The Paper Moon (12 page)

She ordered a prosecco. Montalbano joined in.

“This morning, when Carlo heard there was a police inspector on the phone, he got a terrible scare.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Oh, that’s just the way he is. He’s a sweet kid, but the mere sight of, say, a Carabiniere driving beside him deeply upsets him. There’s no explanation for it.”

“Maybe some research into his DNA could come up with an explanation,” said Montalbano. “He probably had a few ancestors who were outlaws. Ask him sometime.”

They laughed. So the man who took up the schoolteacher’s free time on days when she didn’t go to school was named Carlo. End of subject. They moved on to the matter at hand.

“Yesterday evening,” said Paola, “when that business about Angelo dictating the letters to Elena came out, I felt really uncomfortable.”

“Why?”

“Because, despite Michela’s opinion to the contrary, I think Elena was telling the truth.”

“How do you know?”

“You see, Inspector, during the time we were together, I wrote Angelo many letters. I used to like to write to him.”

“I didn’t find any when I searched the apartment.”

“They were returned to me.”

“By Angelo?”

“No, by Michela. After her brother and I broke up. She didn’t want them to end up in Elena’s hands.”

Michela really could not stand this Elena.

“You still haven’t told me why you felt uncomfortable.”

“Well, one of those letters was dictated by Angelo.”

A big point for Elena! One which, moreover, could not be cast into doubt, since it was scored by her defeated rival.

“Or, rather,” Paola continued, “he gave me the general outlines. And since we broke up, I’ve never said anything to Michela about this little conspiracy.”

“You could have mentioned it last night.”

“Would you believe me if I said I didn’t have the courage? Michela was so sure that Elena was lying…”

“Can you describe the contents of the letter?”

“Of course. Angelo had to go to Holland for a week, and Michela had made it clear she intended to go with him. So he had me write a letter saying I’d asked for a ten-day leave from school so I could accompany him. It wasn’t true; it was exams time. Like they’re going to give me a ten-day vacation during exams! Anyway, he said he would show his sister the letter, and this would allow him to go alone, as he wished.”

“And if Michela had run into you in Montelusa when Angelo was in Holland, how would you have explained that to her?”

“Angelo and I had thought about this. I would have said that at the last moment the school denied me permission to leave.”

“And you didn’t mind him going away alone?”

“Well, I did, a little, of course. But I realized that it was important for Angelo to liberate himself for a few days from Michela’s overbearing presence.”

“Overbearing?”

“I don’t know how else to define it, Inspector. Words like ‘assiduous,’ ‘affectionate,’ ‘loving’ don’t really give a sense of it. They fall short. Michela felt this sort of absolute obligation to look after her brother, as though he were a little boy.”

“What was she afraid of?”

“Nothing, I don’t think. My explanation for it—there’s nothing scientific about it, mind you, I don’t know a thing about psychoanalysis—but in my opinion it came from a sort of frustrated craving for motherhood that was transferred entirely, and apprehensively, onto her brother.”

She gave her usual giggle.

“I’ve often thought that if I’d married Angelo, it would have been very hard for me to free myself not from my mother-in-law’s clutches—since she, poor thing, counts for nothing—but from my sister-in-law’s.”

She paused. Montalbano realized she was weighing the words she would use to express what she was thinking.

“When Angelo died, I expected Michela to fall apart. Whereas the opposite happened.”

“Meaning?”

“She wailed, she screamed, she cried, yes, but at the same time I sensed a feeling of liberation in her, at the unconscious level. It was as if she’d thrown off a burden. She seemed more serene, more free. You know what I mean?”

“Perfectly.”

Then, who knows why, a question popped into his mind.

“Has Michela ever had a boyfriend?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Dunno, just wondering.”

“She told me that when she was nineteen, she fell in love with a boy who was twenty-one. They were officially engaged for three years.”

“Why did they break up?”

“They didn’t. He died. He was a little too fond of driving really fast on his motorcycle, even though he was apparently a gifted cyclist. I don’t know the details of the accident. In any case, after that, Michela never wanted to get close to other men. And I think that from that moment on, she redoubled her vigilance over poor Angelo, until she became asphyxiating.”

“You’re an intelligent woman, you’re in no way under investigation, and you’ve long considered your relationship with Angelo over,” said Montalbano, looking her in the eye.

“Your preamble is a bit distressing,” said Paola with her usual grin. “What are you getting at?”

“I want an answer. Who was Angelo Pardo?”

She didn’t seemed surprised by the question.

“I’ve asked myself the same thing, Inspector. And I don’t mean when he left me for Elena. Because up till then I knew who Angelo was. He was an ambitious man, first of all.”

“I’d never thought of him in that light.”

“Because he didn’t want to appear so. I think he suffered a lot from being expelled from the medical association. It cut short a very promising career. But, you see, even with the profession he had…For example, within a year he would have had exclusive rights of representation for two multinational pharmaceutical companies across all of Sicily, not just Montelusa and its province.”

“He told you this?”

“No, but I overheard many of his phone conversations with Zurich and Amsterdam.”

“And when did you start asking yourself who Angelo Pardo was?”

“When he was killed. Things began to appear in a different light, things for which you had an explanation before and which now, after his death, are not so easily explained anymore.”

“Such as?”

“Such as certain gray areas. He was capable of disappearing for a few days at a time and then, when he came back, he wouldn’t tell you anything. You couldn’t squeeze a single word out of him. In the end I was convinced he was seeing another woman, having some passing fling. But after the way he was killed, I’m no longer so sure he was having affairs.”

“What was he doing, then?”

Paola threw up her hands in despair.

Before going to eat, Montalbano dropped in at the station. Catarella was sleeping in front of the computer, head thrown back, mouth open, a bit of saliva trickling down his chin. He did not wake up. The next phone call would take care of that.

On the inspector’s desk was a dark blue canvas bag. A leather label stuck onto the front of it bore the words “Salmon House.” He opened it and realized it was insulated. Inside were five round, transparent plastic containers in which one could see large fillets of pickled herring swimming in multicolored sauces. There was also a smoked salmon, whole. And an envelope wrapped in cellophane.

He opened it.

From Sweden with love. Ingrid.

Apparently Ingrid had found someone there from Sicily and taken the opportunity to send along that little gift. He suddenly missed Ingrid so much that the desire to open one of those containers and have a little foretaste faded. When would she make up her mind to come back?

It was no longer possible to go to the trattoria. He had to race back home and empty that bag in the refrigerator. Picking it up, he noticed there were three sheets of paper under it. The first was a note from Catarella.

Chief. Seeing as how I don’t know weather or not your coming personally in person to the ofice, I’m leving you the printout of the siccond file which I had to stay up all nite to figger out the past word for but in the end I stuck it to that file I did.

The other two pages were all numbers. Two columns, as before. The left-hand figures were exactly the same as those in the first file. He pulled the pages he’d worked on that morning out of his jacket pocket and checked.

Identical. All that changed were the numbers in the second column. But he didn’t feel like giving himself a headache.

He left the old pages, the new pages, and the coded songbook on the desk, grabbed the canvas bag, and went out of the room. Passing by the closet at the entrance, he heard Catarella yelling.

“No, sir, no, sir, I’m sorry but the inspector ain’t in, this morning he said this morning he wasn’t coming in this morning. Yessir, I’ll tell ’im, certifiably. Have no fears, I’ll tell ’im.”

“Was that for me, Cat?” asked the inspector, appearing before him.

Catarella looked at him as if he were Lazarus risen from the dead.

“
Matre santa,
Chief, where djouse come from?”

It was too complicated to explain that he’d been sleeping, drained from a night of battle with passwords, when the inspector came in. Never in a million years, moreover, would the diligent Catarella have admitted nodding off on the job at the switchboard.

“Who was it?” the inspector asked.

“Dr. Latte wit’ an
s
at the end. He said that seeing as how Mr. C’mishner can’t see you today, neither, the day we’re at now, as you guys prearraigned, he says he rearraigned it for tomorrow, atta zack same time as was sposed to be on the day of today.”

“Cat, do you know you are brilliant?”

“For as how the way I ’splained what that Dr. Latte wit’ an
s
at the end said?”

“No, because you managed to open the second file.”

“Ahhh, Chief! I straggled all night wit’ it! You got no idea what kinda trouble I had! It was a past word that looked like one past word but rilly was—”

“Tell me about it later, Cat.”

He was afraid to waste time. The herring and salmon in the bag might start to spoil.

But the moment he got home and opened the first container, the persuasive aroma invading his nostrils made him realize he needed to equip himself at once with a plate, a fork, and a fresh loaf of bread.

At least half the contents of those containers needed to go not in the refrigerator but straight into his belly. Only the salmon went into the fridge. The rest he took outside onto the veranda, after setting the table.

The herring, which were high caliber, turned out to be marinated in a variety of preparations ranging from sweet-and-sour sauce to mustard. He had a feast. He really wanted to scarf them all down, but realized that he would spend the whole afternoon and evening wanting water like someone stranded for days in the desert.

So he put what remained into the fridge and replaced his customary walk along the jetty with a long walk on the beach.

Then he took a shower and lolled about the house a bit before returning to the station around four-thirty. Catarella was not at his post. In compensation he ran into a glum-faced Mimì Augello in the corridor.

“What’s wrong, Mimì?”

“Where are you coming from? What are you doing?” Augello fired back edgily, following him into his office.

“I come from Vigàta, and I’m doing my job as inspector,”
Montalbano crooned to the tune of “Pale Little Lady.”

“Yeah, go ahead and play the wise guy. This is really not the time for that, Salvo.”

Montalbano got worried.

“Salvuccio’s not feeling well?”

“Salvuccio’s feeling great. It’s me that’s the problem, after receiving a heavy dose of Liguori, who practically went nuts.”

“Why?”

“See, I was right to ask you where you’ve been! Don’t you know what happened yesterday in Fanara?”

“No.”

“You didn’t turn on your TV?”

“No. Come on, what happened?”

“MP Di Cristoforo died.”

Di Cristoforo! Undersecretary for communications! Rising star of the ruling party—not to mention, according to gossips, a young man much admired in those circles where admiration goes hand in hand with staying alive.

“But he wasn’t even fifty years old! What’d he die of?”

“Officially, a heart attack. Owing to the stress of all the political commitments to which he so generously devoted himself…and so on and so forth. Unofficially, from the same illness as Nicotra.”

“Fuck!”

“Exactly. Now you understand why Liguori, feeling the seat of his pants starting to burn, demands that we arrest the supplier before any more illustrious victims fall.”

“Listen, Mimì, weren’t these gentlemen doing cocaine?”

“Of course.”

“But I’d always heard that coke wasn’t—”

“That’s what I thought, too. Except Liguori, who’s a first-class asshole but knows his trade well, explained to me that when coke isn’t properly cut, or is cut with certain other substances, it can turn poisonous. And in fact both Nicotra and Di Cristoforo died of poisoning.”

“But I don’t get it, Mimì. What interest could a dealer have in killing his clients?”

“Well, in fact, it wasn’t intentional. It’s just a little collateral damage. According to Liguori, our dealer didn’t just deal. He also further cut the merchandise, by himself and with inadequate means, doubling the quantity before putting it on the market.”

“So there might be other deaths.”

“Absolutely.”

“And what’s lighting a fire under us all is the fact that this dealer supplies a high-flying circle of politicians, businessmen, established professionals, and so on.”

“You said it.”

“But how did Liguori come to the conclusion that the dealer is in Vigàta?”

“He merely hinted that he deduced it from clues provided by an informer.”

“Best wishes, Mimì.”

“What do you mean, ‘best wishes’? Is that all you have to say?”

“Mimì, I told you yesterday what I had to say. Make your moves very carefully. This is not a police operation.”

“It’s not? Then what is it?”

“It’s a secret service operation, Mimì. For the guys who work in the shadows and are followers of Stalin.”

Mimì scowled.

“What’s Stalin got to do with this?”

“Apparently Uncle Joe once said that when a man becomes a problem, you need only eliminate the man to eliminate the problem.”

“What’s that got to do with this?”

“I’ve already told you, and I repeat: The only solution is to kill this dealer or have him killed. Think about it. Let’s say you go by the book and arrest him. When you’re writing the report, you can’t very well say he’s responsible for the deaths of Nicotra and Di Cristoforo.”

“I can’t?”

“No, you can’t. Mimì, you’re more thickheaded than a Calabrian. Senator Nicotra and MP Di Cristoforo were respectable, honorable men, paragons of virtue—all church, family, public service. No drugs of any sort, ever. If need be, ten thousand witnesses will testify in their favor. So you weigh the pros and cons and come to the conclusion that it’s better to gloss over this business of their deaths. And you end up writing that the guy’s a dealer and that’s all. But what if the guy starts talking to the prosecutor? What if he blurts out the names of Nicotra and Di Cristoforo?”

“Nobody would voluntarily incriminate himself in two homicides, even unintentional ones! What are you saying?”

“Okay, let’s say he doesn’t incriminate himself. There’s still the risk that someone else might link the dealer to the two deaths. Don’t forget, Mimì, Nicotra and Di Cristoforo were politicians with many enemies. And in our neck of the woods, and not only our neck of the woods, politics is the art of burying one’s adversary in shit.”

“What’s politics got to do with me?”

“A lot, even if you don’t realize it. In a case like this, do you know what your role is?”

“No. What’s my role?”

“You supply the shit.”

“That sounds a little excessive.”

“Excessive? Once it comes out that Nicotra and Di Cristoforo used drugs and died from it, their memory will be unanimously dumped on in direct proportion with the equally unanimous praise that will be heaped on you for having arrested the dealer. Some three months later, at most, somebody from Nicotra and Di Cristoforo’s party will start by revealing that Nicotra took very small doses of drugs for medicinal purposes and that Di Cristoforo did the same for his ingrown toenail. We’re talking medicine here, not vice. Then, little by little, their memory will be rehabilitated, and people will start saying that it was you who first started slinging mud at the dear departed.”

“Me?!”

“Yes, sir, you, by making a careless arrest, to say the least.”

Augello stood there speechless. Montalbano threw down his ace.

“Don’t you see what’s happening to the ‘Clean Hands’ judges? They’re being blamed for the suicides and heart attacks of some of the accused. The fact that the accused were corrupt and corrupters and deserved to go to jail gets glossed over. According to these sensitive souls, the real culprit is not the culprit who in a moment of shame commits suicide but the judge who made him feel ashamed. But we’ve talked enough about this. If you get it, you get it. If you don’t, I’m tired of explaining it to you. Now get out of here, I got work to do.”

Without a word, Mimì got up and left the room, even glummer than before. Montalbano started eyeing four pages densely covered with numbers, unable to make anything whatsoever of them.

After five minutes of this, he pushed them away in disgust and called the switchboard. A voice he didn’t recognize answered.

“Listen, I want you to find me the phone number of a Palermo contractor named Mario Sciacca.”

“Home phone or business phone?”

“Home.”

“All right.”

“But just find me the number, understand? If the home phone’s not listed, ask our colleagues in Palermo. Then I’ll call myself from a direct line.”

“I understand, Inspector. You don’t want them to know it’s the police calling.”

Smart kid. Knew his stuff.

“What’s the name?”

“Sciacca, Inspector.”

“No, yours.”

“Amato, Inspector. I started working here a month ago.”

He made a mental note to talk to Fazio about this Amato. The kid might be worth having on the squad. A few minutes later, the phone rang. Amato had found Mario Sciacca’s home phone number.

The inspector dialed it.

“Who’s this?” asked an old woman’s voice.

“Is this the Sciacca residence?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Antonio Volpe. I’d like to speak with Signora Teresa.”

“My daughter-in-law’s not home.”

“Is she away?”

“Well, she’s gone to Montelusa. Her father’s sick.”

What a stroke of luck! This might spare him the boring drive to Palermo. He looked for the number in the phone book. There were four people named Cacciatore. He would have to be patient and call them all.

“The Cacciatore residence?”

“No, the Mistrettas’. Look, this whole thing is a big pain in the ass,” said an angry male voice.

“What whole thing, if I may ask?”

“The fact that you all keep calling, when the Cacciatores moved away a year ago.”

“Do you know their number, by any chance?”

Mr. Mistretta hung up without answering. A fine start, no doubt about it. Montalbano dialed the second number.