“What’s wrong?” her husband asked.
“The TV just said the girl was released but the ransom wasn’t paid!”
“Really?!” asked the land surveyor, looking over at Montalbano.
The inspector shrugged and threw his hands up, as if to say he didn’t know the first thing about the whole affair.
“Oh, yes,” the woman went on. “They said the police found Mr. Peruzzo’s duffel bag, right near here, in fact, and it was filled with newspaper. The newsman wondered how and why the girl was freed. What’s clear is that piece of slime uncle of hers risked getting her killed!” No longer Antonio Peruzzo or “the engineer,” but “that piece of slime,” that unnamable shit, that excrescence of sewage. If Peruzzo had indeed wanted to gamble, he’d lost.
Although the girl had been freed, he was now forever prisoner of the utter, absolute contempt in which people held him.
o o o
The inspector decided not to return to the office but to go back home and watch the press conference in peace. When nearing the overpass, he drove very carefully, in case any stragglers had stayed behind. At any rate, the signs that a horde of policemen, journalists, photographers, and cameramen had passed through were everywhere: empty cans of Coca-Cola, broken beer bottles, crumpled packs of cigarettes. A garbage dump. They’d even broken the stone slab that covered the little well.
o o o
As he was opening the door to his house, he froze. He hadn’t called Livia all morning. He’d completely forgotten to tell her he wouldn’t make it home for lunch. A squabble was now inevitable, and he had no excuses. The house, however, was empty. Livia had gone out. Entering the bedroom, he saw her open suitcase, half full. He immediately remembered that Livia was supposed to return to Boccadasse the next morning. The vacation time she’d taken to stay beside him at the hospital and during his convalescence was over. He felt a sudden pang in his heart, and a wave of emotion swept over him, treacherous as usual. It was a good thing she wasn’t there. He could let himself go without shame. And let himself go he did.
Then he went and washed his face, after which he sat down in the chair in front of the telephone. He opened the phone book. The lawyer had two numbers, one for his home, the other for his office. Montalbano dialed the latter.
“Legal offices of Francesco Luna,” said a female voice.
“This is Inspector Montalbano. Is Mr. Luna there?”
“Yes, but he’s in a meeting. Let me see if he picks up.” Various noises, recorded music.
“My dear friend,” said Luna. “I can’t talk to you right now. Are you in your office?”
“No, I’m at home. You want the number?”
“Please.”
Montalbano gave it to him.
“I’ll call you back in about ten minutes,” said the lawyer.
o o o
The inspector noted that during their brief exchange, Luna didn’t once call him by his name or title. One could only imagine what sort of clients he was meeting with; no doubt they would have been troubled to hear the word inspector.
About half an hour passed, give or take a few minutes, before the phone rang.
“Inspector Montalbano? Please excuse the delay, but first I was with some people and then I thought I’d better call you from a safe phone.”
“What are you saying, Mr. Luna? Have the phones to your office been tapped?”
“I’m not sure, but the way things are going . . . What did you want to tell me?”
“Nothing you don’t already know.”
“Are you referring to the bag full of clippings?”
“Exactly. You realize, of course, that this development is a serious impediment to the resuscitation of Peruzzo’s reputation, to which you’d asked me to contribute.” Silence, as if they’d been cut off.
“Hello?” said Montalbano.
“I’m still here. Answer me sincerely, Inspector: Do you think that if I’d known there was only scrap paper inside that well, I would have told you and Inspector Minutolo?”
“No.”
“Well, the moment he heard the news, my client called me up, extremely upset. He was in tears. He realized that this discovery was like cementing his feet and throwing him into the sea. Death by drowning, with no chance of ever coming back to the surface. Inspector, that duffel bag was not his. He’d put his money in a suitcase.” “Can he prove it?”
“No.”
“And how does he explain that police found a duffel instead of a suitcase?”
“He can’t explain it.”
“And he’d put the money in this suitcase?”
“Of course. Let’s say roughly sixty-two bundles of five-hundred-euro bills totaling three million ninety-eight thousand euros and seventy-four cents, rounded off to the euro, and equaling six billion old lire.” “And you believe that?”
“Inspector, I have to believe my client. But the point is not whether I believe him. It’s whether the public believes him.”
“But there may be a way to prove that your client is telling the truth.”
“Oh, really? What?”
“Simple. As you yourself said, Mr. Peruzzo had very little time to scrape together the ransom money. Therefore there must be bank documents with the related data attesting to the withdrawal of the amount. All you have to do is make these documents public, and your client will have proved his absolute good faith.” Deep silence.
“Did you hear me, Counsel?”
“Of course. It’s the same solution I promptly suggested to him myself.”
“So, as you can see—”
“There’s a problem.”
“What?”
“Mr. Peruzzo didn’t get the money from any banks.”
“Oh, no? Then where did he get it?”
“My client agreed not to reveal the names of those who so generously consented to assist him at this delicate moment.
In short, nothing was written down on paper.” Out of what filthy, stinking sewer had come the hand that gave Peruzzo the money?
“Then the situation seems hopeless to me.”
“To me, too, Inspector. So hopeless, in fact, that I’m beginning to wonder if my counsel is still of any use to Mr. Peruzzo.” So the rats, too, were getting ready to abandon the sinking ship.
o o o
The press conference began at five-thirty sharp. Behind a large table sat Minutolo, the judge, the commissioner, and Dr.
Lattes. The conference hall was packed with journalists, photographers, and cameramen. Nicolò Zito and Pippo Ragonese were there, too, at a proper distance from one another. The first to speak was Commissioner Bonetti-Alderighi, who thought it best to start at the beginning—that is, to explain how the kidnapping came about. He pointed out that this first part of the account was based on declarations made by the girl. On the evening of the abduction, Susanna Mistretta was returning home on her moped, along the road she normally took, when, at the intersection with the San Gerlando trail, right near her house, a car pulled up beside her and forced her to turn onto the dirt road to avoid collision. Upset and confused by the incident, Susanna barely had time to stop before two men got out of the car, their heads covered by ski masks. One of them lifted her bodily and threw her into the car.
Susanna was too stunned to react. The man removed her helmet, pressed a cotton wad to her nose and mouth, gagged her, tied her hands behind her back, and made her lie down at his feet.
In confusion, the girl heard the other man get back in the car, take the wheel, and drive off. At this point she lost consciousness. Investigators hypothesize that the second man had gone to remove the motorbike from the road.
When Susanna woke up, she was in total darkness. She was still gagged, but her hands had been untied. She realized she was in an isolated place. Moving about in the dark, she gathered that she’d been put inside some sort of concrete vat at least ten feet deep. There was an old mattress on the ground.
She spent the first night this way, despairing not so much over her own situation, but for her dying mother. Then she must have drifted off to sleep. She woke up when someone turned on a light, a lamp of the sort used by mechanics to light up a car’s motor. Two men in ski masks were watching her. One of them took out a small portable cassette recorder, and the other came down into the vat on a ladder. The man with the tape recorder said something while the other removed Susanna’s gag. She cried for help, and the gag was put back on. They returned a short while later. One of them came down the same ladder, removed her gag, then climbed back up. The other took a Polaroid snapshot of her. They never gagged her again. To bring her food—always canned—they always used the ladder, which they would lower each time. In one corner of the vat there was a pail for bodily functions. As of that moment the light remained on.