Rounding the Mark (20 page)

“Yes, if one is willing to see it.”

“And what would that be?”

“The trafficking of immigrant children,” said Fonso Spàlato, opening the door and going out.

Exactly the way it happens in cartoons, two of the journalist’s words—“trafficking” and “children”—materialized in black, as though printed in midair, the rest of the room and everything in it having disappeared inside a kind of milky light, and after one millionth of a second the two words became intertwined, turning into two snakes that scuffled, fused, changed color, then metamorphosed into a luminous globe from which a kind of lightning rod shot forth and struck Montalbano between the eyes.

“Jesus Christ!” he cried out, grabbing hold of the desk.

In less than a second, all the scattered pieces of the puzzle swimming around in his head fell into place, fitting perfectly together. Then all went back to normal, and everything resumed its usual shape and color. What did not return to normal was the inspector himself, because he couldn’t move and his mouth stubbornly refused to open and call the journalist back. At last he managed to grab the telephone.

“Stop that journalist!” he shouted hoarsely at Catarella.

As he was sitting back down, wiping the sweat from his brow, he heard pandemonium break out on the street below. Somebody (it must have been Catarella) was yelling:

“Stop, Pontius Pilate!”

Somebody else (it must have been the journalist) said:

“What have I done? Let go of me!”

A third person (obviously some asshole passing by) took advantage of the situation to cry out:

“Down with the police!”

At last the door to the inspector’s office flew open with a crash so loud that it visibly terrified the journalist who had just then appeared reluctantly in the doorway, pushed from behind by Catarella.

“Nabbed him, Chief!”

“What is going on? I don’t understand—”

“My apologies, Mr. Spàlato. An unfortunate misunderstanding. Please sit down.”

As Spàlato, more confused than convinced, came back in, the inspector brusquely commanded Catarella:

“Go away and shut the door!”

The iris bouquet collapsed in the chair, visibly withered. The inspector felt like spraying a little water on him to perk him up. But perhaps it was best to get right to the point that interested him, and make as though nothing had happened.

“You were talking about a certain traffic . . .”

Heri dicebamus
. It worked like a charm. It didn’t even occur to Spàlato to demand an explanation for the absurd treatment he just been subjected to. In fresh bloom, he began.

“You know nothing about it, Inspector?”

“Nothing, I assure you. I would be very grateful if—”

“Just last year—these are the official figures—no less than fifteen thousand minors unaccompanied by an adult relation were tracked down in Italy.”

“Are you telling me they came over by themselves?”

“So it would seem. Of these minors, we can omit, at the very least, more than half.”

“Why?”

“Because in the meantime they’ve come of age. Okay, nearly four thousand—a pretty high percentage, no?—came from Albania, the others from Romania, the former Yugoslavia, and Moldavia. To this number we must add some fifteen hundred from Morocco, and more still from Algeria, Turkey, Iraq, Bangladesh, and other countries. Getting a clear picture?”

“Quite. Their ages?”

“Right away.”

He took a small sheet of paper out of his jacket pocket, reviewed it, then put it back in his pocket.

“Two hundred aged zero to six; one thousand three hundred and sixteen between the ages of seven and fourteen; nine hundred ninety-five aged fifteen; two thousand and eighteen aged sixteen; and three thousand nine hundred twenty-four aged seventeen,” he recited. He looked at the inspector and sighed. “But these are only the figures we know about. We also know that many hundreds of children disappear as soon as they enter the country.”

“What happens to them?”

“There are criminal organizations that have them specially brought here. These children are worth a fortune. They are also considered export commodities.”

“What for?”

Fonso Spàlato looked dumbfounded.

“You’re asking me? Recently a member of Parliament from Trieste put together an enormous quantity of wiretap transcripts that talked about buying and selling immigrant children for organ recipients. The demand for transplants is huge and continually growing. Other minors are made available for pedophiles. Bear in mind that with that kind of child—alone, with no parents, relatives, nobody—there are people who will pay huge sums in order to practice certain kinds of extreme pedophilia.”

“Meaning?” asked Montalbano, his mouth dry.

“Involving torture and the violent death of the victim, to increase the pleasure of the pedophile.”

“I see.”

“Then there’s the begging racket. The people who exploit little children by forcing them to beg for alms are very imaginative, you know. I once spoke with an Albanian boy who’d been kidnapped and then rescued by his father. His captors had crippled him, gravely injuring his knee and then purposely letting the wound fester, so passersby would feel more sorry for him. Another kid got his hand cut off, and another—”

“Excuse me, I have to go out a minute. I just remembered something I need to do,” said the inspector, standing up.

As soon as he’d closed the door behind him, he bolted, racing past a befuddled Catarella like a hundred-meter sprinter, elbows chest-high, stride long and decisive. In the twinkling of an eye Montalbano arrived at the café on the corner, which at that moment was empty, and leaned against the bar.

“Gimme a triple whisky, neat.”

Without whispering a word, the barman served him. The inspector downed it in two gulps, paid, and left.

Catarella was planted firmly in front of the door to his office.

“What are you doing there?”

“I’m standin guard over the suspeck, Chief,” replied Catarella, gesturing towards the office with his head. “Jessin case the suspeck tries to run away agin.”

“Good, you can go now.”

The inspector went in. The journalist hadn’t moved from his place. Montalbano sat down at his desk. He felt better now, strong enough to listen to new horrors.

“I was asking you if these children leave their countries by themselves or if—”

“Inspector, I already told you there’s a powerful criminal organization behind them. Some of them—a minority, actually—come over alone. Others are escorted.”

“By whom?”

“By people who pass themselves off as their parents.”

“Accomplices?”

“Well, I wouldn’t be so explicit. You see, the journey is extremely expensive, and illegal immigrants make tremendous sacrifices to gain passage. But the price can be cut in half if they include a minor who’s not part of the family with their own kids. But aside from these, so to speak, ‘chance’ escorts, there are also the more usual escorts, who do it for the money. These are people who in every respect belong to this vast criminal organization. And they don’t always bring the minor in by blending in with a group of illegal immigrants. There are other ways. Let me give you an example. One Friday a few months ago, a ship equipped for passenger and freight service from Durazzo puts in at the port of Ancona. An Albanian woman by the name of Giulietta Petalli, some thirty-odd years old, comes ashore. Attached to her standard residence permit is a photo of a child, her son, whom she is holding by the hand. By the time the lady arrives in Pescara, where she works, she’s alone. The boy has disappeared. To make a long story short, the Pescara Flying Squad ascertained that sweet Giulietta, her husband, and an accomplice had together brought fifty-six different children into Italy. All vanished into thin air. What’s wrong, Inspector, don’t you feel well?”

A flash. For a moment, as a cramp wrenched his stomach, Montalbano saw himself taking the child by the hand, turning him over to the woman he thought was his mother . . . And that look, those gaping eyes, which he would never be able to forget.

“Why?” he asked, feigning indifference.

“You look pale.”

“Every now and then it happens to me. It’s a circulatory problem, nothing to worry about. But tell me something: if this odious traffic occurs in the Adriatic, why did you come here?”

“Simple. Because the slave traders, for a variety of reasons, have been forced to change course. The one they’ve used for years is too well known. The screws have been tightened, and it’s become much easier to intercept them. Bear in mind that last year alone, as I said, one thousand three hundred and fifty-eight minors came over from Morocco. The already established sea-lanes in the Mediterranean had to be broadened and increased in number. And this is what happened when the Tunisian, Baddar Gafsa, became the unchallenged leader of the organization.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. What was the name?”

“Baddar Gafsa, a character who, believe me, seems straight out of a novel. Among other things, he goes by the name of ‘Scarface,’ so you can imagine. He’s a giant who likes to load himself down with rings and bracelets and always wears leather jackets. Barely thirty years old, he has a veritable army of killers at his command, under the leadership of his three lieutenants, Samir, Jamil, and Ouled. He also has a fleet of trawlers, which are not, of course, used for fishing, but are secretly moored in the inlets at Capo Bono; these are under the command of Ghamun and Ridha, two highly experienced sea captains who know the Sicilian Channel as well as their bathroom sink. Though the law’s been after him for a long time, Gafsa has never been caught. It is said that dozens of corpses of enemies murdered by his own hand are hung on display in his hideouts. He keeps them out for a while where everyone can see them, to discourage potential traitors but also to indulge his own sense of invincibility. Like hunting trophies. You see, he travels a lot, going here and there to settle, in his own special way, disputes among his collaborators and to make examples of those who don’t obey his orders. And so his trophies keep growing in number.”

To Montalbano it seemed as if Spàlato were recounting the plot of a rather far-fetched adventure film of the kind the Italians used to call
americanate
.

“But how do you know these things? You seem very well informed to me.”

“Before coming to Vigàta I spent almost a month in Tunisia between Sfax and Sousse and all the way out to El Haduaria. I’d arranged beforehand to gain admission in the right places. And I’m experienced enough to know how to cut the fat of urban legends away from the truth.”

“You still haven’t explained to me why you came specifically here, to Vigàta. Did you find something out in Tunisia that brought you here?”

Fonso Spàlato’s vast mouth quadrupled in size as he smiled.

“You really are as intelligent as they say, Inspector. What I found out—and I won’t tell you how, because it’d be too complicated, though I can vouch for the reliability of the source—is that Baddar Gafsa was seen in Lampedusa, on his way back from Vigàta.”

“When?”

“A little over two months ago.”

“And did they say what he was doing here?”

“They hinted at it. Anyway, it’s important that you know that Gafsa has a huge sorting facility here.”

“In Vigàta?”

“Or nearby.”

“What do you mean by ‘sorting facility’?”

“A place where he has certain illegal aliens brought, the ones of great importance or value.”

“Such as?”

“Minors, as we were saying, or terrorists, or informers for infiltration, or persons already declared undesirable. He keeps them there before sending them out to their final destinations.”

“I see.”

“This sorting center was in the hands of an Italian before Gafsa became head of the organization. Gafsa let him run things for a while, but then the Italian started getting ideas of his own. So Gafsa came over and killed him.”

“Do you know who he replaced him with?”

“Nobody, apparently.”

“So the ‘facility’ is out of commission?”

“On the contrary. Let’s just say there’s no residing head, just local representatives who are informed, in due course, of imminent arrivals. When there’s a big operation in the offing, then Jamil Zarzis, one of the three lieutenants, gets directly involved. He goes back and forth between Sicily and the Korba lagoon in Tunisia, where Gafsa has his headquarters.”

“You’ve given me a lot of Tunisian names, but not the name of the Italian murdered by Gafsa.”

“I don’t know what his name was. I haven’t been able to find out. I do know, however, what Gafsa’s men called him. An utterly meaningless nickname.”

“What was it?”

“The dead man. That’s what they called him, even when he was alive. Isn’t that absurd?”

Absurd? Without warning, Montalbano stood up, threw his head back, and whinnied. It was a rather loud whinny, in every way like the noise a horse makes when it gets pissed off. Except that the inspector was not pissed off; quite the contrary. Everything had become clear. The parallel lines in the end had converged. Meanwhile the bouquet of irises, terrified, had slid off his chair and was heading for the door. Montalbano ran after him and grabbed him.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to call someone, you’re obviously not well,” the irises stammered.

The inspector smiled broadly, to reassure him.

“No, please, it’s nothing. These are just minor ailments, like my pallor a few minutes ago . . . I’ve been suffering from them for a long time. It’s nothing serious.”

“Couldn’t we perhaps open the door? I need some air.”

It was an excuse. Obviously the journalist wanted to keep a path of escape open.

“Sure, fine, we can open it.”