A Beam of Light Page 17

  Fazio and Augello came in punctually at five.

  “You talk first, Mimì.”

  “Loredana immediately remembered me. I was able to talk to her for barely ten minutes in the manager’s office. She said she knew about me and Valeria because her friend had told her about it in great detail. She even said that it was the first time since Valeria got married that she was interested in another man. I went into hysterics and even started crying. She took pity on me and said she would talk to Valeria.”

  “So how did you leave things with her?”

  “She wanted my cell phone number. She’s gonna get back to me on it.”

  “And what about you?” Montalbano asked, turning to Fazio.

  “I talked to the old lady. You were right on the money, Chief. Whenever that man came, Loredana was always there.”

  “Did you ask her what he looked like?”

  “The young guy? Yes, she said he was a good six feet tall and always came in the same car.”

  “Did she remember any part of the license plate number or the make of car?”

  “No, Chief, she didn’t get a look at the license plate and doesn’t know the first thing about car models. All she said was that the car was silver.”

  “I’m almost certain that the guy’s car the other night was also silver,” said Montalbano. “But there’s no question it’s the same guy who used to go and see her at home. Unless all the men Valeria frequents are six feet tall.”

  “I found out something else,” Fazio went on. “That her cleaning lady’s name is Nina. But she’s not really a proper cleaning lady; she was Valeria’s wet nurse when her mother stopped producing milk because of some unpleasantness.”

  “And who told you all this?”

  “The only greengrocer in all of Via Palermo, where Nina does her shopping.”

  Hearing this story about Valeria’s mother losing her milk because of an unpleasant misfortune brought back to Montalbano’s mind the thing that had occurred to him when he was sitting on the flat rock.

  And he suddenly remembered that it was Augello who’d said this important thing.

  “Mimì, if I remember correctly, when you came and told us about your first encounter with Valeria, I think you said that she’d told you her life story.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I can’t quite remember now, but didn’t you say she talked about her family?”

  “Yes, she said she’d had an unhappy childhood because her father had a mistress with whom he had a son.”

  “Okay, that was it. Did she tell you whether this son was born before her?”

  “Yes, four years before.”

  “So Valeria has a half-brother.”

  “Well, if that’s the case . . .”

  “Did she tell you whether her father ever acknowledged paternity?”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  Fazio was already standing up.

  “I’m gonna dash over to the records office. Our computer system is down. The office closes at five-thirty. Maybe I can still make it.”

  16

  “I don’t understand why you think this half-brother is so important,” said Mimì Augello.

  “Mimì, it is crystal clear that Valeria leads a double life. Or, at least there’s a large part of her life she now wants to keep hidden at all costs. Do you agree?”

  “I agree.”

  “If the scheme of the package she wanted to give you had gone according to plan, by now we would surely have discovered something. But since things didn’t go as expected, we still know nothing at our end of things. But all roads are viable. It’s possible that she and the half-brother have continued to meet.”

  They kept talking about Valeria until Fazio returned, discomfited, half an hour later.

  “All I found at city hall was that there’s only one male Bonifacio in Vigàta, Vittorio, who’s fifty years old and is Valeria’s father. Therefore Vittorio did not acknowledge paternity for his illegitimate son, who must be registered under his mother’s maiden name.”

  “Speaking of mothers, what is Valeria’s mother’s maiden name?” asked Montalbano. “Maybe through her . . .”

  “Her name was Agata Tessitore. She died three years ago.”

  “We’ve reached a dead end,” Mimì commented.

  But the inspector had already clamped his teeth around the bone and wasn’t about to let go.

  “Okay, I’m going to make a desperate move,” he said. “But I should let you know that it worked once before.”

  He dialed a number on the outside line and turned on the speakerphone.

  “Hello?” answered a woman’s voice.

  “Adelì, this is Montalbano here.”

  “Ah, so iss you, Isspector? Wha’ss wrong? Everyting okay?”

  “I need a little information. Do you know an elderly woman who keeps house for a certain young woman with the surname of Bonifacio?”

  “No, sir.”

  “This elderly woman’s name is Nina.”

  “Nina Bonsignori?”

  “I don’t know her surname.”

  “I know an ol’ leddy who buys a fish atta semma place I buy itta masself, anna she alway talkin’ about ’er boss, always a talkin’ my ear offa tellin’ whatta goo’ younga leddy she is anna so beautyfull. She sez she raise her, an’ she wazza her wet nurse . . .”

  Bull’s-eye.

  “That’s the one!”

  And after casting a triumphant glance at Mimì and Fazio, he continued:

  “And is her boss’s name Valeria?”

  “Yessir.”

  “When are you going to see Nina again?”

  “I’m a sure am a gonna see her tomorra mornin’ azza usual, a’ seven-thirty atta fish market.”

  “Okay, now I’m going to tell you what I want you to ask her, but you should do it offhandedly, as if it’s just out of curiosity. And when you have her answer, I want you to call me at home.”

  “It canna wait till I comma to you house?”

  “No, I have to know right away.”

  After hanging up, he turned to Fazio and said:

  “Tomorrow morning, as soon as I have this woman’s name, I’m going to call you with it, and I want you to run immediately to the records office.”

  He got home just before eight-thirty, and the moment he entered the phone rang.

  “Hello, Salvo.”

  It was Livia. She spoke slowly, in a faint, faraway voice, as if it cost her great effort to breathe.

  “Hi. Are you feeling any better?”

  “No. Worse. Today I couldn’t even manage to go to work. I stayed home.”

  “But are you sick? Do you have any fever?”

  “No, no fever. But it’s as if I did.”

  “Can’t you explain any better what—”

  “Salvo, I’m living with a sense of continuous, piercing anguish inside me. However hard I try—and, believe me, I do try—I can’t find the cause of it. But there it is. It’s as if something really terrible was about to happen to me at any moment.”

  Montalbano felt very bad about this.

  He imagined her there alone, disheveled, eyes red with tears, walking gloomily from room to room . . . The next words came straight from his heart:

  “Listen . . . Do you want me to come to Boccadasse?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe I could help you.”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “I would be impossible.”

  “But you can’t just stay like that without doing anything!”

  “If I still feel like this tomorrow, I’ll go and see someone. I promise. But now I need to sleep.”

  “I hope you can.”

  “With sleeping pills I can. Good night.”

  H
e had a bitter taste in his mouth, and a heavy heart.

  He sat down in the armchair and turned on the television. Zito was just ending his report.

  “. . . for the investigating magistrate, Antonio Grasso, today was the deadline for confirming or dismissing the arrest of Salvatore di Marta, but Judge Grasso has requested an additional forty-eight hours before deciding. We can therefore infer that the evidence the prosecutor’s office considered sufficient for issuing the arrest warrant was deemed not quite as convincing and certain by the investigating magistrate.

  “Elsewhere in the news, the hunt for three immigrants after an exchange of gunfire with law enforcement officials a few days ago continues in the Raccadali countryside. An abandoned farmhouse has been discovered in which the three men are believed to have temporarily taken shelter. Bloodied rags have been found there, confirming the report that one of them had been seriously wounded. Commissioner Sposìto, head of the counterterrorism unit of Montelusa and its province, says that the ring around the three fugitives is tightening and that their capture and arrest is now just a question of time.

  “In other news, we have just learned that the municipal council of . . .”

  He started changing channels, looking for a movie. He didn’t feel the least bit hungry. Livia’s phone call had killed his appetite. He found a spy movie and watched it till the end, even though he didn’t understand a thing.

  He turned off the TV and went and sat down on the veranda. He didn’t even feel like any whisky. He felt melancholy about Livia.

  He started thinking of her again at home in Boccadasse. The sorrow, tenderness, and compassion he felt for her brought a lump to his throat.

  And he saw himself reflected in her, since she was suffering from the same loneliness he had felt before meeting Marian.

  Maybe Livia had been right to refuse his offer to come to Boccadasse. What comfort could he really have given her? Would he have been able to hold her and caress her the way he used to do?

  Maybe with words? But not only would his words not have been up to the challenge, they would have rung false. Because you can’t live with a person for years on end, get to know him inside and out, and not notice when something changes inside this person. And Livia had surely already noticed the change in him.

  But this time she hadn’t reacted. On the contrary, she’d made a point of saying that her malaise had nothing to do with their relationship.

  So what could have happened to her? What was the cause of this anguish that had suddenly overwhelmed her? Was it some bad joke of advancing age?

  What he found most disturbing was the fact that Livia was not prone to hysteria or sudden fits of depression, or wild fantasies or mood shifts. On the contrary. She had a gift for concreteness, for having both feet always on the ground. If she was feeling this way now, the reason must be very serious. And the situation could become more dangerous if they didn’t soon find the cause.

  No, he couldn’t possibly abandon her at such a moment. It would be an act of twofold cowardice.

  Almost as if she’d heard him thinking, Marian called. That is, as the phone was ringing, he was absolutely certain that it was Marian at the other end. Reaching out for the phone cost him a great deal of effort, and the receiver seemed to weigh a ton.

  “Hello . . . who is this?”

  “Ciao, Inspector, how are you? Your voice sounds strange.”

  “I’m . . . tired. Very tired.”

  “Last night must have tired you out.”

  “Yes. It was . . . rough. How are things with you?”

  “Lariani was very mysterious the last time we spoke on the phone. He said he had to be extremely cautious with the people he was dealing with. When I asked him why, he didn’t answer. He still needs another day.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “I granted him the extra day. But I made a decision. I’m giving him until tomorrow evening. If he doesn’t get in touch, or if he puts it off again, that’s it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that’s it, I’m dropping everything.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Of course I’m serious.”

  “But isn’t this a good opportunity?”

  “It certainly is!”

  “So why drop something when you’re already almost there?”

  “Salvo, perhaps you still don’t understand.”

  “Understand what?”

  “That being one minute, even one minute away from you costs me a great deal. And being a whole day away is too high a price. A price I can no longer pay. And there’s nothing whatsoever forcing me to subject myself to such suffering. To hell with Pedicini, Lariani, and the rest. They’re all thieves!”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Yes, thieves! They’ve robbed me of a piece of happiness. And my happiness comes before anything else. Have I made myself clear?”

  Before answering, he had to let a few seconds pass. He felt bowled over by Marian’s stridency.

  “You’ve made yourself perfectly clear,” he finally said.

  But a question kept spinning around in his head: Why was Lariani acting this way?

  “Now,” Marian resumed in the same tone as before, “since I’m convinced by now that nothing will be resolved by the end of the day tomorrow, I’m going to catch a flight early the following day and come back to Vigàta. That way, we can be together for dinner in the evening.”

  “I can understand your reasons, but just think it over, please, since you’re about to seal the deal—after all, one day more or one day less . . . ,” said Montalbano cunctator, the procrastinator.

  Marian raised her voice.

  “Salvo, I will not allow them to steal, to rob me of another second of my time with you. Can’t you get that through your head? Don’t you start now too. Anyway, don’t delude yourself: Now that I’ve got you, I’m not about to let you go.”

  He’d never heard her sound so determined.

  “All right,” he said.

  Marian changed tone.

  “I’m sorry if . . . But I feel exasperated. I’m just boiling inside. I’ve thought about this long and hard. I was a fool to accept Pedicini’s proposal. I should have said no even if it only involved being away for a single day.”

  “But now you should calm down,” said Montalbano. “Otherwise you won’t sleep a wink.”

  “I have a remedy for that.”

  “You really shouldn’t take sleeping pills, which—”

  “I have no intention of taking sleeping pills. You are my sleeping pill.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you’re my stimulant and my sedative. Wish me good night, as if I were lying beside you.”

  “Good night,” said Montalbano, truly wishing that Marian were lying beside him.

  He had just come out of the shower at quarter past eight when the telephone rang.

  “Isspecter, ’iss Adelina.”

  “What is it, Adelì?”

  “I talk a witta Nina Bonsignori. An’ ya kenna stoppa that leddy when she start a talk abou’ her boss, ’oo even called onna sill phone when she was tellin’ me everyting.”

  “Nina has a cell phone?”

  “Yessir, evverybaddy gotta sill phone now.”

  “Go on.”

  “She tol’ me the name o’ the lover o’ her bossa father, an’ iss Francesca Lauricella.”

  As soon as he hung up, he rang Fazio and told him about the phone call.

  As he was about to go out, he dialed Livia’s number. She answered with a thick tongue.

  “What time is it?”

  “Nine. Sorry if I woke you up.”

  “I wasn’t asleep. But I’m still in bed and don’t feel like getting up. Why did you call?”

  “To see how you were. I’m worried.�
�

  “I’m the same. But you shouldn’t worry. Please. Let’s talk again tonight.”

  What heartache he felt upon talking to her! And how stingy he’d become, how few words of sincerity and generosity he had for her!

  To go to the station he had no choice but to drive past Marian’s gallery. This time he noticed that some asshole had written “THIEVES!” in green and red spray paint on the metal shutter. It served as an arbitrary reminder that Marian had used the same word for Lariani. He wished he could meet the guy. But there was another way to find out more about him. Why hadn’t he thought of it sooner? Damn the condition his head was in!

  Fazio and Mimì were waiting for him at the office.

  “So?”

  Fazio pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. The inspector warned him:

  “I realize that the public record is important in this case, but spare me the rosary. Just give me the kid’s name.”

  “His name is Rosario Lauricella, and he’s twenty-five years old,” Fazio said stiffly, putting the piece of paper back in his pocket.

  “Where does he live?”

  “In Montereale. And I can even tell you that on his ID card he measures one meter and eighty-one centimeters. And there’s more.”

  “You can tell me later. First I want to call Tommaseo to tell him I no longer need a tap on Valeria’s and Loredana’s phones.”

  “Wait,” said Fazio. “What if Valeria happens to call Rosario?”

  “She won’t. I’ve figured out how she communicates with him.”

  “How?”

  “With her cleaning lady’s cell phone. That’s what she did the night of their meeting at the quarry. And to talk to Loredana, she can now go and see her in person.”

  He called Tommaseo, then let Fazio have his say.

  “Chief, I don’t know this Rosario in person but I know who he is.”

  “And who is he?”

  “The Cuffaro family’s representative in Montereale. He might be young, but they really trust him.”

  This was unexpected. The inspector just stared at Fazio openmouthed.

  Then he pulled himself together.

  “But it doesn’t seem possible that Savastano’s murder was a Mafia hit!”