Game of Mirrors (13 page)

“We absolutely have to find Lombardo,” said Fazio. “Without wasting another minute.”

“Right. Speaking of which, didn’t you tell me Carlo Nicotra had no interest in Arturo?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Then you should know that the person who put the bee in Mamma Tallarita’s bonnet by portraying Liliana as a danger to her son was none other than Carlo Nicotra.”

“Really?!”

“Really. In short, maybe Nicotra’s not gay, but he certainly wants Arturo all to himself.”

“Chief, if that’s the way it is, it’s not because Nicotra’s in love with Arturo, but because the whole thing’s got something to do with drugs. I would bet the house on it.”

“And I
will
bet the house on it. Let me ask you a question. Isn’t it possible that Arturo replaced his father, who’s in jail? And that’s why Nicotra’s keeping tabs on him?”

Fazio looked doubtful.

“But where’s the kid gonna find the time to deal drugs? Unless Arturo’s dealing right out of the store where he works . . .”

“He might be. Why don’t you mosey up to Montelusa and pay a call on your friend in Narcotics? Those guys usually know where the prime dealing spots are.”

“I’ll go right now,” said Fazio, getting up.

“Wait,” said Montalbano.

Fazio sat back down.

This time the idea Montalbano had in mind was too
crazy even to be expressed. He decided to try to find out what he wanted to know by making something up on the spot.

“It just occurred to me that while you’re in Montelusa, I could try to track down Lombardo.”

“By calling all the police commissariats?”

“I repeat, it would only be a waste of time. If anything concrete had happened, that would be a different story.”

“So how are you going to do it?”

“It’s possible the central management of the company Lombardo works for is informed of his moves.”

“Good idea.”

“What’s the company called?”

“Star Computer. Its headquarters is in Milan. Want me to look up the address?”

“No, that’s all right. I can do it myself.”

It wasn’t the sort of thing to get Catarella involved in; the guy was liable to stir up pandemonium from here to Timbuktu. He summoned Gallo instead.

“Shut the door and sit down.”

“Yessir, Chief.”

“I want you to call Information, using my outside line here, and ask for the telephone number of the Star Computer firm in Milan.”

Gallo got it right away and wrote it down on a sheet of paper.

“Now call the company’s switchboard, tell them you’re the secretary of the Honorable Rizzopinna of the Anti-Mafia Commission, and you want to talk to the chief of personnel.”

“And then what?”

“When the chief of personnel comes to the phone, you say: ‘Please hold, I’ll put the Honorable Rizzopinna on the line.’ And turn on the speakerphone.”

It all went off without a hitch. Montalbano had time to review the multiplication tables for seven before a decisive voice, the kind used to giving orders, asked:

“Hello? Who is this?”

More than a question, it was a command, a sort of “Identify yourself!” By way of reply, Montalbano assumed the tone of someone who considers talking with common mortals a waste of time and therefore skimps on the pauses between words.

“IbelieveyouwerealreadytoldI’mtheHonorableOrazio RizzopinnadiCastelbuono,auxiliarymemberoftheNational-ParliamentaryCommissionforSubordinateLabor.”

He’d forgotten he was on the Anti-Mafia Commission. But he knew from experience that long and complicated names and titles always had an effect.

Indeed the voice at the other end immediately lost all its authority.

“Good morning, sir; what can I do for you?”

“CouldyoupleasetellmewithwhomIamspeaking?”

“Gianni Brambilla, chief of personnel.”

“Ah,finally!Ineedsomeinformation.”

“I’m at your service.”

“Arethesoleagentsofthecompanyundertheauthority ofyouroffice?”

“Of course.”

“Couldyoutellmeifamannamed . . . justasec ond . . .hereweare . . .ifamannamedAdrianoLombardo, that’stheone,isstillyoursolelicensedrepresentativeforall ofSicily?”

“Sir, could you please hold the line for a minute?”

“Yes,butpleasebequickaboutit.”

Gallo stared at the inspector in wonder.

Brambilla was back in a jiffy.

“Here we are, sir. Lombardo was let go three months ago. He is no longer our representative. Insufficient returns. He has given back his stocks of merchandise.”

“Thankyou.”

Just as he had thought. His idea hadn’t been so crazy after all.

“Still need me, Chief?” asked Gallo.

“No, thanks. And remember, don’t tell Catarella what I had you do, otherwise he’ll feel bad.”

As soon as Gallo left, the inspector sent for Augello.

“How’d it go with the salesgirl?”

“It was part fun and part not.”

“Why not?”

“Jesus, does that girl like to talk! She won’t shut up for even a second; she’s capable of blabbing even when she’s . . .”

Montalbano preferred not to listen to the details.

“Oh, yeah? And while she was doing all this blabbing, did she happen to tell you that Arturo Tallarita is a drug dealer?”

“No, she didn’t mention anything like that. Not even remotely. I now know every detail about the life of every person who works in that store from the time they were born. So I’m pretty sure that if he was a dealer, she would have told me.”

“Are you aware that Arturo and La Lombardo have vanished?”

Augello didn’t bat an eyelash.

“Did they run away together?”

“I really don’t think so.”

“Then what’s going on?”

Montalbano told him the whole story, from the attempted murder of Liliana to the latest discovery that Adriano Lombardo had been sacked from his company.

“That last fact might also not mean anything,” said Mimì. “He might have got a better offer from the competition and accepted.”

And this, too, might be true. But then why did Liliana say he was still a sales representative and why was he still spinning around Sicily like a top?

“Well, how would you go about tracking him down?”

“Lombardo? That’s easier said than done. By now it’s possible he’s no longer even in Sicily.”

“But what if he was?”

“Well, you get all the police commissariats—”

“You and Fazio are fixated on this idea of the police commissariats! You know how they deal with requests like this! If there isn’t a really good reason for it, they don’t take it seriously. It would take them a month to get back to us, if they got back to us at all.”

“So give it a good reason, then.”

“What am I gonna do, write that he’s wanted for murder?”

“You needn’t go so far.”

“Give me an example.”

“Well, you could say that his wife, whom we’re investigating—which is perfectly true since someone has made an attempt on her life—has disappeared without a trace and we therefore absolutely have to get in touch with her husband.”

He was right.

“Okay, Mimì, do me a favor. You handle it.”

“All right.”

Fazio returned about an hour later.

“Narcotics has no indication whatsoever that anybody’s dealing drugs out of that store.”

Montalbano told him the latest news.

“So all we can do now is wait,” said Fazio, resigned.

But by this point the inspector could feel his blood simmering and had no desire to sit still any longer.

He had another idea.

As Fazio looked on with an inquisitive expression on his face, Montalbano grabbed the telephone and called Adelina. Who immediately became alarmed.

“Wha’, you didna like what I cook a lest night?”

“It was excellent. I just need to ask you something.”

“Wha’ you wanna know?”

“Okay, listen carefully, Adelì. You remember Signora Lombardo, the lady who came with me to your place to eat arancini . . . ?”

“Sure! How could I forget?”

“Do you know by any chance whether she has a cleaning woman who comes on a regular basis to her house?”

“Yeah, she does.”

“Do you know her?”

“Yessah, I do. She take a same a bus to Marinella as a me, tree times a week.”

“Do you know her name?”

“Concetta Altellia.”

“Do you know where she lives?”

“Sure I do. Close to me. Vicolo Gesù e Maria, bu’ I dunno the number.”

“Thanks, Adelì.”

He rang Catarella on the internal line.

“Cat, I want you to look up a number for me in the phone book. See if you can find anything under the name of . . . wait . . . Altellia.”

Catarella remained silent at his end, but the inspector could hear him breathing.

“Cat, what are you doing?”

“I’m awaitin’, Chief.”

“For what?”

“For the poisson’s name.”

“What person?”

“The poisson whoseabouts you said ‘Wait an’ I’ll tell ya.’”

“Cat, that’s the person’s name: Altellia. Just as your name is Catarella, this person’s name is Altellia. Got that?”

“Yeah, now I got it, Chief.”

Moments later Catarella’s voice came on again.

“I can’t fine no Altellia inna drecktory. But I foun’ Altellini. Whaddo I do, Chief, call ’im?”

After all, for Catarella, one name was as good as another.

“No.”

“You know what I’m gonna do?” Montalbano said to Fazio as he set down the receiver. “After lunch I’m gonna go and pay her a visit myself. Actually, you should come too. We’ll meet at Enzo’s in an hour and a half.”

At lunch he made sure to eat lightly, to keep his head as clear as possible.

Fazio was on time. They got in the car and drove off to Vicolo Gesù e Maria. Luckily the little street consisted of three small three-story apartment buildings on either side. This was a stroke of luck they hadn’t expected.

Naturally the first building entrance they came to had no intercom system. But it was open. They went into the courtyard and noticed a man to their left, sitting on a wicker chair and smoking a pipe.

They went up to him. He must have mixed dog shit in with the tobacco he was smoking, because the air around him stank. Even the flies were keeping their distance.

“Excuse me, could you tell us whether Concetta Altellia . . .” Fazio began.

“She’s my daughter.”

“Could you tell your daughter—”

“I don’ talk to her no more an’ I don’ wanna talk to her no more. We live together, bu’ we don’ talk. We had a fight. The bitch don’ wan’ me to smoke my pipe in the house.”

And he spat, missing Fazio’s shoe by about a millimeter with a clot of dense brown material that looked like prune jam.

You really couldn’t blame the daughter.

“Then tell me please what floor you live on.”

“Seccon’ floor. Seccon’ door to the right.”

“Is she at home?”

“If she warn’t, whattayou think? You think I’d be smokin’ ousside?”

Concetta Altellia was fat and about fifty, with a face that let you know straight off that she never backed down from a fight. In fact she probably never let a minute go by without starting a row with someone.

“Whattaya want?”

“I’m Inspector Montalbano, police, and this is Inspector Fazio.”

“I didna ask who you was, but what you want.”

“We want to talk to you.”

“An’ whattaya think, that I got time to waste talkin’ to youse?”

The inspector looked at Fazio, who then intervened.

“All right then, you’ll have to come down to the station with us.”

“Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me?”

“Either you let us in, or we’ll run you in,” Fazio replied in all seriousness, and then, as if by chance, let the handcuffs under his jacket jingle.

The woman muttered to herself and then asked:

“Whattaya wanna talk to me about?”

“Signora Lombardo,” said Montalbano.

Concetta’s attitude suddenly changed. She actually became quite friendly and cordial.

“Come in, come in,” she said opening the door wide.

She showed them into the dining room and had them sit down.

“Would you like some coffee?” she asked.

“Sure, why not?” said the inspector.

She left them to themselves, and Montalbano got up and started looking at some framed photographs, all of them of the same good-looking young man: first in a sailor’s uniform, then on his wedding day, then high up on a crane.

“That’s my son, ’Ntonio. He works in La Spezia,” Concetta said proudly, returning with the coffee.

Which was good.

“So whattaya wanna know about the big slut?” Concetta began.

They were off to a good start.

“Why do you call her that?”

“’Cause she’s not a honest woman. An’ she’s shameless, too. She got no—how d’you call it—no modesty! She walks aroun’ the house stark nekkid! An’ I can tell yiz wha’ kind o’ condition I foun’ the bed in, after certain nights when her husband was away! Juss lookin’ at the sheets’d give ya an idea o’ wha’ was goin’ on . . . An’ then the husband, the big
cornuto
, he’s never home. Iss almos’ like he goes away on purpose so his wife can do all her monkey business!”

“How does Signora Lombardo treat you?”

“Her? I c’n never do nothin’ right for the lady! I bust my ass—you’ll ascuse th’expression—I bust my ass all mornin’ an’ she calls me from work to tell me the bathtub’s dirty. Natcherly iss gonna be a little dirty wit’ all the
filth she’s doin’ inside and outside the tub! An’ then she screwed me, the bitch!”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean she just up an’ left, ’swas nice knowin’ ya, an’ din’t pay me my lass month!”

“How did you know she went away?”

“’Cause I went to her house an’ saw she’d packed a suitcase an’ left.”

“So you have the house keys?” Montalbano asked.

“Of course. How’s I gonna get in otherwise?”

He’d asked a stupid question. This had been happening too often lately.

“Did you ever have a chance to meet the husband?”

Concetta thought about this.

“Maybe ten times over about five months.”

“Did he talk to you?”

“Sometimes. But it was always to give orders. He din’t kid around, either, when it came to bein’ rude.”

“What kind of relations were there between the two of them?”

“You mean, did they fuck?”

“Sort of.”

“Total strangers.”

“In what sense?”

“They didn’ even seem like husband and wife.”

“Could you explain a little better?”

“Wha’ c’n I say? Me, wit’ my husband, rest his soul, we used to fight, an’ then we’d make up an’ then we’d
kiss and talk about wha’ happened. But those two, nothing . . .”

“Listen, signora, when you were working there, did you ever happen to witness anything strange or unusual—anything, I dunno, that struck you as odd?”

Concetta didn’t need to think twice about this.

“One morning we was shot at.”

Montalbano started visibly in his chair. Fazio’s eyes opened wide.

“Really? Who was shot at?”

“He was, the husband was. The lady wasn’t there; she’d already left for work in Montelusa.”

“What happened, exactly?”

“Okay, it went like this. He got up late, like aroun’ nine thirty or somethin’, an’ he went into the bat’room. When he came out, since it was a nice day, he tol’ me to bring him his coffee ousside, on the veranda. So I went an’ made the coffee, an’ as I’s bringin’ it to him, I see him runnin’ into the house sayin’: ‘Don’ go ousside, don’ go ousside.’ So I stopped in the dining room an’ he come out o’ the bedroom wit’ a gun in his hand.”

“He had a gun?”

“Yessir, a pistol. Whenever he was home, he’d keep it on his nightstand, which scared me just to look at it, and when he left he’d take it wit’ him.”

“Go on.”

“So he went back to the veranda an’ looked ousside. I got a look myself. There was a rubber dinghy with a
motor that was moving away. An’ there was a hole in the wall on the veranda. Just a quarter inch away from where his head was when he was sittin’ down.”

“And what did he say to you?”

“That it musta been some kinda mistake.”

Adriano and Liliana had been lucky, you had to admit.

“Did anything else happen?”

“Right afterwards, he made a call on his cell phone an’ got all pissed off.”

“Did you hear what he was saying?”

“I heard everything, but din’t understand nothin’.”

“Why not?”

“He was talkin’ in some foreign language.”

“So you understood nothing at all?”

“I caught one name. Nicotra, I think it was.”

“When did this happen?”

“Le’ss say about two months ago.”

Why were people shooting at a former computer representative?

And why did he keep a pistol within reach?

“Can you tell us anything else, signora?”

“No, there’s nothin’ else. ’Cept for a kinda fixation they both had.”

“And what was that?”

“That I was never supposta go in the little room. The first day I started workin’, I went in there to clean. The lady, who was at home that day, started screamin’ like a demon an’ sayin’ I’s not supposta ever set foot in that room,
for any reason whassoever. But if she din’t tell me, how’s I supposta know? So she locked the door an’ give me a dirty look, and then she put the key in her pocket. The husband used to do the same thing when he was at home.”