The Paper Moon (5 page)

It was stuffed full of papers. Every possible and imaginable kind of receipt of the sort that help keep a household running: rent, electricity, gas, telephone, maintenance. But nothing concerning him, Angelo, personally in person, as Catarella would say. Maybe he’d kept the papers and things more directly related to his own life in the middle drawer.

He closed the left-hand drawer, and the telephone rang. Perhaps the phone had realized a bit late that he’d tricked it, and it was now taking revenge.

“Yes?”

Again with nostrils plugged.

“What the hell happened to you, asshole?”

Male voice, fortyish, angry. He was about to respond when the other continued:

“Hold on a second, I’ve got a call on the other line.”

Montalbano pricked his ears but could only hear a confused murmur. Then two words loud and clear:

“Holy shit!”

Then the other hung up. What did it mean? Scumbag and asshole. It was anyone’s guess how a third anonymous caller might define Angelo. At that moment the intercom next to the front door rang. The inspector went and buzzed open the door downstairs. It was Fazio and Catarella.

“Ahh, Chief, Chief! Fazio tol’ me you was needin’ me poissonally in poisson!”

He was all sweaty and excited by the high honor the inspector was bestowing on him by asking him to take part in the investigation.

“Follow me, both of you.”

He led them into the study.

“You, Cat, take that laptop that’s on the desk and see if you can tell me everything it’s got inside. But don’t do it in here; take it into the living room.”

“Can I also take the prinner wit’ me, Chief?”

“Take whatever you need.”

With Catarella gone, Montalbano filled Fazio in on everything, from his fuckup in leaving Michela alone in Angelo’s apartment to what Elena Sclafani had told him. He also told him about the phone calls. Fazio stood there pensively.

“Tell me again about the second call,” he said after a moment.

Montalbano described the call again.

“Here’s my hypothesis,” said Fazio. “Let’s say the guy who phoned the second time is named Giacomo. This Giacomo doesn’t know that Angelo’s been killed. He calls him up and hears him answer the phone. Giacomo’s angry because he’s been unable to get in touch with Angelo for several days. When he’s about to start talking to him, he tells him to hold on because he’s got a call on another line. Right?”

“Right.”

“He talks on the other line and somebody tells him something that not only upsets him but makes him break off the conversation. The question is, what did they tell him?”

“That Angelo’s been murdered,” said Montalbano.

“That’s what I think, too.”

“Listen, Fazio, do the newsmen know about the murder yet?”

“Well, something’s been leaking out. But to get back to our discussion, when Giacomo finds out he’s talking to a fake Angelo, he hangs up immediately.”

“The question is, why did he hang up?” said Montalbano. “Here’s a first idea: Let’s say Giacomo’s a man with nothing to hide, an innocent friend from nights of wining and dining and girls. While he’s thinking he’s talking to Angelo, somebody tells him Angelo’s been killed. A real friend would not have hung up. He’d have asked the fake Angelo who he really is and why he was passing himself off as Angelo. So we need a second idea. Which is that Giacomo, as soon as he learns of Angelo’s death, says ‘Holy shit’ and hangs up because he’s afraid of giving himself away if he keeps on talking. So it’s not an innocent friendship, but something shady. And that first phone call also seemed fishy to me.”

“What can we do?”

“We can try to find out where the calls came from. See if you can get authorization, and then take it to the phone company. There’s no guarantee it’s going to work, but it’s worth a try.”

“I’ll try right now.”

“Wait, that’s not all. We need to find out everything we can about Angelo Pardo. Based on what Elena Sclafani told me, it seems he was kicked out of the medical association or whatever it’s called. And that’s not the sort of thing that’s done for chickenshit.”

“All right, I see what I can do.”

“Wait. What’s the big hurry? I also want to know the whole life story of Emilio Sclafani, who teaches Greek at the
liceo
of Montelusa. You’ll find the address in the phone book.”

“All right,” said Fazio, making no more sign of leaving.

“Another thing. What about Angelo’s wallet?”

“He had it in the back pocket of his jeans. Forensics grabbed it.”

“Did they grab anything else?”

“Yessir. A set of keys and the cell phone that was on the table.”

“Before the day is over, I want those keys, cell phone, and wallet.”

“Fine. Can I go now?”

“No. Try to open the middle drawer of Pardo’s desk. It’s locked. But you have to be able to open and reclose it so that it looks like it hasn’t been touched.”

“That’ll take a little time.”

“You’ve got all the time you want.”

As Fazio started to fiddle around with the drawer, Montalbano went into the living room. Catarella had turned on the laptop and was fiddling around himself.

“Iss rilly difficult, Chief.”

“Why?”

“’Cause iss got the lass word.”

Montalbano was befuddled. What, can computers talk now?

“Cat, what the hell are you saying?”

“Iss like diss, Chief: When summon don’t want summon to look at the poissonal tings he got inside, he gives it a lass word.”

Montalbano understood.

“You mean a password?”

“Ain’t dat what I said? And if you don’t got the lass word, y’can’t get in.”

“So we’re fucked?”

“Not nicissarily, Chief. He’s gotta have a form wit’ the name ’n’ sir name o’ the owner, date a boith, name o’ the missus or girlfriend or brother and sister and mother and father, son if you got one, daughter if you got one—”

“All right, I’ll have everything to you today after lunch. Meanwhile take the computer back to the station with you. Who are you going to give the form to?”

“Who’m I sposta give it to, Chief?”

“Cat, you said, ‘He’s gotta have.’ Who’s ‘he’?”

“He’s me, Chief.”

Fazio called him from the study.

“I got lucky, Chief. I found a key of my own that seemed like it was made for that lock. Nobody’ll be able to tell that it’s been opened.”

The drawer looked to be in perfect order.

A passport, whose information Montalbano wrote down for Catarella; contracts stating percentages to be earned on products sold; two legal documents from which Montalbano copied down, again for Catarella’s benefit, the names and birth dates of Michela and her mother, whose first name was Assunta; a medical diploma, folded in four, dating from sixteen years ago; a letter from the medical association, from ten years earlier, informing him of his dismissal without explaining how or why; an envelope with a thousand euros in bills of fifty; two mini-albums with photos from a trip to India and another to Russia; three letters from Signora Assunta to her son, in which she complained of her life with Michela and other similar matters—all personal, but all, well, utterly useless to Montalbano. There was even an old declaration concerning the recovery, in the mother’s apartment, of a pistol formerly belonging to Pardo’s father. But there was no trace of the weapon; perhaps Angelo had gotten rid of it.

“But didn’t this gentleman have a bank account?” asked Fazio. “How is it there are no checkbooks anywhere, not even old, used-up ones, or any bank statements?”

No answer to the question was forthcoming, since Montalbano was wondering the same thing.

One thing, however, that puzzled the inspector more than a little, and stumped Fazio as well, was the discovery of a small, dog-eared booklet entitled
The Most Beautiful Italian Songs of All Time.
Though there was a television in the living room, there was no sign anywhere of records, CDs, CD players, or even a radio.

“How about the room on the terrace? Did you see any discs, headphones, or a stereo there?”

“Nothing, Chief.”

So why would somebody keep a booklet of song lyrics locked up in a drawer? Most striking was the fact that the book looked like it had been often consulted; two detached pages had been carefully stuck back in place with transparent tape. Moreover, numbers had been written in the narrow margins. Montalbano studied these, and it didn’t take him long to realize that Angelo had jotted down the meter of the lines.

“You can close it back up. By the way, did you say you found a set of keys in the room upstairs?”

“Yeah. Forensics took it.”

“I repeat: I want that wallet, cell phone, and keys this afternoon. What are you doing?”

Instead of reclosing and locking the drawer, Fazio was emptying onto the desk, in orderly fashion, all the things there were inside it.

“Just a second, Chief. I wanna see something.”

When the drawer had been completely emptied, Fazio pulled it entirely out from its runners and turned it over. Underneath, on the bottom, was a chrome-plated, squat, notched key, stuck to the wood by two pieces of tape crossed in an X.

“Well done, Fazio.”

While the inspector was contemplating the key he’d detached, Fazio put everything back into the drawer in the same order as before and locked the drawer with his own key, which he slipped back into his pocket.

“If you ask me, this key opens up a little wall safe somewhere,” the inspector surmised.

“If you ask me, too,” said Fazio.

“And you know what that means?”

“It means we need to get down to work,” said Fazio, taking off his jacket and rolling up his sleeves.

After two hours spent moving paintings, moving mirrors, moving furniture, moving rugs, moving medicines, and moving books, Montalbano’s pithy conclusion was:

“There’s not a goddamn thing here.”

They sat down, exhausted, on the living-room couch. They looked at one another. And they both thought the same thing:

“The room upstairs.”

They climbed the spiral staircase. Montalbano opened the glass door, and they walked onto the terrace roof. The door to the little room had not been put back on its hinges but was only leaning in place with a piece of paper taped to it, forbidding entry and saying that the premises were under legal process. Fazio set the door aside, and they went in.

They had two strokes of luck. First, the room was small, and therefore they didn’t have to break their backs moving too much furniture. Second, the table had no drawers, and so they didn’t waste much time. But the result was exactly the same as that obtained in the apartment downstairs, which the inspector had brilliantly, though perhaps not so elegantly, summed up in few words. The one difference was that they were now sweating profusely, since the sun was beating down on the little room.

“Maybe the key is for a safe-deposit box at a bank?” Fazio ventured when they returned to the flat below.

“I doubt it. Usually those keys have a number on them, or an imprint, something enabling the bank people to recognize it. This one is smooth, anonymous.”

“So what are we gonna do?”

“We’re gonna go eat,” said Montalbano, waxing poetic.

After a thorough bellyful and a slow, meditative-digestive stroll, one step at a time, to the lighthouse and back, he went to the office.

“Chief, djou bring me the form that he needs?” asked Catarella the moment he walked in.

“Yes, give it to him.”

According to the complex Catarellian language, “him” of course meant Catarella himself.

The inspector sat down, pulled out the key Fazio had found, set it on the desk, and started staring at it as though he wanted to hypnotize it. But the opposite thing happened. That is, the key hypnotized him. In fact, a few minutes later, he let his eyes shut, overwhelmed by an irresistible desire to sleep. He got up, went and washed his face, and at that moment he had a brainstorm. He called Galluzzo into his office.

“Listen, do you know where Orazio Genco lives?”

“The robber? Of course I know where he lives. I went there twice to arrest him.”

“I want you to go see him, ask him how he’s doing, and give him my regards. Did you know that Orazio hasn’t gotten out of bed for a year? I don’t feel up to seeing what kind of state he’s in.”

Galluzzo wasn’t surprised. He knew that the inspector and the old burglar were fond of each other and had become, in their own way, friends.

“Am I just supposed to give him your regards?”

“No. While you’re at it, let him have a look at this key.” Montalbano took it out and handed it to him. “Make him tell you what kind of key it is and what he thinks it’s for.”

“Bah!” said a skeptical Galluzzo. “That’s a modern key.”

“So?”

“Orazio’s old and hasn’t been working for years.”

“Don’t worry, I know he keeps informed.”

As Montalbano was drifting off to sleep again, Fazio suddenly appeared with a plastic bag in hand.

“Did you go shopping?”

“No, Chief, I went to Montelusa to get what you wanted from Forensics. It’s all in here.”

He set the bag down on the desk.

“And I also want you to know I talked to the phone company. I got the authorization. They’re going to try to identify the phones that those calls came from.”

“And the information on Angelo Pardo and Emilio Sclafani?”

“Chief, unfortunately, I’m not God. I can only do one thing at a time. I’m going out to make the rounds now, see what I can find out. Oh, one more thing. Three.”

And he held up the thumb, index finger, and middle finger of his right hand.

Montalbano gave him a befuddled look.

“You become some kind of kabbalist or something? What’s ‘three’ supposed to mean? You wanna play fling flang flu?”

“Chief, you remember that kid who died from an overdose? And do you remember I told you Engineer Fasulo was also killed by drugs, even though everybody said it was a heart attack?”

“Yes, I remember. So who’s the third?”

“Senator Nicotra.”

Montalbano’s mouth took the shape of an O.

“Are you kidding?”

“No, Chief. It was well known the senator dabbled in drugs. Every now and then, he would shut himself up in his villa and take a three-day trip by himself. Looks like this time he forgot to buy a return ticket.”

“But is this certain?”

“Gospel, Chief.”

“How do you like that? The guy did nothing but talk about morals and morality! Tell me something: When you went to the kid’s house, did you find the usual stuff—syringe, rubber hose?”

“Yeah.”

“With Nicotra it must have been something else, some badly cut stuff. I just don’t get it. I don’t understand these things. Anyway, may he rest in peace.”

As he was leaving, Fazio practically ran into Mimì Augello in the doorway.

“Mimì!” the inspector bellowed. “What a lovely surprise! A sight for sore eyes!”

“Leave me alone, Salvo, I haven’t slept a wink for two days.”

“Is the little one sick?”

“No, but he cries all the time. For no reason.”

“That’s your opinion.”

“But the doctors—”

“Forget about the doctors. Obviously the kid’s not in agreement with you and Beba about having been brought into the world. And considering the way the world is, I can’t say I blame him.”

“Listen. Don’t start in with your jokes. I just wanted to tell you that five minutes ago I got a call from the commissioner.”

“And what the hell do I care about your lovey-dovey phone calls? ’Cause nowadays you and Bonetti-Alderighi are downright hand in glove with each other, except it’s not clear who’s the hand and who’s the glove.”

“Did you get it out of your system? Can I talk now? Yes? The commissioner told me that tomorrow morning, around eleven o’clock, Inspector Liguori’s coming here, to the station.”

Montalbano darkened.

“The asshole from Narcotics?”

“The asshole from Narcotics.”

“What’s he want?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t even want to see his shadow.”

“That’s precisely why I came in to tell you. You, tomorrow, as of eleven o’clock, should make yourself scarce. I’ll talk to him.”

“Thanks. My best to Beba.”

He phoned Michela Pardo. He wanted to see her, not only because he had to ask her some questions, but also to find out why and what she’d taken from her brother’s apartment. The stupidity of having let her sleep at Angelo’s place weighed heavily on his mind.

“How’d it go this morning with Judge Tommaseo?” he asked her.

“He made me wait half an hour in the anteroom and then had someone inform me that the meeting had been postponed until tomorrow at the same hour. I’m glad you called, Inspector. I was about to call you.”

“What is it?”

“I wanted to know when we could have Angelo back. For the funeral.”

“To be honest, I don’t know. But I’ll find out. Listen, could you come by the station?”

“Inspector Montalbano, I decided it was better to tell Mama that Angelo is dead. I told her he died in a car accident. She had a very violent reaction, and I had to call our doctor. He gave her some sedatives, and she’s resting now. I don’t want to leave her alone. Couldn’t you come here?”

“Sure. When?”

“Whenever you like. In any case, I can’t leave the house.”

“I’ll be there around seven o’clock this evening. Let me have the address.”

About an hour later, Galluzzo returned.

“How’s Orazio doing?”

“Pretty far gone, Chief. He’s waiting for you to come see him.”

He pulled the key out of his pocket and handed it to the inspector.

“According to Orazio, this is the key to a portable Exeter strongbox, forty-five centimeters by thirty by twenty-five centimeters tall. He says you can’t open those boxes even with an antitank mine. Unless you’ve got the key.”

He and Fazio had searched the apartment and the room on the terrace for a wall safe. Surely they would have seen a strongbox that size. Which must mean that somebody had taken it away. But what could they do with it without the key? Or maybe the person who took it owned a duplicate key? And did Michela know nothing about this? It was becoming more and more necessary to talk with that woman. He’d promised her he would find out about the funeral, so he called Pasquano.

“Hello, Doctor, am I disturbing you?”

One had to approach Pasquano carefully. He had a decidedly nasty, unstable character.

“Of course you’re disturbing me. Actually, to be more precise, you’re breaking my balls. You’re making me get blood all over the receiver.”

Someone else who didn’t know the doctor would have hung up in embarrassment, apologizing profusely. But the inspector had been so long associated with him that he knew that sometimes it was better to throw fuel on the fire.

“Doctor, I don’t give a fuck.”

“About what?”

“Whether I’m disturbing you or not.”

It worked. Pasquano let out a big fat belly laugh.

“What do you want?”

“Angelo Pardo’s family wants to know when we can give back the body for the funeral.”