The Paper Moon Read Free Page B

he have an overnight bag?”
    “Yes, he usually keeps it in the study.”
    They went into the study. The small bag lay beside the desk. One wall of the study was covered by shelves of the sort one sees in pharmacies, enclosed in sliding glass panels. And in fact the shelves were stocked with a great many medicinal containers: boxes, flasks, bottles.
    “Didn’t you say your brother was an informer?”
    “Yes. An informer for the pharmaceutical industry.”
    Montalbano understood. Angelo was what used to be called a pharmaceutical representative. But this profession, like garbagemen turned “ecological agents” or cleaning ladies promoted to the rank of “domestic collaborators,” had been ennobled with a new name more appropriate to our elegant epoch. The substance, however, remained the same.
    “He used to be…still is, actually, a doctor, but he didn’t practice for very long,” Michela felt obliged to add.
    “Fine. As you can see, signorina, your brother’s not here. If you want, we can go.”
    “Let’s go.”
    She said it reluctantly, looked all around as if she thought she might, at the last moment, find her brother hiding inside a bottle of pills for liver disease.
    Montalbano went ahead this time, waiting for her to turn off the lights and lock the double-locked door with due diligence. They descended the stairs, silent amid the great silence of the building. Was it empty, or were they all dead? Once outside, Montalbano, seeing how disconsolate she looked, suddenly felt terribly sorry for her.
    “You’ll hear from your brother soon, you’ll see,” he said to her in a soft voice, holding out his hand.
    But she didn’t grasp it, only shaking her head still more disconsolately.
    “Listen…your brother…Is he seeing any…doesn’t he have a relationship with anyone?”
    “Not that I know of.”
    She eyed him. And as she was eyeing him, Montalbano swam desperately to avoid drowning. All at once the waters of the lake turned very dark, as though night had fallen.
    “What’s wrong?” asked the inspector.
    Without answering, she opened her eyes wide, and the lake turned into the open sea.
    Swim, Salvo, swim.
    “What’s wrong?” he repeated between strokes.
    Again she didn’t answer. Turning her back to him, she unlocked the door, climbed the stairs, reached the top floor but didn’t stop there. The inspector then noticed a recess in the wall with a spiral staircase leading up to a glass door. Michela climbed this and slipped a key in the door, but was unable to open it.
    “Let me try,” he said.
    He opened the door and found himself on a terrace as big as the villa itself. Pushing him aside, Michela ran toward a one-room structure, a sort of box standing practically in the middle of the terrace. It had a door and, to one side, a window. But these were locked.
    “I haven’t got the key,” said Michela. “I never have.”
    “But why do you want…?”
    “This used to be the washroom. Angelo rented it along with the terrace and then transformed it. He comes here sometimes to read or to sun himself.”
    “Okay, but if you haven’t got the key—”
    “For heaven’s sake, please break down the door.”
    “Listen, signorina, I cannot, under any circumstances…”
    She looked at him. That was enough. With a single shoulder thrust, Montalbano sent the plywood door flying. He went inside, but before even feeling around for the light switch, he yelled:
    “Don’t come in!”
    He’d detected the smell of death in the room at once.
    Michela, however, even in the dark, must have noticed something, because Montalbano heard first a sort of stifled sob, then heard her fall to the floor, unconscious.
    “What do I do now?” he asked himself, cursing.
    He bent down, picked Michela up bodily, and carried her as far as the glass door. Carrying her this way, however—the way the groom carries the bride in movies—he would never make it down the spiral staircase. It was too narrow. So he set the