That man didn’t trust banks. Not even the banks he owned.”
There’s not much left to say. Carla comes over to me and brushes my lips with hers.
“I wish I were a different person with a different life, I wish I’d met you in a different way. It could have been so nice.”
From the smell of her skin and the warmth of her lips a question springs spontaneously. A question I regret the instant I utter it.
“Will I ever see you again?”
She lays a finger on my lips, to keep me from saying anything more. Her eyes are a wish and, at the same time, a verdict. Then she turns around, opens the door, picks up her bag and the suitcases, and drags them out onto the landing. The door closes behind her, erasing Carla’s figure until it becomes a wooden panel and nothing more.
And now I’m alone.
The sound of the elevator coming up to my floor means the beginning of a trip. Which in Carla’s case will mean being on the run for the rest of her life, in a way that will make the rest of her life a curse. And I’m equally cursed, if not more, because I can’t muster the slightest remorse over the pity I feel for a murderer.
21
The exhaustion washes over me the instant I realize that it’s all over.
Here I am, still on my feet, finally immobile. The tension, fear, and excitement have all vanished suddenly, and now that the typhoon has stopped gusting, I feel hollow as a reed. There’s not a milligram of adrenaline in my veins, and perhaps there’s not a drop of blood either. I feel certain it’s spattered all over a floor somewhere else in this city. While here, in the middle of this room, I’m only kidding myself that I’m still alive.
That’s why I feel such a strong need for sleep. Because sleep is the natural state of the dead.
I look over at the file on the chest of drawers, lying there full of secrets. I don’t even feel a twinge of curiosity, an urge to open it up and find out a name. What happened in the past few days belongs to the past, and like everything in the past I’m certain it holds no lessons for me or anyone else. All I know is that I had an opportunity and I let it slip through my fingers.
Chaos and chance, remember?
I walk into the bedroom. I stretch out on the mattress and stuff a pillow without a pillowcase under my
head. Almost the second I have the pillow in place, I fall asleep. My last thought, before dropping off, is that Carla asked me to give her six hours.
First hour.
I sleep.
Carla drives through the streets of Milan, on a radiant Sunday morning. A lazy day for the rest of the world. Breathless with urgency for her. She parks her car in any of the thousands of parking places at Linate Airport. She knows that she’ll never come back to pay her parking bill. She doesn’t bother to wipe the car clean of fingerprints. The way things stand, it turns out it was a waste of time to have wiped the house on Via Rivoltana clean of fingerprints. A few miles away, in a small isolated villa full of dead bodies, photographers are taking snapshots to record the location and position of the corpses on a roll of film. The flashbulbs emit light for scant fractions of a second, searching in vain for a reflected glint of life in those dead eyes. Technicians from the police forensic squad are conducting tests to determine what kind of gun fired the shots, how many shots were fired, where they were fired from.
Second hour.
I sleep.
Carla pulls a luggage trolley from the rack and piles it high with suitcases, thinking to herself that sometimes survival can be a heavy thing. She walks into the terminal and looks up at the departures panel listing times and flights. Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, New York, Caracas. One place is as good as another. It doesn’t matter where the flight’s going, what counts is when it’s leaving. A few miles away, in a small, isolated villa, cars pull up, escorting other cars that transport the people who count. The people who decide right then and right there what to do, what to say, what to leave unsaid. Men wander around, point, make guesses, check papers, utter names. One of those names is mine.
Third hour.
I sleep.
Carla has purchased a first-class ticket on the first plane with a seat available. She paid cash, which is something she’ll get used to doing from now on, and for a long time. Perhaps she showed a false passport in which the only thing left of Carla Bonelli is the photograph. Assuming that’s actually her name. She’s checked her bags at the ticket window and now she’s walking through the gate with a boarding pass in her hand. She’s hoping the luggage isn’t lost on the flight. There’s a risk of that happening, but there’s always risk in life. Especially in her life. She boards the shuttle, takes a seat at the far end, and waits for the rest of the passengers to do the same. In the travel bag at her feet is clothing and cash. She threw the handgun into a trash can in the parking lot. A few miles away, in a small isolated villa, a medical examiner authorizes the removal of the dead bodies. When they’re gone, what’s left is the chalk outlines of the bodies and the tape markings where shell casings were found. Outside, journalists are clustering around the gate. As always, thanks to their unnamed sources, they’re on the trail of something big, and now they want information. Just a little information, a few scraps, enough to trigger that personal hand grenade that is a reporter’s imagination.