A Prince Without a Kingdom (17 page)

“Dig there,” he ordered. He had come to a stop and was pointing to a mound of snow.

Vango was speechless. He had no desire to bury or indeed to unearth anybody.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you,” the man explained, when he noticed Vango’s reluctance. “I did my back in two weeks ago.”

“But . . . who is under here?”

“Who?”

Vango took a step backward.

“You’ve got some very odd ideas,” the man remarked. “I haven’t been able to warm myself up all day,” he added with a smile, “because my wood is buried right here under the snow.”

Vango was embarrassed and uncovered the wood in a few shovelfuls.

“So, you’re looking for someone?” the man asked him on the way back, when Vango was laden down with the logs.

“Yes. A girl who’s buried here.”

“Last name, age, date of death?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re joking. Not even her name?”

“She might be called Laura.”

“Might?”

“Yes.”

They came to a halt in front of the door.

“Put the wood down here. Keep the spade. There are a hundred and fifty thousand graves to scrape the snow off. You’ll find the right one in the end.”

The caretaker had removed the bandages, which had been standing in for gloves. He went back inside his home.

“Wait,” Vango called out after him. “You might remember. She was a young woman who was murdered last year, or two years ago.”

The man reappeared. He went over to Vango and put his hand on the shovel.

“Did you know her?” the man asked.

“Yes.”

“So why was I the only one digging her grave in the middle of June?”

He stared at Vango for rather a long time.

“All right, you rescued my logs, so we’re quits. Take that path, just there. It’s the fifth turn on the left. A wooden cross between two trees. Poor girl.”

Vango nodded, already heading off in that direction.

“Did you hear about the murderer’s attorney?” called out the caretaker, whose stiff legs couldn’t keep up.

“No.” Vango sighed.

“The worst attorney in the world. He pleaded self-defense. Do you know what he said?”

Vango didn’t answer.

“He said that it was the girl who had attacked the man.”

Vango let him talk, but he didn’t want to listen anymore.

“He turned it into a whole saga. People were laughing in the courtroom. He showed a notebook that had been found with the girl, made out that it was a case of revenge for old crimes.”

“Thank you. That’s all,” said Vango, standing very still.

The caretaker hobbled over to Vango and shook his hand.

“My condolences,” said the man, and off he went.

Vango kept walking, his feet sinking into the snow for a few minutes more. He arrived in front of the cross. What had he come to do at this grave?

There was no particular spot where he could go and reflect on his parents’ lives. So this young victim, murdered by the same man who had killed his parents, buried in the ground between two trees, had attracted him. And this cross inclining under the snow soothed him now.

He crouched down, searching deep inside himself for the prayers or cries that would help him reach the other side of his anger. He wondered why he had survived Cafarello’s cruelty that night in 1918, in the waters of the Aeolian Islands. He thought about Mademoiselle. Was she also lying dead somewhere with her secrets? Was there a glimmer of life in anyone who could reveal Vango’s past to him?

He glanced up at the caretaker’s chimney, which was smoking now in the distance. He tugged on his coat sleeve to cover his hand, like a mitten. Leaning forward, he brushed away the snow on the stone that had been laid in front of the cross.

He saw Laura’s name appear. He rubbed some more and revealed the boulder on which the paint hadn’t yet flaked off, and read:

Laura Viaggi
Salina 1912 – New York 1935

Vango dug both knees into the snow.

The man described by both a prison warden and a cemetery caretaker as “the worst attorney in the world” had his offices in a handsome building on Broadway.

There were life-size mythological characters sculpted across its facade. At night, by the light of the theaters that surrounded the building, there flickered an army of shadows, including Jason, Odysseus, Antigone, and Hercules. They had watched over the lives of ordinary New Yorkers down the years.

But this evening, in the midst of these statues, twenty meters above ground level, one face in particular might have intrigued an attentive observer. The eyes of this hero moved in the dark.

Vango was standing on a narrow ledge, waiting for the crowds below him to disperse after their big night out at the theater. Hot on the heels of the dancing throngs that emerged from the Ziegfeld Follies at the Winter Garden, came a wave of tragedians, followed by spectators in hoots of laughter, and then the sleepwalkers who had found the show too long. Finally, a calm began to settle again over Broadway. This time of night belonged to the artists. The lights shining onto the pediments were switched off. Dancers, still sporting hairdos from ancient Chinese dynasties, dived into snow-covered taxis.

Just opposite, a theater boasted:
WALTER FREDERICK, SOLO ON STAGE
, in letters that were four meters by two, alongside an outsize picture of the actor. And the performer himself had just appeared, solo on the sidewalk, a diminutive figure whistling a tune by the light of his name. Vango would never have guessed that three years earlier they had flown together, two stowaways aboard the
Graf Zeppelin.
After his arrival from Germany, Walter Frederick had quickly sprung to fame on Broadway and in Hollywood.

Vango stayed where he was, balancing on his heels halfway up a thirty-story facade. He was waiting for the lights to go out in the window above him. The worst attorney in the world was working late this evening.

But instead of the lights being switched off, the window opened and a man leaned out.

Hidden in the folds of a Roman goddess’s plaster dress, Vango didn’t move. The smell of tobacco wafted over to him. He could even hear the gentle sigh accompanying each puff.

“Snow, snow, snow,” the man remarked, because you don’t need to sound clever when you think you’re alone.

For the same reason, he muttered stupidly, “There goes another one!” as he tossed his cigarette butt and shut the window.

The lights went out shortly afterward. Vango waited for the man to leave the building, and for the gray hat belonging to the worst attorney in the world to disappear around the corner of the street.

Vango put his hands on the windowsill and scaled the window. He took a sharp implement out of his pocket, and the lock soon gave way.

Once inside the office, he made for the desk, where he found a pile of Christmas cards ready for sending. He checked the name printed at the top: Mr. Trevor K. Donahue, Attorney — this was the lawyer he was looking for. The card showed Mr. Donahue wearing his court apparel and standing by a stream, holding an enormous salmon.

Vango opened a drawer. The paper clips had been arranged according to color, the erasers had been shaved with a knife to make them pristine again, and the pencils were arranged according to size. Vango deduced that he wouldn’t have too much trouble finding what he was looking for.

In the second drawer of the desk, Vango found five identical and perfectly ironed cotton shirts. In the third drawer, there was a toothbrush attached to a tube of toothpaste by an elastic band. The toothbrush had the attorney’s initials stamped on it. The word
teeth
had been handwritten on the elastic band, as if there were a risk of getting it muddled up with the elastic band for cotton balls or nail files. In another box were two new razors and some shaving cream. All that was missing was the shaving brush.

Where are the files?
wondered Vango.

He also found a cigarette case filled with toothpicks, two playing cards, an address book that was mostly empty, a guide to fly-fishing, a menu from La Bohème restaurant, a key ring in the shape of an octopus, a detachable collar, a collection of theater tickets filed by title in alphabetical order, a diary for the coming year, a small painted soldier, and a raccoon’s tail in a bag marked
A SOUVENIR FROM THE ROCKIES
.

Vango wanted to search the large piece of furniture at the back of the room, but it turned out to be a bar. Next, he opened two files that were completely empty. To the right, along the small but carefully ordered bookshelves, which even had a notebook hanging from a string so that any books taken out could be noted down, he failed to find a single file.

He went next door into what was presumably the secretary’s office. The room was remarkably clean, but there was no sign of a file in there either. It looked more like a waiting room, with a few magazines, a painting on the wall, a telephone, and a fish in a bowl.

Vango sensed that he might have to leave empty-handed. The goldfish was staring at him. Where could he find what he was looking for? Vango was about to turn out the lights when the telephone rang. Curious, he waited a moment before picking up.

“Is that you?” came a man’s voice.

When Vango didn’t reply, loud laughter could be heard.

“I know you’re there. I’m downstairs, in the café, and I saw the lights on. I’ve just come out of the show. I’ll pop up. So stop pretending you’re deaf, Trevor, old boy, and don’t forget I’ve still got the key!”

Vango hung up. He took a step backward, knocked over the goldfish bowl, and crashed into the partition wall. The bowl smashed on the floor just as the painting came off its hook on the other side of the office. Vango watched the goldfish belly dancing on the carpet, and then he looked up. Behind the painting, a steel-studded safe had appeared. Vango went over to it. Shards from the broken bowl crunched beneath his feet. He stared at the safe. Opening it required six numbers, all between zero and nine. Vango had less than two minutes for a million combinations.

Vango tugged at the safe door. It was locked. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to imagine himself in the shoes of the worst attorney in the world. After concentrating for twenty seconds, he rushed out of the office and back into the room next door, opened a drawer, and took out the address book. He went directly to the letter
S,
glanced through the different surnames written down there, and found what he wanted. After the telephone numbers for Simpson, Henry James; Smith, Philip; and Saraband, Plumbing, came Secret Code, J. Edward, followed by a six-digit number. Vango was appalled and thrilled.

He went back to the safe. Somebody was ringing the doorbell.

Vango set the first three digits.

“Open up, you idiot!”

More ringing.

The man was losing his temper.

“Watch out! I’m going to let myself in. Are you with someone, Trevor?”

The final digit on the safe combination.

“I can hear you, Trevor!”

The safe opened. There was the red notebook, next to a wad of dollars. Vango grabbed the notebook and ran toward the window. He could hear the jangling of keys now.

“I’m coming in,” announced the voice.

Vango jumped onto the windowsill and slammed the shutter behind him.

“Trevor?”

The visitor took a step inside the lobby area and immediately spotted the goldfish lying among the pieces of broken glass.

“Andy!”

The man dived onto the carpet, caught hold of the fish, rolled with it toward the bar, grabbed two bottles of mineral water in one hand, rushed back into the lobby area, and emptied them into the umbrella stand. Then he threw in Andy.

No animal was mistreated or injured in the offices of Trevor Donahue that evening.

Vango scaled down the outside of the building as lightly as a snowflake. He headed back toward Little Italy, where he ran into Otello, who was closing the shutters at La Rocca.

“I didn’t talk to you about the hot water,” said the boss.

“Yes, you did. Five cents a pint.”

“Well, it’s six in winter. Good night, young man.”

“Good night.”

“Do you realize that Alma waited up for you until very late? Not that I suppose you take such things into account.”

Vango didn’t answer. He went up to his bedroom.

The handwriting was careful; the words were written in Sicilian without any mistakes but in a limited vocabulary. On the first page was the sentence
This notebook belongs to Laura Viaggi,
much as you might expect to find in the exercise book of a primary school student. Laura would have been twenty-two years old when she started to write these pages.

Vango was lying in bed, the notebook open in his hands.