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

when the clerk stuck his head in.
    â€œExcuse me, sir, but I don’t want to get in any trouble. Vice Questore Garzo said that you were to see him the very minute you came in. He didn’t even go out to lunch!”
    â€œIf it’s so urgent that he talk with the Commissario, why doesn’t he come here himself?” Maione asked sarcastically.
    â€œAre you crazy,
Brigadie’
? That one only leaves the office to go and see the signor Questore! Please, sir, I beg you, don’t make me get me in trouble.”
    â€œI’m busy right now, Ponte, I’m conducting an investigation, as the Vice Questore knows—or should know. If he has any information that can help me, have him send it to me. If not, let him put it in writing that I should go and see him instead of doing my job. He himself told me to set everything else aside.”
    Ponte gave a long sigh. “All right, sir, I understand. I’ll tell him what you said, may God help me. As you wish.”
    When the clerk left, Maione sat down and pulled out a notebook.
    â€œSo then. Vezzi stayed at the Vesuvio, on the waterfront, the same hotel he always stays at whenever he comes to Naples. They arrived the evening of the twenty-first, by train, he and Bassi, the secretary. The hotel staff hated him—so what else is new. They say he chewed out anyone who came within sight, nothing ever satisfied him, and so on. However, nothing unusual happened, there were no quarrels that would suggest that anyone might do something. The dress rehearsal was scheduled for six o’clock on Monday, the twenty-third. Vezzi left the hotel at four and went straight back late in the evening, after the rehearsal. The doorman remembers him well, because he asked him if he needed a carriage and he told him to mind his own business. Yesterday, instead, he left at six to go to the theater, and was wearing a long black coat, the one we’ve seen, a broad-brimmed hat, also black, and a white wool scarf which he used to shield his face from the wind. When the doorman wished him good luck, Vezzi made
corna
at him and gave him a dirty look. That’s everything. Oh, by the way: the hotel is right on the sea.”
    Ricciardi had listened closely, his hands clasped in front of his mouth and his eyes never leaving Maione.
    â€œWhat time are they due to arrive, the manager and Vezzi’s wife?”
    â€œTwo hours from now, at Mergellina station,” Maione said, checking his wristwatch.
    â€œAll right then, send Bassi in. There’s something I need to understand.”

XVIII
    V ezzi’s secretary appeared, dapper and elegant as always; hair neatly parted in the centre, freshly shaved, gold-rimmed glasses that he nervously kept adjusting on his nose.
    â€œShould I be worried, Commissario? I’m not a suspect, am I? I’ll remind you that I spent the evening sitting next to the theater director, in the front row.”
    Ricciardi made a slight wave of annoyance, as if to chase away an insect.
    â€œNo, Bassi. I wouldn’t say so. But there is one thing I’d like to know. You said that, to please Vezzi, an assistant had to ‘be able to disappear at the right moment, leaving him free.’ Explain it to me more clearly. What does that mean, exactly?”
    Bassi seemed caught off guard. He adjusted his glasses on his nose with his right index finger.
    â€œExactly? Well, in practical terms it means that the Maestro insisted on . . . well, discretion. You had to understand him even before he spoke, like all individuals endowed with a big ego.”
    â€œLook, Bassi, I asked you a specific question. Believe me, we’re not in a convent here; there’s nothing we haven’t heard in this place. I know you meant something by it and I demand that you tell me what it was.”
    Bassi instantly lost his self-confidence. He went on speaking in a submissive tone.
    â€œThe Maestro had his weaknesses. Who doesn’t? He was a