Temporary Perfections

by Gianrico Carofiglio

  She looked at me in astonishment.

  “Then you already knew?”

  Obviously, I didn’t know. I felt the thrill of winning when you’re bluffing in a poker game. I shrugged and acted indifferent. I said nothing; it was her turn.

  “If you already know about it, then there’s not much left to say. He loved cocaine, he always had plenty, and so …”

  “Did he sell it, too?”

  “No! That is, I don’t know. I couldn’t say for sure.”

  And then, hesitantly, after another pause. “But he always seemed to have plenty of it.”

  “Did the issue of drugs have something to do with why Manuela broke up with him?”

  She shook her head forcefully, and I thought I glimpsed for just a fraction of a second a flash of despair, or something like it, in the way she did it. I told myself I needed to restrain my impulse to read too much into things.

  “I assume there’s no smoking in here, right?”

  “I wouldn’t have guessed you were a smoker. You look like an athlete.”

  “I only smoke a couple a day, well, three or four. After dinner, after a glass of wine. When I’m relaxing. But sometimes I need a cigarette when I’m feeling really tense. Like right now.”

  “Well, I’m sorry if I’ve made you tense. Go ahead and have a cigarette. You’re allowed.”

  “No, it’s not you making me tense. You’ve been very nice, in fact. It’s just the whole situation, the … well, you know what I mean, right?”

  She took out a brightly colored cigarette case, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it with an athletic gesture. I extracted an ashtray from a drawer and handed it to her.

  “I was an athlete, in my day.”

  “In your day? What do you mean by that?”

  “I was a good swimmer. I won a bunch of regional championships. I even won some national meets. That life is stressful, though. Training sessions twice a day, add that to full-time studying and you have no life. After a few years, I quit. And I never really looked back.”

  “I quit competitive sports, too, and I was about your age at the time.”

  Of course, there was absolutely no good reason for me to tell her that, other than my pathetic vanity.

  “Which sport?” she asked, blowing a column of smoke out of the side of her mouth.

  “Boxing.”

  “Boxing? You mean, like fighting, in the ring?”

  “I fought for a few years. Amateur standing, of course. I won a regional title and silver at the national college championships.”

  What an idiot, I said to myself. You’re flirting with a schoolgirl, as if you were her age. Cut it out, you moron.

  “Cool. I like men who are men. I usually intimidate men, so I really like men who aren’t easily intimidated. How old are you, Counselor?”

  My wits blunted by my idiotic vanity, it took me a few seconds to realize that she had successfully changed the subject away from my question, gaining precious minutes, and giving herself time to regroup.

  “Let’s forget about how old I am. We were talking about Cantalupi and how he was involved in narcotics. I was asking you whether, in your opinion, drugs had anything to do with Manuela and Michele’s breakup.”

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t rule it out. I don’t think it was any one thing. It was all of it. Manuela had figured out who that guy really was, and she didn’t want to be with him anymore.”

  “Manuela … as far as you know, did she do coke with Michele? Or at least, had it happened at some time or other?”

  She exhaled loudly. She shook her head. My impression was that she was telling herself that she’d made a mistake when she decided to come here, thinking that she’d be able to control the situation easily.

  “What does that matter? What does Manuela’s disappearance have to do with what she might have done with that asshole the year before?”

  In all likelihood, she was right. Most likely it had nothing to do with anything, but I couldn’t say that for certain without looking into it. Also, and especially, because that asshole was acting defensive, had refused to meet with me and, one way or another, had something to hide. I decided I needed to win Caterina’s cooperation, bring her over to my side.

  “Listen, Caterina. I have to assume that we’re all just stumbling around in the dark in this thing. We have to try to figure out, feeling our way, what’s there in the dark. No one can say, in advance, whether something is significant or not. That’s why I need you to answer the question I just asked you.”

  I let a few seconds go by. She looked at me, scowling, and said nothing.

  “I need to know, because Michele is refusing to meet with me. Which doesn’t necessarily mean that he has anything to do with Manuela’s disappearance, but I need to make an effort to look into this, at the very least.”

  “Michele refused to come in?”

  “That’s right. Manuela’s mother called him, just as she called you. At first, he said he’d come in. In fact, he was supposed to come in right after you. Then, a short while ago, a lawyer called me, told me that Michele was his client, that he wouldn’t be coming in to talk to me, and that if I tried to contact Michele again he would lodge a complaint with the ethics committee of the bar association. Does that surprise you?”

  “Yes. Well, no, actually it doesn’t.”

  “He probably has something to hide. That’s the something that I have to find out, even if it’s just to rule out that it has anything to do with Manuela’s disappearance. Which is why I need all the information I can get.”

  “And what I’m about to tell you will stay between us?”

  “Of course. Everything you tell me is covered by professional privilege.” In reality, I was talking through my hat. Professional privilege is limited to information exchanged between a lawyer and a client. Caterina wasn’t my client. Still, a reference to professional privilege is always impressive, and I thought it would reinforce my promise to keep what we said secret.

  “Manuela did cocaine occasionally.”

  Before asking her anything else, I let her words hover in the air, then sink in and register between us.

  “With Michele?”

  “Yes. He let her try it the first time.”

  “Did she do it often, occasionally? A little, a lot? And did she keep on using it even after she stopped seeing him?”

  “I don’t know how often she used cocaine. And I don’t know if she kept using it even after the two of them broke up.”

  I looked up at her, skeptically. My face must have communicated that I was having difficulty believing that answer. Skepticism that she wouldn’t know something like that about a close friend.

  “Okay, maybe she used occasionally, even after they broke up. But I didn’t like it, so we didn’t talk about it.”

  She thought for a few more seconds and then continued. “I was—I am—opposed to that stuff. I told her a couple of times, and she got mad, as if I were meddling in her business. Maybe she was right—everyone’s free to do as they like. I don’t like it either when someone tells me what I can or can’t do. So I stopped telling her what I thought and she stopped talking about it, since she knew I didn’t like it.”

  “Do you know if she’d been using it recently?”

  “I don’t know. I swear!”

  She’d spoken with an exasperated tone, but she regained control almost immediately, and went on talking.

  “Look, I’m helping you. And I’m not even sure how you got me onto this subject, which I had no intention of discussing. But the fact that I’ve been straight with you should convince you that I have no intention of hiding anything from you. You have to believe me.”

  “I believe you. But you might happen to overlook something, and that’s why I’m pushing you.”

  “I don’t know whether Manuela was taking drugs in the months before she went missing. I don’t know. If I did know I’d tell you. I’ve already told you a lot of things.”

  “Who could we as
k?”

  “I don’t know. In the last few months I was in Bari and she was in Rome, and we didn’t see as much of each other.”

  I wanted to ask her if she’d ever used cocaine with Manuela, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  “What do you know about the place near Ostuni where Manuela spent the night between Saturday and Sunday?”

  “Nothing in particular. I’d been there once, the year before, for a dinner party. It’s a beautiful place, and there are always a bunch of nice people there, lots of activity. Manuela really liked it.”

  “Do you know the young woman Manuela stayed with?”

  “Only to talk to.”

  I paused to process the information I had acquired. I wasn’t taking notes. I figured the conversation would flow more naturally, and therefore be more useful, if I didn’t have to stop to write. So I did my best to organize mentally the things that Caterina had told me. After she left, I’d quickly jot down some notes.

  “Do you remember when you last saw Manuela?”

  “Wednesday or Thursday. I can’t remember exactly. I called her up, we met downtown, and we had a drink together before dinner.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “I don’t remember. Nothing important.”

  “Was there any mention of Michele?”

  “No.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual about her? I mean, I don’t know, did she seem high-strung, upset, euphoric?”

  “No. Manuela was perfectly normal. She might have said something about having to go to Rome the following week. But I’m not even sure about that. It was a normal, ordinary conversation, like any other.”

  “Was Manuela seeing someone?”

  “Do you mean, was she dating someone?”

  “Yes.”

  “No. Earlier in the year, she’d gone out with a guy in Rome. But nothing serious. She definitely wasn’t dating anyone in September.”

  “Do you know who the last guy she went out with in Rome was?”

  “No. I remember a few months earlier she told me about this one guy who was calling her, and he’d taken her out to dinner, but she didn’t especially like him. She agreed to go out with him just because she was bored.”

  “And you don’t know this guy?”

  “No, I’ve never met him. I don’t even know his name.”

  “Maybe Nicoletta Abbrescia knows who he is.”

  “Yes, she might, if only because they lived in the same apartment.”

  “Nicoletta Abbrescia is in Rome, now, isn’t she?”

  “I think so. We haven’t talked for a while.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Since I left Rome, we’ve fallen out of touch. And she comes to Bari much less frequently than Manuela did. I’d say that since I moved back here, we might have seen each other three or four times.”

  “Since Manuela’s disappearance, how often have you seen each other?”

  “Never. We’ve talked on the phone, but we haven’t seen each other.”

  “Why not?”

  “I told you, we’ve fallen out of touch. And probably it was Manuela who kept us connected, in a way. Without Manuela, there was no reason to get together.”

  “But you talked on the phone.”

  “Sure, once or twice. She called me immediately when she heard Manuela had disappeared.”

  “When was that, exactly?”

  “A couple of days afterward, I think. Manuela’s parents had called her to ask if she’d seen Manuela, when they couldn’t find her.”

  “And she didn’t know anything.”

  “She didn’t know anything.”

  “Did the two of you have any theories?”

  She paused again, but only briefly. The subject had already been broached.

  “Both of us thought of Michele, but then, of course, it turned out he wasn’t in Italy at the time.”

  “What exactly did you say about it?”

  “Nothing exactly. I don’t know. ‘Do you think Michele was involved?’ And what he might have done. ‘You don’t think he could have kidnapped her, do you?’ ”

  “So you talked about the possibility that he kidnapped her?”

  “Not the possibility, really. We didn’t know what to think, so we just said, ‘You don’t think he could have kidnapped her?’ or something like that. But we were just talking.”

  “Who mentioned it first? You or Nicoletta?”

  I realized that my voice was becoming insistent.

  “It wasn’t anything, really. It was just something we threw out there, just something to say, ‘you don’t think he could have kidnapped her?’ We were just talking, since we didn’t have any idea of what might have happened. I never really thought that he could actually have kidnapped her.”

  “But just a little while ago you said that when you first heard about Manuela’s disappearance, the first thing you thought was that Michele might be involved.”

  She lit another cigarette, this time without asking permission.

  “That’s true. And it’s true that we talked about kidnapping. But we just said it, I don’t know. I can’t actually imagine in practical terms how it would have happened. And anyway, it doesn’t matter. It’s impossible, because he wasn’t even in Italy.”

  Now there was a note of exasperation in her voice, and I decided it was time to bring the session to a close. To keep from coming to a sudden end, and giving her the impression that I’d stopped because she’d lost her temper, I sat in silence for a few minutes, giving her time to finish her cigarette.

  “All right, thanks very much. It’s been very helpful to talk with you.”

  She looked at me and became visibly more relaxed. Now it appeared that she wanted to ask me a question.

  “What are you going to do next?”

  I gave her a look that was similar to the one she’d given me earlier. I wondered whether—and how—I should answer her question. I decided that maybe she could help me see into Manuela’s world, that is, if it was true that the explanation of her disappearance was concealed there.

  “That’s a good question. I wonder the same thing. Of course, it would be interesting to be able to talk to Cantalupi, but that doesn’t strike me as easy to arrange. I’d also like to talk to Nicoletta, in Rome if necessary. I just hope she’ll be willing to talk to me.”

  “If you want, I can speak to Nicoletta about it.”

  I looked at her. Her offer surprised me.

  “Well, if you did, it would be a help.”

  “I’m sorry I lost my temper, earlier. It happens to me in situations where I feel insecure. I don’t like feeling insecure. Please forgive me.”

  “Don’t worry about it. It was entirely understandable, and sometimes I can be a little pushy. I can see why you might get irritated.”

  “I’d like to help you. I’d like to do something to help find out what happened.”

  “If you could talk to Nicoletta and ask her to meet with me, that would be a big help. It really would.”

  “Fine. I’ll call her and I’ll let you know. Why don’t you give me a cell phone number where I can reach you?”

  I knew that she was asking for my cell phone number for a technical, practical reason. Still, for a brief moment, I experienced a dangerous thrill.

  I pushed it out of my mind with some annoyance. I pulled out a business card, wrote my cell phone number on it with a pen, and handed it to her. The same thing I had done with Anita.

  But it wasn’t the same thing at all.

  16.

  Caterina left, and for the next hour I was caught up in meetings with Maria Teresa, Consuelo, and Pasquale, who came in one after another to present a variety of papers to sign or examine. Notifications of fees to be sent to the bar association, summonses and complaints served by courts all over the region of Puglia, the schedule for the following day, briefs for appeals drawn up by Consuelo and Maria Teresa, who were still learning the trade and, eager apprentices that they were, had
successfully conveyed to me their intense anxiety.

  Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. Pleading union rules, I told them it was long past normal quitting time. I insisted they go home, or go to see their sweethearts, or go wherever they felt like going. The important thing was that they go, and go immediately.

  When I was alone at last, I tried to think through the events of that afternoon, from my meeting with Anita and the phone call from that asshole Schirani, up to my long conversation with Caterina.

  Fifteen minutes of musing produced nothing, so I picked up a fat, brand-new legal pad and began jotting down on its blank pages everything that had emerged from my two meetings, as if I were writing a report for someone who hadn’t been present. When I was done, I circled a few words in red ink and drew a double circle around the name Cantalupi every time it appeared in my notes, as if those red circles could make the answers emerge, or perhaps at least conjure some reasonable questions.

  The only real working hypothesis—feeble though it was—involved Manuela’s ex-boyfriend and the question of his use—and possible dealing—of narcotics.

  I tried Googling Cantalupi’s name, but I came up with nothing. Just to give it a shot, I Googled Manuela’s name, too. There were a few hits, but none of the Manuela Ferraros were my Manuela Ferraro.

  On my legal pad I wrote the following phrase: investigate the world of drug dealing, followed by a handsome question mark. I circled that note in red. I felt like an idiot. But then, immediately afterward, I did have an idea.

  I rarely have clients from the world of organized crime, so I don’t have much call to defend drug dealers. The few that I happen to take on as clients are generally lone operators, like the young man for whom I had gone to Rome a few days earlier to argue, unsuccessfully, the Court of Cassation appeal.

  Among these clients, however, there was one—Damiano Quintavalle—who had continued to operate for years now because, even after he was caught, he always managed to emerge more or less unscathed. He was a smart young man, even likable, and most importantly for my purposes, he seemed to know a lot of people, in every walk of life, all over the city.

  He was the only person I could reasonably contact to ask for help in discovering whether, and in what way, Michele Cantalupi was involved with the world of drug dealing or with illegal activities of any sort. I decided I’d give him a call the next day and have a chat. I was feeling my way in the dark, I told myself, but it was better than doing nothing.