“Then I realized my mistake, because there’s no remedy for death. I became convinced of this by something that happened, many years ago . . . to a relative of mine . . . in Colombia . . . Orazio, my friend, would you give me a glass of water?”
Guttadauro served him.
“You have to forgive me, talking makes me very tired . . . I was told that this relative . . . was pursuing his own interests . . . instead of mine . . . I believed it, and I made a mistake . . . I gave a wrong order . . . Do you follow?”
“Perfectly.”
“I was younger, and I didn’t think before I acted . . . Not six months later, I found out that the things I was told about that man weren’t true . . . But I’d already made my mistake . . . There was no going back . . . How could I make up for it? There was only one way. To make his son my son. And let him live a clean life. An’ this kid loved me despite . . . and would never have done me . . . a bad turn . . . never done nothing . . . to displ . . . displease me . . . I can’t talk . . . no more.”
He stopped. It was clear he was running completely out of breath.
“Would you like me to continue?” Guttadauro asked.
“Yes. But first . . .”
“Yes, of course. Gnazio!”
Immediately the armoire appeared. There was no need for words. The giant lowered the bed, removed a pillow, slipped the tubes back into the old man’s nostrils, reopened the oxygen tank, and went out.
Then Guttadauro resumed.
“Before going back to board his ship, Giovanni Alfano—who, you will have understood, is the person we’re talking about—came here with his wife to say goodbye to Don Balduccio.”
“Yes, I know. Signora Dolores showed me the photographs.”
“Good. On that occasion, Don Balduccio called Giovanni aside to give him something. A letter. To be delivered in person to a friend in Villa San Giovanni, who would be waiting for him at an appointed place. And he begged him not to tell anyone about that letter, not even his wife.”
“And what happened?”
“Only about ten days ago, Don Balduccio learned that this letter was never delivered.”
“Why did it take so long to find out?”
“Well! First there was my friend’s illness, then the long convalescence, then the person who was supposed to have received the letter had an accident and was unable to get in touch with us . . . He was shot three times, but by mistake, you know . . . by someone who has remained anonymous . . .”
“I see. Was it an important letter?”
“Very important,” the old man said from deep in his bed.
“And did you tell Alfano how important it was?”
“Yes,” said Don Balduccio.
“Could you tell me what it said?”
Guttadauro didn’t answer right away, but looked over at Don Balduccio, who nodded yes.
“You know, Inspector, Don Balduccio has a very wide range of business interests . . . The letter contained— how shall I put it—instructions, if you will, concerning a possible agreement with some of our business competitors in Calabria . . .”
A nice little pact between the Mafia and the ’Ndrangheta, in short.
“But why didn’t you just mail it?”
A strange noise came from the bed, a series of
17
“Mail it? You surprise me,” said the lawyer. “As you know, my friend has been the target of a genuine persecution campaign by the police and the judiciary for many years. They intercept his letters, perform surprise searches, arrest him for no plausible reason . . . They carry out acts of terrorism on him, that’s the word.”
“And what, in your opinion, was the reason this letter was never delivered?”
“In our opinion, Giovanni wasn’t able to deliver it.”
“Why not?”
“Because, in all probability, Giovanni never crossed the strait.”
“And where do you think he stopped?”
“We think he got no farther than Catania.”
So that was how things had gone, according to Balduccio and Guttadauro.
“But you . . . why haven’t you got busy trying to find out what happened? Don Balduccio has many friends, he could have easily—”
“You see, Inspector, the point was not to find out what happened . . . Don Balduccio knew it intuitively . . . He told me everything as if he had been there himself . . . It’s extraordinary . . . If anything, it was only a matter of
