A report has landed on Commissario Martusciello’s desk. The lifeless body of the singer Jerry Vialdi—aka Gennaro Mangiavento—has been found at the Naples football stadium; another corpse, this one a Jane Doe, has been discovered in the Bentegodi Stadium in Verona, hundreds of miles away.
The bodies were left in a fetal position and there are no signs of physical violence: The method and the madness behind it appear to hide some unutterable secret. Conclusion: a daring challenge left by a psychopath for the police—who are stabbing in the dark with no idea where to begin. All except for superintendent Blanca Occhiuzzi: Beautiful, blind from birth, forced by the dark that envelops her to perceive the world through only four senses, she feels the fear in people; she feels their guilt and their innocence. It is she who takes Martusciello by the hand, guiding him into the mind of a murderer . . .
A report has landed on Commissario Martusciello’s desk. The lifeless body of the singer Jerry Vialdi—aka Gennaro Mangiavento—has been found at the Naples football stadium; another corpse, this one a Jane Doe, has been discovered in the Bentegodi Stadium in Verona, hundreds of miles away.
The bodies were left in a fetal position and there are no signs of physical violence: The method and the madness behind it appear to hide some unutterable secret. Conclusion: a daring challenge left by a psychopath for the police—who are stabbing in the dark with no idea where to begin. All except for superintendent Blanca Occhiuzzi: Beautiful, blind from birth, forced by the dark that envelops her to perceive the world through only four senses, she feels the fear in people; she feels their guilt and their innocence. It is she who takes Martusciello by the hand, guiding him into the mind of a murderer . . .
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Overview
A report has landed on Commissario Martusciello’s desk. The lifeless body of the singer Jerry Vialdi—aka Gennaro Mangiavento—has been found at the Naples football stadium; another corpse, this one a Jane Doe, has been discovered in the Bentegodi Stadium in Verona, hundreds of miles away.
The bodies were left in a fetal position and there are no signs of physical violence: The method and the madness behind it appear to hide some unutterable secret. Conclusion: a daring challenge left by a psychopath for the police—who are stabbing in the dark with no idea where to begin. All except for superintendent Blanca Occhiuzzi: Beautiful, blind from birth, forced by the dark that envelops her to perceive the world through only four senses, she feels the fear in people; she feels their guilt and their innocence. It is she who takes Martusciello by the hand, guiding him into the mind of a murderer . . .
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781609451677 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Europa Editions, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 10/08/2019 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 176 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Detective Arcangelo Liguori was experiencing a moment of pure grace. Even the sheer absence of minor defects forced him to admit how lucky he was. Even his fifty odd years, which were more odd than even, struck him once again as few and useful.
He told himself that perhaps it was all due to August in Sicily and in Ireland, the love affairs remembered and archived, the rediscovery of his body in a late-breaking recovery of various activities. Perhaps it was a reward for his ability to think quickly about situations that did not concern him and which therefore tickled his curiosity just enough. The void had filled up with lovely and chaotic dovetailing elements.
He was feeling good, and that made him dangerous, now that he could turn his improved mood to the pursuit he found most congenial: spoiling the good mood of everyone else around him, first and foremost among their ranks Captain Martusciello.
In October, his vitality hadn't diminished by so much as a fluid ounce and so, the minute he got back from the police station of Fuorigrotta, he strode into the administrative offices of Pozzuoli and went in search of Martusciello.
Captain Vincenzo Martusciello had spent what little summer vacation police regulations afforded him at a cut-rate holiday resort, with his wife Santina, his daughter Giulia, and his granddaughter.
Him, of all people — a man who refused to set foot on Procida in August for fear of succumbing to his phobia of crowds — had sunk to the level of bartering his family's dignity for a miniclub. Upon contact with the place, the children had shown no obvious signs of fatal pathologies. Though it wasn't clear why.
At the discount beach club, the sea was like a vast plain, the sand belonged to lands that had never seen rain. The local sunshine had killed off any breezes and stowed them away in the dreary ice-cream receptacles.
After a while, Martusciello stopped thinking of himself as a husband, a father, and a grandfather, and had gained a new respect for certain land animals that were capable of reproducing without seeing the need to stick around afterwards.
The line for the swings had given him an indelible sense of melancholy and an uncomfortable realization: expectations for the future were deader than the stillborn breezes.
During the time he spent at the enchanting Ghiglia Resort, which he mentally referred to as Fanghiglia Resort — Bubbling Ooze Resort — he had half-persuaded himself that at least getting back to work would be a pleasure. He even expected to enjoy the morning commute on the ancient subway line, a term that was laughably applied to junkable train cars running on creaky old tracks.
But that's not the way it went.
The sticky brine of melancholy and relentless boredom had remained stuck to his heart, under his feet, and in the usual stab of pain on the right side of his body.
Upon his return, another inconvenience was joined to the long list of tiresome issues. The police captain found himself spending a week in the Ultramarine medical clinic, covered by his health plan, for the removal of a bodily appendage that he preferred not to discuss.
Laziness had been October's response. Walking the streets until he was ankle-deep in them no longer warmed his heart. He felt no interest in human beings, animals, the streetscapes of alleys, lanes, and piazzas, that reasoning of emotion and logic that had always induced him to undertake depositions and interrogations with the eagerness of a marathon runner.
Indignation had gone to ground and, with it, the desire to stage and restage the experience of life, like a stubborn village mule that only follows the route that it knows and yearns for, however unfashionable it may be.
His wife Santina, who was visibly rejuvenating for reasons unknown, gazed at him with a consummate love that plucked at his nerves.
"So tonight, again, you're not working, you're not going out?"
"I'm not going out."
"Why not?"
"You've tormented me for most of a healthy lifetime with your why aren't you staying in's and now you're starting on me with why aren't you going out's?"
"Do as you like."
As you like. Sure. There was nothing he liked, there was nothing that interested him. He just wanted to step out of the line for the swings.
Liguori made his way to Martusciello's office by a roundabout route through a series of corridors, in order to avoid running into Deputy Peppino Carità, who had informed one and all that he preferred to be addressed as Giuseppe Càrita — literally and precisely, with the accent weirdly on the first a instead of the last. This new development seemed to date back to the diction and acting course that he had taken recently.
Martusciello pretended to talk into the Bakelite telephone that had accompanied him in his migrations from one office to another.
Liguori made himself comfortable and conveyed, with hand gestures, that he really wasn't in a hurry. Then he gave the police captain one of his goofy half-smiles, which reckoned up the sum of annoyance added to mockery.
Martusciello jutted his chin in the direction of the telephone and waved his free hand in the air to say this may go on for some time. The detective spread out the other half of his smile to say I'm in no hurry, and then went over to the window and stood, looking out.
Even though it was nearly noon, the colors hadn't yet merged into the hot haze of muggy sunlight. The sea lay there, crystal clear, the tiny waves sweeping in toward the waterfront, topped with foamy white crests. Even at this distance, the dark blue was still blue, the white was still white. The ferry boats to the various islands boarded a few scattered foreign tourists. Liguori surveyed the improvised seamen's uniforms. He ran one hand over his linen shirt before sliding it into the pocket of his duck trousers, artfully wrinkled as they descended to meet the tops of his expensive leather shoes, which had cost as much as half of Giuseppe Càrita's monthly pay.
Martusciello broke off his phone conversation with a nonexistent colleague.
"Ah, gallant cavalier, a pleasure to see you!"
"Oh, it's been such a long time since I've been addressed by one of my rightful titles!"
Martusciello called Liguori cavalier, squire, proprietor of vast property, gentleman and scholar, prince, professor, count, and any other number of titles evocative of rank and learning. He liked to emphasize the fact that the detective had chosen to go into policework for his own amusement, not out of economic necessity or class affiliation.
Liguori's family had been members of the Neapolitan aristocracy for long centuries of sobriety and prestige, and Captain Martusciello spotlighted the sharp difference from his own birth by dragging out his s's and putting on working-class dialect and aspirations.
"What now?"
"Someone's been murdered, Vialdi, the singer."
"'O ssaccio. I know. What do you want me to do about it?"
"Captain, what do you mean, what do I want you to do about it? Did you get a new job and forget to tell me?"
"Unfortunately, I didn't, but the Vialdi headache belongs to Captain Malanò and his Fuorigrotta office. And you just wait and see, that case isn't going to be just his for long, because Vialdi and the way they found his body is going to prompt a general outbreak of rubbernecking. The same itch you're here scratching right now."
Deputy Peppino Carità, alias Giuseppe Càrita, walked into the office with a tray and a demitasse cup.
Martusciello gave every sign of dismay.
Carità ignored him, continuing to stride toward the desk in a contrived posture, every muscle straining to make him look taller.
Liguori laughed.
"Are you wearing elevator shoes? Lift your pants leg, let me see."
The deputy froze to attention.
"No elevator shoes, sir."
"Sir?" Martusciello walked toward him, took the tray out of his hands, and set it down on his desk. "Peppino, ever since you've started doing amateur theater, you've gone soft in the head. And why have you stopped making coffee yourself? Why do you order in from the bar?"
"Giuseppe, if you don't mind. There's no regulation currently in force requiring me to make coffee."
Martusciello halted his arm, balancing the coffee cup halfway to his lips.
"In force requiring? Do me a favor, Peppino, get the hell out of here."
The deputy bowed from the waist, turned, and left. Martusciello glanced at Liguori:
"Aren't you going with him?" The detective shook his head and raised an eyebrow. "Pity."
"Now then, Martusciello, Captain Malanò wants our collaboration, Vialdi had been living in Pozzuoli for the past few years. You're not going to answer me? Fine, that just means I'll draft a report for you on my meeting with Captain Malanò."
"Excellent, do just that. And draft it in duplicate, so I can make sure to ignore both copies."
CHAPTER 2Police Sergeant Blanca Occhiuzzi removed one of the earbuds that were driving Mozart right into the furthest corner of her brain.
She'd detected, in spite of the Mozart, a commotion out in the street, excessive even considering it was rush hour.
She lived in Fuorigrotta, across from the San Paolo Stadium, and she was accustomed to the sound of voices and cars, but that morning the noises outside indicated something out of the ordinary. She pulled the other earbud out of her other ear.
She made her way out to her balcony, and to her eyes the daylight was transformed into nothing more than a brighter shadow. She touched the railing, felt the warm metal. She leaned over.
She was on vacation, and she'd worked all summer long. In August Nini, her foster daughter, had left for London: fifteen years old and this was her first trip alone. Blanca had lost all appetite for vacation and solved a couple of cases instead.
She'd urged Nini to go, and now she was working overtime to compensate for eyes that knew only partial darkness. It wasn't reasonable.
The first night Nini was away, the sergeant went to sniff her pillow, the wisteria scent of Nini. The surviving senses had sharpened, and Blanca dominated the jurisdictions of sound, smell, and touch. She'd lost most of her sight and a great deal more in a fire when she was thirteen.
She sniffed at Nini's pillow. Then she promised herself that she wouldn't do it again.
"You and I have both lost too much already. There's no need to keep you from seeing everything you deserve to see, just so I can have a part of it."
The sergeant took advantage of Nini's absence to seek an assistant, something she'd never wanted before. She came to an agreement with Sergio Manzione, a twenty-something student from out of town. She'd chosen him for his irreverent manners; far better that than the usual unctuous pathos. She bought a compact car and began preparing to loosen her ties with Nini, at least in part.
The sounds from the street grew louder: sirens and screeching brakes and slamming car doors. From below the smell of gasoline and burning wafted up to her, gusts of the odor of frying mixed with the scent of rotting food. Blanca raised the sleeve of her sweater to cover the smell, then picked up the telephone, counted until she got to the speed dial button.
"Sergio, what's happening?"
"What do I know? I was asleep. Why don't you ask Nini?"
"Nini's at school. But don't you ever do any studying?"
"Don't even say it, Auntie, I ask myself the same thing all the time."
"Don't call me Auntie."
"Then you stop thinking about my failures in higher education. After all, what good's a degree in classical literature? Sheesh."
"Of course, they tied you up and blindfolded you when it was time to pick your major."
"What can I do for you, Blanca?"
"Come on by here, I have to go downstairs to see what's going on."
Sergio knocked on the door fifteen minutes later. Blanca ignored the arm that the young man offered her and they headed down the stairs.
The woman walked with soft footsteps. Her body seemed to sense obstacles before brushing against or past them. Blanca's beauty lay not in the individual parts, but in the composition of contrasts. Her voice was younger than she was. Her short hair emphasized the femininity of her features. The beautiful sensuous lips protected irregular, slightly protruding incisors; when they opened into a smile it was unclear whether they were offering a bite or a kiss.
"Stay close to me but don't touch me. I'll reach out for you."
"Ah, if they could only hear you now, Auntie!"
"Shut up. You make me nostalgic for my dog."
"And I love you too."
The two of them were out on the street. Sergio explained to Blanca that there were policemen everywhere and crowds of people.
The sergeant tilted her head back.
"They're saying that someone killed Jerry Vialdi, the singer. They found the dead body between one set of goalposts of the San Paolo Stadium. Take me to a policeman, but pick me one who looks intelligent."
"How on earth did you manage to pick all that out with all this hubbub?"
"I can read lips."
"Touché."
After talking with a detective from the Fuorigrotta police station, Blanca Occhiuzzi asked Sergio to take her to her office in Pozzuoli:
"Summer vacation is over."
CHAPTER 3Blanca said goodbye to Sergio and reminded him of when she would be ready to go home.
The sergeant waited for the car to drive away.
She wanted to be left alone. She told herself that she was paying for Nini's new independence with pieces of her own. She concluded it's worth it: that girl was a daughter to her, more of a daughter than any child delivered in the blood of prayers and curses.
She stunned herself with the salt waves and the tufa-stone coast of the old harbor.
She needed freedom before seeing Liguori again. They hadn't seen each other in the past thirty-seven days. The precise accounting was not merely a matter of adding up the length of their respective vacation days.
The detective had called his colleague twice during the month of August: I'm in Sicily, I'm in Ireland, and not much more. Blanca had smiled at that need for geographic coordinates and had settled in to wait. Liguori unsettled her, made her feel like leaving and staying. She sensed the danger of his voice: it penetrated into the furthest corners of her brain, almost like the music of Mozart.
The sergeant was a specialist at decoding sounds and intentions in wiretaps and environmental listening devices. She'd trained in Belgium; she'd had excellent teachers, nearly all of them sightless, and a natural predisposition for which she was in great demand.
It wasn't part of her occupational baggage that allowed her to recognize in Liguori's voice hesitation, elegance, refined sensuality, and a devastating blend of derision and gentleness from which she would be well advised to turn and flee.
Before walking through the main entrance she took a deep breath, straightened her summer dress, and briskly swung ankles and flat sandals. She couldn't wear heels, she needed to sense the difference between pebbles and pavement.
Giuseppe Càrita, as all his colleagues, with the exception of Martusciello, were now resigned to addressing him, met her in the lobby: "Sergeant," he intoned. He had been taking elocution lessons for some time. "You're looking particularly magnificent today."
"Thanks, Giuseppe, how are your theatrical studies coming along?"
"Blanca, with you I can talk the way it comes naturally to me, I've found my own personal paradise. How wonderful it is to become different people: kings, lawyers, peasants, sons of bitches, Garibaldi, and Aisauer."
"Who?"
"'Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.' Those are his words."
"Ah, Eisenhower. You're performing Eisenhower?"
"We're studying him in the auto repair shop where we rehearse. Our maestro ... you understand who the maestro is, don't you? He's the actor who does the commercial for OraPerOra, the diet pill."
"I can't seem to recall."
"Odd that you can't seem to recall, because he's famous. Anyway, our maestro takes pieces written and spoken by famous figures from history, blends them together in a phenomenal collage that only he could create, and has us recite them on Saturday evenings in front of relatives."
"His relatives?"
"No, ours. Modestly speaking, I help to bulk up the audience because I have two ... I have a large family. The maestro even offers me a discount, and lets me pay five euros instead of seven for the group ticket."
"Generous of him."
"I couldn't say if it's generous, because I already pay for the course, but True Art isn't cheap, as you know. And enjoying multiple lives is priceless."
Blanca had to agree.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Three, Imperfect Number"
by .
Copyright © 2012 Edizioni E/O.
Excerpted by permission of Europa Editions.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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