“You won’t serve him?”
The bartender touched his toothbrush mustache with his finger, and spoke in soft and confessional tones, throwing an anxious glance at two well-dressed men with briefcases seated at the table outside. “He threw up vomit and blood all over a table of Germans. I don’t know what’s wrong with him, but a guy that age and that sick should know better than to drink like that. Is he dead?”
“Yes.”
“Not surprised,” said the bartender, and dried droplets from the sink.
They left the piazza and reached the third bar. A fug of marijuana sat above the fifty or so people sitting outside.
A thin skinhead Roma soccer “Ultra” with blue arms was trying to stare them down.
Grattapaglia led the way toward the farther of the two ancient tin tables to his left, which was occupied by three men, two of whom had hardly taken their eyes off them since they arrived.
Grattapaglia said, “Let’s have something here. It’s always very informative.”
Caterina was not so sure, but she sat down and ordered a granita while Grattapaglia ordered a beer. When the bartender came back, Grattapaglia asked him who had been here on the previous Friday night.
“Can’t say,” said the bartender, bending down to put the beer and granita on the table. Caterina pulled out the photos but Grattapaglia forestalled her, placing his outsized hand on her arm.
“No. First the muggings. Also, not here. You can’t ask Danilo questions in full view of everyone. He could be telling us anything, as far as they’re concerned. So the only move open to him is to tell us nothing and make sure they all see him saying nothing. Do you follow?”
“I think so,” said Caterina.
“OK.” He handed her back the photos. “You keep these. This is your gig, and I want them to understand that. Now, see that Brazilian over there?”
Emma looked and saw a small guy dressed in a Brazil soccer strip wearing a baseball cap.
“Every time we meet that guy, we yank off his cap and throw it away. Then he has to buy one, to hide the fact his head is the size of a pin. He’s so sensitive about it.” Grattapaglia spluttered into his glass, evidently recalling the last time this fun had taken place.
Beside him sat a sagging fiftyish man with long curling locks of gray hair and an unfinished mustache over dead lips.
“That’s Fabio the Failure,” said Grattapaglia. “Whenever I’m depressed at still being a sovrintendente at this age, and think I’ve made a mess of my life, I just think of Fabio, and it cheers me up. In the 1970s, Fabio got a walk-on part in a film and has been living on the glory ever since. Well, the glory, a disability allowance, and a little extra from some casual housebreaking. Uh-oh, what have we here?”
A third person, the one ostentatiously not looking at Grattapaglia and Caterina, sported a tight-fitting T-shirt and large orange glasses with pimp jewelry and ethnic tattoos on his arms. His underpants were hitched up to his stomach, the waistline of his jeans rested halfway down his backside. The other two treated him with the deference due to a prince.
Grattapaglia picked up his beer and walked up to the table, big smile on his face. He looked like he belonged. He waved Caterina over to join him and his friends.
“Weather’s changeable, isn’t it?” said Grattapaglia. “Hot one minute. Raining the next. Empty the contents of your pockets and place them on the table.”
“Go fuck your mother,” said the tiny Brazilian, glancing sideways to see if Orange Glasses appreciated how hardassed he could be. Caterina noticed the Brazilian lisped slightly.
Grattapaglia reached out suddenly and snatched the baseball cap off the Brazilian’s head, then just as quickly put it back on again.
“Still no hair, Luis?” he said sympathetically, then turned his attention to Orange Glasses who was surveying faraway rooftops with regal indifference. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
No reply.
“Ah, pardon,” said Grattapaglia, putting a real French accent into the word. “You speak shqiptar, right?”
The gaze moved down from the rooftops and locked on Grattapaglia’s face. He had eyes like a carrion crow. Caterina was glad she was not receiving the stare.
Grattapaglia, however, seemed to find the stare funny. After beaming at the face in front of him for a while, he reached over and gently removed the orange glasses, put them on the metal table. She felt the other two shifting outwards, away from the center, and she did the same.
“Hey,” said Grattapaglia, “maybe you can help me. I’m looking for Albanian translators. We can hardly cope, all these Albanian pimps and housebreakers. We looked everywhere for an Albanian teacher. Can’t seem to find one. My girlfriend here says there’s no such thing, says you can’t teach Albanians anything. Unless it involves goats.”
The Albanian kept his movements measured as he turned and studied Grattapaglia’s face, as if previewing a lingering death scene. Then he said, “She’s not your girlfriend. You’re married. Remember that next time you insult me.”
Grattapaglia raised an imaginary glass. “ Gezuar, my friend. Danilo!” he roared as the bartender passed. “Sit down here.”
The bartender sat down, his eyes wary.
“There have been muggings in our area,” said Grattapaglia. “Now I distinctly recall telling people a while ago that these muggings had to stop. But they didn’t, did they?”
The Albanian yawned.
“And now it’s too late. Stopping is no longer good enough. We need the fucker who’s been doing them, and we need him fast.”
Caterina looked at the faces of the men around the table. None of them seemed to be taking in a word that Grattapaglia was saying. They had all assumed the expression of commuters on a crowded train. Even the hostility was gone.
“Hear about the Indian guy and his kid got killed?” said Grattapaglia.
It would seem that no one had. But Grattapaglia talked on regardless. “I wouldn’t want to be the guys who did that. Dead on Arrival, sometime tomorrow. Just you wait.”
“I thought you wanted to talk about the muggings, not the dead Indian and his kid,” said Danilo.
“Who says they’re not connected?”
“Look, I’ve got work to do,” said Danilo, making as if to get up.
“Hold on, Danilo. Inspector, show the gentlemen the photographs. Now these, you may be interested to learn, have nothing to do with the muggings, or the hit-and-run. We have so much shit on our plate we need you guys to help us eat it.”
Caterina put the photos of Treacy and Emma on the table. The Albanian glanced at them for a moment, stood up, picked up his glasses, and wandered off, dead casual, like he had just now thought of it. Grattapaglia did not even look up as he left.
“Well?” Grattapaglia snatched the baseball cap off the Brazilian again, stuffed it in his pocket. “Well, you two?”
“That man is dead,” said Fabio the Failure, pointing at Treacy.
“We know that, Fabio. All we want to know is whether he was here on Friday night.”
Fabio shrugged. “Yeah. I think so.”
“You, Danilo? Did you serve him or her?”
“Hey, I wasn’t here Friday,” said the Brazilian. Grattapaglia held up a restraining hand. “We’re talking, Luis. Can’t you see we’re talking? Please.”
Suddenly the bartender grinned.
“I know her. Who wouldn’t remember her? Most of what she orders here she gets on the house, and I still haven’t managed to get her to look at me properly. Maybe when she does, she’ll like what she sees.”
“Those lips round my cock,” said the Brazilian.
“Danilo, was she here on Friday night with Treacy?” Grattapaglia looked at Caterina. “That’s the main thing we need to know, isn’t it?”
Caterina nodded.
“Yes, she was here,” said Danilo. “I served them at least five drinks.”
“I see, and were they on their own?” said Grattapaglia, leaning back and stretching his arms lazily above his head. Coming out of the posture, he suddenly smashed his elbow into the Brazilian’s ear. “You mind your language in front of Inspector Mattiola, Luis.” The Brazilian opened his mouth wide in pain, but made little noise. Caterina noticed all his bottom teeth were missing.