“Who is it?”
“A guy named Carella who’s been here only a short time.”
“Yes, he just got here. He came from Sicily, I think.”
“What do you make of him?”
“I don’t know him well yet, but I’d say he’s a respectable attorney. He’s a little dull, perhaps, but I think he earns his keep.”
Fornelli grimaced, almost imperceptibly and certainly involuntarily, and then continued.
“When I went to see him, to review the situation, he told me he was getting ready to request that the case be closed. Almost six months have gone by, he told me, and he has no evidence that would justify extending the investigation.”
“What did you say?”
“I tried to tell him that he can’t just close a case like that. He responded that if I had any other leads to suggest, I was welcome to do so, and he’d take my request under consideration. Unless I brought something else to his attention, though, he’d have to request the case be archived. Of course, that doesn’t mean they couldn’t reopen the case if something new came up.”
“So,” I said, as I began to guess why they’d come to see me.
“On my recommendation, Tonino and Rosaria would like to hire you to study the file and identify any further lines of investigation that we can suggest to the prosecutor, to keep him from closing the case.”
“Your confidence in me is flattering, but that’s a job for an investigator, not a lawyer.”
“We don’t feel comfortable going directly to a private investigator. You’re a criminal lawyer, and you’re a good one. You’ve seen plenty of files. You know what goes into an investigation. Money is the least of our concerns. In fact, money isn’t a concern at all. We’ll spend whatever’s necessary, for you and for a private investigator, if you decide you want to work with one.”
Except I had no fee schedule for that kind of professional service. The official guild fee list doesn’t include “investigative consultation to locate missing persons.” That unhappy thought came to mind immediately and made me feel uncomfortable. In my discomfort I looked around, and I happened to meet the gaze of the father. That’s when it dawned on me that he was probably on medication. Psychiatric drugs. Maybe they were causing his vacant expression. I felt even more uncomfortable. I decided that I should thank them courteously but decline the offer. It would be wrong to feed their hopes and take their money. But I didn’t know how to say it.
I felt like the hard-boiled detective character in one of those cheap mystery novels. A down-on-his-luck private investigator who receives a visit from a client, insists he can’t take the case-just to give the story a little rhythm, to add an element of suspense-and then changes his mind and goes for it. And of course, he always solves the mystery.
But there was nothing to solve in this case. Maybe they’d never know what happened to their daughter, or maybe they would, but I certainly wasn’t the right person to get them the information they wanted.
I spoke almost without realizing it and without complete control of my words. As often happens, I said something entirely different from what I was thinking.
“I don’t want you to get your hopes up. In all likelihood-almost certainly-the district attorney’s office and the Carabinieri have already done everything possible. If there have been gross oversights, we can think about doing some further investigating and file some writs of insufficient evidence, but, I repeat, don’t get your hopes up. You said you have a complete copy of the file?”
“Yes, I’ll bring it tomorrow.”
“All right, but there’s no reason for you to come in. You can have one of your assistants drop it off.”
Fornelli awkwardly pulled out an envelope and handed it to me.
“Thank you, Guido. This is an advance on your expenses. Tonino and Rosaria want you to accept it. We feel sure you can do something for us. Thank you.”
But of course, I thought to myself. I’ll solve the mystery, between a shot of whiskey and a vigorous fistfight. I felt like Nick Belane, Charles Bukowski’s bizarre private investigator, and there was nothing funny about it.
I walked them to the door and then returned to my room, passing through the dark, empty outer office. For a moment I was uneasy, scared the way I’d been as a child. I sat at my desk and looked at the envelope, still where Fornelli had put it. I opened it up and pulled out a check. It bore a ridiculously high number. For a moment, my vanity was flattered, but that was cancelled out by discomfort.
I decided I had to return it, but immediately afterward I realized that for the Ferraros-and perhaps for Fornelli as well-paying me was a way of soothing their anguish. It gave them the illusion that the payment would inevitably be followed by some concrete useful action. If I returned the check, it would be proof that there really was nothing left to do, and I would have deprived them of even that last, tiny, temporary sense of relief.
I couldn’t do it. Not right away, at least.
I couldn’t manage to get the face of Signore Antonio Ferraro, aka Tonino, out of my head. Evidently, the loss of his first-born daughter had caused him to lose his mind.
I searched for that old song on YouTube. I found a live recording, and I put my feet up on the desk and half-closed my eyes as the opening chords played. Now he lives in Atlantis with a hatful of memories,
And the face of someone who understands.
Exactly.
6.
In the street, the air was chilly, especially because of the northwest mistral wind.
I didn’t want to go home. I had no desire to hole up in the solitude that sometimes hangs a little too heavy in my apartment. I needed to shake off the grim mood of that meeting before going to sleep. And, secondarily, I needed a nourishing meal and a comforting drink. So I decided to go to the Chelsea Hotel.
Not the famous red-brick hotel in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, but a club-in Bari’s San Girolamo neighborhood-that I had stumbled upon a few weeks earlier. It had become my favorite place to go in the evening when I didn’t want to stay in.
Since moving my practice to my new office, I’d developed a habit of taking long walks late at night in unfamiliar sections of the city. I’d leave work after ten o’clock, as I had that evening. I’d wolf down a sandwich, a slice of pizza, or some sushi, and then I’d start walking, with the brisk step of someone who has places to go and no time to waste. Actually, I had nowhere to go, though I was probably searching for something.
These walks gave me a workout when I didn’t feel like training with a punching bag, but more importantly they gave me a chance to explore the city and my solitude. Every so often, I stopped to think how little social interaction I had since Margherita had left, and even more so since she’d written me that she wouldn’t be coming back.
I missed the life I used to have-or rather, I missed the lives I used to have. Lives that were more or less normal. When I was married to Sara and when I was with Margherita. But it was a gentle emotion, painless. Or perhaps I should say there was a tolerable amount of pain.
There were times when I wished I could meet someone I liked as much as I had once liked them, but I realized that wasn’t realistic. The thought made me a little sad, but that too was generally quite tolerable. And when that sadness welled up, at times verging dangerously on self-pity, I told myself not to complain. I had my work, sports, the occasional trip on my own. I went out, occasionally, with courteous, distant friends. And then there were my books. Sure, there was something missing. But I was one of those kids who took it to heart when they told me I shouldn’t complain because children in Africa were starving.
A few weeks earlier I had left my office about ten o’clock at night, after it had rained all day. I bought a green-tea yogurt at the corner store that stays open late, and I started eating as I walked north.