Tobias Jones - The Salati Case

‘How do you mean?’

‘Looks like you’ve got something nasty on your skin.’ I pointed my chin towards her forearms.

‘Yeah, well…’

‘Injecting?’

She threw her hands upwards in admission and I got a closer view of the needles’ damage. I looked at her face again: if she had washed her hair since the turn of the century she could have been quite cute.

‘How long have you been using?’

‘A few years.’ She shrugged.

‘Every day?’

‘Never miss one,’ she said bitterly.

‘Who are you buying from?’ I asked.

She didn’t say anything.

‘With respect,’ I said, ‘I’ve had tougher assignments than shadowing a junkie.’ She shrugged and I pulled out a note from my back pocket. She looked at it like a starving man might look at a plate of food.

‘Lo Squarcione, right?’

She looked at me scared now. ‘Who are you?’ She still hadn’t taken the note. She must have thought I was an undercover.

‘I’m a private,’ I explained.

She took the note and I told her to go find Lo Squarcione. I didn’t like paying for her habit, but I didn’t suppose it made any difference. I followed her round the back of the station and within minutes she had gone up to a thirty-something man and started talking. They disappeared round a corner for a minute, just enough time to get the camera out. Someone like Lo Squarcione doesn’t like to be away from the shop for too long.

He came back without the girl. He looked the opposite of the kind of dealer I’m used to. He dressed like one of the boys: a tight leather jacket and trousers with too many pockets. He could have been an undergraduate with his raffish sideburns and air of the institutionalised rebel.

I pulled my camera up to my eye and got a shot just as the man was reaching into his pocket to find a lighter. The traffic suddenly cleared and I saw his hollow cheekbones and pressed the shutter. I kept my finger down, but the traffic cut off my view again.

I looked at the shots on the screen and zoomed in on the face. Up close it was mean. The scar made him look dangerous. His black hair was gelled up and his eyes were prematurely wrinkled.

Two Moroccans under a tree were looking at me with suspicion.

‘What?’

They didn’t say anything.

‘You selling grass?’ I asked them.

They looked at me as if they hadn’t understood. They were good at pretending not to understand. I held out a fifty, and nodded eagerly. Neither of them moved. They weren’t going to deal in daylight to a man with a telephoto. ‘Take it,’ I urged. ‘You haven’t seen me, OK?’

‘Va bene, va bene,’ one of them said, as if talking to himself.

I phoned Dall’Aglio. One of his operatives answered the phone. Eventually Dall’Aglio came on the line spitting blood.

‘Was that you?’

‘What?’

‘We got an anonymous tip-off an hour or two ago. Called to a house that was turned upside down.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ I said quickly. ‘I’m sorry I went in unauthorised, but I’ve got a case to wrap up from fourteen years ago. You find anything?’

‘Nothing but a mess. You broke into a private dwelling and left the door open for anyone to enter.’

‘I didn’t break in. Sandro Tonin’s partner invited me inside.’

‘Really. So where is she?’

I didn’t say anything.

‘The defence will have a field day with your operational procedure. Even if we do find something, we’ll be accused of planting it. That’s the problem with you privates. You’re not seen as orthodox, honourable people for some reason.’

‘Stop bleating. You need to find the girl. She was with me just now and was playing along, all cooperative. Gave me a story about Sandro’s alibi that Wednesday night, said he had gone to see some random pusher from the station. If she was stringing me along she will have alerted him by now. She’s called Marzia Colombi.’

Dall’Aglio was listening and I could hear his teeth grinding.

‘Have you brought in Sandro?’ I asked.

‘No, not yet.’

‘He’s not around?’

‘Left his office in a hurry minutes before we arrived.’

‘He’s been tipped off. Find Colombi, she’ll know where he is. Something else. I’ve got a photograph of someone called Lo Squarcione who’s come on my radar. I need a bit of background.’

‘Lo Squarcione?’

‘You know him?’

‘Yeah, I know him,’ Dall’Aglio said.

‘What line’s he in?’

‘Delivery.’

‘Of what?’

‘What do you think?’ The carabiniere sounded confused. ‘What’s Lo Squarcione got to do with this?’

‘I’ve no idea. Is he one of yours?’

Dall’Aglio didn’t say anything. Most of the petty dealers working in the open air had been picked up so many times by the carabinieri that eventually they started to get to know each other passing well.

‘We know who he is,’ Dall’Aglio said. ‘We’re watching him very closely and we don’t want a poacher in the woods, you understand?’

‘How long have you been watching him?’ Watching was police-speak for letting Lo Squarcione lie. Letting everyone lie. It was an old habit. ‘How long have you kept tabs on him?’

‘Goes back years.’

‘What about ’95. Was he on the radar then?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘So why don’t you clear him out? He’s dealing shit to every teenager this side of Reggio and you just let him carry on.’

Dall’Aglio was riled and started defending his force. ‘He’s one we have to leave in position.’

‘Why?’

‘We just do.’

‘And you say us privates aren’t honourable.’ I felt better once I had returned the insult. Dall’Aglio wasn’t going to say it out loud, but it was clear enough. Lo Squarcione must have been informing on his friends, helping police with their enquiries. If he looked tense it was because he was a squealer. It gave me a lever and I intended to use it.

I checked my gun under my armpit and watched Lo Squarcione for the next few minutes. People kept coming up to him and they would disappear off together into a block of flats and come out separately a minute later. He was making decent money, that was for sure: probably ten or twenty every five minutes.

I was about to go up to him when he walked off towards a moped. He had pulled on his helmet and sped off before I had time to take the number plate. It didn’t look like he knew he was being watched. I guessed he needed a safe-house for his earnings.

I saw him head south and ran back to my car. It had a parking ticket, which I ripped off. I pulled a U-turn in front of three buses of impatient shoppers. Whatever else happened in this city, people would always buy frocks on a Saturday. Not even a war would stop it.

I caught up with Lo Squarcione as he was turning left just before the tangenziale . I backed off and watched the moped pull into the Blue Camel. It was a strip joint by night, one of those places where lonely men go to be reminded how lonely they are.

By day it looked like a grim building, the kind that can only look enticing under neon. The front doors were locked. I walked round the side and through an open fire door. It led into a black corridor. I couldn’t see anything, and felt along the wall for a handle. I found one that led into a larger, lighter room. There were voices from the floor above and I found the stairs and walked up quietly.

I saw him at the far end of the room flanked by a couple of heavies.

‘Squarcione!’ I shouted like an old buddy.

I sat down opposite him but the two men were immediately at my elbows.

‘What do you want?’ One of the bruisers said, pulling me up hard by my hair. He was a shaven-headed nut with a thick nose.