Rounding the Mark

8

It was too early to hole up in Marinella, but he decided to go home anyway, without first stopping at the office. The genuine rage that was churning inside him made his blood boil and had surely given him a slight fever. He was better off trying to get the anger out of his system alone and not taking it out on his men at the station, grasping at the slightest excuse. His first victim was a flower vase someone had given him, which he had hated right from the start. Raising it high over his head with both hands, he dashed it to the floor with great satisfaction, accompanied by a vigorous curse. After the loud thud, however, Montalbano was flabbergasted to find that the vase hadn’t suffered so much as a scratch.

How could that be? He bent down, grabbed it, raised it again, and hurled it down with all his might. Nothing. And that wasn’t all: now a floor tile was cracked. Was he going to wreck his house just to destroy that goddamned vase? He went out to his car, opened the glove compartment, took out his pistol, went back inside, grabbed the vase, went out on the veranda, onto the beach, walked down to the water’s edge, laid the vase down on the sand, took ten steps back, cocked the pistol, aimed, fired, and missed.

“Murderer!”

It was a woman’s voice. He turned around to look. From the balcony of a house in the distance, two figures were waving their arms at him.

“Murderer!”

That time it was a man’s voice. Who the hell were they? Then he remembered: Mr. and Mrs. Bausan from Treviso! The couple that had made him make an ass of himself by appearing naked on television. Telling them in his mind to fuck off, he took careful aim and fired. This time the vase exploded. Satisfied, he headed back home accompanied by an increasingly distant chorus of “Murderer! Murderer!”

He got undressed, stepped into the shower, and even shaved and put on fresh clothes as if he were going out to see people. Whereas he was only going to see himself, but he wanted to look good. He went out and sat on the veranda to think. Even if he’d not expressed it in words or in his mind, he had definitely made a promise to that pair of gaping eyes staring out at him from their refrigerated drawer. And he was reminded of a novel by Dürrenmatt, in which a police inspector’s whole life is consumed trying to find a young girl’s killer, to keep the promise he’d made to her parents . . . But the killer has died in the meantime, and the inspector doesn’t know this. He’s chasing a ghost. In the case of the little black boy, however, the victim was also a ghost; he didn’t know his name, nationality, nothing. Just as he knew nothing about the victim in the other case he was working on, the unknown forty-year-old who’d been drowned. Most importantly, these weren’t even proper investigations; no case files had been opened. The unknown man was, in bureaucratic terms, dead by drowning; the little kid was one of the countless victims of hit-and-run drivers. What, officially speaking, was there to investigate? Less than nothing. Nada de nada.

Now this is the kind of investigation that might interest me after I retire, the inspector reflected. If I work on it now, does it mean I feel as though I’m already retired?

A great wave of melancholy swept over him. The inspector had two proven methods for combating melancholy: the first was to bury himself in bed, covers pulled up over his head; the second was to stuff himself with food. He glanced at his watch. Too early to go to bed; if he fell asleep now he was liable to wake up at three in the morning, and then he would really go nuts fidgeting about the house. That left only the food. Besides, he remembered that at midday he hadn’t had time to eat. He went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. For whatever reason, Adelina had prepared him beef roulades. Not what he needed. He went out, got in the car, and went to the Trattoria Da Enzo. During the first course, spaghetti in squid ink, the melancholy started to recede. By the time he’d finished the second—crispy fried calamaretti—his melancholy, put to rout, disappeared behind the horizon. Back home in Marinella, the gears in his brain felt smooth and oiled, like new again. He went back out on the veranda and sat down.

First off, he had to give credit to Livia for having got it right—that is, for having understood that the boy’s behavior on the wharf had been very strange indeed. Obviously the kid was trying to take advantage of the momentary confusion so he could escape. And he hadn’t succeeded because he, the brilliant, sublime Inspector Montalbano, had prevented him. But, even assuming this whole business involved a troubled family reunion, to use Riguccio’s expression, why would anyone so brutally murder a little boy like that? Because he had the bad habit of running away no matter where he happened to be? But how many kids were there the world over, of all colors—white, black, yellow—whose greatest fantasy is to run away from home? Hundreds of thousands, surely. And are they punished by death? Surely not. And so? Maybe he was slaughtered because he was restless, talked back, didn’t obey daddy, or refused to eat his soup? Come on! In the light of that killing, Riguccio’s hypothesis became ridiculous. There had to be something else. That kid must have been carrying something big on his shoulders, from the outset, whatever his country of origin.

The best thing was to start over from the beginning, neglecting none of the details that at first glance might have seemed entirely useless. And to proceed in stages, without piling up too much information all at once. That evening, he’d been sitting in his office, waiting till it was time to go to Ciccio Albanese’s house so the captain could tell him about sea currents and also, certainly not secondarily, to gorge himself on Signora Albanese’s striped surmullet. At a certain point, Deputy Commissioner Riguccio calls the station: he’s at the port, processing a hundred and fifty illegal immigrants; he’s broken his glasses, and asks if anybody’s got a pair that might work for him. Montalbano finds a pair and decides to bring them to Riguccio himself. When he arrives at the wharf, one of the patrol boats has lowered its gangway. The first person to come out is a fat, pregnant woman who is taken directly to an ambulance. Then four men come down, and when they’re almost at the bottom of the gangway, they stumble briefly over a little boy who seems to have slipped between their legs. The boy manages to evade the policemen at the scene and starts running towards the old silo. The inspector runs after him and senses the kid’s presence in an alley full of refuse. The kid realizes there’s no way out and surrenders, literally. The inspector takes him by the hand and is bringing him back to the area near the gangway when he notices a woman, rather young, wailing in despair as two other small children hang from her skirts. As soon as she sees him with the boy, the woman runs towards them. Apparently she’s the boy’s mother. At this point the kid looks at him (better not to dwell on this detail), the mother trips and falls. The policemen try to get her back on her feet, but to no avail. Somebody calls an ambulance.

Stop. Wait a second. Let’s think about this for a minute. No, in fact he didn’t see anyone call an ambulance. Are you sure, Montalbano? Let’s review the scene again. No, he’s sure. Put it this way: Somebody must have called the ambulance. Two medics then get out of the car and one of them, the skinny guy with the mustache, touches one of the woman’s legs and says it’s probably broken. The woman and three children are put in the ambulance and it drives off in the direction of Montelusa.

Let’s go back again, just to be sure. Glasses. Wharf. Disembarkation. Pregnant woman. Little kid darts out between the legs of four refugees. Kid runs away. He follows. Kid surrenders. They go back to the wharf. Mother sees them and starts running towards them. Kid looks at him. Mother stumbles, falls, can’t get back up. Ambulance arrives. Medic with mustache says broken leg. Mother and kids get into ambulance. Ambulance leaves. End part one.

Conclusion: Almost certainly, nobody called the ambulance. It arrived on its own. Why? Because the medical workers had themselves witnessed the scene of the mother falling to the ground? Maybe. Then the medic diagnoses the broken leg. And his words authorize the ambulance to take her away. If the medic had said nothing, some policeman would have called over the doctor who, as always, was there with them. Why wasn’t the doctor consulted? He wasn’t consulted because there wasn’t time. The ambulance’s sudden arrival and the medic’s diagnosis had steered events in the direction desired by the director. Yes, director. That whole scene had been prearranged and staged with great intelligence.

Despite the hour, he grabbed the phone.

“Fazio? Montalbano here.”

“There’s no news, Chief, otherwise I’d have—”

“Save your breath. I want to ask you something. Were you planning to continue your search tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to take care of something for me first.”

“Yessir.”

“At San Gregorio Hospital, there’s an ambulance worker with a mustache, a very thin man of about fifty. I want to know everything about him, the known and the unknown. Get my drift?”

“Yessir, absolutely.”

He hung up and called the San Gregorio.

“Is nurse Agata Militello there?”

“Just a minute. Yes, she’s here.”

“I’d like to speak to her.”

“She’s on duty. We have orders not—”

“Listen, this is Inspector Montalbano. It’s a serious matter.”

“Please wait while I look for her.”

When he was beginning to lose hope, he heard the nurse’s voice.

“Is that you, Inspector?”

“Yes. I’m sorry if I—”

“Not at all. What can I do for you?”

“I need to see you and talk to you. As soon as possible.”

“Listen, Inspector. I’m on the night shift and would like to sleep in a bit tomorrow morning. Could we meet around eleven?”

“Certainly. Where?”

“We could meet in front of the hospital.”

He was about to say yes, but thought better of it. What if the ambulance worker were to see them together?

“I’d rather we met in front of your house.”

“All right. I’m at Via della Regione, number 28. See you tomorrow.”

He slept like an innocent cherub with no problems or thoughts, as he always did when he started an investigation on what seemed to be the right foot. The next morning he arrived at the office fresh and smiling. On his desk was a hand-delivered envelope addressed to him. There was no indication of the sender.

“Catarella!”

“Your orders, Chief!”

“Who brought this letter?”

“Pontius Pilate, Chief. Brought it here last night.”

He put it in his pocket. He would read it later. Or maybe never. Mimì Augello came in a few minutes later.

“How’d it go with the commissioner?” Montalbano asked.

“He seemed down, less self-assured than usual. Obviously all he brought back from Rome was a lot of hot air. He said it’s clear now that the flow of illegal immigrants has shifted from the Adriatic to the Mediterranean and that it’ll be harder than ever to stop. Apparently the people at the top are a little slow to acknowledge this fact. But then again, they’re also slow to acknowledge that petty theft is up, not to mention armed robbery . . . They just sing in chorus ‘Tutto va ben, mia nobile marchesa,’ while we’re supposed to keep plodding along with the little we have.”

“Did you apologize for my absence?”

“Yes.”

“And what’d he say?”

“What did you want him to do, Salvo? Start crying? He merely said: Fine. Period. Now tell me what was the matter with you yesterday.”

“I had a problem.”

“Salvo, who do you think you’re fooling? First you tell me you want to see the commissioner to tender your resignation, then fifteen minutes later you change your mind and tell me I have to go to the commissioner’s instead. What kind of problem?”

“If you really want to know . . .”

He told him the whole story of the little boy. When he’d finished, Mimì was silent and pensive.

“Something not add up for you?” Montalbano asked.

“No, it all adds up, but only up to a point.”

“And what would that be?”

“You directly connect the boy’s murder with his attempt to run away on the wharf. I’m not so sure about that.”

“Come on, Mimì! Why else would he have done it, then?”

“Let me tell you something. Last month a friend of mine went to New York and stayed with an American friend of his. One day they went out to eat. My friend ordered an enormous steak with potatoes on the side. He couldn’t eat it all and left some of it on his plate. After clearing the table, the waiter came back with a little bag containing what my friend hadn’t eaten. My friend takes the bag and, outside the restaurant, sees a group of bums and starts walking towards them to give them the bag with his leftovers. But his American friend stops him, telling him the bums won’t accept it. If he feels like being charitable, he should give them fifty cents, he says. ‘Why won’t they accept the bag with half a steak in it?’ my friend asks. ‘Because there are people here who give them poisoned food, the way they do with stray dogs,’ he says. See my point?”

“No.”

“It’s possible that the little boy, caught by surprise at the side of the road, was deliberately run over just for fun, or in a fit of racism, by some goddamned son of a bitch, some nameless bastard who had nothing to do with the kid’s arrival here.”

Montalbano let out a deep sigh.

“I wish! If that were really what happened, I would feel less guilty. Unfortunately, I’m pretty convinced the whole affair has a precise logic of its own.”

Agata Militello was a well-groomed woman of about forty, good-looking but tending dangerously towards plumpness. She was a garrulous sort and in fact did almost all the talking during the hour she spent with the inspector. She said she was in a bad mood that morning because her son, a university student (“You know, Inspector, I had the bad luck to fall in love at age seventeen with a rascal who left me as soon as he learned I was expecting”), wanted to get married (“But I say, can’t you wait? What’s the hurry? Meanwhile you can do whatever you want, and then we’ll see”). She also said that the hospital management were cynical bastards who took advantage of her, knowing she would come running every time they asked her to work off-hours because she had a heart of gold.

“It happened here,” she said suddenly, coming to a halt.

They were on a short street with no residences or shops, practically only the backs of two large buildings.

“But there’s not a single house here,” said Montalbano.

“You’re right. We’re behind the hospital, which is this building here on the right. I always take this route, because that way I can enter through the emergency room, which is the first door on the right once you turn this corner.”

“So the woman with the three children must have exited emergency, turned left, taken this street, and then was greeted by that car.”

“Exactly.”

“Did you notice whether the car was coming from the direction of the emergency ward or from the opposite direction?”

“No, I couldn’t tell.”

“When the car stopped, could you see how many people were inside?”

“Before the woman and her children got in?”

“Yes.”

“There was only the driver.”

“Did you notice anything in particular about the man driving?”

“How could I, Inspector? He stayed in the car the whole time! But he wasn’t black, if that’s what you mean.”

“He wasn’t? He was one of us?”

“Yes, but can you tell the difference between a Sicilian and a Tunisian? You know, one time, I—”

“How many ambulances does the hospital have?” the inspector interrupted.

“Four, but they’re not enough. And there’s no money to buy even one more.”

“How many men are there in an ambulance when it’s on duty?”

“Two. We have a shortage of personnel. One medic and a driver, who helps out.”

“Do you know them all?”

“Of course.”

He wanted to ask her about the gaunt medic with the mustache but didn’t. The woman talked too much. She was liable to run to the man afterwards and tell him the inspector had asked about him.

“Shall we go have a coffee?”

“Yes, thank you, Inspector. Even though I’m not supposed to. You know, one time I had four coffees in a row, and . . .”

Fazio was waiting for him at headquarters, impatient to resume his search for information on the dead man he’d found in the sea. Fazio was like a dog that, once he picked up a scent, didn’t relent until he’d flushed out his quarry.

“Chief, the ambulance worker’s name is Gaetano Marzilla.”

He stopped.

“Yeah? Is that all?” asked Montalbano, surprised.

“Chief, can we make a deal?”

“A deal?”

“Let me indulge a little in my records office complex, as you call it, and afterwards I’ll tell you what I found out about him.”

“It’s a deal,” the inspector said, resigned.

Fazio’s eyes sparkled with contentment. He pulled a small piece of paper out of his pocket and began reading.

“Gaetano Marzilla, born in Montelusa on October 6, 1960, son of the late Stefano Marzilla and Antonia née Diblasi, resident of Montelusa, Via Francesco Crispi 18. Married Elisabetta Cappuccino, born at Ribera on February 14, 1963, daughter of Emanuele Cappuccino and Eugenia née Ricottilli, who—”

“Stop right there or I’ll shoot,” said Montalbano.

“Okay, okay. I’m satisfied,” said Fazio, putting the piece of paper back in his pocket.

“So, do we want to talk about serious matters now?”

“Sure. This Marzilla’s been working at the hospital ever since getting his nursing degree. His wife came with a modest gift shop in her dowry, but the shop burned down three years ago.”

“Arson?”

“Yes, but the place wasn’t insured. Rumor has it that it was burned down because Marzilla got tired of paying the protection money. And you know what Marzilla did?”

“Fazio, those kinds of questions only piss me off. I don’t know a goddamned thing! You’re the one who’s supposed to be filling me in!”

“Marzilla learned his lesson and started coughing up the protection money. Feeling safe, he bought a warehouse adjacent to the shop and expanded and renovated everything. To make a long story short, he got covered in debt, and since business is bad, the loan sharks have him by the throat now, according to the gossip. Lately the poor guy’s so desperate he’s looking left and right for any spare change he can get his hands on.”

“I absolutely must speak with this man,” said Montalbano, after remaining silent a few moments. “And as soon as possible.”

“What are we going to do? We certainly can’t arrest the guy,” said Fazio.

“No. Who ever said anything about arresting him? On the other hand . . .”

“On the other hand?”

“If he got wind . . .”

“Of what?”

“Nothing, I just thought of something. You know the address of his shop?”

“Of course, Chief. Via Palermo 34.”

“Thanks. Now go pound the pavement some more.”