He went back into the bedroom to put things in order, and barely five minutes later the phone rang again. He picked up the receiver and spoke before the other could open his mouth.
“Listen here, you motherfucking son of a bitch.”
“What is your problem?” Ingrid interrupted him.
“Oh, it’s you. I’m sorry, I thought . . . So, what’s up?”
“Considering the greeting, I don’t think you’re in the right mood. But I’ll try anyway. I only want to know why you won’t return Rachele’s phone calls . . .”
“Did she tell you to ask me?”
“No, I’m doing this on my own initiative, after seeing how bad she felt. So, what is it?”
“You have to believe me, today has been the kind of day—”
“Do you swear that’s not just an excuse?”
“I won’t swear to anything, but it’s not an excuse.”
“Well, that’s a relief. I was thinking this was some Catholic rejection of the woman who led you into temptation.”
“You really shouldn’t put it in those terms.”
“Why not?”
“Because, as you told me yourself, what took place between Rachele and me was a transaction, an exchange. If Mrs. Esterman has no complaints about the matter—”
“No, no complaints. On the contrary.”
“—then there’s no reason to talk, don’t you think?”
Ingrid seemed not to have heard.
“So I’ll tell her to call you later at home?”
“No. Tomorrow morning would be better, at the office. Now I have to . . . go out.”
“So you’ll talk to her when she calls?”
“I promise.”
After two hours of toil, of stooping and standing, grabbing and folding, pushing and pulling, the bedroom was back to normal.
And now he should have eaten something, except that he wasn’t hungry.
He sat down on the veranda and fired up a cigarette.
All at once he realized that, sitting there as he was, with the veranda’s light on to boot, he made a perfect target, especially as it was a very dark night. But the reason he had told Fazio that he was certain they had no intention of killing him was not so much to reassure him, but because he was deeply convinced of it. So convinced that he had even left his pistol, as usual, in the glove compartment of his car.
Anyway, if those people decided to start shooting at him, how was he going to defend himself? With a pistol that probably risked jamming after the first shot, like Galluzzo’s, against three Kalashnikovs?
By going to spend the night at the station, as Fazio had suggested? Come on!
The moment he left the building to go out to eat or have a coffee at the bar, the usual motorcyclist in helmet and face-screen could increase his body weight with a couple of kilos of lead.
Go around with an escort at all times? But, as had been amply proved, an escort had never succeeded in preventing a homicide.
If anything, all it had ever accomplished was an increase in the number of dead: not just the designated victim, but two or three men from the escort as well.
And this was inevitable. Because anyone who comes up to you to kill you knows exactly what he needs to do and has likely rehearsed the scenario dozens of times, whereas the men in the escort, who are trained to fire on the rebound—that is, after they’ve been attacked, and thus defensively, not offensively—know nothing of the intentions of the man who is approaching. A few seconds later, when they finally understand, it is already too late: that difference of a few seconds between the attacker and the escort is the killer’s winning card.
In short, the brain of the person using a weapon to kill has one more gear than the one who uses it to defend.
At any rate, the inspector felt on edge, there was no denying it.
On edge, not afraid.
And also deeply offended.
When he’d seen the house turned upside down, his first feeling was one of shame. The comparison was, of course, untenable, but in a vague way he understood why very often a woman who has been raped feels too humiliated to report it.
His house—in other words, his person—had been brutally violated, searched, turned inside out by unknown hands. In fact, the only way he’d been able to talk about it with Fazio was to pretend he was joking.The rifling through all his belongings had upset him considerably more than the attempt to burn the house down.
Then there was that offensive telephone call. But it wasn’t so much the tone or the final insult.The offense lay in the fact that someone could think he was the kind of man to give in to intimidation and do the bidding of others, like some measly little punk or worthless nobody. Had he ever given them any reason, any hint in his actions or words, to have such an opinion of him?
Whatever the case, these people surely were not about to stop.They even showed signs of being in a hurry.
Do what you’re supposed to do.
Maybe Fazio was right. Everything that was happening to him must have some connection to the Licco trial. In the reconstruction of events the inspector had presented to send Licco to prison, there was one weak link, he remembered. But he was unable to bring it into focus. Surely Licco’s lawyers had noticed this weak point and discussed it with the Cuffaros, who had then sprung into action.
The first thing he had to do next morning was get hold of the Licco file and reread it.
The telephone rang. He let it ring. A minute later, it stopped ringing. If they were out there watching him, they would see that he was taking things easy. He wouldn’t even get up to answer the phone.
When sleep started to come over him and he went back inside, he decided to leave the French door ajar.That way, if they were planning to pay him a visit during the night, they wouldn’t have to break it a third time.
He went to the bathroom, lay down in bed, and no sooner had he slipped in between the sheets than the phone rang again.This time he got up and answered.
It was Livia.
“Why didn’t you answer the first time?”
“What first time?”
“About an hour ago.”
So it was she who had called.
“Maybe I was in the shower and didn’t hear.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. And you?”
“I’m fine. I wanted to ask you something.”
That made two. First Ingrid, and now Livia. All the women had questions to ask him. Ingrid he had answered with a half lie. Would he have to do the same with Livia? He coined a new proverb: A hundred lies a day / keeps all the women at bay.
“Go ahead.”
“Are you busy in the coming days?”
“Not exceedingly.”
“I really feel like coming to Marinella to spend a few days with you. I could catch the plane at three o’clock tomorrow aftern—”
“No!”
He must have yelled it.
“Thank you!” said Livia, after a pause.
And she hung up.
Matre santa! Now, how was he going to explain to her that that “No!” had escaped him because he was afraid to involve her in the nasty affair in which he was buried up to his neck?
What if those guys got it in their heads to start shooting when Livia was with him, just to make a point? No, there was no way. Having Livia about the house at that moment was a terrible idea.
He called her back. He was expecting her not to answer, but Livia actually picked up.
“Just because I’m curious.”
“About what?”
“To see whether you can manage to justify the way you said no.”
“I can see how you would be upset. But you have to understand, Livia, these are not excuses, you have to believe me.The fact is that in the last few days, burglars have broken into my house three times, and I—”
Livia started laughing uncontrollably.
What the fuck was so funny about it? Eh? You tell her that burglars go in and out of your house whenever the hell they feel like it, and not only does she not say anything to comfort you, she thinks it’s comical? How thoughtful! He started to feel angry.
“Listen, Livia, I don’t see what—”
“Burglars breaking into the home of the famous Inspector Montalbano! Ha ha ha!”
“If you would just calm down a second . . .”
“Ha ha ha ho ho ho!”
What to do? Hang up? Wait it out? Luckily she started calming down.
“I’m sorry, but it seems so funny to me!”
Which was exactly the reaction other people would have if the thing came to be known about town.
“Let me tell you what happened. It’s a strange story. Because, you know, they came back again this afternoon.”
“What did they steal?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? Tell me!”
“Three days ago, Ingrid had come here for dinner . . .”
He bit his tongue, but it was too late. The damage was done.
At the other end of the line, the barometer must have signaled a gathering storm. Ever since the situation between them had returned to normal, Livia had been in the grips of a jealousy the likes of which she had never felt before.
“And since when have you been in the habit?”
“What habit?”
“The habit of the two of you having dinner in Marinella. By moonlight. Speaking of which, do you light a candle on the table?”
It ended badly.
And therefore, whether from the aggravation of the visit by the three men who wanted to burn down his house, or from the aggravation of the anonymous phone call, or from the aggravation of the squabble with Livia, he ended up sleeping hardly at all, and the little he did sleep was broken up into spells of twenty minutes or so. He woke up in a complete stupor. A half-hour shower and a half pint of espresso put him at least in a condition to tell his right hand from his left.
“I’m not here for anyone,” he said as he passed in front of Catarella’s station.
Catarella came running after him.
“Not here telephonically or poissonally?”
“I’m not here, can you get that through your head?”
“Not even for the c’mishner?”
For Catarella, the c’mishner was only one grade below the Almighty.
“Not even.”
He went into his office, locked the door, and, after half an hour of cursing, found the file on his investigation of Giacomo Licco.
He studied it for two hours, taking notes.
Then he called up Prosecutor Giarrizzo, who would be representing the state at the Licco trial.
“Inspector Montalbano here. I’d like to speak with Prosecutor Giarrizzo.”
“Dr. Giarrizzo is at the courthouse. He’ll be busy all morning,” replied a female voice.
“Could you tell him to call me when he gets back? Thanks.”
He put the sheet of paper with his notes in his pocket, then picked up the receiver again.
“Catarella, is Fazio here?”
“’E in’t onna premisses, Chief.”
“What about Augello?”
“’E’s ’ere.”
“Tell him to come to my office.”
Remembering he had locked the door, he got up, opened it, and found Mimì Augello standing in front of him with a magazine in his hand.
“Why’d you lock yourself in?”
Just because you do something, what gives others the right to ask why you did it? He hated this kind of question. Ingrid:Why won’t you call Rachele back? Livia:Why didn’t you answer the first time I called? And now Mimì.
“Just between us, Mimì, I had half a mind to hang myself, but now that you’re here . . .”
“Ah, well, if that’s your intention—which, incidentally, I approve of, unconditionally—then I’ll leave at once and you can continue.”
“Come in and sit down.”
Mimì noticed the file of the Licco trial on the desk.
“You reviewing your lesson?”
“Yes.You got any news?”
“Yes.This magazine.”
And he set it down on the inspector’s desk. It was a glossy, luxurious bimonthly magazine that oozed with the money of its contributors. It was called The Province, with the subtitle Art, Sport, and Beauty.
Montalbano skimmed through it. Horrific paintings by amateur painters who considered themselves, at the very least, on a par with Picasso, ignoble poems signed by poetesses with double surnames (provincial poetesses always do this), the life and miracles of a certain Montelusan who had become deputy mayor of some lost town in Canada, and, lastly, in the sports section, no less than five pages devoted to “Saverio Lo Duca and His Horses.”
“What’s the article say?”
“A lot of crap. But you were interested in a photo of the stolen horse, no? It’s the third one. And which horse did Signora Esterman ride?”
“Moonbeam.”
“He’s the one in the fourth shot.”
The photos were large and in color, and each had the name of the horse as caption.
To have a better look, Montalbano reached into a drawer and pulled out a large magnifying glass.
“You look like Sherlock Holmes,” said Mimì.
“So would that make you Dr.Watson?”
He could see no difference between the dead horse on the beach and the horse in the photograph. But he didn’t know the first thing about horses. The only hope was to phone Rachele, but he didn’t want to do so in Mimì’s presence. She was liable to bring up some dangerous subjects, thinking him alone.
But as soon as Augello left to go back to his own office, the inspector called Rachele’s cell phone.
“Montalbano here.”
“Salvo! Lovely! I phoned you this morning but they said you weren’t there.”
He had forgotten he’d solemnly promised Ingrid to call Rachele back. He would have to fire off another lie. In his mind he coined another proverb: Often a lie/will help you get by.
“In fact I wasn’t here. But the minute I got back and was told you had asked for me, I called you.”
“I don’t want to take up your time. Is there any news on the investigation?”
“Which one?”
“The one into the killing of my horse, naturally!”
“But we’re not conducting any investigation into that, since you never filed a report.”
“You’re not?” said Rachele, disappointed.
“No. If anything, you should talk to Montelusa Central. That’s where Lo Duca reported the theft of the two horses.”
“I was hoping that—”
“I’m sorry. Listen, I’ve just happened, purely by chance, to come across a magazine that has a photograph of the horse of Lo Duca’s that was stolen—”
“Rudy.”
“Right.To me Rudy looks identical to the dead horse I saw on the beach.”
“Of course, they did look a lot alike. But they weren’t identical. My horse, Super, for example, had a strange little spot, a sort of three-pointed star, on his left flank. Did you see it?”
“No, because that was the side he was lying on.”
“That’s why they came and took him away. So he couldn’t be identified. I’m more and more convinced that Chichi is right: they wanted to make him stew in his own juices.”
“It’s possible . . .”
“Listen . . .”
“Tell me.”
“I’d like . . . to talk to you.To see you.”
“Rachele, you’ve got to believe me, I’m not lying when I say you’ve caught me at a very difficult moment.”
“But you have to eat to survive, don’t you?”
“Well, yes. But I don’t like to talk when I eat.”
“I’ll talk to you for only five minutes, I promise, after we’ve finished eating. Could we meet this evening?”
“I don’t know yet. Let’s do this. Call me here, at my office, at eight o’clock sharp, and I’ll give you an answer.”
He picked up the Licco file again, reread it, and jotted down a few more notes. He reviewed and re-reviewed the arguments that he had used against Licco, reading them with the eyes of a defense attorney, and what he remembered as a weak point now no longer seemed like a slight break in the fabric but a gaping hole. Licco’s friends were right. His attitude on the stand would be decisive; he needed only display a hint of hesitation and the lawyers would turn that hole into an out-and-out breach through which Licco could blithely walk away to a chorus of apologies on the part of the law.
When he came out of his office around one o’clock to go to the trattoria, Catarella called him.
“Beck y’pardon, Chief, but, are you here or not?”
“Who’s on the line?”
“Proxecutor Giarrazzo.”
“Let me talk to him.”
“Hello, Montalbano, this is Giarrizzo.You were looking for me?”
“Yes, thanks. I need to talk to you.”
“Could you come to my office . . . wait . . . around five-thirty?”
In view of the fact that he had practically fasted the previous day, he decided to compensate.
“Enzo, I’ve got a really big appetite.”
“Glad to hear it, Inspector.What can I bring you?”
“You know what I say? I think I’d have trouble deciding.”
“Leave it to me, sir.”
After eating and eating, at a certain point he realized a wafer-thin mint would have been enough to make him explode, like that character in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, a film he had found very funny. But it also occurred to him that it was his nervous agitation that had made him eat so much.
After strolling along the jetty for a good half hour, he returned to the office, but he still felt too much ballast in the hold. Fazio was waiting for him.
“Any news last night?” was the first thing he asked the inspector.
“Nothing. And what have you been doing?”
“I went to Montelusa Hospital.And I wasted the whole morning. Nobody wanted to tell me anything.”
“Why not?”
“Privacy laws, Chief. And on top of that, I had no written authorization.”
“So you’ve got nothing to show for it?”
“Who ever said that?” said Fazio, pulling a small sheet of paper out of his pocket.
“Where’d you get this information?”
“From a cousin of the uncle of a cousin of mine, who I found out works at the hospital.”
Family relations, even those so distant that they would no longer be considered such in any other part of Italy, were often, in Sicily, the only way to obtain information, expedite a bureaucratic procedure, find the whereabouts of a missing person, land a job for an unemployed son, pay less taxes, get free tickets to movies, and so many other things that it was probably safer not to reveal to people who were not family.