Death Brings Gold

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“That’s true, Inspector. But if I were you, I’d start to get more information on this character. And I’d put him under surveillance.”

“I’ll work something out when I’m back at Police Headquarters.”

“Wise decision,” Carobbio congratulated him. Then, he became serious again, coming to his real purpose for organising their meeting. He slipped a yellow envelope out of his briefcase. He opened it and selected some photos featuring a man’s face. “I wanted to show you these.”

“Is he the third fingerprints man?” guessed Walker.

“That’s right,” confirmed Carobbio. “Do you know him?”

Walker took all the time he needed to observe the images.

“Never seen him before,” he acknowledged.

Carobbio slipped another sheet out of the envelope.

“And here you can find all his personal details. With my bad memory, I have to write everything down.”

Walker took it and started reading. Reading the man’s name and surname was enough to make his heart speed up.

Suddenly he lifted his eyes.

“Fuck!” he said. “I don’t know him, but I know who he is.”

When he arrived at Police Headquarters, Walker summoned Bassani to his office.

“Detective, we have a lead,” he informed him.

“Good.”

Then, before showing him the photographs, he rattled off the little speech he had prepared while he was in the car .

“Yesterday, when Mrs Pilenga mentioned the name of her lover, you said you had heard that name before. Is that right?”

“Yes, but I don’t remember where. My memory has never been my strongest point, Chief.”

Here’s another one with a short memory, Walker thought.

“Let me try to jog your memory” he said , as he laid out on his desk the photos Carobbio had left for him. “It’s Mrs Pilenga’s lover.”

Bassani tried to find a more comfortable position in his chair. He had barely looked at the photos when he blurted out:“ Damn!That’s where I heard that name before. Some years ago, when I was still in uniform, some other officers and I jumped in to stop a fight between locals and immigrants. He was one of the most difficult to handle.”

The detective paused briefly.

“He is one guy who really knows how to use these” he stated, holding up his hands.

Walker smiled, satisfied.

“Inspector Carobbio told me the same thing.”

He paused, just enough time to light another cigarette followed by two good drags.

“Maybe he’s the man we’re looking for,” he said, pointing at the face staring at him from the photographs.

CHAPTER 16

The sound of footsteps forced Romeo to look up. A last-minute client had just arrived.

He asked himself why some people just can’t come and buy their fucking newspaper half an hour earlier, instead of showing up two minutes before closing time, when he had already filled in the goods return form. He couldn’t wait to go home. The day had been deadly boring.

“The Evening Courier, please.”

The newsagent leaned forward to get the newspaper from the already wrapped parcel of return goods and handed it to the client.

“One fifty.” How many times had he already said those words?

The last-minute client rummaged in his pocket and retrieved the coins.

“Thank you,” said Romeo, “and good night.”

“Goodbye,” the man answered.

The newsagent stood staring at the client walking towards the exit. Suddenly, the man stopped.

What the hell is wrong with him now? Romeo asked himself.

Then he realised that something on the big notice board had caught the man’s attention.

Romeo kept watching him, while the man was looking at the collage of old photos.

“Do you like it?” asked Romeo, with a hint of irony.

“It looks like there’s a century of life here,” said the client, with an amused smile.

“Not a century. But half a century, yes.”

“Are you a photography enthusiast? I am too.”

“No, my passion is not photography. It’s only that I like seeing myself with the people who have come into my life and, in one way or another, have left a mark. Positive or negative. For example, in the first photo on the left I am with my wife on our wedding day. Negative mark: she left with somebody else before our fifth anniversary.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Ah, you don’t have to feel sorry. Life would have been hard with her. Maybe it was better like this. Actually, it was definitely better like this.”

Romeo noticed the embarrassed look on his client’s face. He tried to bring back the conversation towards a less personal level. In the end he would have liked to continue that conversation. It had been a long time since someone had looked at his photo collection.

“So do you like my idea? I mean, the photo collage.”

“It’s truly brilliant!” the man exclaimed, showing his amusement again. “But do you also have celebrities in there?”

Romeo went around the counter and joined the client. The conversation might begin to be interesting. In the end the day was taking a turn for the better. Coming home could wait.

“Well, celebrities… Yes, there’s some. For example, that one dates back about twenty years ago” he said, taking pride for it, while showing a photo that had faded with time. “I’m with Marco Van Basten, that was the year when AC Milan won both the UEFA Champions League and the Italian Champions. Eh… those were good times.”

“Indeed! Are you supporting AC Milan too, eh?”

“Yeah. But everything’s changed now. Now we’re a minor-league team.”

The client smiled, making a strange movement with his hand. He didn’t know why, but he was beginning to like that man.

“You’re right, it’s a really bad football team. It’s better taking an interest in something else. I don’t know… beautiful women, for example.”

Romeo became gloomy..

“I’ll leave that to you. I’ve never had any luck with women. I didn’t have any when I was young and still had hair, let alone now. Bald and with this gut.”

The client smiled, amused. Then, Romeo noticed that another photo had caught his attention. Before he could say anything, the man had already anticipated him.

“And who is this guy?” he asked. “He looks thunderstruck. His eyes are popping out of his head.”

Romeo moved closer to the board, squinting his eyes to focus on the image. Then he put on his glasses that he kept around his neck. He stood there for a moment thinking, before he answered.

“Ah” he said finally, “now that one really is a weird character.”

When he turned again towards him, the man’s eyes were already set on him, waiting and greedy for knowledge. Romeo checked the time on his watch. Now the conversation was really turning better.

“If you’re not in a hurry, I can tell you that guy’s story.”

The client nodded, satisfied. It would have been impossible not to read the curiosity in his eyes. That’s what the client was waiting for.

***

“He should arrive,” Mrs Beatrice told her friend.

The other woman nodded.

“Usually he comes back around this time. He works late hours. At least, from what I gather. Maybe he works shifts.”

“Ah, you’ve already spied on him, eh? Old busybody,” Beatrice told her, joking.

Luigia looked at her, amused.

“We are old busybodies,” she remarked, winking at her.

They’d been on the landing for fifteen minutes, waiting for the new tenant to come home. He was a young man in his thirties, with dark skin. But not really black. Brownish. As if a perfect mix between a white and black person. They didn’t know what the right word was to describe an individual of that skin colour.

He was a handsome young man, oh yes. Muscular too. But they were too old now to even think about picking him up. There was another reason why they had decided to wait for him. They couldn’t wait to introduce themselves and gossip for a while about the habits of the other tenants who lived in the old council building. Minding other people’s business helps you live longer, Beatrice and Luigia were convinced. Or they wouldn’t have reached eighty and eighty two years old respectively.

They heard a squeaking sound from the ground floor. The old door of the main entrance had been opened.

“He’s coming, he’s coming,” Beatrice exclaimed, all excited.

They were beside themselves with delight. They were going to vie with one another for who was going to gossip the most.

Luigia rubbed her hands. They would have certainly told him everything under the sun. That lad was going to stay and listen to them.

But both friends saw the disappointment in each other’s eyes when a man with a dark coat appeared on the staircase. His face was covered by a scarf and his head by a wool cap. The collar of his coat, turned with the point upwards, helped hide his identity.

The elderly ladies stood there in silence looking at him. The man, with his eyes behind glass lenses, nodded his head in a polite greeting. Beatrice and Luigia did the same.

Then the man that they’d never seen before continued climbing the stairs, and disappeared from view.

“And who was that man?” Luigia asked her friend, under her breath.

“How would I know?” the other lady answered, almost whispering. “Between us, you’re the best gossip.”

“Look who’s talking…”

Luigia would have liked to say something else, but at the squeaking sound from the main entrance door her friend anticipated her.

“This must be him.”

She nodded, her bright eyes revealed her happiness.

***

The man looked around, sitting on the ruined fabric of the couch that he had found at a dump. He was moving his eyes from one side to the other of the lounge, the biggest room of his two-room flat.

His… What a nonsense! It was owned by the council. He felt ashamed for even thinking that only immigrants and old lonely people would live in one of these council houses. Immigrants, old people and himself, Giuliano Giuliani.

If he hadn’t been caught, maybe he would have become the leader of a criminal gang, a really big one. With a lot of dough. After all, hadn’t he got away with it when, during a job someone had died?

You don’t make history with “ifs”, you don’t make anything with “ifs”, he admitted to himself.

But, if… here he goes again. Well, who cares. If his life had been different, maybe he could have even had a family. A beautiful wife and a couple of brats around the house. He should have quit dealing earlier. Had he got out once he’d made his money, he could’ve thought about starting a family.

Instead he was all alone. And certainly he would remain like this for the rest of his awful life. Besides, which woman, even one of the really desperate ones, would want to have a relationship with an incomplete man?

That question made him look down at his arm that no longer had a hand, and down at his leg that was without a foot.

He sighed.

Then he cursed out loud.

***

Romeo went to the entrance door and locked it. The newsagent’s was officially closed. His working day was over.

“I bet you’ve never heard such a bizarre name before,” he said to the client. “That guy was called Giuliano Giuliani…”