Antonio Tabucchi - The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro

The old fellow drew greedily at his cigarette.

“Well then my dear sir,” he resumed, “do you by any chance know anything about the marble of Estremoz?”

Firmino gave a vague nod.

“Same characteristics as Carrara marble,” said the old man complacently, “same porosity, same veining, same reaction to machine polishing, the same in every way as Carrara marble.” And the old man heaved a sigh as if he had revealed the secret of the century.

“Do I make myself dear?” he asked.

“Perfectly,” said Firmino.

“Please explain,” said Firmino.

“Good,” continued the old man, “it’s like Columbus’s egg. The boss sends Estremoz marble to Carrara and they resell it on the Italian market as Carrara marble, and so there you have the atriums of Roman apartment houses and the bathrooms of wealthy Italians tiled with fine Carrara marble which comes from Estremoz in Portugal. And it’s not that the boss has to do the thing on a vast scale, you know, he has simply subleased a firm in Estremoz which cuts the blocks and ships them from Setúbal. However, with the cost of labor in Portugal being as low as it is, do you realize what that means to us?”

He waited with an air of impatience for Firmino’s answer, which never came.

“Millions,” he said in answer to his own question, and then went on: “And as one thing leads to another the boss started looking for another market, and he found Hong Kong, because the Chinese also are mad for Carrara marble, and since a thing that leads to another leads to another again, the boss thought that since we were in the export business the moment had come to import as well, so we became an import-export firm, it doesn’t show on the surface, we have these modest premises, but that’s only so as not to flaunt the fact that we have one of the biggest annual turnovers of any firm in Oporto, you who are in business can understand that the financial police have to be kept at arm’s length, but you know my boss has two Ferrari Testarossas, he keeps them out at his farm in the country, and d’you know what he did before this?”

“I have no idea,” replied Firmino.

“Worked for the Council,” said the old man with great satisfaction, “in the stewarts’ office, at the Town that means having a flair for business, of course he’s had to play at politics a bit, it’s only logical, without politics you can’t get anywhere in this country, so he got himself made election campaign manager of the aspiring candidate for the mayorship of his town, took him by car to every political meeting in the province of Minho, the mayor was elected and as a reward gave him this piece of land for thruppence and arranged for the license to start up the business. Speaking of which, what exact line is your firm into?”

“Clothing,” replied Firmino craftily enough.

The old man lit another Gauloise.

“And so?” he asked.

“We’re opening a chain of shops in Algarve,” said Firmino, “mostly jeans and T-shirts, because Algarve is a place for young people, all beaches and discotheques, and we’ve decided to market the most bizarre T-shirts, because the kids nowadays want them as bizarre as you please, if you try and sell a T-shirt saying Harvard University no one would buy it, but with T-shirts like yours maybe they would, and we could mass-produce them.”

The old man got up, made his way to a closet with a folding door, rummaged around in a big box.

“Is this what you mean?”

It was a blue T-shirt bearing the words Stones of Portugal. The very thing described by Manolo.

The accountant gave him a look and then handed it to him.

“By all means take it,” he said, “but have a word with the secretary about it next week, I can’t tell you anything.”

“What is it you import?” asked Firmino.

“High technology instruments from Hong Kong,” replied the old man, “equipment for hi-fi and for hospitals, and that’s the reason I’m in trouble.”

“Why is that?” asked Firmino in the most tactful of tones.

“We had a robbery five days ago,” came the answer, “it was during the night, they disconnected the alarm system and made straight for the container with the equipment in it as if they knew exactly where to look, and they only stole two highly sophisticated components for CAT machinery, do you know what the CAT is?”

“Computerized axial tomography,” answered Firmino.

“Our guard dog,” continued the old man “the Alsatian, didn’t notice a thing, and the thieves certainly didn’t drug him.”

“They’d have some trouble selling components for CAT,” objected Firmino.

“You’d be surprised,” said the old man, “what with all the private clinics springing up in Portugal like mushrooms, forgive me but do you know anything about our health services?”

“Vaguely,” said Firmino.

“It’s sheer piracy,” said the old man with conviction, “that’s why medical equipment is so expensive, but the fact is this theft was really odd, as odd as could be. Just imagine, two electronic switches for CAT machines smoothly removed from our containers and abandoned on the roadside only half a kilometer away.”

“Abandoned?”

“As if they’d been chucked out of a car window, but reduced to pulp, as if a car had run over them.”

“Have you notified the police?” asked Firmino.

“Of course,” said the accountant, “because though it’s a matter of two tiny little components, they’re worth a lot of money.”

“Really?” said Firmino.

“And what’s more with the boss in Hong Kong and the secretary on holiday,” grumbled the old boy with some exasperation, “the whole thing falls on my shoulders, even the errand-boy seems to have fallen ill.”

“What errand-boy?” asked Firmino.

“The errand-boy who make deliveries,” replied the old man, “at least I had an underling to send off on errands, but he hasn’t come to work for five days.”

“A young fellow?” asked Firmino.

“That’s right,” confirmed the old man, “a temporary, he came here a couple of months ago looking for work and the boss took him on as an errand-boy.”

Firmino had a sudden mental short circuit.

“What’s his name?” he asked.

“What’s that to you?” the old man asked.

In his eyes there was a hint of suspicion.

“Oh, just a question, it isn’t important,” said Firmino in an attempt to pass it off.

“Well, he likes to be called Dakota,” said the old man, “because he’s mad about anything and everything American, and I’ve always called him Dakota, but I don’t know his real name, in fact it doesn’t even appear in the register, as I said he’s a temporary. Excuse me asking, but why are you so keen to know?”

“No particular reason,” replied Firmino, “just a question.”

“Very well then,” concluded the old man, “now you must forgive me but I have to get back to these accounts, this evening I have to get off a fax to Hong Kong, it’s an urgent invoice, if you want further information come back in a week's time, I can’t guarantee that the boss will be here but the secretary will have definitely come back.”

“HULLO, EDITOR?” said Firmino, “I’m on the trail, I think I’ve found the right track. I’ve traced the corpse’s T-shirt, it comes from an import-export firm in Vila Nova de Gaia, they make T-shirts identical to the one Manolo described to me.”

“Anything else?” asked the Editor impassably.

“They had an errand-boy,” replied Firmino, “a young chap, and he hasn’t turned up for work for the last five days. However, I didn’t manage to find out his name. Shall we print this?”

“Anything else?” insisted the Editor.