The Day of the Owl (8 page)

It was a masterly piece of forgery, a living portrait of men like Marchica and Pizzuco, and had been concocted by three sergeantmajors in collaboration. The wiliest touch was the last statement attributed to Pizzuco: the downright exclusion of complicity by a third party. To bring in the name of Mariano Arena would have struck a false note, and been too improbable; the whole card-castle would have come tumbling down under Marchica's suspicious analysis. But the technique of throwing all blame downwards, that is on to Marchica; the categorical denial of any on his own part; the rejection of any suggestion of a third party; all this made Marchica agonizingly certain that the statement was authentic. Not for one moment, in fact, did he doubt the voice of the sergeant which was now supplying the sound-track to that mute scene which he had watched through the window before.

Demoralized, blinded by a rage which, had he been able to lay hands on Pizzuco, would have meant the end of the latter's career of crime, he sat for a long while in silence. Then he said that, if that was the way things were, all he could do was what Samson did. 'Samson died,' he said, 'and so did all his companions'
('Mori Sansuni cu tuttu lu cumpagnuni'),
by which he meant that he was going to put the facts narrated by that filthy son of a bitch in their proper light.

He had met Pizzuco for the first time in many years during the first week of December of the previous year at B. Pizzuco had suggested he should bump off Colasberna, who had mortally insulted him; the price, three hundred thousand lire. Marchica, who had only been out of prison for a month or so and wanted to enjoy a little freedom in peace, had said that he didn't feel like the job. Then, being broke, when Pizzuco insisted and flashed before his eyes the prospect of a cash payment on account and the rest on completion, promising him a job as an overseer into the bargain, he had yielded. Only because he was broke, mind you. Terrible being broke. So he and Pizzuco studied a plan of action; Pizzuco even promised to abet him by leaving the murder weapon for him in a house of Pizzuco's in the country where Marchica was to go the night before the killing. From this house, which was not far from town, Marchica was to follow an agreed route and take up a position at the corner of Via Cavour at the time the first bus left for Palermo, since Colasberna used to catch that bus every Saturday. Having pulled off the job, Marchica was to make a rapid get-away down Via Cavour and return to the house in the country, whence Pizzuco was to pick him up later with a car and drive him back to B.

A few days before the killing Marchica went to S. to reconnoitre and make sure that he could recognize Colasberna. On this occasion Pizzuco fixed the date for the murder.

On the sixteenth of January at six thirty a.m., following in every detail the plan devised by Pizzuco, Marchica killed Salvatore Colasberna. However, there had been one snag: while Marchica was running off down Via Cavour he had bumped into his fellow-townsman, Paolo Nicolosi, who evidently recognized him, since he called him by name. Marchica had been alarmed by this and when, shortly afterwards, Pizzuco came to pick him up at the house, he told him of the encounter. Pizzuco was thrown into a high state of alarm and began swearing; then, calming down, he said, 'Don't you worry, we'll fix it.' Pizzuco had then taken him in a small van to the Granci neighbourhood, just under a kilometre from B.; first, though, he had paid him one hundred and fifty thousand lire which, with the payment on account, made up the agreed three hundred thousand, and cleared the deal.

A day or so later Pizzuco came to B. and told Marchica that he need not worry about Nicolosi any more, as the latter, in Pizzuco's exact words, 'was only good for giving sugar dolls to children', a reference to a local custom, whereby, on All Souls' Day, children receive gifts of sugar dolls. From this expression Marchica was sure that Nicolosi had been eliminated.

Asked whether Pizzuco, when commissioning him to kill Colasberna, might have been acting on behalf of others, Marchica answered that he did not know, but he, personally, did not think so. Asked whether Pizzuco's remark: 'We'll fix it' did not imply the participation or help of others unknown to Marchica but accomplices of Pizzuco, Marchica repeated that he did not think so, and even went on to say that he could not really remember whether Pizzuco had said: 'We'll fix it' or 'I'll fix it.' Asked if he had any idea where or how Nicolosi had been killed, he said he had none.

As he talked, Diego Marchica grew calmer. He nodded at the captain's reading of his confession, and signed it with satisfaction. Having fixed that swine Pizzuco - and incidentally himself - and having had the good manners not to involve others who were not swine, he felt at peace with his conscience and resigned to his fate. Maybe he was meant to spend the rest of his days in prison but, apart from the fact that he was used to it by now and for him it was rather like getting back home after a tiring journey, was not life itself rather a prison?

Life was all tribulation: lack of money, the temptation to play
zecchinetta,
the sergeantmajor's searching eye, other people's good advice; and, work above all, the hell of having to do a day's work - work which degrades one to animal level. Enough of it all; better sleep on it. And indeed sleep, dark, amorphous, was again taking possession of all his thoughts.

The captain sent him off to sleep at the S. Francesco prison, in solitary; thus postponing until after the preliminary proceedings the rousing reception that Diego was bound to receive from his fellow jail-birds.

Now came Pizzuco's turn. It was already very late.

In other circumstances, Pizzuco would have aroused pity; stiff from chill and his arthritis, his eyes and nose dripping with a streaming cold, bewildered by what had happened to him, he was rolling his watery eyes in a blank stare, mouthing words as if unable to find his voice.

The captain had the sergeant read him Marchica's confession. Pizzuco swore by the Holy Sacrament, before Christ on the Cross, on the souls of his mother, wife and son Giuseppe, that Marchica's was the blackest of slanders, and called down on him, until the seventh generation, the just vengeance of heaven where, apart from the other dead relatives already listed, he had an uncle praying for him, a canon who had died under suspicion, well-chosen word, of sanctity. In spite of his chill and misery, he was a brilliant speaker. His speech was thick with imagery, hyperbole and symbolism, couched in an Italianized Sicilian, sometimes more effective, sometimes more incomprehensible than pure dialect. The captain gave him his head for a while, then coldly observed:

'So you don't even know this Marchica?' - for that was what Pizzuco had seemed to be driving at during his long preamble.

'Oh, so far as that goes, I know him, Signor Capitano; though I'd better have been killed before I ever met him. I know him, and I know what he's like ... But we've never been at all close, and as for depriving a human being of life, heaven forbid! ... Never, Signor Capitano, never! For Rosario Pizzuco the life of a human being, any human being, is set on the high altar of a church; it's sacred, Signor Capitano, sacred ... '

'So you do know this Marchica, then?'

'I know him. Can I deny it? I know him, but it's as though I didn't. I know what sort of a man he is and have always steered clear of him.'

'And how d'you explain this confession of his?'

'Who can explain it? Maybe he's gone mad, maybe he wants to ruin me ... Who can tell what goes on in the mind of a man like that? ... His mind is like one of those sour pomegranates; every thought a grain of malice, enough to set the teeth of a man like me on edge with fright... He's capable of killing out of hand just because someone doesn't say good morning or he takes a dislike to the way he laughs ... A born criminal... '

'I see that you know his character very well.'

'I should think so, too. He's always crossing my path ...'

'How many times has he crossed your path of late? Try to remember.'

'Let's see ... I met him when he had just come out of prison; that's once ... Then I met him at B., his hometown; that's twice ... Then he came to S. and that was the third time ... Three times, Signor Capitano, three times.'

'And what did you talk about?'

'Nothing, Signor Capitano, nothing. Matters so trifling one forgets them at once, like writing on the waters of a well... I congratulated him on being free again and thought: what a waste of an amnesty. I said I hoped he'd enjoy his liberty and thought: he'll soon be inside again; and we talked of the harvest, the weather, his friends, mere nothings.'

'According to you then, there's not a grain of truth in what Marchica says ... But, leaving Marchica out of it for the moment, we know with absolute certainty that about three months ago - I can give you the exact date if you want-you had a conversation with Salvatore Colasberna during which you made him certain offers, offers which Colasberna turned down, about ... '

'Advice, Signor Capitano, advice: just disinterested advice for friendship's sake ... '

'If you are in a position to give advice, you must be well-informed.'

'Well-informed? I pick things up here and there. My work gets me around. Today I hear one thing, tomorrow another ...'

'What had you heard that prompted you to give advice to Colasberna?'

'That his business was doing badly. I advised him to seek protection, help ...'

'From whom?'

'Oh, from friends, banks; by trying to get into the right political current... '

'And which, according to you, is the right political current?'

'The government's, I'd say: who's in power lays down the law, and whoever wants to be in with the law should go along with the party in power.'

'So you had no definite advice to give Colasberna?'

'No, none, Signor Capitano.'

'Shall we say you just gave him some general advice, purely for friendship's sake?'

'Just so.'

'But you weren't all that friends with Colasberna.'

'Well, we knew each other ... '

'Do you always go out of your way to give advice to people you hardly know?'

'That's the way I am. If I see anyone in trouble, I'm always ready to give him a hand.'

'Did you ever give a hand to Paolo Nicolosi?'

'What's that got to do with it?'

'Having given a hand to Colasberna, it seems only natural to give one to Nicolosi.'

The telephone on the desk rang. As the captain listened to the message, he studied Pizzuco, who was now calmer and more sure of himself; even his nose had stopped dripping.

Replacing the receiver, he said: 'Now let's start all over again.'

'All over again?'

'Yes. That call was from S. to tell me that the weapon which killed Colasberna has been found. D'you want to know where? ... No, don't blame your brother-in-law ... He was just going to carry out your instructions when the carabinieri arrived and arrested him. Late this evening he went into the country, got the sawn-off shotgun and was just going to get rid of it when the carabinieri showed up ... An unfortunate coincidence ... You know what your brother-in-law's like; he thought that all was up; he said he'd had instructions from you to hide the gun in the Gramoli
chiarchiaro -
on your orders, he said.' Turning to the sergeant, he asked: 'What is a
chiarchiaro?'

'A stony part,' said the sergeant, 'a place full of caves, holes in the ground, ravines.'

'I thought as much,' said the captain, 'and I have an idea which may, or may not, be a good one. Might we find Nicolosi's body in the
chiarchiaro
too?' And he turned to Pizzuco with a frosty smile. 'What do you think of my idea?' he asked.

'It might be a good one,' said Pizzuco impassively.

'Well, if you approve, I feel quite safe,' said the captain; and he rang up the carabiniere station of S. to order a search made in the Gramoli
chiarchiaro.

While he was telephoning, Pizzuco was hastily examining the best line to take. By the time the captain said: 'Now you can either confirm Marchica's story by confessing you gave him instructions to kill Colasberna and that you yourself killed Nicolosi; or you can exculpate Marchica by confessing that you killed both Colasberna and Nicolosi,' Pizzuco had already chosen a third alternative which was oddly like the forged statement that had made Marchica confess. It differed from it only on one point, in fact. The sergeantmajors who had elaborated the forged confession knew their business all right. They had the psychology of a man like Pizzuco weighed up with scientific precision. No wonder Diego Marchica had fallen like a capon into the pot.

Pizzuco now said that about three months previously he had met Colasberna and, out of the goodness of his heart, even though they had not been particular friends, had given him some advice on how to run his building concern. But instead of the expressions of gratitude which Pizzuco had expected, Colasberna had told him, in unrepeatable terms, to mind his own business and thank the Lord that he, Colasberna, had not made Pizzuco pick all his teeth up from the ground; those had been his exact words, meaning, of course, that he had not knocked them out for him. Pizzuco, a man of peace, who only got into unpleasant situations owing to his incurable kindness of heart, had been deeply grieved by this reaction of Colasberna's; he happened to mention it casually to Marchica, and the latter had offered to take vengeance, even without any reward on Pizzuco's part, as he too had a personal grudge against Colasberna. Pizzuco, horrified, had categorically rejected this offer. But some days later, Marchica came to S. and asked to be allowed to stay at a house in the country belonging to Pizzuco's wife in the Poggio district, near S. It was to be only for one night, as he had important business to do in S., a town which boasted no hotel. Marchica also asked him for the loan of a shotgun, as he'd heard that hares abounded in those parts and he wanted to do a bit of shooting early in the morning. Pizzuco gave him the key of the house, and told him he would find an old, a very old, shotgun there; it wasn't much good, but it might serve his purpose. Being of a trusting nature and always ready to do a good turn, he had had no inkling of the criminal plot Marchica was hatching. Not even after he had heard of Colasberna's death had his suspicions been aroused. Only when the carabinieri came to his house to arrest him had it dawned on him what a terrible predicament Marchica, taking advantage of his good faith, had plunged him into. So he gave his brother-in-law instructions to get rid of the gun which, it was clear by now, had been used by Marchica for illicit purposes. This had seemed to him the best course, for, owing to Marchica's vindictive nature, he had not dared reveal to the police the circumstances of which he was the victim.