A Mortal Terror (16 page)

“You were beaten by someone who knew what they were doing,” I said, walking around the table to look at Inzerillo from all angles. “Somebody who took his time, who wanted to inflict as much pain as possible, and still leave you conscious. He broke your fingers, cracked your ribs, worked on your face, but didn’t hit you in the head. Or your mouth, so he wouldn’t have pieces of your teeth in his fist. A connoisseur of pain, a man who enjoyed his work.”

“I fell down the stairs,” Inzerillo said in his thick accent. If he could have moved his face more, he would have sneered.

“A man who might come back,” I said.

“When did you fall down these stairs?” Luca asked him as he holstered his pistol and then removed the shells from the shotgun.

“Last week, I don’t remember.
Venerdì?
”

“Did anyone see you fall down the stairs last Friday?” Luca asked. Inzerillo shook his head. “Where were your men, your bodyguards?”

“Ask them, if you can find the bastards!”

“What was the argument about?” I asked.

“I told you, I fell down the stairs. Am I under arrest?” He sounded hopeful.

“No, Signor Inzerillo,” Luca said with a sigh. “We have nothing to arrest you for. Clumsiness is not a crime. Gentlemen, do you have any other questions?”

“Talk to us off the record, Inzerillo,” I said, pulling up a chair and sitting across from him. The stand-up interrogation was not going to work, so why not try the one-guy-to-another technique? “We know a GI did this to you. Just tell us what you know about him and we’ll keep it quiet.”

“I do not know you,” Inzerillo said. “So I don’t trust you.”

“He is the nephew of General Eisenhower,” Luca said. Inzerillo rolled his eyes. The eye I could see, I should say.

“Were these the damages Lieutenant Landry came back to pay for?” I said, gesturing at his face and hands.

“The lieutenant never paid me for anything.”

“You knew Landry?”

“Sure. He has a favorite girl. Always trying to get her to quit, but she makes too much money. I think she breaks his heart.”

“What about a doctor, Max Galante? Or an army priest, Father Dare?” The chaplain had said he never came here, but a pistolpacking priest deserved a bit of distrust.

“We have a doctor who takes care of the girls, but his name is not Galante. And priests do not come here, thank God. What is Landry going to pay me for?” The wheels had started to turn in his beaten, larcenous head.

“One of Sergeant Flint’s men broke up the place?”

“No. Only I have been broken.”

“Falling down the stairs.” He nodded, as if I’d finally figured it out. “You know Landry’s sergeants? Gates, Flint, Stump, Walla?”

“Louie Walla from Walla Walla,” Inzerillo said. “Louie likes to have fun. Sure I know them, I know many GIs. It is my job to help them relax, to enjoy
vino
and
amore
.”

“What you sell here is not fit to be called either,” Luca said. “Come, he is not worth our time.”

“You sure you won’t let us help you?” I asked, giving it one last try. He laughed, coughed, and winced again.

“Thank you for your cooperation, Signor Inzerillo,” Kaz said. “It will be duly noted in our report.”

“What do you mean,
Inglese?
”

“I am Polish, Signor, but I do wear the British uniform proudly. What I mean is that we will report to the Army Criminal Investigation Division, and to the Third Division headquarters, that you have fully cooperated and an arrest of the soldier who attacked you is imminent.”

“Huh?” Inzerillo said, trying to follow Kaz. “
Imminente?
”

“Yes, imminente. You should probably give the Signor his shotgun shells back, Tenente. He may need them.”

“No, you wouldn’t. It is a death sentence, and I am an innocent man!”

“I doubt that,” Kaz said. “Innocent men have nothing to hide.”

“
La santa madre di dio
,” Inzerillo said softly. “Talk to Landry. He will tell you.”

“You don’t know?” Luca said.

“Know what?”

“He is dead.
Assassinato
.”

It was a rookie move to tell Inzerillo that Landry was dead. He hadn’t picked up on the past tense when we’d mentioned his name; his English wasn’t that good. Luca was more of a military man than a detective, so he didn’t get that if Landry knew whatever Inzerillo was trying to keep covered up, and Landry had been killed, Inzerillo would see the same thing might happen to him. Kaz’s ploy had been a good one, but after hearing Landry had been murdered, Inzerillo clammed up tight. There was nothing to be learned from him.

We left Inzerillo’s neighborhood behind, gladly, and took Luca’s suggestion to stop for lunch off the main piazza. The Trattoria La Lanternina was a different world. Clean sidewalks, delicious smells from the kitchen, tablecloths, and several Carabinieri at their midday meal. Any joint where bluecoats ate was okay by me. Luca stopped to chat with two officers and we grabbed a table.

“Friends of yours?” I asked when he joined us.

“Yes, we served together in the Fourteenth Carabinieri Battalion. I haven’t seen them for months. Tell me, was this trip worthwhile?”

“It was,” I said, before Kaz could say anything about Luca blowing our chances with Inzerillo. No point in showing him up. “We know that Landry knew something about what happened to Inzerillo, and was killed a day later. There might be a connection.”

“But no connection to Doctor Galante,” Kaz said. “He showed no recognition of that name.”

“Still, it’s interesting. And why did he deny that Flint and Landry went to see him? All the sergeants agreed that they had.”

“Maybe Landry went to see that girl he liked. Maybe that’s where the money went,” Kaz said. “Perhaps Inzerillo was afraid to admit there had been a fight, in case he would be closed down.”

“Could Landry and Flint have beaten him like that?” I wondered aloud. “Maybe he harmed the girl, and they took it out on him.”

“Or your Lieutenant Landry was insanely jealous of this prostitute, and killed her,” Luca said. “And then her family attacked Inzerillo and killed the lieutenant.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“No, but with no evidence, it makes as much sense as your conjectures.”

“I’ll talk to Flint and see what he says. I’ll bet the girl fits in somewhere. Any chance of finding her?”

“A prostitute, yes. A specific prostitute, never. If anything did happen with Landry, she will have disappeared. If not, she would not allow herself to be found by the authorities for obvious reasons.”

“Well, I don’t know of anything else we have to go on. Luca, if you hear of anything else from Inzerillo, please let us know. Kaz and I will check out the hospital and see what the staff has to say about Galante.”

Luca ordered as the waiter delivered a decanter of wine. “Since we spoke last night of Queen Margherita, I thought you should taste the dish named after her. Pizza Margherita. It is said that she scandalized the court by eating pizza bread from street vendors when she visited Naples. It used to be sold plain, rolled and eaten by hand. The story goes that she noticed the poor eating it and ordered a guard to bring her one. She loved it, and the people of Naples appreciated her for noticing their native food. A chef created a pizza dish in her honor, using tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, and basil leaves, to represent the colors of the Italian flag: red, white, and green.”

“Quite a lady,” I said. “Pearls and pizza.” Kaz nearly choked on his wine.

The pizzas were good, thinner than I was used to from the North End, but tastier. The place was crowded, and I was glad to see normal life returning to this little part of Italy.

“What was it like in Yugoslavia?” Kaz asked Luca as we relaxed after the food.

“Garrison duty, mostly boring. A few times we went out with the army to hunt for partisans. We never found them, which was frustrating, since they could always find us when they wanted to. We lost men on guard duty, throats slit. Terrible.”

“Did you have a hard time with the Germans, when the king declared the armistice?”

“No. There were no
Tedeschi
in our area. The Carabinieri stayed loyal to the king. Other units did as their commanders told them. Some even joined the partisans to fight the Germans. It was a difficult time.”

That was that. I got the impression Luca didn’t want to talk about it, and I wondered if he had friends or family who had gone over to Mussolini’s puppet state in the north.

“Boring, frustrating, difficult,” I said. “You add terrifying and you pretty much sum it up for all of us, Luca.”

No one disagreed.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

T
HE
32
ND
S
TATION
Hospital was buzzing. It was a complex of buildings that might have been Italian Army barracks from a couple of wars ago. Outside of the headquarters building, a line of ambulance trucks, their sides painted with huge red crosses, pulled into the central square. Doctors, nurses, and orderlies spilled out of half a dozen buildings, unloading stretchers and directing the wounded to different wards. The patients were all bandaged and wearing army-issue pajamas; these weren’t fresh casualties, but transfers from evacuation and field hospitals closer to the line.

At the same time, GIs were loading a pair of trucks parked next to the dispensary, as a nurse with a clipboard checked the inventory while talking with a doctor. He wore a wrinkled white lab coat, a major’s gold leaf, and a neatly trimmed mustache. He looked like the guy we’d come to see.

“Excuse me, Major Warren?”

“I’m a little busy, Lieutenant. See the adjutant if you’re looking for a buddy, or Ward 13 if you’ve got the clap.” He spoke without looking at me, and went back to reviewing the inventory with the nurse. She wore the army-regulation white dress and blue cape, which looked snazzy, but wasn’t very useful closer to the front lines, where nurses wore whatever army fatigues they could scrounge.

“It’s about Captain Galante, sir.”

“Listen, Lieutenant,” he said, turning to face me. “I’ve talked to CID and gave them a statement. I don’t have time to go over that again, so check with them. Some sergeant was here, I forget his name.”

“Sergeant Cole?”

“Yeah. Talk to him, I’m busy.”

“He’s dead, sir. He killed himself.”

“Jesus! Was that the guy who shot himself on the palace roof?”

“Yes sir. I just need a few minutes of your time.”

“Perhaps I can assist with the supplies, while the doctor speaks with my friend?” Kaz said to the nurse. She was pretty, but I knew Kaz was going to interrogate her while I talked to the doctor. Major Warren agreed, and led me to his office. The sign above the door read Chief of Medical Services.

“Sorry if I barked at you, Lieutenant, but I’ve been up to my eyeballs in work today, starting before dawn.” He fell into the chair behind his desk and I sat across from him, waiting as he lit up a Lucky. His desk was stacked with patient charts, an overflowing inbox, and an empty outbox. “Accident on the road from Naples. A truckload of replacements—ASTP kids—goes over an embankment. Broken bones, lacerations, the usual for a road accident. Poor bastards hadn’t been off the boat for a full day yet, and they’re all banged up already.”

“I hear there’s a lot of replacements coming in,” I said, trying not to think of my brother Danny and worrying if he was headed for trouble.

“Indeed. Some of us have been told to get ready to move out. There’s a big push going on somewhere, that’s for sure. Now, what can I do for you?”

“I need to ask some questions about Doctor Galante that Sergeant Cole may not have asked. Did he frequent prostitutes?”

“Galante? That’s a good one, Lieutenant. He probably never even thought about it. I never heard him speak about much of anything except medicine and Italian culture.”

“You’re sure? This won’t be part of any official report, in case you’re worried about his family finding out.”

“I’m sure. Have you talked to the doctors he roomed with? Wilson and Bradshaw?”

“Yes, they didn’t really know him well. Ships passing in the night. Galante was transferred from Third Division. You know anything about that?”

“Just what I heard. He got into a dispute with a colonel and got booted upstairs. He wasn’t happy about it, I can tell you that.”

“You all must work hard, but this place does look pretty comfortable.”

“It is. Long hours every day of the week, but clean sheets and decent food every night. A far cry from battalion aid stations near the front lines. The Luftwaffe bombed us once, but that’s as close as we’ve come to real danger here.”

“What was it that Galante didn’t like?”

“He wanted to work on combat fatigue cases. Exclusively. He was almost a bore on the subject.” He looked at me shrewdly. “You probably know that’s what the beef with the colonel was about. Sending him here was a real punishment. We don’t treat psychiatric disorders. We have dentists, physical therapists, surgeons, even a dietician, but no psychiatrists.”`

“So what happens to combat fatigue cases?” I sensed that there had been no love lost between Warren and Galante, especially on this topic.

“We don’t often get casualties direct from the front. Like the boys who just came in, they’ve already been patched up and sent here for further treatment. They have to be actually wounded to be sent here.” He crushed his cigarette out.

“What’s your opinion on combat fatigue?”

“Not sure. I’m a surgeon. If I can’t cut it out or sew it up, I’m at a loss. I know some cases are sent back to headquarters to do menial work. Seems sort of pathetic.”

“I agree. I’ve seen the waiters in the senior officer’s mess.”

“But Galante’s theory seems weird too. A hot meal, change of clothes, a good night’s sleep, and then
wham
, back to the front.”

“Isn’t that what you do? Patch them up so they can go back as soon as they’re able?”

“That’s what Galante said. I guess the difference is some of the brass don’t mind GIs in a hospital bed if they have holes in them, but they don’t like the idea of able-bodied men getting a rest from combat.”