The man looked at me like he hadn’t expected to answer questions.
‘A straight game of scopa,’ he said quickly, as if he didn’t want to linger on a sore subject. ‘It happened every night. This one was the usual. The stakes were high and they were playing quick. I had nothing to do with the tables. I just served them. It was my joint. They came here to play. But I saw it all. He lost everything at one sitting.’
‘You let your staff play cards with your guests?’ I asked.
‘He was free to do what he wanted when he was off-duty. Listen,’ the man leaned close to me again, ‘don’t you worry about how I run my hotel. You just worry about finding out what happened to him, and remember that I’m interested in finding out what happened to our money.’
‘Oh that.’ I sneered. ‘I’m afraid that probably died with him.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong. He was about to pay back. He had phoned me to arrange a meeting, said he was bringing round half of it that night he disappeared. He was about to settle.’ He said it again, trying to convince himself.
‘Debtors always say that.’
Lo Bue looked at me differently, with a trace of respect. ‘Yeah. But this time it was real. He said he had half of it.’
‘And why did you believe him?’
‘I knew him. He had worked here for two years. Trust me, he was on his way here to pay back. Someone got wind of it.’
‘You don’t think he found El Dorado?’
‘Ricky do a runner?’ He coughed a guffaw. ‘No. Someone got to him. Someone who knew he was flush.’
‘Like your stooge over there?’ I looked at the barman. I pulled myself to my feet, but the effort made my head throb more and I felt dizzy. It felt like we were on a ship. I didn’t want to show the pain, but closed my eyes to regain concentration.
‘You find any information’, I heard Lo Bue’s voice, ‘on what happened to him, you call me, clear?’
I nodded, and the barman stepped forward and pushed me towards the foyer so hard that I fell over.
Once I got outside the pedestrians stared at me. I caught sight of myself in a shop window and barely recognised what I saw.
I limped towards the station to get a train back to the city.
People kept looking at me all the way. One woman even asked if I wanted her to call a doctor.
When the train pulled in, I decided to head back towards Salati Fashions.
Salati’s shop was open. It was the day after the funeral, but the girl was in there serving customers.
‘Salati not around?’ I asked her.
She thumbed over her shoulder and I walked out back. Salati was sitting in a small kitchenette, staring into space.
I coughed quietly and he glanced up. ‘You again?’ He looked me over. ‘What happened to you?’
‘Perks of the job. Listen, something’s come up.’
‘What?’
‘Paternity.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Your father died in 1995, the year that Ricky went missing.’
‘I know. It meant my mother lost both husband and son in the same year.’
‘Happy marriage was it?’
Umberto looked up at me with wet eyes. ‘What?’
‘It just seems a coincidence. And in my trade coincidences don’t exist.’
‘What are you suggesting?’
‘Just asking if you think it’s a coincidence?’
‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about.’ Salati was getting angry. He didn’t like hints that he couldn’t understand. He obviously thought his mother was as pure as the driven snow.
‘Let me tell you what I know. Your mother had an affair with a man called Massimo Tonin. Your younger brother, Riccardo, was their child. For as long as your father was alive, Tonin kept his distance. But in the spring of 1995, after your father had died, they started getting close.’
Salati stood up and stared at me with an icy look. Then he started laughing, but the chortles became shorter and more nervous. Then his face dropped and he looked furious. ‘You don’t believe that do you?’
‘I do. And it’s easy enough to check nowadays. A strand of your niece’s hair would prove it.’
He looked at me with indignation. ‘You didn’t know my mother.’
‘No, I didn’t. Maybe neither did you.’
Salati clenched his fist and threw it at me. It came so slow that I moved to the left and pulled my right as hard as I could into Salati’s soft middle. I heard Salati’s breath leave him and he fell to the floor.
‘Get up.’ I offered him a hand.
Salati was on one knee, trying to breathe slowly.
‘What,’ he gasped for breath, ‘did you do that for?’
‘You were about to do it to me. Now listen.’ I got a hand under his armpit and pulled him to his feet. ‘I didn’t know your mother, I didn’t know your father or your brother.
Chances are I never will. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is. You don’t have to defend their honour because the dead don’t care. You with me?’
I dropped him into a chair.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you had lent your brother money?’
‘Because you would immediately have thought it was a motive instead of an act of pity.’
‘Pity?’
‘He was pitiful, believe me. He came to me saying he could no longer support his own family. He told me he had borrowed money from people who wanted it back and he had nowhere else to go.’
‘I heard he went quite a few places.’
‘Yeah, that’s what we heard afterwards. He had borrowed from Anna, from me, from my mother.’
‘I heard you were angry he didn’t pay you back.’
‘Of course I was. Especially when I found out he was borrowing from Mamma as well. He was leeching money from anyone who had it. He was probably richer than any of us.’
‘You might have a point.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Never mind.’
He stared at me trying to work out what I meant. Suddenly he started nodding slowly like he got it. I had set something off and Umberto stood up and started pacing the little kitchen area as if something had clicked. There were long, narrow boxes piled high on a table and he took a swipe at the lot, sending cardboard and silk flying through the air. He was all charged up and had a fierce look in his eyes.
‘He always knew where to get money,’ he was muttering to himself.
‘You all right?’ I said.
He just stared at me: ‘Get out,’ he said slowly, ‘get out.’
I stood in an empty doorway and watched the shop for a few minutes. Umberto seemed alarmed by the news. If, that is, it really was news to him. It would call into question the character of his mother, just as he was mourning her. It was a hard hit to take, and Salati was the sort to hit back.
I decided to tail him. I went inside the bank opposite the shop. I punched a button for a ticket and sat down in the chairs with the other customers waiting for their number to come up. Through the window I could see Salati Fashions. Laura was in the shop folding shirts and putting them inside open boxes.
Within minutes Umberto marched out pulling on his jacket. I watched him head towards the piazza and followed him up Via Farini. He walked up as far as Solferino and turned left into Via Pestalozzi. Salati held his keys towards a black jeep and both indicators flashed.
I ran towards the cittadella and whistled for one of the taxis by the entrance. One of the white cars drove up and I jumped in.
‘You see the black jeep, follow it.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘This could be expensive.’
‘I’ve got the money. Just don’t lose the jeep.’
The taxi nestled into the traffic a couple of cars behind Salati. He pulled into Passo Buole and on to the Stradone. The four-laner was blocked by impatient, pushy traffic and we were already a few cars behind him by the time we passed the Petitot and the football stadium.
We followed him on to Via Mantova at the next big roundabout. By now the taxi was far behind, struggling to keep up as Salati’s car disappeared. This was the road to Tonin’s house, I thought to myself as my back was pressed into the cushioned seat.