Gianrico Carofiglio - Reasonable Doubts

It was a dirty little room with a single little door of flaking wood, on the side facing the street. The grimy walls were bare apart from two football posters: one showing the Bari team in the good old days, another with Roberto Baggio in a blue shirt, in the middle of a game.

I finished my beer in another two swigs. Tonino opened another and gave it to me. “Do you know how to play for beer, Avvocato?”

I took a long swig of the second beer. I noticed a packet of red Marlboros on the table and had the impulse to take one. I don’t know how, and I don’t know why, I didn’t. To be honest, I’ve never really known why I quit smoking.

I turned to Tonino. “A little. I played it in the army, with guys from Iapigia and San Pasquale.”

“So play with us. It’s not too late to join in.”

A great idea. We were practically in the street. Someone I knew could easily pass and see me, without a tie, surrounded by some of the biggest crooks in the area. Getting drunk on beer, belching and arguing and quarrelling about the strategy of the game. It might end up in a brawl, there’d be knives involved, and with a bit of luck I’d spend the night in a police holding cell. A perfect trajectory.

“Let’s play,” I replied, feeling a thrill go through me, and thinking, what the hell.

I played with them for a couple of hours, drank a lot of beers, and left when everyone else did. I was drunk, like all the others, and I felt light-headed and free.

When we said goodbye, everyone was very friendly to me. Almost affectionate. It was as if I had got through some kind of initiation ritual with flying colours. A guy with a belly so big it looked fake actually embraced me and kissed me on the cheeks. I felt the rubbery touch of his belly against me. He smelled of beer, cigarette smoke and sweat.

“You’re a great guy, Avvocato,” he said before turning and staggering away.

I also staggered away and somewhere on the way home I started to sing. I sang old songs from the Seventies. There must be a meaning to everything that was happening to me, I thought.

Fortunately I was too drunk to figure out what it was.

I entered the courtroom after a glance at the sheet of paper fixed to the door, with the list of cases that would be heard that morning.

There was the usual menu – petty thefts, building violations, receiving stolen goods – which would be dealt with at the rate of one case a minute, with the presiding judge giving black looks to the defence counsels and even the prosecutor if they dared utter one word more than was strictly necessary. Which was two or three words more than silence.

Mine was apparently the only case where the defendant was in prison, so it should have had precedence. Should have, but in fact they took them as they came.

It was nine-thirty, in other words, the time when the session was supposed to begin. Obviously there was no one there yet. I’d tried to get there on time because I like deserted courtrooms, and sitting there without doing anything helps me to concentrate. I like the sense of anticipation. It’s like the way you feel when you leave home early in the morning and there’s nobody about yet. When you sit down in a bar near the sea, have your coffee and wait, and the streets gradually fill and you’re very aware of everything and you feel as if you’re part of something fleeting yet eternal.

Sitting down on the bench in a deserted courtroom gives me a similar feeling. You feel you’re part of something. Something important, something pure and ordered.

Not to worry, though. The feeling quickly vanishes – about a quarter to ten, if I have to specify a time – when the courtroom starts to fill up.

“Hey, Guerrieri. What did you do, sleep here?”

See what I mean?

The voice, wavering between a dubious Italian and Bari dialect, belonged to Castellano. I could never remember his first name. His clients were exclusively thieves – all kinds: car thieves, burglars, pickpockets, bag snatchers – and small-time drug dealers. He had been a colleague of mine at university, which didn’t mean that we’d been anything remotely resembling friends, since there were more than a thousand students registered on the course.

Short and stocky, with a neck like a bull, almost completely bald apart from the wisps of hair tumbling over his ears. There were more wisps of hair visible above his shirt collar, which was always unbuttoned, just as his tie was always askew.

He wasn’t exactly the kind of person you could chat to about Emily Dickinson or the aesthetic question in Thomas Aquinas. Every other word he spoke was “fuck” and during the pauses between cases – and even while the cases were being heard – he liked to advertise his erotic fantasies about whichever member of the opposite sex was within his field of vision. He wasn’t exactly discriminating: trainees, secretaries, magistrates and defendants could all be the objects of his not very romantic dreams. It didn’t matter if they were beautiful or ugly, young or old.

I replied with a vague smile, hoping he would be content with that and praying that he didn’t decide to sit next to me and start a conversation. My prayers weren’t granted. He put his briefcase down on the bench and sat down, panting.

“How’s it going, Guerrieri? Everything OK?”

I said yes, thanks, everything was fine. As I said this I rummaged in my briefcase, pretending to be busy. It was a vain attempt: Castellano didn’t even notice. He started telling me that he had a case being heard this morning involving two old clients of his who had been given four years each for a series of bag snatches. He asked me if I knew who the judges were going to be. If they were good he’d go ahead with the appeal, if not he would plea-bargain. I told him who the judges were and he thought about it for a moment, then said it wasn’t worth taking a risk with them. He would plea-bargain, that way he’d get it over with quickly. And what did I have on for this morning?

Oh, a drug trafficker? How much had he got at his trial? Sixteen years? Fuck, what had he done to get sixteen years? Who the fuck was he, the head of the Medellin cartel? Anyway, who the fuck cares who these bastards are as long as they pay?

Having exhausted the topic of our respective cases, Castellano changed the subject. “Guerrieri, you know I’ve got a broadband connection in my office now? It’s incredible, you can even download films.”

I was pretty sure I knew what kind of films Castellano downloaded.

“Yesterday I downloaded this porn movie you wouldn’t believe. Then a client came in and while he was talking I was watching the film. With the sound off, obviously.”

Then he explained in detail, in case I wasn’t a man of the world, the use he made of these films, when there was no one around to piss him off, in the office or at home. And the ideal thing was a laptop, you could even have it with you when you were in bed, I don’t know if I’m making myself clear.

I’ll be good, I said in my head. If someone or something arrives right now to save me from this pervert, I swear I’ll be good. I’ll eat my spinach, I won’t say bad words, I won’t let off stink bombs in the catechism class any more.

This time my wish was granted. His mobile phone rang and he moved away to answer it.

A couple of minutes later – it was now ten – the assistant prosecutor entered the courtroom.

Montaruli. He was good. Before being transferred to the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, he’d been a front-line assistant prosecutor for many years, responsible for the arrest and conviction of hundreds of common criminals and white-collar thieves. Some of them had been my clients.

It wasn’t a job you could do for too long. Everyone has a breaking point, when you realize you’ve had enough. It had happened to him, too, and so, having passed fifty, he had decided to have an easier life in the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. An office where – how shall I put this? – no one kills themselves with work.