There’s even an order created in the 1970s by a Baron de Choibert and by Vittorio Busa, otherwise known as Viktor Timur II, Metropolitan Orthodox Archbishop of Bialystok, Patriarch of the Western and Eastern Diaspora, President of the Democratic Republic of Byelorussia and Gran Khan of Tartary and Mongolia.
And then there’s an International Grand Priory created in 1971 by the aforementioned Royal Highness Roberto Paternò with the Baron Marquis of Alaro, of which another Paternò would become Grand Protector in 1982—a certain Leopardi Tomassini Paternò of Constantinople, head of the imperial dynasty and heir to the Eastern Roman Empire, consecrated legitimate successor of the Apostolic Catholic Orthodox Church of the Byzantine Rite, Marquis of Monteaperto and Count Palatine of the throne of Poland.
In 1971 the Ordre Souverain Militaire de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem appears in Malta (the one from which I started), from a split with that of Bassaraba, under the supreme protection of Alessandro Licastro Grimaldi Lascaris Comneno Ventimiglia, Duke of La Chastre, Sovereign Prince and Marquis of Déols, and its Grand Master is now the Marquis Carlo Stivala of Flavigny, who, on Licastro’s death, joins up with Pierre Pasleau, who assumes Licastro’s titles, as well as those of His Holiness the Archbishop Patriarch of the Catholic Orthodox Church of Belgium, Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem and Grand Master and Hierophant of the Universal Masonic Order of the Ancient Oriental Rite and the Joint Primitive Rite of Memphis and Misraim. I forgot to mention that to be à la page one could become a member of the Priory of Sion, as a descendant of Jesus Christ, who married Mary Magdalene and founded the Merovingian dynasty.”
“The names of these characters are enough in themselves to make news,” said Simei, who had been taking notes enthusiastically. “Just think, Paul de Granier de Cassagnac, Licastro (what did you say?) Grimaldi Lascaris Comneno Ventimiglia, Carlo Stivala of Flavigny . . .”
“. . . Robert Bassaraba von Brancovan Khimchiacvili,” Lucidi repeated jubilantly.
“I think quite a number of our readers will have been taken in by propositions of this kind,” I added. “We can help protect them from these opportunists.”
Simei hesitated for a moment and said he would give it some thought. The following day he had evidently done some research and told us that our proprietor had received the title of Commendatore from the Order of Saint Mary of Bethlehem: “It turns out that the Order of Saint Mary of Bethlehem was another fake order. The real one was that of Saint Mary of Jerusalem, the Ordo Fratrum Domus Hospitalis Sanctae Mariae Teutonicorum in Jerusalem.
It is recognized by the Pontifical Yearbook, though I certainly wouldn’t place my trust in that, with all that’s been going on in the Vatican, but in any event a Commendatore of the Order of Saint Mary of Bethlehem is worth about as little as that of the Mayor of Cockaigne. And do you really want to publish an article that throws a shadow of doubt, even ridicule, on the title of our Commendatore? Each to his own delusion. I’m sorry, Lucidi, but we’ll have to scrap your fine article.”
“You’re saying we have to check whether or not the Commendatore is going to like each article?” asked Cambria, our specialist in stupid questions.
“Of course,” replied Simei. “He’s our majority shareholder, as they say.”
At this point Maia plucked up the courage to mention a possible line of investigation. The story was this. In the Porta Ticinese district, in a part of the city that was becoming increasingly popular with tourists, there was a restaurant and pizzeria called Paglia e Fieno. Maia, who lives by the canals, has been walking past it for years. And for years this vast restaurant, through whose windows you could glimpse at least a hundred seats, was always depressingly empty, except for a few tourists drinking coffee at the tables outside.
And it wasn’t as if the place was abandoned. Maia had once been inside, out of curiosity, and was alone, except for a small family group twenty tables farther down. She had ordered a dish of paglia e fieno, of course, with a quarter liter of white wine and some apple tart, all excellent fare and reasonably priced, with extremely polite waiters. Now, if someone runs premises as vast as that, with staff, kitchen, and so forth, and no one goes there for years, if they had any sense they would sell it off. And yet Paglia e Fieno has been open for maybe ten years, pretty well three hundred and sixty-five days a year.
“There’s something strange going on there,” observed Costanza.
“Not really,” replied Maia. “The explanation is obvious. It’s a place owned by the triads, or the Mafia, or the Camorra. It’s been bought with dirty money and it’s a good, upfront investment. But, you say, the investment is already there, it’s in the value of the building, and they could keep it shut down, without putting any more money into it. And yet no—it’s open and running. Why?”
“Yes, why?” asked Cambria again.
Her reply revealed that Maia had a smart little brain. “The premises are used, day in day out, for laundering dirty money that’s constantly flowing in. You serve the few customers who turn up each evening, but each evening you ring up a series of false till receipts as though you’d had a hundred customers. Once you’ve registered that amount, you take it to the bank—and perhaps, so as not to attract attention to all that cash, since no one’s paying by credit card, you open accounts in twenty different banks.
On this sum, which is now legal, you pay all the necessary taxes, after generous deductions for operating expenses and supplies (it’s not hard to get false invoices). It’s well known that for money laundering you have to count on losing fifty percent. With this system, you lose much less.”
“But how do you prove all this?” asked Palatino.
“Simple,” replied Maia. “Two revenue officers go there for dinner, a man and woman, looking like newlyweds, and as they’re eating they look around and see there are, let’s say, just two other customers. Next day the police go and check, find that a hundred till receipts have been rung up, and I’d like to see what those people will have to say for themselves.”
“It’s not so simple,” I pointed out. “The two revenue officers go there, say, at eight o’clock, but however much they eat, they will have to leave by nine, otherwise they’ll look suspicious. Who can prove that the hundred customers weren’t there between nine and midnight?
You then have to send at least three or four couples to cover the evening. Now, if they do a check the next morning, what’s going to happen? The police are thrilled to find someone’s been underdeclaring, but what can they do with someone who’s declaring too much? The restaurant can always say the machine got stuck, that it kept printing out the same thing. And what then? A second check?
They’re not stupid, they’ve now figured out who the officers are, and when they come back they won’t ring up any false till receipts that evening. Or the police have to keep checking night after night, sending out half an army to eat pizzas, and perhaps after a year they’d manage to close them down, but it’s just as likely they’d get bored well before that, because they’ve got other things to do.”
“That’s for the police to decide,” Maia replied resentfully. “They’ll find some clever way—we just have to point out the problem.”
“My dear,” said Simei affably, “I’ll tell you what will happen if we cover this investigation. First, we’ll have the police on our backs, as you’ll be criticizing them for failing to detect the fraud—and they know how to get their revenge, if not against us then certainly against the Commendatore. And as you say yourself, we have the triads, the Camorra, the ’Ndrangheta, or whoever else, and you think they’re going to be pleased?
And do we sit here as good as gold, waiting for them to bomb our offices? Finally, you know what I say? That our readers will be thrilled to eat a good cheap meal in a place that comes straight out of a detective story, so that Paglia e Fieno will be packed with morons and our only accomplishment will be that we’ve made them a fortune. So we can forget that one. Don’t you worry, just go back to your horoscopes.”
VII, Wednesday, April 15, Evening
I COULD SEE HOW DISPIRITED Maia was, and I caught up with her as she was leaving. Instinctively I took her by the arm.
“Don’t take it personally, Maia. Let’s go, I’ll walk you home. We could have a drink on the way.”
“I live by the canals, plenty of bars around there. There’s one I know that does an excellent Bellini, my great passion. Thanks.”
We reached Ripa Ticinese, and I saw the canals for the first time. I’d heard about them, of course, but was convinced they were all underground, and yet it felt as if we were in Amsterdam. Maia told me with a certain pride that Milan had once been very much like Amsterdam, crisscrossed by canals right to the center. It must have been beautiful, which
