Excursion to Tindari

13

Few, and at first glance insubstantial, were the ultimate differences between the dream and the reality. The secluded little farmhouse pointed out by Father Crucillà as Japichinu’s secret hideout was the same as the one Montalbano had dreamt, except that this one, instead of a little window, had an open balcony directly over the door, which was also wide open.

Unlike in the dream, the priest did not run off in haste.

“You might,” he said, “be needing me.”

And Montalbano, in his mind, had duly knocked on wood. Father Crucillà, crouching behind a huge sorghum bush with the inspector and Augello, eyed the house and shook his head in concern.

“What’s wrong?” asked Montalbano.

“I don’t like the look of the door and balcony. The other times I came to see him, it was all closed up, and you had to knock. Be careful, I mean it. I can’t swear that Japichinu is ready to turn himself in. He keeps a machine gun always within reach, and he knows how to use it.”

When he was sure that Fazio and Gallo had reached their positions behind the house; Montalbano looked at Augello.

“I’m going in now. You cover me.”

“What kind of novelty is this?” Mimi reacted. “We’ve always done it the other way around.”

Montalbano couldn’t tell him he’d seen him die in a dream.

“This time we’re doing it differently.”

Mimi didn’t answer. He merely hunkered down with his .38. He could tell, by the inspector’s tone of voice, when there was room for discussion and when there was not.

Night hadn’t fallen yet. There was that gray light that precedes darkness, making it possible to distinguish silhouettes.

“How come he hasn’t turned on the lights?” asked Augello, gesturing with his chin towards the darkened house.

“Maybe he’s waiting for us,” said Montalbano.

And he rose to his feet, out in the open.

“What are you doing? What are you doing?” Mimi said in a whisper, trying to grab him by the jacket and pull him down. Then all of a sudden a terrifying thought occurred to him.

“Have you got your gun?”

“No.”

“Take mine.”

“No,” the inspector repeated, taking two steps forward. He stopped and cupped his hands around his mouth.

“Japichinu! This is Montalbano. I’m unarmed.”

There was no answer. The inspector advanced a short distance, calmly, as though out for a stroll. About ten feet from the door, he stopped again and said in a voice only slightly louder than normal:

“Japichinu! I’m coming inside now. So we can talk in peace.”

Nobody answered, nobody moved. Montalbano raised his hands and entered the house. It was pitch-dark inside. He stepped slightly to one side, so as not to be visible in the doorway. And that was when he smelled it, that odor he had smelled so many times, which always gave him a vague feeling of nausea. Before turning on the light, he already knew what he would see. Japichinu lay in the middle of the room, on top of what looked like a red blanket but was in fact his blood. Throat slashed. He must have been taken by surprise, treacherously, when he turned his back to his assassin.

“Salvo! Salvo! What’s happening?”

It was Mimi Augello. Montalbano appeared in the doorway.

“Fazio! Gallo! Mimi! Come!”

They all came running, the priest following behind, out of breath. Then, at the sight of Japichinu, they froze. The first one to move was Father Crucillà, who knelt beside the dead man, unconcerned by the blood soiling his frock, blessed him, and began to murmur some prayers. Mimi, for his part, touched the corpse’s forehead.

“They must have killed him not two hours ago.”

“What do we do now?” asked Fazio.

“The three of you are going to get in one car and go,” said Montalbano. “You’ll leave me the other car. I want to stay and have a little talk with the priest. Just remember: We never came to this house, and we never saw Japichinu’s corpse. Anyway, we’re not authorized to be here; it’s outside our territory. There could be some hassles.”

“All the same—” Mimi Augello started to say.

“All the same, my ass. We’ll meet back at the office.”

They filed out like beaten dogs, obeying against their will. The inspector heard them muttering intensely as they walked away. The priest was lost in prayer. He had more than his share of Hail Marys, Our Fathers, and requiems to recite, what with the load of murders on Japichinu’s shoulders, wherever he might be sailing at that moment. Montalbano climbed the stone staircase that led to the room above and turned on the light. There were two cots with only their mattresses, a nightstand between them, a shabby armoire, and two wooden chairs. In one corner, a small altar consisting of a low table covered with an embroidered white tablecloth. On the altar stood three statuettes: the Virgin Mary, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and Saint Calogero. Each statue had a little light burning in front. Japichinu was a religious kid, as his grandfather Balduccio had said. So religious he even had a spiritual father. The only problem was that the kid and the priest both mistook superstition for religion. Like most Sicilians, for that matter. The inspector remembered once having seen a crude votive painting from the early twentieth century, depicting a viddrano, a peasant, fleeing from two plumed carabinieri in hot pursuit. On the upper right, the Madonna was leaning down from the clouds, showing the fugitive the best path of escape. The scroll bore the words: For excaping the cluches of the law. On one of the cots, lying crosswise, was a Kalashnikov. He turned off the light, went downstairs, pulled up one of the two wicker chairs, and sat down.

“Father Crucillà.”

The priest, who was still praying, roused himself and looked up.

“Eh?”

“Pull up a chair and sit down. We need to talk.”

The priest obeyed. He was congested and sweating.

“How am I ever going to tell Don Balduccio?”

“There’s no need.”

“Why?”

“Because by now he’s already been told.”

“By whom?”

“By the killer, naturally.”

Father Crucillà struggled to grasp this. He kept staring at the inspector and moving his lips without forming any words. Then he understood and, eyes bulging, bolted out of his chair, reeled backwards, slipped on the blood, but managed to remain standing.

Now he’s going to have a stroke and die, thought Montalbano, alarmed.

“In God’s name, what are you saying?!” the priest wheezed.

“I’m just saying how things stand.”

“But Japichinu was sought by the police, the carabinieri, the Secret Service!”

“Who don’t usually slit the throats of people they’re trying to arrest.”

“What about the new Mafia? Or the Cuffaros?”

“Father, you just don’t want to accept that you and I have both been taken for a ride by that sly fox, Balduccio Sinagra.”

“What proof do you have—”

“Sit back down, if you don’t mind. Would you like a little water?”

Father Crucillà nodded yes. Montalbano grabbed a jug full of water, still nice and cool, and handed it to the priest, who put his lips to it at once.

“I have no proof and don’t believe we ever will.”

“And so?”

“Answer me first. Japichinu wasn’t staying here alone. He had a bodyguard who even slept beside him at night, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“What’s his name, do you know?”

“Lollò Spadaro.”

“Was he a friend of Japichinu’s or one of Don Balduccio’s men?”

“One of Don Balduccio’s. It was the don who wanted it this way. Japichinu didn’t even like ‘im, but he said with Lollò around, he felt safe.”

“So safe that Lollò was able to kill him without any problem.”

“How can you think such a thing! Maybe they cut Lollò’s throat before doing the same to Japichinu!”

“Well, Lollò’s body’s not upstairs. And it’s not down here, either.”

“Maybe it’s out there, outside the house!”

“Sure, we could look for it, but there’s no point.You forget that my men and I surrounded the house and carefully searched the whole area. And we didn’t stumble over Lollò’s body anywhere.”

Father Crucillà wrung his hands. The sweat was pouring down his face.

“But why would Don Balduccio set up a scene like this?”

“He wanted us as witnesses. What should I have done, in your opinion, as soon as I discovered the murder?”

“I don’t know ... Whatever you usually do. Call the forensics lab, the judge ...”

“And that would have allowed him to play the despairing grandfather, to scream that it was the new Mafia that killed his beloved grandson, whom he loved so much he would rather have seen him in jail and whom he actually succeeded in persuading to turn himself in to me. And you, a priest, were even there ... As I said, he took us for a ride. But only so far. Because in five minutes I’m going to leave and it’ll be exactly as if I’d never been here before. Balduccio’s going to have to come up with a new plan. But if you see him, give him some advice: tell him he’d better bury his grandson on the sly, without any fanfare.”

“But you ... How did you arrive at these conclusions?”

“Japichinu was a hunted animal. He was suspicious of everything and everyone. You think he would have turned his back on someone he didn’t know extremely well?”

“No.”

“Japichinu’s Kalashnikov is on his bed. Do you think he would have let himself piddle around here downstairs, unarmed, in the presence of someone he didn’t absolutely trust?”

“No.”

“And tell me another thing: were you told what course of action Lollò was supposed to take if Japichinu was arrested?”

“Yes. He was supposed to let himself be captured, too, without reacting.”

“And who gave him this order?”

“Don Balduccio himself.”

“That’s what Balduccio told you. Whereas he told Lollò something completely different.”

Father Crucillà’s throat was dry, and he set to the jug of water again.

“Why did Don Balduccio want his grandson to die?”

“To be honest, I don’t know. Maybe the kid screwed up, maybe he didn’t recognize his grandfather’s authority. You know, wars of succession don’t only happen among kings and captains of industry ...”

He stood up.

“I’m going to go. You want a lift in my car?”

“No, thanks,” the priest replied. “I’d like to stay a little longer and pray. I was very fond of him.”

“Suit yourself.”

At the door, the inspector turned around. “I wanted to thank you.”

“For what?” asked the priest, alarmed.

“In all the different conjectures you made as to who might have killed Japichinu, you didn’t once mention the bodyguard. You could have said it was Lollò Spadaro, who’d sold himself to the new Mafia. But you knew that never in a million years would Lollò betray Balduccio Sinagra. And your silence confirmed my hunch beyond the shadow of a doubt. Oh, one last thing. When you leave, don’t forget to turn off the light and lock the door. I wouldn’t want any stray dogs ... Understand?”

He went out. The night was completely dark. Before reaching his car, he stumbled over some rocks and holes in the ground. It reminded him of the Griffos’ calvary, with their killer kicking them from behind, cursing, rushing them to the place and the hour of their death.

“Amen,” he said, heart aching.

On his way back to Vigàta, he became convinced that Balduccio would follow the advice he was sending him through the priest. Japichinu’s corpse would end up at the bottom of some rocky cliff. No, the grandfather knew how religious his grandson was. He would have him buried anonymously in consecrated ground. In somebody else’s coffin.

Passing through the front door to headquarters, he found things unusually quiet. Could everyone have left, even though he told them to wait for him to return? No, they were there, Mimi, Fazio, and Gallo, each seated at his desk, face gloomy as after a defeat. He called them into his office.

“I want to tell you something. Fazio must have told you what went down between me and Balduccio Sinagra. Well, do you believe me?You must believe me, because I’ve never lied to you guys before, not about anything big, at least. From the very first, I realized that Don Balduccio’s request that I arrest Japichinu, because he’d be safer in jail, didn’t make sense.”

“So why did you give it any consideration?” Augello asked polemically.

“To see what he was up to. And to thwart his plan, if I could figure out what it was. Which I did, and then I made the proper countermove.”

“Which was what?” asked Fazio this time.

“Not letting our discovery of Japichinu’s body become official. That’s what Balduccio wanted: for us to be the ones to discover it, which would have provided him with an alibi.You see, he was expecting me to inform the judge that he’d intended for us to capture his grandson safe and sound.”

“After Fazio explained things to us,” Mimì resumed, “we reached the same conclusion as you, that is, that it was Balduccio who had his grandson killed. But why?”

“At the moment it’s not clear. But something’ll come out sooner or later. As far as we’re concerned, the whole business ends here.”

The door flew open, crashing against the wall with such force that the windows rattled. Everybody jumped. Naturally, it was Catarella.

“Oh Chief! Chief! Cicco de Cicco called just now! He made the development! An’ it worked! I wrote the number down on this piece a paper here. He made me repeat it to him five times!”

He set a half-sheet of squared notebook paper on the inspector’s desk and said:

“Beg your pardon ‘bout the door.”

He went out. And reclosed the door so hard that a crack in the paint near the handle widened slightly.

Montalbano read the license-plate number and looked at Fazio.

“You got Nenè Sanfilippo’s license-plate number within reach?”

“Which car? The Punto or the Duetto?”

Augello pricked up his ears.

“The Punto.”

“That one I know by heart: BA 927 GG.”

“They correspond,” said Mimi. “But what does it mean? Would you explain?”

Montalbano explained, telling them how he’d found out about the postal passbook and the money on deposit; how, following up on what Mimi himself had suggested to him, he’d studied the photos from the excursion to Tindari and discovered that a Fiat Punto had been riding on the bus’s rear bumper; and how he’d brought the photo to the Montelusa forensics lab to have them enlarge it. The whole time the inspector was speaking, Augello maintained a suspicious expression.

“You already knew,” he said.

“I already knew what?”

“That the car following behind the bus was Sanfilippo’s. You knew it before Catarella gave you that slip of paper.”

“Yes,” the inspector admitted.

“And how did you know?”

A tree, a Saracen olive tree told me. That would have been the correct answer, but Montalbano didn’t have the courage to say it.

“I had an intuition,” he said instead.

Augello let it drop.

“This means,” he said, “that the Griffo and Sanfilippo murders are closely connected.”

“We can’t say that yet,” the inspector disagreed. “The only thing we know for sure is that Sanfilippo’s car was following the bus the Griffos were in.”

“Beba even said he kept turning around to look at the road. Apparently he wanted to make sure Sanfilippo’s car was still behind them.”

“Right. Which tells us that there was a connection between Sanfilippo and the Griffos. But we have to stop there. Maybe Sanfilippo did pick them up in his car on the drive back, at the last stop before Vigàta.”

“Don’t forget that Beba said it was Alfonso Griffo himself who asked the driver to make that extra stop. Which means they must have planned it together beforehand.”

“Right again. But this does not allow us to conclude that Sanfilippo killed the Griffos himself, or that he in turn was shot as a consequence of the Griffos’ murders. The infidelity hypothesis still holds.”

“When are you going to see Ingrid?”

“Tomorrow evening. But you, tomorrow morning, try to gather some information on Eugenio Ignazio Ingrò, the transplant doctor. I’m not interested in what the papers have to say, but in the other stuff, the whispers.”

“I’ve got somebody, a friend in Montelusa, who knows him pretty well. I’ll find some excuse to pay him a visit.”

“But, Mimi, I’m warning you: kid gloves. It should be the furthest thing from everyone’s mind that we might be interested in the doctor and his cherished consort, Vanya Titulescu.”

Mimì; offended, pulled a frown.

“Do you take me for some kind of idiot?”

The moment he opened the refrigerator, he saw it.

Caponata! Fragrant, colorful, abundant, it filled an entire soup dish, enough for at least four people. It had been months since Adelina, his housekeeper, last made it for him. The bread, in its plastic bag, was fresh, bought that morning. The notes of the triumphal march of Aïda came spontaneously, naturally, to his lips. Humming, he opened the French window after turning on the light on the veranda. Yes, it was a cool night, but still warm enough to eat outside. He set the little table, brought the dish, the wine, and the bread outside, and sat down. The telephone rang. He covered the dish with a paper napkin and went to answer.

“Hello? Inspector Montalbano? This is Orazio Guttadauro.”

He’d been expecting this phone call. He’d have bet his ass on it.

“What can I do for you, sir?”

“First of all, please accept my apologies for being forced to call you at this hour.”

“Forced? By whom?”

“By circumstances, Inspector.”

Clever, this lawyer.

“What circumstances are you referring to?”

“My client and friend is worried.”

Was he afraid to mention Balduccio Sinagra’s name over the phone, now that a fresh corpse had been added to the mix?

“Oh, is he? And why’s that?”

“Well ... he hasn’t heard from his grandson since yesterday.”

Since yesterday? Balduccio Sinagra was starting to cover himself.

“What grandson? The exile?”

“Exile?” the lawyer repeated, genuinely puzzled.

“No need to be so formal, Counsel. Nowadays ‘exile’ and ’fugitive’ mean pretty much the same thing. Or so they would have us believe.”

“Yes, of course,” said the lawyer, still dazed.

“But how could he hear from his grandson if he was on the run?”

One roguish turn deserved another.

“Er ... well, you know how it is, mutual friends, people passing through ...”

“I see. And what has this got to do with me?”

“Nothing,” Guttadauro was quick to affirm. And he repeated, clearly pronouncing the words: “None of this has anything to do with you.”

Message received. Balduccio Sinagra was letting him know that he had taken the advice relayed to him by Father Crucillà. Of Japichinu’s murder there would be no mention. Japichinu could just as easily have not been born, if not for the people he’d killed.

“Why, Mr. Guttadauro, do you feel the need to communicate your friend and client’s worry to me?”

“Oh, it was just to let you know that, despite this agonizing worry, my friend and client has been thinking of you.”

“Of me?” said Montalbano, on his guard.

“Yes. He asked me to send you an envelope. He says there’s something inside that may interest you.”

“Listen, Mr. Guttadauro. I’m going to bed. I’ve had a rough day.”

“I entirely understand.”

The goddamn lawyer was being ironic.

“You can bring me the envelope tomorrow, at the station. Good night.”

He hung up, went back out on the veranda, then reconsidered. Returning inside, he picked up the phone and dialed.

“Livia, darling, how are you?”

There was silence at the other end.

“Livia?”

“My God, Salvo, what’s happening? Why are you calling me?”

“Why shouldn’t I call you?”

“Because you only call when something’s bothering you.”

“Oh, come on!”

“No, really, it’s true. When you’re not feeling bothered, I’m always the first to call.”

“Okay, you’re right, I’m sorry.”

“What did you want to tell me?”

“That I’ve been thinking a lot about our relationship.”

Livia—Montalbano distinctly heard it—held her breath. She didn’t speak. Montalbano continued.

“I realized that we’re often bickering, too often. Like a couple who’ve been married for years and are feeling the strain of living together. But the good part is, we don’t live together.”

“Go on,” said Livia in a faint voice.

“So, I said to myself: why don’t we start all over again, from the beginning?”

“I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

“Livia, what would you say if we got engaged?”

“Aren’t we already?”

“No. We’re married.”

“Okay. So how do we begin?”

“Like this: Livia, I love you. And you?”

“Me too. Good night, my love.”

“Good night.”

He hung up. Now he could stuff himself with the caponata without fearing any more phone calls.