The Shape of Water

14

Ingrid’s red fillet-of-sole car was still parked in its spot by the Marinella Bar. Apparently it was judged too much trouble to steal; there weren’t many like it in Montelusa and environs.

“Take your car and follow me,” said Montalbano.

“We’re going back to Capo Massaria.”

“Oh, God! To do what?” Ingrid pouted. She really didn’t feel like it, and the inspector realized this.

“It’s in your own interest.”

~

By the glare of the headlights, which he quickly turned off, Montalbano realized that the entrance gate to the house was open. He got out and walked over to Ingrid’s car.

“Wait for me here. Turn off your headlights. Do you remember whether we closed the gate when we left?”

“I don’t really remember, but I’m pretty sure we did.”

“Turn your car around and make as little noise as possible.”

The woman did as he said, the car’s nose now pointing toward the main road.

“Now listen to what I say. I’m going down there.

You keep your ears pricked, and if you hear me shout or notice anything suspicious, don’t think twice, just cut out and go home.”

“Do you think there’s someone inside?”

“I don’t know. Just do as I said.”

From his car he took the purse and his pistol. He headed off, trying to step as lightly as possible, and descended the staircase. This time the front door opened without any resistance or sound. He passed through the doorway, pistol in hand. The large room was somehow dimly illuminated by reflections off the water. He kicked open the bathroom door and then the others one by one, feeling ridiculously like the hero of an American TV program. There was nobody in the house, nor was there any sign that anyone else had been there. It didn’t take much to convince him that he himself had left the gate open. He slid open the picture window and looked below. At that point Capo Massaria jutted out over the sea like a ship’s prow. The water below must have been quite deep.

He ballasted Ingrid’s purse with some silverware and a heavy crystal ashtray, spun it around over his head and hurled it out to sea. It wouldn’t be so easily found again. Then he took everything that belonged to Ingrid from the armoire in the bedroom and went outside, making sure the front door was well shut. As soon as he appeared at the top of the stairs, he was bathed in the glare of Ingrid’s headlights.

“I told you to keep your lights off. And why did you turn the car back around?”

“I didn’t want to leave you here alone. If there was trouble . . .”

“Here are your clothes.”

She took them and put them on the passenger seat.

“Where’s the purse?”

“I threw it into the sea. Now go back home. They have nothing left to frame you with.”

Ingrid got out of the car, walked up to Montalbano, and embraced him. She stayed that way awhile, her head leaning on his chest. Then, without looking back at him, she got back into her car, put it in gear, and left.

~

Right at the entrance to the bridge over the Canneto, a car was stopped, blocking most of the road. A man was standing there, elbows propped against the roof of the car, hands covering his face, lightly rocking back and forth.

“Anything wrong?” asked Montalbano, pulling up.

The man turned around. His face was covered with blood, which poured out of a broad gash in the middle of his forehead.

“Some bastard,” he said.

“I don’t understand. Please explain,” Montalbano got out of the car and approached.

“I was breezing quietly along when this son of a bitch passes me, practically running me off the road.

So I got pissed off and started chasing after him, honking the horn and flashing my high beams. Suddenly the guy puts on his brakes and turns the car sideways.

He gets out of the car, and he’s got something in his hand that I can’t make out, and I get scared, thinking he’s got a weapon. He comes toward me—my window was down—and without saying a word he bashes me with that thing, which I realized was a monkey wrench.”

“Do you need assistance?”

“No, I think the bleeding’s gonna stop.”

“Do you want to file a police report?”

“Don’t make me laugh. My head hurts.”

“Do you want me to take you to the hospital?”

“Would you please mind your own fucking business?”

~

How long had it been since he’d had a proper night of God-given sleep? Now he had this bloody pain at the back of his head that wouldn’t give him a moment’s peace. It continued unabated, and even if he lay still, belly up or belly down, it made no difference, the pain persisted, silent, insidious, without any sharp pangs, which was maybe worse. He turned on the light. It was four o’clock. On the bedside table were still the salve and roll of gauze he’d used on Ingrid. He grabbed them and, in front of the bathroom mirror, rubbed a little of the salve on the nape of his neck—maybe it would give him some relief—then wrapped his neck in the gauze, securing it with a piece of adhesive tape. But perhaps he put the wrap on too tight; he had trouble moving his head. He looked at himself in the mirror, and at that moment a blinding flash exploded in his brain, drowning out even the bathroom light. He felt like a comic-book character with X-ray vision who could see all the way inside of things.

In grammar school he’d had an old priest as his religion teacher. “Truth is light,” the priest had said one day.

Montalbano, never very studious, had been a mischievous pupil, always sitting in the last row.

“So that must mean that if everyone in the family tells the truth, they save on the electric bill.”

He had made this comment aloud, which got him kicked out of the classroom.

Now, some thirty-odd years after the fact, in his mind he asked the old priest to forgive him.

~

“Boy, do you look ugly today!” exclaimed Fazio as soon as he saw the inspector come in to work. “Not feeling well?”

“Leave me alone” was Montalbano’s reply. “Any news of Gambardella? Did you find him?”

“Nothing. Vanished. I’ve decided we’ll end up finding him back in the woods somewhere, eaten by dogs.”

There was something, however, in the sergeant’s tone of voice that he found suspicious; he had known him for too many years.

“Anything wrong?”

“It’s Gallo. He’s gone to the emergency room, hurt his arm. Nothing serious.”

“How’d it happen?”

“With the squad car.”

“Did he crash it speeding?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to spit it out or do you need a midwife to pull the words out of your mouth?”

“Well, I’d sent him to the town market on an emergency, some kind of brawl, and he took off in a hurry—you know how he is—and he skidded and crashed into a telephone pole. The car got towed to our depot in Montelusa and they gave us another.”

“Tell me the truth, Fazio: had the tires been slashed?”

“Yes.”

“And did Gallo check, as I had told him a hundred times to do? Can’t you clowns understand that slashing tires is the national sport in this goddamned country? Tell him he’d better not show his face at the office or I’ll bust his ass.”

He slammed the door to his room, furious.

Searching inside a tin can in which he kept most everything from postage stamps to buttons, he found the key to the old factory and went out without saying good-bye.

~

Sitting on the rotten beam near where he’d found Ingrid’s purse, he was staring at what had previously looked like an indefinable object, a kind of coupling sleeve for pipes, but which he now easily identified: it was a neck brace, brand-new, though it had clearly been used. As if by power of suggestion, his neck started hurting again. He got up, grabbed the brace, left the old factory, and returned to headquarters.

~

“Inspector? This is Stefano Luparello.”

“What can I do for you?”

“Yesterday I told my cousin Giorgio you wanted to see him this morning at ten. Just ten minutes ago, however, my aunt, Giorgio’s mother, called me. I don’t think Giorgio can come see you, though he had intended to do so.”

“What happened?”

“I’m not exactly sure, but apparently he was out all night, my aunt said. He got back just a little while ago, around nine o’clock, in a pitiful state.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Luparello, but I believe your mother told me he sleeps at your house.”

“He did, but only until my father died, then he moved back home. At our house, without Father around, he felt uneasy. Anyway, my aunt called the doctor, who gave him a shot of sedative. He’s in a deep sleep right now. I’m very sorry for him, you know. He was probably too attached to Father.”

“I understand. But if you see your cousin, tell him I really do need to talk to him. No hurry, though, nothing important, at his convenience.”

“Of course. Ah, Mama, who’s right next to me, tells me to give you her regards.”

“And I send mine. Tell her I— Your mother is an extraordinary woman, Mr. Luparello. Tell her I respect her immensely.”

“I certainly shall, thank you.”

~

Montalbano spent one hour signing papers and a few more hours writing. They were complicated, and useless, questionnaires for the public prosecutor’s office.

Suddenly Galluzzo, very upset, not only didn’t knock, but threw open the door with such violence that it crashed against the wall.

“What the fuck! What is it?”

“Montelusa headquarters just called. Counselor Rizzo’s been murdered. Shot. They found him next to his car, in the San Giusippuzzu district. If you want, I’ll find out more.”

“Forget it, I’m going there myself.”

Montalbano looked at his watch—eleven o’clock—

and rushed out the door.

~

Nobody answered at Saro’s flat. Montalbano knocked next door, and a little old lady with a belligerent face opened up.

“What is it? What you doin’, botherin’ people like that?” she said in thick dialect.

“Excuse me, signora, I was looking for Mr. and Mrs. Montaperto.”

“The mister and the missus! Some mister and missus! Them’s garbage people, scum!”

Relations apparently were not good between the two families.

“And who are you?”

“I’m a police inspector.”

The woman’s face lit up, and she started yelling in a tone of extreme contentedness.

“Turiddru! Turiddru! Come here, quick!”

“What is it?” asked a very skinny old man, appearing.

“This man’s a police inspector! Doncha see I was right! D’ya see who the cops are lookin’ for? D’ya see they were nasty folk! D’ya see they ran away so they wouldn’t end up in jail?”

“When did they leave, signora?”

“Not half an hour ago. With the li’l brat. You go after ’em right now, you might still catch ’em along the road.”

“Thank you, signora. I’m going after them right now.”

Saro, his wife, and their little son had made it.

~

Along the road to Montelusa the inspector was stopped twice, first by an army patrol of Alpinists and then by another patrol of carabinieri. The worst came on the way to San Giusippuzzu, where between barricades and checkpoints it took him forty-five minutes to go less than three miles. At the scene he found the commissioner, the colonel of the carabinieri, and the entire Montelusa police department on a full day. Even Anna was there, though she pretended not to see him. Jacomuzzi was looking around, trying to find someone to tell him the whole story in minute detail. As soon as he saw Montalbano, he came running up to him.

“A textbook execution, utterly ruthless.”

“How many were there?”

“Just one, or at least only one fired the gun. The poor counselor left his study at six-thirty this morning. He’d picked up some documents and headed toward Tabbìta, where he had an appointment with a client. He left the study alone—this much is certain—

but along the way he picked up someone he knew in the car.”

“Maybe it was someone who thumbed a ride.”

Jacomuzzi burst into laughter so loud that a few people nearby turned and stared at him. “Can you picture Rizzo, with all the responsibilities he has on his shoulders, blithely giving a ride to a total stranger?

The guy had to beware of his own shadow! You know better than I that behind Luparello there was Rizzo.

No, no, it was definitely someone he knew, a mafioso.”

“A mafioso, you think?”

“I’d bet my life on it. The Mafia raised the price—they always ask for more—and the politicians aren’t always in a position to satisfy their demands.

But there’s another hypothesis. He may have made a mistake, now that he felt stronger after his recent appointment. And they made him pay for it.”

“Jacomuzzi, my congratulations, this morning you’re particularly lucid—apparently you had a good shit. How can you be so sure of what you’re saying?”

“By the way the guy killed him. First he kicked him in the balls, then had him kneel down, placed his gun against the back of his neck, and fired.”

Immediately a pang shot through Montalbano’s neck.

“What kind of gun?”

“Pasquano says that at a glance, considering the entrance and exit wounds and the fact that the barrel was practically pressed against his skin, it must have been a 7.65.”

“Inspector Montalbano!”

“The commissioner’s calling you,” said Jacomuzzi, and he stole away.

The commissioner held his hand out to Montalbano, and they exchanged smiles.

“What are you doing here?”

“Actually, Mr. Commissioner, I was just leaving. I happened to be in Montelusa when I heard the news, and I came out of curiosity, pure and simple.”

“See you this evening, then. Don’t forget! My wife is expecting you.”

It was a conjecture, only a conjecture, and so fragile that if he had stopped a moment to consider it well, it would have quickly evaporated. And yet he kept the accelerator pressed to the floor and even risked being shot at as he drove through a roadblock. When he got to Capo Massaria, he bolted out of the car without even bothering to turn off the engine, leaving the door wide open, easily opened the gate and the front door of the house, and raced into the bedroom. The pistol in the drawer of the bedside table was gone. He cursed himself violently. He’d been an idiot: after discovering the weapon on his first visit, he had been back to the house twice with Ingrid and hadn’t bothered to check if the gun was still in its place, not once, not even when he’d found the gate open and had set his own mind at rest, convinced that it was he who’d forgotten to shut it.

~

And now I’m going to dawdle a bit, he thought as soon as he got home. He liked the verb “dawdle,” tambasiare in Sicilian, which meant poking about from room to room without a precise goal, preferably doing pointless things. Which he did: he rearranged his books, put his desk in order, straightened a drawing on the wall, cleaned the gas burners on the stove. He was dawdling. He had no appetite, had not gone to the restaurant, hadn’t even opened the refrigerator to see what Adelina had prepared for him.

Upon entering, he had as usual turned on the television. The first item on the TeleVigàta news gave the details surrounding the murder of Counselor Rizzo. Only the details, because the initial announcement of the event had already been given in an emergency broadcast. The newsman had no doubt about it, Rizzo had been ruthlessly murdered by the Mafia, which became frightened when the deceased had recently risen to a position of great political responsibility from which he could better carry on the struggle against organized crime. For this was the watchword of the political renewal: all-out war against the Mafia.

Even Nicolò Zito, having rushed back from Palermo, spoke of the Mafia on the Free Channel, but he did so in such contorted fashion that it was impossible to understand anything he said. Between the lines—

indeed, between the words—Montalbano sensed that Zito thought it had actually been a brutal settling of scores but wouldn’t say so openly, fearing yet another lawsuit among the hundreds he already had pending against him. Finally Montalbano got tired of all the empty chatter, turned off the television, closed the shutters to keep the daylight out, threw himself down on the bed, still dressed, and curled up. What he wanted to do now was accuttufarsi—another verb he liked, which meant at once to be beaten up and to withdraw from human society. At that moment, for Montalbano, both meanings were more than applicable.