The smoke went down the wrong way and she coughed violently, in shock and confusion. As if she were in a bad play.
“What do you mean, two cell phones?”
“Did Manuela just have one cell phone, or did she have more than one?”
“I… I think she only had one. Why do you want to know?”
“Are you sure? Think carefully.”
“Why are you asking me this?”
Now her voice took on a note of impatience and grew almost aggressive.
“I was told that Manuela may have had two phones, and I thought you’d probably know.”
“Who told you that?”
“What does that matter? Do you know whether or not she had two phone numbers?”
“I don’t know. I only called her on one number.”
“Do you know that number by heart?”
“No, why would I? It was saved in my cell phone. I didn’t need to memorize it.”
“Do you still have it?”
“Have what?”
“Manuela’s phone number, saved.”
She stared at me, wide-eyed. She wasn’t sure what was happening, but she knew it wasn’t good. She decided to get angry.
“Can I ask what the fuck you’re trying to find out? What the fuck is the meaning of these questions?”
“Have you gotten a new cell phone, since Manuela’s disappearance?”
“No. Could you tell me…”
“Did you erase Manuela from your phone?”
“No, of course not.”
“Can I take look at the contacts saved in your cell phone?”
She looked at me with an incredulous expression that rapidly deteriorated into a grimace of rage as she flicked what was left of her cigarette onto the ground.
“Fuck you. Unlock this car, get in, and drive me home.”
I punched the remote door lock with my thumb, and the doors clicked open, with a soft and inevitable thunk. She pulled the door open and got in the car immediately. I got in and sat next to her a few seconds later, but I wished I were somewhere else. Somewhere far away.
For a minute, or maybe longer, neither of us spoke.
“May I ask why you’re not starting the car?”
“I need you to tell me about Manuela’s second cell phone.”
“And I need you to leave me alone and take me home. I’m not going to tell you a fucking thing.”
“If you want me to, I’ll take you home, but the minute I drop you off I have to go to the Carabinieri, you understand that, right?”
“As far as I’m concerned, you can jump off a tall building. That might be the best thing you could do.”
Her voice was starting to crack, from anger and emotion, but also because of the fear that was beginning to break through.
“If I go to the Carabinieri, I’ll have to tell them that Manuela had a second telephone that no one else knew about. It won’t take them long to find the phone number, and then they’ll check the phone records. And then there will be plenty of things to explain, in situations much more disagreeable than this one.”
She said nothing. She opened the car window, took out a cigarette, and lit it. Without asking if I minded, without apologizing for the stink. She smoked and looked straight ahead, at the sea. I thought how incredible it was that such a pretty face could be so twisted and deformed by rage and fear that it became ugly.
“I think you’d better tell me the things you’ve been keeping from me. I think it’ll be better for you to tell me, rather than being forced to tell the Carabinieri and the prosecutor. There may be a way to limit the damage.”
“Why are you so sure that Manuela had another number and that I have it?”
I was about to ask her if she’d ever read that story by Arthur Conan Doyle. I didn’t, though, because it struck me as highly unlikely that she had.
“Your number doesn’t appear in the call records for Manuela’s cell phone that the Carabinieri obtained.”
It took her a little while to absorb that information.
“It’s inexplicable that there would never be a single call between the two of you, since you were such close friends. And at least one call should appear on the records, because you told me that you called Manuela to meet you for a drink that time. But not even that call shows up.”
“I don’t remember where I called her. Maybe I called her at her house.”
“Caterina, tell me about the other phone. Please.”
She lit another cigarette. She smoked half of it, moving her head in an awkward, unnatural manner, as if her balance were suddenly off. Her lovely complexion had drained to a lusterless, sickly gray. Then, suddenly, she began to speak, but her eyes looked straight ahead.
“Manuela had another phone number and another cell phone.”
“And that’s the phone you called her on.”
“Yes.”
I hovered for a few seconds in a precarious equilibrium. I had focused entirely on getting her to admit the existence of a second phone number; I wasn’t ready for what came next. Then I decided that there was no reason, at that point, to beat around the bush.
“What happened that Sunday?”
“I’m cold,” she said. Her face had definitely lost all its color now.
I pushed the button to close the passenger-side window, even though the cold wasn’t coming from outside.
Then I waited for her to answer my question.