The Paper Moon (15 page)

“How long were you together?”

“A couple of hours.”

“Could he testify to that?”

“I don’t think it would be a problem. He’s very young, about twenty, unmarried.”

“Tell that to the lawyer. Maybe he can find a way to keep your husband from getting wind of it.”

“I would be very unhappy if he found out. I betrayed his trust.”

But how did this husband and wife reason? He felt at sea. Then Elena suddenly started laughing hard again, her head thrown backward.

“Let me in on the joke.”

“A woman supposedly stuck her panties in Angelo’s mouth so he couldn’t scream?”

“So it seems.”

“I’m only telling you because it couldn’t have been me.”

She had another laughing fit that almost brought tears to her eyes.

“Come on, out with it.”

“Because whenever I knew I was going to see Angelo, I wouldn’t wear panties. Anyway, look. Do these look like they could be used to gag anyone?”

She stood up and hiked up her bathrobe, spun around in a circle, then sat back down. She’d performed the movement perfectly naturally, without modesty or immodesty. Her panties were smaller than a G-string. With that in his mouth, a man could still have recited all of Cicero’s
Catilinarian Orations
or sung “Celeste Aïda.”

“I have to go,” said the inspector, standing up.

He absolutely had to get away from that woman. Alarm bells and warning lights were going off wildly in his head. Elena also stood up and approached him. Unable to keep her away with his extended arms, he stopped her with words.

“One last thing.”

“What?”

“We’ve learned that Angelo had recently been gambling and losing a lot of money.”

“Really?!”

She seemed truly puzzled.

“So you know nothing about it.”

“I never even suspected it. Did he gamble here, in Vigàta?”

“No. In Fanara, apparently. At a clandestine gambling den. Did you ever go with him to Fanara?”

“Yes, once. But we came back to Vigàta the same evening.”

“Can you remember if Angelo went into any banks that day in Fanara?”

“Out of the question. He had me wait in the car outside of three doctors’ offices and two pharmacies. And I nearly died of boredom. Oh, but I do remember—because I heard about him on TV after he died—that we also stopped outside the villa of Di Cristoforo, the Parliament deputy.”

“Did he know him?!”

“Apparently.”

“How long did he stay inside the villa?”

“Just a few minutes.”

“Did he say why he went there?”

“No, and I didn’t ask. I’m sorry.”

“Another question, but this really will be the last.”

“Ask me as many as you like.”

“Did Angelo do coke, as far as you know?”

“No. No drugs.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. Don’t forget that I was once quite an expert on the subject.”

She stepped forward.

“Bye, see you soon,” said Montalbano, running for the door, opening it, and dashing out onto the landing before the cheetah could spring, grab him in her claws, and eat him alive.

Dimora Jewelers of Montelusa—founded in 1901, as the religiously restored old sign in front said—were the best-known jewelers in the province. They made their hundred-plus years a point of pride, and in fact the furnishings inside were the same as they’d been a hundred years earlier. Except for the fact that now, to get inside, it was worse than entering a bank. Armored doors, tinted, Kalashnikov-proof windows, uniformed security guards with revolvers at their sides so big it was scary just to look at them.

There were three salespersons, all of them quite distinguished: a seventyish man, another around forty, and a girl of about twenty. Apparently they’d each been expressly selected to serve the clients of their corresponding age group. Then why was it the seventy-year-old who turned to speak to him, instead of the forty-year-old, as should have been his right?

“Would you like to see something in particular, sir?”

“Yes, the owner.”

“You mean Signor Arturo?”

“If he’s the owner, then Signor Arturo will do.”

“And who are you, if I may ask?”

“Inspector Montalbano.”

“Please follow me.”

He followed the salesman into the back room, which was a very elegant sort of little sitting room. Art nouveau furniture. A broad staircase of black wood, covered by a dark red runner, led to a landing where there was a massive, closed door.

“Please make yourself comfortable.”

The elderly man climbed the stair slowly, then rang a bell beside the door, which came open with a click. He went inside and closed the door behind him. Two minutes later there was another click, the door reopened, and the old man reappeared.

“You may go upstairs.”

The inspector found himself in a spacious, light-filled room. There was a large glass desk, very modern in style, with a computer on top. Two armchairs and a sofa of the kind one sees only in architectural magazines. A huge safe, the latest model, that not even a surface-to-air missile could open. Another safe, this one pathetic and certainly dating back to 1901, which a wet nurse’s hairpin could open. Arturo Dimora, a thirty-year-old who looked straight out of a fashion advertisement, stood up and extended his hand.

“I’m at your disposal, Inspector.”

“I won’t waste your time. Do you know if there was a certain Angelo Pardo among your clients over the last three months?”

“Just a second.”

He went back behind the glass desk and fiddled about with the computer.

“Yes. He bought—”

“I know what he bought. I would like to know how he paid.”

“Just a minute. There, yes. Two checks from the Banca Popolare di Fanara. Do you want the account number?”

Exiting the jeweler’s shop, he weighed his options. What to do? Even if he left for Fanara at once, he probably wouldn’t get there till after one-thirty; in other words, after the bank was already closed. Thus the best thing was to go back to Vigàta and drive to Fanara the following morning. But his anxiousness to discover something important at the bank was eating him alive, and surely his nerves would keep him up all night. Suddenly he remembered that banks, which he scarcely frequented, also had afternoon hours these days. Thus the right thing was to leave immediately for Fanara, head straight for the local trattoria called Da Cosma e Damiano, where he’d eaten twice and been very well served, and then, after three, make an appearance at the bank.

When he arrived at his parked car, a rather troubling thought came over him—namely, that he had an appointment with the commissioner to which it was not clear he would make it in time. What was he going to do about this? The following: He was going to blow off Mr. Commissioner’s summons. The guy had done nothing but postpone the goddamned appointment day after day. Surely he was allowed to miss one? He got in the car and drove off.

Going from Enzo’s restaurant to Cosma and Damiano’s place in Fanara was like changing continents. Asking Enzo for a dish like the rabbit cacciatore he was slurping down would have been like ordering pork ribs or cotechino at a restaurant in Abu Dhabi.

When he got up from the table, he immediately felt the need for a walk along the jetty. But since he was in Fanara, there was no jetty, for the simple reason that the sea was fifty miles away. Though he’d already had a coffee in the trattoria, he decided he’d better have another at a bar right next door to the bank.

To the door—one of those revolving kinds with an alarm—he must have seemed disagreeable, for it reopened behind him and commanded:

“System alarm! Deposit all metal objects outside the door!”

The guard sitting inside a bulletproof glass booth glanced up from a crossword puzzle and looked at him. The inspector opened a little drawer and dropped in about a pound of europennies that were making holes in his pockets, closed it with a plastic key, and entered the tubelike door.

“System alarm!”
it repeated.

So it just didn’t like him. That door was dead set on busting his balls. The guard started looking at him with concern. The inspector took out his house keys, put them in the drawer, went back in the door, the half tube closed behind him, the door said nothing, but the other half of the tube, the one in front of him, didn’t open. Imprisoned! The door had taken him hostage, and if he wasn’t freed in a few seconds, he was fated to die a terrible death by suffocation. Through the glass he saw the guard engrossed in his crossword puzzle; he hadn’t noticed anything. Inside the bank there wasn’t a living soul to be seen. He raised his knee and gave the door a powerful kick. The guard heard the noise, realized what was happening, pushed a button on some contraption in front of him, and the back half of the tube finally opened, allowing the inspector to enter the bank. Which consisted of a first entrance with a small table and a few chairs and led to two doors: The one on the right was an office with two vacant desks; the one on the left had the usual wood-and-glass partition with two tellers’ windows over which were plaques saying
WINDOW 1
and
WINDOW 2
, in case anyone wasn’t sure. But only one had a teller behind it, and that was indeed Window 1. One could not in good conscience say the bank did a lot of business.

“Hello, I would like to speak with the manager. I’m Inspector—”

“Montalbano!” said the fiftyish man behind the window.

The inspector gave him a puzzled look.

“Don’t you remember me? Eh, don’t you?” said the teller, getting up and heading toward the door at the end of the partition.

Montalbano racked his brain but couldn’t come up with a name. Meanwhile the teller came straight up to him, un-shaven, arms half open and ready to embrace his long-lost friend. But don’t these people who expect to be recognized after forty years realize that time has done its work on their faces? That forty winters, as the poet says, have dug deep furrows in the field of what was once adorable youth?

“You really don’t remember, do you? Let me give you a little hint.”

A little hint? What was this, a TV game show?

“Cu…Cu…”

“Cucuzza?” the inspector took a wild stab.

“Cumella! Giogiò Cumella!” said the other, leaping at his throat and crushing him in a pythonlike grip.

“Cumella! Of course!” Montalbano mumbled.

In truth he didn’t remember a goddamned thing. Night and fog.

“Let’s go have a drink. We need to celebrate!
Matre santa,
it’s been so many years!”

When passing in front of the guard’s little cage, Cumella informed him:

“Lullù, I’ll be at the bar next door with my friend. If anyone comes, tell ’em to wait.”

But who was this Cumella? A former schoolmate? University chum? Student protester from ’68?

“You married, Salvù?”

“No.”

“I am. Three kids, two boys and a girl. The girl, who’s the youngest, is a beauty. Her name’s Natasha.”

A Natasha in Fanara. Like Ashanti in Canicattì, Samantha in Fela, and Jessica in Gallotti. Didn’t anybody name their little girls Maria, Giuseppina, Carmela, or Francesca anymore?

“What’ll you have?”

“A coffee.”

At that hour, one coffee more or less made no difference.

“Me, too. Why did you come to our bank, Inspector? I’ve seen you a couple of times on television.”

“I need some information. Perhaps the manager—”

“I’m the manager. What’s this about?”

“One of your clients, Angelo Pardo, was murdered.”

“I heard.”

“I couldn’t find any of your statements in his apartment.”

“He didn’t want us to send them to him. And he sent us those instructions in a registered letter! Imagine that! He would come and pick up the statements in person.”

“I see. Could you tell me how much is in his account and if he made any investments?”

“No, unless you’ve got a judge’s authorization.”

“I haven’t.”

“Then I can’t tell you that until the day he died he had somewhere around eight hundred thousand.”

“Lire?” asked Montalbano, a little disappointed.

“Euros.”

That put things in a whole new light. Over a billion and a half lire.

“Investments?”

“None whatsoever. He needed ready cash.”

“Why did you specify ‘until the day he died’?”

“Because three days before, he’d taken out a hundred thousand. And from what I’ve heard, if he hadn’t been shot, within three days he would have made another withdrawal.”

“What have you heard?”

“That he lost it all gambling, at Zizino’s den.”

“Can you tell me for how long he was a client of yours?”

“Less than six months.”

“Was he ever in the red?”

“Never. Anyway, for us at the bank it wasn’t a problem, no matter what happened.”

“Explain.”

“When he opened the account, he came accompanied by MP Di Cristoforo. But now that’s enough, let’s talk a little about old times.”

Cumella did all the talking, reminiscing about episodes and people the inspector had no recollection of. But to make it look like he remembered everything, Montalbano had only to say, every now and then, “Right!” and, “How could I forget?”

At the end of their conversation, they said good-bye, embracing and promising to stay in touch by telephone.

On the way back, not only was the inspector unable to enjoy the discovery he’d made, but his mood turned darker and darker. The moment he got in the car and drove off, a question started buzzing about in his head like an annoying fly: How come Giogiò Cumella could remember their grammar-school days and he couldn’t? From a few of the names Giogiò had mentioned and a few of the events he’d recounted, elusive flashes of memory had come back to him in fits and starts, but like pieces of an unsolvable puzzle with no precise outline, and these inklings had led him to situate the time of his friendship with Cumella in their grammar-school days. Unfortunately, there could be only one answer to his question: He was beginning to lose his memory. An indisputable sign of old age. But didn’t they say that old age made you forget what you did the day before and remember things from when you were a little kid? Well, apparently that wasn’t always the case. Obviously there was old age and old age. What was the name of that disease where you forget that you’re even alive? The one President Reagan had? What was it called? There, see? He was even starting to forget things of the present.

To distract himself, he formulated a proposition. A philosophical proposition? Maybe, but tending towards “weak thought”—exhausted thought, in fact. He even gave this proposition a title: “The Civilization of Today and the Ceremony of Access.” What did it mean? It meant that, today, to enter any place whatsoever—an airport, a bank, a jeweler’s or watchmaker’s shop—you had to submit to a specific ceremony of control. Why ceremony? Because it served no concrete purpose. A thief, a hijacker, a terrorist—if they really want to enter—will find a way. The ceremony doesn’t even serve to protect the people on the other side of the entrance. So whom does it serve? It serves the very person about to enter, to make him think that, once inside, he can feel safe.

“Aahhh, Chief, Chief! I wannata tell you that Dacter Latte wit’ an
s
called! He said as how the c’mishner couldn’t make it today.”

“Couldn’t make what?”

“He din’t tell me, Chief. But he said that he can make it tomorrow, at the same time of day.”

“Fine. Getting anywhere with the file?”

“I’m almost somewhere. Right at the tip o’ the tip! Ah, I almost forgot! Judge Gommaseo also called sayin’ you’s asposta call ’im when you get in so you can call ’im.”

He’d just sat down when Fazio came in.

“The phone company says that it’s not technically possible to retrace the phone calls you received when you were at Angelo Pardo’s place. They even told me why, but I didn’t understand a word of it.”

“The people who called didn’t know yet that Angelo’d been shot. One of them even hung up. He wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t have something to hide. We’ll deal with it.”

“Chief, I also wanted to mention that I don’t know anybody in Fanara.”

“It doesn’t matter. I figured it out myself.”

“How did you do that?”

“I knew for certain that Angelo had an account at the Banca Popolare in Fanara. So I went there. The bank manager is an old schoolmate of mine, a dear friend, and so we reminisced about the good old days.”

Another lie. But its purpose was to make Fazio believe that he still possessed an ironclad memory.

“How much did he have in the account?”

“A billion and a half old lire. And he really gambled big time, as you told me yourself. Betting money he certainly didn’t earn as a pharmaceutical representative.”

“The funeral’s tomorrow morning. I’ve seen the announcements.”

“I want you to go.”

“Chief, it’s only in movies the killer goes to the funeral of the person he killed.”

“Don’t be a wise guy. You’re going anyway. And take a good look at the names on the ribbons on the wreaths and pillows.”

Fazio left, and the inspector phoned Tommaseo.

“Montalbano! What are you doing? Did you disappear?”

“I had things to do, Judge, I’m sorry.”

“Listen, I want to fill you in on something I think is really serious.”

“I’m listening.”

“A few days ago, you sent Angelo Pardo’s sister, Michela, to see me, do you remember?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I’ve interrogated her three times. The last time just this morning. A disturbing woman, don’t you think?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Something troubled about her, I’d say, don’t you think?”

“Oh, yes.”

And you had a ball in those troubled waters, like a little pig under your august magistrate’s robes.

“And what unfathomable eyes she has.”

“Oh, yes.”

“This morning she exploded.”

“In what sense?”

“In the sense that at a certain point she stood up, summoned a very strange voice, and her hair came undone. Chilling.”

So Tommaseo, too, had witnessed a bit of Greek tragedy.

“What did she say?”

“She started inveighing against another woman, Elena Sclafani, her brother’s girlfriend. She claims she’s the killer. Have you interrogated her?”

“Sclafani? Of course.”

“Why didn’t you inform me?”

“Well, it’s just that…”

“What’s she like?”

“Beautiful.”

“I’m going to summon her immediately.”

How could you go wrong? Tommaseo was going to dive into Elena like a fish.