A Private Venus (18 page)

It might not work out like that. ‘The girl could lose a lot. Who do you have in mind?’

‘Mascaranti has a personal archive of women who could do it.’

‘Think about it, Superintendent Carrua, you can’t use a professional. These people are looking for fresh fruit, just plucked from the branch. You can’t deceive them with a whore disguised as a semi-virgin. And I’m sorry if I said whore.’

‘It’s all right, don’t get angry.’

‘But I also have fresh fruit, just off the branch,’ Mascaranti said, the phrase had the syntactic tone of a salesman offering the best merchandise.

‘Mascaranti, you didn’t have to say it,’ Duca said, irritably but patiently: a doctor always knows how to keep his self-control. ‘I know you have your informants even in good families, you even have them in clinics, among nurses, to keep an eye on the use of morphine and other pleasures, but try to understand the work that this fresh fruit of yours would have to do: let herself be approached by a whole lot
of men before finding the one we’re looking for, if she finds him. A girl who may be a virgin, who may have a boyfriend, won’t do this work for you just to please the police.’

Silence. Then Carrua said, ‘It seems to be raining,’ he stood up and went to the window and saw the neon signs in the Piazza Cavour reflected in the wet street. ‘Maybe you have the girl we need,’ he said without turning; he realised that it was raining softly, gently, summer rain without a storm.

‘Yes, if I were a criminal I would have one,’ Duca said, also standing up. ‘Maybe I am a criminal.’ He went and sat down on the bed, picked up the phone and asked the switchboard for a number. ‘Is it really raining?’ he asked stupidly. The other two had also stood up, they suddenly seemed extremely interested in the rain, and they turned their backs on him and started looking out of the other window.

‘Livia, please.’ A man’s voice had answered, a middle-aged man, he thought.

‘Do you want to speak to Signorina Livia Ussaro?’ the man said, stubbornly.

‘Yes, signore, please.’ It must be her father.

‘Could you please tell me who’s calling?’ The fellow clearly believed in the formalities, phone calls from men must annoy him.

‘Duca Lamberti.’

‘Luca Lamberti?’

‘No, Duca, D for Domodossola,’ he was starting to get annoyed, too. He heard Livia’s voice in the background: ‘It’s all right, dad,’ then in the foreground, warm, with nothing at all frigid in it: ‘I’m sorry, that was my dad.’

‘I’m sorry, too.’ How polite they both were. But was it really raining? ‘I need to see you, immediately. Is that possible?’

‘I’ve been waiting a long time for you to call.’

He wasn’t being very honest, he was virtually pimping. ‘I’ll come and pick you up in ten minutes. OK?’

‘Fine. I’ll wait out front.’

He put the phone down and looked at the three men standing in the middle of the room. Was it really raining? Then he’d be able to take her to the Torre Branca, Milan’s touching answer to the Eiffel Tower: in this weather there wouldn’t be anybody there. He stood up. ‘I should be able to tell you something tomorrow,’ he said to Carrua.

‘No, I’ll tell you now,’ Carrua said, as if letting fly at him. ‘You’re not to do anything. Drop it now, don’t get mixed up in our work any more. I absolutely forbid it.’

‘Why?’ he asked, almost respectfully: he was from Emilia Romagna, he knew how to keep a cool head.

‘Two girls have already been killed,’ Carrua said: he was from Sardinia, red-blooded and calculating.

‘I know that. I know it perfectly well.’

‘You’re a private citizen, not a policeman. A third woman’s corpse is not in your remit. I caution you against taking any further interest in this case.’

‘All right,’ Duca said, already by the door. He had been cautioned, seriously cautioned, Carrua was not joking. ‘Good night.’

‘Duca, be careful.’

He went out without answering. They were right, but they didn’t understand, they had to follow the law, and the
law is strange sometimes, it favours criminals and ties honest men’s hands.

It really was raining, and in less than ten minutes he had already picked up Livia from outside her building, and in less than twenty, with the Giulietta, they got to the Torre Branca, and in another three minutes they were in the round bar of the Torre, more than a hundred metres above the Po Valley and in particular over the complex of Sant’Ambrogio. It was raining harder than ever, the summer drizzle was turning into a storm, and through the windows, as if from a plane, they saw the sky turn bright with streaks of lightning. The portable radio which the barman had kept on was like a pan full of chestnuts exploding. An unused film set, perfect for the dirty business he had to talk to her about.

‘Is it about Alberta that you wanted to see me again?’ Livia asked.

‘Yes.’ She was wearing a dress with white flowers on a black background, large flowers, rather in the same style as the dress she had worn the other time, a small black straw handbag, her lips and nails painted pale orange, a large wristwatch, a man’s watch, almost out of place with such a feminine dress. Particular signs: the way in which she looked at him, he wasn’t being honest with her.

‘Go on,’ she said.

He told her everything, dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, hoping she would then say no.

She didn’t say either yes or no, instead she launched into what sounded as if it was going to be a long speech. He had to let her carry on, it was the only satisfaction he could give
her, he had nothing to offer her but blood and tears, like Churchill.

‘I haven’t done any other experiments like that since Alberta died,’ his Livia Ussaro said, while the thunder roared ever louder in the background. ‘Her death was the ultimate evidence that private prostitution is impossible. I wrote in my notes that a woman is a piece of merchandise that’s too much in demand, she represents a financial and social element that’s too large for a whole structure of interests not to be created around her.’

Old ideas, but correct ones. Little Miss General Topics wasn’t expounding any revolutionary theories, just presenting the facts.

‘It isn’t possible for a woman, especially nowadays, for her own reasons and of her own free will, to carry out such activities privately. Everything is structured to take a percentage from her, to “protect” her, to “organise” her. Two years ago, during my first experiments, a corset maker insisted on giving me some suspenders, she’d already understood and I pretended to accept, then she told me that she knew a gentleman who’d be able to offer me much bigger gifts. A parking warden had seen me get out of the car of one of these men and had also understood. He said, “Listen, you don’t have to make so much effort looking for something, and besides, it isn’t good to go around the streets by yourself. Let me handle it for you. There are lots of foreigners who ask me what they can do. You stay at home, and when there’s something I’ll phone you, isn’t that better?” Of course, it would have been much better, but apart from the fact that
he wanted half, it would have become a professional activity, whereas I wanted to see if it was possible to remain an amateur. It isn’t possible. I got very scared once, and I don’t scare easily. Without realising it, I’d stopped for a moment in the Via Visconti di Modrone. It was afternoon, I didn’t know it was an allotted area, at least in the evening, I was careful never to go where the professionals were, but that time I made a mistake. Suddenly a man got off a moped, it couldn’t have been any clearer who he was if he’d worn a sign around his neck with the word
pimp
on it. What he said, more or less, was this: “Don’t think you can do as you like. Tell me who your friend is and I’ll smash his face in.” He wouldn’t believe I didn’t have a friend. “I see,” he said, “your friend doesn’t want you any more, that means you’re free, if you want to come over to me, I’ll be your friend.” He wanted to force me to be part of his stable, but there were too many people about and I managed to get away. But I was really scared.’

Livia was obviously completely mad, and he really would be a criminal to take advantage of such lucid madness. But maybe she would say no. In the meantime the lightning was dancing around them, the barman interrupted them to say that he was scared of storms and would never again agree to work in a place like this.

‘Basically these days there’s only one form of semi-prostitution without pimping. They could be nice girls who have an elderly friend, some even have two, plus a boyfriend, if they have one. Or they could be women separated from their husbands who have to be helped by someone, and if this someone is of modest means, he helps them for a while,
a few months, then they have to look for another. Some of these nice ladies have sewing machines at home, and they sew for their neighbours, their acquaintances, a few distant relatives. Every now and again someone comes to see them. “How are you, signora?” “Oh so-so,” it may be a neighbour from where they lived before, or the pharmacist who gives them credit. “Don’t be offended, signora, I brought you something.” “Oh, you shouldn’t have, I can’t accept that.” “It’s only a handbag, it isn’t a diamond ring.” ’

How well she imitated the voices, was this tower really solid? Go on talking, my darling, and then say no.

‘In my opinion, that kind of prostitution is odious, because it’s hypocritical. I’d never do anything like that.’ She was talking, oh, yes.

She liked things to be clear and above board: really mad people didn’t like shades of grey, compromises. Maybe the tower was very solid, but in any case the storm suddenly abated, the lightning stopped, the rain and thunder faded.

‘I’ve talked too much, I know, when I’m with you I always talk too much, I just wanted to explain why I want to help you. I’ve done my experiments and I’ve understood where the evil lies, of course I do, they even debated it in parliament: it lies with the pimps. We’ll never be able to eliminate it, but every time we find a pimp we have to crush him.’ Passionately, she put both hands on the table. ‘Tell me exactly what I have to do.’

Here she was, another apostle, crushing evil. Together, they were crusaders. She really believed she could crush it, but what exactly do you want to crush, my darling? The
more of them you crush, the more there are. And that’s all right, but maybe you have to crush them all the same.

‘Think it over for a few days, before you agree.’

‘You don’t have to speak like that to me, I don’t need to think it over, I’m a quick thinker.’

Yes, yes, darling. ‘All right, then think of those two girls, they’re both dead. If we get this wrong you could join them.’

‘I’ve already thought about that.’

‘And remember that we have everyone against us, even the police, and we won’t be protected by anyone.’

‘I’ve thought about that, too.’

‘Well, then,’ and now there was a solemnity in the way he spoke to her that was more intimate than ever, ‘think about this. Every day you’ll have to go with one or two men, for weeks, maybe to no avail, maybe we won’t find anything, or maybe you’ll be the third victim, but think about that seriously, we’re not playing games here.’ In his anger, he forgot himself and swore. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

Coldly, she said, ‘You didn’t have to say that to me. You’ve introduced a personal note into the question. From what you told me, and from the way you told it, it seems you don’t like the idea of me having to go with men. If that’s the case, it distorts everything, quite apart from the fact that I’m not remotely interested in what you like or don’t like. You asked me to do this work, and as soon as I said yes, you said no. You’re the one who’s playing games, not me.’

Be quiet, be quiet, why did he always have to get into things he couldn’t get out of, things that ended up as matters of life and death?

‘Tell me what I have to do, and that’s it. I’m old enough to know what I’m doing, if I’d wanted to say no I’d have said no. But I can’t.’

She couldn’t
. ‘All right, then let’s go up on the terrace and get some fresh air, the rain has almost stopped.’

Up there, looking down at the lights of Milan, there was quite a wind: it was damp, like a wet sheet in the face. He explained to her the abominable details of the filthy work they had to do, he gave her the foul instructions that would make it less dangerous for her, he explained the signal: ‘If you put your elbow out of the window once, that means “found him.” If you put it out twice in a row that means “danger.” Tomorrow, I’ll bring Davide to see you and we’ll do a rehearsal together, as soon as there’s something that’s not right, make the signal and he’ll be there.’ Because that was how it was, now he was even getting the other poor bastard involved. When someone was as sick in the head as he was, they didn’t know any limits.

Then he took his Livia Ussaro and drove her home. At the front door they even shook hands, they might as well have said, ‘Thanks for the company.’ He went back to the Cavour feeling completely nauseated with everything, starting with himself, but not with her.

Here is Livia Ussaro at work, in the last stretch of the Via Giuseppe Verdi, close to the Piazza della Scala, just after half past ten. The area has been carefully chosen, like a rare literary text, after a three-way meeting, with Davide as a listener but without a right to vote. She’s neatly dressed, all in blue, her skirt is short and under her little jacket she’s wearing something so skimpy you couldn’t really call it a blouse. The impression she needs to give, as she walks up towards the Piazza della Scala, is that she’s looking for someone or something, a shop perhaps, or is waiting for a date. And that is indeed the impression she gives.

Davide has taken up position under the portico in the Piazza della Scala, his Giulietta, thanks to a thousand-lire tip, is parked by the monument to Leonardo da Vinci in such a way that he can pull out easily. For many mornings now,
nothing has happened. Yes, there were two gentlemen who spoke to Livia, but one she ruled out because he didn’t have a car—the person they want to meet definitely uses a car—the other because he was a young man of twenty-two or twenty-three, who had started by saying to her, ‘Hey, good-looking!’ and the person they’re looking for is not a young man, he must be over fifty, and he certainly wouldn’t use a phrase like ‘Hey, good-looking!’