Three-Card Monte

by Marco Malvaldi

  Carlo’s office was no more chaotic than the computer room, but could certainly have honourably competed with it in untidiness. Here, Carlo copied the data, recalling it from Argo and mastering it onto CD. Once the operation was over, he had looked at Massimo, his eyes bursting with curiosity.

  “Do you want to see what’s in it right away?” Translation: if you look at it right away you’re going to send me out of the room, aren’t you?

  Massimo and Turturro looked at each other. It’s not up to me, Massimo thought, but . . .

  Turturro raised his eyebrows, in a gesture that could easily have been interpreted as “I don’t see any harm.” Turturro’s eyebrows had not even reached their destination before Carlo clicked twice on the first of the two folders.

  “Ah, here we are. There are two documents. This is the first one: ‘Natsu,’ dated May 20 at 23:21.”

  The first document appeared on the screen, and this time all three raised their eyebrows.

  The document, obviously, was in Japanese.

  “Does either of you know Japanese?” Carlo asked.

  Sitting in the car, with the windows down to enjoy the warm wind produced by the moving vehicle, Massimo’s body was heading for the cash and carry in order to stock up both the bar and his home refrigerator. Massimo’s brain, on the other hand, was still in Carlo’s office, thinking about what they had found in Asahara’s new computer. And, as always, to be sure of not losing anything of what he was thinking, Massimo was talking to himself:

  “So, let’s go over this. There are two folders in the computer. The first contains two documents written in Japanese. Nobody can understand a damn word because they’re written in ideograms, but to judge by the look of them, they don’t seem to be official documents. There are also words written in different colors. Presumably notes. Notes about what, I don’t know. But clearly written for personal use. In the other folder, there’s a program written in Fortran with its various input and output files. A calculation code. Carlo says it’s a program for molecular dynamics. And that it’s very simple. It doesn’t have any peculiarity. And when it comes to such things, I trust Carlo. So whatever that old Japanese professor was referring to has to be in the documents in Japanese. And at this point, until we find a way to understand what’s in them, it’s best not to think about it. Turn it whichever way you want, that’s the way it is. If you don’t have reliable data about something, you can’t start to argue about it, just as you feel. Unless you’re the Pope, of course. Am I the Pope? No, for the moment I’m not. So let’s go and do the shopping and not think about it anymore. This afternoon Fusco can get some random Japanese to read the documents, there are plenty of them around, and then we’ll see.”

  Leaving the cash and carry, Massimo headed for home, in San Martino, to put his personal shopping in the fridge. Having got to Via San Martino, he should, in theory, have been able to turn under the arch in Vicolo Rosselmini and come out on Piazza San Bernardino, where he would have been able to park comfortably and drop his shopping at home, in the very same square. That was the theory. In reality, though, some idiot had parked his stupid scooter right in the middle of the arch, next to the terracotta flower beds of the restaurant, which already made it difficult enough to enter the alley without scratching the bumper. Cursing, Massimo got out of the car and tried to shift the motionless vehicle from under the arch.

  Unfortunately, partly because the scooter stubbornly obeyed the laws of gravity, partly because our hero was objectively unendowed with the appropriate physical attributes, all that Massimo managed to obtain was a terrible sweat and a replenishment of his already large curriculum of blasphemies. There was no way: the scooter could not be moved. Still cursing, Massimo got back in his car, sat down on the edge of the seat in order not to touch it with his sweat-soaked back, and started to look for a parking spot, which he did not find until he got to Piazza dei Facchini, in other words, a considerable distance away. Then, as laden with bags as a llama, he headed laboriously for home.

  Sometimes, when you’re feeling pissed off, there’s nothing better than to buy yourself something. Anything, even something stupid, in fact, preferably something stupid: something that doesn’t cost much, that’s absolutely superfluous, and whose sole purpose is to give you satisfaction. You see something, you want it, you go in and get it. Outside shopping, that doesn’t happen often in life.

  That was why, half an hour later, having finished transferring his purchases, and feeling cleansed at least in body by a nice shower, Massimo was wandering around a bookstore in search of something to keep him company on the beach and get rid of his bad mood. After hovering a long time around the mystery section and resisting the blandishments of the latest arrivals, he started to leaf through the classics. Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus. Must be good. Of course, Camus on a beach is like giving a piece of pandoro to a cat. Maybe this winter? Robbe-Grillet, Jealousy. Oh, please. Soseki, I Am a Cat. Hmm, maybe. It’s certainly long. My God, what a brick. No, no, something less bulky. Roald Dahl, Tales of the Unexpected. Short stories. Perfect. Never read anything by this guy, but I seem to remember hearing that he’s good.

  Pleased with his choice, Massimo went to pay, and as he was handing the book to the cashier, he found himself thinking again about that damned scooter. Almost simultaneously, among the books displayed by the cash register he saw one that, somehow, grabbed his attention. He smiled, picked it up, placed it resolutely on the cash register next to the Dahl, and took out his wallet. The cashier, who knew him, gave him a surprised look and said, “Three Meters Above Heaven, by Federico Moccia. Is it a gift?”

  “No, it’s for me.”

  “Do you read this stuff?”

  “I have no intention of reading it. I’m buying it as a homage to the author. It’s just given me an idea.”

  Leaving the bookstore, Massimo walked fifty yards and went into Signor Tellini’s store. He nodded in greeting, went to the counter and made a request. As usual, Signor Tellini replied with another question: a further request for clarification, to identify exactly what the customer wants, made in the tranquil tone of someone who knows that he has what you need. Having asked the question, Signor Tellini withdrew to the back room and immediately came out again with the object that Massimo had in mind. Having put the object on the counter, he explained to Massimo how it worked, both to make sure that the mechanism did not have any problems and to show him those little flaws—you have to force it a little bit like this the first few times, but then it’ll run by itself, you’ll see—that every mechanical device has, the secret of which has been known to him for a long time. As he was paying, Massimo asked Signor Tellini for a pen and a piece of paper, on which he wrote a brief message.

  On his way home, he saw that the scooter was still in its place, and he walked quickly towards it. Then, having quickly looked around to make sure nobody was about, he did what he had to do.

  Two minutes later, having completed his task, he walked rapidly and indifferently away without lingering to look. Before leaving, however, he had taken out the piece of paper with the message he had written in the store and attached it with a pin to the seat of the scooter.

  On the paper, in the hated elementary school handwriting from which Massimo was unable to free himself, was written the following message:

  “Dear idiot,

  “Thanks to your scooter being parked in such a stupid way, I wasn’t able to get through in my car. That’s why I had to go and park in the back of beyond and carry my shopping bags all the way home in the sun, which was a real drag.

  “As you can see, there’s now a nice chain around the front wheel of your scooter. In order to take it off, so that you can then go and splatter yourself all over some wall while attempting to ride on one wheel, the best thing to do is to open it with its key. Where is the key? you must be wondering. Don’t worry, I haven’t taken it with me. The key is in the earth in one of the vases o
f flowers in front of the restaurant. I won’t tell you which one in order not to spoil your fun. Hoping it’s as much of a drag for you to to find it as it was for me to get home, I wish you a crappy day and sign myself your very affectionate Batman.”

  SEVEN

  It was about seven in the evening. While in the sky the orange was just starting its ephemeral conquest of blue, somewhere further down Massimo was returning to Pineta after a day by the sea that had, objectively speaking, been thrown away.

  Firstly, the sea was still too cold to bathe in. Secondly, given that it had rained during the previous few days, the sand was still too wet to have the right texture when it settled, all warm and compact, around the curves and corners of your retired accountant’s physique, which meant that the idea of having a nap had turned out to be a not very inviting one.

  Thirdly, taking a book of short stories to the sea had not been a wise choice. Not that they were bad. On the contrary, one or two of them were really brilliant. The fact was, it was hard for Massimo to like short stories. The constant change of atmosphere didn’t involve him, or help him to identify, or even to imagine the faces of the characters. In short, they didn’t produce the effect of isolation from reality that he looked for in a book. Of course, it’s only natural to wonder why he had bought a book of short stories knowing that he probably wouldn’t like it. Unfortunately, there is no way to know the precise reason. Each of us has a twisted way of using the bookstore of our own knowledge.

  It is a fact that men with a strong sense of curiosity often feel the need to shake off their own experience, perceiving it more as a rigid shell of habit that limits movement than as a friendly protective coating, a necessary armor against the forces of the unknown. When we challenge our own habits, we are fully aware that the likelihood of victory is remote, and it is precisely the exceptional nature of such a victory that swells the victorious chest with satisfaction and wraps it in an aura of heroism on the rare occasions when we manage to cheat routine.

  However, since this is a story without pretensions, it’s time to put Man with a capital letter back among the dusty tomes of philosophy and focus again on man with a small m, an average car, and a huge nose. Massimo, in fact. As we were saying, what the traffic had been unable to do had been achieved by a not very successful day by the sea: it seemed to Massimo that he had wasted an afternoon, and when Massimo wasted time he tended to feel really pissed off.

  On his way back to Pineta, he searched for a while on the radio for a song that would cheer him up, but given that the gods obviously had it in for him today, the most interesting thing he managed to pick up was a program on Radio 24 about variable-tax mortgages. At this point he gave up, switched off the radio, and started to think about his own things.

  When he got to Pineta, he parked and headed for the bar, which was closed but with the shutters still up, although behind them inside the Venetian blinds were down. Massimo approached, glanced in through the cracks in the blinds, and stood there, looking into the bar. His bar. Or at least, what he had been convinced was his bar. Because his bar didn’t have orange walls. Or posters. And when had it ever had Venetian blinds?

  At that moment, inside the bar, the telephone rang.

  Massimo unlocked the glass door and found himself confronted with an impassable barrier of wooden sticks. Cursing, he picked up an armful of sticks as best he could and created a gap to pass through, while the telephone, oblivious to the complexity of the maneuver, kept on ringing. Having got out of the tangle, Massimo made a dash for the phone, picked it up, and said, “Hello?”

  “Hello, is that the Bar Lume?” said a voice with a Venetian accent.

  “One moment, please.”

  Massimo went to the blinds, and since they were now on the inside, he pulled them up in the prescribed manner with the little rope, and went outside. He read the sign over the bar, came back in, and returned to the telephone.

  “Yes, this is the Bar Lume. I’m sorry, I was starting to have my doubts. Go ahead.”

  “Pineta Police Station here,” said the voice of Officer Galan. “Please hold on.”

  “Signor Viviani?” came Fusco’s voice after a moment.

  “Speaking.”

  “I’ve been looking for you all afternoon. Where the hell were you?”

  Mind your own business, why don’t you? But then he is a police inspector. Must be some kind of professional deformation.

  “I was by the sea. Today was my day off.”

  “Listen, you’re currently helping us with our inquiries into the death of Professor Asahara. You really need to remain as available as possible. Don’t you have a cell phone number so that we can reach you?”

  “No. I don’t have a number and I don’t have a cell phone. You know how it is, I really like my privacy.”

  There was a moment’s silence.

  “All right. You’re the boss. But what I most care about is my work. And today you were important for my work. That’s why I must ask you to be where we can reach you at all times. It’s vital that you remain available. For an intelligent person like you, that shouldn’t be hard to understand.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Now let’s get to the point. This morning you went with Officer Turturro to the University, to see Dr. Pittaluga, who undertook to read the hard drive in Professor Asahara’s laptop. In his report, Dr. Pittaluga maintains that, apart from the system folders required for the machine to work, there were only two folders in the computer. In the first there was a very simple calculation code, probably for teaching purposes according to Pittaluga. In the second there were two files. Can you confirm that there was nothing else in the computer?”

  “As far as I can see, there wasn’t.”

  “Isn’t it possible that the Professor kept some files hidden in the system folders, where nobody would look for them?”

  “It’s possible, but extremely unlikely. Nobody of sound mind would do that.”

  Oh, great, I’ve just called him crazy.

  “Yes, Officer Turturro thinks the same. All right. In addition, Dr. Pittaluga has provided us with a further piece of information. He says that computer’s practically useless.”

  There was another moment of silence. Well, a laptop that doesn’t work is useless. Unless you want to hit somebody over the head with it, of course.

  “Practically speaking,” Fusco went on, “Pittaluga says the programs to make it work had not been installed. There was no program for using the Internet, and no way of viewing images or reading PDFs. Apart from a very simple text editor, there was nothing at all.”

  “I see.” So to speak. “I’m sorry, but what about the files that—”

  “They’ve been looked at by one of the conference delegates. Dr. Kawaguchi, to be precise. The man who helped us with the interviews.”

  “I see. So their contents—”

  “Right now, their contents are of concern only to the investigating authorities. I’m sorry, Signor Viviani, but I wouldn’t want to disturb your privacy with anything as trifling as a murder. In case we need you, don’t worry, we’ll call you. So go back to your croissants and have a nice day.”

  Needless to say, by the time he went back into the bar, these reprimands from the authorities—deserved as they were—had pissed him off all the more. In addition, he felt slightly disorientated. After the first moment of confusion, he had realized that Tiziana had asked him the previous day if she could tidy up the bar a little, but couldn’t remember exactly what she’d intended to do. Above all, he hadn’t thought she’d do it so quickly. All right, it’s done now. Let’s see if I like it. It’s certainly brighter, I’ll say that for her. The orange wall is really nice. The pictures aren’t bad either. Abstract, of course. Anything too classical would be out of place, whereas abstract is always trendy, as those idlers who live off other people by claiming to be interior decorators would say. T
he Venetian blinds, though, have to go. Why are women so obsessed with curtains and blinds? It may be a stereotype but you can’t deny there’s a basis in truth. They love curtains and blinds, and hate—

  And here Massimo, thinking of the world “soccer,” realized that among the many things she’d added, installed, and painted in the room, Tiziana had also found time to take something away. At that very moment, the girl herself came into the bar, laden with bags.

  “Hi. Can you give me a hand? I’m collapsing here.”

  “Right away,” Massimo said, taking the bags. “I can well believe you’re collapsing. With all the work you’ve been doing.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “I will like it.”

  “You will like it?”

  “I’ll like it as soon as you bring back the poster of the Torino team and the front page of the Gazzetta dello Sport. As long as you haven’t thrown them away. In which case, you’ll have to buy them again.”

  “Listen, Massimo,” Tiziana began, putting her hands out with the palms facedown, as if to say don’t start breaking my balls, I’ve been working my guts out to make everything nice and all you can do is criticize. I tried to keep them. I really did. The fact is that with all the walls done, and the abstract paintings and everything looking so great, those two things really clashed. I couldn’t find a place for them. Look,” she added treacherously, “if you can see a place where they’d fit, then go ahead and put them back. They’re there in the bin, I mean, in the drawer.”

  “Tiziana, I haven’t a clue where they’d fit,” Massimo said, emptying the contents of the bags into the pantry behind the counter. “I liked them where they were before.”

  Or rather, that’s where they’ve always been.

  “Because you’re a lout with no taste.”

  What now? Quite apart from the accusation itself, that wasn’t Tiziana’s voice. Sure enough, rising to his full height again, Massimo saw Aldo standing in the middle of the bar, looking at the wall with obvious approval.