Read Online Converging Parallels by Timothy Williams - Free Book Online Page B

stool before a plastic-topped table. “Here.” From under the table, she hauled up a demijohn in a wicker flask. “Pinot—from the hills.” She poured red wine into two glasses and they drank—she noisily.
    “Do you go home?” she asked, wiping her lips.
    “I’m originally from Acquanera—five kilometers down the road from Santa Maria.” He shrugged. “Sometimes.”
    “You have a family?”
    “I married a girl from the city.”
    “Pretty?”
    “Very.” He lifted his glass. “Salute.” He finished the wine and placed the glass on the table.
    “And what,” the woman asked, about to pour more wine into his glass, “brings you here?” She was not looking at him.
    “A thousand thanks.” He placed a hand across the top. “I am on duty.”
    “Duty?”
    “I am Commissario Trotti of the Pubblica Sicurezza.”
    A few drops of wine fell from the neck of the demijohn on to the table.
    “Pubblica Sicurezza?”
    Trotti recognized the weary look of resignation.
    “Squadra Mobile.”
    “If it’s about Giovanni—well, there are explanations.” She lowered the large flask to the floor.
    “Enough.” He held up his hand. “Signora, I have not cometo spy on you. We are friends, we are from the same part of the world.” He smiled. “I need your help.”
    She visibly relaxed. “What help?”
    “I am looking for a child.”
    “Your own child?”
    “The daughter of a friend. She may have been kidnapped.” He took a photograph from his wallet. Ermagni had given it to him; the white edges were dog-eared. Anna—it had been taken the year before at San Remo—sat cross-legged on the beach. One hand was placed on an inflatable plastic beach ball, red, white and green. She stared unsmiling into the camera; in the background, on the deep blue of the Mediterranean, a couple of pedalo boats approached the beach. Anna stared seriously. She wore a minute green bikini.
    “When, Commissario?”
    “Yesterday afternoon, at about half past four. From the public gardens opposite.”
    “O dio mio.”
    “Outside I noticed all the blinds and windows are open. I was wondering whether perhaps anybody here might’ve seen something.”
    “How old?”
    “About six. She is my goddaughter.”
    The large woman was shaking her head. “We live in an evil age, Commissario, in an evil age. You know, the young, they say many bad things about Mussolini. And there were bad things—like when they made Andrea Pozzon drink castor oil and he was only a poor half-wit and wouldn’t have hurt a lizard. But I don’t think Mussolini knew about these things—there were so many things they hid from him. The Duce was a good man and in those days—you can remember—in those days you could leave your door open and nobody would take anything. There were no crimes then.”
    “Not among the poor people.”
    “We are Italians, we are poor people. With the Duce, there was none of this crime. The robbery, the violence, the kidnapping.” She made a clicking noise with her false teeth. “Look at poor Moro, look what they do to him and he is a good man. Apious man, a wise man and close to the Church. May God help him”—she crossed herself, the chapped hands lightly touching her pendulous chest—“because the politicians won’t. What we need is another Duce, Commissario.”
    “Perhaps.”
    They stood for a few seconds, looking at each other in silence. Then the woman sighed. “The poor little baby girl. And her mother?”
    “Her mother is dead.”
    “In this world and in this life, there are some people who suffer always.” And she screwed up her eyes. “While there are others who never suffer, who live only too well. They do no work and they always have money.” She filled her glass with pinot. “Another Duce, Commissario, we need another Duce.” She emptied the contents of the glass.
    She put the two glasses in a shallow sink. “Talk with Dottor Clerice. He lives upstairs on the second floor—on the street side. He is normally