The Sacred Cut

Costa took his hand off Peroni’s huge, hunched shoulder, shrugged and said nothing. Peroni had two children: a girl of thirteen, a boy of eleven. He never seemed to be able to think of them as anything but helpless infants. It was one of the traits Costa admired in his partner. To the world he looked like a bruised, scarred thug, the last man anyone would want to meet on a dark night. And it was all an act. Underneath, Peroni was just a straightforward, honest, old-fashioned family man, one who’d stepped out of line once and paid the heaviest price.

“Oh, crap.” Peroni sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I don’t want to lash out at you. I don’t even want to lash out at Mauro over there.”

“That’s good to know,” Costa replied, then added, “if there’s any-thing I can do…”

“Such as what?” Peroni asked.

“It’s an expression, Gia

A low, croaking snort of semi-amusement escaped Peroni’s throat. “OK, OK. I am contrite. I repent my sins.” His scarred face screwed up with distaste aimed, it seemed to Costa, somewhere deep inside himself. “Some more than others.”

Then he shot a vicious look at Sandri, huddled over the Nikons. “I want that film, though. I’m not having my pecker pasted all over the notice board for everyone to see. They told the guy he could follow us around and take pictures. They didn’t say he could walk straight after us into the pisser.”

“Mauro swears there’s really nothing there. People wouldn’t even see it was you. And maybe it’s a good picture, Gia

The battered face wrinkled sceptically. “It’s a picture of a man taking a piss. Not the Mona Lisa.”

Costa had tried to talk art to Peroni before. It hadn’t worked. Peroni was irretrievably romantic at heart, still stuck on the idea of beauty. Truth came somewhere far behind. And it occurred to Costa too that maybe there was more to the big man’s misery than the genuine distress he felt at being separated from his kids. There was also the matter of the relationship Peroni had struck up with Teresa Lupo, the pathologist working at the police morgue. It was meant to be a secret, but secrets never really stayed hidden for long inside the Questura. Peroni was dating the likeable, wayward Teresa and it was common knowledge. When Costa found out, a couple of weeks before, he had thought long and hard about it and had come to the conclusion that the two might, just, make a good couple. If Peroni could swallow his guilt. If Teresa could keep her life straight for long enough to make things work once the initial flush of mad enthusiasm that came with any affair subsided into the routine of everyday existence.

“Gimme a cappuccino,” Costa said to the barman. “It’s going to be a long, cold night out there.”

There was a howl of protest from behind the counter. “It’s nearly twelve for God’s sake. What am I ru

“Gimme one too,” Sandri piped up from the other end of the bar, pushing away his cold corretto. “Get one for all of us. I’m paying.”

Then the photographer walked over, looked Peroni in the eye and placed a 35 mm film cassette in his hand.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Really. I shouldn’t have done it like that. It’s just…”

Peroni waited for an explanation. When it didn’t come, he asked, “Just what?”

“I knew you’d have said no. I apologize, OK? I was wrong. But you have to understand this, Peroni. If a man like me had to ask every time he took a photograph, there’d hardly be any pictures in the world. All those ones you remember. All those ones you think are important. They came from some guy with a camera who pointed the stupid thing while no one was really taking any notice and went… pop. Improvisation. Speed. That’s what this job’s all about. Stealing other people’s moments.”

Peroni looked him up and down and considered this.

“A little like your job, huh?” Sandri added.

The barman slid three coffees down the counter, spilling milk and foam everywhere.

“Listen, assholes, this is the last,” he snarled. “Do you think you could possibly just pay for them, then go steal a few moments someplace else, huh? I’d like to go to bed and count the seven and a bit euros I earned tonight. And I got to open those doors at six-thirty tomorrow morning, not that anyone’s going to be walking through them.”

Costa had downed one mouthful of hot, milky coffee and foam when the radio squawked. Peroni was looking at him hungrily as he took the call. They had to get out of the bar, they had to find something to do. If they stayed any longer, they’d never leave.

“Burglar alarm,” Costa said when he’d listened to the message from the control room. “The Pantheon. We’re the closest.”

“Ooh,” Peroni cooed. “A burglar alarm. Did you hear that, Mauro? Maybe we’ve got some wild action after all. Maybe all those bums who hang around there fleecing the tourists are breaking in, looking for somewhere warm to spend the night.”

“Damn stupid thing to do if they are,” Sandri said immediately, looking puzzled.

“In weather like this?” Peroni asked.

“It’s got a hole in the roof the size of a swimming pool,” Sandri replied. “The oculus. Remember? It’s going to be as cold in there as it is outside. Colder even. Like a freezer. And nothing to steal either, not unless you can remove a few marble tombs without someone noticing.”

Peroni gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder. Not too hard this time. “You know, for a guy who talks art you’re OK really, Mauro. You can take pictures of me all you want. Outside the crapper.” Then he gave Costa a querulous look. “Are we calling the boss? He sounded desperate.”

Costa thought about Leo Falcone. Their boss had made a point of insisting he could be easily disturbed. “For a burglar alarm?”

Peroni nodded. “Leo doesn’t say those things without a reason. He wants out of that place.”

“I guess so.” Costa pulled out his phone as they walked to the door and the white world beyond, feeling somewhat uneasy that Leo Falcone was so reluctant to spend a little leisure time with his superiors. And thinking all the while too about what Mauro Sandri had said.

There was no reason for anyone to break into the Pantheon. None at all.

LEO FALCONE LISTENED to the drone of men’s voices echo around the private room in Al Pompiere, the stiff, old-fashioned restaurant in the ghetto where, by tradition, they met once a year just before Christmas. Then he looked at their heavy business coats, lined up on the hangers by the wall like black dead-animal skins, and turned his head towards the window, wishing he were somewhere-anywhere-else.

The snow was now falling in a steady, persistent stream. Falcone took his mind off the di

The seating arrangements were preordained: one cop, one spook, arranged alternately around the white starched tablecloth and the highly polished silverware. Falcone sat at the window end of the long banquet table next to Filippo Viale, who smoked a cigar and clutched a glass of old chardo