A Nest of Vipers

by Andrea Camilleri

  ‘I’ll say.’

  ‘Barletta meanwhile got tired of Michela, and so when his son said he wanted to marry her, he didn’t make a fuss.’

  ‘So then why didn’t Arturo want—’

  ‘Because after they got married, Barletta’s old passion for Michela was rekindled and Arturo noticed.’

  ‘But did the rekindling burn anything?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Did Barletta manage to get her back?’

  ‘Nobody could say for certain. Anyway, from that moment on, Arturo arranged things so that his wife would have no more contact with his father.’

  ‘Wait a second: was all this happening when Barletta’s wife was still alive?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘Naturally? Does something like that seem natural to you?’

  ‘No, Chief, it doesn’t. It’s just a manner of speaking.’

  ‘Did they tell you whether the wife was aware of her husband’s continuous infidelities?’

  ‘I didn’t ask.’

  ‘Is there anything else?’

  ‘Here’s the best part. This Michela immediately became friends with her sister-in-law, Giovanna. And so she started asking Arturo for money so she too could dress up in designer fashions and wear jewels and drive fancy cars—’

  ‘Stop right there. I don’t think Giovanna’s husband makes so much money, either . . . What do people say about that?’

  ‘That Giovanna has long had a rich lover.’

  ‘Do they know his name?’

  ‘I didn’t ask. Anyway, Arturo, who had only his miserable salary, immediately started accumulating debts. And not only with the banks.’

  ‘Did he turn to loan sharks like his father?’

  ‘Yes he did. And he’d lately been pretty scared after he started getting some serious threats when he was no longer able to make his payments on time.’

  ‘Did Barletta know about his son’s situation?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘So why didn’t Arturo turn to him?’

  ‘First of all, he wasn’t so sure his father would pay his debts. Barletta forked out money only if there was a profit to be made in cash or fresh flesh. And, secondly, he may have been afraid.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘That Barletta would only give him the money on one condition.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That Michela be allowed to see him again, so to speak.’

  ‘With her husband’s permission?’

  ‘With her husband’s permission.’

  ‘In front of everyone?’

  ‘In front of everyone. After all, what the hell did Barletta care? He was a man capable of anything, with no sense of morality, restraint, dignity, honour – nothing. A real stinking bastard.’

  Nice little portrait, no doubt about it. But a perfect likeness. A snapshot.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘For now, yes.’

  ‘And yet I have one more thing to tell you.’

  ‘And you saved it for last?’

  ‘That’s right. Like the big bang at the end of the fireworks display.’

  ‘Let’s hear it.’

  ‘Do you remember when Arturo told us he worked as an accountant?’

  ‘For a Montelusa construction company, I think.’

  ‘Exactly, Sicilian Spring, it’s called.’

  ‘And so?’

  ‘A couple of weeks ago this company sent a letter to all its employees announcing that it is ceasing all its activities at the end of the month and that therefore everyone – stonemasons, clerks, and everyone else – has to go.’

  ‘Why is it closing?’

  ‘The contractor went to jail when they discovered he was a front man for the Mafia.’

  ‘I see. So Arturo found himself in hot water up to his neck.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  When Fazio had finished, Montalbano took stock of all he had just heard.

  ‘The obvious conclusion is that only his father’s inheritance could get Arturo out of the trouble he was in. In fact he went crazy trying to find out whether his father had made a will. But this will is nowhere to be found, not at the notary’s or at either of the father’s two residences.’

  ‘Bear in mind that we have no evidence against him.’

  ‘I just meant it rhetorically speaking. But I would pay a little more attention to him anyway.’

  ‘Tell me what you want me to do.’

  ‘Right now I don’t know. Let’s meet here tomorrow morning at nine, and we’ll go and have another look at the beach house.’

  *

  ‘Ah, Chief! ’Ere’d be a call onna line from a lady ’at calls ’erself Giovanni Pistateri.’

  ‘But is it a man or a woman?’

  ‘ ’Ass a difficult quession, Chief, insomuch as iss a maskerline name, bu’ the verse is fimminine. Mebbe iss the seckertary o’ the fersaid Giovanni Pistateri or mebbe the wife o’ the fersaid Pistateri or the sister o’—’

  ‘Why not the mother?’

  Catarella thought about this for a moment.

  ‘The fimminine verse sounds perty young, Chief, f ’r it to be the verse o’ the mutter o’ the fersaid Pist—’

  The inspector had had enough fun. ‘OK, you can put the call through.’

  Click.

  ‘Mr Pistateri?’

  ‘Pusateri. Do you prefer me male?’ said the voice of Giovanna Barletta.

  Only then did Montalbano remember that Pusateri was her husband’s name.

  ‘Let me ask you again: do you prefer me male?’

  ‘What are you talking about? I like you exactly the way you are!’

  Giovanna gave a mischievous giggle.

  ‘I was worried for a moment there,’ she said. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m fine. And you?’

  ‘I’m fine too.’

  There was a pause. Perhaps she wanted Montalbano to take the initiative.

  ‘I was waiting for you to call,’ he said.

  ‘Really? How?’

  ‘What do you mean, “how”?’

  ‘Anxiously? Impatiently? Indifferently?’

  ‘I would rule out “indifferently”.’

  ‘Good sign. And, as you can see, I have called.’

  ‘Does your invitation still stand? Or have you changed your mind?’

  ‘You don’t know me very well, Inspector, but I do hope you’ll have a chance to get to know me a little better. When I say something, I mean it. I’m unlikely to change my mind. So, yes, my invitation still stands.’

  ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘But you decide on the time and place, please. I’m not familiar with the restaurants.’

  He couldn’t think just then and there where to take her. It was better to play for time.

  ‘Listen, Giovanna, I have to check and see whether a particular establishment is open tonight. Could you come here this evening at eight?’

  ‘OK.’

  *

  There was no getting around it. The time had come to phone Commissioner Bonetti-Alderighi.

  ‘Catarella? Get me ’izzoner the c’mishner on the line, would you?’

  ‘Straightaways, Chief.’

  It used to be that while waiting for a telephone connection he would review the times tables in his head. The problem was that he’d gone over them so many times that he knew them all by heart, and it was no longer any fun. So, what could he do to pass the time? How about the Iliad? He began:

  Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’ son Achilleus . . .

  ‘Inspector Montalbano, are you on the line?’ asked a voice he didn’t recognize.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Please wait just a moment.’

  . . . and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians, / hurled in their multitudes to the house of Hades strong souls / of heroes, but gave their bodies to be the delicate feasting / of dogs, of all birds . . .

&nbs
p; He heard some sort of click.

  . . . and the will of Zeus was accomplished . . .

  ‘What are you saying, Montalbano? The will of who?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Commissioner, I was asking someone about the last will of . . . a . . . some person—’

  The commissioner cut him off.

  ‘Come to my office at once.’

  Click.

  *

  He headed off to Montelusa cursing the saints, knowing that he would come out of the meeting all agitated, as happened whenever he came out of a meeting with the commissioner.

  The only consolation was that he would not run into Dr Lattes, chief of the commissioner’s cabinet and a notoriously boring buttonholer, in the waiting room. He’d heard that the doctor was on holiday.

  The assistant showed him in at once.

  As soon as he entered he noticed that Bonetti-Alderighi was smiling. The commissioner had two ways of delivering bad news: by smiling or by frowning darkly.

  Either way, he was still a blockhead. ‘Please sit down, my good man.’

  If he was asking him to sit down and calling him ‘my good man’, it meant the news must be dire.

  ‘How’s the investigation into the Barletta murder going?’

  ‘One small step at a time, sir, because . . .’

  He wasn’t listening.

  ‘Have you got any idea yet who did it?’

  ‘In a way . . .’

  ‘Prosecutor Tommaseo certainly has.’

  Montalbano bristled. Was he going to listen to him or not? If he didn’t want to know how the investigation was going, why had he summoned him all the way to Montelusa?

  He decided that it was best to ignore his anger and start amusing himself instead.

  ‘Really?’ he said.

  ‘Did he have a chance to explain it to you?’

  ‘Oh, has he recovered? I heard he’d had a slight illness.’

  ‘He’s fine now. So you haven’t had a chance to meet him?’

  ‘Actually I’ve had no—’

  ‘Do you think the prosecutor’s opinion is somehow unimportant?’

  ‘Good heavens, sir! On the contrary, I think it is supremely valid and of absolutely utmost importance . . .’

  Easy on the superlatives, Montalbà!

  ‘Well, if you don’t know his theory, then I’ll lay it out for you.’

  ‘I’m all ears,’ said the inspector, leaning his upper body forward and sliding his buttocks to the edge of the chair.

  ‘In his opinion, Barletta was killed by one of his young mistresses who was jealous of the mistress who later killed him in turn because she, too, was jealous of the one who did away with him.’

  Montalbano buried his head in his hands. What was this shit coming out of the prosecutor’s fevered brain?

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I’m trying to understand, Mr Commissioner.’

  ‘I’ll try to explain a little better. Let’s call Miss A the young woman who, the morning after sleeping with Barletta, served him the poison because she was jealous; and we’ll call the other mistress, the one she’s jealous of, Miss B. Clear so far?’

  Montalbano pretended to have suddenly regressed to the grade-school level.

  ‘Maybe you could write it out for me on the blackboard . . .’ he suggested in the faintest of voices.

  ‘Are you raving? What blackboard? How can you not understand? I’ll repeat it for the last time: Miss A kills Barletta with poison because she’s jealous of Miss B. Miss B in turn shoots Barletta because she’s jealous . . . of whom? Come on, now, Montalbano, what’s the answer?’

  So he really was in school. Montalbano kept on playing the role of the dim-witted schoolboy.

  ‘Miss C?’ he said questioningly.

  ‘Miss C? What are you talking about? It’s because she’s jealous of Miss A! Is that clear now?’

  ‘Frankly, I don’t . . .’

  The smile returned to ’izzoner the c’mishner’s face. A sign of maximum danger.

  ‘Now, as you will have managed to notice, there are a great many girls involved in this affair, most of whom cannot be easily identified.’

  Where was he going with this? It seemed like a good moment to express agreement.

  ‘Right,’ said the inspector.

  ‘It so happened that as Prosecutor Tommaseo was explaining his theory, Inspector Mazzacolla of the Vice Squad was also present. Do you know him?’

  ‘I haven’t yet had the pleasure. Has he been here long?’

  ‘He started working the day before yesterday.’

  ‘And what did Mazzacolla say?’

  ‘He didn’t say anything. But seeing how interested he was, I had an idea I wanted to try out on you.’

  So the commissioner was also getting ideas? ‘Please try it out on me.’

  ‘To slice the Barletta case into two parts.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Assigning Inspector Mazzacolla the task of identifying the girls, always under the direction of Prosecutor Tommaseo, of course.’

  ‘And me?’

  ‘You will continue to investigate the alternative leads, while keeping in mind that the management of the case—’

  Montalbano couldn’t resist continuing to play dumb. ‘There’s a whole management staff?’

  ‘Come on, Montalbano! Of course there’s not! Try to understand for once! By the “management” of the case, I meant simply the general direction . . .’

  ‘I’m sorry, I get it.’

  ‘Anyway, bear in mind, I repeat, that the preferred lead to follow will be that of the girls.’

  ‘May I make an observation?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘I’m convinced that of all the girls who had relations with Barletta, only two or three, at the most, were prostitutes. The rest are salesgirls, students, and so on . . .’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So I wonder what’s the point of bringing in Inspector Mazzancolla—’

  ‘Mazzacolla.’

  ‘– of the Vice Squad, who just got here, on top of everything else.’

  The smile vanished from Bonetti-Alderighi’s face. ‘That’s a decision that’s of no concern to you, is that clear? It was as a courtesy to you that I let you know in advance of a move I will make the moment you leave this office.’

  TWELVE

  At this point, he had no choice but to play the part of someone who has been profoundly, unjustly wronged. It was a role he usually pulled off rather well.

  ‘Ah!’ he said.

  And he stood up, making a bitter face.

  Then he stared long and hard at Bonetti-Alderighi, shook his head, and repeated:

  ‘Ah!’

  The second ‘Ah’ was quite plaintive.

  The commissioner cast him a questioning glance. Now the inspector had to choose the right words.

  He opened and shut his mouth twice without making a sound, as though his throat was dry from the injustice suffered, then cleared his throat noisily. At last he spoke.

  ‘Allow me to say that I cannot help but see, on your part, a lack of confidence in my actions as a scrupulous functionary of the state, if you want to take a slice away from me!’

  And he shook his right arm in the air a few times, folding it back and forth in a kind of slicing motion.

  ‘Come now, Montalbano, things are not—’

  ‘A slice is still a slice, you know.’

  ‘I realize that, but—’

  ‘And on top of that, it’s the main slice!’

  ‘Listen, Montalbano—’

  ‘I’m upset, Mr Commissioner, if I may say so! Upset and offended! Goodbye.’

  He turned his back and left the room.

  He wasn’t the least bit agitated, on the contrary.

  He’d put on a show of being offended, but in reality he was pleased.

  As he’d foreseen, Tommaseo was going to throw himself on the trail of the girls like a starving dog after a bone and give them no rest. And tha
t way he himself would be free to work in peace without having to report or explain anything to the prosecutor.

  Entering headquarters, he asked Catarella if Augello was in.

  ‘ ’E ain’t been onna premisses all mornin’, Chief.’

  ‘Did he call?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Then get him on the line and put the call through to me.’ The telephone rang immediately.

  ‘Hello, Mimì? What’s going on?’

  ‘Sorry, Salvo, but I forgot to inform you I wouldn’t be coming in this morning.’

  ‘Are you unwell?’

  ‘I feel great. I stayed home to read those letters you mentioned, the ones that were in the separate drawer.’

  ‘And it’s taken you all morning to read them?’

  ‘They merit a lot of attention, believe me.’

  ‘So when will you be coming around?’

  ‘Five o’clock this afternoon OK with you? At three I have to take Beba and Salvo to—’

  ‘OK, OK.’

  *

  Before going out to eat, he remembered he had to call Adelina to let her know that Livia had gone home to Boccadasse and that the coast was therefore clear.

  His housekeeper heaved a long sigh of satisfaction, then asked mischievously:

  ‘Didda young leddy mekka you goo’ tings ta eat?’

  Montalbano decided not to enter into the subject. ‘We always ate out.’

  ‘Then I come a by inna aftanoon to mekka the bed an’ clean a house ’at the young leddy alway leave a so filty iss like a pigga house, ann’ enn I cooka you sometin’ for tonight.’

  If Livia had heard Adelina say she left the house as filthy as a pigsty, she would have demanded that he immediately sack her. On top of everything else it was hardly true that Livia neglected to clean the house; this was simply a fixation of Adelina’s – or rather, a continual defamation, one worthy of criminal prosecution.

  ‘Don’t make anything for tonight, because I’m invited out.’

  *

  ‘Ah, Chief!’ Catarella hailed him as he was passing on his way to the car park.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I wannit a give yiz a messitch from yer goilfrenn Miss Livia ’oo jess rung yiz onna phone.’

  ‘Why didn’t you put the call through?’

  ‘Miss goilfrenn Livia tol’ me assolutely not to distoib yiz ’cause alls I neetit a tell yiz wuzza messitch ’at she got to Genoa OK ann’ ’at she wannit a remine yiz not to forgit to visit the sick man.’