IM11 The Wings of the Sphinx (2009) (13 page)

“How many are you?”

“Six, apart from me. Three men and three women. All volunteers blessed, naturally, with benevolence.”

“How do the girls manage to find you?”

“In many ways. Some just show up on their own, alone, having learned in one way or another of our existence. Others are pointed out to us by parish priests or associations like ours, others by ordinary people. And others still we are able to persuade to give up whatever they were doing and put their trust in us.”

“How do you persuade them?” asked the inspector, hoping that the means of persuasion didn’t include strong-arm tactics in keeping with the rugbyman’s character.

“Our volunteers approach them on the streets where they’ve started prostituting themselves, or in certain nightspots . . . To make a long story short, we try to get to them in time, before the irreparable happens.”

“How many of them accept your help?”

“More than you can possibly imagine. A lot of girls are aware of the dangers and prefer an honest job to easy money.”

“Do any girls ever get tired of the honest jobs and go back to the easy money?”

“Rarely.”

“Could I speak to your volunteers?”

“That’s not a problem.”

He searched about on his desk, picked up a sheet of paper, and handed it to the inspector.

“Here are their names, addresses, and telephone numbers.”

“Thank you. I’m here about two Russian girls, Katya and Irina, which your organization—I’m sorry, your association, had—”

“I’ve been told, unfortunately, about this Irina. But I’m not the person to talk to about her.”

“Who is, then?”

“You see, I legally and officially represent Benevolence, I preside over it, find the funding for it, but would you believe that, in these five years, I have never seen even one of these girls?”

“So to whom should I address myself?”

“To the first name on that list. Cavaliere Guglielmo Piro; he is, so to speak, our operative arm.”

“Does your organization—sorry, association—have a headquarters?”

“Yes. Two small rooms in Via Empedocle 12. You’ll find all the information on the sheet I gave you.”

“What are their hours?”

“At Via Empedocle there’s only someone there after seven in the evening. During the day my volunteers are working, you see. Anyway, to do what we do, the telephone is quite sufficient. But that’s enough questions for now. You’ll have to excuse me, but I have an engagement. If you had been good enough to get here on time . . .”

Since he was already in Montelusa, he dropped in at the studios of the Free Channel.

Nicolò Zito told him at once that he didn’t have much time and was about to go on the air with the one o’clock report.

“You know, about those photos: Except for the two phone calls the first day, we haven’t received any others.”

“Does that seem odd to you?”

“A little. Should I keep showing them on the air?”

“Do it again today, and then you can stop.”

Montalbano, too, was surprised at the scarcity of testimonies. Normally, using television in the search for a missing person triggered a deluge of phone calls from people who had actually seen the person, people who thought they had seen the person, and people who hadn’t seen anything at all but decided to call anyway. This time, however, there had only been two calls, and both, moreover, had been completely useless.

It was raining lightly when he pulled up in front of the trattoria. As there still was no fresh fish, as a first course Enzo brought him a dish of pasta with
pesto alla trapanese
, and as a second,
piscistoccu alla ghiotta
, stockfish prepared according to the Messinese recipe.

All things considered, Montalbano felt he had little to complain about, even if he wasn’t particularly fond of stockfish.

When he left the trattoria it was still raining lightly, so he went to headquarters.

According to the sheet that Monsignor Pisicchio had given him, Cavaliere Guglielmo Piro, first on the list as the operative arm, had three telephone numbers—an office, home, and cell number. Quite likely at that hour the cavaliere was at home, resting after his midday meal. Using his direct line, the inspector called the first number.

“Hello? Is this the Piro home? Yes? Chief Inspector Montalbano here. Is Cavaliere Piro there?”

“You wait, I get him,” said a girl’s voice.

Apparently the cavaliere made use of his association in his own home.

“Hello? I didn’t understand who this is.”

“Cavaliere, I’m Inspector Montalbano. I urgently need to see you.”

“About a house?”

What was he talking about? What did houses have to do with this?

“No, I need some information from you about a few Russian girls who—”

“I understand. Since my main occupation is selling houses, I thought ...Who gave you my number?”

“Monsignor Pisicchio, who also gave me a flyer of your association, Benevolence.”

There. He’d managed not to call it an organization.

“Ah. So we could meet later at Via Empedocle.”

“Okay. Tell me what time.”

“Six o’clock okay with you? If you’d like to see me sooner, you could come to my real estate office, which is in Via—”

“No, thank you, Cavaliere, six o’clock is perfectly fine with me.”

He had a moment of doubt. What if everyone at Benevolence was as obsessive as Monsignor Pisicchio?

“I should warn you that I may arrive a little late.”

“No problem. I’ll wait for you.”

The first to report back at five was Mimì Augello.

“Did you see the commissioner?”

“Did you know that Signora Ciccina had already spoken to him?”

“Well, what a surprise! The lady was probably at the commissioner’s at the crack of dawn! In short, what did he say to you?”

“That we’ve been taking the kidnapping too lightly. That we immediately drew the conclusion that it was all staged, and so we didn’t conduct any serious searches.That we’ve been too slapdash. That he’s not the least bit inclined to defend us if it turns out that a kidnapping indeed occurred. That we have no authorization whatsoever to think that Signora Ciccina might not be right. That the man in the photo may well be a double. That the popular belief that every person has six identical copies in the world may not be so far-fetched. That—”

“That’s enough. To conclude?”

“Remember Pontius Pilate?”

Fazio came in.

“You got anything big for me?”

“No, Chief, I’m empty-handed. And anyway, I’m moving too slowly.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I don’t know what I’m supposed to ask, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, I don’t know where I’m supposed to look. At any rate, I began with the two restorers and the one furniture works here in town.”

“Tell me about ’em.”

“The Januzzi furniture works went out of business a year ago. The store is open for a clearance sale of the pieces they’ve still got remaining, but the big warehouse where they used to make them is shut down, and nobody works there anymore. I looked at the padlocks on the doors, and they’re all rusted. I can guarantee you they haven’t been touched for months.”

“And what about the restorers?”

“One of them works in a shop about fifteen feet by fifteen, and he’s only a restorer in a manner of speaking. He repairs wicker chairs, dressers missing a leg, that sort of thing. He keeps the stuff he needs to work on out on the sidewalk, then piles it all up inside in the evening. The other guy is a real restorer. I talked to him, and his name is Filippo Todaro. He had a little purpurin and showed it to me. He explained that he only needs a little bit to restore the gilded pieces. Just a few grams.”

“Are you telling me we should forget about restorers?”

“That’s right, Chief.”

“Okay. I remember you said that there were only four furniture makers that need to be checked out.”

“Yes, but . . .”

“You think there’s no point in it?”

“Yessir.
Nuttata persa e figlia femmina
.”

“Don’t get discouraged, Fazio. By tomorrow, you’ll be done. Believe me, it’s too important.You’ve got to check them out.”

“I can take two,” said Mimì, moved to pity by Fazio’s disconsolate face.

“But why do you think it’s pointless?” Montalbano insisted.

“I can’t put it into words, Chief. It’s a feeling.”

“You want to know something?” said the inspector. “I have the same feeling as you. So let’s finish our check of the furniture makers and afterwards, when we’ve come to the conclusion that we’re on the wrong track, we’ll start looking for another.”

“Whatever you say, Chief.”

Since another downpour had broken out and the windshield wipers were having trouble removing the water from the glass, the inspector went crazy trying to find fucking Via Empedocle. When, at last, he turned onto it, he noticed there wasn’t room to park so much as a needle. He managed to park on a nearly parallel little street called Via Platone. Given that he was in a philosophical neighborhood, he decided to take the whole situation philosophically.

He waited inside his car for the rain to let up, then got out, made a quick dash, and arrived at the apartment a quarter of an hour late. But there were no recriminations.

“I would like, first of all, to know what your work entails.”

“The work we do is actually quite simple,” said Cavaliere Guglielmo Piro.

He was a well-dressed, rather midgetlike man of about sixty, with not a single hair on his head to save his life, and he had a tic: Every three minutes or so he would rapidly slide the index finger of his right hand under his nose. The first of the two small rooms was a kind of reception area with chairs, armchairs, and a sofa; the second room, the one the inspector and the cavaliere were in, had a computer, three file cabinets, two telephones, and two desks.