She looked across at him, her face neutral, waiting for him to speak.
“Neither of them trusted the other not to cheat,” he finally said. “Even though they had no idea what was in the trunks, they still believed the other would be clever enough to cheat him out of his share. Or to see that the division wasn’t equal.” He saw that he had her interest and went on. “Nothing can shake them loose from their belief in a treasure.”
“Have you tried?”
“Yes.” He shook his head to show the hopelessness of that endeavor.
“So they agreed to pay my salary?”
This question made him visibly uncomfortable.
“What is it?” she asked.
“For the first month, yes,” he said.
“What?”
“It was in the contract.” She thought it embarrassed him to say this, and that surprised her. She suppressed her own embarrassment at not having bothered to read the contract.
“You told me my position was good until I’d read through all of the papers,” she said in a cool, firm voice. “I left my job to come here.”
“I know,” he said, his eyes on his plate. Could it be that he was ashamed of the part he had played? She had no doubt that he had played it.
She said nothing.
Forced to continue, Moretti finally said, “I thought at the beginning that they’d continue to pay you until you had a definite answer to give them—yes there is a treasure or no there is not.” He made that half move with his hand across the table, but again he stopped. “I thought they were serious. That’s why I worked to convince them you could do the research in the library.” She thought it best not to tell him she’d realized the futility of that research.
“They’ve changed their minds, I assume?”
“Stievani called me this afternoon. One month. That’s all. If they don’t have an answer by the end of one month, they’ll figure out a way to do it by themselves.”
“Good luck to them, the fools,” she couldn’t stop herself from saying.
“I agree.” Then, in a calmer tone, he said, “If you want, I can try to persuade them.”
She smiled. “That’s kind of you, Andrea. I’d appreciate it if you could try.” Suddenly, she opened her mouth in an enormous yawn. “Sorry,” she said, looking at her watch.
He imitated her gesture and said, “It’s after eleven.”
From the way he said it, she wondered if he had to be home before midnight. He signaled the waiter with a writing gesture. In a very short time, he was there, with the sort of receipt that indicates the owner would have to pay taxes. “You always do that?” she asked, pointing to the bill as he set a few notes on top of it.
“Pay the bill when I invite a woman to dinner?” he asked, but with a grin.
“No. Ask for a ricevuta fiscale in a restaurant where you come often.”
“You mean because of the taxes they’ll have to pay?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“We all have to pay taxes.”
“Does that mean you pay yours? All of them?”
“Yes,” he said simply.
She believed him.
They got to their feet. He opened the door for her and they walked together, talking of things other than Agostino Steffani and the cousins, toward the apartment where she was staying. At her door, he kissed her on both cheeks, said good night, and turned away.
Caterina went up the stairs to her apartment, unlocked the door, and let herself in.
She looked at her watch and saw that it was almost midnight. Cristina did not have a telefonino, which meant she could not leave her an SMS and ask her to call if she was awake. There was a phone in the apartment, with a meter that counted the elapsed units for calls. It would be much cheaper to call Germany on that.
She took her telefonino from her pocket and dialed Cristina’s number. It rang six times before a groggy voice answered with “Ja?”
“Ciao, Tina,” she said. “Sorry to wake you up.”
After a long pause, Tina said, “It’s okay, I was reading.”
“Lying’s still a sin, dear.”
“Not really, if it’s in a good cause.”
“You rewriting the commandments now?”
“I’m awake, so tell me what’s wrong—I can hear it in your voice—and I’ll leave the rewriting of the others till tomorrow morning.”
“You know that lawyer I told you about?”
“Yes.”
“He’s a coldhearted bastard like the others.”
“Why do you say that?” Tina said, sounding sad.
“Because he’s been reading my emails.”
Twenty-three
“WHICH EMAILS?” CRISTINA DEMANDED, HER VOICE FULLY awake.
“The ones I’ve been writing on the computer he so generously gave me to use in the office. He said his company wasn’t using it, so he had one of his tech people work on it . . .” Here she had to stop and take a few deep breaths before going on. “And he brought it to me, and I’ve been using it ever since.” Two more deep breaths. Her knees were shaking. She sat down on the sofa.
“How do you know he’s reading them, Cati?”
“At dinner tonight, he told me I’d understand something because I’d studied law.”
“Well, you did. Two years, if I remember correctly.”
“I never told him.”
“Then maybe he read it on your CV.”
“It’s not there,” Caterina said with fierce energy. “I never talk about it, and I did not include it in the CV.”
“But how do you cover over a gap of two years?”
“I added a year to the things I did before and after. I figured they wouldn’t check, no one ever does. And if it wasn’t in the CV, and I never said anything to him about it, then the only way he knows is from your mail.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I just told you, Tina,” she said. Hearing the anger in her voice, she moderated her tone. “He knew I studied law, and the only way he could have known that was from reading your email, where you mentioned it.” How many times would the sleep-sodden Cristina have to hear this before she understood?
“But why would he say that to you?”
“He was telling me that things revert to the State after a certain period if no heir makes a claim, and I suppose he meant to be complimentary or inclusive, make me feel like one of the pack, and said something about how I should know that because I studied law.”
“Did you react?”
“I hope not. I acted as if it didn’t register with me. He probably thinks he read it in my CV. After all, who wouldn’t mention something like that?”
“You, apparently,” Tina broke in to suggest. Her laugh restored the usual warmth of their conversation.
“What’s he up to?” Caterina asked, aware of a vague sense that the documents in the storeroom had been moved or tampered with.
“That’s not the question to ask.”
“What is, then?”
“What to do? If he didn’t realize you know he’s reading them, then you and I can just continue to write back and forth. We have to. If we suddenly stopped, he’d suspect something.”
“What is this, James Bond?” Caterina asked.
“Only if you want it to be, Cati,” Cristina said calmly. “If not, then you continue to do your job, read the papers, and tell them what they say, let them find their treasure or not, and take the money and run.”
“That’s very worldly advice.”
Tina said nothing in return, which probably meant she didn’t want to begin a discussion like this, not at this hour.
Thinking out loud, Cristina said, “I wonder if the cousins put him up to this?”
“Who else would he be doing it for?” Tina asked.