“Yeah, one of those rocks right under the villa with the big terrace.”
“And what was he doing?”
“Nothing. He was looking out at the sea and talking on a cell phone. But the fisherman got a good look at him, ’cause at one point the man turned around and started glaring at him. He had the impression the guy on the rock was trying to tell him something.”
“Like what?”
“Like get the fuck out of here . . . What do I do now?”
“I don’t understand. What are you supposed to do?”
“Should I keep looking, or should I stop?”
“Well, it seems useless to waste any more of your time. You can go back to Vigata.”
Fazio breathed a sigh of relief. This search hadn’t agreed with him from the start.
“You’re not coming?”
“I’ll be along later. First I need to stop for a few minutes in Montechiaro.”
It was a bald-faced lie; he had nothing whatsoever to do in Montechiaro. For a stretch he followed Fazio’s car, and then, when he’d lost sight of it, he did a U-turn and drove back in the direction he’d come. Spigonella had made an impression on him. Was it possible there wasn’t a living soul besides the cigar-smoking caretaker in that entire residential area? He hadn’t seen any dogs, either, or even a single cat turned feral by the seclusion. It was an ideal location for anyone who wanted to do whatever he pleased—like shack up with a woman in secret, set up a gambling house, or organize an orgy or giant snortfest. One needed only take care to cover the windows with shades that didn’t let a single ray of light filter out, and nobody would ever know what was going on inside. Every villa had enough space around it for cars to enter and park well inside the gate and walls. Once the gate closed, it was as though those cars had never come.
While driving around, he had an idea. He braked, got out, and started walking, looking absorbed, now and then kicking the little white stones he encountered along the road.
The little boy’s long escape, which had begun on the landing wharf in the port of Vigata, had ended not far from Spigonella. He was almost certain the child was running away from Spigonella when the car ran him down.
The nameless dead man he’d encountered while out for a swim had also been sighted in Spigonella. And in all likelihood he’d been killed in Spigonella. Their two stories seemed to run parallel, even though they weren’t supposed to. The inspector recalled the famous expression coined by a politician killed by the Red Brigades: “parallel convergences.” Was the ultimate point of convergence none other than the ghost town of Spigonella? Why not?
But where to begin? Should he try to find out who owned those villas? This immediately seemed an impossible undertaking. Since every single one of those constructions was strictly unauthorized, there was no point in checking the land registry or town hall. Discouraged, he leaned against an electrical pole. The moment his shoulders touched the wood of the pole, he stepped away as though he’d gotten a shock. Electricity! Of course! All towns had to have electricity, and therefore the homeowners had to submit signed requests to be hooked up. But his enthusiasm was short-lived. He could already imagine the electrical company’s response: Since there were no registered streets or street numbers in Spigonella, and since, in short, there was no such place as Spigonella, the electrical bills were sent to the owners’ regular residential addresses. Sorting out these owners would surely be a long and arduous process. And were he to ask how long, the answer would be so vague as to be almost poetic. What about trying the telephone company? Right!
Aside from the fact that the phone company’s answer would have many points in common with the electrical company’s, what about cell phones? Hadn’t one of the witnesses, the fisherman, stated that when he’d seen the unknown dead man, the guy was talking on a cell phone? Hopeless. No matter which way he turned, he ran into a wall. An idea came to him. He got in the car, turned on the ignition, and drove off. Finding the road wasn’t easy. He drove past the same villa two or three times, and then finally, in the distance, saw what he was looking for. The caretaker was still sitting in the same cane chair, the extinguished cigar in his mouth. Montalbano pulled up, got out, and approached the man.
“Good afternoon.”
“If you say so . . . Good afternoon.”
“I’m a police inspector.”
“I figured. You came by with the other policeman, the one that showed me the photograph.”
Had a sharp eye, this caretaker.
“I wanted to ask you something.”
“Go right ahead.”
“Do you see many immigrants around here?”
The caretaker gave him an astonished look.
“Immigrants? Sir, around here we don’t see no immigrants, emigrants, or even migrants. All we ever see is the people who live here when they come. Immigrants! Hah!”
“Why does that seem so preposterous to you?”
“’Cause around here the private security car passes every two hours. And those guys . . . if they saw an immigrant, they’d kick his ass all they way back to where he came from!”
“So why haven’t I seen any of these security officers today?”
“Because today they’re on strike for half the day.”
“Thank you.”
“No, thank you for helping make a little of the time go by.”
