The Dance of the Seagull

15

He had utterly no idea where Via Bixio was. And he didn’t dare ask Catarella, who would surely have thought he’d said Via Piscio. He had a map of Vigàta that he kept with him in the car. He took it out of the glove compartment and studied it. The index of street names said it was in box C4. It was like playing Battleship. Naturally, and predictably, a piece of the map had been torn away, the very part that contained box C4. But the inspector managed to figure out that Via Bixio was past San Giusippuzzo, in a district that was almost open country.

It took him about half an hour to get there. Number 22, Via Bixio, which at a certain point turned into an out-and-out dirt road, was a tiny one-story house surrounded by what must have once been a cross between a kitchen garden and a yard but was now in a state of total abandon. In front was a wrought-iron gate, left open. Montalbano went in and down the little path to the house. The door was locked, and the windows too. There was a doorbell, which he rang and rang, but nobody came. Seeing that the closest house was a good fifty yards away and there wasn’t a single car to be seen anywhere all the way to the horizon, he pulled out of his jacket pocket a special set of keys a burglar friend of his had given to him. On his fourth try, the door came open, and he leapt backwards, just as he had done when Signor Catalfamo had opened the door. But this time it wasn’t garlic he smelled. It was the bittersweet and thoroughly unpleasant odor of blood, which he had smelled so many times before. He slipped inside and closed the door behind him, holding his breath. He felt the wall, searching for the light switch, found it, and flipped it on. He was in a living room whose furniture had all been pushed up against the walls. Alone in the middle of the room was a wicker chair, completely darkened with dried blood. Blood had also been spattered all over the walls, furniture, and floor. A real slaughter. The chair stood at the center of a broad circle of brown blood, as if someone had gone round and round it . . .

Suddenly Montalbano understood what they had done in that room. For a second he saw the scene with his own eyes, and an irrational, unbearable fear came over him. Instinctively, he took a deep breath, and the terrible smell triggered a violent wave of nausea. He stepped back, opened the door, closed it, got back in the car, and left. But after a minute or two he had to stop. He got out and vomited.

“Ahh Chief! I gots the files ’ere y’axed me ’bout fer Cammona wit’ a r an’ Ponentino whose rill name’s Sorrentino. Ah, an’ afore I ferget, Signor Gargiuto called. ’E says as how as soon as you’s onna premisses a call.”

“Cat, I didn’t understand a word you said. Who’s supposed to call, me or Gargiuto?”

“Youse, Chief.”

“But if I don’t even know who this Gargiuto is, how am I supposed to call him?”

“You don’ know ’im, Chief? You rilly mean ’at?” Catarella asked, looking at him in amazement.

“Never heard of him.”

“Whattya mean, Chief? Y’tol’ me ’e’s asposta, he meanin’ Gargiuto, ’e’s asposta give yiz, yiz bein’ youse, Chief, a answer ’bout you givin’ ’im a litter wroten in so much as . . .”

Gargiulo of Forensics!

“I got it, I got it. Listen, is Inspector Augello in?”

“’E jess call sayin’ as how ’e’s gonna be on ’is way in a half hour.”

“As soon as you see him, tell him to come to my office.”

“What can you tell me, Gargiù?”

“I can give you a quick answer right away, Inspector. For a more thorough analysis I’m going to need three or four days.”

“Just give me the quick answer for now.”

“The handwriting’s not natural.”

“You mean it’s faked?”

“Absolutely not. I mean it’s purposely made to look the way it does.”

“By whom?”

“By whoever wrote it.”

“Let me get this straight, Gargiù. The person writing the letter didn’t like the handwriting mother nature gave him, and so he forced himself to write differently?”

“Something like that. So the author of the letter, a man—”

“Are you sure of that?”

“If I tell you this G is a man, he’s a man, believe me. But a man who’s forcing himself to write with a feminine handwriting. Do you understand?”

“Of course.”

“Now, in three or four days, when—”

“Listen, Gargiù, don’t bother. You’ve already told me enough. Thanks, I really appreciate it, and please send the letter back to me right away.”

“I’ll have an officer run it over to you right now.”

“So, what’s the news?” Augello asked, coming in after Montalbano had been signing papers for a good half hour.

“I’ll tell you in a minute. So, how’d it go yesterday with Signora Manzella?”

“She identified the body.”

“How did she react to the news?”

“Let’s just say she was mildly displeased.”

“Didn’t I tell you the news wouldn’t be quite so bad for her? She’s not only going to inherit, she’s going to get married straightaway.”

“So, what’s the news?” Augello repeated.

“The first thing is that you should postpone Rizzica’s visit till tomorrow.”

“Why?”

“Because this afternoon, no later than five, you have to be at Fiacca Hospital, where Fazio’s staying. I want you to bring Gallo and Galluzzo with you, and make sure you’re well armed.”

“What do you want us to do?”

“Around six an ambulance is going to come and get Fazio and take him to Palermo.”

“So?”

“You three are going to be his escort. But discreetly. Don’t attract any attention. I want you to take your own car. If they still want to eliminate him, this is their last chance.”

“But do you seriously believe—”

“Yes, Mimì, I seriously do. They already proved it a second time at the hospital.”

“And how would they do it this time?”

“I can tell you, with ninety percent certainty, that there’ll be a big, metallic blue car following the ambulance. If you see it, beware! It’s them. They might even try to cause an accident, and in the confusion try to kill Fazio. And I’ll tell you something else: it’s the same car from which the gunmen shot the porter’s wife this morning.”

“Holy shit! And how do you know about this car?”

Now came the hard part. It was absolutely imperative that he keep Angela out of the picture. She had to remain completely invisible. If he compromised her in any way at all, the girl could consider herself dead.

“I happened to talk with the nurse who chased away the guy who had slipped onto Fazio’s ward. She gave such a good description of him to Fiacca’s Chief Inspector Caputo that he was able to identify him in no time.”

“So who is he?”

“His name is Vittorio Carmona. Fugitive, wanted for three murders. A member of the Sinagra clan. Have a look at his file.”

He pulled it out of a drawer. The other file, Sorrentino’s, he’d hidden at the bottom, under a stack of papers. No one must see it. He would stick it in his pocket before leaving and then burn it at home.

“Nice, honest-looking face,” commented Augello, giving the file back to him. Then he asked:

“So how did you know about the car?”

“I talked to the employee at the hospital parking lot, you know, the guy at the gate. Inspector Caputo hadn’t gotten around to it,” he said, in the heartfelt hope that Mimì wouldn’t talk to either the employee or Inspector Caputo.

“Are we gonna talk about the porter’s wife?” Mimì asked.

“You have any ideas about her?”

“Yup.”

“Let’s hear ’em.”

“When Manzella left the telescope there, the porter’s wife must have become curious. So one night she got up and looked at it. And she must have seen something that put her in a position to blackmail someone. And whoever it was paid up at once, just to keep things quiet. Then they went into Manzella’s apartment and took the binoculars and telescope, and as soon as it was daylight, they killed her.”

“Wrong.”

“Where?”

“The second part.”

“Explain.”

“Mimì, I’ve got two witnesses who can testify that it was Signora Matilde herself, the porter’s wife, who gave the telescope and binoculars to a guy who came around five-thirty in the morning, in a van.”

“Then that changes every—”

“And there’s more. Signora Matilde told one of the witnesses that Manzella had called her the day before, and she was having the stuff sent to his new address.”

“Imagine that! The guy’d been already dead for days!”

“So the question is this: if she wasn’t having the stuff sent to its rightful owner, who was she sending it to? Think about it.”

Mimì thought about it for a minute and then came to the logical conclusion.

“To whoever she was blackmailing!”

“See? You can be pretty good when you put your mind to it!”

“But by doing that, she got rid of the only potential evidence she had!”

“How much did she have in the bank, Mimì?”

“Five thousand euros.”

“Did you search her place?”

“No? Why would I do that?”

“Because surely there must be some more money stashed away somewhere, in a bag or envelope or something. They made a deal, money for telescope and binoculars. Paid in advance. What’s the situation like down there?”

“The porter’s gone off to get drunk again, and the apartment’s been sealed off.”

“Excellent. Later, in due time, we’ll go and have a look.”

“So in your opinion, after the second cash installment in exchange for the binoculars and telescope, the game was over?”

“At least that’s what they wanted her to believe. And then they shot her a few hours later. And that’s the real problem.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Let’s recapitulate, that’ll help you to understand. The whole story begins with a guy named Manzella who wants to report some smuggling activity to his friend Fazio. Fazio doesn’t mention it to us, but the same day Fazio disappears, Signor Rizzica comes and tells us that he’s suspicious of the crew of one of his trawlers and thinks they might be using the boat for drug trafficking. Notice the difference?”

“You mean the coincidence?”

“Mimì, I speak good Italian because I read books. You, on the other hand, are as ignorant as a sheep and confuse words. I said difference, not coincidence.”

“And what is this thing, whatever it is?”

“You see? Is that any way to express yourself? You’ve become an honorary Catarellian. The difference lies in the fact that Manzella talked about smuggling, whereas Rizzica came to report drug trafficking.”

“What kind of difference is that? Don’t we say drug smuggling?”

“Perhaps. But in common speech we use the word trafficking. Nobody ever says drug smuggling.”

“What is this, grammar school?”

“No. If it were, I would have already flunked you. I’m just pointing out an important distinction for you. Smuggling can involve just about anything: weapons, cigarettes, medicine, nuclear bomb materials.”

“But is Fazio so sure Manzella said smuggling?”

“Absolutely certain. And it makes sense to me.”

“Why?”

“Let’s resume our recapitulation, so you can understand, too. Manzella waffles for a few days, then makes an appointment to meet Fazio at the port. Fazio doesn’t realize it’s a trap, because Manzella’s already been murdered. So he goes to the meeting. He gets shot and wounded, and his aggressors decide to finish him off far outside of town, at the three wells. But then the unexpected happens: Fazio manages to break free and pushes one of them into the well.”

“Who hasn’t been identified yet.”

“Right.”

A solemn fib, since all he had to do was pull the file out of the drawer, and Mimì would have known the man’s first and last names. The problem was that Montalbano couldn’t do or say anything, otherwise Angela was screwed.

“But,” the inspector continued, “we do know that one of the two men was our same Vittorio Carmona, since Fazio identified him immediately when I described him for him.”

“And then they killed the porter’s wife.”

“Exactly. Two killings—actually three, except that Fazio did it in self-defense—and an attempted murder that they’re going to try to make good on, I’m sure of it. Don’t you think that’s a lot?”

“A lot of what?”

“A lot of dead people, Mimì. And that’s the point. Too many killings for a simple case of drug trafficking. We’re not in Bolivia, after all.”

“And so?”

“And so there’s probably something really big at the bottom of all this.”

“If only we could know how Manzella found out about the whole thing and why he wanted to tell Fazio about it . . .” Augello started saying.

“Wait a minute,” said Montalbano.

He picked up the receiver.

“Catarella, has Forensics sent anything over to me?”

“Yessir, Chief. Jess right now. A litter.”

“Bring it to me, would you?”

As soon as Catarella brought it, he opened the envelope and handed the letter to Mimì.

“Is this written by a man or a woman?” asked Augello after reading it.

“I had the same question. So I asked Gargiulo to have a look at it, and he said it was definitely written by a man who wants to pass for a woman.”

“A transvestite? Transsexual?”

“Perhaps. Here, read this too.”

He opened the drawer, took out the letter from Manzella’s friend, the one with the photograph of the sailor, and handed it to him.

“There we go” was Mimì’s only comment.

“In my opinion,” said the inspector, “our friend Manzella, married and the father of an only son, at a certain point in his life discovered a completely different world. And he realized he was made for that world. It’s his own business and should be of no concern to us.”

“Relatively speaking,” said Mimì.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because just the other day Beba pointed out to me that if we were all like them, we would betray our purpose on earth, which is to procreate.”

“Who ever told you that’s our purpose in life? The Lord God himself, poissonally in poisson? Tell me the truth: Before you got married, when you were fucking everything that moved, didn’t you do everything within your power not to procreate? The human race could have become extinct for all you cared!”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“Let’s just drop the subject, Mimì, it’s better that way. So, to continue. On a dark day for him, Manzella meets G. It’s love at first sight, if you’ll pardon the cliché and the pain it may cause you, great converted procreator that you are. They get together rather often, until Manzella discovers by chance, or perhaps because G tells him, that his friend is involved in some shady stuff. But he doesn’t want to lose him, and so he keeps his mouth shut. Until one day somebody tells him that G is cheating on him. And so he decides to take revenge and tells Fazio what’s going on. But then he has second thoughts and backtracks. He has his ups and downs. And ends up letting G know his intentions. G warns whoever he needs to warn, and they silence him. Make sense to you?”

“It’s a plausible hypothesis,” said Augello.

“It’s the only one possible,” said Montalbano, standing up. “But there’s no proof.”

“Where are you going?”

“To eat. But take care, Mimì. When you’re tailing the ambulance, ring me every fifteen minutes on the cell phone. Don’t forget that you can arrest Carmona whenever you like, since he’s a murderer and a fugitive from justice. But don’t forget that he’s also dangerous and won’t hesitate for a second to start shooting. And when he shoots, it’s not just to make noise.”

“All right then, if I can, I’ll let you listen to the shootout over the cell phone, to help pass the time,” said Mimì.

Actually the inspector had no intention whatsoever of going to eat. In fact, since what he had to do was something that didn’t appeal to him at all, his stomach felt so tight that not even a bread crumb could have passed his lips.

He was also certain that if he did eat, he wouldn’t be able to do what he had to do afterwards.

There are things that cannot be faced on a full stomach. He knew this from past experience.

One time, when he’d had to watch Pasquano working on the corpse of a ten-year-old girl just after he’d finished eating, he spent a good fifteen minutes in the parking lot doubled over, throwing up his soul. It wasn’t what Pasquano was doing, which he was obliged to watch, that had made him sick. No, it was the way the doctor was cataloguing out loud the wounds the little girl had suffered (deep cut in the left calf inflicted by the same blade that . . . broad laceration in the groin area probably produced by an object . . .) and he had imagined—no, he had seen, actually seen the murder unfold, as if it were taking place right before his eyes, and he’d felt suffocated by the ferocity, the violence, the horrific bestiality . . .

Passing by Catarella, he greeted him and repeated the same fib he’d told Augello.

“I’m going to eat, but I’ll bring along my cell phone, so you can call me at any time.”

He went out, took three steps, then returned.

“Did Fazio’s wife bring back my gun?”

Catarella balked.

“Your gun? Signura Fazio? She’s gotta license?”

“I don’t think so.”

“An’ she walks aroun’ witta gun in her poisse?”

“C’mon, Cat, no need to drag things out, I got it, she hasn’t brought it in yet. But she will, and when she does, I want you to take it and give it to me when I return.”

What had made him think about the gun? Where he was going, it was 99 percent certain he wouldn’t need it. And yet . . .

He got into his car and headed for Via Bixio.

Another question: Why hadn’t he told Mimì Augello he’d found out the address of Manzella’s last place of residence and had even gone there?

It wasn’t something he needed to keep hidden so as not to compromise Angela. The girl had nothing to do with it. Fazio had told him the address as soon as it had come back to him. And so?

The reason was so simple that he found it right away.

If he’d told Mimì he’d been to Manzella’s place, Mimì would have asked him what he’d found there, and he would have had to say, yes, he’d gone inside but immediately run away.

He could imagine the look of astonishment on Mimì’s face.

“You ran away?! Why’d you do that?”

And he would have to tell him he got scared.

“You? Scared? Of what?”

“Nothing concrete, Mimì. Let’s just say I was metaphysically disconcerted.”

“Metaphysically what? What are you talking about?”

No, Augello would have thought he was going crazy.

Nor could he lie again and tell him he’d found out from Fazio where Manzella’s last place of residence was but hadn’t gone there yet because he wanted Mimì to go there with him. Augello knew him too well not to realize that the inspector would never have been able to resist the curiosity and would have rushed there at once, not giving a flying fuck about telling him or not.

So how was he going to get out of this?

Here’s how: he would tell Mimì that Fazio had rung him from the cell phone with the address as he was leaving the hospital or along the road to Palermo, because it hadn’t come back to him until then, and the inspector couldn’t tell Augello because he was part of Fazio’s escort.

Meanwhile he’d arrived in front of Manzella’s place.