The Smell of the Night

by Andrea Camilleri

  “What’s weird about it?”

  “First of all, the entire staff of King Midas of Bologna consists of a single employee, a woman rather like our own Miss Cosentino; and secondly, the firm’s entire turnover amounts to about two billion lire over three years. Peanuts.”

  “A cover.”

  “Of course. But a preventive cover, with a view in mind to the big scam Gargano was planning to pull off down here.”

  “Could you explain this scam to me?”

  “It’s simple. Let’s say you give me a million lire to invest for you, and I, six months later, give you back a profit of two hundred thousand lire. Twenty percent. That’s a really high rate of return, and the word gets around. Along comes another friend of yours who invests another million with me. At the end of the next six months, I give you another two hundred thousand lire return, and the same to your friend. At this point I decide to skip town, making off with a gain of one million four hundred thousand lire. Subtract, say, another four hundred thousand in expenses, and in the end I’ve still pocketed a cool million. To make a long story short, Gargano, according to Guarnotta, raked in over twenty billion lire this way.”

  “Damn. It’s all the television’s fault,” commented Montalbano.

  “What’s television got to do with it?”

  “Everything. There’s not a single TV news program that doesn’t bombard you with noise about the stock market, the Mibtel, the Dow Jones, the Nasdaq, the Nisdick.... People don’t know the first thing about it, but they’re impressed. They know it’s risky, but they also know you can make a lot of money, and so they rush into the arms of the first swindler they run across. Lemme play too, I wanna play.... Skip it. What’s your impression?”

  “I think—and Guarnotta does too—that Gargano’s biggest clients must have included some mafioso who knocked him off when he realized he’d been had.”

  “So you don’t subscribe to the school of thought that has Gargano living happily ever after on some South Sea island?”

  “No. What do you think?”

  “I think you and Guarnotta are a couple of dumbfucks.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll tell you why. But first you have to find me a mafioso stupid enough not to realize that Gargano’s scam is pretty crude. If anything, the mafioso would have forced Gargano to make him a senior partner in the business. And anyway, how would this hypothetical mafioso have intuited that Gargano was about to rip him off?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We’re a little slow today, eh, Mimi? Think. How did the mafioso guess that Gargano wasn’t going to show up to pay the dividends? When was he last seen?”

  “I don’t know, about a month ago, in Bologna. He told his secretary he was leaving for Sicily the next day.”

  “How’s that?”

  “He said he was leaving for Sicily the next day,” Augello repeated.

  Montalbano slammed his hand against the table.

  “Has Catarella become contagious or something? Are you becoming a cretin too? I was asking you by what means of transport he would be coming to Sicily. Plane? Train? On foot?”

  “The woman didn’t know. But every time he came to Vigàta, he would drive around in a fully equipped Alfa 166, the kind with a computer on the dashboard.”

  “Was this car ever found?”

  “No.”

  “He had a computer in his car, but I didn’t see a single one in his office. Strange.”

  “He had two. Guarnotta had them confiscated.”

  “And what did he find out?”

  “They’re still working on them.”

  “How many employees did Gargano have working for him at the local branch, apart from Miss Cosentino?”

  “A couple of kids, the kind who nowadays know everything about the Internet and all that stuff. One of them, Giacomo Pellegrino, has a degree in business economics; the other’s a girl, Michela Manganaro, and she’s also working on a degree at business economics. They live in Vigàta.”

  “I want to talk to them. Get me their phone numbers. Have them on my desk by the time I get back from Montelusa.”

  Augello darkened, stood up, and left the room without a word.

  Montalbano understood. Mimi was afraid he would take the case away from him. Or, worse yet, he was worried the inspector had come up with some brilliant idea that would steer the investigation in the right direction. But that wasn’t at all the case. How could Montalbano tell him that he was acting on an insubstantial impression, a pale shadow, a tenuous thread ready to break at the slightest breath of wind?

  At the Trattoria San Calogero the inspector wolfed down two servings of grilled fish, one right after the other, as his first and second courses. Afterward he took a long, digestive stroll along the jetty, all the way out to the lighthouse. There he hesitated a moment, undecided as to whether he should sit down on his customary rock. The wind was too strong and too cold and, anyway, he thought it was probably better to get the commissioner out of the way.

  Arriving in Montelusa, instead of going immediately to the commissioner’s office, he paid a visit to the editorial offices of the Free Channel. They told him his friend, the newsman Nicolò Zito, was out on assignment. But Annalisa, the all-purpose secretary, made herself available.

  “Have you done any reports on Emanuele Gargano, the investment banker, at the Free Channel?”

  “On his disappearance, you mean?”

  “Even before that.”

  “We have as many as you want.”

  “Could you tape for me the ones you consider the most important? And could I have them by tomorrow afternoon?”

  Leaving his car in the parking lot of Montelusa Central Police, he entered through a side door and waited for the elevator. There were three people waiting with him. One of them, an assistant commissioner, was an acquaintance, and they greeted each other. Montalbano got in ahead of the others. When all of them, including a man who’d rushed in at the last second, were inside, the assistant commissioner raised his index finger to press the button but never got any further, paralyzed by a screaming Montalbano.

  “Stop!”

  They all turned round to look at him, half dumb-struck, half terrified.

  “Excuse me! Excuse me!” the inspector continued, clearing the way with his elbows.

  Exiting the elevator, he ran to his car, turned on the ignition, and drove off, cursing the saints. He’d completely forgotten that Mimi was supposed to tell the commissioner he’d got a couple of stitches in his forehead. His only choice was to return to Vigata and have a pharmacist friend put a bandage on him.

  3

  He returned to Montelusa Central with a broad gauze bandage wrapped around his head, making him look like a Vietnam War survivor. In the waiting room outside the commissioner’s office, he ran into the latter’s cabinet chief, Dr. Lattes, whom everybody called “Caffè-Lattes” for his cloying manner. Lattes noticed—he could hardly have done otherwise—the enormous bandage.

  “What happened to you?”

  “A minor auto accident. Nothing serious.”

  “Thank the Lord!”

  “I already have, thanks.”

  “And how’s the family, dear Inspector? Everyone all right?”

  Everybody and his dog knew that Montalbano was an orphan, unmarried, and with no secret children out of wedlock, either. And yet, without fail, Lattes always asked him the same exact question. And the inspector, with similar obstinacy, never disappointed him.

  “They’re all fine, thank the Lord. How are yours?”

  “Fine, fine, thank the heavens,” said Lattes, pleased that Montalbano had afforded him the chance to add a little variation to the theme. “So,” he continued, “what pleasant task brings you this way?”

  What? Hadn’t the commissioner told the chief of his cabinet that he’d been summoned to see him? Was it such a secret matter?

  “Commissioner Bonetti-Alderighi phoned me, said he wanted to see me.”

&nb
sp; “Oh, really?” Lattes marveled. “I’ll tell the commissioner at once that you’re here.”

  He knocked discreetly on the commissioner’s door, went inside, closed the door behind him. A moment later the door opened and Lattes reappeared, his face transformed and no longer smiling.

  “You can go in now,” he said.

  Walking past him, Montalbano tried to look him in the eye but was unable to. The cabinet chief was keeping his head down. Shit. It must really be serious. But what had he done wrong? He went in. Lattes closed the door behind him, and to Montalbano it seemed as if the lid of a coffin had just been lowered over him.

  The commissioner, who whenever he received Montalbano mounted a stage-set for the occasion, had resorted this time to lighting effects similar to those one might see in a black-and-white film by Fritz Lang. The shutters were tightly closed, the shades all pulled down except one, letting a thin ray of sun filter through, the purpose of which was to slice the room in two. The only source of illumination was a low, mushroom-shaped table lamp, which shed its light on the papers spread out over the commissioner’s desk but kept his face entirely in darkness. Based on the decor, Montalbano became convinced that he was about to be subjected to an interrogation somewhere between the kind once carried out by the Holy Inquisition and the kind in fashion with the SS.

  “Come in.”

  The inspector stepped forward. In front of the desk were two chairs, but he did not sit down, and in any case the commissioner had not invited him to do so. Montalbano did not greet his superior, and neither did Bonetti-Alderighi, for his part, greet him. The commissioner kept reading the papers he had before him.

  A good five minutes passed. The inspector then decided to counterattack. If he did not take the initiative, Bonetti-Alderighi was liable to leave him standing there in the dark, literally and figuratively, for several hours. He slipped a hand into his jacket pocket, extracted a pack of cigarettes, took one out, put it between his lips, and fired up his lighter. The commissioner leapt out of his chair, the little flame having had the same effect as the blast of a lupara.

  “What are you doing?!” he cried, looking up in terror from his papers.

  “I’m lighting a cigarette.”

  “Put that thing out at once! Smoking is strictly forbidden here!”

  Without a word, the inspector extinguished the lighter. But he continued to hold it in his hand, just as he continued to hold the cigarette between his lips. He had, however, achieved the result he’d wanted, for the commissioner, frightened by the threat of the lighter about to spring into action, went straight to the heart of the matter.

  “Montalbano, I’ve unfortunately been forced to stick my nose into some dossiers on a rather malodorous investigation of yours from a few years ago, before I became commissioner of Montelusa Police.”

  “Your nose is too sensitive for the line of work you’re in.”

  The comment had slipped out; he hadn’t managed to hold it in. And he immediately regretted it. He saw Bonetti-Alderighi’s hand come into the cone of light cast by the lamp and clutch the edge of the desk, knuckles pale from the effort he was making to control himself. Montalbano feared the worst, but the commissioner restrained himself. He resumed speaking in a tense voice.

  “I’m talking about the case of that Tunisian prostitute who was later found dead, and who had a son by the name of François.”

  The boy’s name cut straight to his heart like a dagger. My God, François! How long had it been since he’d seen him? He resolved, however, to pay close attention to the commissioner’s words; he didn’t want the surge of emotion to overwhelm him and leave him unable to defend himself. For it was clear that Bonetti-Alderighi was about to begin making accusations. He tried to recall to mind all the details of that distant case. Want to bet that Lohengrin Pera, that son of a bitch from the Secret Service, had found a way to take his revenge after all these years? But the commissioner’s next words threw him for a loop.

  “Apparently you had originally intended to get married and adopt this child. Is this true?”

  “Yes, it’s true,” replied the inspector, stunned.

  What the hell did this personal detail have to do with the investigation? And how did Bonetti-Alderighi know these things?

  “Good. Later you apparently changed your mind about the adoption. And thereafter François was entrusted to the care of a sister of your second-in-command, Inspector Domenico Augello. Is that correct?”

  What was this goddamn son of a bitch getting at?

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  Montalbano was feeling more and more worried. He knew neither why the commissioner was so interested in this story, nor from what angle the inevitable blow was going to come.

  “All in the family, eh?”

  Bonetti-Alderighi’s sardonic tone contained a clear yet inexplicable insinuation. What on earth was going through the imbecile’s head?

  “Listen, Mr. Commissioner. It seems to me you’ve formed a clear idea of an affair I scarcely remember anymore. Whatever the case, please weigh your words carefully.”

  “Don’t you dare threaten me!” Bonetti-Alderighi screamed hysterically, bringing his fist down hard on the desk, which reacted with a crack. “Come on, tell me: what ever happened to the booklet?”

  “What booklet?”

  He honestly had no recollection of any booklet.

  “Don’t play dumb with me, Montalbano!”

  It was those very words, Don’t play dumb, that finally set him off. He hated clichés and stock phrases; they aroused an uncontrollable rage in him.

  This time it was his turn to bring his fist down on the desk, which reacted with a crick-crack.

  “What goddamn booklet are you babbling about?”

  “Hey, hey!” the commissioner sneered. “Nose not too clean, Montalbano?”

  He felt that if, after the playing dumb and the nose not too clean, the commissioner were to come out with another of these expressions, he was going to grab Bonetti-Alderighi by the neck and strangle him to death. By some miracle he managed not to react or even to open his mouth.

  “But before we get to the booklet,” the commissioner resumed, “let’s talk about the boy, the prostitute’s son. You, without telling anyone, brought this orphan into your house. That’s illegal confinement of a minor, Montalbano! There’s a court for these kinds of things, don’t you know that? There are special judges for minors, don’t you know that? You’re supposed to follow the law, not avoid it! This is not the Wild West!”

  Exhausted, he paused. Montalbano didn’t breathe a word.

  “And that’s not all! Not content with this fine exploit, you make a present of the boy to your assistant’s sister, as if he were some kind of object! This is the stuff of heartless people, the stuff of actionable offenses! But we’ll come back to that part. It gets worse. The prostitute possessed a bank booklet, a passbook showing half a billion lire on deposit. At some point, this booklet passed into your hands. And then it disappeared! What happened to it? Did you split the money with your friend and accomplice Domenico Augello?”

  Very slowly, Montalbano placed his hand on the desk; then, also very slowly, he leaned his upper body forward; and, very slowly, he brought his head into the cone of light made by the lamp. Bonetti-Alderighi got scared. Half lit, Montalbano’s face looked exactly like an African mask, the sort that might be worn before a human sacrifice. After all—the commissioner probably thought, feeling a chill—it’s not that far from Sicily to Africa. The inspector looked him deep in the eye, then began to speak very slowly and very softly.

  “I’m gonna tell you man to man. Forget about the kid. Leave him out of this. Got that? He’s been properly adopted by Augello’s sister and her husband. Leave him out of this. For your personal vendettas, your personal bullshit, there’s always me, and that should be enough. Agreed?”

  The commissioner didn’t answer. Fear and rage made it hard for him to speak.

  “Agreed?” Montalbano as
ked again.

  And the lower, the calmer, the slower his voice became, the more Bonetti-Alderighi sensed the barely restrained violence behind it.

  “Agreed,” he finally said in a faint voice.

  Montalbano withdrew his face from the light and stood up straight.

  “May I ask, Mr. Commissioner, where you got all this information?”

  Montalbano’s sudden change in tone, now formal and slightly obsequious, so shocked the commissioner that he ended up saying what he had resolved not to say.

  “Somebody wrote to me.”

  Montalbano understood immediately.

  “An anonymous letter, right?”

  “Well, let’s say unsigned.”

  “You should be ashamed of yourself,” said the inspector, turning and heading for the door, deaf to the commissioner’s shouting.

  “Montalbano, come back here!”

  He wasn’t some kind of dog that obeyed all commands. He tore the useless wrapping off his head, enraged. In the corridor he ran straight into Lattes, who stammered:

  “I ... think ... the commissioner’s calling you.”

  “I think he is too.”

  At that moment Lattes realized that Montalbano was no longer wearing the bandage and that his head was intact.

  “You’re already healed?”

  “Didn’t you know the commissioner’s a miracle worker?”

  The amazing thing about this whole business, he thought, hands squeezing the steering wheel as he drove back towards Marinella, was that he wasn’t upset at the person who’d written the anonymous letter, surely a secret vendetta on the part of Lohengrin Pera, the only one in a position to reconstruct the story of François and his mother. And he wasn’t even upset at the commissioner. The rage he was feeling was against himself How could he have forgotten so utterly about the passbook for the five hundred million lire? He’d entrusted it to a friend of his, a notary—this much he remembered perfectly—so that he could manage the money and turn it over to François as soon as he came of age. He also remembered, though rather vaguely this time, that about ten days later the same notary had sent him a receipt. But he had no idea where he’d stuck it. The worst of it was that he’d never made any mention of this passbook to either Mimi Augello or his sister. Which meant that Mimi, though totally unaware of anything, might well be called to task by Bonetti-Alderighi’s fertile imagination, when in fact he was innocent as Christ.