Paper Moon

Why didn’t she invite him inside?

“How’s your mother?”

“Better, given the circumstances. Enough that she let my aunt persuade her to go stay with her.”

She couldn’t bring herself to invite him in.

“I wanted to tell you that, knowing I was here alone, a friend of mine came to see me. She’s inside. I could send her away, if you want. But since I have nothing to hide, you can act as though she weren’t there.”

“Are you saying I can speak openly in front of your friend?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, for me it’s not a problem.”

Only then did Michela stand aside to let him in. The first thing the inspector saw as he entered the living room was a great mass of red hair.

Paola the Red!he said to himself. Angelo’s girlfriend before Elena.

Paola Torrisi-Blanco, upon close examination, was forty-ish, but at first glance she could have easily passed for ten years younger. A good-looking woman, no doubt about that. Which proved that Angelo liked them prime quality.

“If I’m in the way …” said Paola, standing up and extending her hand to the inspector.

“Not at all!” Montalbano said ceremoniously. “Among other things, it saves me a trip to Montelusa.”

“Oh, really? Why?”

“I was planning to have a little chat with you.”

They all sat down and exchanged silent, polite smiles. A grand old get-together among friends. After an appropriate pause, the inspector turned to Michela.

“How’d it go with Judge Tommaseo?”

“Don’t remind me! That man is a…He’s got only one thing on his mind … Some of the questions he asks … it’s so embarrassing.”

“What did he ask you?” Paola asked mischievously.

“I’ll tell you later,” said Michela.

Montalbano imagined the scene: Tommaseo lost in Michela’s ocean eyes, red-faced, short of breath, trying to picture the shape of her tits under her penitent’s frock and asking her: “Do you have any idea why your brother’s organ was completely exposed while he was being murdered?”

“Did Tommaseo say when you can hold the funeral?” “Not for another three days. Is there any news?” “In the investigation? For the moment it’s at a standstill. I came to see you to try to get it going again.” “I’m at your disposal.”

“Michela, if you remember, when I asked you how much your brother earned, you said he brought home enough to maintain three people and two apartments fairly well. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Could you be more precise?”

“It’s not easy, Inspector. He didn’t have a fixed income or monthly salary. His earnings varied. There was a guaranteed minimum revenue, as well as the reimbursement of expenses and a percentage on the products he managed to sell. Naturally, what really affected things, and in a positive way, was the commission percentage. And now and then there were also performance bonuses. But I wouldn’t know how to translate all that into figures.”

“I have to ask you a delicate question. You told me Angelo used to give Elena very expensive gifts. This was confirmed to me by—”

“By the whore?” Michela finished his sentence.

“Now, now!” said Paola, laughing.

“Why shouldn’t I call her that?”

“It doesn’t seem to be the case.”

“But for a while she actually was one! Inspector, when Elena was still a minor, she ran away to Milan—”

“I know the whole story,” the inspector cut her short.

Though Elena might have confided in Angelo about the errors of her youth, it was unlikely Angelo had communicated them to his sister. Apparently it was not beneath Michela to hire some private agency to dig up information on her brother’s lover.

“In any case he never gavemeany gifts,” Paola said at this point. “Actually, no. One time he did buy me a pair of earrings at a sidewalk booth in Fela. Three thousand lire, I remember. “We didn’t have the euro yet.”

“Let’s get back to the subject I’m interested in,” said Montalbano. “To buy these gifts for Elena, did Angelo take the money from your joint account?”

“No,” Michela said firmly.

“So where did he get it?”

“Whenever he got checks for incentives or bonuses, he would cash them and keep the money at home. Once he had a certain amount, he would buy a present for that …”

“So you rule out the possibility that he could have had a personal account in some bank without your knowledge?”

“Absolutely.”

Prompt, firm, decisive. Maybe too prompt, too firm, too decisive.

How was it she never had the slightest doubt? Or maybe she had, and it was not so slight, but since it might cast some suspicion, some shadow, on her brother, she figured it was better to deny it.

Montalbano tried to outflank her defenses. He turned to Paola.

“You just said Angelo once bought you a pair of earrings in Fela. Why in Fela, of all places? Had you accompanied him there?”

Paola gave a little smile.

“Unlike Elena, I used to go along with him on his rounds in the province.”

“He didn’t bringheralong because she was already following him!” Michela let fly.

“When I was free of commitments at school, of course,” Paola continued.

“Did you ever see him go into a bank?”

“Not that I can remember.”

“Was he very friendly with any of the doctors or pharmacists he used to visit?”

“I don’t understand the question.”

“Were there any of his…let’s call them clients, with whom he was a little friendlier than with others?”

“You know, Inspector, I didn’t know them all. He used to introduce me as his girlfriend. And it was sort of true. But it seemed to me like he treated them all the same way.”

“When he brought you along with him, were you present at all his meetings?”

“No, sometimes he would ask me to wait in the car or to take a walk.”

“Did he ever tell you the reason?”

“Well, he used to joke about it. He would say he had to go see a young and handsome doctor and he was afraid that…Or else he would explain that the doctor was a very devout, narrow-minded Catholic who might not approve of my presence—”

“Inspector,” Michela cut in, “my brother clearly distinguished his friends from the people he did business with. I don’t know if you noticed, but in his desk he kept two datebooks, one with the addresses of friends and family, the other with—”

“Yes, I noticed,” said Montalbano. Then, still speaking to Paola: “You apparently teach at theliceoof Montelusa?”

“Yes. Italian.”

She gave another little smile.

“I see what you’re getting at. Emilio Sclafani is not just my colleague; we’re actually friends, in a way. One evening I invited Emilio and his young wife to dinner. Angelo was there, too, and that’s when it all started between them.”

“Listen, Elena told me her husband knew all about her affair with Angelo. Can you by any chance confirm that?”

“It’s true. In fact, the strangest thing happened.”

“Namely?”

“It was Emilio himself who told me that Angelo and his wife had become lovers. She’d told him just a few hours before. I didn’t want to believe it. I thought Emilio was pulling my leg. The next day Angelo phoned me to say he wouldn’t be able to see me for a while. So I blew up and told him what Emilio had told me. He stammered a bit and then owned up to it. But he pleaded with me to be patient, said it was just a little fling …But I was adamant, and our relationship ended there.”

“You never saw each other again?”

“No. We never spoke again either.”

“And did you maintain friendly relations with Mr. Sclafani?”

“Yes. But I never invited him to dinner again.” “Have you seen him since Angelo died?” “Yes. Just this morning.” “How did he seem?” “Upset.”

Montalbano hadn’t expected such a prompt reply. “In what way?”

“Don’t get the wrong idea, Inspector. Emilio’s upset because his wife lost her lover, that’s all. Elena probably confessed to him how attached she was to him, how jealous—”

“Who told you she was jealous? Emilio?”

“Emilio has never said anything to me about Elena’s feelings towards Angelo.”

“It was me,” Michela cut in.

“She also gave me a sort of summary of Elena’s letters.” “Speaking of which, have you found them?” asked Michela.

“No,” said Montalbano, lying.

On this matter he sensed intuitively, in his gut, that the more he muddied the waters, the better.

“She obviously got rid of them,” Michela said, convinced.

“What for?” the inspector asked.

“What do you mean, ‘what for’?” Michela reacted. “Those letters could be used as evidence against her!”

“But, you know,” Montalbano said with an innocent, angelic look on his face, “Elena has already admitted writing them. Jealousy and death threats included. If she admits this, what reason would she have to get rid of them?”

“Well, then, what are you waiting for?” said Michela, summoning her special sandpaper voice.

“To do what?”

“Arrest her!”

“There’s a problem. Elena says those letters were practically dictated to her.” “By whom?” “Angelo.”

The two women had entirely different reactions.

“Slut! Bitch! Liar!” Michela screamed, springing to her feet.

Paola instead sank further into her armchair.

“What could have possessed Angelo to have her write him jealous letters?” she asked, more curious than confused.

“Even Elena couldn’t tell me,” said Montalbano, lying again.

“She couldn’t tell you because it’s totally untrue!” Michela said, practically screaming.

Her voice was turning dangerously from sandpaper into grindstones again. Having no desire whatsoever to witness another scene from a Greek tragedy, Montalbano thought he could be satisfied with the evening’s proceedings.

“Did you write down those addresses for me?” he asked Michela.

The woman gave him a puzzled look. “Remember? The two women, one of whom, I think, was named Stella …”

“Oh, right. Just a minute.” She left the room.

Then Paola, leaning slightly forward, said to him softly:

“I need to talk to you. Could you call me tomorrow morning? There’s no school. I’m in the phone book.”

Michela returned with a sheet of paper, which she handed to the inspector.

“The list of Angelo’s past loves.”

“Is there anyone I don’t know?” asked Paola.

“I don’t think Angelo hid any of his amorous history from you.”

Montalbano stood up, and it was time for fond good-byes.

It had become so humid that there was no point in staying out on the veranda, even though it was covered. The inspector went inside and sat down at the table. His brain, after all, functioned the same way inside or outside. For the past half hour, in fact, a lively debate had been raging inside him.

The theme was: During an investigation, does a real policeman take notes or not?

He, for example, had never done so. In fact, it irritated him when others did, even if they were better policemen than he.

But that was in the past. Because for a while now he’d been feeling the need to do so. And why did he feel the need to do so? Elementary, my dear Watson. Because he realized he was starting to forget some very important things. Alas, old friend, good Inspector, it’s nowlas cinco de la tarde,and we’ve touched the sore spot of the whole matter. One starts to forget things when the weight of years begins to make it-self felt. What was it, more or less, a poet once said?

How the snow weighs down the branches and the years stoop the shoulders so dear; the years of youth are faraway years.

Perhaps it was better to change the title of the debate: During an investigation, does anoldpoliceman take notes or not?

By adding age into the equation, taking notes seemed less unbecoming to Montalbano. But this implied unconditional surrender to the advancing years. He had to find a compromise solution. Then a brilliant idea came to him. He picked up paper and pen and wrote himself a letter.

Dear Inspector Montalbano,

I realize that at this moment your cojones are in a dizzying spin for entirely personal reasons concerning the idea of old age stubbornly knocking on your door, but I am pleased to remind you, with the present letter, of your duties, and would like to present you with a few observations on the ongoing investigation into the murder of Angelo Pardo.

First. “Who was Angelo Pardo?

A former doctor who’d had his medical license revoked for an abortion involving a girl made pregnant by him(absolutely must talk to Teresa Cacciatore who lives in Palermo).

He begins working as a medical/pharmaceutical “informer,” earning much more than what he tells his sister. In fact, he lavishes extremely expensive gifts on his last mistress, Elena Sclafani.

He very likely has a bank account somewhere, which we have not yet managed to locate.

He most certainly owned a strongbox that has never been found.

He was murdered by a gunshot to the face (isthis significant?)

At the moment of death, moreover, his cock was hanging out(this certainly is significant, but exactly what does it signify?)

Possible motives for the murder:

a)female troubles;

b)shady influence peddling and kickbacks, a lead suggested by Nicold and possibly worth pursuing.(Check with Marshal Lagana.)

He uses a secret code (for what?).

He has three computer files protected by passwords. The first of these, which Catarella succeeded in opening, is entirely in code.

“Which means that Angelo Pardo definitely had something he wanted to keep carefully hidden.

One last note:Why were the three letters from Elena hidden under the carpet in the trunk of the Mercedes?(I have a feeling this point is of some importance but can’t say why) Please forgive me, dear Inspector, if this first section, devoted to the murder victim, is a bit disorganized, but I wrote these things down as they came into my head, not according to any logical sequence.

Second. Elena Sclafani.

You’re wondering, naturally, why I wrote Elena Sclafani’s name second. I realize, my friend, that you’ve taken quite a shine to the girl. She’s pretty (okay, gorgeous—I don’t mind you correcting me), and of course you would do everything in your power to keep her off the top of the list of suspects. You like the sincere way she talks about herself, but has it never occurred to you that sincerity can sometimes be a deliberate strategy for leading one away from the truth, just like the apparently opposite strategy, that is, lying? You think I’m talking philosophy?

Okay, then I’ll brutally play the cop.

There is no question that there are letters from Elena in which, out of jealousy, she makes death threats to her lover.

Elena admits to having written these letters but claims that they were dictated to her by Angelo. There is no proof of this, however; it is only an assertion with no possibility of verification. And the explanations she gives for why Angelo made her write them are, you must admit, dear Inspector, rather fuzzy.

For the night of the murder, Elena has no alibi.(Careful: You were under the impression she was hiding something, Don’t forget

She says she went out driving around in her car, with no precise destination, for the sole purpose of proving to herself that she could do without Angelo. Does her lack of an alibi for that evening seem like nothing to you?

As for Elena’s blind jealousy, there are not only the letters to attest to his but also Michela’s testimony. Debatable testimony, true, but it will carry weight in the eyes of the public prosecutor.

Would you like me to describe a scenario, dear Inspector, that you will surely find unpleasant? Just for a moment, pretend that I am Prosecutor Tommaseo.

Wild with jealousy and now certain that Angelo is being unfaithful to her, Elena, that evening, arms herself—where and how she obtained the weapon, we’ll find out later—and goes and waits outside Angelo’s building. But first she calls her lover to tell him she can’t come to his place. Angelo swallows the bait, brings the other woman home, and, to be on the safe side, takes her up to the room on the terrace. For reasons we may or may not discover, the two do not make love. But Elena doesn’t know this. And in any case this detail is, in a way, of no consequence. When the woman leaves, Elena enters the building, goes up to the terrace, quarrels or does not quarrel with Angelo, and shoots him. And as a final outrage, she zips open his jeans and exposes the bone, as it were, of contention. This reconstruction, I realize, is full of holes. But do you somehow expect Tommaseo not to revel in it? Why, the man will dive into it headfirst.

I’m afraid your Elena’s in quite a pickle, old boy.

And you, if I may say so, are not doing your duty, which would be to tell the public prosecutor where things stand. And the worst of it—given the unfortunate fact that I know you very well—is that you have no intention of doing it. Your duty, that is.

All I can do, therefore, is take note of your deplorable and partisan course of action.

The only course left is to find out, as quickly as possible, the meaning of the code contained in the little songbook—what it refers to, and what the hell the first file opened by Catarella means.

Third. Michela Pardo.

Despite the woman’s manifest inclination towards Greek tragedy, you do not consider her, as things now stand, capable of fratricide. It is beyond all doubt, however, that Michela is ready to do anything to keep her brother’s name from being sullied. And she certainly knows more about Angelo’s dealings than she lets on. Among other things, you, distinguished friend, suspect that Michela, taking advantage of your foolishness, may have removed something crucial to the case from Angelo’s apartment. But I’ll stop here.

With best wishes for success, I remain

Yours sincerely,

SALVOMONTALBANO

The following morning the alarm clock rang and Montalbano woke up, but instead of racing out of bed to avoid unpleasant thoughts of old age, decrepitude, Alzheimer’s, and death, he just lay there.

He was thinking of the distinguished schoolmaster Emilio Sclafani, whom he’d not yet had the pleasure of meeting personally in person, but who nevertheless deserved to be taken into consideration. Yes, the good professor was definitely worthy of a little attention.

First of all, because he was an impotent man with a penchant for marrying young girls—whether in first or second blush, it didn’t matter—who could have been, in both cases, his daughters. The two wives had one thing in common, which was that meeting the schoolteacher helped them to pull themselves out of difficult situations, to say the least. The first wife was from a family of ragamuffins, while the second was losing her way down a black hole of prostitution and drugs. By marrying them the schoolteacher was, first and foremost, securing their gratitude. We want to call a spade a spade, don’t we? The professor was subjecting them to a sort of indirect blackmail: He would rescue them from their poverty or confusion on the condition that they remained with him, even while knowing his shortcomings. So much for the kindness and understanding Elena talked about!

Second, the fact that he himself had chosen the man with whom his first wife might satisfy her natural, young-womanly needs was in no way a sign of generosity. It was, in fact, a refined way to keep her even more tightly on a leash. And it was, among other things, a way to fulfil, so to speak, his conjugal duty, through a third party appointed by him for that purpose. The wife, moreover, was supposed to inform him every time she met with the lover and even describe the encounter to him in detail afterwards. Indeed, when the schoolteacher surprised them during an encounter about which he had not been informed, things turned nasty.

After his experience with his first wife, the schoolteacher allowed the second wife freedom of masculine choice, without prejudice to the obligation of prior notification of the day and time of mounting (could you really put it any other way?).

But why, knowing his natural deficiency, did the distinguished professor want to get married twice?

Perhaps the first time he’d hoped that a miracle, to use Elena’s word, would occur, so we’ll leave it at that. But the second time? How is it he hadn’t become more savvy? Why didn’t he marry, for example, a widow of a certain age whose sensual needs had already been abundantly mollified? Did he need to smell the fragrance of young flesh beside him in bed? Who did he think he was, Mao Tse-tung?

Anyway, the inspector’s talk the night before with Paola the Red (speaking of whom, he mustn’t forget she wanted him to call her) had brought out a contradiction that might or might not prove important. Namely, Elena maintained she had never wanted to go out to dinner or to the movies with Angelo, to keep people from laughing at her husband behind his back, whereas Paola said that she’d learned of the relationship between Elena and Angelo from the schoolteacher himself. Thus, while the wife was doing everything she could to keep her hanky-panky from becoming the talk of the town, her husband didn’t hesitate to state flat out that his wife was engaging in hanky-panky.

The schoolmaster, moreover, had, according to Paola, seemed upset about the violent death of his wife’s lover. Does that seem right?

He got up, drank his coffee, took a shower, and shaved, but, as he was about to go out, a wave of lethargy swept over him. All of a sudden he no longer felt like going to the office, seeing people, talking.

He went out on the veranda. The day looked like it was made of porcelain. He decided to do what his body was telling him to do.

“Catarella? Montalbano here. I’ll be coming in late to-day.”

“Aahhh, Chief, Chief, I wanneta say—”

He hung up, grabbed the two sheets of paper Catarella had printed out and the little songbook, and laid them down on the table on the veranda.

He went back inside, looked in the phone book, found the number he wanted, and dialed it. As the number was ringing, he checked his watch: nine o’clock, just the right time to call a schoolteacher who was staying home from school.

Montalbano let the phone ring a long time and was about to lose patience when he heard someone pick up at the other end.

“Hello?” said a male voice, sounding slightly groggy.

The inspector hadn’t expected this and felt a little bewildered.

“Hello?” the male voice repeated, now not only slightly groggy but also slightly irritated.

“Inspector Montalbano here. I would like—”

“You want Paola?”

“Yes, if it’s not—”

“I’ll go get her.”

Three minutes of silence passed.

“Hello?” said a female voice the inspector didn’t recognize.

“Am I speaking with Paola Torrisi?” he asked, doubtful.

“Yes, Inspector, it’s me, thanks for calling.”

But it wasn’t the same voice as the previous evening. This one was a bit husky, deep, and sensual, like that of someone who…He suddenly realized that maybe nine in the morning wasn’t the right time of day to call a schoolteacher who, staying home from work, might be busy with other things.

“I’m sorry if I’ve inconvenienced you …” She giggled.

“It’s no big deal. I want to tell you something, but not over the phone. Could we meet somewhere? I could drop by the station.”

“I won’t be in my office this morning. We could meet later this morning in Montelusa. You tell me where.”

They decided on a cafe on the Promenade. At noon. That way Paola could finish at her own pace what she had started before being interrupted by his phone call. And maybe even allow herself an encore.

“While he was at it, he decided to confront Dr. Pasquano. Better over the phone than in person.

“What’s the story, Doctor?”

“Take your pick. Little Red Riding Hood or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” “No, Doctor, I meant—”

“I know what you meant. I’ve already let Tommaseo know that I’ve done what I was supposed to do and that he’ll have the report by tomorrow.”

“What about me?”

“Have Tommaseo give you a copy.”

“But couldn’t you tell me—”

“Tell you what? Don’t you already know he was shot in the face at close range? Or would you rather I use some technical terms where you wouldn’t understand a goddamn thing? And haven’t I also told you that although his thing was exposed, it hadn’t been used?”

“Did you find the bullet?”

“Yes. And I sent it over to Forensics. It entered through the left eye socket and tore his head apart.”

“Anything else?”

“Do you promise not to bug me for at least ten days if I tell you?” “I swear.”

“Well, they didn’t kill him right away.” “What do you mean?”

“They stuck a big handkerchief or a white rag in his mouth to prevent him from screaming. I found some filaments of white cloth wedged between his teeth. Sent them down to the lab. And after they shot him, they pulled the cloth out of his mouth and took it with them.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“If it’s the last.”

“Why are you speaking in the plural? Do you think there was more than one killer?”

“Do you really want to know why? To confuse you, my friend.”

He was a mean one, Pasquano, and enjoyed it.

But this business of the rag crammed into Angelo’s mouth was not something to be taken lightly.

It meant that the murder had not been committed on impulse. I came, I shot, I left. And good night.

No. Whoever went to see Angelo had some questions to ask him, wanted to know something from him. And needed some time to do this. That was why they put him in a state where he’d be forced to listen to what the other was saying or asking him, and they would take the rag out of his mouth only when Angelo had decided to answer.

And maybe Angelo answered and was killed anyway. Or else he wouldn’t or couldn’t answer, and that was why he was killed. But why hadn’t the killer left the rag in his mouth? Perhaps because he was hoping to lead the police down a less certain path? Or, more precisely, because he was trying to create a false lead by making it look like a crime of passion—a premise which, though supported by the bird outside the cage, would have been disproved if the rag had been found in the victim’s mouth? Or was it because the rag wasn’t a rag? Maybe it was a handkerchief with personalized initials that could have led to the killer’s first and last names?

He gave up and went out on the veranda.

He sat down and looked dejectedly at the two pages Catarella had printed up. He never had understood a damn thing about numbers. Back in high school, he remembered, when his friends were already doing abscesses—no, wait, abscesses are something else, something you get in your mouth. So what were they called? Ah, yes. Abscissas. When his schoolmates were doing abscissas and coordinates, he was still having trouble with the multiplication table for the number eight.

On the first page, there was a column of thirty-eight numbers on the left-hand side, which corresponded to a second column of thirty-eight numbers on the right-hand side.

On the second page, there were thirty-two numbers on the left and thirty-two numbers on the right. Thus the sum total of numbers on the left came to seventy, and there were seventy numbers on the right as well. Montalbano congratulated himself on this discovery, while having to admit to himself that the exact same conclusion could have been reached by a little kid in the third grade.

Half an hour later, he made a discovery that gave him as much satisfaction as Marconi surely must have felt when he realized he’d invented the wireless telegraph or whatever it was he invented. That is, he discovered that the numbers in the left-hand columns were not all different but consisted of a group of fourteen numbers each repeated five times. The repetitions were not consecutive but scattered as though at random within the two columns.

He took one of the two numbers in the left-hand column and copied it onto the back of one of the pages as many times as it was repeated. Next to it he wrote down the corresponding numbers from the right-hand column.

213452 136000

213452 80000

213452 200000

213452 70000

213452 110000

It seemed clear to him that while the number on the left was in code, the number on the right was in clear and referred to a sum of money. The total came to 596,000. Not much if it was in lire. But more than a billion lire if it was in euros, as was more likely. So the business dealings between Angelo and Signor 213452 came to that amount. Now, since there were another thirteen numbered gentlemen, and the corresponding numbers for each added up to about the same amount as those examined, this meant that Angelo’s business volume came to over 12, 13 billion lire, or 6, 6.5 million euros. To be kept, however, carefully hidden. Assuming everything conformed to his suppositions. It was not impossible that those figures meant something else.

His eyes started to fog over, having trouble focusing on the numbers. He was getting tired. At this rate, he thought, it would take him three to five years to crack the code of the songs, and by the time it was all over, he would surely be blind and walking around with a white stick and a dog on a harness.

He brought everything back inside, closed the door to the veranda, went out, got in his car, and left. Since he was still a bit early for his appointment with Paola, he crept along at barely five miles per hour, driving everyone who happened to be behind him crazy. Every motorist, when each managed to pass him, felt obliged to insult him. Thus, he was a(n): faggot, according to a trucker; asshole, according to a priest;

cornuto,according to a nice lady;

ba-ba-ba-, according to a stutterer.

But all these insults went in one ear and out the other. Only one really made him mad. A distinguished-looking man of about sixty pulled up alongside him and said: “Donkey!”

Donkey? How dared he? The inspector made a vain attempt to pursue the man, pressing on the accelerator until he was at twenty miles an hour, but then preferred slowing back down to his normal cruising speed.

Arriving at the Promenade, he couldn’t find a parking space and had to drive around a long time before he found a spot very far from the appointed place. “When he finally got there, Paola was already sitting at a table, waiting for him.

She ordered a prosecco. Montalbano joined in.

“This morning, when Carlo heard there was a police inspector on the phone, he got a terrible scare.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Oh, that’s just the way he is. He’s a sweet kid, but the mere sight of, say, a Carabiniere driving beside him deeply upsets him. There’s no explanation for it.”

“Maybe some research into his DNA could come up with an explanation,” said Montalbano. “He probably had a few ancestors who were outlaws. Ask him sometime.”

They laughed. So the man who took up the schoolteacher’s free time on days when she didn’t go to school was named Carlo. End of subject. They moved on to the matter at hand.

“Yesterday evening,” said Paola, “when that business about Angelo dictating the letters to Elena came out, I felt really uncomfortable.”

“Why?”

“Because, despite Michela’s opinion to the contrary, I think Elena was telling the truth.” “How do you know?”

“You see, Inspector, during the time we were together, I wrote Angelo many letters. I used to like to write to him.” “I didn’t find any when I searched the apartment.” “They were returned to me.” “By Angelo?”

“No, by Michela. After her brother and I broke up. She didn’t want them to end up in Elena’s hands.”

Michela really could not stand this Elena.

“You still haven’t told me why you felt uncomfortable.”

“Well, one of those letters was dictated by Angelo.”

A big point for Elena! One which, moreover, could not be cast into doubt, since it was scored by her defeated rival.

“Or, rather,” Paola continued, “he gave me the general outlines. And since we broke up, I’ve never said anything to Michela about this little conspiracy.”

“You could have mentioned it last night.”

“Would you believe me if I said I didn’t have the courage? Michela was so sure that Elena was lying …”

“Can you describe the contents of the letter?”

“Of course. Angelo had to go to Holland for a week, and Michela had made it clear she intended to go with him. So he had me write a letter saying I’d asked for a ten-day leave from school so I could accompany him. It wasn’t true; it was exams time. Like they’re going to give me a ten-day vacation during exams! Anyway, he said he would show his sister the letter, and this would allow him to go alone, as he wished.”

“And if Michela had run into you in Montelusa when Angelo was in Holland, how would you have explained that to her?”

“Angelo and I had thought about this. I would have said that at the last moment the school denied me permission to leave.”

“And you didn’t mind him going away alone?”

“Well, I did, a little, of course. But I realized that it was important for Angelo to liberate himself for a few days from Michela’s overbearing presence.”

“Overbearing?”

“I don’t know how else to define it, Inspector. Words like ‘assiduous,’ ‘affectionate,’ ‘loving’ don’t really give a sense of it. They fall short. Michela felt this sort of absolute obligation to look after her brother, as though he were a little boy.”

“What was she afraid of?”

“Nothing, I don’t think. My explanation for it—there’s nothing scientific about it, mind you, I don’t know a thing about psychoanalysis—but in my opinion it came from a sort of frustrated craving for motherhood that was transferred entirely, and apprehensively, onto her brother.”

She gave her usual giggle.

“I’ve often thought that if I’d married Angelo, it would have been very hard for me to free myself not from my mother-in-law’s clutches—since she, poor thing, counts for nothing—but from my sister-in-law’s.”

She paused. Montalbano realized she was weighing the words she would use to express what she was thinking.

“When Angelo died, I expected Michela to fall apart. Whereas the opposite happened.”

“Meaning?”

“She wailed, she screamed, she cried, yes, but at the same time I sensed a feeling of liberation in her, at the unconscious level. It was as if she’d thrown off a burden. She seemed more serene, more free. You know what I mean?”

“Perfectly.”

Then, who knows why, a question popped into his mind.

“Has Michela ever had a boyfriend?” “Why do you ask?” “Dunno, just wondering.”

“She told me that when she was nineteen, she fell in love with a boy who was twenty-one. They were officially engaged for three years.”

“Why did they break up?”

“They didn’t. He died. He was a little too fond of driving really fast on his motorcycle, even though he was apparently a gifted cyclist. I don’t know the details of the accident. In any case, after that, Michela never wanted to get close to other men. And I think that from that moment on, she redoubled her vigilance over poor Angelo, until she became asphyxiating.”

“You’re an intelligent woman, you’re in no way under investigation, and you’ve long considered your relationship with Angelo over,” said Montalbano, looking her in the eye.

“Your preamble is a bit distressing,” said Paola with her usual grin. “What are you getting at?”

“I want an answer. Who was Angelo Pardo?”

She didn’t seemed surprised by the question.

“I’ve asked myself the same thing, Inspector. And I don’t mean when he left me for Elena. Because up till then I knew who Angelo was. He was an ambitious man, first of all.”

“I’d never thought of him in that light.”

“Because he didn’t want to appear so. I think he suffered a lot from being expelled from the medical association. It cut short a very promising career. But, you see, even with the profession he had, he would have had exclusive rights of representation for two multinational pharmaceutical companies across all of Sicily, not just Montelusa and its province.” “He told you this?”

“No, but I overheard many of his phone conversations with Zurich and Amsterdam.”

“And when did you start asking yourself who Angelo Pardo was?”

“When he was killed. Things began to appear in a different light, things for which you had an explanation before and which now, after his death, are not so easily explained anymore.”

“Such as?”

“Such as certain gray areas. He was capable of disappearing for a few days at a time and then, when he came back, he wouldn’t tell you anything. You couldn’t squeeze a single word out of him. In the end I was convinced he was seeing another woman, having some passing fling. But after the way he was killed, I’m no longer so sure he was having affairs.”

“What was he doing, then?”

Paola threw up her hands in despair.

12

Before going to eat, Montalbano dropped in at the station. Catarella was sleeping in front of the computer, head thrown back, mouth open, a bit of saliva trickling down his chin. He did not wake up. The next phone call would take care of that.

On the inspector’s desk was a dark blue canvas bag. A leather label stuck onto the front of it bore the words “Salmon House.” He opened it and realized it was insulated. Inside were five round, transparent plastic containers in which one could see large fillets of pickled herring swimming in multicolored sauces. There was also a smoked salmon, whole. And an envelope wrapped in cellophane.

He opened it.

From Sweden with love. Ingrid.

Apparently Ingrid had found someone there from Sicily and taken the opportunity to send along that little gift. He suddenly missed Ingrid so much that the desire to open one of those containers and have a little foretaste faded. When would she make up her mind to come back?

It was no longer possible to go to the trattoria. He had to race back home and empty that bag in the refrigerator.

Picking it up, he noticed there were three sheets of paper under it. The first was a note from Catarella.

Chief. Seeing as how I don’t know weather or not your coming personally in person to the ofice, I’m leving you the printout of the siccond file which I had to stay up all nite to figger out the past word for but in the end I stuck it to that file I did.

The other two pages were all numbers. Two columns, as before. The left-hand figures were exactly the same as those in the first file. He pulled the pages he’d worked on that morning out of his jacket pocket and checked.

Identical. All that changed were the numbers in the second column. But he didn’t feel like giving himself a headache.

He left the old pages, the new pages, and the coded songbook on the desk, grabbed the canvas bag, and went out of the room. Passing by the closet at the entrance, he heard Catarella yelling.

“No, sir, no, sir, I’m sorry but the inspector ain’t in, this morning he said this morning he wasn’t coming in this morning. Yessir, I’ll tell ‘im, certifiably. Have no fears, I’ll tell ‘im.”

“Was that for me, Cat?” asked the inspector, appearing before him.

Catarella looked at him as if he were Lazarus risen from the dead.

“Matre santa,Chief, where djouse come from?”

It was too complicated to explain that he’d been sleeping, drained from a night of battle with passwords, when the inspector came in. Never in a million years, moreover, would the diligent Catarella have admitted nodding off on the job at the switchboard.

“Who was it?” the inspector asked.

“Dr. Latte wit’ ansat the end. He said that seeing as how Mr. C’mishner can’t see you today, neither, the day we’re at now, as you guys prearraigned, he says he rearraigned it for tomorrow, atta zack same time as was sposed to be on the day of today.”

“Cat, do you know you are brilliant?”

“For as how the way I ‘splained what that Dr. Latte wit’ ansat the end said?”

“No, because you managed to open the second file.”

“Ahhh, Chief! I straggled all night wit’ it! You got no idea what kinda trouble I had! It was a past word that looked like one past word but rilly was—”

“Tell me about it later, Cat.”

He was afraid to waste time. The herring and salmon in the bag might start to spoil.

But the moment he got home and opened the first container, the persuasive aroma invading his nostrils made him realize he needed to equip himself at once with a plate, a fork, and a fresh loaf of bread.

At least half the contents of those containers needed to go not in the refrigerator but straight into his belly. Only the salmon went into the fridge. The rest he took outside onto the veranda, after setting the table.

The herring, which were high caliber, turned out to be marinated in a variety of preparations ranging from sweet-and-sour sauce to mustard. He had a feast. He really wanted to scarf them all down, but realized that he would spend the whole afternoon and evening wanting water like someone stranded for days in the desert.

So he put what remained into the fridge and replaced his customary walk along the jetty with a long walk on the beach.

Then he took a shower and lolled about the house a bit before returning to the station around four-thirty. Catarella was not at his post. In compensation he ran into a glum-faced Mimi Augello in the corridor.

“What’s wrong, Mimi?”

“Where are you coming from? What are you doing?” Augello fired back edgily, following him into his office.

“I come from Vigata, and I’m doing my job as inspector,”Montalbano crooned to the tune of “Pale Little Lady.”

“Yeah, go ahead and play the wise guy. This is really not the time for that, Salvo.”

Montalbano got worried.

“Salvuccio’s not feeling well?”

“Salvuccio’s feeling great. It’s me that’s the problem, after receiving a heavy dose of Liguori, who practically went nuts.”

“Why?”

“See, I was right to ask you where you’ve been! Don’t you know what happened yesterday in Fanara?” “No.”

“You didn’t turn on your TV?” “No. Come on, what happened?” “MP Di Cristoforo died.”

Di Cristoforo! Undersecretary for communications! Rising star of the ruling party—not to mention, according to gossips, a young man much admired in those circles where admiration goes hand in hand with staying alive.

“But he wasn’t even fifty years old! What’d he die of?”

“Officially, a heart attack. Owing to the stress of all the political commitments to which he so generously devoted himself…and so on and so forth. Unofficially, from the same illness as Nicotra.”

“Fuck!”

“Exactly. Now you understand why Liguori, feeling the seat of his pants starting to burn, demands that we arrest the supplier before any more illustrious victims fall.”

“Listen, Mimi, weren’t these gentlemen doing cocaine?”

“Of course.”

“But I’d always heard that coke wasn’t—”

“That’s what I thought, too. Except Liguori, who’s a first-class asshole but knows his trade well, explained to me that when coke isn’t properly cut, or is cut with certain other substances, it can turn poisonous. And in fact both Nicotra and Di Cristoforo died of poisoning.”

“But I don’t get it, Mimi. What interest could a dealer have in killing his clients?”

“Well, in fact, it wasn’t intentional. It’s just a little collateral damage. According to Liguori, our dealer didn’t just deal. He also further cut the merchandise, by himself and with inadequate means, doubling the quantity before putting it on the market.”

“So there might be other deaths.”

“Absolutely.”

“And what’s lighting a fire under us all is the fact that this dealer supplies a high-flying circle of politicians, businessmen, established professionals, and so on.”

“You said it.”

“But how did Liguori come to the conclusion that the dealer is in Vigata?”

“He merely hinted that he deduced it from clues provided by an informer.”

“Best wishes, Mimi.”

“What do you mean, ‘best wishes’? Is that all you have to say?”

“Mimi, I told you yesterday what I had to say. Make your moves very carefully. This is not a police operation.” “It’s not? Then what is it?”

“It’s a secret service operation, Mimi. For the guys who work in the shadows and are followers of Stalin.” Mimi scowled.

“What’s Stalin got to do with this?”

“Apparently Uncle Joe once said that when a man becomes a problem, you need only eliminate the man to eliminate the problem.”

“What’s that got to do with this?”

“I’ve already told you, and I repeat: The only solution is to kill this dealer or have him killed. Think about it. Let’s say you go by the book and arrest him. When you’re writing the report, you can’t very well say he’s responsible for the deaths of Nicotra and Di Cristoforo.”

“I can’t?”

“No, you can’t. Mimi, you’re more thickheaded than a Calabrian. Senator Nicotra and MP Di Cristoforo were respectable, honorable men, paragons of virtue—all church, family, public service. No drugs of any sort, ever. If need be, ten thousand witnesses will testify in their favor. So you weigh the pros and cons and come to the conclusion that it’s better to gloss over this business of their deaths. And you end up writing that the guy’s a dealer and that’s all. But what if the guy starts talking to the prosecutor? What if he blurts out the names of Nicotra and Di Cristoforo?”

“Nobody would voluntarily incriminate himself in two homicides, even unintentional ones! What are you saying?”

“Okay, let’s say he doesn’t incriminate himself. There’s still the risk that someone else might link the dealer to the two deaths. Don’t forget, Mimi, Nicotra and Di Cristoforo were politicians with many enemies. And in our neck of the woods, and not only our neck of the woods, politics is the art of burying one’s adversary in shit.”

“What’s politics got to do with me?”

“A lot, even if you don’t realize it. In a case like this, do you know what your role is?” “No. What’s my role?” “You supply the shit.” “That sounds a little excessive.”

“Excessive? Once it comes out that Nicotra and Di Cristoforo used drugs and died from it, their memory will be unanimously dumped on in direct proportion with the equally unanimous praise that will be heaped on you for having arrested the dealer. Some three months later, at most, somebody from Nicotra and Di Cristoforo’s party will start by revealing that Nicotra took very small doses of drugs for medicinal purposes and that Di Cristoforo did the same for his ingrown toenail. We’re talking medicine here, not vice. Then, little by little, their memory will be rehabilitated, and people will start saying that it was you who first started slinging mud at the dear departed.”

“Me?!”

‘Yes Sir, You, by making a careless arrest to say the least.

Augello stood there speechless. Montalbano threw down his ace.

“Don’t you see what’s happening to the ‘Clean Hands’ judges? They’re being blamed for the suicides and heart attacks of some of the accused. The fact that the accused were corrupt and corrupters and deserved to go to jail gets glossed over. According to these sensitive souls, the real culprit is not the culprit who in a moment of shame commits suicide but the judge who made him feel ashamed. But we’ve talked enough about this. If you get it, you get it. If you don’t, I’m tired of explaining it to you. Now get out of here, I got work to do.”

Without a word, Mimi got up and left the room, even glummer than before. Montalbano started eyeing four pages densely covered with numbers, unable to make anything whatsoever of them.

After five minutes of this, he pushed them away in dis-gust and called the switchboard. A voice he didn’t recognize answered.

13

“Listen, I want you to find me the phone number of a Palermo contractor named Mario Sciacca.” “Home phone or business phone?” “Home.” “All right.”

“But just find me the number, understand? If the home phone’s not listed, ask our colleagues in Palermo. Then I’ll call myself from a direct line.”

“I understand, Inspector. You don’t want them to know it’s the police calling.”

Smart kid. Knew his stuff.

“What’s the name?”

“Sciacca, Inspector.”

“No, yours.”

“Amato, Inspector. I started working here a month ago.”

He made a mental note to talk to Fazio about this Amato. The kid might be worth having on the squad. A few minutes later, the phone rang. Amato had found Mario Sciacca’s home phone number.

The inspector dialed it.

“Who’s this?” asked an old woman’s voice. “Is this the Sciacca residence?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Antonio Volpe. I’d like to speak with Signora Teresa.”

“My daughter-in-law’s not home.” “Is she away?”

“Well, she’s gone to Montelusa. Her father’s sick.”

What a stroke of luck! This might spare him the boring drive to Palermo. He looked for the number in the phone book. There were four people named Cacciatore. He would have to be patient and call them all.

“The Cacciatore residence?”

“No, the Mistrettas’. Look, this whole thing is a big pain in the ass,” said an angry male voice. “What whole thing, if I may ask?”

“The fact that you all keep calling, when the Cacciatores moved away a year ago.”

“Do you know their number, by any chance?”

Mr. Mistretta hung up without answering. A fine start, no doubt about it. Montalbano dialed the second number.

“The Cacciatore residence?”

“Yes,” replied a pleasant female voice.

“Signora, my name is Antonio Volpe. I tried to get in touch with a certain Teresa Sciacca in Palermo and was told—”

“I’m Teresa Sciacca.”

Astonished by his sudden good fortune, Montalbano was speechless.

“Hello?” said Teresa.

“How’s your father? I was told that—” “He’s doing much better, thank you. So much better that I’ll be going back to Palermo tomorrow.”

“I absolutely must speak to you before you leave.” “Signor Volpe, I—”

“Actually, my name’s not Volpe. I’m Inspector Montalbano.”

Teresa Sciacca let out a kind of gasp between fright and surprise.

“Oh my God! Has something happened to Mario?”

“Don’t worry, signora, your husband is fine. I need to talk to you about something involving you.”

A very long pause. Then a “yes” that was a sigh, a breath.

“Believe me, I would have preferred not to stir up unpleasant memories, but—” “I understand.”

“I guarantee you that our meeting will remain confidential, and I give you my word never to mention your name in the investigation, for any reason whatsoever.”

“I don’t see how I could be of any use to you. It’s been so many years since … In any case, you can’t come here.”

“Could you come out?”

“Yes, I could leave for about an hour.”

“Tell me where you want to meet.”

Teresa gave him the name of a cafe in the elevated part of Montelusa. For five-thirty. The inspector glanced at his watch. He had just barely enough time to get in his car and go. To arrive in time, he would have to drive at the insane speed of forty to forty-five miles per hour.

Teresa Sciacca, nee Cacciatore, was a thirty-eight-year-old woman who looked like a good mother, and it was immediately clear that this look was not facade but substance. She was quite embarrassed by their meeting, and Montalbano immediately came to her aid.

“Signora, in ten minutes, at the most, you’ll be able to go back home.”

“Thank you, but I really don’t see how what happened twenty years ago could have anything to do with Angelo’s death.”

“It has nothing to do with it, actually. But it’s essential for me to establish certain modes of behavior. Understand?”

“No, but go ahead and ask your questions.”

“How did Angelo react when you told him you were expecting?”

“He was happy. And we immediately talked about getting married. In fact, I started looking for a house the very next day.”

“Did your family know?”

“My folks didn’t know anything; they didn’t even know Angelo. Then one evening he told me he’d changed his mind. He said it was crazy to get married, that it would ruin his career. He showed a lot of promise as a doctor, that was true. And so he started talking about abortion.”

“And what did you do?”

“I took it badly. We had a terrible row. When we finally calmed down, I told him I was going to tell my parents everything. He got really scared. Papa’s not the kind of man to kid around with, and he begged me not to do it. I gave him three days.”

“To do what?”

“To think about it. He phoned me on the second day, in the afternoon. It was a Wednesday. I remember it well. He asked if we could meet. When I got there, he immediately told me he’d found a solution and needed my help. His solution was this: The following Sunday he and I would go to my parents and tell them everything. Then Angelo would explain to them why he couldn’t marry me right away. He needed at least two years without any ties. There was a famous doctor who wanted him for an assistant, which meant he would have to live abroad for eighteen months. In short, after giving birth, I would live at home with my parents until Angelo had set himself back up here. He even said he was ready to acknowledge paternity of the child, to set my parents’ mind at rest. And then he would marry me in about two years’ time.”

“How did you take this?”

“It seemed like a good solution to me. And I told him so. I had no reason to doubt his sincerity. So he suggested we celebrate, and he even invited Michela, his sister.”

“Had you already met?”

“Yes, we’d even got together a few times, though she didn’t seem to like me very much. Anyway, we were all supposed to meet at nineP.M.in the medical office of a colleague of Angelo’s, after visiting hours.”

“Why not at his own office?”

“Because he didn’t have one. He worked out of a little room this colleague let him use. When I got there, the colleague had already left and Michela hadn’t arrived yet. Angelo gave me a glass of bitter orange soda to drink. As soon as I drank it, everything started to turn foggy and confused.

I couldn’t move or react… I remember Angelo putting on his smock, and …”

She tried to go on, but Montalbano interrupted her.

“I get the picture. No need to continue.”

He fired up a cigarette. Teresa wiped her eyes with a handkerchief.

“What do you remember after that?”

“My memory is still cloudy. Michela in a white smock, like a nurse, Angelo saying something …Then I’m in Angelo’s car, I remember…then at Anna’s place…She’s a cousin of mine who knows everything. I spent the night there—Anna had called my parents and told them I’d be sleeping over. The next day I had a terrible hemorrhage and was rushed to the hospital and had to tell Papa everything. And so Papa pressed charges against Angelo.”

“So you never saw Angelo’s colleague?”

“Never.”

“Thank you, signora. That’ll be all,” said Montalbano, standing up.

She looked surprised and relieved. She held out her hand, to say good-bye. But instead of shaking it, the inspector kissed it.

13

He arrived a bit early for his appointment with Marshal Lagana.

“You’re looking good,” said the marshal, eyeing him.

Montalbano got worried. Often of late that statement didn’t sound right to him. If someone tells you you’re looking good, it means they were expecting you not to look so good. And why were they thinking this? Because you’ve reached an age where the worst could happen overnight. To take one example: Up to a certain point in life, if you slip and fall, you get right up, because nothing’s happened to you. Then the moment comes when you slip and fall and you can’t get up anymore, because you’ve broken your femur. What’s happened? What’s happened is you’ve crossed the invisible boundary between one age of life and the next.

“You’re looking good yourself,” the inspector lied, with a certain satisfaction.

To his eyes Lagana looked in fact like he’d aged quite a bit since the last time he’d seen him.

“I’m at your service,” said the marshal.

Montalbano filled him in on the murder of Angelo Pardo. And told him how Nicold Zito, the newsman, when speaking to him in private, had led him to suspect that the motive for the homicide could perhaps be found in the work that Pardo was doing. He was beating around the bush, but Lagana understood at once and interrupted him: “Kickbacks?”

“It’s a possible hypothesis,” the inspector said cautiously.

And he told him about the gifts beyond his means that Pardo had given to his girlfriend, the missing strongbox, the secret bank account he hadn’t been able to locate. In the end he pulled from his jacket pocket the four computer printouts and coded songbook and laid them down on Lagana’s desk.

“You can’t say this gentleman was very fond of transparency,” the marshal commented after examining these ma-terials.

“Can you help me?” asked Montalbano.

“Certainly,” said the marshal, “but don’t expect anything overnight. And before I begin, I’ll need some basic but essential information. What firms was he working for? And what doctors and pharmacies was he in contact with?”

“I’ve got a big datebook of Pardo’s in the car that should have most of the things you’re looking for.”

Lagana gave him a confused look.

“Why did you leave it in the car?”

“I wanted first to make sure you were interested in the case. I’ll go get it.”

“Yes, and in the meantime I’ll photocopy these pages and the songbook.”

Therefore—the inspector recapitulated while driving back to Vigata—Signora (pardon,Signorina)Michela Pardo had only told him half the story concerning the abortion performed on Teresa Cacciatore, completely leaving out her own major role. For Teresa it must have been like a scene from a horror film: first the deception and the trap, then, in crescendo, her boyfriend turning into her torturer and poking around inside her while she lay there naked on the examination table unable even to open her mouth; then her future sister-in-law in a white smock, preparing the instruments …

What sort of complicity had there been between Angelo and Michela? Out of what twisted instinct of sibling attachment had it arisen and solidified? How far had they taken their bond? And, given all this, what else were they capable of?

Then again, on second thought, what had any of this to do with the investigation? From Teresa’s words—and there was no doubt she was telling the truth—it became clear that Angelo was a rascal, which Montalbano had been thinking for some time, and that his dear sister wouldn’t have hesitated to commit murder just to please her dear brother, which Montalbano had also been thinking for some time. What Teresa had told him confirmed what the brother and sister were like, but it didn’t move the investigation a single inch forward.

“Ahh, Chief, Chief!” Catarella yelled from his closet. “I got some importance to tell ya!”

“Did you beat the last last word?”

“Not yet, Chief. Iss complex. What I wannet a say is ‘at Dacter Arquaraqua called.”

What was going on? The chief of Forensics called for him?The tombs shall open, the dead shall rise…

“Arqua, Cat, his name’s Arqua.”

“His name’s whatever ‘is name is, Chief, you got the pitcher anyways.”

“What did he want?”

“He didn’t say, Chief. But he axed me to ax you to call him when you got back.” “Fazio here?” “I tink so.”

“Go find him and tell him to come to my office.” While waiting, he called the lab in Montelusa. “Arqua, were you looking for me?”

The two men didn’t like each other, and so, by mutual, tacit agreement, they dispensed with greetings whenever they spoke.

“I suppose you already know that Dr. Pasquano found two threads of fabric stuck between Angelo Pardo’s teeth.”

“Yes.”

“We’ve analyzed the threads and identified the fabric. It’s Crilicon.”

“Does that come from Krypton?”

It was a stupid quip that just slipped out of him. Arqua, who obviously didn’t read comic books and didn’t know of the existence of Superman, balked.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing, never mind. Why does that fabric seem important to you?”

“Because it’s very particular and is mainly used for a specific article of clothing.”

“Namely?”

“Women’s panties.”

Arqua hung up, and Montalbano sat there flummoxed, receiver in hand.

Another noir film? As he set the phone down, he imagined the scene.

TERRACE WITH ROOM. Outside/inside shot, night.

Through the open door, from out on the terrace, the camera frames the interior of the former laundry room. Angelo is sitting on the arm of the armchair. A woman, standing in front of him and seen from behind, puts her purse on the table and, moving very slowly, removes first her blouse, then her bra. The camera zooms entirely inside.

(Sensual music)

With desire in his eyes, Angelo watches the woman unfasten her skirt, letting it drop to her feet. Angelo slides off the arm and into the chair, almost lying down.

The woman takes off her panties, but keeps them in her hand.

Angelo opens the zipper on his jeans and gets ready to have sex.

(Extremely sensual music)

The woman opens her purse and extracts something we can’t see. Then she straddles Angelo, who embraces her.

Long, passionate kiss. Angelo’s hands caress the woman’s back. She suddenly breaks free of his embrace and points the pistol she took out of her purse at Angelo’s face.

CLOSE-UPof Angelo, terrified.

ANGELO:What…what are you doing?WOMAN:Open your mouth.

Angelo automatically obeys. The woman sticks the panties in his mouth.

Angelo tries to scream but can’t.

WOMAN:Now I’m going to ask you a question. If you want to answer, just nod, and I’ll take them out of your mouth.

The camera follows her movements as she leans forward. She whispers something in his ear.

His eyes open wide as he starts desperately shaking his head no.

(Dramatic music)

WOMAN:I’ll repeat my question.

She leans forward again, brings her mouth to Angelo’s ear, her lips move.

CLOSE-UPof Angelo still refusing, in the throes of uncontrollable panic.

WOMAN:As you wish.

She gets up, takes a step back, and shoots Angelo in the face.

EXTREME CLOSE-UPof Angelo’s devastated head, a black, bloody hole where his eye used to be.

(Tragic music)

DETAILof Angelo’s half-open mouth. Two tapered fingers reach into the mouth and extract the panties. To put them on, the woman turns toward the camera, but the frame is shot from an angle that keeps her face hidden. The woman continues getting dressed, without any hurry. There’s no trace of nervousness in her gestures.

EXTREME CLOSE-UPof Angelo’s head, a horrendous sight.

SLOW FADE-OUT.

Granted, a dreadful script from a B movie of the erotic-crime genre. It might, however, have had decent success on television, given all the other crap that gets broadcast. You know, TV movies. The inspector consoled himself with the thought that if he had to leave the police force, he could try his hand at this new profession.

Leaving his private cinema to return to his office, he saw Fazio standing in front of his desk, staring at him inquisitively.

“What were you thinking, Chief?”

“Nothing, I was just watching a film. What do you want?”

“Chief, you’re the one who called me.”

“Ah, yes. Have a seat. Got any news for me?”

“You said you wanted to know everything I could find out about Emilio Sclafani and Angelo Pardo. As for the schoolteacher, I have to add a little detail to what I already told you.”

“What’s this little detail?”

“Remember how the schoolteacher sent his wife’s lover to the hospital?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he, too, was sent to the hospital.”

“By whom?”

“A jealous husband.”

“That’s not possible. The guy can’t—”

“Chief, I assure you it’s true. It happened before his second marriage.”

“He was caught in bed with the man’s wife?”

Montalbano couldn’t accept that Elena had told him a lie, a lie so big that it cast everything into doubt.

“No, Chief. The bed’s got nothing to do with it. The teacher lived in a great big apartment building, and two of his windows gave onto the courtyard. You remember that movie …”

Another film? This wasn’t an investigation anymore, it was one of the countless film festivals!

“… the one about a photographer with a broken leg who spends his time looking out his window across the courtyard and finds out some lady’s been killed?”

“Yes.Rear Window,by Hitchcock.”

“Well, the schoolteacher bought himself a powerful set of binoculars, but he only watched the window across from his, where a young bride of about twenty lived, and since she didn’t know she was being watched, she walked around her apartment half naked. Then one day the husband got wise to the teacher’s tricks, went over to his place, and busted his head and his binoculars.”

Montalbano became almost certain that Mr. Sclafani demanded that his wife give him a detailed report of what she did at each of her encounters with her lover. Why hadn’t Elena told him this? Perhaps because this little detail (and what a detail!) cast the schoolteacher in a different light from that of the understanding, impotent husband and brought to the surface all the murk deep down in his soul?

“And what can you tell me about Angelo Pardo?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean, ‘nothing’?”

“Chief, nobody had the slightest thing to say against him. As far as the present was concerned, he earned a good living as a pharmaceutical representative, enjoyed life, and had no enemies.”

Montalbano knew Fazio too well to let slide what he’d just said—that is, “as far as the present was concerned.”

“And as far as the past is concerned?”

Fazio smiled at him, and the inspector smiled back. They understood each other at once.

“There were two things in his past. One of these you already know, and it involves that business about the abortion.”

“Skip it, I already know all about it.”

“The other thing goes even further back—to the death of Angelo’s sister’s boyfriend.”

Montalbano felt a kind of jolt run down his spine. He pricked his ears.

“The boyfriend was named Roberto Anzalone,” said Fazio. “An engineering student who liked to race motorcycles as a hobby. That’s why the accident that killed him seemed odd.”

“Why?”

“My dear Inspector, does it seem normal to you that a skilled motorcyclist like that, after a two-mile straightaway, would ignore a curve and keep going, right off a three-hundred-foot cliff?”

“Mechanical failure?”

“The motorbike was so smashed up after the accident, the experts couldn’t make heads or tails of it.” “What about the autopsy?”

“That’s the best part. When he had the accident, Anzalone had just finished eating at a trattoria with a friend. The autopsy showed he’d probably overindulged in alcohol or something similar.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, ‘something similar’? Either it was alcohol or it wasn’t.”

“Chief, the person who did the autopsy was unable to specify. He simply wrote that he found something similar to alcohol.”

“Bah. Go on.”

“The only problem is that the Anzalone family, when they found this out, said that Roberto didn’t drink, and they demanded a new autopsy. Most importantly, the waiter at the trattoria also stated that he hadn’t served wine or any other kind of alcohol at that table.”

“Did they get the second autopsy?”

“They did, but they had to wait three months to get it. And, actually, given all the authorizations that were needed for it, that was pretty fast. The fact is that this time the alcohol, or whatever it was, wasn’t there anymore. And so the case was closed.”

“Tell me something. Do you know who this friend was who ate with him?”

Fazio’s eyes started to sparkle. This happened whenever he knew that his words would have a dramatic effect. He was foretasting his pleasure.

“It was …” he began.

But Montalbano, who could be a real bastard when he wanted to, decided to spoil the effect for him.

“That’s enough, I already know,” he said.

“How did you find out?” asked Fazio, between disappointment and wonder.

“Your eyes told me,” said the inspector. “It was his future brother-in-law, Angelo Pardo. Was he interrogated?”

“Of course. And he confirmed the waiter’s statement— that is, that they hadn’t drunk any wine or other alcoholic beverage at the table. In any case, for some reason or other, Angelo Pardo had his lawyer present every time he made his three depositions. And his lawyer was none other than Senator Nicotra.”

“Nicotra?!” marveled the inspector. “That’s way too big a fish for a testimony of so little importance.”

Fazio never found out whether, in uttering Nicotra’s name, he’d actually managed to get even for the disappointment of a moment before. But if anyone had asked Montalbano why he reacted so strongly to the news that Nicotra and Angelo had known one another for quite some time, the inspector would not have known what to answer.

“But where would Angelo have ever found the money to inconvenience a lawyer of Senator Nicotra’s stature?”

“It didn’t cost him a cent, Chief. Angelo’s father had been a campaigner for the senator, and they’d become friends. Their families spent time together. In fact, the senator also represented Angelo when he was accused of the abortion.”

“Anything else?”

“Yessir.”

“You going to tell me free of charge, or do I have to pay for it?” asked Montalbano when he saw that Fazio couldn’t make up his mind to go on.

“No, Chief, it’s all included in my salary.”

“Then out with it.”

“It’s something that was told me by only one person. I haven’t been able to confirm it.”

“Just tell me, for what it’s worth.”

“Apparently a year ago Angelo got into the bad habit of gambling and often lost.” “A lot?” “Lots and lots.” “Could you be more precise?” “Tens of millions of lire.” “Was he in debt?” “Apparently not.” “Where did he gamble?” “At some den in Fanara.” “You know anyone around there?” “In Fanara? No, Chief.” “Too bad.” “Why?”

“Because I would bet my family jewels that Angelo had another bank account than the one we already know about. Since it seems he didn’t have any debts, where was he getting the money he lost? Or to pay for the gifts to his girlfriend? After what you’ve just told me, I think this mysterious bank may very well be in Fanara. See what you can come up with there.”

“I’ll try.”

Fazio stood up. When he was at the door, Montalbano said in a soft voice: “Thanks.”

Fazio stopped, turned, and looked at him.

“For what? It’s all included in my salary, Chief.”

The inspector hurried back to Marinella. The salmon that Ingrid had sent to him was anxiously awaiting him.

14

It was pouring. With him getting drenched, cursing, blaspheming, the water running down his hair, into his collar, and then sliding down his back, triggering cold shudders, his sodden socks now filtering the water flowing into his shoes, but, nothing doing, the door to his house in Marinella wouldn’t open because the keys wouldn’t fit in the lock, and when they did, they wouldn’t turn. He tried four different keys, one after the other, but it was hopeless. How could he go on like this, getting soaked to the bone, unable to set foot in his own house?

He finally decided to have a look at the set of keys in his hand. To his shock, he realized they weren’t his keys. He must have mistakenly grabbed someone else’s. But where?

Then he remembered that the mistake might have happened in Boccadasse, at a bar where they made good coffee. But he was in

Boccadasse two weeks ago! How could he have been back in Vigata for two weeks without ever going into his house?

“Where are my keys?” he shouted.

It seemed as though no one could hear him, so loud was the rain drumming on the roof, on his head, on the ground, on the leaves in the trees. Then he thought he heard a woman’s voice far, far away, coming and going with the intensity of the downpour.

“Turn the corner! Turn the corner!” said the voice.

What did it mean? Whatever the case, lost as he was, he took four steps and turned the corner. He found himself in Michela’s bathroom. The woman was naked and dipped her hand in the bathwater to feel the temperature. In so doing she offered him a remarkably hilly panorama on which the eye willingly lingered.

“Come on, get in.”

He realized he was also naked, but this did not surprise him. He got in the tub and lay down. It was a good thing he was immediately covered by soap suds. He felt embarrassed that Michela might see the semi-erection he got upon contact with the warm water.

“I’ll go get your keys and the present,” said Michela.

She went out. What present was she talking about? Was it maybe his birthday? But when was he born? He couldn’t remember. He stopped asking himself questions, closed his eyes, and abandoned himself to the relief he was feeling. Later, when he heard her return, he opened his eyes to little slits. But they popped open at once, for in the bathroom doorway stood not Michela but Angelo, his face ravaged by the gunshot, blood still running down his shirt, the zipper of his jeans open and his thingy hanging out, a revolver in his hand, pointed at him.

“What do you want?” he asked, frightened.

The bathwater had suddenly turned ice cold. With his left hand, Angelo gestured for him to wait, then brought his hand to his mouth and pulled out a pair of panties. He took two steps forward.

“Open your mouth!” he ordered.

Clenching his teeth, Montalbano shook his head. Never in a million years would he let him stick those panties in his mouth. They were still wet with the spittle of that entity, who, being a corpse, had no right, logically speaking, to be threatening him with a gun. Or even to walk, if one really thought about it. Although, all things considered, he still looked pretty well preserved, given the fact that it had been many days since the murder. Whatever the case, it was clear that he now found himself in a trap laid by Michela to abet her brother in some shady affair of his.

“Are you going to open up or not?”

He shook his head again, and the other man fired. A deafening blast.

Montalbano jolted awake and sat up in bed, heart racing at a gallop, body covered in sweat. The shutter, blown by the wind, had slammed against the wall, and outside, in fact it was storming.

It was five o’clock in the morning. By nature the inspector didn’t believe in premonitions, forebodings, or anything to do with paranormal phenomena in general. Normality itself seemed already sufficiently abnormal to him. There was, however, one thing he was convinced of: that sometimes his dreams were nothing other than the paradoxical or fantastical elaborations of a line of reasoning he’d begun to follow in his head before falling asleep. And as for the interpretation of these dreams, he had more faith in the self-appointed interpreters of Lotto numbers than in Sigmund Freud.

So what did that muddle of a dream mean?

After half an hour of turning it over and over in his mind, he managed to isolate two elements that seemed important to him.

One concerned Angelo’s keys. The first set was still in his possession, after the crime lab had returned them to him. The other set, the one he’d had Michela give him, he’d given back to her. All this seemed normal, and yet something about those keys had set his brain going, something that didn’t add up and which he couldn’t bring into focus. He would have to give this more thought later.

The other element was a word, “present,” that Michela had said to him before leaving the bathroom. When Michela had actually spoken to him about presents, however, it had always been in reference to the expensive gifts Angelo gave to Elena …

Stop right there, Montalbano. You’re getting warm, warmer, warmer, hot, hot! You’re there! Shit, you’re there!

He felt such immense satisfaction that he grabbed the alarm clock, pushed down the button that turned off the alarm, laid his head down on the pillow, and fell immediately asleep.

Elena opened the door. She was barefoot and wearing the dangerous half-length housecoat she’d had on the previous time, face still dotted with a few drops of water from the shower she’d just taken. It was ten o’clock in the morning, and she must have woken up not long before that. She smelled so strongly of young, fresh skin that it seemed un-bearable to the inspector. Upon seeing him she smiled, took his hand, and, still holding it, pulled him inside, closed the door, and led him into the living room. “Coffee’s ready,” she said.

Montalbano had barely sat down when she reappeared with the tray. They drank their coffee without speaking.

“You want to know something strange, Inspector?” asked Elena, setting down her empty demitasse.

“Tell me.”

“A little while ago, when you phoned to tell me you were coming by, I felt happy. I missed you.”

Montalbano’s heart did exactly what an airplane does when it hits an air pocket. But he said nothing, pretended to concentrate on his last sip of coffee, and set his demitasse down as well.

“Any news?” she asked.

“A little,” the inspector said cautiously.

“I, on the other hand, have none,” said Elena.

Montalbano made an inquisitive face. He didn’t understand the meaning of those words. Elena started laughing heartily.

“What a funny face you just made! I only meant that for the last two days Emilio hasn’t stopped asking me if there’s any news, and I keep saying, ‘No, there’s no news.’ “

Montalbano was not convinced. Elena’s explanation only confused matters; it didn’t clarify them.

“I didn’t know your husband was so interested in the case.”

Elena laughed even harder.

“He’s not interested in the case, he’s interested in me.” “I don’t understand.”

“Inspector, Emilio wants to know if I’ve already taken steps to replace Angelo, or if I’m intending to do so at any time soon.”

So that’s what this was all about! The old pig was apparently in crisis, with no more lewd stories being told to him by his wife. Montalbano decided to give her a little rope.

“Why haven’t you?”

He was expecting her to laugh again, but Elena turned serious.

“I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings, and I want to feel at peace. I’m waiting for the investigation to be over.” She smiled again. “So you should hurry up.”

And why would a new relationship with another man create misunderstandings? He got the answer to his question when his gaze met hers. That wasn’t a woman sitting in the armchair in front of him, but a cheetah at rest, still sated. The moment she began to feel the pangs of hunger, however, she would pounce on the prey she had already singled out long before. And that prey was him, Inspector Salvo Montalbano, a trembling, clumsy little domestic animal who would never manage to outrun those extremely long, springy legs that for the moment were deceptively crossed. And, most troubling of all, once those fangs sank into his flesh and that tongue began to savor him, he would quickly prove bland to the cheetah’s tastes and disappointing to the schoolteacher husband in the story the cheetah was certain to tell him. His only hope was to play the fool to avoid going to war, and pretend not to have understood. “I came today for two reasons.”

“You could have come anyway, for no reason at all.” The beast had her eye on him, and there was no distracting her.

“You told me that, aside from the car, Angelo had given you jewelry.”

“Yes. Would you like to see it?”

“No, I’m not interested in seeing it. I’m more interested in the boxes the jewels came in. Do you still have them?” “Yes, I’ll go get them.”

She stood, picked up the tray, and took it away. She returned at once and handed the inspector two black boxes, already open and empty. They were lined with white silk and each bore the same inscription: A . D IMORA J EWELRY-M ONTELUSA.

This was what he wanted to know and what his dream had suggested to him. He gave the boxes back to Elena, who set them down on the coffee table.

“And what was the other reason?” the woman asked.

“That’s harder to say. The autopsy revealed an important detail. Two threads of fabric were found stuck between the victim’s teeth. The crime lab informed me that it is a special fabric used almost exclusively in the manufacture of women’s panties.”

“What does it mean?” asked Elena.

“It means that someone, before shooting him, stuck a pair of panties in his mouth to keep him from screaming. Add to this the fact that the victim was found in a state suggesting he’d been about to engage in a sexual act. It being rather inconceivable that a man would go around with a pair of women’s panties in his pocket, that must mean the person who killed him was not a man but a woman.”

“I see,” said Elena. “A crime of passion, apparently.”

“Exactly. At this point in the investigation, however, it’s my duty to report all my findings to the prosecutor.”

“And so you’ll have to mention me.”

“Of course. And Prosecutor Tommaseo will immediately call you in for questioning. The death threats you made to Angelo in your letters will be seen as evidence against you.”

“What should I do?”

Montalbano’s admiration for the girl increased a few notches. She hadn’t become afraid or agitated. She asked for information, nothing more.

“Find a good lawyer.”

“Can I tell him that it was Angelo who made me write those letters?”

“Certainly. And when you do, tell him he should ask Paola Torrisi a few questions.” Elena wrinkled her brow.

“Angelo’s ex? Why?”

Montalbano threw his hands up. He couldn’t tell her. That would be saying too much. But the mechanism in Elena’s head worked better than a Swiss watch.

“Did he also have her write letters like mine?”

Montalbano threw his hands up again.

“The problem is that you, Elena, haven’t got an alibi for the night of the crime. You told me you drove around for a few hours and therefore didn’t meet with anyone. However… “

“However?”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Do you think I killed Angelo?”

“I don’t believe that you didn’t meet with anyone that evening. I’m convinced you could produce an alibi if you wanted, but you don’t want to.”

She looked at him, eyes popping.

“How…how do you… “

Now she was indeed agitated. The inspector felt pleased for having hit the mark.

“The last time I asked you if you’d met with anyone during the time you were wandering about in your car, and you said no. But before speaking, you sort of hesitated. That was the first and only time you hesitated. And I realized you didn’t want to tell me the truth. But be careful: Not having an alibi might get you arrested.”

She suddenly turned pale.One must strike while the iron is hot,Montalbano told himself, hating himself for the cliche and for playing the tormentor.

“You’re going to have to be escorted down to the station …”

It wasn’t true. That wasn’t the procedure, but those were the magic words. And indeed Elena began to tremble slightly, a veil of sweat appearing on her brow.

“I haven’t told Emilio… I didn’t want him to know.”

What did her husband have to do with this? Was the schoolteacher fated to pop up everywhere like Pierino’s famous puppet in the story his mother used to tell Montalbano as a child?

“What didn’t you want him to know?”

“That I was with a man that evening.”

“Who was it?”

“A filling-station attendant… It’s the only station on the road to Giardina. His name is Luigi. I don’t know his last name. I stopped to get gas. He was closing, but he reopened for me. He started flirting, and I didn’t say no. I wanted … I wanted to forget Angelo, forever.”

“How long were you together?”

“A couple of hours.”

“Could he testify to that?”

“I don’t think it would be a problem. He’s very young, about twenty, unmarried.”

“Tell that to the lawyer. Maybe he can find a way to keep your husband from getting wind of it.”

“I would be very unhappy if he found out. I betrayed his trust.”

But how did this husband and wife reason? He felt at sea. Then Elena suddenly started laughing hard again, her head thrown backward.

“Let me in on the joke.”

“A woman supposedly stuck her panties in Angelo’s mouth so he couldn’t scream?” “So it seems.”

“I’m only telling you because it couldn’t have been me.” She had another laughing fit that almost brought tears to her eyes.

“Come on, out with it.”

“Because whenever I knew I was going to see Angelo, I wouldn’t wear panties. Anyway, look. Do these look like they could be used to gag anyone?”

She stood up and hiked up her bathrobe, spun around in a circle, then sat back down. She’d performed the movement perfectly naturally, without modesty or immodesty. Her panties were smaller than a G-string. With that in his mouth, a man could still have recited all of Cicero’sCatilinarian Orationsor sung “Celeste Aida.”

“I have to go,” said the inspector, standing up.

He absolutely had to get away from that woman. Alarm bells and warning lights were going off wildly in his head. Elena also stood up and approached him. Unable to keep her away with his extended arms, he stopped her with words.

“One last thing.”

“What?”

“We’ve learned that Angelo had recently been gambling and losing a lot of money.” “Really?!”

She seemed truly puzzled.

“So you know nothing about it.”

“I never even suspected it. Did he gamble here, in Vigata?”

“No. In Fanara, apparently. At a clandestine gambling den. Did you ever go with him to Fanara?”

“Yes, once. But we came back to Vigata the same evening.”

“Can you remember if Angelo went into any banks that day in Fanara?”

“Out of the question. He had me wait in the car outside of three doctors’ offices and two pharmacies. And I nearly died of boredom. Oh, but I do remember—because I heard about him on TV after he died—that we also stopped outside the villa of Di Cristoforo, the Parliament deputy.”

“Did he know him?!”

“Apparently.”

“How long did he stay inside the villa?”

“Just a few minutes.”

“Did he say why he went there?”

“No, and I didn’t ask. I’m sorry.”

“Another question, but this really will be the last.”

“Ask me as many as you like.”

“Did Angelo do coke, as far as you know?”

“No. No drugs.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. Don’t forget that I was once quite an expert on the subject.”

She stepped forward.

“Bye, see you soon,” said Montalbano, running for the door, opening it, and dashing out onto the landing before the cheetah could spring, grab him in her claws, and eat him alive.

Dimora Jewelers of Montelusa—founded in 1901, as the religiously restored old sign in front said—were the best-known jewelers in the province. They made their hundred-plus years a point of pride, and in fact the furnishings inside were the same as they’d been a hundred years earlier. Except for the fact that now, to get inside, it was worse than entering a bank. Armored doors, tinted, Kalashnikov-proof windows, uniformed security guards with revolvers at their sides so big it was scary just to look at them.

There were three salespersons, all of them quite distinguished: a seventyish man, another around forty, and a girl of about twenty. Apparently they’d each been expressly selected to serve the clients of their corresponding age group. Then why was it the seventy-year-old who turned to speak to him, instead of the forty-year-old, as should have been his right?

“Would you like to see something in particular, sir?”

“Yes, the owner.”

“You mean Signor Arturo?”

“If he’s the owner, then Signor Arturo will do.” “And who are you, if I may ask?” “Inspector Montalbano.”

“Please follow me.”

He followed the salesman into the back room, which was a very elegant sort of little sitting room. Art nouveau furniture. A broad staircase of black wood, covered by a dark red runner, led to a landing where there was a massive, closed door.

“Please make yourself comfortable.”

The elderly man climbed the stair slowly, then rang a bell beside the door, which came open with a click. He went inside and closed the door behind him. Two minutes later there was another click, the door reopened, and the old man reappeared.

“You may go upstairs.”

The inspector found himself in a spacious, light-filled room. There was a large glass desk, very modern in style, with a computer on top. Two armchairs and a sofa of the kind one sees only in architectural magazines. A huge safe, the latest model, that not even a surface-to-air missile could open. Another safe, this one pathetic and certainly dating back to 1901, which a wet nurse’s hairpin could open. Arturo Dimora, a thirty-year-old who looked straight out of a fashion advertisement, stood up and extended his hand.

“I’m at your disposal, Inspector.”

“I won’t waste your time. Do you know if there was a certain Angelo Pardo among your clients over the last three months?”

“Just a second.”

He went back behind the glass desk and fiddled about with the computer.

“Yes. He bought—”

“I know what he bought. I would like to know how he paid.”

“Just a minute. There, yes. Two checks from the Banca Popolare di Fanara. Do you want the account number?”

15

Exiting the jeweler’s shop, he weighed his options. What to do? Even if he left for Fanara at once, he probably wouldn’t get there till after one-thirty; in other words, after the bank was already closed. Thus the best thing was to go back to Vigata and drive to Fanara the following morning. But his anxiousness to discover something important at the bank was eating him alive, and surely his nerves would keep him up all night. Suddenly he remembered that banks, which he scarcely frequented, also had afternoon hours these days. Thus the right thing was to leave immediately for Fanara, head straight for the local trattoria called Da Cosma e Damiano, where he’d eaten twice and been very well served, and then, after three, make an appearance at the bank.

When he arrived at his parked car, a rather troubling thought came over him—namely, that he had an appointment with the commissioner to which it was not clear he would make it in time. What was he going to do about this? The following: He was going to blow off Mr. Commissioner’s summons. The guy had done nothing but postpone the goddamned appointment day after day. Surely he was allowed to miss one? He got in the car and drove off.

Going from Enzo’s restaurant to Cosma and Damiano’s place in Fanara was like changing continents. Asking Enzo for a dish like the rabbit cacciatore he was slurping down would have been like ordering pork ribs or cotechino at a restaurant in Abu Dhabi.

When he got up from the table, he immediately felt the need for a walk along the jetty. But since he was in Fanara, there was no jetty, for the simple reason that the sea was fifty miles away. Though he’d already had a coffee in the trattoria, he decided he’d better have another at a bar right next door to the bank.

To the door—one of those revolving kinds with an alarm—he must have seemed disagreeable, for it reopened behind him and commanded:

“System alarm! Deposit all metal objects outside the door!”

The guard sitting inside a bulletproof glass booth glanced up from a crossword puzzle and looked at him. The inspector opened a little drawer and dropped in about a pound of europennies that were making holes in his pockets, closed it with a plastic key, and entered the tubelike door.

“System alarm!”it repeated.

So it just didn’t like him. That door was dead set on busting his balls. The guard started looking at him with concern. The inspector took out his house keys, put them in the drawer, went back in the door, the half tube closed behind him, the door said nothing, but the other half of the tube, the one in front of him, didn’t open. Imprisoned! The door had taken him hostage, and if he wasn’t freed in a few seconds, he was fated to die a terrible death by suffocation. Through the glass he saw the guard engrossed in his crossword puzzle; he hadn’t noticed anything. Inside the bank there wasn’t a living soul to be seen. He raised his knee and gave the door a powerful kick. The guard heard the noise, realized what was happening, pushed a button on some contraption in front of him, and the back half of the tube finally opened, allowing the inspector to enter the bank. Which consisted of a first entrance with a small table and a few chairs and led to two doors: The one on the right was an office with two vacant desks; the one on the left had the usual wood-and-glass partition with two tellers’ windows over which were plaques sayingWINDOW IandWINDOW 2,incase anyone wasn’t sure. But only one had a teller behind it, and that was indeed Window 1. One could not in good conscience say the bank did a lot of business.

“Hello, I would like to speak with the manager. I’m Inspector—”

“Montalbano!” said the fiftyish man behind the window.

The inspector gave him a puzzled look.

“Don’t you remember me? Eh, don’t you?” said the teller, getting up and heading toward the door at the end of the partition.

Montalbano racked his brain but couldn’t come up with a name. Meanwhile the teller came straight up to him, un-shaven, arms half open and ready to embrace his long-lost friend. But don’t these people who expect to be recognized after forty years realize that time has done its work on their faces? That forty winters, as the poet says, have dug deep fur-rows in the field of what was once adorable youth?

“You really don’t remember, do you? Let me give you a little hint.”

A little hint? “What was this, a TV game show? “Cu…Cu… “

“Cucuzza?” the inspector took a wild stab.

“Cumella! Giogid Cumella!” said the other, leaping at his throat and crushing him in a pythonlike grip.

“Cumella! Of course!” Montalbano mumbled.

In truth he didn’t remember a goddamned thing. Night and fog.

“Let’s go have a drink. We need to celebrate!Matre santa,it’s been so many years!”

When passing in front of the guard’s little cage, Cumella informed him:

“Lullu, I’ll be at the bar next door with my friend. If anyone comes, tell ‘em to wait.”

But who was this Cumella? A former schoolmate? University chum? Student protester from ‘68?

“You married, Salvu?”

“No.”

“I am. Three kids, two boys and a girl. The girl, who’s the youngest, is a beauty. Her name’s Natasha.”

A Natasha in Fanara. Like Ashanti in Canicatti, Samantha in Fela, and Jessica in Gallotti. Didn’t anybody name their little girls Maria, Giuseppina, Carmela, or Francesca anymore?

“What’ll you have?”

“A coffee.”

At that hour, one coffee more or less made no difference. “Me, too. Why did you come to our bank, Inspector? I’ve seen you a couple of times on television.”

“I need some information. Perhaps the manager—” “I’m the manager. What’s this about?” “One of your clients, Angelo Pardo, was murdered.” “I heard.”

“I couldn’t find any of your statements in his apartment.”

“He didn’t want us to send them to him. And he sent us those instructions in a registered letter! Imagine that! He would come and pick up the statements in person.”

“I see. Could you tell me how much is in his account and if he made any investments?”

“No, unless you’ve got a judge’s authorization.”

“I haven’t.”

“Then I can’t tell you that until the day he died he had somewhere around eight hundred thousand.”

“Lire?” asked Montalbano, a little disappointed. “Euros.”

That put things in a whole new light. Over a billion and a half lire.

“Investments?”

“None whatsoever. He needed ready cash.”

“Why did you specify ‘until the day he died’?”

“Because three days before, he’d taken out a hundred thousand. And from what I’ve heard, if he hadn’t been shot, within three days he would have made another withdrawal.”

“What have you heard?”

“That he lost it all gambling, at Zizino’s den.”

“Can you tell me for how long he was a client of yours?”

“Less than six months.”

“Was he ever in the red?”

“Never. Anyway, for us at the bank it wasn’t a problem, no matter what happened.” “Explain.”

“When he opened the account, he came accompanied by MP Di Cristoforo. But now that’s enough, let’s talk a little about old times.”

Cumella did all the talking, reminiscing about episodes and people the inspector had no recollection of. But to make it look like he remembered everything, Montalbano had only to say, every now and then, “Right!” and, “How could I forget?”

At the end of their conversation, they said good-bye, embracing and promising to stay in touch by telephone.

On the way back, not only was the inspector unable to en-joy the discovery he’d made, but his mood turned darker and darker. The moment he got in the car and drove off, a question started buzzing about in his head like an annoying fly: How come Giogid Cumella could remember their grammar-school days and he couldn’t? From a few of the names Giogid had mentioned and a few of the events he’d recounted, elusive flashes of memory had come back to him in fits and starts, but like pieces of an unsolvable puzzle with no precise outline, and these inklings had led him to situate the time of his friendship with Cumella in their grammar-school days. Unfortunately, there could be only one answer to his question: He was beginning to lose his memory. An indisputable sign of old age. But didn’t they say that old age made you forget what you did the day before and remember things from when you were a little kid? Well, apparently that wasn’t always the case. Obviously there was old age and old age. What was the name of that disease where you forget that you’re even alive? The one President Reagan had? What was it called? There, see? He was even starting to forget things of the present.

To distract himself, he formulated a proposition. A philosophical proposition? Maybe, but tending towards “weak thought”—exhausted thought, in fact. He even gave this proposition a title: “The Civilization of Today and the Ceremony of Access.” What did it mean? It meant that, today, to enter any place whatsoever—an airport, a bank, a jeweler’s or watchmaker’s shop—you had to submit to a specific ceremony of control. Why ceremony? Because it served no concrete purpose. A thief, a hijacker, a terrorist—if they really want to enter—will find a way. The ceremony doesn’t even serve to protect the people on the other side of the entrance. So whom does it serve? It serves the very person about to enter, to make him think that, once inside, he can feel safe.

“Aahhh, Chief, Chief! I wannata tell you that Dacter Latte wit’ anscalled! He said as how the c’mishner couldn’t make it today.”

“Couldn’t make what?”

“He din’t tell me, Chief. But he said that he can make it tomorrow, at the same time of day.”

“Fine. Getting anywhere with the file?”

“I’m almost somewhere. Right at the tip o’ the tip! Ah, I almost forgot! Judge Gommaseo also called sayin’ you’s asposta call ‘im when you get in so you can call ‘im.”

He’d just sat down when Fazio came in.

“The phone company says that it’s not technically possible to retrace the phone calls you received when you were at Angelo Pardo’s place. They even told me why, but I didn’t understand a word of it.”

“The people who called didn’t know yet that Angelo’d been shot. One of them even hung up. He wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t have something to hide. We’ll deal with it.”

“Chief, I also wanted to mention that I don’t know anybody in Fanara.”

“It doesn’t matter. I figured it out myself.” “How did you do that?”

“I knew for certain that Angelo had an account at the Banca Popolare in Fanara. So I went there. The bank manager is an old schoolmate of mine, a dear friend, and so we reminisced about the good old days.”

Another lie. But its purpose was to make Fazio believe that he still possessed an ironclad memory.

“How much did he have in the account?”

“A billion and a half old lire. And he really gambled big time, as you told me yourself. Betting money he certainly didn’t earn as a pharmaceutical representative.”

“The funeral’s tomorrow morning. I’ve seen the announcements.”

“I want you to go.”

“Chief, it’s only in movies the killer goes to the funeral of the person he killed.”

“Don’t be a wise guy. You’re going anyway. And take a good look at the names on the ribbons on the wreaths and pillows.”

Fazio left, and the inspector phoned Tommaseo. “Montalbano! What are you doing? Did you disappear?” “I had things to do, Judge, I’m sorry.” “Listen, I want to fill you in on something I think is really serious.”

“I’m listening.”

“A few days ago, you sent Angelo Pardo’s sister, Michela, to see me, do you remember?” “Of course.”

“Well, I’ve interrogated her three times. The last time just this morning. A disturbing woman, don’t you think?” “Oh, yes.”

“Something troubled about her, I’d say, don’t you think?” “Oh, yes.”

And you had a ball in those troubled waters, like a little pig under your august magistrate’s robes. “And what unfathomable eyes she has.” “Oh, yes.”

“This morning she exploded.” “In what sense?”

“In the sense that at a certain point she stood up, summoned a very strange voice, and her hair came undone. Chilling.”

So Tommaseo, too, had witnessed a bit of Greek tragedy. “What did she say?”

“She started inveighing against another woman, Elena Sclafani, her brother’s girlfriend. She claims she’s the killer. Have you interrogated her?”

“Sclafani? Of course.”

“Why didn’t you inform me?”

“Well, it’s just that …”

“What’s she like?”

“Beautiful.”

“I’m going to summon her immediately.” How could you go wrong? Tommaseo was going to dive into Elena like a fish. “Look, Judge, I—”

“No, no, my dear Montalbano, no excuses. Among other things, I must tell you that Michela accused you of protecting Mrs. Sclafani.”

“Did she tell you why Mrs. Sclafani would—”

“Yes, jealousy. She also told me that you, Montalbano, have in your possession some letters Sclafani wrote in which she threatens to kill her lover. Is that true?” “Yes.”

“I want to see them at once.” “Okay, but—”

“I repeat, no excuses. Don’t you realize how you’re acting? You hid from me—”

“Don’t piss outside the urinal, Tommaseo.” “I don’t understand.”

“I’ll explain. I said don’t piss outside the urinal. I’m not hiding anything from you. It’s just that Elena Sclafani has an alibi for the evening Pardo was killed, and it’s one you’re really going to like.”

“What does that mean, that I’ll really like Sclafani’s alibi?”

“You’ll see. Make sure she goes into great detail. Have a good evening.”

“Inspector Montalbano? It’s Lagana.”

“Good evening, Marshal. What can you tell me?” “That I’ve had a stroke of luck.” “In what sense?”

“Last night, entirely by chance, I got wind of a huge operation that’s going to be revealed to the press tomorrow. We’re going to make a big sweep of over four thousand people, including doctors, pharmacists, and representatives, all accused of corruption and graft. So today I called a friend of mine in Rome. Well, it turns out the pharmaceutical firms represented by Angelo Pardo haven’t been implicated.”

“That means Pardo couldn’t have been killed by some rival, or for not making payoffs.” “Exactly.”

“And what do you make of those four pages covered with numbers I gave you?”

“I turned them over to Melluso.” “Who’s he?”

“A colleague of mine who knows all about that sort of thing. I’m hoping I’ll have something to tell you tomorrow.”

“Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!”

A high-pitched, piercing, prolonged yell terrorized everyone who was still at the station. It came from the entrance. With a chill running down his spine, Montalbano rushed into the corridor, crashing into Fazio, Mimi, Gallo, and a couple of uniformed policemen.

Inside his closet stood Catarella, back glued to the wall, no longer screaming but rather whimpering like a wounded animal, eyes popping out of his head, pointing with a trembling finger at Angelo Pardo’s open laptop on the little table.

Matre santa!What could have appeared on the screen to frighten him that way? The devil? Osama bin Laden?

“Everybody stay outside!” Montalbano ordered, going into the closet.

He looked at the monitor. It was blank. There was nothing.

Maybe Catarella’s brain, having so strained itself in the struggle with the passwords, had completely melted. Which, in any case, wouldn’t have taken much.

“Go away!” the inspector yelled to his men.

When he was alone with Catarella, he embraced him. Feeling him trembling, he told him to sit down.

“There’s a good boy,” he murmured, stroking his head.

And, just like a dog, Catarella started to calm down. When he saw him no longer trembling, Montalbano asked him:

“Can you tell me what happened?”

Catarella made a gesture of despair.

“Come on, try to talk. Do you want a little water?”

Catarella shook his head no and swallowed twice.

“It…it…deleted isself, Chief,” he said in a voice about to break into a heartrending wail.

“Come on, speak up. What deleted itself?”

“The third file, Chief. And it deleted the other two, too.”

Therefore everything that might have been of interest in the computer had been lost.

“How is that possible?”

“Oh, iss possible, Chief. There musta been an abortion pogram.”

Abortion? Maybe Angelo Pardo, aside from performing illegal abortions on women, had also found a way to perform them on computers?

“What have abortions got to do with this?”

“Chief, whatta you say when you got a militiry operation going an’ you wanna stop it?”

“I dunno, I guess you could say you abort it.”

“And in’t that what I said? Iss what I said. Iss got an abortion pogram pogrammed to delete what’s asposta be deleted in the abortion pogram pogrammed to be deleted after a week, a month, two months, tree months …You follow?”

“Perfectly. A timed deletion program.”

“Just like you say, Chief. But iss not ‘cause of my fault or negleck, Chief! I swear!”

“I know, Cat, I know. Don’t worry about it.”

He patted his head again and went back into his office. Angelo Pardo had taken every possible precaution to make sure nobody ever found out how he got the money he needed to gamble and buy expensive gifts for his girlfriend.

16

The first thing he did when he got home was attack the salmon. A hefty slice dressed with fresh lemon juice and a special olive oil given him by the person who made it. (“The virginity of this olive oil has been certified by a gynecologist,” said a little ticket that came with it.) After eating he cleared the veranda table and replaced the dish and silver-ware with a brand-new bottle of J&B and a glass. He knew at last that he held the end of a long thread in his hand.And if you even think of calling it Ariadne’s thread, I’ll slash your face,he warned himself. But that thread might in fact lead him, if not to a solution, at least down the right path.

It was Prosecutor Tommaseo who, without knowing it, had handed him the thread. He’d told him that during the last interrogation, Michela had made a scene straight out of a Greek tragedy, screaming that he, Montalbano, didn’t want to take any action against Elena even though he had in his possession the letters in which Elena had threatened to kill Angelo. And while it was absolutely true that he had those compromising letters, there was a small detail that could not be ignored: Michela should not have known this.

Because the day before, when Michela asked him if he’d found the letters, he’d said no, just to keep the waters muddy. And he remembered this perfectly clearly—forget about old age and Alzheimer’s (there, that’s what that disease was called!). And Paola the Red had also been present and could testify.

The only person who knew he’d found the letters was Elena, because he’d shown them to her. But the two women didn’t speak. And so? There was only one answer. Michela had gone to the garage to check if the envelope with the three letters was still in the Mercedes’ trunk, and when she saw it was gone, she’d come to the logical conclusion that the inspector had discovered it and taken it.

Wait a second, Montalbano. How could Michela have known the letters were lying hidden under the carpet in the trunk of the Mercedes? She said that Angelo kept his letters in one of the desk’s drawers. Angelo had no logical reason to move them out of the house and into the Mercedes in the garage—hiding them, yes, but making sure they weren’t entirely hidden, so that if anyone looked with any care, that person would find them. Therefore Michela must have moved them. But when? The very night Angelo was found dead, when he, Montalbano, had committed the colossal boner of leaving her alone in her brother’s apartment.

Why had Michela gone to such elaborate lengths?

Why would someone hide something in such a way that it can be discovered as if by chance? To make the discovery seem more significant, of course. Explain yourself better, Salvo.

If he opened the desk drawer, found the letters there, and read them, everything would seem normal. Let’s set the value of the words in those letters at ten. But if he found those letters after driving himself crazy looking for them, because they were hidden, it would mean that the letters were not supposed to have been read, and thus the value of their words climbed to fifty. This lent weight and truth to the death threats; they were no longer the generic statements of a jealous lover.

Compliments to Michela. As an attempt to screw the hated Elena, it was brilliant. But her excessive hatred had betrayed her in front of Tommaseo. It was easy for her to enter the garage, since she had copies of all Angelo’s keys.

Wait a minute. The other night, after the dream about the bath at Michela’s, something about a key had occurred to him. Whose key?

Inspector Montalbano, review everything from the start.

From the very beginning?

From the very beginning.

Could I pour myself another whisky first?

So one fine day, Signora (“excuse me,Signorina”)Michela Pardo appears at the station to tell me she’s had no word of her brother, Angelo, for two days. She says she even went into his apartment, since she has a set of keys, but found everything in order. She comes back the same evening. We go to look at the apartment together. Everything still in order. There’s no trace of any sudden departure. When we’re outside the building, about to say good-bye, it occurs to her that we haven’t checked the room Angelo has on the terrace, having rented both room and terrace. We go back upstairs. The glass door giving onto the terrace is locked. Michela opens it with one of her keys. The door to the little room on the terrace is also locked, but Michela tells me she doesn’t have the key to this one. So I break down the door. And I find …

Stop right there, Montalbano. There’s the rub, as Hamlet would say. This is the part of the story that doesn’t make sense.

What sense is there in Michela’s having only the key to the terrace door, which is completely useless if not accompanied by the key to the former laundry room? If she has copies ofallher brother’s keys, she must also have the one to the room on the terrace. All the more because Angelo used to go there to read or sunbathe, as Michela herself said. He did not go up there to be with his women. What did this mean?

Montalbano noticed that his glass was empty again. He refilled it, stepped off the veranda and onto the sand, and, taking a sip of whisky every few steps, arrived at the water’s edge. The night was dark, but it felt good. The lights of the fishing boats on the horizon line looked like lowlying stars.

He picked up the thread of his argument. If Michela had a key to the little room but told him she didn’t, the lie meant that she wanted him, Montalbano, to break down the door and find Angelo shot dead inside. And this because Michela already knew that her brother’s corpse was in that room. By staging this whole scene, she was trying to make herself appear, to the inspector’s eyes, completely extraneous to the entire event, when in fact she was in it up to her neck.

He returned to the veranda, sat down, poured another whisky. How could things have gone?

Michela says that on Monday, Angelo phoned her to tell her that Elena would be coming over to his place that evening. Thus Michela made herself scarce. But what if, on the other hand, Angelo, seeing that Elena wasn’t coming, and realizing that in fact she wasn’t going to come, called his sister back, and Michela went to see him? Maybe Angelo even told her he was going up to the terrace room to get some air. Then, when Michela showed up, she found her brother murdered. She’s convinced it was Elena, who, having arrived late, had a quarrel with Angelo. Especially since Angelo must have wanted to have sex with the girl, which was all too clear. So she decides to play her ace, to prevent Elena from getting away with it. She locks everything up, goes down into the apartment below, spends the night removing everything that might reveal anything about Angelo’s shady dealings, above all the strongbox, and takes the letters down to the garage, as these will serve as evidence against Elena …

Montalbano heaved a sigh of satisfaction. Michela had all the time in the world to take care of business before reporting her brother missing. And on the night he let her stay in the apartment, she probably slept soundly and happily, since she’d already done everything she needed to do. It was still a colossal boner on his part, but without any immediate consequences.

Yet why was Michela so sure that Angelo was up to something shady? The answer was simple. When she learned that her brother was giving extremely expensive presents to Elena, and then later found out that the money had not been taken from their joint account, she became convinced that Angelo held a secret account somewhere with a great deal of money in it, too much for him to have earned honestly. The story Michela told him, Montalbano, about sales bonuses and providing for the family was a lie. The woman was too smart not to have smelled a rat.

But why had she taken away the strongbox? There was an answer to this, too: because she hadn’t managed to find where the second key was hidden, the one found by Fazio stuck to bottom of the drawer. And then, if you really consider…

The consideration began and ended there. Montalbano’s eyes suddenly started to flutter, and his head dropped. The only thing to be taken into serious consideration was the bed.

He had the misfortune of waking up a few minutes before the alarm rang. He realized that Angelo Pardo’s funeral was that morning. The word “funeral” conjured up thoughts of death…He leapt out of bed, raced into the shower, washed, shaved, had a coffee, and got dressed, all with the frenetic rhythm of a Larry Semon silent film—at one point he could even hear the jaunty chords of a piano accompaniment—then went out of the house and finally regained his normal rhythm as soon as he got in the car and began his drive to Vigata.

Fazio wasn’t at the station, Mimi, summoned by Liguori, had gone to Montelusa, and Catarella was mute, not having yet recovered from the blow dealt him the day before by Pardo’s computer, when all the passwords had suddenly vanished and he had been left standing there gazing at a monitor as empty as the fabled Tartar desert. A morgue, in short.

Around midmorning the first phone call came in. “My dear Inspector, the family all well?” “Excellent, Dr. Lattes.”

“Let’s thank the Blessed Virgin! I wanted to tell you that unfortunately the commissioner can’t see you today. Shall we make it the same time tomorrow?”

“Let’s do indeed, Doctor.”

With thanks to the Blessed Virgin, he’d been spared the sight of Mr. Commissioner’s face for yet another day. Meanwhile, however, he’d become curious to know what his boss wanted to see him about. Certainly nothing important, if he kept postponing with such ease.

Let’s hope he manages to tell me before I retire or he’s transferred,Montalbano thought.

The second call came right after the first. “It’s Lagana, Inspector. My friend Melluso, the one I gave those pages to decipher, Remember?.’

“Of course I remember. Has he succeeded in figuring out how the code works?”

“Not yet. But meanwhile he’s made a discovery that I thought could be important to your investigation.”

“Really?”

“Yes, but I’d like to tell you about it in person.” “How about if I come by around five-thirty this afternoon?” “Fine.”

The third call came at half past noon. “Montalbano? Tommaseo here.” “What is it?”

“Elena Sclafani came in to see me at nine o’clock this morning … My God!”

He’d suddenly lost his breath. Montalbano got worried. “What’s wrong, sir?”

“That woman is so…beautiful,she’s a creature of…of… “

Tommaseo was beside himself. He not only couldn’t breathe, he also couldn’t speak. “How did it go?”

“Splendidly!” the prosecutor said enthusiastically. “Couldn’t have gone any better!

Logically speaking, when a prosecutor declares himself satisfied and content with an interrogation, it means the accused got the worse end of things.

“Did you find any incriminating elements?”

“You must be kidding!”

So much for logic. The prosecutor was clearly leaning in Elena’s favor.

“The lady showed up with Traina, the lawyer, who brought along a service-station attendant, a certain Luigi Diotisalvi.”

“The lady’s alibi.”

“Exactly, Montalbano. All we can do at this point is envy Mr. Diotisalvi and open up our own service station in the hope that sooner or later she’ll need refueling, heh, heh, heh.”

He laughed, still stunned by Elena’s appearance.

“The lady was adamant in her wish that her husband should not under any circumstances learn of her alibi,” the inspector reminded him.

“Of course. I made every effort to reassure the lady. The upshot, however, is that we’re back at sea. What are we going to do, Montalbano?”

“Swim, sir.”

At a quarter to one, Fazio returned from the funeral. “Were there a lot of people?” “Enough.” “Wreaths?”

“Nine. And only one pillow, from the mother and sister.”

“Did you take down the names on the ribbons?” “Yessir. Six were unknown persons, but three were known.”

His eyes started to glisten, a sign that he was about to drop a bomb. “Go on.”

“One wreath was from Senator Nicotra’s family.”

“Nothing strange about that. You yourself know they were friends. The senator defended him—”

“Another was from the Di Cristoforo family.”

Fazio was expecting the inspector to be surprised. He was disappointed.

“I was already aware they knew each other. It was MP Di Cristoforo who introduced Pardo to the manager of the bank in Fanara.”

“And the third wreath was from the Sinagra family. The same Sinagras we know so well,” fired Fazio.

This time Montalbano was speechless.

“Holy shit!” he said.

For the Sinagras to have come this far out in the open, Angelo Pardo must have been a dear friend indeed. Was it Senator Nicotra who introduced Pardo to the Sinagras? And was Di Cristoforo therefore part of the same clique? Di Cristoforo—Nicotra—Pardo: a triangle whose area equaled the Sinagra family?

“Did you also go to the cemetery?”

“Yessir. But they weren’t able to bury him. They put him on ice for a few days.” “Why?”

“The Pardos have a family tomb, Chief, but when it came time to put the coffin in the vault, it wouldn’t fit. The lid of the coffin was too high, so they’re going to have to enlarge the hole.”

Montalbano sat there pensive.

“Do you remember how Angelo Pardo was built?” he asked.

“Yeah, Chief. About five foot ten, a hundred and seventy-five pounds.”

“Perfectly normal. Do you think a body that size needs a supersize coffin?”

“No, Chief.”

“Tell me something, Fazio. “Where did the funeral procession begin?”

“At Pardo’s mother’s place.”

“Which means they’d already brought him back to Vigata from Montelusa.”

“Yessir, they did that last night.”

“Listen, can you find me the name of the funeral home?”

“I already know it, Chief. Angelo Sorrentino and Sons.” Montalbano stared at him, his eyes like slits. “Why do you already know it?”

“Because the whole thing didn’t make any sense to me. You’re not the only cop around here, Chief.”

“Okay, I want you to call up this Sorrentino and have him tell you the names of the people directly involved in transferring the body from Montelusa to here and then to the funeral. Then summon them to my office for three o’clock this afternoon.”

At Enzo’s he kept to light dishes, since he wouldn’t have time for his customary digestive-meditative walk along the jetty to the lighthouse. “While eating he further reflected on the coincidence that there were wreaths from the Nicotra and Di Cristoforo families, who had also been recently bereft, at Pardo’s funeral. Three people who were in some way linked by friendship had died in less than a week.Wait a minute,he said to himself. It was known high and low that Senator Nicotra was a friend of Pardo’s, but were Nicotra and Di Cristoforo friends with each other? The more one thought about it, the more it seemed that this was perhaps not the case.

After the havoc of “Clean Hands,” Nicotra had gone over to the party of the Milanese real-estate magnate and continued his political career, still supported, however, by the Sinagra family. Di Cristoforo, a former Socialist, had gone over to a centrist party opposed to Nicotra’s. And on several occasions, he had more or less openly attacked Nicotra for his relations with the Sinagras. Thus you had Di Cristoforo on one side and Nicotra and the Sinagras on the other, and their only point in common was Angelo Pardo. It wasn’t the triangle he had at first imagined. So what did Angelo Pardo represent for Nicotra, and what did he represent for Di Cristoforo? Theoretically speaking, if he was a friend of Nicotra’s, he couldn’t also be the same for Di Cristoforo. And vice versa. The friend of my enemy is my enemy. Un-less he does something that suits friends and enemies alike.

“My name is Filippu Zocco.”

“And mine is Nicola Paparella.”

“Were you the ones who brought Angelo Pardo’s body from the Montelusa morgue to Vigata?”

“Yessir,” they said in unison.

The two fiftyish undertakers were wearing a sort of uniform: black double-breasted jacket, black tie, black hat. They looked like a couple of stereotyped gangsters out of an American movie.

“Why wouldn’t the coffin fit into the vault?”

“Should I talk or should you talk?” Paparella asked Zocco.

“You talk.”

“Mrs. Pardo called our boss, Mr. Sorrentino, over to her place, and they decided on the coffin and the time. Then, at sevenP.M.yesterday, we went to the morgue, boxed up the body, and brought ‘im here, to the home of this Mrs. Pardo.”

“Is that your normal procedure?”

“No, sir, Inspector. It happens sometimes, but it’s not normal procedure.”

“What is the normal procedure?”

“We go get the body from the morgue and then take it directly to the church where the funeral’s gonna be held.” “Go on.”

“When we got there, the lady said the coffin looked too low. She wanted it higher.” “And was it in fact low?”

“No, sir, Inspector. But sometimes dead people’s relatives get fixated on dumb things. So we took the body outta the first coffin and put him in another one. But the lady didn’t want it covered. She said she wanted to sit up all night, but not in front of a sealed coffin. She told us to come back next morning round seven to put the lid on. So that’s what we did. We came back this morning and put the lid on. Then at the cemetery—”

“I know what happened at the cemetery. When you went to close the coffin this morning, did you notice anything strange?”

“There was something strange that wasn’t strange, Inspector.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Sometimes relatives put things inside the coffin, things the dead person was fond of when he was alive.” “And in this particular case?”

“In this particular case it was almost like the dead man was sitting up.”

“What do you mean?”

“The lady put something big under his head and shoulders. Something wrapped up in a sheet. It was kind of like she put a pillow under him.”

“One last question. Would the dead man have fit inside the first coffin in this position?”

“No,” Zocco and Paparella said, again in unison.

17

“Ah, Inspector! So punctual! Make yourself comfortable,” said Lagana.

As Montalbano was sitting down, the marshal dialed a number.

“Can you come over?” he said into the receiver.

“Well, Marshal, what have you discovered?”

“If you don’t mind, I’d rather my colleague told you, since he deserves the credit.”

There was a knock at the door. Vittorio Melluso was the spit and image of William Faulkner around the time the writer received the Nobel Prize. The same southern gentleman’s elegance, the same polite, distant smile.

“The code based on that song collection is so hard to understand precisely because it’s rather elementary in conception and created for personal use.”

“I don’t understand what you mean by ‘for personal use.’ “

“Inspector, normally a code is used by two or three people to communicate with one another so that they needn’t fear anyone else understanding what they say. Right?”

“Of course.”

“And so they make as many copies of the code as they will need for the people who need to exchange information. Clear?”

“Yes.”

“I think the code you found is the only copy in existence. It was only used by the person who conceived it, to encrypt certain names, the ones that appear in the two lists that Lagana gave me.”

“Did you manage to understand any of it?”

“Well, I think I’ve figured two things out. The first is that every surname corresponds to a number, the one in the left-hand column. Each number has six digits, whereas the names are of varying length and therefore have varying numbers of letters. This means that each digit does not correspond to a letter. There are probably some dummy digits within each number.”

“Which means?”

“Digits that serve no purpose, other than to throw people off. In other words, it’s a code within a code.” “I see. And what was the second thing?” Lagana and Melluso exchanged a very quick glance. “You want to tell him?” “The credit is all yours,” said Lagana.

“Inspector,” Melluso began, “you gave us two lists. In both of these lists, the numbers on the left, the ones that stand for names, always occur and recur in the same sequence. The numbers on the right, on the other hand, are al-ways different. After studying them closely, I arrived at a conclusion, which is that the figures on the right in the first list indicate sums of money in euros, while the figures on the right in the second list represent quantities. When you com-pare, for instance, the first two numbers on the right-hand side of the two lists, you discover that there’s a precise relationship between the two figures, which corresponds—”

“To the current market price,” the inspector finished his sentence.

Lagana, who hadn’t taken his eyes off Montalbano for the past five minutes, started laughing.

“I told you, Melluso, the inspector was going to get it straightaway!”

Melluso nodded slightly toward Montalbano in homage.

“So,” the inspector concluded, “the first list contains the names of the clients and the sum paid by each; the second list indicates the amount provided each time. There was a third list in the computer, but unfortunately it self-destructed.”

“Do you now have an idea of what it contained?” asked Lagana.

“Now I do. I’m sure it had the dates and the amount of merchandise the provider—let’s call him the wholesaler— delivered to him.”

“Shall I keep trying to decode the names?” asked Melluso.

“Of course. I really appreciate it.”

He didn’t say, however, that of those fourteen names he already knew two.

When he got back to the station, it was already growing dark. He picked up the receiver and dialed Michela’s number.

“Hello? Montalbano here. How are you doing?” “How am I supposed to be doing?”

The woman’s voice sounded different, as though far away, and weary, as after a long walk. “I need to talk to you.” “Could we put it off till tomorrow?” “No.”

“All right, then, come over.”

“Tell you what, Michela: Let’s meet in an hour at your brother’s apartment, since you have the keys. All right?”

At Michela’s place there were likely other people—the mother, the aunt from Vigata, the aunt from Fanara, as well as friends come to pay their condolences—and this might make it difficult or even prevent them from talking.

“Why there of all places?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

He raced home, undressed, slipped into the shower, put on a fresh set of clothes: underwear, shirt, socks, suit. He phoned Livia, told her he loved her, and hung up, probably leaving her befuddled. Then he poured himself a glass of whisky and went out on the veranda to drink it while smoking a cigarette. Now he had to lance the pustule, the foulest part.

Pulling up in front of Angelo’s apartment house, he parked the car, got out, and looked up at the balcony and windows on the top floor. It was pitch dark now, and he saw light in two of the windows. Michela must have already arrived. Thus instead of using his keys, he rang the intercom, but no voice replied. Only the click of the front door, as it opened. He climbed the lifeless stairs of the dead building, and when he reached the landing on the top floor, he saw Michela waiting for him outside the door.

He got scared. For an ever so brief moment, it seemed as if the woman he was looking at was not Michela but her mother. What had happened to her?

Naturally her brother’s death had been a terrible blow, but until the day before, she had seemed to Montalbano to take it well, carrying herself intelligently and accusing forcefully. Perhaps the lugubrious funeral ceremony had finally made her aware of the definitive, irrevocable loss of Angelo. She was wearing one of her usual broad, shapeless dresses, which looked like something she’d bought at a used-clothing stand where they only had sizes too large for her. The dress was black, for mourning. Likewise black were the stockings and the canvas shoes, which were without heels and had a button in the middle, like nuns’ shoes. She’d gathered her hair inside a big scarf—also black, of course. She stood with her shoulders hunched, leaning against the door. She kept her eyes lowered.

“Please come in.”

Montalbano entered, stopping inside the doorway. “Where should we go?” he asked.

“Wherever you like,” replied Michela, closing the door. The inspector chose the living room. They sat down in two armchairs facing one another. Neither spoke for a spell. It was as though the inspector had come to pay his respects and stay the proper amount of time, sitting in awkward silence.

“So it’s all over,” Michela said suddenly, leaning against the back of her chair and closing her eyes.

“It’s not all over. The investigation is still open.”

“Yes, but it’ll never be properly closed. Either it’ll be shelved or you’ll arrest someone who had nothing to do with it.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I found out Prosecutor Tommaseo didn’t file any charges against Elena after interrogating her. He’s taken her side. As you, too, seem to have done, Inspector.”

“It was you who first brought her up, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, because I was waiting for you to do so!”

“Did you tell Tommaseo I had Elena’s letters to your brother in my possession?”

“Shouldn’t I have?”

“You shouldn’t have.”

“Why not? So you could continue to keep Elena out of this?”

“No, so I could continue to keep you out of this, Michela. By telling the judge what you told him, you made a mistake. You kicked the ball into your own goal.”

“Explain what you mean.”

“Certainly. I never told you I found those letters. And if I didn’t tell you, how did you find out?”

“But I’m sure you did tell me! In fact, I remember that even Paola was here …”

Montalbano shook his head.

“No, Michela, your friend Paola, if you call on her to testify, will only confirm that on that evening, when asked explicitly by you, I denied having found those letters.”

Michela said nothing, but only sank further into the armchair, her eyes still closed.

“It was you, Michela,” the inspector went on, “who took the letters that Angelo kept in his desk, put them in a large envelope, went down to the garage, and hid them under the carpeting in the trunk of the Mercedes. But you made sure that a corner of the envelope remained visible. You wanted those letters to be found. So that I, after reading them, would wonder who might have a reason to hide them. And there could only be one answer: Elena. When you went to check and saw that the envelope was gone, you were sure that I had taken the letters.”

“And when would I have done all this?” she asked in a tense voice, newly attentive and alert.

Should he tell her his hypothesis? Perhaps it was premature. He decided instead to blame himself for something he now knew to be of no importance.

“The night we found Angelo. When I let you sleep alone in this apartment, which was a big mistake.”

She relaxed.

“That’s pure fantasy. You have no proof.”

“We’ll discuss proof in a few minutes. As you know, I looked in vain for the strongbox Angelo used to keep in his apartment. I imagine you took that away, too, Michela, the same night you took the letters.”

“Then explain to me,” the woman said ironically, “why

I would want you to find the letters and not the strongbox?”

“Because the letters might incriminate Elena, whereas the contents of the strongbox would certainly have incriminated your brother.”

“And what could there have been in the strongbox that would have been so compromising, in your opinion? Money?”

“No, not money. That he kept in Fanara, at the Banca Popolare.”

He was expecting a different reaction from Michela. At the very least, Angelo had not revealed to her that he had another account, and, given their relationship, the omission would have been very close to a betrayal.

“Oh, really?” she said, only slightly surprised.

Her indifference stank of falsehood a mile away. So Michela knew damn well that Angelo had another account. And therefore she must have known all about her brother’s little side business.

“You knew nothing about this other account, correct?”

“Nothing at all. I was sure he only had the joint account. I think I even showed it to you.”

“Where, in your opinion, did the money deposited in Fanara come from?”

“Oh, it must have been productivity bonuses, incentives, extra commissions, that sort of thing. I thought he kept that money at home, but apparently he put it in the bank.”

“Did you know he gambled heavily?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

Another lie. She knew that her brother had caught the bug. And in fact she limited herself to denying it. She didn’t ask how Montalbano had found out, where Angelo gambled, how much he lost or won.

“If there was a lot of money in the account,” said Michela, “it probably means he had a few lucky evenings at the gambling table.”

The girl fenced well. She would parry and immediately follow with a thrust, exploiting her adversary’s reaction. She was ready to admit everything, so long as the real source of that money never came out.

“Let’s return to the strongbox.”

“Inspector, I know nothing about that strongbox, just as I knew nothing about the account in Fanara.”

“In your opinion, what could there have been in that box?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“I do,” Montalbano said in a low voice, as though giving no importance to the assertion.

Michela showed no interest in knowing what the inspector’s idea was.

“I’m tired,” she said instead, sighing.

Montalbano felt sorry for her. For in those two words, he’d felt the weight of a deep, genuine weariness, a weariness not only physical, of the body, but also of the mind, the emotions, the soul. An absolute weariness.

“I can leave, if you—”

“No, stay. The sooner we finish, the better. But I ask only one thing of you, Inspector. Don’t play cat and mouse with me. By this point you’ve figured out many things, or so it seems to me. Ask me only precise questions, and I’ll answer them as best I can.”

Montalbano couldn’t tell whether the woman was merely trying to change strategy or really asking him to bring things to a close because she couldn’t stand it anymore.

“It’ll take a little time.”

“I’ve got as much time as you want.”

“I’d like to start by telling you that I have a very precise idea where the box is presently located. I could have checked before our meeting tonight and confirmed my suspicion, but I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“There’s no saying I necessarily have to check. It’s up to you.”

“Up to me? And where do you suspect the box is?” “At the cemetery. Inside the coffin. Under Angelo’s body.”

“Oh, come on!” she said, even attempting a little smile that must have cost her a tremendous effort.

“We’re getting nowhere, Michela. If you carry on this way, I’m going to be forced to check the coffin. You know what that means? It means I’ll have to request a great many authorizations, the whole affair will become official, the strongbox will be opened, and everything you’ve done to save your brother’s good name will have been all for naught.”

It was perhaps at this instant that Michela realized the jig was up. She opened her eyes and looked at him for a moment.

Montalbano instinctively grabbed the arms of the easy chair as if to anchor himself. But there were no stormy seas in those eyes, just a liquid expanse, yellowish and dense, slowly moving and seeming to breathe, rising and falling. It didn’t frighten him, but he had the impression that if he put his finger in that liquid, it would have been burnt down to the bone. The woman closed her eyes again.

“Do you also know what’s inside the box?”

“Yes, Michela. Cocaine. But not only.”

“What else?”

“There must also be the substance with which Angelo mistakenly cut the last part of the cocaine, turning it, without wanting to, into a deadly poison. And thereby causing the death of Nicotra, Di Cristoforo, and others whose secret supplier he was.”

The woman took off her kerchief and shook her head, making her hair fall onto her shoulders.

How did I ever not notice before that she had so much white hair?the inspector asked himself.

“I’m tired,” Michela repeated.

“When did Angelo first start frequenting gambling dens?”

“Last year. He went out of curiosity. And that was the beginning of the end for him. The money he earned was no longer enough. So he accepted an offer somebody made to him: to supply important clients with large quantities. Given his profession, he could travel all over the province without arousing any suspicion.”

“How did you manage to discover that Angelo—”

“I didn’t. He told me himself. He never kept anything from me.”

“Do you know who made him this offer?” “I do, but I’m not going to tell you.”

“Did he also tell you he’d adulterated the last batch of cocaine?”

“No, he didn’t have the courage.” “Why not?”

“Because he did it for that slut Elena. He needed a lot of money to buy her other gifts and keep her close. And with this new system, he could double the amount of stuff they gave him and keep the difference for himself.”

“Michela, why do you hate Elena so much, but not the other women your brother went with?”

Before she answered, a painful grimace twisted her mouth.

“Angelo fell truly in love with that woman. It was the first time that happened to him.”

The moment had come. Montalbano summoned inside him everything there was to summon: muscles, breath, nerves. Like a diver at the edge of the diving board, an instant before taking the plunge. Then he jumped.

“Angelo was supposed to love only you, wasn’t he?”

“Yes.”

He’d done it. Penetrating that shadowy undergrowth of intertwined roots, snakes, tarantulas, vipers’ nests, wild grasses, and thorny brambles had been easy. He’d had no trouble entering the dark wood. But walking through it would take courage.

“But hadn’t you once been engaged? Weren’t you in love?”

“Yes. But Angelo …”

There, under a tree, he’d found the malignant plant. Beautiful to look at, but put a leaf in your mouth and it’s lethal.

“Angelo got rid of him, is that right?”

“Yes.”

There was no end to this sick forest and its stench of death. The farther in you went, the greater the horror you wanted neither to see nor to smell, waiting in ambush.

“And when Teresa got pregnant, was it you who persuaded Angelo to have the girl abort and set a trap for her?”

“Yes.”

“Nobody was supposed to interfere with your … your… “

“What’s wrong, Inspector?” she whispered. “Can’t find the right word? Love, Mr. Montalbano. The word is ‘love.’ “

She opened her eyes and looked at him. On the surface of the yellowish liquid expanse, there were now large bubbles, popping as if in slow motion. Montalbano imagined the stink they gave off, a sickly-sweet smell of decomposition, of rotten eggs, of miasmas and fetid swamps.

“How did you find out Angelo’d been killed?”

“I got a phone call. That same Monday, around nineP.M.They told me they’d gone to talk to Angelo but had found him already dead. They ordered me to remove everything that might reveal the sort of work Angelo was doing for them. And I obeyed.”

“You not only obeyed. You also went into the room where your brother had just been killed and planted false evidence against Elena. It was you who staged that whole scene of the panties in the mouth, the unbuckled jeans, his member hanging out.”

“Yes. I wanted to be sure, absolutely certain, that Elena would be charged with the crime. Because she did it. When those other people arrived, Angelo was already dead.”

“We’ll see about that later. They may have lied to you, you know. For now, tell me: Do you know who it was that called you to tell you your brother was dead?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me his name.”

Michela stood up slowly. She spread her arms as though stretching.

“I’ll be right back,” she said, “I need a drink of water.”

She left the room and headed towards the kitchen, her shoulders more hunched than ever, feet dragging on the floor.

Montalbano didn’t know how or why, but all at once he got up and ran into the kitchen. Michela wasn’t there. He went out on the open balcony. A small light illuminated the area in front of the garage, but its dim glow was enough to reveal a kind of black sack, immobile, on the ground. Michela had thrown herself down below, without a word, without a cry. And the inspector realized that tragedy, when acted out in front of others, strikes poses and speaks in a loud voice, but when it is deep and true, it speaks softly and makes humble gestures. There: the humility of tragedy.

He made a snap decision. He’d never gone to Angelo’s apartment that evening. When the woman’s body was discovered, they would think she killed herself because she couldn’t get over the loss of her brother. And that was how it should be.

He closed the door to the apartment softly, terrified that His Majesty might catch him in the act. He descended the lifeless stairs, went outside, got in his car, and drove home to Marinella.

18

The moment he entered his house, he felt very tired. Great was the desire to lie down, pull the covers up over his head, and stay that way, eyes closed, trying to blot out the world.

It was elevenP.M.As he was taking off his jacket, tie, and shirt, he managed, like a magician, to dial Augello’s number.

“Salvo, are you crazy?”

“Why?”

“Calling at this hour? You’ll wake up the baby!”

“Did I wake him up?”

“No.”

“So why are you being such a pain in the ass? I have something important to tell you. Come right away, to my place.”

“But, Salvo—”

He hung up. Then he called Livia, but there was no answer. Maybe she’d gone to the movies. He undressed completely, went into the shower, used up all the water in his first tank, cursed the saints, was about to open the reserve tank but stopped. If they didn’t deliver any water during the night, how was he going to wash in the morning? Better play it safe.

Waiting for Mimi, he decided to busy himself cutting his toenails and fingernails. Just when he’d finished, the doorbell rang and he went to open the door, still naked.

“But I’m married!” said Mimi, scandalized. “You didn’t by any chance invite me over to see your butterfly collection, did you?”

Montalbano turned his back to him and went to put on a pair of underpants and a shirt.

“Will this take long?” asked Mimi.

“Fairly.”

“Then give me a whisky.”

They sat down on the veranda. Before drinking, Montalbano raised his glass:

“Congratulations, Mimi.” “What for?”

“For solving the case of the wholesale dealer. Tomorrow you can strut your stuff for Liguori.” “Is this some kind of joke?”

“Not at all. It’s too bad they killed him, but he betrayed the trust of the Sinagra family.” “Who?” “Angelo Pardo.” Augello’s jaw dropped.

“The guy who was found shot with his dick hanging out?”

“The very one.”

“I was convinced it was a crime of passion. Women problems.”

“That’s what they wanted us to think.”

Augello twisted up his mouth.

“Are you sure of what you’re saying, Salvo? Do you have proof?”

“The proof is in a strongbox that you’ll find inside Angelo Pardo’s coffin. Go get authorization, open it up, grab the strongbox, open that, too—with the key that I’ll give you in a second—and inside you’ll find not only cocaine, but also the other stuff that turned it into poison.”

“Excuse me, Salvo, but who put the strongbox in the coffin?”

“His sister, Michela.”

“So she’s an accomplice!”

“You’re mistaken. She had no idea what her brother was up to. She thought the box—which she didn’t have the key to—contained personal items of Angelo’s, and so she put it in his coffin.”

“Why?”

“So that every now and then, in the afterlife, he could open it up, look at the things inside, and remember the good old days when he was alive.”

“Am I supposed to believe that?”

“You mean the story of the dead guy opening the strongbox now and then?”

“I mean the bit about his sister being unaware of her brother’s dealings.”

“No. Not you. But everyone else, yes.Theyare supposed to believe it.”

“And what if Liguori interrogates her and she ends up contradicting herself?”

“Don’t worry, Mimi. She won’t be interrogated.” “How can you be so sure?” “I just am.”

“Then tell me everything, from the beginning.”

He told him almost everything, but sang only half the Mass. He didn’t tell him that Michela was neck-deep in that shit, only knee-deep; he explained that Angelo’s need for money came from his gambling addiction, thus leaving Elena discreetly in the shadows; and he informed him that Customs Police Marshal Lagana and a colleague of his could provide him and Liguori with a host of useful information.

“But how did Pardo come to know the Sinagra family?”

“Pardo’s father was a big political supporter of Senator Nicotra. And the senator had introduced Angelo to some of the Sinagras. When the Sinagras found out that Pardo was hard up for cash, they got him to work for them. Angelo betrayed their trust, so they had him killed.”

“I thought I heard that some threads of women’s panties were f—”

“Just for show, Mimi, to muddy the waters.”

They talked a little while longer. Montalbano gave him Angelo’s keys, and as Mimi was saying good-bye, the telephone rang.

“Livia, darling?” the inspector asked.

“Sorry to disappoint you, Chief.”

It was Fazio.

“I just learned that Michela Pardo’s been found dead. A suicide. Threw herself off the balcony at her brother’s place.

I’m at the station, but I have to go over there. Do you have the keys to the apartment?”

“Yes. I’ll send them over with Inspector Augello, who happens to be here with me.”

He hung up.

“Michela Pardo committed suicide.” “Poor thing! What’ll we say? That she couldn’t get over the grief?” asked Augello.

“That’s what we’ll say,” said Montalbano.

In the four days that followed, nothing whatsoever happened. Mr. Commissioner postponed his meeting with Montalbano to a date as yet to be determined. Elena never called either.

And this displeased him, in a way. He thought the girl had him in her sights and had put off the attack until the investigation was over. “To avoid any misunderstandings,” as she’d said. Or something similar.

And she was right. If she’d put her powers of seduction to work at the time, Montalbano might have thought she was doing it to gain his friendship and make him an accomplice. But now that even Tommaseo had exonerated her, there was no more possibility of misunderstanding. And so?

Want to bet the cheetah had been eyeing a different prey? And it was he who had misunderstood? He was like a rabbit that sees a cheetah coming after it and starts running away in terror. All at once the rabbit no longer senses the ferocious beast behind it. It turns and sees the cheetah pursuing a fawn.

The question was this: Why, instead of feeling happy, did the rabbit feel a wee bit disappointed?

On the fifth day, Mimi arrested Gaetano Tumminello, a man from the Sinagra family suspected of four other homicides, for the murder of Angelo Pardo.

For twenty-four hours, Tumminello insisted he had never set foot in Angelo Pardo’s apartment. Indeed he swore he didn’t even know where he lived. The alleged murderer’s photograph appeared on television. Then Commendator Ernesto Laudadio, alias HM Victor Emmanuel III, showed up at the station to report that on that Monday evening he hadn’t been able to enter his garage because there’d been a car he’d never seen before parked right in front, whose license-plate number he’d taken down. He’d started honking his horn, and after a brief spell the owner had appeared— none other than, you guessed it, the man shown in the photo on television, there was no mistaking him—whereupon said man, without so much as saying good night, had got back in his car and left.

As a result Tumminello had to change his story. He said he’d gone to Pardo’s to talk business, but had found him already dead. He knew nothing about the panties stuck in Pardo’s mouth. He also stated quite specifically that when he’d seen him, the zipper of Pardo’s jeans was closed. So that when he heard that Pardo had been found in an obscene pose (that’s exactly how he put it: “an obscene pose”), he, Tumminello, was shocked.

Nobody believed him, of course. Not only had he killed Pardo for having put lethal cocaine into circulation, risking a massacre, but he’d also tried to mislead the investigation. The Sinagras cut him loose, and Tumminello, in keeping with tradition, got the Sinagras off the hook. He claimed that the idea for getting into drugs was his and his alone, just like the idea to enlist the help of Angelo Pardo, who he knew was short on cash; and that of course the Family that had honored him by taking him in like a devoted and respectful son was entirely in the dark about all this. He repeated, however, that when he’d gone to talk to Pardo about the huge fuckup he’d made by cutting the cocaine, he’d found him already dead.

“Isn’t saying you ‘went to talk to him’ a polite euphemism for saying you’d gone to see Pardo to kill him?” the prosecutor had asked him.

Tumminello did not answer.

Meanwhile Marshal Melluso, Lagana’s colleague, had managed to decipher Angelo’s code, and the nine people on his list found themselves in a pretty pickle. Actually there were fourteen names, not nine, but the other five (including the engineer Fasulo, Senator Nicotra, and the Honorable Di Cristoforo) belonged to people who, thanks to Angelo Pardo’s modest talents in chemistry, could no longer be prosecuted.

A week later Livia came to spend three days in Vigata. They didn’t quarrel even once. On Monday morning, at the crack of dawn, Montalbano drove her to Punta Raisi Airport and, after watching her leave, got in the car to drive back to Vigata. Since he had nothing else to do, he decided to take a back road the whole way, one in pretty bad shape, yes, but which allowed him to enjoy for a few kilometers the landscape he loved, the parched terrain and little white houses. He rolled along for three hours, head emptied of thoughts. All at once he realized he was on the road leading from Giardina to Vigata, meaning that he was only a few kilometers from home. Giardina? Wasn’t this the road with the service station where Elena, that Monday evening, had made love to that attendant—what was his name, ah, yes, Luigi?

“Let’s go meet this Luigi,” he said to himself.

He drove even more slowly than before, looking left and right. At last he found the station. A little platform roof, half crowned by lighted fluorescent tubes under which stood three pumps. That was all. He pulled in under the roof and stopped. The attendant’s shelter was made of brick and almost entirely hidden by the trunk of a thousand-year-old Saracen olive tree. It was almost impossible to spot it from the road. The door was closed. He honked, but nobody came out. What was the problem? He got out of the car and went and knocked at the door of the shelter. Nothing. Silence. Turning around to go back to the car, he noticed, at the very edge of the space at the side of the road, the back of a metal rectangle supported by an iron bar. A sign. He went around to the front but couldn’t read it because three-fourths of it was covered by a clump of weeds, which he proceeded to beat down with his feet. The sign had long lost its paint and was half spotted with rust, but the words were still clear: CLOSED MONDAYS

Once, when he was a kid, his father, just to tease him, had told him the moon was made of paper. And since he never doubted what his father told him, he believed it. Now, as a mature, experienced man with brains and intuition, he had once again, like a little kid, believed what two women, one dead and the other alive, had said when they told him the moon was made out of paper.

The rage so clouded his vision that first he nearly ran over a little old lady and then he barely escaped colliding with a truck. When he pulled up in front of Elena’s place, it was past one o’clock. He rang the intercom and she answered.

She was waiting for him in the doorway, wearing gym clothes and smiling.

“Salvo, what a pleasant surprise! Come on in and make yourself at home.”

She went in ahead. From behind, Montalbano noticed that her gait was no longer springy and taut but soft and relaxed. Even the way she sat down in the armchair was almost languid, nonchalant. The cheetah apparently had recently had her fill of fresh flesh and for the moment presented no danger. It was better this way.

“You didn’t forewarn me, so I haven’t made coffee. But it’ll only take a second.”

“No, thanks. I need to talk to you.”

Still the wild animal, she bared all her sharp, white teeth in a cross between a smile and a feline hiss. “About us?”

She was clearly trying to provoke him, but only in jest, without serious intent.

“No, about the investigation.” “Still?”

“Yes. I need to talk to you about your phony alibi.” “Phony? Why phony?”

Only curiosity, almost as though amused. No embarrassment, surprise, fear.

“Because on that fateful Monday evening, you could not have met your Luigi.”

That “your” he tossed in had escaped him. Apparently he still felt a twinge of jealousy. She understood and threw fuel on the fire.

“I assure you I did meet him, and we rather enjoyed ourselves.”

“I don’t doubt that, but it wasn’t on a Monday, because that filling station is closed on Mondays.”

Elena folded her hands, raised her arms over her head, and stretched.

“When did you find out?”

“A few hours ago.”

“Luigi and I could have sworn it would never occur to anyone to check.”

“It occurred to me.”

A lie. Said not to boast, but just to avoid looking like a complete nincompoop in her eyes.

“A bit late, however, Inspector. Anyway, what difference does this great discovery make?”

“It means you don’t have an alibi.”

“Ouf! Didn’t I already tell you I had no alibi? Have you forgotten? I didn’t try to make anything up. But you kept insisting: ‘Careful, if you don’t have an alibi, you’re going to be arrested!’ “What do you want from me? So in the end I got my alibi, just like you wanted.”

Shrewd, alert, intelligent, beautiful. Stray just one millimeter and she’ll take advantage. So now it was his fault that she lied to Tommaseo!

“How did you persuade Luigi? By promising to sleep with him?”

He couldn’t control himself. The thorn of jealousy was making him say the wrong things. The rabbit couldn’t accept being refused by the cheetah.

“Wrong, Inspector. Everything that I said happened to me on Monday actually happened to me the day before, on Sunday. It didn’t take much to persuade Luigi to move our first encounter up one day when he talked to Tommaseo. And I can tell you that if you want to interrogate him, he’ll continue to swear up and down that we met for the first time that goddamned Monday evening. He would do anything for me.”

What was it that made his ears perk? Some small detail, perhaps, some unexpected change in her tone when she said

“that goddamned Monday evening” had suddenly, in a flash, brought something to mind—an idea, an illumination that nearly frightened him.

“You, that evening, went to Angelo’s,” the inspector’s mouth said before the idea had fully taken concrete form in his head.

Not a question but a clear assertion. She shifted position, rested her elbows on her knees, put her head in her hands, and eyed Montalbano long and hard. She was studying him. Beneath that stare, which was weighing his value as a man, brains and balls included, the inspector felt the same unease as when he’d undergone his army physical, standing naked in front of the committee as the doctor measured and manhandled him. Then she made up her mind. Perhaps he’d passed the test.

“You realize I could stick to my story and nobody could ever prove it was false.”

“That’s what you think. The sign is still there.”

“Yes, but getting rid of it would have made things worse. That’s what Luigi and I decided. He’ll just say he forgot a book in the booth and went back to get it that Monday evening. He’s studying for exams at the university. I saw him at the station and mistakenly thought he was closing up. You know the rest. Does it work?”

Damned woman! It worked, all right!

“Yes,” he said reluctantly.

“So I can go on. You’re right, Inspector. That Monday evening, after driving around in the car for about an hour, I went to Angelo’s place, very late for our appointment.”

“Why?”

“I’d decided to tell him once and for all that it was over between us. What had happened the day before with Luigi convinced me that I no longer felt anything for Angelo. So I went to see him.”

“How did you get in?”

“I rang the intercom. There’s an intercom in the terrace room, too. He answered, buzzed me in, and told me to come upstairs. When I got there, he kept dialing and dialing a number on his cell phone. He explained that when he thought I wasn’t coming anymore, he’d called Michela and told her to come see him. Now he wanted to warn her that I was there and that it was therefore better if she didn’t show up. But he couldn’t get hold of her. Maybe Michela had turned off her cell phone. Then he said, ‘Shall we go down-stairs?’ He wanted to make love, Michela or no Michela. I answered no and said I’d come to break up with him. That triggered a big, long scene, with him crying and begging. He even got down on his knees and implored me. At one point he suggested we go away and live together, screaming he couldn’t take any more of Michela and her jealousy. He said she was a leech, a parasite. Then he tried to embrace me. I pushed him away, and he fell into the armchair. I took advantage of this and left. I couldn’t stand it any longer. And that was the last time I saw Angelo. Satisfied?”

While telling her story, the pout of her lips had increased, and her eyes turned a dark, almost gloomy blue.

“So, to conclude your story, it was Tumminello who killed Angelo.”

“I don’t think so.”

Montalbano leapt out of his armchair. What was going through Elena’s head? Wasn’t it to her advantage to fall in with public opinion and blame the mafioso? Of course it was. So why was she casting doubt on the whole affair? What was compelling her to speak? Apparently she couldn’t restrain her own nature.

“I don’t think it was him,” she reiterated.

“So who was it?”

“Michela. Don’t you realize, Inspector, the kind of relationship those two had? They were in love, at least until Angelo fell in love with me. When I left the room, I thought I saw something move in the darkness on the terrace. A shadow moving very fast. I think it was Michela. She didn’t get Angelo’s phone call and had come to see him. And she’d heard him weeping and saying those terrible things about her… I think she went down to the apartment, grabbed the revolver, and waited for me to leave.”

“We didn’t find any weapons in Angelo’s place.”

“So what? She probably took it away with her and got rid of it. But Angelo did own a revolver, which he kept in the drawer of his nightstand. He showed it to me once, saying he’d found it by accident, after his father’s death. Anyway, why do you think Michela killed herself?”

Montalbano suddenly remembered the sheet of stamped paper declaring that a firearm had been found. He’d seen it in a drawer of Angelo’s desk and thought it to be of no importance. And yet it was indeed important, because it corroborated exactly what Elena had just told him and showed that the moon was no longer made of paper. The girl was now telling him the truth.

“So is the interrogation over? Shall I make you that coffee?” she asked.

He looked at her. She looked back. The color of her irises had now turned light blue, and her lips opened into a smile. Her eyes were a sky in early summer, a clear, open sky reflecting the changes of the day. Now and then a little white cloud would pass, ever so small, but the slightest breeze sufficed to make it vanish at once.

“Why not?” said Montalbano

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This is the usual disclaimer that by now I’m getting tired of writing: I made this whole story up. And therefore all the characters (along with their names and surnames), and the situations they find themselves in, belong to the realm of fantasy. Any resemblance to real people and situations is purely coincidental.

AC

A. NOTES

5 “You’s a doctor, but not o’ the medical variety”: To rise to Montalbano’s rank of commissario, one must have a university degree, which in Italy makes one a dottore.

33 a truly distinguished corpse: In Italian journalistic jargon, when a prominent figure, especially political, is found dead in suspicious circumstances, he or she is called a cadavere eccellente, or “distinguished corpse.”

33 the old Christian Democratic Party: The Democrazia

Cristiana was the ruling party of Italy from the post—World War II era until its fall from grace and eventual disbandment in the wake of the Mani Pulite scandal in the 1990s.

33 “Clean Hands”: English for Mani Pulite, a nationwide judicial and police investigation in the early 1990s into the endemic corruption in the Italian political system as well as the vast web of collusion between certain politicians, business leaders, intelligence organizations, organized crime, and extremist right-wing groups. After a rash of indictments of political and business leaders, and even a few suicides, Mani Pulite ultimately led to the demise and dissolution of the Christian Democratic Party, which had governed Italy since the end of the Second World War. The Italian Socialist and Social Democratic parties were also dissolved due to the scandal, before being reconstituted in other formations.

33 Milanese real-estate speculator-cum-owner of the top three private nationwide television stations-cum-parlia-mentary deputy, head of his own personal political party, and finally prime minister: A reference to Silvio Berlusconi, whose Forza Italia Party not only reversed many of the legal reforms instituted during the Mani Pulite (“Clean Hands”) scandal, but also resuscitated and recuperated many disgraced politicians formerly of the Christian Democratic Party.

70 “Let’s drop the Campanile dialogue”: A reference to Achille Campanile (1899—1977), a popular journalist, comic playwright, and humorist famous for his surreal dialogues and wordplay.

72 cornuto: Italian for “cuckold,” cornuto is a common insult throughout the country, but a special favorite among southerners, Sicilians in particular.

92 Everyone knew, of course, that the last Savoys were

notoriously trigger-happy: In 1978, when his rubber dinghy was accidentally taken from the docks after a violent storm off of Corsica, Vittorio Emanuele IV, banished heir to the throne of Italy and son of the monarch here parodied, carelessly shot at a man on the yacht onto which the dinghy had been attached. He missed his target but mortally wounded Dirk Hamer, a young German who had been sleeping below decks.

103 a short story by an Italian author that told of a country where making love in public not only caused no scandal but was actually the most natural thing in the world:

The author is Luciano Bianciardi (1922—1971).

107 an ancient Greek poet who wrote a love poem to a young Thracian filly: Anacreon (c. 570—c. 485 BC).

113 wasn’t a guy named Luigi Pirandello from around there?: Luigi Pirandello (1867—1936), the celebrated Italian playwright, novelist, short-story writer, and 1934 Nobel laureate, was from the Sicilian town of Agrigento, Camilleri’s model for the fictional town of Montelusa.

127 others will accuse us of acting like the judges in Milan, all Communists seeking to destroy the system: A common tactic used by Silvio Berlusconi and other politicians of his stripe to turn the public against the judges seeking to clean up the corruption endemic to the Italian political class was to accuse the prosecuting magistrates of being Communists motivated by ideological fervor, an accusation with no basis in fact.

128 Like the coffee they gave Pisciotta and Sindona: Gas-pare Pisciotta (1924—1954) was an associate of Sicilian separatist rebel bandit Salvatore Giuliano, whom he claimed to have ultimately killed, contradicting the official version of Giuliano’s death. After conviction to life imprisonment, Pisciotta became violently ill after drinking coffee one morning and died forty minutes later. An autopsy showed the cause of death to be strychnine poisoning. Michele Sindona (1920—1986) was a banker with ties to the Mafia and the political underworld, as well as a history of unethical business practices. Convicted of a host of offenses including fraud, per-jury, and murder, he, too, was poisoned in his prison cell.

132 Three thousand lire: At the time worth about $1.50.

138 a poet once said: The poet is Attilio Bertolucci (1911—2000), father of the filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci.

150 The total came to 596,000. Not much if it was in lire:

At the time of the conversion to the euro, 596,000 lira was worth about $300.

157 From Sweden with love. Ingrid: A good friend of the inspector’s, Ingrid Sjostrom, a Swede married to a Sicilian and living in Vigata, figures in several of the other books in this series.

164 “the ‘Clean Hands’ judges”: See notes to pages 33 and 127.

174 Dacter Arquaraqua: Catarella’s mangling of Dr. Arqua’s name suggests the Sicilian term quaquaraqua, which variously means “worthless individual,” “blabbermouth,” and “squealer” or “informant.”

174 The tombs shall open, the dead shall rise: A line from the Italian national anthem, often ironically quoted to express astonishment at the occurrence of an unusual event.

178 TV movies: In English in the original text.

185 Boccadasse: The suburb of Genoa where Livia, Inspector Montalbano’s girlfriend, lives.

191 to play the fool to avoid going to war: Fa u fissa pi nun

iri a la guerra. A Sicilian-Calabrian expression that essentially means to “play dumb,” i.e., to feign ignorance.

201 cotechino: A large pork sausage served in slices.

206 “weak thought”: Il pensiero debole (weak thought) is a fundamental tenet of the philosophy of postmodern Italian thinker Gianni Vattimo (born 1936), for whom it constitutes a counterweight to such forms of pensiero forte (strong thought) as Christianity, Marxism, and other ideological systems, and is intended to overcome the violent clashes and intolerance often associated with these.

239 the dark wood: The original Italian is “selva oscura,” a direct quote from the opening of Dante’s Inferno.

Notes compiled by Stephen Sartarelli