Angelica's Smile

by Andrea Camilleri

  “Dr. Schisa,” the inspector began, “we’re here to—”

  “I know why you’re here,” Schisa interrupted him.

  Montalbano and Fazio exchanged a quick glance.

  “Then you tell us,” said the inspector.

  “May I turn on the tape recorder?” Fazio asked.

  “Yes. You came about the burglaries.”

  Schisa lit a cigarette. Montalbano noticed that his hands were shaking.

  “You guessed right,” said the inspector.

  Schisa stood up.

  “I don’t want to waste any of your time. Now if you’d be so kind as to follow me . . .”

  They followed him.

  He stopped in front of the door of the last room in a long corridor, opened it, turned on the light, and went inside.

  “Here are the stolen goods. It’s all here, nothing’s missing.”

  Montalbano and Fazio were astonished. They hadn’t expected this.

  “So what you wrote in your note wasn’t true?” the inspector asked.

  “No. I paid off the three men handsomely, in cash, after each burglary. They would make an estimate of the value, which I would then pay. I cleaned myself out; haven’t got a penny left.”

  “Where did you find the money?”

  “My income as a doctor would never have allowed me to amass the money I needed. Some years ago I won a big sum betting on soccer and I set it aside.”

  “Mind if I have a look around?” asked Fazio.

  “Go right ahead.”

  Fazio entered the room, bending down to look at all the stuff scattered randomly everywhere. The stolen paintings were hanging on the walls.

  “The jewelry and furs belonging to Miss Cosulich seem to be missing,” Fazio said after finishing his inspection.

  “They’re missing because they were never stolen. In fact they never existed,” said Schisa.

  “That robbery was supposed to serve as cover for Miss Cosulich, wasn’t it?” Montalbano asked.

  “Exactly. Shall we go back to the living room?”

  They returned to their former places.

  “Now I’ll ask the questions,” said the inspector. “You, Dr. Schisa, planned out a series of burglaries to throw us off the trail of the only robbery you were really interested in: Pirrera’s place. What was in that safe?”

  “Pirrera was a loathsome loan shark without a scrupulous bone in his body. He has ruined dozens of families. Including Angelica’s and my own.”

  “Why your own?”

  “Because my father and Dario Cosulich had married the Baio sisters. And my father was Dario’s business associate in the fabric store. Uncle Dario killed his wife and then himself, and my father died of a broken heart two years later. Ever since, my only thought has been to avenge them.”

  “Answer my question: what was in the safe?”

  “Two Super 8 movie reels. And some photographs. When his victims ran out of money, he would demand payment in kind. The films show Pirrera in action with two little girls, one seven and the other nine years old. Would you like to see them?”

  “No,” Montalbano said, grimacing. “But how did you ever find out about them?”

  “Pirrera used to get his jollies showing them to the wretched women he forced to sleep with him. I was able to track down one of these women, and I paid her to give me a written description.”

  “When did you make the decision to take revenge?”

  “When I became a legal adult. I’d been thinking about it all along, but didn’t know how to go about it.”

  “Was it the arrival of your cousin Angelica that—”

  “Yes. The whole thing came to a head when Angelica was transferred here. We talked about it for whole nights at a time. At first she resisted the idea; she was against it, but then, little by little, I managed to persuade her.”

  “How did you go about recruiting the burglars?”

  “I knew that Angelica . . . well, that every now and then she got together with . . .”

  “I know everything,” said Montalbano.

  “Anyway, I suggested that she try to find, among the men she encountered, someone who would be willing to . . . And then one day she ran into the right man. Angelo Tumminello. The one who was wounded by one of your officers and whom the other two ended up killing.”

  “Could you tell me the names of Tumminello’s two associates?”

  “Of course. Their names are Salvatore Geloso and Vito Indelicato. They’re both from Sicudiana.”

  Fazio wrote the names down on a scrap of paper.

  “Now tell me why the two men shot Miss Cosulich.”

  “That’s a more complicated matter. You see, after you went to Angelica’s place following the burglary, she told me, in the presence of the other three, that you and she had become friends. To the point that she agreed not to talk about the burglary in the room that she had in her cousin’s villa.”

  “Wait a second,” the inspector interrupted him. “You used to meet there to organize the burglaries?”

  “Yes. And so Tumminello suggested that she hook up with you so that we could know your moves in advance.”

  Fazio was studying the floor tiles and didn’t dare raise his head.

  “When you told her you’d be out personally surveilling the Sciortinos’ house, I suggested she go and join you. Which she agreed to do. Except that she called us shortly afterwards and said that you’d phoned her and told her that the stakeout had been cancelled. Is that true?”

  Fazio jerked his head up and looked at him.

  Montalbano was taken by surprise, but quickly recovered himself as bells began to ring joyfully in his head.

  “Yes, it’s true,” he said.

  It was a whopper as big as a house, but at that point . . .

  “But when the three men fell into the trap and Tumminello was wounded, the other two became convinced that Angelica had betrayed them,” Schisa continued.

  “When you wrote in your anonymous letter about some unforeseen factor, were you referring to Angelica’s possible betrayal?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, like your accomplices, you no longer trusted her?”

  “Well, at first I was torn. Then I became convinced that Angelica had not betrayed us. I phoned her and she sounded sincere. I told the others, but . . .”

  “About the anonymous letters. In the first one, where you were trying to get me into trouble, you didn’t reveal the real purpose for which Angelica used that room. Why not?”

  “I had no interest in exposing her or creating problems for her. On the contrary, I had to protect her.”

  As in Catarella’s game. He’d guessed right.

  “Go on.”

  “There’s not much else to say. I tried to convince them that they were wrong, but it was no use.”

  “Was it you who called me and disguised your voice, to alert me to the mortal danger Miss Cosulich was in?”

  “Yes, I thought it was a good idea, but those cretins found a way to shoot her just the same.”

  “Did you personally take part in the Pirrera robbery?”

  “Tumminello had been killed by then. I had no choice. Otherwise all my work would have gone down the drain with his death.”

  “When you got your hands on those films and photographs, did you call Pirrera immediately?”

  “I called him the very evening of the burglary. And I told him I would be sending everything anonymously to you, Inspector, the following day.”

  “Did you know what would be the outcome of your telephone call?”

  “Of course! I was counting on him killing himself! I was burning with hope! I prayed to God he would do it! And he did it, the swine!”

  He started laughing.

  And he didn’t stop. It was a terrible s
cene.

  He rolled on the floor, laughing. He hit his head against the wall, laughing.

  At a certain point he started frothing at the mouth, and Fazio made up his mind. He approached and punched the man hard in the chin. Schisa collapsed, unconscious, and Fazio got on his cell phone to ask for reinforcements. The whole apartment needed to be searched and inventoried. In short, there was a lot of work to be done.

  “Call a doctor, while you’re at it,” Montalbano suggested.

  Indeed Schisa, when he came to, started laughing and drooling again.

  He was unable to remain standing, and when they sat him down he spilled onto the floor as though made of gelatin.

  The inspector realized that it was perhaps unlikely Schisa would ever return to normal. Something seemed to have broken inside him. For years the desire for revenge had eaten him up inside, and now that he’d achieved his goal, his whole body—brain, nerves, muscles—seemed to have come apart.

  The doctor came in an ambulance and took him away.

  Not until Fazio had found the Super 8 reels and photographs did Montalbano leave the apartment. Meanwhile he’d found a snapshot of Angelica with Schisa and put it in his pocket.

  He got into his car and went to talk to Tommaseo.

  He told him everything, emphasizing in particular that all the stolen goods had been recovered, that Schisa was out of his mind, that at any rate he hadn’t killed anybody, that he had good reasons for wanting to avenge himself, and that Angelica had been entirely coerced by her cousin.

  Prosecutor Tommaseo put out an order for the immediate arrest of Geloso and Indelicato. Then, with keen interest, he asked:

  “What’s the woman like?”

  Without saying a word Montalbano dug the snapshot out of his pocket and handed it to him.

  Tommaseo lost his head over every pretty girl he saw. And the poor guy was not known to have ever had any female friends.

  “Jesus!” the prosecutor said, drooling worse than Schisa.

  When the inspector got back to Vigàta, it was already past two o’clock. He had no appetite, but went for a walk along the jetty just the same.

  Now that he’d done just about everything he had to do—though the hardest part was yet to come—there was only one thought spinning around in his head.

  Still the same one.

  He sat down on the flat rock.

  Sitting on a rock, gazing at the sea,

  Immobile as a rock itself would be.

  Stock still, with only one thought in his head.

  Angelica did not betray me.

  But he couldn’t tell whether this thought gave him pleasure or caused him pain.

  He wished he never had to go back to the station. And he cursed his life as a cop a thousand times.

  But what had to be done, had to be done.

  “I spoke with the doctor,” said Fazio, speaking Italian. “Cosulich is well enough to hear the news.”

  He looked at his boss and then said, in a neutral voice:

  “If you want to stay here, I can go by myself.”

  It would have been one final act of cowardice.

  “No, I’ll come with you.”

  They didn’t open their mouths the whole way there.

  Fazio asked for the room number and then led the way for the inspector, who was walking like an automaton.

  Fazio opened the door to the room and went inside.

  Montalbano waited outside in the hallway.

  “Miss Cosulich,” said Fazio.

  Montalbano counted to three, summoned his strength, and went in as well.

  The head of the bed was slightly raised.

  Angelica was wearing an oxygen mask and looking at Fazio.

  But as soon as she saw Montalbano come in, she smiled.

  The room brightened.

  The inspector closed his eyes and kept them closed.

  “Angelica Cosulich, I am placing you under arrest,” he heard Fazio say.

  Then he turned his back and ran out of the hospital.

  • • •

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  Author’s Note

  Not too long ago in Rome a band of burglars robbed numerous apartments using the same technique as that described in this novel.

  All the rest—the names of people and institutions, events, situations, places, and everything else—was entirely invented by me and has no connection to reality.

  Assuming of course that one can exclude reality from a novel.

  Angelica’s Smile is the first novel I’ve published with Sellerio since the death of my friend Elvira Sellerio, the founder and publisher of that imprint.

  After reading the typescript of the text, Elvira phoned me to point out a huge mistake that had escaped every phase of proofreading and revision by myself and others.

  I mention this here just to let you know and remind myself of the care, attention, and affection with which Elvira read her authors.

  Notes

  Carlo V: This is of course Charles V (1500–1558), Holy Roman Emperor, king of Spain and king of Italy, known in Italy as Carlo Quinto.

  with an Umbertine moustache: That is, in the style of the first king of Italy after the Unification, Umberto I di Savoia (1844–1900), who wore an enormous handlebar moustache.

  the PdL: This is the Polo della Libertà, the right-wing political coalition initially formed around media magnate Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party in 1994.

  rosticceria . . . cuddriruni . . . arancini supplì: A rosticceria is a take-out restaurant serving mostly roast meats; cuddriruni is a Sicilian sort of focaccia, served with a broad variety of toppings; and arancini are Sicilian fried rice balls usually with mozzarella, peas, and a ragù sauce inside, while supplì are Roman rice balls, also with mozzarella and tomato sauce inside. Arancini are round in shape, generally larger than supplì, and can have a greater variety of stuffings, while supplì are ovoid and always have more or less the same ingredients.

  all dressed up like a paladin in the puppet theatre: The traditional Sicilian puppet theatre, often performed by itinerant puppet masters, features principally stories drawn from the chivalric romances of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, which in Italy were mostly derived from the Carolingian tradition.

  Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso: Orlando Furioso, a monumentally long seriocomic romance of principally Carolingian derivation (but with many magical and supernatural devices inspired by the Arthurian tradition), written in ottava rima, was the masterwork of Ludovico Ariosto (1474–1533), a poet of the Duke of Este’s court in the northern Italian city of Ferrara. Orlando Furioso furnishes many of the chivalric episodes used in the Sicilian puppet theatre.

  This knight . . . held him fast: Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, I, 12. This and the majority of the excerpts from Ariosto in this book are drawn from the masterly Barbara Reynolds translation, first published in 1975 by Penguin Books. All subsequent excerpts are from that edition unless otherwise indicated, and will be documented in these notes only as OF, with canto and strophe numbers. In certain cases I had to retranslate the excerpt because the Reynolds translation no longer contained the textual ambiguities that enabled Camilleri to apply the passage to his own story.

  More than a month . . . satisfied: OF, XIX, 34.

  Like milky curds . . . breasts: OF, XI, 68.

  Actually, those breasts were not Angelica’s: Indeed they refer instead to Olimpia, another of the love interests in Orlando Furioso.

  A flood of sorrow . . . checked: OF, XXIII, 113.

  He sees . . . a hundred times: OF, XXIII, 103. My translation.

  And every time . . . hand: OF, XXX, 111. My translation.

  a fisher . . .
pearl: A quote from the poem “Adolescente” by Vincenzo Cardarelli (1887–1959).

  Of all . . . check: OF, XXIII, 121.

  I am not . . . to be: OF, XXIII, 128. My translation.

  The more . . . pain: OF, XXIII, 117. My translation.

  A wound . . . unseen: OF, XIX, 27. My translation.

  She felt . . . encompassed it: OF, XIX, 26.

  For love . . . this breeze: OF, XIII, 127.

  Ah, cruel Love! . . . correspond: OF, II, 1.

  “Guarda come dondolo”: A 1962 pop song by Edoardo Vianello. It means “See how I sway.”

  And thus . . . stone: OF, I, 39. My translation.

  More than . . . bowed: OF, I, 40. My translation.

  With sweet . . . billed: OF, I, 54.

  Gustavo Salvini or Ermete Zacconi: Salvini (1839–1930) and Zacconi (1857–1948) were celebrated actors of the stage who performed principally in the classical vein.

  to say he was sorry to an officer of the carabinieri: In Italy, the carabinieri are a separate law-enforcement institution and a branch of the army, and are in frequent competition with the civil police bureaucracy of commissariati and questure, of which Montalbano is part. The carabinieri are also popularly considered to be stupid and are frequently the butt of jokes.

  That in this very bed . . . denies: OF, XXIII, 123.

  No less . . . he flies: OF, XXIII, 123. Adapted from the Barbara Reynolds translation to fit the context.

  which no despoiling hand had ever touched: OF, XIX, 33.

  sartù . . . nunnatu: A Neapolitan rice casserole dish consisting normally of rice, ragù, peas, mushrooms, provolone cheese or fior di latte mozzarella, small meatballs, sausages, and chicken livers.

  Not far away . . . gay: OF, I, 37.

  Son et lumière: A sound and light show invented by Paul-Robert Houdin in 1952 whereby a space, usually a historic monument, is transformed through the use of light and sound.

  Orlando . . . no more: OF, XXXIX, 61.

  Ugo Foscolo . . . Zakynthos: Ugo Foscolo (1778–1827), an Italian poet and revolutionary, the son of a Venetian nobleman and a Greek mother, was born on the Greek island of Zakynthos.