I remembered it very well. At the time he had passed his public examination, we saw each other every day. At twenty-five he had already achieved his main aim in life. To be a magistrate. Whereas I was still young and footloose and would stay that way for a while longer.
“I couldn’t wait to start. I couldn’t wait to be a prosecutor. I was ready to change things. To bring about justice.” He looked me in the eyes. “Big words, eh?”
“How does that song go? The one by De Gregori? You were looking for justice and you found the law.”
“Exactly. When I started I felt like an avenging angel. Now – would you believe this? – I feel sick every time I have to arrest someone. A few days ago, in the corridors of the courthouse, I ran into a prisoner in handcuffs being led by a guard. He was a man of about sixty, who looked like a stationer, a grocer, whatever. I’ve seen hundreds of people in handcuffs. All kinds of people. Scared, arrogant, dazed, indifferent. All kinds, and I should be used to it. It shouldn’t have any effect on me. The guard was walking ahead of him and he was behind. At a certain point he slowed down, or maybe he just couldn’t keep up. I don’t know. Anyway, the guard gave a jerk on the chain, just like you do when you’re walking your dog and it stops too long to sniff something. It was only for a moment, because then the man walked quicker and caught up. I stood there in the corridor watching them walk away. I felt a knot in my stomach. That, too, was only for a moment and then the guys in my police escort asked me if anything was wrong and I walked on. Maybe you understand.”
I understood perfectly what he was saying. He made a gesture I had seen many times in the past few weeks. He rubbed his face, hard, as if trying to wipe out something viscous and unpleasant. He didn’t manage it. No one ever does.
“If I could, I’d change jobs. Obviously I can’t. My destiny is all mapped out. Another few years and I’ll be able to ask for a transfer to the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, where I won’t have to do a damn thing. I’ll learn to play golf, take a lover – maybe a young secretary? – and happily carry on to the end.”
“Hey, hey, hold on. What’s happening to you?” It was a stupid question. I knew perfectly well what was happening to him.
“Nothing. A mid-life crisis, I suppose. Have you already had yours? I’m told they pass.”
Had I had mine? Yes, I’d had it, and I didn’t know if it really had passed. But compared to him I had an advantage. I’d felt out of place my whole life, so I was used to it. For someone with his convictions it must have been very hard.
“Anyway, fuck all that.”
At that moment the waiter came up behind me. We ordered buffalo mozzarella, grilled beef, and red wine from Lucera.
“I asked a few of my colleagues about Avvocato Macri, but no one’s ever heard of him. I also asked a few defence lawyers I know, but none of them have heard of him either. In itself that’s not particularly strange in a place like Rome. But it’s not quite normal either.”
No, I thought, it wasn’t normal. The world of criminal lawyers and magistrates, even in a big city like Rome, is a small community. Like a village where everyone knows everyone else. If you live in that village and no one has ever heard of you, something’s not right. It means you don’t work much, or at all. And if that’s the case, how do you make a living?
“So I thought I’d do a little research in our databank. It contains documentation on all the anti-Mafia investigations, along with all the court proceedings, over the past ten years, in the whole of Italy. I said to myself: if this Macri has defended anyone in that kind of trial, I’ll find him and then we’ll get a better idea of what’s going on.”
“And did you find him?”
The waiter arrived with the wine and filled the glasses. Colaianni emptied his, in a way I didn’t like. Nor did I like the way he refilled it immediately.
He looked me straight in the eyes. “Obviously this conversation never happened.”
“I never even came to Foggia.”
“Good. I found our Signor Corrado Macri. But he wasn’t in our databank as a defence lawyer. He was there as a defendant, arrested three years ago by an examining magistrate in Reggio Calabria, for associating with the Mafia, drug trafficking and a number of minor charges.”
“What did he do?” As I asked the question, it struck me how the roles people play influence the things we say and even the things we think. If Macri had been my client, I would have asked what he’d been charged with and certainly wouldn’t have taken it for granted that he had done anything.
Colaianni took a few sheets of paper out of his bag, chose one and started to read the charge sheet.
“Let’s see… Ah, yes. Corrado Macri, benefiting from his position as defence counsel of a number of prominent members of the organization – there follows a list – and having been specifically appointed for that purpose, acted as a link between the imprisoned bosses of the organization and those still at liberty. In particular, gaining access, thanks to his position as defence counsel, to various penal institutions – there follows a list – in which the above-mentioned were confined, he proceeded to inform them of the most significant events that had happened in the organization, agreed with their plans and criminal operations, and proceeded to communicate to those members still at liberty the decisions and orders of the imprisoned bosses.”
He stopped – he’d been struggling a bit, and I thought he should have put on his reading glasses – and looked at me.
“He was the go-between,” I said.
“Yes. Do you want to know what happened?”
I wanted to know and he told me. Our friend Macri had been taken into custody on the testimony of two grasses. He had spent several months inside, until one of the grasses changed his story and retracted everything. The case fell apart. Macri was released on the grounds of insufficient evidence. A few months later he opted for the fast-track procedure and was acquitted.
“And how did he end up in Rome?”
“I don’t know. After his acquittal he had his name taken off the register of the Reggio Calabria bar association, and for some reason registered in Rome. Where, as I said, he doesn’t seem to put in many appearances in court.”
He left the last words hanging in the air and again emptied his glass. He refilled it and then refilled mine.
My brain was working overtime. Macri was the key to the whole thing, I was sure of it now. One way or another, the drugs found in Paolicelli’s car belonged to some of Macri’s clients – or rather, some of his accomplices. When Paolicelli had been arrested, they had sent for the lawyer to keep an eye on what happened, to check what was in the file, to make sure that the investigation didn’t lead back to the drugs’ real owners.
And then there was the matter of the lifting of the sequestration order. The fact that he had gone personally to get it out of the pound. There must have been something still in the car that the customs police had missed, something that had to be disposed of as quickly as possible.
That was if Paolicelli really had nothing to do with it. Because it could also be that Macri had been sent by the organization to safeguard a member – Paolicelli – who’d had the misfortune to end up in the clutches of the law.
I told my friend what I was thinking and he nodded. He had been thinking the same.
“And now what are you going to do with this information?”
Right. What was I going to do?
I said I would have to think about it. Perhaps, with this as a starting point, I could find out more, maybe by hiring a private detective. The fact was, I hadn’t the faintest idea what to do.
When the time came to say goodbye, Colaianni told me he’d really enjoyed seeing me again and talking to me. He said it in a vaguely frightened tone, as if he didn’t want me to go. I felt both saddened and embarrassed.