I Will Have Vengeance by Maurizio de Giovanni, Anne Milano Appel Page A

Vezzi.
    â€œDo you mind telling me about this feeling of yours? I realize you’re getting old, but lately you’ve been having trouble maintaining your concentration.”
    â€œListen, I’m more alert at fifty-five than two consulting doctors of twenty-seven, and you know it. So then: remember I told you, there at the scene, about the ecchymosis under the left eye? We talked about a punch, a blow.”
    Ricciardi nodded.
    â€œHe was struck, hard. His cheekbone was actually fractured, not a big deal, but still, fractured.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œSo it’s not possible that a haematoma would be so circumscribed. Do you have any idea how little time it takes for a haematoma to form? From a blow of that kind? He should have had a balloon under his eye. Instead, there was just a little bruise.”
    â€œWhich means?”
    â€œWhich means—and I know you already know because I can see it in your eyes—that our great tenor, friend of the Ministers of the Fasces, damn him, was already dead when he was struck or had just a few seconds of breath left. His black heart wasn’t pumping out much anymore.”
    â€œYou know, Bruno, one of these days you’re going to get beaten up over those anti-fascist comments, I’m telling you.”
    Modo grinned broadly, his mouth full of pastry cream and coffee, which he had been wolfing down as he talked.
    â€œBut I have friends in the police!”
    â€œYeah, sure. So, he was already dead or dying. Then why would they have had to hit him, if he was already dead?”
    Ricciardi kept his eyes fixed on the doctor, who had his back to the window. Behind him, the little girl without a left arm, the marks of the tram wheels on her small battered chest, held out the bundle of rags to them: “This is my daughter. I feed her and bathe her.” The Commissario sighed.
    â€œIs something wrong?” Modo asked, noticing Ricciardi’s expression grow pained all of a sudden.
    â€œA hint of a migraine. Just a slight headache.”
    And a sea of despair, that attachment to life that no longer wants you, that moment when the hands cling to a prop before plunging into the void. “
This is my daughter. I feed her and bathe her
.” Dying under a tram, maybe to retrieve a stuffed rag doll that somehow ended up in the street. The sorrow. All that sorrow.
    â€œYou’re an odd duck, Ricciardi. The oddest there is, everyone says so. You know, people are afraid of your silences, your determination. It’s as if you want vengeance. But for what?”
    â€œLook, Doctor, I enjoy talking with you. You’re capable and decent. If you have something more to give, you give it, and that’s no small matter in these times. But don’t ask anything more of me, please, if you want me to continue talking to you.”
    â€œWhatever you say. I apologize. It’s just that, working together, one can’t help caring . . . you have a sorrowful expression at times. And I know sorrow, believe me.”
    No, you don’t know it, Ricciardi thought. You know wounds and expressions of grief. But not sorrow. That comes afterwards, and poisons the air you breathe. It leaves a kind of sickly-sweet stench that lingers in your nose. The putrefaction of the soul.
    â€œThank you, Doctor. Without you, I would have already killed myself. I’ll let you know if there are any developments in the investigation. One thing I’m curious about,” Ricciardi added as he stood up, “why did you tell me about the bruise and not Ponte, the clerk?”
    â€œBecause your pal Garzo wears a black suit, that’s why, whereas you . . . only your disposition is black. Pay the bill on your way out: a deal is a deal.”
    Â 
    Ricciardi found both Maione and Ponte waiting outside his office. He nodded at the Brigadier, ignoring the clerk. He entered the room followed by Maione, who took off his overcoat and was about to close the door