SEVENTEEN
Guggino’s answer came a few minutes before three. It was long and detailed. Montalbano carefully took notes. Five minutes later Giallombardo phoned and told him Serravalle had gone back to his hotel.
‘Stay right there and don’t move,’ the inspector ordered him. ‘If you see him go out again before I’ve arrived, stop him with whatever excuse you can think of. Do a striptease or a belly dance, just don’t let him leave.’
He quickly leafed through Michela’s papers, remembering that he’d seen a boarding pass among them. There it was. It was for the last journey the woman would ever make from Bologna to Palermo. He put it in his pocket and called Gallo into his office.
‘Take me to the Delia Valle in the squad car.’
The hotel was halfway between Vigata and Montelusa and had been built directly behind one of the most beautiful temples in the world — historical conservation offices, landscape constraints and zoning regulations be damned.
“Wait for me here’ the inspector said to Gallo when they got to the hotel He then walked over to his own car. Giallombardo was taking a nap inside.
‘I was sleeping with one eye open!’ the policeman assured him.
The inspector opened the boot and took out the case with the cheap violin inside.
‘You go back to the station’
he ordered Giallombardo.
He walked into the hotel lobby, looking exactly like a concert violinist.
Is Mr Serravalle in?’
‘Yes, he’s in his room.
Whom should I say?’
‘You shouldn’t say anything. You should only keep quiet. I’m Inspector Montalbano. And if you so much as pick up the phone, I’ll run you in and we can talk about it later.’
‘Fourth floor, room four sixteen’ said the receptionist, lips trembling.
‘Has he had any phone calls?’
‘I gave him his phone messages when he got in. There were three or four.’
‘Let me talk to the operator.’
The operator, whom the inspector, for whatever reason, had imagined as a cute young woman, turned out to be an ageing, bald man in his sixties with glasses.
‘The receptionist told me everything. About twelve a certain Eolo started calling from Bologna. He never left his last name. He called again about ten minutes ago and I forwarded the call to Mr Serravalle’s room.’
In the lift. Montalbano pulled a list of the names of all those who on Wednesday evening of the previous week had rented cars at Punta Raisi airport from his pocket True, there was no Guido Serravalle; there was, however, one Eolo Portinari. And Guggino had told him this Portinari was a close friend of the antiquarian.
He tapped very lightly on the door, and as he was doing this, he remembered he’d left his pistol in the glove compartment
‘Come in, it’s open.’
The antique dealer was lying down on the bed, hands behind his head. He’d taken off only his shoes and jacket’ his tie was still knotted. As soon as he saw the inspector, he jumped to his feet like a jack-in-the-box.
‘Relax, relax,’ said Montalbano.
‘But I insist” said Serravalle, hastily slipping his shoes on. He even put his jacket back on.
Montalbano had sat down in a chair, violin case on his knees.
‘I’m ready. To what do I owe the honour?’
‘The other day, when we spoke on the phone, you said you would make yourself available to me if I needed you.’
‘Absolutely. I repeat the offer,’ said Serravalle, also sitting down.
‘I would have spared you the trouble, but since you came for the funeral, I thought I’d take advantage of the opportunity’
‘I’m glad. What do you want me to do?’
‘Pay attention to me.’
Tm sorry, I don’t quite understand.’
‘Listen to what I have to say.
I want to tell you a story. If you think I’m exaggerating or wrong on any of the details, please interrupt and correct me.’
‘I don’t see how I could do that, Inspector, since I don’t know the story you’re about to tell me.’
‘You’re right. You mean you’ll tell me your impressions at the end. The protagonist of my story is a gentleman who has a pretty comfortable life. He’s a man of taste, owns a well-known antique shop, has a good clientele. It’s a profession our protagonist inherited from his father.’
‘Excuse me,’ said Serravalle, ‘what is the setting of your story?’
‘Bologna’ said Montalbano.
He continued, ‘Sometime during the past year, roughly speaking, this gentleman meets a young woman from the upper-middle class. They become lovers. Their relationship is risk free. The woman’s husband, for reasons that would take too long to explain here, turns not a blind eye, as they say, but two blind eyes on their affair. The lady still loves her husband, but is very attached, sexually, to her lover.’
He stopped short.
‘May I smoke?’ Montalbano asked. ‘Of course’ said Serravalle, pushing an ashtray closer to him.
Montalbano took the packet out slowly, extracted three cigarettes, rolled them one by one between his thumb and forefinger, opted for the one that seemed softest to him, put the other two back in the packet, then started patting himself in search of his lighter.
‘Sorry I can’t help you, I don’t smoke’ said the antique dealer.
The inspector finally found the lighter in the breast pocket of his jacket, studied it as if he’d never seen it before, lit the cigarette, and put the lighter back in his pocket.
Before starting to speak, he looked wild-eyed at Serravalle. The antiquarian’s upper lip was moist; he was beginning to sweat.
‘Where was I?’
‘The woman was, very attached to her lover.’
‘Oh, yes. Unfortunately, our protagonist has a very nasty vice. He gambles, and gambles big. Three times in the last three months he’s been caught in illegal gambling dens. One day, just imagine, he ends up in hospital, brutally beaten. He claims he was assaulted and robbed, but the police suspect, I say suspect, it was a warning to pay up old gambling debts. In any event, the situation for our protagonist, who keeps on gambling and losing, gets worse and worse. He confides in his girlfriend, and she tries to help him as best she can. Sometime before, she’d had this idea to build a house in Sicily, because she liked the place. Now this house turns out to be a perfect opportunity because, by inflating her costs, she can funnel hundreds of millions of lire to her boyfriend. She plans to build a garden, probably even a swimming pool, new sources of diverted money. But it turns out to be a drop in the ocean, hardly two or three hundred million. One day, this woman, who, for the sake of convenience, I’ll call Michela—’
‘Wait a second,’ Serravalle broke in with a snicker that was supposed to be sardonic. ‘And your protagonist, what’s his name?’
‘Let’s say … Guido,’ said Montalbano, as if this were a negligible detail.
Serravalle grimaced. The sweat was now making his shirt stick to his chest.
‘You don’t like that? We can call them Paolo and Francesca, if you like. The essence remains the same.’
He waited for Serravalle to say something, but since he didn’t open his mouth, Montalbano continued.