Free By My Hand by Maurizio de Giovanni, Antony Shugaar Page A

overcoat.
    â€œSignora, why, what an honor, what a pleasure! You’re a ray of sunlight in our day. We’re certainly very lucky to have you as our visitor.”
    Livia took the deputy chief of police’s proffered arm.
    â€œ
Caro
Dottore, believe me, the pleasure is all mine. And to be welcomed by such a gallant gentleman really is a delight. But do my eyes deceive me? You’ve grown a mustache! It looks just wonderful on you.”
    Garzo seemed embarrassed.
    â€œWell, you know, Signora, as one gets older it’s sometimes a good idea to try to look a little more authoritative, don’t you think?”
    Livia laughed.
    â€œAnd authority’s what you care about most, isn’t it?”
    â€œAbsolutely right. Those juvenile delinquents who report to me, it’s no easy matter to keep them in line. I was just saying so to your friend Ricciardi and his brigadier.”
    Livia immediately turned serious.
    â€œWhy, is there some problem? He was determined to return to the job such a short time after the accident; he won’t listen to anybody but himself.”
    â€œYes, he’s one hard-headed individual,
una bella capa tosta
, as we like to say here in Naples. And in every sense of the phrase, if you follow me. In any case, you won’t find him here, he just stepped out with Maione a few minutes ago. He’s working on a fairly sensitive investigation. As you may certainly have the opportunity to inform your friends in Rome, if the topic happens to come up, we always pay the closest and most careful attention to anything that concerns Fascist Party members.”
    Livia’s disappointment at having missed Ricciardi had ruined her mood so suddenly and completely that she hadn’t heard a word that Garzo had said.
    â€œAh, I understand. Well, perhaps you’ll do me the courtesy of telling him . . . no, don’t tell him a thing. Perhaps I’ll come back later.”
    Garzo put on his most dazzling smile.
    â€œWhy, of course, Signora. He’ll no doubt be very happy to see you.”
    As she found herself in her car again moving slowly through the crowd, Livia felt her good mood returning. And she decided that the real reason she’d moved down here had to be that man with the sea-green eyes, those eyes so full of despair; that man she’d finally succeeded in holding in her arms just two months earlier.
    What would her girlfriends back in Rome say, if they ever found out?

XIII
    W hile out on the streets the chaos that preceded Christmas was suffocating and anarchic, inside the port the picture was quite the opposite. The freight traffic and the passenger traffic were kept neatly separated, and thousands of people worked efficiently, moving as if guided by a shrewdly conceived choreography.
    The port was the nation’s largest and it seemed to be aware of its unrivaled standing. Crews of longshoremen crossed paths with the crews of freighters newly landed or about to ship out, dozens of stevedores were continuously at work loading or unloading immense cargo holds, huge trucks and horse-drawn carts lined up at the exit, the draft horses snorting vapor into the wind as their drivers waited for their loads to be checked. Passengers debarking from the huge ocean liners were greeted by lovely uniformed auxiliaries stationed at the pedestrian exits. Maione thought of the shock they’d have once they left the port and found themselves in the terrifying disorder and noise of the city itself.
    Ricciardi walked quickly, hands in his pockets and hair tousled, his gaze fixed straight ahead of him. Aside from the human bustle and activity all around him, other beings appeared to the eyes of his soul.
    A young man stood on the wharf, his arm shorn clean off by a whipping cable, the blood pumping out powerfully through the open artery with each heartbeat, murmuring:
Mamma, Mamma, help me, Mamma
. A man sitting on the ground next to a freight-unloading site,