“No,” Zocco and Paparella said, again in unison.
17
“Ah, Inspector! So punctual! Make yourself comfortable,” said Laganà.
As Montalbano was sitting down, the marshal dialed a number.
“Can you come over?” he said into the receiver.
“Well, Marshal, what have you discovered?”
“If you don’t mind, I’d rather my colleague told you, since he deserves the credit.”
There was a knock at the door. Vittorio Melluso was the spit and image of William Faulkner around the time the writer received the Nobel Prize. The same southern gentleman’s elegance, the same polite, distant smile.
“The code based on that song collection is so hard to understand precisely because it’s rather elementary in conception and created for personal use.”
“I don’t understand what you mean by ‘for personal use.’”
“Inspector, normally a code is used by two or three people to communicate with one another so that they needn’t fear anyone else understanding what they say. Right?”
“Of course.”
“And so they make as many copies of the code as they will need for the people who need to exchange information. Clear?”
“Yes.”
“I think the code you found is the only copy in existence. It was only used by the person who conceived it, to encrypt certain names, the ones that appear in the two lists that Laganà gave me.”
“Did you manage to understand any of it?”
“Well, I think I’ve figured two things out. The first is that every surname corresponds to a number, the one in the left-hand column. Each number has six digits, whereas the names are of varying length and therefore have varying numbers of letters. This means that each digit does not correspond to a letter. There are probably some dummy digits within each number.”
“Which means?”
“Digits that serve no purpose, other than to throw people off. In other words, it’s a code within a code.”
“I see. And what was the second thing?”
Laganà and Melluso exchanged a very quick glance.
“You want to tell him?”
“The credit is all yours,” said Laganà.
“Inspector,” Melluso began, “you gave us two lists. In both of these lists, the numbers on the left, the ones that stand for names, always occur and recur in the same sequence. The numbers on the right, on the other hand, are always different. After studying them closely, I arrived at a conclusion, which is that the figures on the right in the first list indicate sums of money in euros, while the figures on the right in the second list represent quantities. When you compare, for instance, the first two numbers on the right-hand side of the two lists, you discover that there’s a precise relationship between the two figures, which corresponds—”
“To the current market price,” the inspector finished his sentence.
Laganà, who hadn’t taken his eyes off Montalbano for the past five minutes, started laughing.
“I told you, Melluso, the inspector was going to get it straightaway!”
Melluso nodded slightly toward Montalbano in homage.
“So,” the inspector concluded, “the first list contains the names of the clients and the sum paid by each; the second list indicates the amount provided each time. There was a third list in the computer, but unfortunately it self-destructed.”
“Do you now have an idea of what it contained?” asked Laganà.
“Now I do. I’m sure it had the dates and the amount of merchandise the provider—let’s call him the wholesaler—delivered to him.”
“Shall I keep trying to decode the names?” asked Melluso.
“Of course. I really appreciate it.”
He didn’t say, however, that of those fourteen names he already knew two.
When he got back to the station, it was already growing dark. He picked up the receiver and dialed Michela’s number.
“Hello? Montalbano here. How are you doing?”
“How am I supposed to be doing?”
The woman’s voice sounded different, as though far away, and weary, as after a long walk.
“I need to talk to you.”
“Could we put it off till tomorrow?”
“No.”
“All right, then, come over.”
“Tell you what, Michela: Let’s meet in an hour at your brother’s apartment, since you have the keys. All right?”
At Michela’s place there were likely other people—the mother, the aunt from Vigàta, the aunt from Fanara, as well as friends come to pay their condolences—and this might make it difficult or even prevent them from talking.
“Why there of all places?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
He raced home, undressed, slipped into the shower, put on a fresh set of clothes: underwear, shirt, socks, suit. He phoned Livia, told her he loved her, and hung up, probably leaving her befuddled. Then he poured himself a glass of whisky and went out on the veranda to drink it while smoking a cigarette. Now he had to lance the pustule, the foulest part.
Pulling up in front of Angelo’s apartment house, he parked the car, got out, and looked up at the balcony and windows on the top floor. It was pitch dark now, and he saw light in two of the windows. Michela must have already arrived. Thus instead of using his keys, he rang the intercom, but no voice replied. Only the click of the front door, as it opened. He climbed the lifeless stairs of the dead building, and when he reached the landing on the top floor, he saw Michela waiting for him outside the door.
He got scared. For an ever so brief moment, it seemed as if the woman he was looking at was not Michela but her mother. What had happened to her?
Naturally her brother’s death had been a terrible blow, but until the day before, she had seemed to Montalbano to take it well, carrying herself intelligently and accusing forcefully. Perhaps the lugubrious funeral ceremony had finally made her aware of the definitive, irrevocable loss of Angelo. She was wearing one of her usual broad, shapeless dresses, which looked like something she’d bought at a used-clothing stand where they only had sizes too large for her. The dress was black, for mourning. Likewise black were the stockings and the canvas shoes, which were without heels and had a button in the middle, like nuns’ shoes. She’d gathered her hair inside a big scarf—also black, of course. She stood with her shoulders hunched, leaning against the door. She kept her eyes lowered.
“Please come in.”
Montalbano entered, stopping inside the doorway.
“Where should we go?” he asked.
“Wherever you like,” replied Michela, closing the door.
The inspector chose the living room. They sat down in two armchairs facing one another. Neither spoke for a spell. It was as though the inspector had come to pay his respects and stay the proper amount of time, sitting in awkward silence.
“So it’s all over,” Michela said suddenly, leaning against the back of her chair and closing her eyes.
“It’s not all over. The investigation is still open.”
“Yes, but it’ll never be properly closed. Either it’ll be shelved or you’ll arrest someone who had nothing to do with it.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I found out Prosecutor Tommaseo didn’t file any charges against Elena after interrogating her. He’s taken her side. As you, too, seem to have done, Inspector.”
“It was you who first brought her up, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, because I was waiting for you to do so!”
“Did you tell Tommaseo I had Elena’s letters to your brother in my possession?”
“Shouldn’t I have?”
“You shouldn’t have.”
“Why not? So you could continue to keep Elena out of this?”
“No, so I could continue to keep you out of this, Michela. By telling the judge what you told him, you made a mistake. You kicked the ball into your own goal.”
“Explain what
you mean.”
“Certainly. I never told you I found those letters. And if I didn’t tell you, how did you find out?”
“But I’m sure you did tell me! In fact, I remember that even Paola was here…”
Montalbano shook his head.
“No, Michela, your friend Paola, if you call on her to testify, will only confirm that on that evening, when asked explicitly by you, I denied having found those letters.”
Michela said nothing, but only sank further into the armchair, her eyes still closed.
“It was you, Michela,” the inspector went on, “who took the letters that Angelo kept in his desk, put them in a large envelope, went down to the garage, and hid them under the carpeting in the trunk of the Mercedes. But you made sure that a corner of the envelope remained visible. You wanted those letters to be found. So that I, after reading them, would wonder who might have a reason to hide them. And there could only be one answer: Elena. When you went to check and saw that the envelope was gone, you were sure that I had taken the letters.”
“And when would I have done all this?” she asked in a tense voice, newly attentive and alert.
Should he tell her his hypothesis? Perhaps it was premature. He decided instead to blame himself for something he now knew to be of no importance.
“The night we found Angelo. When I let you sleep alone in this apartment, which was a big mistake.”
She relaxed.
“That’s pure fantasy. You have no proof.”
“We’ll discuss proof in a few minutes. As you know, I looked in vain for the strongbox Angelo used to keep in his apartment. I imagine you took that away, too, Michela, the same night you took the letters.”
“Then explain to me,” the woman said ironically, “why I would want you to find the letters and not the strongbox?”
“Because the letters might incriminate Elena, whereas the contents of the strongbox would certainly have incriminated your brother.”
“And what could there have been in the strongbox that would have been so compromising, in your opinion? Money?”
“No, not money. That he kept in Fanara, at the Banca Popolare.”
He was expecting a different reaction from Michela. At the very least, Angelo had not revealed to her that he had another account, and, given their relationship, the omission would have been very close to a betrayal.
“Oh, really?” she said, only slightly surprised.
Her indifference stank of falsehood a mile away. So Michela knew damn well that Angelo had another account. And therefore she must have known all about her brother’s little side business.
“You knew nothing about this other account, correct?”
“Nothing at all. I was sure he only had the joint account. I think I even showed it to you.”
“Where, in your opinion, did the money deposited in Fanara come from?”
“Oh, it must have been productivity bonuses, incentives, extra commissions, that sort of thing. I thought he kept that money at home, but apparently he put it in the bank.”
“Did you know he gambled heavily?”
“No. Absolutely not.”
Another lie. She knew that her brother had caught the bug. And in fact she limited herself to denying it. She didn’t ask how Montalbano had found out, where Angelo gambled, how much he lost or won.
“If there was a lot of money in the account,” said Michela, “it probably means he had a few lucky evenings at the gambling table.”
The girl fenced well. She would parry and immediately follow with a thrust, exploiting her adversary’s reaction. She was ready to admit everything, so long as the real source of that money never came out.
“Let’s return to the strongbox.”
“Inspector, I know nothing about that strongbox, just as I knew nothing about the account in Fanara.”
“In your opinion, what could there have been in that box?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea.”
“I do,” Montalbano said in a low voice, as though giving no importance to the assertion.
Michela showed no interest in knowing what the inspector’s idea was.
“I’m tired,” she said instead, sighing.
Montalbano felt sorry for her. For in those two words, he’d felt the weight of a deep, genuine weariness, a weariness not only physical, of the body, but also of the mind, the emotions, the soul. An absolute weariness.
“I can leave, if you—”
“No, stay. The sooner we finish, the better. But I ask only one thing of you, Inspector. Don’t play cat and mouse with me. By this point you’ve figured out many things, or so it seems to me. Ask me only precise questions, and I’ll answer them as best I can.”
Montalbano couldn’t tell whether the woman was merely trying to change strategy or really asking him to bring things to a close because she couldn’t stand it anymore.
“It’ll take a little time.”
“I’ve got as much time as you want.”
“I’d like to start by telling you that I have a very precise idea where the box is presently located. I could have checked before our meeting tonight and confirmed my suspicion, but I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“There’s no saying I necessarily have to check. It’s up to you.”
“Up to me? And where do you suspect the box is?”
“At the cemetery. Inside the coffin. Under Angelo’s body.”
“Oh, come on!” she said, even attempting a little smile that must have cost her a tremendous effort.
“We’re getting nowhere, Michela. If you carry on this way, I’m going to be forced to check the coffin. You know what that means? It means I’ll have to request a great many authorizations, the whole affair will become official, the strongbox will be opened, and everything you’ve done to save your brother’s good name will have been all for naught.”
It was perhaps at this instant that Michela realized the jig was up. She opened her eyes and looked at him for a moment. Montalbano instinctively grabbed the arms of the easy chair as if to anchor himself. But there were no stormy seas in those eyes, just a liquid expanse, yellowish and dense, slowly moving and seeming to breathe, rising and falling. It didn’t frighten him, but he had the impression that if he put his finger in that liquid, it would have been burnt down to the bone. The woman closed her eyes again.
“Do you also know what’s inside the box?”
“Yes, Michela. Cocaine. But not only.”
“What else?”
“There must also be the substance with which Angelo mistakenly cut the last part of the cocaine, turning it, without wanting to, into a deadly poison. And thereby causing the death of Nicotra, Di Cristoforo, and others whose secret supplier he was.”
The woman took off her kerchief and shook her head, making her hair fall onto her shoulders.
How did I ever not notice before that she had so much white hair? the inspector asked himself.
“I’m tired,” Michela repeated.
“When did Angelo first start frequenting gambling dens?”
“Last year. He went out of curiosity. And that was the beginning of the end for him. The money he earned was no longer enough. So he accepted an offer somebody made to him: to supply important clients with large quantities. Given his profession, he could travel all over the province without arousing any suspicion.”
“How did you manage to discover that Angelo—”
“I didn’t. He told me himself. He never kept anything from me.”
“Do you know who made him this offer?”
“I do, but I’m not going to tell you.”
“Did he also tell you he’d adulterated the last batch of cocaine?”
“No, he didn’t have the courage.”
“Why not?”
“Because he did it for that slut Elena. He needed a lot of money to buy her other gifts and keep her close. And with this new system, he could double the amount of stuff they gave him and keep the difference for himsel
f.”
“Michela, why do you hate Elena so much, but not the other women your brother went with?”
Before she answered, a painful grimace twisted her mouth.
“Angelo fell truly in love with that woman. It was the first time that happened to him.”
The moment had come. Montalbano summoned inside him everything there was to summon: muscles, breath, nerves. Like a diver at the edge of the diving board, an instant before taking the plunge. Then he jumped.
“Angelo was supposed to love only you, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
He’d done it. Penetrating that shadowy undergrowth of intertwined roots, snakes, tarantulas, vipers’ nests, wild grasses, and thorny brambles had been easy. He’d had no trouble entering the dark wood. But walking through it would take courage.
“But hadn’t you once been engaged? Weren’t you in love?”
“Yes. But Angelo…”
There, under a tree, he’d found the malignant plant. Beautiful to look at, but put a leaf in your mouth and it’s lethal.
“Angelo got rid of him, is that right?”
“Yes.”
There was no end to this sick forest and its stench of death. The farther in you went, the greater the horror you wanted neither to see nor to smell, waiting in ambush.
“And when Teresa got pregnant, was it you who persuaded Angelo to have the girl abort and set a trap for her?”
“Yes.”
“Nobody was supposed to interfere with your…your…”
“What’s wrong, Inspector?” she whispered. “Can’t find the right word? Love, Mr. Montalbano. The word is ‘love.’”
She opened her eyes and looked at him. On the surface of the yellowish liquid expanse, there were now large bubbles, popping as if in slow motion. Montalbano imagined the stink they gave off, a sickly-sweet smell of decomposition, of rotten eggs, of miasmas and fetid swamps.
“How did you find out Angelo’d been killed?”
“I got a phone call. That same Monday, around nine P.M. They told me they’d gone to talk to Angelo but had found him already dead. They ordered me to remove everything that might reveal the sort of work Angelo was doing for them. And I obeyed.”
The Paper Moon Page 18