“There are two Heckler and Koch assault rifles in the trunk,” Pino said, “if you feel the need of more firepower than our pistols.”
“No, I don’t think we are going to defeat Mr. Gambini today by force of arms.”
In thirty minutes more, they arrived on the outskirts of the village where Gambini made his home. The plazas were filled with idling youth and gnarled old men taking their ease beneath boxwood trees and maples. They rode through and onto the grounds of Gambini’s estate on the far side, passing black Hummers stationed by the roadside in orchards and olive groves.
The driveway to the door was more than two miles long. More men languished along the way, picking wild raspberries, shotguns slung on their shoulders. No doubt even more heavily armed men were lingering nearby. Given the level of security, she thought there must be trouble in gangland. Since Gambini had begun expanding abroad, neighboring clans had grown more ambitious at home. Bianca Strozzi’s crew was rumored to be especially envious of Gambini’s hold on the trash-hauling contracts with the city.
Natalia and Pino finally reached the main house and a cobblestone courtyard in front, with yellow primroses and large plants potted in bleached yellow planters. Time and the sun had bleached the front doors too. Only a few fragments suggested the original blue. The pair donned their jackets and hats and marched in step toward the front entrance of the baroque mansion. The side of the house was engulfed in bougainvillea. Natalia nodded at Pino as they arrived at the partially open door.
“Carabinieri!” he announced as he pushed one side of the walnut door all the way open. It scraped across the stone floor. An old man approached, and they told him they were there to speak with Signor Gambini. The old retainer showed them past armed guards lounging in a long vaulted corridor that led to a large hall all the way in the back of the mansion off the garden, where four men sat around a table. They were ordinary-looking country gentlemen in casual clothes. The air stank of cigars. They were playing cards.
Sitting with his back to them was Gambini. She had seen him from afar all her life but had never dared engage him in conversation. She and Pino marched closer, uniforms immaculate, leather boots and belts creaking in the silence. They came to a stop beside him. He was freshly shaved and wearing a gray Armani T-shirt, white trousers, and velvet Paciotti slippers embroidered with a crest. With his plump pink cheeks and crinkly blue eyes, Aldo Gambini could have passed for a sweet, prosperous grandfather or Father Christmas on holiday.
Gambini was married and also supported several girlfriends and the one serious mistress Lola had mentioned. Unlike a good many contemporaries, he was not content with just the summer palace. He had a villa on the isle of Procida and a yacht in the marina there, though both were largely unused of late. He also had his family’s apartment in his old slum neighborhood in Naples, and a lush villa on the water and a new office suite in the chic Chiaia district. The bulk of his time, he was in the city, commanding the defense against the recent challenge to his businesses.
“You’re late,” Gambini said. “You must have stopped along the way.” Natalia and Pino circled the table to face him. They had deliberately come unannounced.
“I didn’t know you read cards, too,” she said.
A scar ran from his cheek down his neck. “Yeah. I tell fortunes as well sometimes.” He got up. “Let me get a look at you. I’ve heard things about the lady cop,” he said, scanning Natalia up and down. “Impressive. We share the same clothing designer. Coffee?” he offered.
“No, thank you,” Pino said.
“I’m Captain Monte,” she said. “And this is Sergeant Loriano.”
“What can we do for you, signora?” he asked.
“We need to speak. Privately.”
With the slightest gesture, he cleared the room, his men retreating into the confines of the large house. Natalia swallowed. Despite the high ceiling, the vast room was hot from the day’s heat, and stuffy. She was also nervous and tried to stem her anxiety. Where did she get the idea that a visit from them could intimidate the likes of Zazu Gambini? Natalia removed a photograph of Teresa Steiner from an envelope and dropped it on the table in front of him. He looked at it for a moment.
“Pretty girl,” he said. “Luca’s photo in the paper didn’t do her justice.”
“We heard she was doing some work for you at the shrines in Naples.”
“A lot of people work for me maintaining the shrines. Hundreds. Maybe a thousand,” he said.
“Yeah. It must be hard to keep track,” Pino said.
“This one is dead,” Natalia said. “Murdered below one of your shrines.”
Gambini shrugged. “People die. Whaddya gonna do?”
“Have you talked to your nephew lately?” Natalia said.
“Which one?”
“Your nephew Benito, who lives with the Capuchin monks. Have you spoken with him recently, in the last day or two?”
“My nephew is a holy person. A novice monk. I am fond of him, but we are separated by age and interests and don’t communicate much. Besides, I’ve been traveling.”
Natalia referred to her notebook. “Yes. Nine countries in eleven months: the U.S., Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, Germany twice, England, the south of France.”
“I travel for business. What of it?”
“Drug business.”
“Pharmaceuticals. And cruise ships and art galleries, among other ventures.” Gambini tapped the ends of his fingers together.
“Yes.” Natalia turned a page. “You have quite a portfolio.” She read down the list: “Spring water bottling, shoe manufacturing, meatpacking, earth moving, cement. Travel agencies, restaurants, movie theaters, farms, apartment complexes, service companies, clothing factories, wineries, a sugar refinery, travel agency, professional soccer team, iron foundry, a private school—and your very own bank, and a half interest in another in Monaco. Yes?”
“Mmmm. My financial advisers are always urging me to diversify. But investing responsibly is a real challenge. There are so many charlatans in the financial world.”
“You mean diversify into prostitution, usury, gambling, smuggling, drugs, extortion, protection—?”
“Lies, Captain. Allegations by jealous rivals.”
“Were you and the deceased girl involved—romantically, I mean?”
“I am a married man, Captain.”
“Are you saying you weren’t involved with her, or that your wife was unaware of it?”
Gambini laughed. “You
are
a fresh one. No, I wasn’t intimate with the young lady. I met her by accident and hired her to do some work for me in Naples. She said she was German, in Italy studying, and wanted to study the shrines. She said she wanted to experience them personally. Also to examine our whole organization from a sociological perspective, with the idea of reporting how we interacted with the Church and the federal government in carrying out our operations, our fiduciary duties with respect to the group’s income, its further dispersal to parties in the government, dependents of deceased members and those currently detained by law enforcement, reinvestments locally of our profits, investments internationally. Et cetera, et cetera.”
Pino and Natalia were dumbfounded hearing this. Pino said, “She wanted permission to study your…?”
“Business interests. Yes.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “The cleaning services, the casinos, rubbish collection, construction companies, credit unions, import-export.… She intended to do a graduate paper for the University, maybe write a book, and wanted my blessing and cooperation.” He laughed. “Outrageous, eh?”
“How did you respond?” Natalia said.
“I said I admired her gumption and could arrange something for her about the shrines. But the rest”—he swept the air with the back of a hand—“would be inadvisable, her interest unwelcome.”
“You put her to work collecting from the shrines,” Natalia said.
“Yeah. As sanctioned by Church representatives. Perfectly legal.”
“And she was reliable in her work and satisfactory?” Pino said.
“Not completely, but enough.” He seemed momentarily wistful. “She should’ve been a boy.”
“Was Signora Gambini aware of her … employment?” Natalia asked.
“No, nor of anyone else’s.”
“Is the signora available for a brief interview?”
Gambini colored. “You would not want to approach my wife or question her … about anything.”
“That is not your decision to make.”
“It would be unwise to contact my wife, Captain,” he said. “She has no part in our dealings, yours and mine, and there is no need for her to be interrogated or exposed.”
“We are officers of the Republic,” Natalia said. “The Law says we may. You can’t be threatening us?”
“Heaven forbid,” Gambini exclaimed, all innocence. “You have a law degree from the Officers College in Rome. Bravo. But you are
Napoletani
—both of you. You know how we are.”
She pulled out the envelope of cash pushed on her in the night by her first beau and tossed it on the table in front of Gambini.
“What’s this?” Gambini darkened.
“A Valentine I received the other night. Fifty thousand euros. Maybe Signora Gambini has charitable interests.” Natalia put on her hat. “We’ll be in touch,” she said as she walked to the door. Sergeant Loriano followed.
They strode down the long corridor again and out the front. Outside, the gravel crunched underfoot. A curtain flickered in the caretaker’s house next to Gambini’s garage and stables. Pino’s hand went to his holstered weapon.
“Christ!” Natalia said to her partner as they got into the car. “Bad idea, this.”
“Maybe not. I liked your move with the bribe money. Why would he try that if he wasn’t involved?”
“Yeah. He reminds me of a viper.” Natalia wiped a patch of sweat from her lip. “Calm when you come across it, but ready to spring the next instant.”
“Well, you unsettled him, anyway.”
“How could you tell? He’s as cool as they come.”
She put the key in the ignition and snapped her seatbelt on. Pino rolled down his window.
“Your seatbelt,” Natalia said.
“What?” Pino seemed confused.
“Fasten your seatbelt,” Natalia said.
“Yes, Mama.” Pino smiled and obeyed.
“That’s ‘Big Mama’ to you.”
The day was nearly used up, and the last shrine that Teresa Steiner had collected from was on the route back. Natalia and Pino decided to check it out, since they had the safety of their uniforms and the shrine was deep in a Camorra neighborhood. By the time they reached the
piazza
outside the Metro station, the sun was dipping toward the sea. The uncollected garbage seemed even higher in this part of town.
Natalia and Pino entered the small park. It smelled of urine, and the benches were broken. At a folding table, four men played cards. Below, on Cavour, orange buses spewed black smoke. Natalia took a drink from the water bottle she carried. Three large bony dogs appeared, gobbled chunks of sausage, then drank, splashing water onto the pavement.
“You want some?” she handed the bottle to Pino.
Several elderly men sat around a concrete table. Off to the side, another old-timer was smashing a chair against the ground with impressive vigor. Broken legs and splinters of wood surrounded him.
Approaching the group, Pino said, “Gentlemen, we have some photographs we’d like you to look at.” The men put down their cards. The chair-smasher abandoned his pile of wood and joined them.
“Is this shrine around here?” Natalia held up one of Teresa’s photos of it.
“Ask him,” the chair-smasher gestured with his chin.
Natalia and Pino hadn’t noticed the man sitting apart from the others. He was dressed like a
boulevardier
—pressed trousers and long-sleeved white shirt, albeit frayed and the pants stained. His sandals were held together with tape.
“Are you students?” one of the card players asked Natalia.
The chair-smasher laughed. “Students! What are you, an idiot?
Vaffanculo.
Fuck off.” He spat. Pino and Natalia recognized two of the men. Once they had been mules for the Provenzanos, questioned numerous times at headquarters and even held a night or two in jail.
“Don’t mind him,” the dignified loner said. “It’s over there, past Via Cimitile. You can’t miss it.”
Natalia next held out a picture of Teresa. “Maybe you’ve seen her around here?”
The chair-smasher pushed his face forward to get a better look. “Sure! That girl was here. A few times. Took our photograph. So what?”
“She’s dead,” Pino said, trying to get a reading from their expressions.
“Was she alone when she was here?” Natalia asked, wiping her forehead.
“There was a priest,” the chair-smasher said. “I remember, because to see a priest with a pretty girl.…” He winked and kissed his pinched fingers.
She and Pino thanked the group and continued on. A short distance farther, they came upon the shrine. Paint was flaking off it. A can with a spray of cheap white carnations, neatly arranged, rested at its foot. Natalia and Pino walked up to the niche. A plaster limb hung lashed to the outside; a bunch of half-dead wildflowers lay on the ground in front of it. Inside the frame of the shrine was a photograph of a priest with a white moustache. He too was fading, courtesy of time.
The glass on the box was fogged with grime. Two figures were barely visible—the Madonna and Child. Natalia stepped closer and peered inside. Framing Mary were the long horns of a cow and a solar disk. The figures were actually an ancient bas-relief. Crudely done but recognizable—Isis, the Egyptians’ Queen of Heaven, and her son, who was also her reincarnated husband. A virgin birth, Natalia recalled. The sculpted figures predated Christianity, having somehow survived in this recess of wall left from Roman times, when the Empire’s legions had them up as a favored deity.
Natalia bent down to get a better look. Teresa, Teresa, she thought. You were on to something.
“Looking for tomorrow?” came a female voice.
The woman couldn’t have been more than fifty. Plump, her hair dyed blue-black. Red pants and a yellow shirt. Lime-colored sandals. A few yards behind her stood a few young mothers, curious about the intruders. Their toddlers wandered the cobblestones. Growing up here, they didn’t even have the luxury of school beyond the earliest grades. A girl became a woman as soon as she sprouted breasts and could lactate. Few toiled at labors, other than the hard work of raising large broods and keeping house. “Go home,” the woman said to the mothers, who immediately disappeared.