Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions (17 page)

“Or me,” Poldi put in, “and I'll pass it on to the commissario. You now have my number in your call records. Isolde Oberreiter.”

“All clear.” Tannenberger pocketed Montana's card, rose to his feet and hurriedly shook hands with Poldi and Montana. He obviously couldn't wait to return to his secure habitat, the State Chancellery.

But then Poldi thought of something else.

“One more thing,” she called after Tannenberger. “Do you still have Valentino's mobile number?”

“Yes, of course, but I didn't manage to reach him on either of his numbers after our last meeting.”

“If you'd be kind enough to give me them…”

Five minutes later the unfortunate Herr Tannenberger was back in his office. Poldi and Montana were still sitting on the park bench, and it was still a fine day – even finer, perhaps, than it had been a few minutes earlier. While Poldi was preening herself on her investigatory success, Montana was calling a colleague at police headquarters in Acireale.

“Gaetano, I want you to trace and check on a mobile phone for me. Got something to write with?” He dictated the second number on the slip of paper in his hand. “Repeat that. Good. I need the works. Present location, most recent calls, text messages, all the radio cells from the day before Valentino Candela's murder up to today… In Munich, but I'll be back tonight… Don't ask stupid questions, just do as I say… Damn it, Tano, then get a decision. This is the second mobile, the one we've been looking for all this time… I'll explain it all to you tomorrow… And Tano, don't mess around, this is important, okay?”

He rang off and grinned at Poldi. “Our little trip may have paid off after all.”

“No, Vito, what you really meant to say was, ‘I'm so glad you came with me, Poldi. Many thanks, if it weren't for you I wouldn't have made such progress.'”

Montana lit a cigarette, blew some smoke rings into the summer sky and then looked at her.

“Well, what shall we do with what's left of the day?”

Although this wasn't exactly the answer Poldi had wanted to hear, she did detect a certain promising subtext. This, together with her little triumph and the Bavarian blue-and-white of the beautiful sky, raised her spirits and whetted her appetite for roast pork and life.

“What do you feel like, sweet or salty?” she asked.

“Both.”

If that wasn't an innuendo, she didn't know what was.

*

Some roast pork plus a dumpling and two beers later, however, they had to head back to the airport. Gaetano didn't call, but Montana seemed unworried. To Poldi's delight he made a far more relaxed, almost light-hearted impression, recounted amusing anecdotes about his police work, and questioned her about her various Munich lives. And although Poldi didn't find his interest in her past the least bit feigned, she realized that he was drawing a veil of charm and gaiety over himself; a pleasant tissue of allusive levity, delicate but impenetrable. He never once made physical contact with her, not even fleetingly or as if by accident. He kept her at arm's length and swathed himself in a shadow as dark and deep as a lake at night and too intimidating to penetrate with a word. Or a kiss, thought Poldi, and that depressed her once more.

On board the plane, though, Montana immediately did his chivalrous duty again. He held my aunt's hand and lectured her on the physics of flight, meteorology and landing procedures.

When they landed at Catania shortly before nine, Poldi felt as if she'd been away for an age. Stranger still, she felt pleased to be home again.

Home.

A keyword.

“Need a lift?” Montana asked as they emerged from the airport building like two helpless tourists whose luggage hadn't accompanied them.

“I've got my own car here.”

“In that case —”

“Well —”

“I'm parked over there.”

“I see.”

“It was a nice day.”

Poldi could hardly endure his chilly courtesy. “Will you keep me informed about those mobiles?”

“Of course. I'll call you.”

Bacio
on the left cheek,
bacio
on the right. Montana wanted to be off, that couldn't have been more obvious. Poldi watched him hurry over to the multi-storey – no, not hurry, scoot. Then she found her Alfa in the other car park and drove back to Torre. She was tired and couldn't wait to get home; she wanted a beer. Or two. What a day, what a wonderful, bloody awful day. As if that wasn't enough, she lost her way twice after exiting the airport and missed the bypass. She had to drive all the way through Catania, which was gridlocked, and take the long, winding Provinciale instead.

When she turned into the Via Baronessa at last and was fishing the key out of her bag, she saw someone standing outside her front door.

“You again,” she said when she had joined him.

Montana appeared to be trembling. It was as if a struggle were raging somewhere inside him – threatening to tear him limb from limb.

“Thank you for coming today,” he blurted out. “Thank you for —”

That was as far as he got, because Poldi had had enough. Almost beside herself with passion and thirst and melancholy and the after-effects of her fear of flying, she cupped Montana's head between her hands and kissed him fiercely, hungry for life and fulfilment in the here and now. She was relieved to feel that Montana neither recoiled nor hesitated. A tremor ran through his body. The next moment she tasted his smoky tongue in her mouth, felt his big hands on her breasts and, somewhat lower down, that thing to which no adjective does justice: his huge, pent-up, feverish, titanic
Sicilianità
. Breathing heavily, she unlocked the door, pulled him inside, undressed him on the spot and led him into her bedroom. And there at last, or so I imagine, amid sighs, moans and breathless little cries of pleasure, the argosy of their passion finally departed under full sail. I imagine that together, propelled by the telluric currents in their emotionally charged if less than youthful bodies, they embarked that night on an erotic odyssey, discovered mysterious continents and cloud-swathed mountains, Amazonian rivers, chasms, caverns, volcanos and savannas, traversed storm-lashed oceans, cruised before the trade wind, dropped anchor in sandy bays, reached the edge of the world and sailed back again. Or so I imagine, anyway. The only thing they certainly didn't do that night was sleep.

9

                  
Describes the author's problems with synthetic fibres and some spicy details of a night of passion. Poldi plans an undercover operation for which she seeks an agent provocateur. Rearrangements are made in the Via Baronessa, Aunt Caterina delivers an address on interior decoration, Totti displays strength of character, and Patanè gets a shock. Poldi conceals a discovery from Montana and declines to discuss their future relationship. And these are not the only items of bad news.

As agreed with my aunt, I returned to Torre at the beginning of September to continue work on my family epic – or, alternatively, to founder on it like a shipwrecked sailor grounding his lifeboat on a storm-tossed reef. I hadn't got very far with it to date, being still on the first chapter. My great-grandfather Barnaba had just been trampled by a donkey, whereupon he had a vision in which the Devil commanded him to emigrate to Munich and build up a flourishing wholesale fruit business there. The year was 1919, a historical juncture I was anxious to dramatically resurrect with the aid of meticulous research and amazingly detailed descriptions of contemporary life. Unfortunately, network coverage in Torre was still extremely poor. How, I wondered, did people write novels in the old days without Google and Wikipedia? At all events, various things had to happen in my family saga before Barnaba could emigrate to Bavaria without a single word of German. He had first to elope with his beloved, the incredibly beautiful and mysterious Eleonora, carry her off in his rowing boat, get her pregnant, and marry her. In that order. Eleonora's parents still had to die an atrocious death because of the indispensable “backstory wound”. The sky needed to rain frogs and Barnaba still had to become enslaved by the preternaturally beautiful Cyclops Ilaria. This was a magical, fantastical element I was determined to incorporate because nearly a century later Ilaria's great-granddaughter would seduce Barnaba's good-looking and jazz-loving but otherwise rather colourless great-grandson, so that the said protagonist and hero could enter a mythical, parallel universe. Something along those lines.

Having arrived in Torre with a handful of loose storylines, I nervously pulled them apart, spread them out in front of me, sorted them in accordance with their colour and length – and utterly failed to see how I could plait them into a viable narrative. I couldn't even tease them out properly, because they were composed of synthetic fibre. No wonder I yearned in desperation for the evening, when my Auntie Poldi would at last break out the whisky, bring me up to date with the Valentino case, and treat me to some spicy details of her relationship with Montana. She herself did little more than sip her drink.

On my last evening in Torre she spoke of her night of passion with Montana.

“You're welcome to spare me the details,” I groaned.

“My, how inhibited you are,” she exclaimed. “I won't spare you a single damn thing. There's no need to squirm like that; I'm telling you all this in your capacity as an author, not my nephew. It's like you're a doctor, really, or a priest. Understand?” She tweaked her wig straight. “That Vito, he knew exactly what to do with his hands. Gentle, they were – they caressed me into a state of ecstasy, then squeezed me till I screamed. With sheer delight, I mean. He was no stranger to the female body, I could tell. No matter where he touched me, the place seemed to burn, and his hands weren't the only talented things about him. I always say that detective inspectors are superlative specimens of humanity, sexually as well. My God, I had an animal in my bed that night, a wild beast, a mythological force of nature. Mark you, the same applied to me. I knew which buttons to press. We were insatiable, and he – I must gratefully acknowledge this – had heaps of stamina for a man of his age. That's down to the healthy Mediterranean fare – you notice it at once. Half an hour's rest, one little kiss from the fairy sorceress, and his
pesciolino
at once turned back into a magnificent swordfish. My, what a splendid sight he was, lying stretched out in front of me like a stranded Odysseus. Naked and defenceless – apart, of course, from that lover's harpoon, which —”

“That's enough now, Poldi. I'm being serious.”

A searching gaze. “Because I'm getting on a bit, or because I'm your aunt?”

“Because… you're digressing. Please let's get back to the case.”

“How am I digressing?”

There was one point that did interest me, though.

“Tell me, did you keep your wig on the whole time?”

“What sort of daft question is that?”

“Did you or didn't you?”

“Who's digressing now? All right, do you want to hear how the case developed, or don't you?”

*

I visualize Poldi and Montana as atoms in a particle accelerator of fate. First they race round and round in predetermined orbits, faster and faster, and then…
Crash
. Big Bang. Black hole. The God particle. Dimensional displacement.

Perhaps a strange silence reigned over Torre Archirafi the morning after that memorable night, as if some umpteenth dimension had become stuck – as if that nocturnal eruption of lust and libido in the Via Baronessa had convulsed the whole town and exhausted it.

I doubt if they spoke much that morning, Montana and my Auntie Poldi. Perhaps it was merely the embarrassment of a naked confrontation in daylight, but there may still have been something unspoken and ominous between them. Montana showered, got dressed and drank his coffee. Then he had to go to the prefecture to find Valentino's mobile.

When Poldi was alone again in her house, which suddenly seemed much quieter than usual, she could hear a murmurous roar. It wasn't just the sea, it was her blood. She could hear it coursing through her veins, feel her heart pumping life and pleasure through her body, tirelessly and ubiquitously. She could hear children playing outside her door. The road sweeper's Vespa went puttering along the Via Baronessa. Signora Anzalone slammed her front door. Tired but happy, Poldi continued to sit on the sofa for a while, listening to the life outside and within. She could still smell Montana, still feel him inside her and all over her skin. An agreeable sensation.

And while savouring that agreeable sensation all on her own, Poldi debated how to proceed with her case. For even after last night she still regarded the case as
hers
. A case she was duty-bound to solve. And would.

She could naturally have waited for the results of Montana's examination of Valentino's mobile phone, but she didn't want to; she wanted to be one step ahead of him. Besides, she felt there must have been some reason why fate had played Corrado Patanè's business card into her hand. A building contractor; to Poldi it seemed obvious that he must have been Valentino's employer. All she had to do was prove it, but how? By means of an undercover operation, for example: the simulated purchase of a mosaic floor. Or a lion guardant.

Poldi naturally realized that she could not, after her last rather abortive encounter with him, simply call Patanè and ask him to quote on Sicilianizing her home. She would have to proceed more cleverly, set up the sting with skill, gain the man's trust. The only question was —

At that moment, breathless with curiosity, Aunt Teresa called to hear how her trip to Munich had gone – “Munich” being a cheeky euphemism.

“No, I don't believe it,” she cried delightedly when Poldi told her about her night with Montana. “I want to hear every last detail.”

“Drop in this afternoon, all of you,” Poldi told her, “but I warn you: you'll be green with envy.” Then the light bulb came on in her head. “Make sure Caterina comes, won't you?”

My Aunt Caterina, the middle one of my father's three sisters, is in a league of her own. She's the shortest of the three, but no one would ever overlook her. She doesn't have to raise her voice, wear high heels or attract attention by dressing smartly. She's more the practical type. What makes her so noteworthy is her deportment. My Aunt Caterina has a stainless-steel backbone. She looks like a film star with Uncle Bernardo in an old snapshot from the seventies. Ramrod straight in a red cocktail dress, legs nonchalantly crossed, she gazes steadily into the lens with a faint smile as if asking the beholder a question to which she expects an answer. She is still a beauty, but Bernardo's death, coupled with the advancing years, responsibility for the family firm and solicitude for her children and grandchildren, has left its mark on her. Not on her attitude, though. What she wants, she gets. Always. Her beloved Bernardo, for example, was a simple, taciturn cabinetmaker whose request to marry his daughter my grandfather had scornfully rejected. Aunt Caterina married Bernardo regardless and joined him in establishing Mancuso Mobili, a small furniture factory. Its products are elegant, expensive and sometimes rather too grand for Sicilian tastes, but they have sold successfully for many years, overseas as well. My cousin Ciro has run the business since Uncle Bernardo's death, but he never takes a major commercial decision without consulting Aunt Caterina. She was Poldi's ideal agent provocateur.

“Not on your life,” was Caterina's response when Poldi outlined her plan that afternoon.

Poldi and the three aunts were sitting over a nonalcoholic Crodino in the shady courtyard, an ideal place in which to celebrate Poldi's erotic successes. Uncle Martino had consequently been forced to remain at home on this occasion.

“Wait till you've heard the full details, won't you?”

“You've no need to go on, Poldi, I won't do it. It's dangerous, it's against the law and it won't work. I don't want to hear another word.
Basta
.”

Poldi sighed and threw up her hands.

“Then I'll do it,” Luisa cried enthusiastically. This earned her a stern look from Caterina and Teresa. My Aunt Luisa had always been the baby of the family, and her sisters always regarded her as such.

“Why on earth shouldn't I?”

“Because you're too easily hoodwinked,” Poldi said drily, and the other two aunts nodded. “How many stray cats and dogs have you taken in over the years, just because they gazed at you in a heart-rending way?”

“Eight,” Aunt Luisa said meekly. “No, ten counting Max and Luna.”

Teresa and Caterina rolled their eyes.

“I'm sorry,” Poldi said like the fat, ugly chief in a crime series, “but you'd be easy meat on a mission like this. You're too easy to see through.”

“Me? Since when?”

“Since always,” sighed Teresa.

Silence descended on the courtyard. The aunts sipped their Crodini. Teresa glanced at Caterina.

“You're not serious,” said Caterina.

Yes, she was.

“I can't do it because of my heart,” said Teresa.

Caterina sighed. She took another sip, then said, “All right, Poldi, tell me again.”

“There's virtually no risk,” Poldi resumed promptly. “You call Patanè and introduce yourself, say you got his number from Dr Tannenberger and that you'd like your house prettified with some old tiles and antique features.”

“
My
house?”

“Well, mine, of course. Patanè doesn't know I live here. If he takes the bait, arrange to meet him here, see what he's got to offer and ask him to quote you. Say you'd like a nice old lion sculpture, too. If he quotes you a price, haggle a bit or he'll smell a rat.”

“And then?”

“Then nothing. We just wait. If Patanè can deliver the goods and Valérie's other lion goes missing, he'll have as good as convicted himself. Vito will do the rest. ‘Click' go the handcuffs.”

“But I'll be incriminating myself as well.”

“How? You'll ask Patanè where his treasures come from and he'll naturally have an explanation ready. He'll assure you everything's above board. That puts you in the clear.”

“You reckon so?”

“Of course.”

“And where will you be all this time?”

“At the Bar Cocuzza. If you need help, I'll be here in a flash.”

Caterina looked unconvinced.

“We'll all wait in the bar,” Aunt Teresa put in. “Martino as well, and Totti will remain in the house with you.”

“Is that supposed to reassure me?”

“I'd do it,” Aunt Luisa volunteered again.

Poldi ignored her and concentrated on Caterina alone. “That's the best plan I could think of,” she said.

“It's absolutely crazy. Hare-brained.”

Poldi nodded. “Utterly insane, I know.”

“So when do I call him?”

Poldi produced a phone like lightning and handed it to Caterina, together with Patanè's business card. “Right away would be best.”

With her sisters and her sister-in-law looking on, Caterina took the phone, squared her shoulders, drew a deep breath and dialled the number. Poldi could hear the ringtone, then an irritable “
Pronto?
”

“Good afternoon, this is Caterina Mancuso of Mancuso Mobili. Is that Signor Patanè?… Good. Signor Patanè, I got your number from a dear friend and associate, Dr Tannenberger of Munich… Yes, the very same. He strongly recommended you to me. If anyone can assist you in this matter, he said, Corrado Patanè is the man. He intimated – in the strictest confidence, of course – that you've been shortlisted for the cultural centre in Taormina.”

Poldi signalled to Caterina to tone it down a bit, but Caterina ignored her and pressed on regardless.

“Mancuso Mobili has recently acquired a house in Torre Archirafi, No. 29 Via Baronessa. Our intention is to use it as a showroom in the future, but it'll need revamping first. I envisage converting it into a miniature palazzo with antique paving and some baroque decorative features, the aim being to present our furniture collection in a stylish manner. Would you be interested?”

The answer was clearly yes. Although Poldi couldn't catch what Patanè was saying, his voice oozed with obsequious greed.