The Safety Net Read online

  Feeling relieved, he said out of the blue:

  “I’d like to speak with Tindaro, if I could.”

  “No problem, as far as that goes,” said Salvuzzo. Then, without addressing anyone, but speaking out loud, he added: “Tindaro! You okay with talking with the inspector?”

  “Yes,” said another voice inside the room.

  Montalbano looked around, completely flummoxed.

  Where was that voice coming from?

  Then he understood.

  Tindaro’s “yes” had come from inside the computer.

  13

  At the sound of that “yes,” Salvuzzo, who was at his desk, pushed himself away from the desktop with his hand so that the inspector could see the screen. Only then was Montalbano, half standing up, able to glimpse the chubby, pimply face of a teenage boy smiling at him.

  “Hello,” said Tindaro.

  “Hello,” replied the inspector, still confused.

  “Maybe it’s better if you sit here, Zio,” said Salvuzzo, undoing the Pistoletto work to make room for Montalbano and then settling in beside him.

  The inspector felt extremely awkward. The novelty of the situation had left him momentarily speechless. He felt quite uncomfortable talking with a person he could only see part of, just the head and the tops of his shoulders, being professionally accustomed to watching the way the person in front of him moved his toes. But he was being invited to dance, and he danced with utter assurance, perhaps out of a desire not to look bad in front of the two youths.

  “Did you hear all of our conversation?”

  “Yes. All of it.”

  “Good. So now let me ask you what you were thinking when you saw the two men enter the classroom.”

  “To tell you the truth, Inspector, what scared me wasn’t the guns but the masks. You know, those masks with that frozen smile that never changes. I felt like I was in some kind of American horror movie. Only the voice of the guy who was talking made me realize we weren’t in a movie.”

  “Did you also have the impression the two men were scared?”

  “No, ’cause I was too scared myself. Anyway, just to reassure myself, I looked over at Mr. Puleo and saw him looking very serious and worried, which made me think that they had come to kill the whole class. Like the crazies you read about in the news . . . and so I looked around.”

  “And what did you see?”

  “Inspector, we’ve been together in that class for three years. I thought I knew everybody’s faces, but, I swear, when I looked at them then, I didn’t recognize a single one of them. That’s how upset they were. Their faces were transformed. Some of them were crying, some covering their mouths with their hands to keep from screaming, some with their hands in their hair, some with their hands in the air. Lorusso was hugging Fiori, and I remember Portolano was teetering in his chair.”

  Increasingly impressed with these kids’ powers of observation, Montalbano interrupted him.

  “Let me ask you another question: Do you remember if there was anyone in particular who seemed more afraid than the others?”

  “No, Inspector, I don’t think so. We were all equally terrified. Or, if anything, there was maybe someone who seemed less afraid.”

  “Who?”

  “Luigino, the same kid you two were just talking about.”

  “And why did you think he was less scared than the others?”

  “He was the only one whose face I could still recognize, Inspector.”

  “What was it like? Expressionless? Indifferent?”

  “No, sir. Neither expressionless nor indifferent. I don’t really know how to put it. He wasn’t scared; he was attentive. Yes, that’s it. Extremely attentive.”

  “Listen, Tindaro, by the way, why do you think those three bullies have it in for Luigino? Salvuzzo says they feel stupid compared to him. You think it’s some kind of rivalry over a girl. But now that I’ve got you both here with me, I want you to brainstorm a little. Could there be another motive?”

  The two looked at each other through the screen and remained silent. Then Tindaro said:

  “It’s an old story, Inspector. It started last year when Peppe Portolano got this idea in his head that Luigino had to change his grades in the electronic register. But Luigi flatly refused.”

  “Aaahhh,” exclaimed Salvuzzo.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You said one of the assholes’ names!” Montalbano answered, smiling.

  At this point they all started laughing.

  “All right, then, I’ll say the others, too: two Portolanos and one Michele Giacalone.”

  “Why are there two Portolanos?” asked Montalbano.

  “Because there’s Peppe, who’s the ringleader, and then there’s Saro Portolano, who was held back.”

  “Tell me, Tindaro, since you’re not a cop’s son—”

  “I may not be a cop’s son,” Tindaro interrupted, “but since the first grade I’ve been the best friend of a cop’s son, and we’ve been playing at being cops for years.”

  “How do you do that?” asked Montalbano, feeling curious and amused.

  “Well, for example, there’s the scene of the crime. When we go into a place we’ve never been to before, we pretend that somebody’s been murdered there. So we look around for fifteen seconds, then close our eyes, and whoever can remember the most details wins. Sometimes I play the detective and Salvuzzo’s my assistant, and sometimes we switch roles. Or, just to give you another example, sometimes when getting off the city bus we have to remember the color of the jacket the lady sitting behind the driver was wearing. Stuff like that.”

  The inspector smiled and asked:

  “And would you like to keep doing that when you grow up?”

  “No,” Salvuzzo said decisively.

  “I think it’s better to keep it just a game,” said Tindaro.

  Montalbano felt simultaneously disappointed and relieved. The two lads would have made excellent cops, but the way things were these days, they were better off choosing another path in life. And so he went back to the subject that most interested him.

  “But tell me something: Do either of you know whether this Luigino has talked to his mother or father about what’s been happening at school?”

  It was Tindaro who answered:

  “Actually, Inspector, I know Luigino’s family pretty well. They live just across the landing from my grandmother. His father works for the European Union and is more often in Brussels than at home. And his mother’s afraid of her own shadow. For example, she often asks my grandmother to go shopping for her, because on certain days she’s terrified at the mere thought of sticking her nose out the door . . .”

  On the computer screen Tindaro could be seen looking down at something.

  “Wait just a second,” he said. “Luigino may not know it yet, but the situation has changed.”

  “Why? What happened?” Salvo and Salvuzzo asked in chorus.

  “Gilda, the prettiest girl in the class, just messaged me about something that happened right after the two guys burst in, but which hardly anybody noticed.”

  “What?” said the two Salvos, again in tandem.

  “Apparently in all the chaos that followed, Peppe fell to the floor and his brother thought he’d been shot and started shouting desperately. It was none other than Luigino, who’d come running to help, who realized that he’d merely passed out in fright and had to drag him outside, with the help of Saro and Giacalone. Which basically means the whole business is over. Peppe and the other two assholes that follow him around can now go fuck themselves. Also because Filippo Lupo filmed the whole scene with his cell phone. Wait, wait. He’s uploading it to me. I’ll play it for you in a second.”

  At that point Salvuzzo sprang to his feet and went and leaned against the desktop, practically sticking his head insid
e the computer. When the first images began to elicit uncontrollable laughter and ferocious commentaries from the two youths, Montalbano realized his presence was no longer needed.

  So he got up, left the room, went into the kitchen, poured himself two more fingers of whisky, and waited for Beba and Mimì to come home.

  * * *

  He poured himself another two fingers of whisky once he got home and sipped them out on the veranda. The discussion with Salvuzzo and Tindaro had made a strong impression on him. The two youths not only had described to him perfectly what had happened in the classroom, but they’d also displayed extraordinary powers of observation. Despite all this, however, they’d been unable to come up with any reason for the attack on their class. Therefore, what was the point of meeting with the other students, if Salvuzzo and Tindaro, despite all their practice, couldn’t think of any explanation? But if that was how it was, who could he now turn to in search of some lead, however minor, that might help in determining a possible motive?

  However hard he tried, no light came on in his brain. Maybe, with his increasing age, the old, incandescent bulb had been replaced by a new, low-energy one that took hours to reach full brightness.

  This was an idea that until recently could be rather dangerous, as it could open the door to useless lamentations over imminent old age. Now, however, that had changed, because having spent the whole evening talking to two intelligent lads had injected into his veins, as in some kind of vampiric transfusion, a minimal but sufficient amount of fresh, invigorating blood. And at that moment the phone rang.

  Livia’s first question naturally concerned what had happened at the school. Montalbano told her everything, in fine detail, and when he’d finished he came to the conclusion that he hadn’t been able to come to any conclusion.

  “And yet there must be one,” said Livia, “because an act as clamorous as that has to be motivated by something.”

  “Congratulations on your discovery,” Montalbano retorted. “The problem is finding out what.”

  But that certainly wasn’t Livia’s problem, and, as proof of this, she immediately started talking about Selene’s latest feats.

  They talked a little while longer, then wished each other good night.

  After he got into bed Montalbano spent a long time tossing and turning.

  He had two cases on his hands, and he couldn’t figure out a motive for either one: why Francesco Sabatello had filmed that wall, or why those two men had terrorized that classroom.

  There was something strange, however. Despite the fact that the first case had featured a suicide and the second a shoot-out, the two events nevertheless had one point in common: no fresh new deaths had resulted from them, and he therefore had had no need to call in the coroner, Dr. Pasquano.

  Wrapping himself up in this thought, he was finally able to fall asleep.

  * * *

  He woke with the firm intention of taking things easy, and in fact remained in bed for another half hour, not bothering to open the shutters and staring at the ceiling, where some reflected light was moving slowly and rhythmically, like the surf. Then he got up, went into the kitchen, and, yawning, waited for the coffee to bubble up. After drinking a cup full to the brim, he went and opened the veranda. The colors of the day stunned him with their intensity, and the sea seemed to whisper to him: Come on, dive in, I’m waiting for you.

  “I’ll be right there,” he replied, heading into the house to change into his bathing suit.

  At that moment the telephone rang.

  “Mornin’, Chief, beck yer partin fer the distoibance.”

  “Did somebody get killed?”

  “Nah, Chief.”

  “Then it’s not a disturbance. What is it?”

  “I wannit a tell yiz ’at hizzoner the prassecuter Atterraora called jess now sayin’ as how ’e’ll be waitin’ f’yiz in ’is poissonal affice in Montelusa in a hour. An’ so I decided a senn Gallo to yer ’ouse straightaways. Wazzat a mistake?”

  “No, no mistake,” Montalbano said bitterly, starting to remove his bathing suit.

  Upon arriving, Gallo had to wait fifteen minutes before the inspector was ready to leave, and therefore felt duty-bound to drive at 120 miles per hour on the road to Montelusa.

  As Montalbano entered Terranova’s office, he found Counterterrorism Chief Marchica and Liberati of the Flying Squad also there.

  They exchanged greetings, and after shaking everybody’s hand, Montalbano went and sat in the only free chair remaining, opposite Terranova’s desk, atop which towered a computer with a very large screen.

  “Please excuse me for calling this unscheduled meeting,” Terranova began, “but there are some new developments that I think will prove useful to the investigation. Inspector Marchica has sent me the document, which you’ll see in just a moment. Here is the transcript.”

  He handed a sheet of paper to Liberati and Montalbano, and then clicked something on the computer.

  On the screen appeared first a rotating globe, except that this globe was caged behind a grid of bars. Then the globe turned into a circle of light surrounded by a laurel wreath, with, in the middle, the silhouette of a clerk with the requisite white shirt and black tie but, in the place of his head, a question mark. The whole thing accompanied by some rather lugubrious music. Then, finally, a frame with the famous Anonymous Guy Fawkes mask appeared, worn by a hooded man. A mechanical voice began to speak:

  Citizens of the World, We are Anonymous.

  There has been some recent confusion in the media over something that happened in a Sicilian school.

  We must point out that one does not speak for all. Many do not speak for everyone.

  We are one. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget.

  Anonymous is not interested in personalized appeals.

  Anonymous pays no attention to private requests.

  Anonymous cannot be labeled, accused, or used.

  Anonymous is a space in the cosmic consciousness.

  To attribute responsibility to Anonymous would be to attribute responsibility to the citizens of the world.

  No cosmic consciousness entered that Sicilian school.

  The image suddenly vanished. Terranova turned the screen off, looked at the three men before him, and asked:

  “Any comments?”

  Liberati was the first to speak.

  “Are we sure this document is authentic?” he asked, turning to Marchica.

  “We’re ninety-nine percent certain. There still remains a minimum of uncertainty, even though Rome assures us it’s an official video. At any rate, both the logo and the style belong to what you could call the Italian section of the organization.”

  “In other words,” Liberati continued, “they’re saying they had nothing to do with this.”

  “So it would seem,” said Marchica.

  At this point Prosecutor Terranova intervened.

  “Still, we have to be careful with these people. It’s perfectly possible they are indeed saying this action didn’t involve them, but it could also be that they had some misgivings after the fact that led them to disavow what some of their comrades from the same section had done. I’m not sure I’m being clear.”

  “Perfectly clear,” said Liberati.

  “Whatever the case, however, the fact remains that they have now officially distanced themselves.”

  “Yes,” said Terranova.

  Montalbano hadn’t yet opened his mouth. And he kept it shut.

  “At any rate,” said Marchica, trying to make a point, “I should remind you that from the very start, I had serious doubts that Anonymous was behind this act.”

  “Why’s that?” asked Liberati.

  “There’s a big difference in the language used, my friend. You just now heard their communiqué, didn’t you? Did you pay any attention to t
heir choice of words? Good. I’ve listened to dozens of these messages, and they all seem to use—how should I say?—a single, common vocabulary, whether we’re talking about the English section, the French section, or the German section of Anonymous. Whereas the two men who entered the school used an essentially different kind of language, and they emphasized their threat by firing two shots into the air. In short, the modus operandi and modus dicendi of the two men, from the start, did not seem to me to match the methods and words of Anonymous. And there you have it. And this latest communiqué seems to confirm my doubts rather definitively.”

  Since Montalbano continued to remain silent, Terranova addressed him directly.

  “And what do you think, Inspector? I’m anxious to hear your opinion.”

  Montalbano paused a moment to think before answering.

  “I think that this communiqué, whether or not it’s genuine, doesn’t change the essence of the problem much.”

  “What do you mean?” Terranova insisted.

  “I mean that I’m not interested in assigning the two men a label. If the most likely label could provide us with a lead for arriving at some hint of an explanation for what happened, then its contribution to the investigation would be far from negligible. But it’s irrelevant whether the two belong to one organization or another, if such an association doesn’t provide us with a lead for making some progress on the case. Therefore, in my opinion, nothing has changed from before this communiqué was issued.”

  “Leaving aside these observations of yours, which I agree with,” said Terranova, “I would like you to comment more concretely on the purpose of this meeting. In other words: Is this communiqué enough, in your opinion, to justify us entirely abandoning the Anonymous lead?”

  “At this point, if Marchica thinks it’s appropriate, I would be for letting that lead slide,” replied Montalbano.