Vipers by Maurizio de Giovanni, Antony Shugaar Page A

activity at that time of the day to make it possible to get away with this thing in all the chaos. And I don’t think that anyone could make it from the kitchen into one of the bedrooms without being noticed.”
    Ricciardi stroked his chin pensively.
    â€œYou have a point, it would have been hard to pull off. And anyway, we have plenty of suspects to check out already, without going in search of new ones. Madame, for instance, mentioned that Ventrone has a son who is upset with his father over his obsession with the brothel. The son’s twenty; I think they would have seen him if he’d tried to get in, but he could have pretended to be a customer of one of the other girls. It should be checked out, don’t you think? At that hour, the shop would have been closed, so the young man would have been free to move, even if he’d have run the risk of being seen by his father.”
    Maione listened attentively.
    â€œAnd if you want me to tell you the truth, even that Lily strikes me as the kind who’ll say one thing but think another.”
    The commissario trusted Maione’s intuitions.
    â€œSo that’s the impression you got, eh? I thought there was something odd about her too, and the same goes for Yvonne . . . You know what I think, Raffaele? I think the time has come to open a crack in this wall. You should take a walk to see that girlfriend of yours, the one who knows everything about everybody.”
    Maione waxed indignant:
    â€œCommissa’, what are you talking about, what girlfriend! First of all, she’s not even a girl. And we’re certainly not friends: she . . . he owes me a favor because I didn’t throw him . . . her in jail when we first met, and . . .”
    Ricciardi raised both hands.
    â€œOh, for goodness’ sake, you’re right, my mistake. All right, go visit this old enemy of yours, this almost-ex-con, and see if she knows anything about what went on at Il Paradiso
 
when Viper was alive.”
    A metallic sound caught their attention: a man walking a little dog on a leash had dropped something into the blind musician’s metal tray. The accordionist, still playing with one hand, used the other to lift his dark glasses partway, and when he realized that what lay in the plate was a nail, not a coin, he cursed under his breath at the pedestrian who was walking away and then resumed his masquerade, with musical accompaniment.
    Maione called out in amusement.
    â€œWould you just look at that son of a bitch!”
    Ricciardi glanced at his watch.
    â€œI have to meet Modo at Gambrinus, otherwise he’ll tell anyone who’ll listen that I refused to buy him lunch. You go ahead and take your walk, we’ll meet back at the office.”
    Â 
    Rain or no rain, Gambrinus was still a destination for those who wanted to eat well without leaving the center of town, so the inside tables were all full.
    For that matter, however unpredictable the weather might be, it was by no means chilly, and so some tables had been put outside and piano music poured out the open windows; as a result Ricciardi found Modo sitting at the table most sheltered from the wind, raptly reading his newspaper and enjoying the view of pretty girls walking past. A few yards away, sitting up as usual, as if he might take off at a dead run at any moment, was the the dog with no name.
    â€œAh, there you are. I was just resigning myself to being stood up for the umpteenth time by you, my somber friend. But this time I would have forgiven you, because I like this new familiarity with the brothel. All right, for now it’s just work: but perhaps, over time, you’ll grow to like it and become a customer.”
    Ricciardi sat with his back to the street: the suicide went on murmuring, his face bloody:
Our café, my love, our café, my love
, and he knew that in time the litany would give him a splitting migraine.
    â€œI wouldn’t count on