The Smell of the Night

by Andrea Camilleri

  “But?” asked Montalbano, purposely interrupting him. Mimi had set out on a long and tortuous path: the list of the qualities of the woman one loves could be infinite, like the names of the Lord.

  “But I don’t feel like marrying her.”

  Montalbano didn’t breathe a word. Surely there was more to come.

  “Or, rather, I do feel like marrying her, but ...”

  There was still more.

  “Some nights I lie awake counting the hours left till I get married.”

  A tortured pause.

  “On other nights I wish I could hop on the first flight out to Burkina Faso.”

  “Are there a lot of flights from here to Burkina Faso?” Montalbano asked with a cherubic expression.

  Mimi abruptly stood up, red in the face.

  “I’m leaving. I didn’t come here to be made fun of.”

  Montalbano persuaded him to stay and talk. And Mimi embarked on a long monologue. The fact was, he explained, that one night he wanted one thing, the next night he wanted the opposite. He felt torn in two. One minute he felt afraid to take on obligations he couldn’t meet, the next minute he was imagining himself a proud father of four. He couldn’t make up his mind and was afraid he might cut and run at the moment of saying “I do,” leaving everybody high and dry. And how could poor Beba ever sustain such a blow?

  Like the previous time, they polished off all the whisky there was in the house. The first to collapse was Mimi, already worn out from the previous nights and exhausted from his three-hour monologue. He got up and left the room. Montalbano thought he’d gone to the bathroom. He was wrong. Mimi had thrown himself diagonally across his bed and was snoring. The inspector cursed the saints, cursed Augello, lay down on the sofa, and little by little fell asleep.

  He woke up with a headache, hearing somebody singing in the shower. Who could it be? Suddenly he remembered. He got up, aching all over from his uncomfortable sleep, and ran to the bathroom. Mimì was flooding the place as he showered. But he paid no mind and seemed happy. What to do? Knock him out with a blow to the base of the skull? Montalbano went out on the veranda. It was a passable day. He went back into the kitchen, made some coffee, poured himself a cup. Mimì made his entry, clean-shaven, fresh, and smiling.

  “Is there any of that for me?”

  Montalbano didn’t answer. He didn’t know what might come out of his mouth if he opened it. Mimi filled his cup halfway with sugar. The inspector felt like throwing up. The guy didn’t drink coffee; he turned it into jam and ate it.

  After drinking his coffee, or whatever it was, Mimi looked at him earnestly.

  “Please forget everything I said to you last night. I’ve more than made up my mind to marry Beba. It was all bullshit, the kind of passing doubts that get into my head sometimes.”

  “May you bear only sons,” Montalbano sullenly muttered. And as Augello was about to leave, he added, this time in a clear voice: “And my compliments, by the way.”

  Mimi turned around slowly, as if on his guard. The inspector’s tone had been overtly insinuating.

  “Your compliments for what?”

  “For your work on the Gargano case. It’s full of holes.”

  “Did you look at my files?” asked Augello, irritated.

  “Don’t worry, I prefer reading more informative things.”

  “Listen, Salvo,” said Mimi, retracing his steps and sitting back down. “How do I have to explain to you that I only assisted in the investigation, and minimally at that? Everything’s in Guarnotta’s hands. Bologna’s in on it too. So don’t get upset with me. I only did what they told me to do. Period.”

  “Don’t they have any idea where the money went?”

  “They didn’t for as long as I worked on the case. You know how these people operate: they move the money around from one country to another, one bank to another, setting up companies like Chinese boxes, offshore firms and that kind of stuff, so that you end up wondering if the money ever existed in the first place.”

  “So the only person who knows where the loot is would be Gargano?”

  “In theory, he would be the only one.”

  “Explain.”

  “Well, I guess we can’t exclude the possibility he might have had an accomplice. Or that he confided in someone. But I, for one, don’t think he would have.”

  “Why not?”

  “He wasn’t the type. He didn’t trust his coworkers, kept everything under tight control. The only person with even a little autonomy at the office—and I mean very little—was Giacomo Pellegrino. I think that was his name, or at least that’s what the other two employees said, those two women. I wasn’t able to question him because he’s in Germany and hasn’t come back yet.”

  “Who told you he went away?”

  “His landlady did.”

  “Are you sure Gargano didn’t disappear, or wasn’t made to disappear, somewhere around here?”

  “Look, Salvo, nobody’s come up with any kind of train, boat, or airline ticket proving he went anywhere in the days before his disappearance. Maybe he came here by car, we told ourselves. He did have a digital highway pass, but there’s no record of his having used it. Paradoxically, Gargano may never have budged from Bologna. Nobody’s seen his car around here, and it’d be pretty hard to miss.”

  He looked at his watch.

  “Is there anything else? I wouldn’t want Beba to start worrying about me not being at home.”

  This time Montalbano, feeling in a better mood, stood up and accompanied him to the door. Not because Augello had made things seem any easier by what he’d said. But for the exact opposite reason. The difficulty of the case actually made him feel strangely happy and cheerful inside, rather the way the genuine hunter feels when faced with a shrewd, skilled prey.

  In the doorway, Mimi asked him:

  “Would you please tell me why you’re getting so worked up over the Gargano case?”

  “No. I probably don’t even know myself. But while we’re on the subject, any idea how François is doing?”

  “I talked to my sister yesterday and she said they’re all doing fine. You’ll see them at the wedding. But why did you say ‘while we’re on the subject’? What has François got to do with Gargano?”

  It would take too long and too much effort to explain the fright he’d had when it occurred to him the kid’s money might have disappeared with the swindling ragioniere That fright, in fact, had been one of the reasons he’d thrown himself headlong into the investigation.

  “Is that what I said? Bah, I dunno,” he replied with a perfect poker face.

  “Fazio, forget what I said to you yesterday. Mimi told me they’ve been doing a lot of serious investigation. No sense in you wasting any more of your time. In any case, they can’t even find a dog who’s seen Gargano around here.”

  “Whatever you say, Chief,” said Fazio.

  But he didn’t move from where he was standing in front of the inspector’s desk.

  “Did you want to tell me something?”

  “I dunno. I found something in Inspector Augello’s file. It’s a deposition by someone who says he saw Gargano’s Alfa 166 on a country road on the night of August the thirty-first.”

  Montalbano leapt out of his chair.

  “Yeah, and?”

  “Inspector Augello wrote next to it: ‘Not to be taken seriously.’ So they let it drop.”

  “Why, for the love of God?”

  “ ’Cause the man’s name is Antonino Tommasino.”

  “What the fuck do I care what his name is! What matters is—”

  “You should care, Chief. A couple of years ago this Tommasino went to the carabinieri and reported seeing a sea monster with three heads in the waters off Puntasecca. Then last year he came to our station at the crack of dawn screaming that he’d seen a flying saucer land. You shoulda seen it, Chief. He told his story to Catarella, who got so spooked he started screaming too. It was total pandemonium, Chief.”

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  He’d been over an hour signing some papers Fazio had plopped down on his desk with an air of authority—“Chief, you absolutely have to take care of these, and you’re not to move from here until you’ve finished!”—when the door opened and Augello came in without even knocking. He looked very upset.

  “The wedding’s been postponed!”

  Oh God, his waffling must have taken a turn for the worse.

  “You changed your mind like a good cuckold?”

  “No, this morning Beba got a call from her home-town of Aidone. Her father’s had a heart attack. Apparently it’s not too serious, but she doesn’t want to get married without her father. They’re very close. She’s already left and I’m going to join her later today. If all goes well, we’ll have the wedding in about a month. What am I going to do?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Montalbano, puzzled by the question.

  “I can’t hold out for a whole month, lying awake one night counting the days till the wedding, and the next night figuring out ways to run away. By the time I’m walking down the aisle I’ll be either in a straitjacket or having a nervous breakdown.”

  “I’ll keep you from having a nervous breakdown. Tell you what. You go to Aidone, see how things stand, then come back here and you can get back to work.”

  He reached for the telephone.

  “I’m going to tell Livia.”

  “No need, I already called her,” said Mimi, on his way out.

  Montalbano felt a jealous rage well up inside. What? Your future father-in-law has a heart attack, your fiancée’s crying and desperate, your wedding’s down the drain, and the first thing you do is call Livia? He took a big swipe at the stack of papers, scattering them all over the floor, got up, left, drove to the port, and went on a long walk to dispel his fury.

  He didn’t know why, but on his way back to the station he decided to go a different way and passed in front of the King Midas office. It was open. He pushed on the glass door and went inside.

  A sense of desolate bleakness immediately grabbed him by the throat. Only one lamp in the office was turned on, shedding a funereal light, as at a wake. Mariastella Cosentino sat behind her teller’s window, immobile, eyes staring fixedly ahead.

  “Good morning,” said Montalbano. “I was just passing by and.... Any news?”

  Mariastella threw up her hands and said nothing.

  “Has Giacomo Pellegrino called in from Germany?”

  Mariastella opened her eyes wide.

  “From Germany?”

  “Yes, he went to Germany on an assignment for Gargano. Didn’t you know?”

  Mariastella looked confused, disturbed.

  “No, I didn’t. In fact I was wondering what had become of him. I thought maybe he hadn’t shown up to avoid—”

  “No,” said Montalbano. “His uncle, who’s got the same name as him, told me Gargano had instructed Giacomo, by phone, to go to Germany on the afternoon of August the thirty-first.”

  “The day before Mr. Gargano was supposed to arrive?”

  “Precisely.”

  Mariastella remained speechless.

  “Something not seem right to you?”

  “To be honest, yes.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Well, Giacomo was the only one of us who actually worked with Mr. Gargano on payments and calculation of interest. It seems odd to me that Mr. Gargano would send him so far away on business when he needed him more here. And anyway, Giacomo....”

  She stopped, clearly not wanting to go on.

  “Go on, you can trust me. Tell me everything you’re thinking. It’s in Mr. Gargano’s own interest.”

  Uttering the last sentence, he felt worse than a cheater at three-card monte. But Miss Cosentino swallowed the bait.

  “I don’t think Giacomo really knew much about high finance. Whereas Mr. Gargano did. He was a wizard.”

  Her eyes sparkled at the thought of her beloved’s brilliance.

  “Listen,” said the inspector. “Do you know Giacomo Pellegrino’s address?”

  “Of course,” said Mariastella.

  She wrote it down for him.

  “If you hear any news, give me a call,” said Montalbano.

  They shook hands, Mariastella limiting herself to exhaling a less than audible “Good day.” Perhaps she had no strength left. Perhaps she was letting herself starve to death the way some dogs do over the graves of their masters. He raced out of the office, feeling as if he were suffocating.

  The door to Giacomo Pellegrino’s apartment was wide open. There were sacks of cement, cans of paint, and other mason’s equipment cluttering the landing. The inspector went inside.

  “Can I come in?”

  “What do you want?” a mason in mason’s getup, paper hat and all, called out from atop a ladder.

  “I dunno,” said Montalbano, slightly disoriented. “Isn’t this where somebody named Pellegrino lives?”

  “I don’t know nothing ’bout who lives or don’t live here,” said the mason.

  He reached up and rapped his knuckles against the ceiling as if it were a door.

  “Signora Catarina!” he called.

  A woman’s muffled voice answered from above.

  “What is it?”

  “Come downstairs, signora, there’s someone here wants to talk to you.”

  “I’ll be right down.”

  Montalbano stepped out onto the landing. He heard a door open and close upstairs, then a strange noise that sounded like a bellows in action. It all became clear to him when he saw Signora Catarina appear at the top of the stairs. She must have weighed no less than three hundred pounds, and with every step she took, she made that huffing sound. As soon as she saw the inspector, she stopped.

  “And who are you?”

  “I’m a police inspector. Montalbano’s the name.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “To talk to you, signora.”

  “Will it take long?”

  The inspector made an evasive gesture with his hand. Signora Catarina looked at him thoughtfully.

  “It’s better if you come upstairs,” she finally decided, beginning the difficult maneuver of turning herself around.

  The inspector lingered. He would wait until he heard the key turn in the door upstairs before he moved.

  “Come on up,” the woman’s voice guided him.

  He found himself in the right living room. Madonnas under bell jars, reproductions of tearful Madonnas, little Madonna-shaped bottles full of Lourdes water. The signora was already seated in an armchair that had obviously been made to measure. She signaled to Montalbano to sit down on the sofa.

  “Tell me something, Mr. Inspector. I was expecting this! I could sense he would end up this way, that degenerate hoodlum! In jail! Behind bars for his whole life, till the day he dies!”

  “Who are you talking about, signora?”

  “Who do you think? My husband! He’s been out of the house for three days straight! Gambling, drinking, whoring, the vile, filthy wretch!”

  “I’m sorry, signora, but I didn’t come here because of your husband.”

  “Ah, no? So who’d you come for, then?”

  “For Giacomo Pellegrino. He was renting the apartment downstairs, wasn’t he?” The sort of globe that was Signora Catarina’s face began to look more and more bloated, and the inspector was beginning to fear it might explode. In reality the woman was smiling with delight.

  “Now there’s a fine boy for you! So educated and polite! I’m so sorry I lost him!”

  “You-lost him in what sense?”

  “I lost him because he left my house.”

  “He no longer lives downstairs?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Please tell me the whole story from the beginning, signora.”

  “What beginning?” she said in dialect. “Roundabout the twenty-fifth of August, he comes up here and tells me he’s gonna move out, and since he din’t give no advance notice, he puts three
months’ rent in my hands. On the thirtieth, in the morning, he packed two suitcases with his stuff, said good-bye to me, and left the apartment empty. And that’s the beginning and the end.”

  “Did he say where he was going to live?”

  “An’ why should he tell me that? What are we? Mother and son? Husband and wife? Brother and sister?”

  “Not even cousins?” asked Montalbano, offering another variation on the possibilities of relation. But Signora Catarina didn’t grasp the irony.

  “Not a chance! All he said to me was he was going to Germany for about a month, but when he got back he was gonna move into his own house. Such a good boy. May the good Lord stand by him and help him!”

  “Has he written or phoned you from Germany?”

  “Why would he do that? What are we, relatives or something?”

  “I think we’ve well established the answer to that question,” said Montalbano. “Has anyone come looking for him?”

  “No, sir, nobody. Except around the fourth or fifth of September, when somebody did come looking for him.”

  “Do you know who it was?”

  “Yessir, a p‘liceman. He said Mr. Giacomo was supposed to report to the p’lice station. But I told him he left for Germany.”

  “Did he have a car?”

  “Who, Giacomino? No, he knew how to drive, had his license and all, but he din’t have no car. He had a little broken-down motorbike. Sometimes it’d start, sometimes it wouldn’t.”

  Montalbano stood up, thanked her, and said good-bye.

  “ ’Scuse me if I don’t walk you to the door,” said Signora Catarina, “but it’s hard for me to stand up.”

  “Reason with me for a minute,” said the inspector to the red mullets he had on his plate. “According to what Signora Catarina told me, Giacomo left the house on the morning of August the thirtieth. According to his name-sake uncle, the next day Giacomo told him he was flying to Germany at four o’clock that afternoon. So the question is this: Where did Giacomo sleep on the night of the thirtieth? Wouldn’t it have been more logical to leave the apartment on the morning of the thirty-first after spending the night there? And also: What happened to the motorbike ? But the main question is: Is Giacomo’s story of any importance to the investigation? And, if so, why?” The mullets did not answer, among other reasons because they were no longer on the plate but in Montalbano’s belly.