This Crumbling Pageant Page 17

The more he thought about the murder, the more brilliant it seemed.

  And how brilliant it must have seemed to the Italian! Kill the woman, race off with the painting, and let the mad married couple drown and claw at each other in its wake. Simple. He would have reckoned on Holly’s predicament, on her doubts, disbelief, and deep instinct to keep quiet. He might have even factored into his plan Scott’s own compromised position, and the unlikelihood Scott would go to the authorities with his zany story for fear of getting arrested himself and being sent before a high-profile kangaroo court.

  Scott could picture Janet’s apartment, the air floury with powder, every surface coated in a fine, white fingerprint dust—with his greasy prints all over the place. He could hear Gemma, the maid, giving her statement to the intelligent-looking detective he had passed on the stairs, telling him about the strange American boy, about how he’d stopped coming all of a sudden, about the missing oil painting.

  When dawn arrived, it was dark and atmospheric. Holly was in the bathroom dry heaving. Scott returned to the bedroom as she was getting back into bed.

  “Holly?”

  “Pucci,” she mumbled, drawing the comforter around her.

  “What?”

  “Pucci.”

  “You want me to walk the dog?”

  A noise, unintelligible.

  At first, they had shared the task of taking the dog out for walks, often going together. But as time went on, and as Scott grew bored, it was just Holly. After that, she and the dog began to bond in ways that felt exclusive. The pet became officially hers, then.

  Right on schedule, the dog appeared, entering the bedroom softly. He sat beside the bed, pointing his nose up toward the slumbering form of his master. Scott watched him. Though still technically a puppy, he was fast growing into the small, beetle-browed, stout-chested, stump-tailed, smiling, fang-toothed terrier mix that he was. They had never agreed upon a name. Holly called him Pucci, a play on Poochie and Puccini, while Scott—to irritate Holly—preferred to call him Luca.

  Pucci Luca continued to wait beside the bed. Then he must have gleaned the situation, because he looked up at Scott. For a minute, the two simply stared at each other. Thunder punctuated the silence. Scott enjoyed these wordless exchanges with him. He enjoyed making the animal wait for a change. Holly fussed over him too much—his moods, his diet, his walks. She had, he felt, raised the dog to be somewhat of a sissy. Pucci Luca never rushed the food bowl, like most dogs, but ate daintily and sometimes only after great coaxing and games of charades. He never peed freely, like a real man, but only in droplets, here and there, hither and thither, spreading his scent with agonizing deliberation. The spoiling had worried Scott slightly, because it was his only glimpse of what Holly would be like as a mother. Unfortunately, it also prompted him to take the opposite tack with the dog, treating him more roughly than he otherwise would have.

  Scott shuffled back into the living room, overwhelmed. He felt betrayed on so many levels it was sadistic.

  The room darkened. More thunder rumbled beyond the distant hills. The dog came tapping to his side.

  “So, you wanna go for your walk, huh?”

  The word “walk” caused the dog to jump to attention.

  “God forbid we mess with your sacred schedule.”

  Pucci Luca cocked his head, alert and quizzical. Scott gave a sad little laugh and caved in. The poor creature looked so pitiful, the way it was making a good-faith effort to comprehend the important meaning in his petty comment. Why torment it?

  On the ground floor, Scott stood back and opened the door to the street. Pucci Luca started walking outside. Scott panicked and brusquely tightened the leash. The dog choked, then looked back at him in astonishment.

  “Just one second, boy…”

  From what he could see, everything appeared normal. Directly across the street, a gray cat crouched in the window of a pale yellow house and watched them spryly. Then a car went by. Then nothing. Then a big bus and a scooter. Then nothing again. It was a normal, dismal, workaday morning.

  “Okay,” he croaked. “Let’s go.”

  They stepped out onto the sidewalk, under threatening skies.

  Scott looked left. Then right. Then way up to the rooftop terraces. He imagined carabinieri, in helmets and flak jackets, rappelling down on him. He anticipated the knife, as Luca in a ski mask strode up and stabbed him in the side.

  The dog had marched off to the right. Scott, however, wanted to head for cover under the nearest arcade, to the left. He made a motion that way, but Pucci Luca put on the brakes. His strong front legs locked up, and his mighty little chest slanted back so that the leash was taut. He looked like a fisherman patiently fighting a giant marlin. Scott tugged on the leash to test his resolve. Pucci Luca raised his eyebrows and resisted in equal measure, not so much to be confrontational, as to show his insistence.

  “Come on.” Scott tugged again. “Let’s go!” He pulled, putting some muscle into it. This time the dog stumbled forward, but instantly locked into position again. A standoff. Yet even in the midst of it, the puppy’s nose was busily sniffing the wind. Since Scott didn’t have the heart to drag around by the neck a skidding terrier, and since he assumed Pucci Luca was used to a certain routine when he went for walks with Holly, he felt he had no choice but to let him lead.

  With one stipulation. “But just a quick walk. Okay, boy?”

  The dog seemed to agree.

  But oh, it was agony to have to stand around and wait, plastic bag in hand, as he nosed the ground in endless little circuits, or stopped to lift his shaggy leg over every stray leaf and sprig of litter along the way, only to pipette two or three trembling drops of urine onto each.

  The dog seemed to have a specific list of places and objects he was monitoring. A plastic trash bin. A stinky alley by a butcher’s shop. A certain signpost which he couldn’t get enough of, couldn’t stop investigating with his rubbery nose. It was a No Dogs Allowed sign, except in Italy they make the message especially pathetic by putting it in the dog’s own words: I Am Not Allowed, with an illustration of a dog on it.

  “Come on, you stupid mutt.”

  And of course the walk was taking Scott exactly where he didn’t want to go. Straight up Santo Stefano toward the heart of town. Toward people. Too many people to keep an eye on.

  “Ciao,” a friendly voice fluted behind him.

  He spun around spooked, ready to punch the person’s lights out. It was a middle-aged woman on her cell phone. Part of him still wanted to punch her.

  The street opened up at the intersection of several broad avenues, cars tucked into every conceivable nook and cranny. Down one avenue were some trees.

  “Don’t you want to go there?” Scott asked, as the dog towed him purposefully in the opposite direction, chugging west down a street called Via de Chiari.

  A dry fountain. A wrought-iron sewer grate. A potted juniper outside a Communist bar filled with old people. These were the little landmarks that mapped out Pucci Luca’s dog world. This being Italy, it was often the case that one of these little landmarks stood in the steep shadow of some noted landmark of the human world: a battle-scarred archway; the Gothic customs house. But nothing could induce Pucci Luca to raise his canine head from the many-splendored riches of the concrete barrier below.

  They zigzagged through a short sequence of alleys, stopping only for the dog to poop next to a transplanted tree in a small court. Scott disposed of it and tried to gaze over the bluff house fronts huddled around him. He couldn’t get his bearings, but he sensed the immense presence of the Piazza Maggiore close by. Bologna wasn’t that big, and anywhere near the main square was too close to the scene of the crime for comfort. As it was, he could probably lob a baseball from where he stood and smash Janet’s window.

  Very near the main square was a tiny grid of ancient Roman roads, called Il Quadrilatero. In the early hours its cramped streets abounded in butchers, fruit and vegetable seller
s, fishmongers, cheese-mongers. This was where the wealthiest inhabitants of the city went to market. The smells made Scott sick.

  He and the dog passed the last of the stalls, with its strung-up pheasants and hares and skinned frogs. Scott looked up and stopped to observe the unusual weather. A storm system was sweeping in. The elements were in cahoots. The wind was rising with the gathering clouds. They should head back now.

  Pucci Luca was sniffing under a door of one of the houses wedged together. Scott stared at the novel door knocker, a bronze, crusty Medusa head.

  It would not have been difficult for Luca to get into Janet’s building. Half the time the entrance was wide open. Nor, for that matter, would it have been difficult to get into the apartment.

  Luca Gallo would’ve rapped bam bam bam on her door, then waited for Janet to open it a crack before stiff-arming his way in.

  Luca San Michele would have taken a different approach. His boyish smile alone would have blown down the door.

  Once inside, however, both Lucas would have been surprised by Janet’s swift footwork. They would have had to chase her down. They would have left evidence of a struggle, as evidenced by the damaged birdcage on the floor.

  Scott thought about the cockatiels. He supposed the cops would take custody of them. Janet was one of those people with no family. This sad fact lent to her life (now that it was over) a kind of loner heroism. The plants, though… All those plants in the apartment would die.

  Pucci Luca continued to sniff under the door. Some dog must live there, Scott thought numbly. Medusa was gaping at him as if aghast. Then lightning flashed, and Scott looked up just in time to see a skeletal bolt fork the earth. Then the sky began to fizz like a wick and went off with a rich crack that spread helter-skelter throughout the heavens, bouncing off airy crags. Somewhere nearby, a heavy bell clanged eight times with a deafening vengeance. Above, a burly-limbed woman came out onto her frail balcony and started gathering her laundry.

  Pucci Luca was staring up at Scott obediently.

  “Oh, so you’re ready to go back now, are you?”

  There was no dawdling as they retraced their steps home. They kept a brisk pace, into the wind. Pucci Luca walked abreast, his legs a tidy flutter. Every now and then Scott would look over without slowing down and smile, grateful, and the dog would look back, panting happily over those flickering feet.

  “Good Luca.”

  They crossed over to a traffic island, to a bike rack that looked like modern sculpture with its stylish tangle of bicycle metal. Across the street on one side was a newsstand. Scott was dying to read what they were saying about Janet. He fastened the leash to the rack and scuttled over to buy the morning paper. Then he tucked it under his arm and returned to his dog. When they got home, Scott locked the door and scoured the paper while Pucci Luca ran loose through the apartment. The rain came down in a torrent.

  20

  Scott was waiting at a table outside a working-class café. It was in a backwater off the ritzy Via dell’ Indipendenza, in the northern quarter. Over the portico hung an Italian flag that after many summers had faded into an Irish flag.

  When his tutor showed up, she noticed Pucci Luca sitting under the table. She greeted him with a cheery buon giorno and a pat on the head. Scott blew smoke out of the corner of his mouth and crushed his cigarette in the ashtray. “Hey, Daniela,” he said. “Please, sit.” She was about to reprimand him, but he preempted her. “I need to speak English. Alright?”

  She became serious and took a seat, putting her backpack on the ground. “Okay.”

  “Thanks for meeting me here.”

  “It’s okay. How is your wife?”

  “She still has a fever. I took her to the hospital yesterday, but all they did was give her some aspirin. She’s fine. She’d kill for some American medicine, though.” He picked another cigarette from his pack and waved at the daily specials chalked on a hanging blackboard. “Order lunch if you want, on me. I’m just going to smoke, if it doesn’t bother you. I’m not prepared for our lesson this week. A woman I knew died recently—”

  “Oh I’m so sorry!”

  “Thank you.” He lit the cigarette. “Actually, we weren’t very close. Anyway, I’ve been trying to read about her in the paper, but I’m having a hard time with the Italian.”

  “Ah.” Daniela gave a knowing nod. “For non-native speakers, journalism is the most difficult Italian to understand.”

  Scott took from his lap a folded newspaper, the latest edition of Il Resto del Carlino. He slid it across the table, turned it around for her, and gave it a hard tap. “Here. This article right here. I can understand some of it, but certain phrases I can’t make any sense out of.”

  Daniela bent her studious head over the little article. Janet’s demise was not what you would call a hot item. With no family to raise a fuss, no bereaved to rouse public sympathy, only the local daily was covering it. They had run two stories: an initial one reporting the death, and this short follow-up three days later.

  Pucci Luca plunked down awkwardly on Scott’s feet and took a nap. If Holly hadn’t gotten sick, Scott and the dog could have gone on forever and their relationship might never have developed past a nodding acquaintance. But after taking care of the animal for only a few days, Scott could already say it was the light of his life. After that first walk, Pucci Luca had shown himself more open to suggestions when they went out again in the evening, so Scott introduced him to a park, which he had newly discovered from a satellite photo of the city. It had been in their backyard the whole time. Trees, water, room to run, and dogs of all shapes and sizes. Pucci Luca was an instant convert.

  Daniela’s mop of black hair bobbed en masse in the breeze. She finished reading and clucked her tongue. “Che peccato!”

  “It is a pity,” he agreed. He reached forward and put his finger on a bit of print. “Who is this guy?”

  “The Examining Magistrate?”

  “Right, what is he? A detective or a lawyer?”

  “Both. He’s the one in charge of the investigation, and also the prosecutor if they catch someone.”

  “And what’s he saying?”

  She bent her head down again. “Here he is saying the autopsy report confirms that the death is suspicious—”

  Scott gave a graveyard laugh. Either the police were being careful around the media, or they were, as Janet might have said, a bunch of dumbasses.

  Daniela continued, “And they are still looking for a ‘person of interest.’”

  Scott chased his coffee with a shot of sparkling water. “Yeah. I already figured that part out. And the medico legale? That’s the coroner?”

  “Yes. It says the doctor determined that the victim suffered a fatal … How do you say? A ‘hit’ to the head. He also says the neck was broken, but he believes this happened after she died.”

  “Nothing about a murder weapon?”

  Her “no” was drowned out by a boom overhead.

  Scott’s first thought was: terrorist attack. The people outside cemented, squinting at the flawless sky as it rippled with the noise. It had been a sound more large than loud. Daniela turned in her chair and consulted with the table next to them, speaking in an Italian far removed from the one she used in her lessons with Scott. A man responded at length in a soothing voice. Scott heard him say something about “cowboys.” Daniela and the man ended the conversation laughing.

  She turned back with a smile. “It’s nothing. There is a US military base in Vicenza, and sometimes a pilot flies by in a jet and breaks the sound barrier. It’s illegal, but they do it anyway.”

  Scott sat back and exhaled. Car alarms were going off far and wide, and every dog in the neighborhood was advertising its presence with a sustained howl. But not the mute Pucci Luca. He had migrated close to Scott’s side and was looking up as if awaiting emergency instructions. Scott scratched him on both sides of his greasy muzzle.

  “Ooh, I love this fucking pu
ppy!”

  &

  After leaving Daniela, Scott hotfooted it south down the wide thoroughfare. And it was a poor sanctuary he was fleeing to, a refuge as oppressive in its own way as the outside.

  Holly had become in his mind almost an enemy now. An enemy he had to nurse back to health. But it was murkier than that. The day before, for instance, she was kneeling on the bathroom tiles, weeping and shivering into the toilet, naked except for her underwear, and Scott was holding her hair, when suddenly his hands let go and he backed away, looking at her body with a beady eye. The feline shape, the milky breast, the puckered nipple. The loathsome sexuality. Her legs were tucked together and he stared at the little ass in the air, in hiphugger panties, with a kind of repulsion blended with lust.

  He cut down a bystreet, Pucci Luca goose-stepping before him. He thought about divorce. And not for the first time the idea led him straight to his parents. Strange, but they seemed to be what worried him most about it—having to tell them, and then hear their disappointment that he had failed in yet another aspect of his life, fucked up the one positive, the one thing he had going for him. They adored Holly. Yes, his parents would be disappointed. But not surprised. For despite all their hopes and wishful thinking, they expected as much from him.

  The dog leash swayed, the collar jingled. The street had become rather gloomy, passing behind apartment buildings. Scott heard a car rolling up from behind. Instinctively, he shortened the leash and started hugging the wall.

  He was reminiscing about the first time Holly had come with him to a family gathering. He remembered hearing from another room his relatives erupt into laughter—a rhythm, a cocktail of sounds indescribably intimate and dear to him. And it was so odd and sweet to pick out from it Holly’s own distinct laugh. It broke his heart then and now.

  Brakes squeaked next to him.

  “Scusi,” a voice called out.

  Scott froze, then looked at the unmarked car out of the corner of his eye. There were two men in suits. He would tell them everything, everything he knew. He would explain he’d been too frightened to come forward.