Down in the Corta the day is drawing to a close. The square has tripped into shadow and the tourists have retired to prepare for evening.
Sandro is lurking in his usual café. Giuliana is hovering nearby. “Hey, Ric,” he calls, “how is your boat?”
Ric swings by and pulls up a chair at the same table. “What are you, Sandro? Working for the CEKA?”
Giuliana appears as if by magic and Ric taps Sandro’s beer bottle.
“No, my friend,” the escurzionista replies frowning, “I’m not working for the secret police of the Duce. This is a small island and today I go to Porticello on my scooter. I pass by Canneto and see you and Maggiore in the café. So, naturally I think you have gone to find out about your boat. It is so, yes?”
Ric grins. “Just kidding, Sandro,” he chuckles.
A Birra Messina appears. Giuliana lingers as she reaches over him and places it on the table; her perfume is all roses and she touches his shoulder as she stands back.
Sandro flinches.
“Yes, I know,” Ric mutters.
“So, how is your boat?”
“Could be better. She needs a bit more than a passing dose of TLC.”
“TLC? What is this? I don’t know this.” Sandro screws up his face, and, what with his doughy features and curly hair, he presents a curiously charming picture of dismay.
“Tender loving care. It’s what all women need every now and then.” Ric nods towards the waitress.
But Sandro has gone all po-faced, “This is not funny, my friend. If you put your fingers in this pizza, you must be sure to count them when you have finished eating.” He shakes his hand as though to flick water off it.
“Sorry,” Ric chuckles, “didn’t mean to tread on your toes.”
“No, my friend, I am serious. I like my toes as much as my fingers and I intend for them to be connected to my feet and my hands for a long time.” Now it is his turn to nod and he does so towards the stony, pinch-faced owner, who is deep in conversation with a group of his acolytes at the back of the café.
“The wrong word can travel very fast in this place. You know, Gallese, a woman is like a Lamborghini: from being still one minute, she can accelerate to incredible speed and then be stopped very suddenly by an accident. This happens most often when the Lamborghini is in the hands of one who is not qualified to drive it.” Sandro touches the corner of his right eye. “I would not want you to have an accident when you were a passenger in this car, eh?”
Ric laughs, which upsets his companion even further. “Sorry, Sandro, you are right on so many counts. I’m grateful for your advice and no little touched that you should go to the trouble of gifting it.”
The escurzionista is embarrassed at such an explicit pronouncement of affection and colours instantly.
“Il Velaccino tells me I may be here for a couple of weeks,” Ric says, “he tells me the Mara needs a fair bit of work.”
“He would know this.”
“I suppose he would,” Ric replies. “He seems a pretty regular guy.”
When Sandro doesn’t follow this assessment of Marcello’s character with a ringing endorsement, Ric is inclined to press further. “My Italian isn’t up to much, I wonder if you might help me with a word I read today? I think I know what it means, but I’m not sure and wouldn’t want to use it in case I offended someone.”
“Sure! What is the word?”
“Integerrimo, if I’ve got the pronunciation correct.”
Sandro thinks for a few seconds. “Integerrimo; it means… honest. When used to describe a man this way, you would say this man is a person of integrity.”
Ric is pleased to learn his forebear, if indeed Antonio Sciacchitano is his forebear, was considered a man of integrity; an honest citizen. But the query serves his purpose.
“So would you describe Marcello Maggiore as a man of integrity?”
Sandro fixes him with a stern, questioning expression. “Integrity,” he states, “is a commodity that can be measured in many different ways.” He ponders his aphorism for a few seconds, fidgeting uncomfortably. “But for repairing a boat, I think you can rely on his integrity; that is all I can say.”
Ric purses his lips and weighs up the escurzionista’s judgement.
But something is rather obviously troubling Sandro; he looks about nervously.
Thinking that, perhaps, Sandro is nervous of talking about Marcello Maggiore in public, Ric suggests, “I’ve got a bottle of Caravaglio in the fridge, why don’t we go and find a home for it?”
Sandro glances at him and sighs. “Yes, of course. Why not? This would be better.”
Back at his monolocale, Ric throws together a plate of antipasti and uncorks the bottle. Though not short of a spare pound of flesh, Sandro tucks in to the prosciutto and tomatoes as though he hasn’t eaten for a week.
“This is good wine, eh?” he mumbles between slurps.
“I see there’s plenty of Carabinieri about,” Ric says, casually.
“Yes, the Maddalena is still closed. They have the medico legale there. I think you call them forensic people, is that correct?”
“It is. They seem to be checking the identities of people taking the Aliscafo too.”
“It is normal.”
“I guess it’s only natural what with Candela being such a bigshot.”
Sandro looks up from his food and, as he chews, studies Ric. He swallows noisily and says, “I forget, you don’t like the police. But yes, Candela’s murder would upset many people.”
“People to do with the new energy supply you said he was going to talk about; promising the people free electricity, that sort of thing?”
“Yes, that sort of thing. But also because it looks bad for the islands when a man of importance is murdered here,” Sandro replies. “But it was not only the energy he promised everyone. In his speech he said that as well as the free electricity, he has put a group together to build a very large hotel at Porticello; a very large hotel: one thousand rooms, perhaps more. It would double the capacity for the island.”
“That would be a good thing, wouldn’t it?” Ric asks.
Sandro nods and then shakes his head: “Probably, but also possibly not.”
“How come?” Ric remembers Valeria mentioning some plans to build a hotel and being fairly ambivalent about its benefits; something about the island losing its World Heritage Status.
“Candela said that this hotel would bring much work for the people. He said it would bring much money into the community; better schools, more transport, and so on.” He scoffs as though Candela’s idea was ridiculous.
“So, what’s the downside?”
“The downside, as you put it, is that the island cannot support this. The tourist season is very short: three maybe four months. So, for the rest of the year it would be empty. There are not enough people here to staff a hotel of one thousand rooms; they would have to bring in many eastern Europeans to do the housework, the laundry, the waiting at tables, the kitchen; all this type of work. These eastern Europeans can be anyone: Romanians, Lithuanians, Croatians, all thieves and murderers. They would do more damage to the island than Barbarossa.”
“I guess when you put it that way it doesn’t sound so appealing.”
“Also, they would upset the status quo. Not the pop group,” he grins, “the ecology; this sort of thing. The Aeolian Islands may look like heaven with our clear blue waters, quiet beaches and quaint houses, but there is a balance to our society. It has become this way over many centuries, not overnight.”
Ric recalls a similar conversation he had with Camille in Corsica. “But surely the island must have some kind of council which represents the people; some kind of planning committee?”
Sandro nods, “Yes, there is a planning committee. This idea of a big hotel has been tried before. It has always been turned down. But this new plan is so big the people who plan it cannot build it without first listening to certain people. It’s not completely democratic, of course,” he grins sheepishly. “You are on an island in the Sicilian Sea, if you know what I mean?”
“I think I do. You mean the Mafia?” Ric asks.
“Of a kind. But maybe it is more about where you think you exist in the food chain, eh? I told you, there is a balance to the society that certain people will not give up without a fight. Not all interests are the same, you know. It’s not always about the money.”
“Sure, Sandro, I get that. But if it’s not about the money, who has so much to lose that they would do away with Candela? Isn’t there anyone on the planning committee who carries enough clout to get a project of that size rejected?”
He nods as he slips the last tomato into his mouth. When he has swallowed it, he says, “Possibly, but also probably not. You know how the food chain works? The small dog is at the mercy of the big dog and the big dog is at the mercy of the bigger dog. Only,” he pauses, working a morsel of food out from between his teeth with his tongue…
But Ric is inclined to think the escurzionista is avoiding speaking rather than paying attention to his dental hygiene: “Only what, Sandro?”
“Only…” he hesitates again, “mercy is like integrity; it comes with a price.”
“So, what you’re saying is that the dogs on the planning committee are not big enough to take on the big dogs in Palermo?”
Sandro bobbles his head from side to side again, “In a manner of speaking.” He glances over at Ric as though he is beginning to dislike the route his questioning is taking. “You know, Ric, even small dogs can be vicious when left with no way out other than to fight.”
“Yes, I know what you mean, Sandro. Believe me; I’ve seen enough of them. But what kind of people make up this planning committee: lawyers, judges, professionals?”
Sandro has cleared the plate of antipasti and the wine is finished. He wipes his hands on his grubby handkerchief and hauls himself to his feet, readying himself to leave. He looks strangely unsettled, as though he is late for an appointment. “All kinds of people,” he says frowning, his fingers on the handle of the door. “People like Marcello Maggiore and his brother, Claudio.”