The Snack Thief

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h2> “Come in, come in,” said a cheerful Signora Cosentino, an irresistibly likable balloon with a mustache.

Montalbano entered a living room with the dining room attached. The housewife turned to her husband with a look of concern.

“You weren’t able to rest, Pepè.”

“Duty. And when duty calls, duty calls.”

“Did you go out this morning, signora?”

“I never go out before Pepè comes home.”

“Do you know Mrs. Lapècora?”

“Yes. We chat a little, now and then, when we’re waiting for the elevator together.”

“Did you also chat with the husband?”

“No, I didn’t care much for him. A good man, no doubt about that, but I just didn’t like him. If you’ll excuse me a minute . . .”

She left the room. Montalbano turned to the security guard.

“Where do you work?”

“At the salt depot. From eight in the evening to eight in the morning.”

“It was you who discovered the body, correct?”

“Yes, sir. It must’ve been about ten after eight at the latest.

The depot’s just around the corner. I called the elevator—”

“It wasn’t on the ground floor?”

“No, it wasn’t. I distinctly remember calling it.”

“And of course you don’t know what floor it was on.”

“I’ve thought about that, Inspector. Based on the amount of time it took to arrive, I’d say it was on the fifth floor. I think I calculated right.”

It didn’t add up. All decked out, Mr. Lapècora . . .

“What was his first name, by the way?”

“Aurelio, but he went by Arelio.”

. . . instead of taking the elevator down, took it up one floor. The gray hat meant he was about to go outside, not to visit someone inside the building.

“What did you do next?”

“Nothing. Seeing that the elevator had arrived, I opened the door and saw the dead body.”

“Did you touch it?”

“Are you kidding? I’ve got experience with that sort of thing.”

“How did you know the man was dead?”

“As I said, I have experience. So I ran to the grocer’s and called you, the police. Then I went and stood guard in front of the elevator.”

Mrs. Cosentino came in with a steaming cup.

“Would you like a little coffee?”

Montalbano accepted and emptied the demitasse. Then he rose to leave.

“Wait a minute,” said the security guard, opening a drawer and handing him a writing pad and ballpoint pen.

“You’ll probably want to take notes,” he said in response to the inspector’s questioning glance.

“What, are we in school or something?” he replied rudely.

He couldn’t stand policemen who took notes. Whenever he saw one doing so on television, he changed the channel.

o o o

In the apartment next door, Signora Gaetana Pinna, with the tree-trunk legs, was waiting. As soon as she saw Montalbano, she pounced.

“Did you finally take the body away?”

“Yes, ma’am. You can use the elevator now. No, don’t close your door. I need to ask you a few questions.”

“Me? I got nothin’ to say.”

He heard a voice from inside the flat, but it wasn’t so much a voice as a kind of deep rumble.

“Tanina! Don’t be so rude! Invite the gentleman inside!” The inspector entered another typical living room–dining room. Sitting in an armchair, in an undershirt, with a sheet pulled over his legs, was an elephant, a man of gigantic proportions. His bare feet, sticking out from under the sheet, looked like elephant feet; even his long, pendulous nose resembled a trunk.

“Please sit down,” the man said, apparently in a talkative mood, motioning towards a chair. “You know, when my wife gets ornery like that, I feel like . . . like . . .”

“Trumpeting?” Montalbano couldn’t help saying.

Luckily the man didn’t understand.

“. . . like breaking her neck. What can I do for you?”

“Did you know Mr. Lapècora?”

“I don’t know nobody in this building. I been livin’ here five years and don’t even know a friggin’ dog. In five years I ain’t even made it as far as the landing. I can’t move my legs, takes too much effort. Took three stevedores to get me up here, since I couldn’t fit in the elevator. They put a sling around me and hoisted me up, like a piano.” He laughed, rather like a roll of thunder.

“I knew that Mr. Lapècora,” the wife cut in. “Nasty man.

He couldn’t be bothered to say hello, like it caused him pain.”

“You, signora, how did you find out he was dead?”

“How’d I find out? I had to go out shopping and so I called the elevator, but nothing happened. It wouldn’t come.

I guessed somebody musta left the door open, which these rude people’s always doing ’round here. So I went down on foot and saw the security guard standing guard over the body.

And after I went shopping, I had to climb back up the stairs and I still haven’t caught my breath!”

“So much the better. That way you’ll talk less,” said the elephant.

o o o

the cristofoletti family said the plaque on the door of the third apartment, but no matter how hard the inspector knocked, nobody opened up. He went back to the Cosentino flat and rang the doorbell.

“What can I do for you, Inspector?”

“Do you know if the Cristofoletti family—” Cosentino slapped himself noisily on the forehead.

“I forgot to tell you! With all this business about the dead body, it completely slipped my mind. Mr. and Mrs.

Cristofoletti are both in Montelusa. She, Signora Romilda, that is, had an operation, woman stuff. They should be back tomorrow.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Montalbano took two steps on the landing, turned around, and knocked again.

“What can I do for you, Inspector?”

“Earlier you said you had experience dealing with dead people. What did you mean?”

“I worked as a nurse for a few years.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

o o o

He went down to the fifth floor, where according to Cosentino the elevator had been waiting with the already murdered Aurelio Lapècora inside. Had he perhaps gone up one flight to meet someone who then knifed him?

“Excuse me, ma’am, I’m Inspector Montalbano.” The young housewife who had come to the door—

about thirty, very attractive but unkempt—put a finger to her lips, her expression complicitous, enjoining him to be quiet.

Montalbano fell silent. What did that gesture mean?

Damn his habit of always going about unarmed! Gingerly the young woman stood aside from the door, and the inspector, on his guard and looking all around him, entered a small study full of books.

“Please speak very softly. If the baby wakes up, that’s the end, we won’t be able to talk. He cries like there’s no tomorrow.”

Montalbano heaved a sigh of relief.

“You already know everything, ma’am, don’t you?”

“Yes, Mrs. Gullotta, the lady next door, told me,” the woman said, breathing the words in his ear. The inspector found the situation very arousing.

“So you didn’t see Mr. Lapècora this morning?”

“I haven’t been out of the house yet.”

“Where is your husband?”

“In Fela. He teaches at the middle school there. He leaves every morning at six-fifteen sharp.” He was sorry their encounter had to be so brief. The more he looked at Signora Gulisano—that was the surname on the plaque—the more he liked her. In feminine fashion, she sensed this and smiled.

“Will you stay for a cup of coffee?”

“With pleasure.”

o o o

The little boy who answered the door to the next apartment couldn’t have been more than four years old and was fiercely cockeyed.

“Who are you, stranger?” he asked.

“I’m a policeman,” Montalbano said, smiling, forcing himself to play along.

“You’ll never take me alive,” said the kid, and he shot his water pistol at the inspector, hitting him square in the forehead.

The scuffle that followed was brief, and as the disarmed child started to cry, Montalbano cold-bloodedly squirted him in the face, drenching him.

“What is this? What’s going on here?”

The little angel’s mother, Signora Gullotta, had nothing in common with the young mother next door. As a prelimi-nary measure she slapped her son hard, then she grabbed the water pistol the inspector had let fall to the floor and hurled it out the window.

“There! That’ll put an end to all this aggravation!” With a heartrending wail, the little boy ran into another room.

“It’s his father’s fault, always buying him these toys! He’s out of the house all day long, doesn’t give a damn, and I’m stuck here to look after that little demon! And what do you want?” “I’m Inspector Montalbano. Did Mr. Lapècora by any chance come up to your apartment this morning?”

“Mr. Lapècora? To our apartment? Why would he do that?”

“That’s what I’m asking you.”

“I guess I knew the man, but it was never anything more than good morning, good evening . . . Not a word more.”

“Perhaps your husband—”

“My husband never spoke to Lapècora. Anyway, when could he have? The guy’s always out. He just doesn’t give a damn.”

“Where is your husband?”

“He’s out, as you can see.”

“Yes, but where does he work?”

“At the port, at the fish market. He’s up at four-thirty in the morning and back at eight in the evening. I’m lucky I ever see him at all.”

An understanding woman, this Mrs. Gullotta.

o o o

On the door to the third and last apartment on the fifth floor was the name piccirillo. The woman who answered the door, a distinguished-looking fifty-year-old, was clearly upset and nervous.

“What do you want?”

“I’m Inspector Montalbano.”

The woman looked away.

“We don’t know anything.”

Montalbano immediately smelled a rat. Could this woman have been the reason Lapècora went one flight up?

“Let me in. I still have to ask you some questions.” Signora Piccirillo gruffly stepped aside to let him in, then led him into a small but pleasant sitting room.

“Is your husband at home?”

“I’m a widow. I live with my daughter, Luigina, who’s unmarried.”

“Call her in here, if she’s at home.”

“Luigina!”

A jeans-clad girl in her early twenties appeared. Cute but very pale, and literally terrified.

The rat smell grew even stronger, and the inspector decided to go on the attack.

“This morning Mr. Lapècora came to see you here.

What did he want?”

“No!” said Luigina, almost yelling.

“He didn’t, I swear it!” the mother proclaimed.

“What was your relation to Mr. Lapècora?”

“We knew him by sight,” said Mrs. Piccirillo.

“We haven’t done anything wrong,” Luigina whined.

“Well, listen closely: if you haven’t done anything wrong, you shouldn’t be afraid. We have a witness who claims that Mr. Lapècora was on the fifth floor when—”

“But why hold that against us? There are two other families living on this floor who—”

“Stop it!” Luigina exploded, in the throes of an hysterical fit. “Stop it, Mama! Tell him everything! Tell him!”

“Oh, all right. This morning, my daughter, on her way out for an appointment at the hairdresser’s, called the elevator, which arrived at once. It must have been stopped at the floor below us, the fourth floor.” “What time was it?”

“Eight o’clock, five past . . . She opened the door and saw Mr. Lapècora sitting on the floor. When I looked inside the elevator—I’d gone out with her to wait for it—the man seemed drunk. He had a bottle of wine, unopened, and, uh . . . it looked like he’d soiled himself. My daughter felt disgusted. She closed the elevator door and started going down the stairs. At that moment the elevator left, somebody downstairs had called it. Well, my daughter has a delicate stomach, and that sight made us both a little queasy. So Luigina went back inside to freshen up, and so did I. Not five minutes later, Mrs. Gullotta came and told us that poor Mr.

Lapècora wasn’t drunk at all, but dead! And that’s the whole story.”

“No,” said Montalbano. “That’s not the whole story.”

“What did you say? I told you the truth!” the woman said, upset and offended.

“The truth is slightly different and more unpleasant. You both immediately realized the man was dead. But you didn’t say anything; you acted as if you’d never seen him at all. Why?” “We didn’t want our names ending up on everyone’s lips,” Signora Piccirillo admitted in defeat. Then in a sudden burst of energy, she shouted hysterically: “We’re honest people!” So those two honest people had left the corpse to be discovered by someone else, perhaps someone less honest. And what if Lapècora hadn’t been dead yet? They’d left him there to rot, to save . . . to save what?

He went out, slamming the door behind him, and found Fazio, who was on his way to keep him company, standing before him.

“Here I am, Inspector. If you need anything—” An idea flashed in his brain.

“Yes, I do need something. Knock on this door. There are two women inside, mother and daughter. Failure to offer assistance. Haul ’em in, and make as much racket as possible. I want everyone in the building to think they’ve been arrested.

Then, when I get back to headquarters, we’ll let ’em go.”

o o o

Upon opening the door, Mr. Culicchia, an accountant who lived in the first apartment on the fourth floor, gave the inspector a little push backwards.

“We can’t let my wife hear us,” he said, standing outside the doorway.

“I’m Inspector—”

“I know, I know. Did you bring me back my bottle?”

“What bottle?” Montalbano asked in shock, staring at the skinny seventy-year-old, who had assumed a conspiratorial air.

“The one that was next to the dead man, the bottle of Corvo white.”

“Wasn’t it Mr. Lapècora’s?”

“Absolutely not! It’s mine!”

“I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand. Explain.”

“I went out this morning to go shopping, and when I got back, I opened the elevator door, and there was Mr.

Lapècora inside, dead. I realized it at once.”

“Did you call the elevator?”

“Why would I do that? It was already on the ground floor.”

“And what did you do?”

“What could I have done, my boy? I’ve got injuries to my left leg and right arm. Got shot by the Americans. I had four bags in each hand. I couldn’t very well have taken the stairs now, could I?” “Are you telling me you came up in the elevator with the body inside?”

“I had no choice! But then, when the elevator stopped at my floor, which was also the deceased’s floor, the bottle of wine rolled out of one of my bags. So I opened the door to my apartment, took all the bags inside, and then came back out to get the bottle. But I didn’t get back in time; somebody’d called the elevator to the next floor up.” “How is that possible if the door was open!”

“But it wasn’t! I’d closed it without thinking! Ah, the mind! At my age one doesn’t think so clearly anymore. I didn’t know what to do. If my wife found out I’d lost a bottle of wine she’d skin me alive. You must believe me, Inspector. She’s capable of anything, that woman.” “Tell me what happened next.”

“The elevator passed by in front of me again and went down to the ground floor. So I started going down the stairs.

When I finally arrived, bum leg and all, I found the security guard there, who wasn’t letting anyone get near. I told him about the wine and he promised he’d mention it to the authorities. Are you the authorities?” “In a sense.”

“Did the guard mention the bottle of wine to you?”

“No.”

“So what am I supposed to do now? Eh? What am I supposed to do? That woman counts the money I spend!” he complained, wringing his hands.

Upstairs they could hear the desperate voices of the Piccirillo women, and Fazio’s imperious commands:

“Down the stairs! On foot! And keep quiet!” Doors opened, questions were asked aloud from floor to floor.

“Who’s been arrested? The Piccirillo girls? Are they being taken away? Are they going to jail?” When Fazio came within reach, Montalbano handed him ten thousand lire.

“After you’ve taken them to headquarters, go buy a bottle of Corvo white and bring it to this gentleman here.”

o o o

Montalbano’s interrogation of the other tenants did not yield any important new information. The only one who said anything of interest was the elementary-school teacher Bonavia, who lived on the third floor. He explained to the inspector that his eight-year-old son Matteo had fallen down and bloodied his nose when getting ready for school. As it wouldn’t stop bleeding, he had taken him to the emergency room. This was around seven-thirty, and there was no trace of Mr. Lapècora, dead or alive, in the elevator.

Aside from the elevator rides he’d taken as a corpse, two things about the deceased seemed clear to Montalbano: one, he was a decent man, but decidedly unpleasant; and two, he was killed in the elevator, between seven thirty-five and eight o’clock.

Since the murderer had run the risk of being surprised with the corpse in the elevator by a tenant, this meant the crime had not been premeditated, but committed on im-pulse.

It wasn’t much to go on. Back at headquarters, the inspector thought about this a little, then glanced at his watch.

Two o’clock! No wonder he felt so famished. He called Fazio.

“I’m going to Calogero’s for some lunch. If Augello arrives in the meantime, send him to me. And one more thing: post a guard in front of the deceased’s apartment. Don’t let her in before I get there.” “Don’t let who in?”

“The victim’s wife, Mrs. Lapècora. Are the Piccirillos still here?”

“Yessir.”

“Send ’em home.”

“What’ll I tell them?”

“Tell ’em the investigation is continuing. Let those honest people shit their pants a little.”