Rounding the Mark

17

He showed up at the office at eleven, all slicked up and, if not smiling, at least not in a bearish mood. The hours of sleep had actually rejuvenated him. He could feel all the gears in his body working at maximum efficiency. Of the two terrible chest pains of the night before and the weakness that had followed, not a trace. In the doorway he nearly bumped into Fazio, who was coming out, and who, upon seeing him, stopped short and eyed him up and down. The inspector let him eye.

“You look good this morning,” was the verdict.

“I changed foundation cream,” said Montalbano.

“No, the truth of the matter is that you, Chief, have nine lives, like a cat. I’ll be right back.”

The inspector went and stood in front of Catarella.

“How do I look to you?”

“Whattya want me to say, Chief? Like a god!”

When you came right down to it, this much-maligned cult of personality wasn’t really such a bad thing.

Mimì Augello also looked well rested.

“Did Beba let you sleep last night?”

“Yes, we had a good night. In fact, she didn’t want me to come to work today.”

“Why not?”

“She wanted me to take her out, since it’s such a beautiful day. Poor thing, lately she never leaves the house anymore.”

“Here I am,” said Fazio.

“Close the door and we can begin.”

“I’m going to give a general summary,” Montalbano began, “even though you already know some of the details. If there’s anything that doesn’t make sense to you, let me know.”

He spoke for half an hour without interruption, explaining how Ingrid had recognized D’Iunio and how his parallel investigation into the African boy had slowly converged with the investigation of the nameless drowned man. Then he described what Fonso Spàlato had told him in turn. When he came to the point where Marzilla got scared shit-less after dropping off Jamil Zarzis and another man at the villa, he interrupted himself and asked:

“Are there any questions?”

“Yes,” said Augello, “but first I must ask Fazio to leave the room, count slowly to ten, then come back inside.”

Without a peep, Fazio got up, went out, and closed the door.

“The question is this,” said Augello, “when are you going to stop acting like an asshole?”

“In what sense?”

“In every sense, for Chrissake! Who do you think you are, the night avenger? The lone wolf? You’re a fucking police inspector! Have you forgotten? You reproach the police for not obeying the rules, and you’re the first to break them! You go out on a dangerous mission, and you bring along not one of us, but a Swedish lady! It’s insane! You should have informed your superiors of all these things, or at least filled us in, instead of going out and playing the bounty hunter!”

“So that’s what’s bugging you?”

“Why, isn’t that enough?”

“No, it’s not, Mimì. I’ve done worse.”

Mimì’s jaw dropped in horror.

“Worse?”

“And ten,” said Fazio, reappearing.

“To continue,” said Montalbano. “When Ingrid cut in front of Marzilla’s car, he thought we were his boss and were going to liquidate him, perhaps because at this point he knows too much. He pissed his pants as he begged me not to kill him. And without even realizing it, he blurted out his boss’s name: Don Pepè Aguglia.”

“The builder?” asked Augello.

“That’s him, all right,” Fazio confirmed. “There are rumors around town that he’s been loan-sharking.”

“We’ll take care of him very soon—tomorrow, in fact—but somebody should keep an eye him starting now. I don’t want him to slip away.”

“Leave him to me,” said Fazio. “I’ll put Curreli on his tail. He’s a good one.”

Now came the hard part of the story, but he had to tell it.

“After Ingrid brought me home, I decided to go back to Spigonella and have a look at the villa.”

“Alone, naturally,” Mimì said sardonically, stirring in his chair.

“I went there alone and I came back alone.”

This time it was Fazio’s turn to squirm in his chair. But he didn’t open his mouth.

“When Inspector Augello asked you to leave the room,” said Montalbano, turning to him, “it was because he didn’t want you to hear him calling me an asshole. Would you like to call me one, too? You could form a little chorus.”

“I would never dare, sir.”

“Well, if you don’t want to say it, I give you permission to think it.”

Reassured by Fazio’s silence and complicity, he described the little harbor, the grotto, and the iron door with the internal staircase. He also talked about the crabs that had eaten the flesh off Errera’s corpse.

“Okay, that’s the part that’s already happened,” he concluded. “Now we need to think about a course of action. If the information I’ve received from Marzilla is correct, tonight there will be more arrivals, and since Zarzis has taken the trouble to come this far, it means there’s new merchandise for him on the way. We have to be there the moment it arrives.”

“All right,” said Mimì. “But, whereas you know everything about this villa, we know nothing about either the villa or its surroundings.”

“Have a look at the video I made of it from the sea. Torrisi’s got it.”

“That’s not enough. I’m going to go there in person, I want to see for myself,” Mimì decided.

“I don’t like it,” Fazio cut in.

“If they spot you and get suspicious, we blow the whole thing,” the inspector seconded him.

“Calm down, both of you. I’ll go with Beba, who’s been wanting a breath of sea air. We’ll take a nice long stroll and see what there is to see. I don’t think they’ll get alarmed if they see a man and a pregnant woman walking along the beach. We can meet back here by five at the latest.”

“All right,” said Montalbano. Then, turning to Fazio, “Listen, I want the core squad ready. A few trusted, decisive men. Gallo, Galluzzo, Imbrò, Germanà, and Grasso. You and Augello will be in command.”

“Why, won’t you be there?” asked Augello in amazement.

“I’ll be there, but I’ll be down below, in the little harbor, to stop anyone who tries to escape.”

“Well, Augello will command the squad, ’cause I’m coming with you,” Fazio said dryly.

Surprised by his tone, Mimì glared at him.

“No,” said Montalbano.

“Look, Chief—I—”

“No. This is a personal matter, Fazio.”

This time Mimì glared at Montalbano, who was glaring at Fazio, who was glaring right back. It looked like a scene from a Quentin Tarantino movie, except that they were aiming their eyes instead of guns at each other.

“Yes, sir,” Fazio said at last.

To dispel the bit of tension still in the air, Mimì Augello asked a question:

“How will we know for sure whether or not there will be any landings tonight? Who’s going to tell us?”

“You could find out from Commissioner Riguccio,” Fazio suggested to Montalbano. “They usually have a pretty clear picture of the situation by six P.M.”

“No, I’ve already asked Riguccio too many things. He’s a true cop and might get suspicious. No, I think I know of another way. The harbor authority. They’re the ones who receive all the information from the fishermen and patrol boats and pass it on to the commissioner’s office. What information there is to be had, that is, since often nobody knows anything about these illegal landings. Do you know anyone at the harbor office?”

“No, Chief.”

“I do,” said Mimì. “Until last year I used to spend time with a lieutenant from the office, who’s still around.”

“Good. When can you go talk to this guy?”

“This woman, you mean,” Mimì corrected him. “But don’t get the wrong idea. I tried, but there was nothing doing. We’ve remained friends. As soon as I get back from Spigonella, I’ll take Beba home and go look her up.”

“And what are we going to do about Marzilla, Chief?”

“After Spigonella, we’ll cook his goose along with Aguglia’s.”

Opening the refrigerator, he got a nasty surprise. Adelina had tidied up the house as requested, but all she’d made to eat was half a boiled chicken. What kind of bullshit was this? That was a dish for the sick! For someone awaiting last rites! A horrible suspicion occurred to him—that is, that Fazio had told the housekeeper he’d been unwell and therefore should eat lightly. But how could he have told her, if the phone was unplugged? Via carrier pigeon? No, this was clearly some sort of vendetta on Adelina’s part, for the mess he’d left the house in. On the kitchen table he found a note he hadn’t noticed when he’d made himself coffee.

Youl half to make your bed yourself coz your sleping in it now.

He sat out on the veranda and swallowed down the boiled chicken with the help of an entire jar of pickles. As soon as he’d finished, the phone rang. Apparently Adelina had plugged it back in. It was Livia.

“Salvo, finally! I was so worried! I must have called ten times last night, right up to midnight. Where were you?”

“Sorry. We had to do a stakeout and—”

“I’ve got some good news for you.”

“Oh? What?”

“I’m coming tomorrow.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I’ve done and said so much that they gave me three days.”

Montalbano felt a wave of happiness sweep over him.

“So, aren’t you going to say something?” asked Livia.

“What time do you get in?”

“Noon. At Punta Raisi.”

“I’ll either come myself or send someone to get you. I’m so . . .”

“Come on. Is it so hard for you to say it?”

“No. I’m so happy.”

Before lying down—because he suddenly felt like taking a nap—he had to tidy up the bedroom or he wouldn’t be able to close his eyes.

Mimì straggled back in well past six o’clock, and Fazio came in behind him.

“You took your time, I’d say,” Montalbano chided him.

“But I’ve got some good stuff.”

“Like what?”

“First of all, these.”

He took ten or so Polaroid snapshots out of his pocket. Every one of them showed a smiling, pregnant Beba in the foreground, and the villa at Spigonella, shot from every possible angle, in the background. In two or three of them, Beba was actually leaning against the bars of the entrance gate, which was locked shut with a chain and big padlock.

“But did you tell Beba what you were doing there, and who was inside that villa?”

“No. What need was there? This way she acted more naturally.”

“So you didn’t see anyone?”

“Maybe they were watching us from inside, but we certainly didn’t see anyone outside. They want to give the impression that the house is uninhabited. See that padlock? It’s all for show, because one could easily slip a hand through the bars and open the gate from the inside.”

He selected another photo and handed it to the inspector.

“This is the right-hand side of the house. There’s an external staircase leading to the upper floor, and that large door below must be the garage. Did Ingrid mention whether the garage is connected to the rest of the house?”

“No, the garage is a separate space without any doors except its entrance. There is, however, an internal staircase between the ground floor and the upstairs, though Ingrid never actually saw it, since the only access to it was through a door D’Iunio said he didn’t have the key to. And I’m sure there’s another staircase leading from the ground floor down to the grotto.”

“At a glance, the garage looks like it could hold two cars.”

“Well, there’s definitely one in there. The one that ran over the little boy. Speaking of which, when we catch these people, I want that car examined by Forensics. I’d bet my family jewels that they find the kid’s blood on it.”

“What do you think happened?” Fazio asked.

“Simple. The kid realized—I’m not sure how—that he was up against something horrible. So he tried to escape the minute he got off the boat. It was my fault he didn’t succeed on the first try. They took him to Spigonella, and there he must have discovered the staircase leading to the grotto. I’m sure that’s how he escaped. Somebody caught on and sounded the alarm. So Zarzis got in the car and looked for him until he found him.”

“But this Zarzis only arrived yesterday!” said Augello.

“As I understand it, Zarzis comes and goes. He’s always around when it’s time to sort out the merchandise and pick up the money. Like now. He runs all these operations for his boss.”

“I want to talk about the landings,” said Mimì.

“You have the floor,” said Montalbano.

The idea that he had Zarzis within reach gave him a sense of well-being.

“My lady friend told me it’s a real state of emergency. Our sea patrols have intercepted four overloaded, dilapidated craft headed towards Seccagrande, Capobianco, Manfia, and Fela, respectively. They only hope those boats manage to land before they sink; at this point, rerouting them or transferring the refugees to other vessels is out of the question. All our people can do is stay close behind them and be prepared to rescue the refugees if one or more of the boats should capsize.”

“I get it,” said a pensive Montalbano.

“You get what?” asked Mimì.

“These four landings have been set up as decoys. Seccagrande and Capobianco are to the west of the Vigàta-Spigonella area, and Manfia and Fela are to the east. The sea off Vigàta-Spigonella is therefore momentarily without surveillance, the coast too. Any fishing-boat aware of this momentary corridor could easily land on one of our beaches without anyone noticing.”

“So?”

“So, my dear Mimì, that means Zarzis is going to go pick up his merchandise out on the water, with the dinghy. I don’t remember if I mentioned that there’s a two-way radio inside the villa. With that, they can stay in continuous contact and meet at a fixed spot. Did your lieutenant—”

“She’s not mine.”

“Did she tell you what time they were expecting these boats to reach land?”

“Around midnight.”

“That means you and the rest of the team should be ready at Spigonella by ten at the latest. Here’s what we’ll do. There are two signal lights on the rocks at the entrance to the little harbor. These will come on right before the dinghy goes out, and will be turned on again when it returns. I think these lights, and the moving barrier, are operated by a third man, the guardian of the villa. You’re going to have to go easy at first—that is, you can’t neutralize the guardian until after, I repeat, after he’s turned on the beacons for the dinghy’s reentry. Then you’ll have very little time. Once Zarzis and his helper are back in the house, you’ll take them by surprise. But be careful: they’ll have children with them, and they’re capable of anything. Now coordinate your actions between yourselves. I’m going out. Good luck, and may you bear only sons.”

“Where are you going?” asked Augello.

“I’m going back home for a minute, then I’ll head out to Spigonella. But let me repeat: you’ll be working on your own, and so will I.”

He left the room. Passing Catarella, he asked:

“Cat, could you find out if Torretta has some wire cutters and a pair of thigh-high rubber boots?”

He did. Wire cutters and boots.

At home he put on a black turtleneck sweater, a pair of black corduroy pants, which he tucked into the boots, and a wool cap, also black, replete with pompom, which he put on his head. All he needed was a bent pipe in his mouth, and he would be a perfect replica of the generic sea dog one often sees in third-rate American movies. He went to the mirror to have a look at himself. All he could do was laugh.

“Avast, old salt!”

He got to the white-and-red house in Spigonella by ten, but instead of turning onto the road to the bungalow, he took the one he’d taken the first time with Fazio. For the final stretch, he turned the headlights off. The sky was overcast, and it was so dark he couldn’t see a blasted thing more than a step away. He got out of the car and looked around. To the right, a hundred or more yards away, the villa’s dark mass. Of his men, no sign at all. Nothing. Either they hadn’t arrived yet, or if they had, they’d blended in perfectly. Wire cutter in hand and pistol in his pocket, he walked along the edge of the cliff until he could make out the start of the staircase he’d spotted the first time he was there. It wasn’t as hard going down as the other staircase, either because this one was less steep, or because he felt reassured to know that his men were nearby.

Halfway down the steps, he heard a motor rumbling. He realized at once that it was the dinghy, about to head out to sea. The sound was amplified by the silence and the grotto, which acted as an echo chamber. He froze. The water in front of the little harbor suddenly turned red. From where he stood, Montalbano didn’t actually see the signal light come on, since it was blocked by the tall rock in front of it. But that red reflection couldn’t mean anything else. He distinctly saw the dinghy’s silhouette pass through the reflection, though he couldn’t tell how many people were on board. Then the red glow vanished and the sound of the motor faded, turning into a flylike buzz that went on a long time before it disappeared. Everything was exactly as he’d imagined it. Resuming his descent, he had to refrain from singing at the top of his lungs. So far, he’d made all the right moves.

His satisfaction, however, did not last long. Walking on the dry sand in those high boots immediately proved arduous. Ten more steps, in fact, would have broken his back; on the other hand, moving closer to the water’s edge, where the sand was wet and more compacted, would have been too dangerous, taking him too far out in the open. He sat down on the ground and tried to remove the first boot. It slid a little down his thigh, then stubbornly refused to budge past his knee. He stood up and tried again from an upright position. Worse yet. He started sweating and cursing. He finally wedged a heel between two rocks protruding from the wall and managed to free himself. He resumed walking, barefoot, holding the wire cutter in one hand and the enormous boots in the other. In the dark he failed to see a clump of weeds full of thorns and stepped right on top of it. At least a hundred thorns plunged gleefully into the sole of his foot. He felt discouraged. He had to face the facts: these kinds of operations were no longer for him. When he got to the edge of the moat, he sat down on the ground and put the boots back on, breaking into a cold sweat from the pain caused by the friction of the rubber against all the thorns.

Lowering himself gently into the moat, he was pleased to find that he’d guessed right: the water came up to mid-thigh, barely half an inch below the top of the boots. Before him now stood the first of the midget monoliths that formed the little harbor, rising almost directly out of the rock face. Sticking the wire cutter in his belt, he groped the rock’s surface and found two protrusions to grab onto. He hoisted himself up with the strength of his arms. The rubber soles of the boots facilitated the climb with their traction. He slipped only once, managing to hang on with a single hand. Scaling the rock like a crab, he reached the wire fence, grabbed the wire cutter and, starting on the lower right, cut the first wire. A crisp, metallic crack rang out in the silence like a pistol shot, or so it seemed to him, at least. He held utterly still, not daring to move even a finger. But nothing happened. Nobody shouted, no one came running. Then, crack after crack—pausing cautiously between cracks—after half an hour he had managed to sever all the wires that were welded to the iron pole, which in turn was cemented into the rock face. He left only the top two wires uncut—one on the right, the other on the left—keeping the screen suspended and making it look like it was still intact. He would cut them in due time. For now, he had to get out of there. He left the wire cutter under the screen and, clinging to the upper part of the rock with both hands, he extended his body, searching for a foothold with his feet. Thinking he’d found one, he wedged the toes of his boots in the opening and let go. It was a mistake. The opening was not very deep and could not bear his weight. He slid down the rock, trying to halt the slide by using his fingers as claws. He felt like Sylvester the cat in one of his finest moments. He skinned his hands and plunged straight into the moat. But why didn’t Aristotle’s, er, Archimedes’ principle kick in? This principle said that a body immersed in liquid is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of liquid displaced. Wasn’t that it? Whereas he had in no way been buoyed up. The only thing buoyed up was the water that came flying up over his head and fell back down on him, drenching his sweater and cheerfully flowing down between his cojones and into his boots. On top of this, his fall had sounded exactly like a beaching whale to him. He pricked his ears. Again, nothing. No voices, no sounds. Since the sea was a little rough, perhaps the watchman had thought it was merely a bigger wave splashing against the rocks. He climbed up out of the moat and lay down on the sand.

What now? Count from one to a billion? Try to recite from memory every poem he knew? Think of all the possible ways to cook mullet? Start imagining all the reasons he would give to the commissioner and the public prosecutor for having worked on this case on the sly, without “the authorization of his superiors”? All of a sudden he felt a sneeze coming on, tried to suppress it, did not succeed, but blocked the burst by plugging his nose with his hand. He felt like he had a pint of water in each boot. All he needed now was a goddamn cold! On top of everything, he was beginning to feel chilled. He got up and started walking very close to the wall. Too bad if he had a backache tomorrow. After a hundred or so paces, he turned around. When he was back at the moat, he turned round again and retraced his steps. He went back and forth some ten times. Cold? Now he was hot and sweaty. He decided to take a brief rest and sat down on the ground. Then he lay down completely. Half an hour later, a troubling somnolence began to take hold of him. He closed his eyes, then reopened them after a brief spell, he couldn’t tell how long, bothered by the buzzing of a large fly.

Fly? That was the dinghy returning! He quickly rolled towards the moat, slid into it standing up but hunched over. The buzzing became a rumble, and the rumble became a roar as the dinghy drew near. Then the roar stopped all at once. The dinghy was certainly now coasting on its momentum as it made its way through the canal and entered the grotto. Montalbano climbed up the rock without any difficulty, drawing strength and lucidity from the assurance that he would soon have the satisfaction he so desired. Once his head was at the level of the wire fence, he saw a great beam of light projecting out the entrance of the grotto. He also heard two men shouting angrily, and some children crying and whimpering, which wrenched his heart and turned his stomach. Hands sweaty and trembling, not from tension but from rage, he waited for the grotto to fall silent again. When he was about to cut the first of the fence’s two remaining wires, the light also went out. A good sign. It meant that the grotto was now empty. He cut the wires without precaution, one after the other, then let the large square of mesh that remained in his hand slide down the rock before dropping it into the moat.

He made his way past the two metal poles, then jumped down onto the sand, in the dark, from the top of the rock. A jump of over ten feet, and the Good Lord let him pull it off. In those last few minutes he felt a good ten years younger. He pulled out his pistol, cocked it, and went into the grotto. Total darkness and silence. He walked along the narrow quay until his hand felt the iron door, which was half-open. He went inside the hangar and quickly—as if he could see—reached the archway, passed under it, stepped onto the first stair, and stopped there. How come everything was so quiet? Why hadn’t his men started doing what they were supposed to do? A thought crossed his mind, and he began to sweat: what if they’d hit a snag and hadn’t arrived yet? And there he was, in the dark, gun in hand, looking like some dickhead dressed up as a sea dog! Why didn’t they get moving? Jesus Christ! Was this some kind of joke? Were Mr. Zarzis and his pals going to slip away, just like that? By God, no, even if he had to go up to the villa and raise the roof all by himself.

At that very moment he heard, almost all at once, though muffled in the distance, a burst of pistol shots, machine-gun fire, and angry shouts whose words remained incomprehensible. What to do? Wait there or run up to the house and provide support for his men? The shootout continued overhead, fierce and sounding as if it was coming closer. Suddenly a very bright light came on at once in the stairway, hangar, and grotto. Someone was getting ready to escape. He distinctly heard some hurried steps coming down the staircase. In a flash the inspector ran back through the arch and ducked behind it, back to the wall. A second later, a man came huffing past, popping out with a kind of hop, exactly the way a rat comes out of a sewer.

“Stop! Police!” Montalbano yelled, stepping forward.

The man did not stop but merely turned slightly around, raising his left hand, which held a large pistol, and shot behind himself almost blindly. The inspector felt a fierce blow strike his left shoulder with such force that it turned his whole upper body around to the left. His feet and legs, however, remained in place, rooted to the ground. When the man had reached the door to the garage, Montalbano’s first and only shot struck him square between the shoulder blades. The man stopped, threw out his arms, dropped the pistol, and fell face-forward to the ground. The inspector approached slowly, unable to walk any faster, and with the tip of his boot turned the body over.

Jamil Zarzis seemed to smile at him with his toothless mouth.

Somebody had once asked him if he’d ever felt happy about killing another man. He’d said no. He didn’t feel happy this time, either. Gratified, yes. That was exactly the word: gratified.

He knelt down slowly. His legs felt weak, and he had an overwhelming desire to sleep. Blood was pouring out of the wound in his shoulder and soaking his sweater. The shot must have made a big hole.

“Inspector! Oh my god, Inspector! I’ll call an ambulance!”

Montalbano’s eyes remained closed, but he recognized Fazio’s voice.

“No ambulances. Why did you guys take so long to get started?”

“We were waiting while they put the kids in a room, figuring we could move more easily that way.”

“How many of them are there?”

“Seven. It looked like a kindergarten. They’re all okay. We killed one of the men, and another surrendered. You shot the third guy. That pretty much covers it. Now can I call someone to give me a hand?”

When the inspector regained consciousness, he was inside a car with Gallo at the wheel. Fazio was behind him with his arms around him, as the car bounced high along a road full of holes. They had removed his sweater and improvised a temporary bandage over the wound. He felt no pain from it; perhaps that would come later. He tried to speak, but on first try nothing came out, because his lips were too dry.

“. . . Livia . . .’s flying in . . . this morning . . . Punta Raisi.”

“Don’t you worry,” said Fazio. “One of us will go pick her up, you can count on it.”

“Where are you . . . taking me?”

“To Montechiaro hospital. It’s the closest.”

Then something happened that Fazio found frightening. He realized that the noise coming from Montalbano was not a cough or him clearing his throat. The inspector was laughing. What was there to laugh about in this situation?

“What’s so funny, Chief?” he asked, concerned.

“I wanted to screw . . . my guardian angel . . . by not going to the doctor . . . But he . . . screwed me . . . by sending me to the hospital.”

Hearing this answer, Fazio got really scared. The inspector was apparently delirious. More terrifying still was the injured Montalbano’s sudden yell.

“Stop the car!”

Gallo slammed on the brakes; the car skidded.

“Up there . . . is that . . . the fork in the road?”

“Yes, Chief.”

“Take the road to Tricase.”

“But, Chief . . .” Fazio cut in.

“I said take the road to Tricase.”

Gallo started out slowly, turned right, and then almost at once Montalbano ordered him to stop.

“Put on your brights.”

Gallo obeyed, and the inspector leaned out the car window. The mound of gravel was no longer there. It had been used to level the road.

“It’s better this way.”

Suddenly, the wound began to hurt him terribly.

“Let’s go to the hospital,” he said.

They drove off.

“Oh, Fazio, another thing . . . ,” he continued with great effort, running a dry tongue over his parched lips, “don’t forget . . . don’t forget . . . to tell Pontius Pilate . . . he’s at the Hotel Regina.”

Madunnuzza santa! Now he’s raving about Pontius Pilate! Fazio humored him, as one does with the insane.

“Of course we’ll tell him, Chief, of course. Just stay calm. I’ll do it myself, first thing.”

It was too much of an effort to talk, to explain. Montalbano let himself go, falling into a half swoon. Fazio, all sweaty from the fright these meaningless words were giving him, leaned forward and whispered to Gallo:

“Come on, for Chrissakes, step on it! Can’t you see the Chief’s not right in the head?”