Andrea Camilleri - The Paper Moon

"I already did, yesterday. I didn't go inside, but I rang the doorbell for a long time."

"All right, but maybe he's in no condition to come to the door."

"Why would that be?"

"I dunno ...maybehe slipped in the bathtub and can't walk, or has a very high fever--"

"Inspector, I didn't just ring the doorbell. I also called out to him. If he'd slipped in the bathtub, he would have answered. Angelo's apartment is not that big, after all."

"I'm afraid I must insist you go back there."

"I won't go back alone. Would you come with me?"

She looked at him again. This time Montalbano sud-denly found himself sinking, the water coming up to his neck. He thought about it a moment, then decided.

"Listen, I'll tell you what. If you still haven't heard from your brother by seven o'clock this evening, come back here to the station, and I'll accompany you."

"Thank you."

She stood up and held out her hand. Montalbano took it but couldn't bring himself to shake it. It felt like a piece of lifeless flesh.

Ten minutes later Fazio appeared.

"A seventeen-year-old kid. Went up to the terrace of his building and shot himself up with an overdose. There was nothing we could do, poor guy. When we got there, he was already dead. The second in three days."

Montalbano looked at him dumbfounded.

"The second? You mean there was a first? "Why didn't any one tell me about it?"

"Fasulo, the engineer. But with him it was cocaine," said Fazio.

"Cocaine? "What are you saying? Fasulo died of a heart attack!"

"Sure, that's what the death certificate says. It's what his friends say, too. But everybody in town knows it was drugs." "Badly cut stuff?" "That I can't say, Chief."

"Listen, do you know some guy named Angelo Pardo, forty-two years old and an informer?"

Fazio didn't seem surprised at the mention of Angelo Pardo's profession. Maybe he hadn't fully understood.

"No, sir. "Why do you ask?"

"Seems he disappeared two days ago and his sister's getting worried."

"You want me to--"

"No, but later, if there's still no news, we'll see."

"Inspector Montalbano? This is Lattes." "What can I do for you?" "Family doing all right?"

"I think we discussed them a couple of hours ago." "Yes, of course. Listen, I'm calling to tell you that the commissioner can't see you today, as you'd requested."

"Look, Doctor, it was the commissioner who asked to see me."

"Really? Well, it makes no difference. Could you come tomorrow at eleven?" "Absolutely."

Upon learning that he wouldn't be seeing the commissioner, his lungs filled with air and he suddenly felt ravenous. The only solution was Enzo's trattoria.

He stepped outside the police station. The day had the colors of summer, without the extreme heat. He walked slowly, taking his time, already tasting what he was about to eat. When he arrived in front of the trattoria, his heart fell to his feet. The restaurant was closed. Locked. What the hell had happened? In rage he gave the door a swift kick, turned around, and started walking away, cursing the saints. He'd barely taken two steps when he heard someone calling him.

"Inspector! "What, did you forget that we're closed today?" Damn! He'd forgotten!

"But if you want to eat with me and my wife..."

He dashed back. And he ate so much that as he was eating he felt embarrassed, ashamed, but couldn't help himself. When he'd finished, Enzo nearly congratulated him.

"To your health, Inspector!"

The walk along the jetty was necessarily a long one.

He spent the rest of the afternoon with eyelids drooping and head nodding from time to time, overcome by sleepiness. When this happened, he would get up and go wash his face.

At seven o'clock Catarella told him the lady from the morning had returned.

As soon as she walked in, Michela Pardo said only one word:

"Nothing."

She did not sit down. She was anxious to get to her brother's place as quickly as possible and tried to communicate her haste to the inspector.

"All right," said Montalbano. "Let's go."

Passing by Catarella's closet, he told him:

"I'm going out with the lady. If you need me for anything afterwards, I'll be at home."

"Will you be coming in my car?" asked Michela Pardo, gesturing toward a blue Polo.

"Perhaps it's better if I take my own and follow you. Where does your brother live?"

"A bit far, in the new part of town. Do you know Vigata Two?"

He knew Vigata Two. A nightmare dreamed up by some real-estate speculator under the influence of the worst sorts of hallucinogens. He wouldn't live there even if he were dead.

Luckily for him and the inspector--who never in a million years would have spent more than five minutes in one of those gloomy six-by-ten-foot rooms defined in the brochures as "spacious and sunny"--Angelo Pardo lived just past the new residential complex of Vigata Two, in a small, restored nineteenth-century villa three stories high. The front door was locked. As Michela was unlocking it, Montalbano noticed that the intercom had six nameplates on it, which meant that there were six apartments in all, two on the ground floor and four on the other floors.

"Angelo lives on the top floor and there's no elevator."

The staircase was broad and comfortable. The building seemed uninhabited. No voices, no sound of televisions. And yet it was the time of day when people were normally preparing their evening meal.

On the top-floor landing, there were two doors. Michela went up to the one on the left. Before opening it, she showed the inspector a small window with a grate over it, beside the steel-plated door. The little window's shutters were locked.

"I called to him from here. He would surely have heard me."

She unlocked first one lock, then another, turning the key four times, but did not go in. She stepped aside. "Could you go in first?"

Montalbano pushed the door, felt around for the light switch, turned it on, and entered. He sniffed at the air like a dog. He was immediately convinced there was no human presence, dead or alive, in the apartment.

"Follow me," he said to Michela.

The entrance led into a broad corridor. On the left-hand side, a master bedroom, a bathroom, and another bedroom. On the right, a study, a kitchen, a small bathroom, and a smallish living room. All in perfect order and sparkling clean.

"Does your brother have a cleaning lady?"

"Yes."

"When did she last come?" "I couldn't say."

"Listen, signorina, do you come visit your brother here often?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

The question flustered Michela.

"What do you mean, 'why'? He's...my brother!"

"Granted, but you said Angelo comes to your and your mother's place practically every other day. So, I suppose you come to see him here on the off days? Is that right?"

"Well...yes. But not so regularly."

"Okay. But why do you need to see each other when your mother's not around?"

"Good God, Inspector, when you put it that way... It's just something we've been in the habit of doing since we were children. There's always been, between Angelo and me, a sort of..."

"Complicity?"

"I guess you could call it that."

She let out a giggle. Montalbano decided to change the subject.

"Shall we go see if a suitcase is missing? If all his clothes are here?"

She followed him into the master bedroom. Michela opened the armoire and looked at the clothing, one article at a time. Montalbano noticed that it was all very fine, tailored stuff.

"It's all here. Even the gray suit he was wearing the last time he came to see us, three days ago. The only thing missing, I think, is a pair of jeans."

On top of the armoire, wrapped in cellophane, were two elegant leather suitcases, one large and the other a bit smaller.