“No. If I did, I’d have tried to find them.”
“The last time you spoke to them was last Thursday evening, correct?”
“Yes.”
“They didn’t say anything that might have—”
“Nothing whatsoever.”
“What did you talk about?”
“The usual things, health, the grandchildren ... I have two boys, Alfonso, named after my father, and Giovanni. Six and four years old. My parents are very fond of them. Whenever we came to Vigàta they would shower them with presents.”
He made no effort to hold back his tears.
Fazio, who’d had a look around the apartment, returned with a shrug.
“Mr. Griffo, there’s no point in us remaining here. I hope to have some news for you very soon.”
“Inspector, I took a few days off from City Hall. I can stay in Vigata at least until tomorrow evening.”
“As far as I’m concerned, you can stay as long as you like.”
“Actually, what I meant was: Could I sleep here tonight?”
Montalbano thought it over a moment. In the dining room, which also doubled as a living room, there was a small desk with papers on it. He wanted to go over these at his convenience.
“No, you can’t sleep here, I’m sorry.”
“But what if somebody calls ...?”
“Who, your parents? Why would they call, knowing there’s nobody home?”
“No, I meant if somebody calls with news ...”
“You’re right. I’ll have somebody tap the phone right away. Fazio, you take care of it. Mr. Griffo, I need a photo of your parents.”
“I’ve got one right here, Inspector, in my pocket. I took it myself when they came to Messina. Their names are Alfonso and Margherita.”
He started sobbing as he handed the photo to Montalbano.
“Five times four is twenty, twenty minus two is eighteen,” said Montalbano on the landing, after Griffo had left more bewildered than convinced.
“Trying to pick the winning numbers?” asked Fazio.
“As sure as one and one makes two, there should be twenty apartments in this building, since it has four floors. But in fact there are only eighteen, if we exclude the Griffo and Sanfilippo flats. Which means we’ve got no less than eighteen families to interrogate, and two questions to ask each family. What do you know about the Griffos? And what do you know about Nenè Sanfilippo? If that little son of a bitch Mimì were here to give us a hand—”
Speak of the devil. At that moment, Fazio’s cell phone rang.
“It’s Inspector Augello. Wants to know if we need his help.”
Montalbano’s face turned red with rage.
“Tell him to get here immediately, and if he’s not here in five minutes, I’ll break his legs.”
Fazio gave him the message.
“While we’re waiting,” the inspector suggested, “let’s go have ourselves a cup of coffee.”
When they returned to Via Cavour, Mimi was already there waiting for them. Fazio walked discreetly away.
“Mimi,” the inspector began, “I’m really at my wit’s end with you. I’m speechless. What on earth is going through your head? Do you or don’t you know that—”
“I know,” Augello interrupted him.
“What the hell do you know?”
“What I’m supposed to know. That I fucked up.The fact is, I feel weird, confused.”
The inspector’s rage subsided. Mimi was standing before him with a look he’d never had before. Not the usual devil-may-care attitude. On the contrary, there was something resigned about him, something humble.
“Mimi, would you tell me what’s up with you?”
“I’ll tell you later, Salvo.”
Montalbano was about to place a consoling hand on his subordinate’s shoulder when a sudden suspicion stopped him. What if this son of a bitch Mimi was playacting the same way he himself had done with Bonetti-Alderighi, pretending to be servile when in fact he was taking his ass for a ride? Augello, who had a poker face worthy of a tragedian, was capable of this and more. In doubt, the inspector refrained from the affectionate gesture. Instead he filled him in on the disappearance of the Griffos.
“You’ll handle the tenants on the first and second floors, Fazio will take the fifth and ground floors, and I’ll do the third and fourth floors.”
Third floor, Apartment 12. The fiftyish widow Concetta Lo Mascolo, née Burgio, launched into the most impassioned of monologues.
“Don’t talk to me about this Nenè Sanfilippo, Inspector! Don’t mention that name! The poor boy was murdered, may he rest in peace! But he damned my soul, he did! During the day he was never at home, but at night, oh yes, he certainly was. And that, for me, was when the hell began! Every other night! Hell! You see, Mr. Inspector, my bedroom shares a wall with Sanfilippo’s bedroom. And the walls in this building are paper-thin! You can hear everything, every last little thing! And after they’d been playing music loud enough to break my eardrums, they would start in with another kind of music! A symphony! Clunkety clunkety clunkety clunk! And the bed would knock against the wall and play percussion! And the slut of the hour would go ah ah ah ah! And then clunkety clunkety clunkety clunk all over again, from the top! And I would start to think wicked thoughts. So I would say ten Hail Marys. Twenty Hail Marys. Thirty Hail Marys. But it was hopeless! I couldn’t get the thoughts out of my head. I’m still a young woman, Inspector! He was damning my soul! Anyway, no, sir, I know nothing about the Griffos.They never said a word to anyone. If nobody tells me anything, why should I tell you anything? Am I right?”
Third floor, Apartment 14. The Crucillà family. Husband: Stefano Crucillà, retired, former accountant at the fish market. Wife: Antonietta née De Carlo. Elder son: Calogero, mining engineer, working in Bolivia.Younger daughter: Samanta with no h between the t and the a, math teacher, unmarried, living at home with her parents. Samanta spoke for them all.
“You see, Inspector, just to give you an idea of how unsociable the Griffos were, one day I ran into Mrs. Griffo as she was coming through the front door of the building with her grocery cart filled to bursting and two plastic shopping bags in each hand. Since you have to climb three steps to get to the elevator, I asked if I could help her. She rudely said no. And the husband was no better.
“As for Nenè Sanfilippo, good-looking guy, full of life, very nice. What did he do? What young people always do at his age, when they’re free.”
With this, she shot a glance at her parents, sighing. She, alas, was not free. Otherwise she could have shown a thing or two to Nenè Sanfilippo, rest his soul.
Third floor, Apartment 15. Dr. Ernesto Assunto, dentist.
“This is only my office, Inspector. I live in Montelusa and only come here during the day. All I can tell you is that I ran into Mr. Griffo once when his left cheek was swollen with an abscess. When I asked him if he had a dentist, he said no. So I suggested he drop in at the office. For my trouble I was given only a firm ‘no’. As for Sanfilippo, you know what, Inspector? I never met him and don’t even know what he looked like.”
Montalbano began climbing the flight of stairs that led to the floor above when he happened to look at his watch. It was one-thirty and, seeing what time it was, he felt, by conditioned reflex, a tremendous hunger pang. The elevator passed him on its way up. He heroically decided to suffer the hunger and continue his questioning, since at that hour he was more likely to find people at home. In front of Apartment 16 stood a fat, bald man holding a black, misshapen tote bag in one hand and trying with the other to insert his key in the door. He saw the inspector stop behind him.
“You looking for me?”
“Yes, Mr ... ”
“Mistretta. Who are you?”
“I’m Inspector Montalbano.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to ask you a few questions about the young man who was murdered last night—”
“Yeah, I heard. The concierge told me everyth
ing when I was leaving for the office this morning. I work at the cement plant.”
“—and about the Griffos.”
“Why, what did the Griffos do?”
“They’re missing.”
Mr. Mistretta opened the door and stood aside.
“Please come in.”
Montalbano took one step inside and found himself in an apartment in utter disorder. Two mismatched, threadbare socks adorned a shelf near the entrance. He was shown into a room that must have once been a living room. Newspapers, dirty dishes, grimy glasses, clean and unwashed laundry, ashtrays overflowing with butts and ashes.
“It’s a little messy” Mr. Mistretta admitted, “but my wife’s been away for two months in Caltanissetta, with her ailing mother.”
From the black tote bag he extracted a can of tuna, a lemon, and a loaf of bread. He opened the can and emptied its contents onto the first plate within reach. Pushing aside a pair of underpants, he grabbed a fork and a knife. He cut the lemon and squeezed it onto the tuna.
“Care to join me? Look, Inspector, I don’t want to waste your time. I was thinking of filling your ear with bullshit just to keep you here awhile and have a little company But then I realized it wouldn’t be right. I probably met the Griffos a couple of times. But we didn’t even say hello. And I never even saw the young man who was killed.”
“Thanks. Good day,” said the inspector, standing up.
Even amidst all the filth, seeing somebody eat had redoubled his appetite.
Fourth floor. Beside the door to Apartment 18, under the doorbell, was a plaque that said: Guido and Gina De Dominicis. He rang the bell.
“Who is it?” asked a little kid’s voice.
What to say to a child?
“A friend of your papa’s.”
The door opened and a boy of about eight, a mischievous glint in his eye, appeared before the inspector.
“Is your papa there? Or your mama?”
“No, but they’ll be back soon.”
“What’s your name?”
“Pasqualino. What’s yours?”
“Salvo.”
At that moment Montalbano became convinced he smelled something burning inside the apartment.
“What’s that smell?”
“Nothing. I set the house on fire.”
The inspector sprang forward, pushing Pasqualino aside. Black smoke was pouring out of a doorway It was the bedroom. One fourth of the double bed had caught fire. He took off his jacket, saw a wool blanket folded up on a chair, grabbed this, opened it, and threw it onto the flames, patting it hard with his hands. A malicious little tongue of fire consumed half of one of his shirt cuffs.
“If you put out my fire I’ll just start another one somewhere else,” said Pasqualino, brandishing a box of kitchen matches menacingly.
The little demon! What to do? Disarm him or continue to extinguish the blaze? The inspector opted for the fireman’s role, repeatedly getting singed and seared. Then a woman’s shrill cry paralyzed him.
“Guiiiiidoooo!”
A young blonde, boggle-eyed, was clearly about to faint. Montalbano hadn’t had time to open his mouth when a bespectacled, broad-shouldered young man, a kind of Clark Kent, materialized beside the young woman. Without saying a word, Superman, with a single, extremely elegant gesture, pushed his jacket aside, and at once a pistol the size of a cannon was pointing at the inspector.
“Hands up.”
Montalbano obeyed.
“He’s a pyromaniac! A pyromaniac!” the young woman babbled, weeping and embracing her precious little angel.
“Mama! Mama! He said he wanted to burn the whole house down!”
It took a good half-hour to clear matters up. Montalbano learned that the husband worked as a cashier in a bank, which explained why he went around with a gun, and that Signora Gina had come home late because she’d been to see the doctor.
“Pasqualino’s going to have a brother,” the woman confessed, lowering her eyes in modesty.
Against a background of screams and cries from the kid, who’d been spanked and locked in a small, dark room, Montalbano learned that even when the Griffos were at home, it was as if they weren’t there.
“Never a cough, or even, say, the sound of something dropped on the floor, or a word spoken a little louder than the rest. Nothing!”
As for Nenè Sanfilippo, Mr. and Mrs. De Dominicis didn’t even know the murder victim had lived in their building.
3
The last station on the Via Crucis was Apartment 19, fourth floor. Leone Guarnotta, lawyer.
Filtering out from under the door was a fragrance of ragù sauce that made Montalbano feel faint.
“Ah, you’re Inspector Montaperto,” said the big, mannish woman who answered the door.
“Montalbano.”
“I never get names right, but it’s enough for me to see a face just once on TV and I never forget it!”
“Who is it?” asked a male voice from inside the apartment.
“It’s the inspector, Leo. Come in, come in.”
As Montalbano entered, a skinny man of about sixty appeared, a napkin stuck into his shirt collar.
“Guarnotta’s the name, pleased to meet you. Make yourself comfortable. We were about to eat. Come into the living room.”
“The living room!” the mannish woman intervened. “If you waste time talking, the pasta’s going to turn to glue. Have you eaten, Inspector?”
“Actually, no, not yet,” said Montalbano, feeling his heart flutter with hope.
“Well, then, there’s no problem,” Mrs. Guarnotta concluded. “You can sit down with us for a dish of pasta, and that way it’ll be easier for all of us to talk.”
The pasta had been drained at the right moment (“Knowin’ when it’s time to drain the pasta is an art,” his housekeeper Adelina had once proclaimed). And the meat in the sauce was savory and tender.
But, except for filling his belly, the inspector had come up empty again, as far as the investigation was concerned. He had made, as the Sicilians say, another hole in the water.
Around four o‘clock that afternoon, finding himself in his office with Mimi Augello and Fazio, Montalbano couldn’t help but notice that he’d in fact made three holes in the water.
“Not to mention that with you, one plus one does not make two,” said Fazio, “since there are actually twenty-three apartments in that building.”
“Twenty-three?” said Montalbano, flummoxed because he was truly hopeless with numbers.
“There are three on the ground floor, Chief, all offices. And they don’t know the Griffos, much less Sanfilippo.”
In conclusion, the Griffos had lived in the building for years, but it was as if they were made of air. As for Sanfilippo, forget about it. There were tenants who hadn’t even heard of him.
“You two,” said Montalbano, “before the news of the disappearance becomes official, I want you to go around town and try to find out more. Rumors, gossip, hearsay, backbiting, that sort of thing.”
“Why, do you think that people’s answers will change after they hear of the disappearance?” asked Augello.
“Oh, they’ll change all right. Something that at first seems normal is seen in a different light after something abnormal happens. And while you’re at it, ask them about Sanfilippo, too.”
Fazio and Augello left the office less than convinced.
Montalbano picked up the keys to Sanfilippo’s place, which Fazio had left on the table, put these in his pocket, and went out and called Catarella, who for the last week had been busy trying to solve a crossword puzzle for beginners.
“Cat, I want you to come with me. I’m entrusting you with an important mission.”
Overcome with emotion, Catarella couldn’t open his mouth, not even after they’d entered the murdered young man’s apartment.
“See that computer, Cat?”
“Yessir. It’s rilly nice.”
“Well, get to work on it. I want to know everythin
g that’s inside it. Then put in all the diskettes and ... what are they called?”
“Ziti roms, Chief.”
“Have a look at all of them, too. And report to me when you’re done.”
“There’s also some videocassettes.”
“Leave the cassettes alone.”
He got in his car and headed towards Montelusa. His friend Nicolò Zito, newsman for the “Free Channel” television station, was about to go on the air. Montalbano handed him the photograph.
“These are the Griffos, Alfonso and Margherita. You’re to say only that their son Davide is worried because he has no news of them. Please mention it on tonight’s news.”
Zito, who was an intelligent person and a good journalist, looked at the photo and asked a question the inspector had been expecting.
“Why are you concerned about the disappearance of these two?”
“I feel sorry for them.”
“I’m sure you do. But I’m also sure that’s not the only reason. Is there some connection, by any chance?”
“With what?”
“With that kid, Sanfilippo, who was murdered in Vigàta.”
“They lived in the same building.”
Nicolò literally leapt out of his chair.
“But that’s big news—”
“Which you’re not going to mention. There may be a connection, but then again there may not. Do as I say, and the first major developments will be all yours.”
He sat on the veranda, having savored the pappanozza he’d been wanting for a while. A humble dish: potatoes and onions boiled a long time, mashed into a porridge with the back of a fork, then dressed with an abundance of olive oil, strong vinegar, freshly ground black pepper, and salt. To be eaten preferably with a tin fork (he had two which he jealously guarded), scorching the tongue and palate and cursing the saints with each bite.
On the nine P.M. news program, Nicolò Zito did his job, showing the photo of the Griffos and saying that their son was worried.
IM5 Excursion to Tindari (2005) Page 3