“Hello, is this the home of Inspector Montalbano?”
“Yes, who is this?”
“This is Orazio Genco.”
And what could Orazio Genco, the nearly seventy-year-old burglar, possibly want at this hour? Actually Montalbano rather liked the old thief, who’d never committed a violent act in his life, and the old man knew it.
“What’s up, Orà?”
“I need to talk to you, Inspector.”
“Anything serious?”
“I don’t know how to explain it, Inspector. It’s something strange that seems suspicious to me. But I think it’s better if you know about it.”
“Do you want to come to my house?”
“Yessir.”
“How will you get here?”
“On my bicycle.”
“Your bicycle? Aside from the fact that you’ll catch pneumonia, you won’t get here till tomorrow morning.”
“So what should we do?”
“Where are you calling me from?”
“From the phone booth near the monument to the fallen.”
He got there a little later than expected because before going out, he’d had a good idea: to fill up a thermos with piping-hot coffee. Sitting beside the inspector in the front seat of his car, Orazio Genco gulped down an entire plastic cup of it.
“I got a li’l chilled out there.”
He clucked his tongue in joy.
“And now I could use a nice cigarette.”
Montalbano handed him the pack and then lit his cigarette for him.
“Need anything else? Orà, did you make me drive all the way here just because you wanted a cup of coffee and a cigarette?”
“Inspector, tonight I went out to rob a house.”
“Then I’m putting you under arrest.”
“Let me rephrase that: Tonight I was planning to rob a house.”
“Did you change your mind?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you. Until a few years ago, I used to work the little houses along the seashore, after the owners went away when the weather turned bad. But now things have changed.”
“How?”
“The houses aren’t empty anymore. Nowadays people spend the winters there too, since they can still get to work in their cars. An’ so, now, burgling in town or by the seashore makes no difference to me anymore.”
“So, where’d you go tonight?”
“I went to town, right here. You know Giugiù Loreto’s garage shop?”
“The one on the road to Villaseta? Yes.”
“Well, right above it, there are two apartments.”
“Come on, those are poor people’s apartments! What are you going to rob there? A broken black-and-white television?”
“I beg your pardon, Inspector, but do you know who lives in one of those apartments? Tanino Bracceri, that’s who. Whom you certainly must know.”
He certainly did know Tanino Bracceri. A fifty-year-old made up of 220 pounds of shit and rancid lard. A pig fatted for slaughter looked like a fashion plate compared to him. The man was an obscene loan shark who sometimes accepted payment in the form of little boys or girls, the unfortunate children of his victims. The sex made no difference. Montalbano had never been able to get his hands on him, as he would have liked very much to do, since nobody had ever leveled specific charges against him. Orazio Genco’s idea of burgling Tanino Bracceri’s home therefore met with the unconditional approval of that guardian of law and order, Inspector Salvo Montalbano.
“So why didn’t you do it? It’s likely that, if you had, I wouldn’t have arrested you.”
“I knew that Tanino goes to bed every night at ten o’clock sharp. The other apartment that shares a landing with his is lived in by an old couple who never go out. They keep to themselves. Both retired, husband and wife. Mr. and Mrs. Di Giovanni. So I felt pretty safe, also ’cause I know Tanino stuffs himself with sleeping pills before he goes to bed. Anyway, when I got to the mechanic’s garage, I waited a little. With this weather, there wasn’t a soul about, and so I opened the front door next to the garage and was inside in a flash. The staircase was dark. I turned on my flashlight and went upstairs on tiptoe. When I got to the landing, I pulled out my tools. And I noticed that the Di Giovannis’ door was ajar. I figured the two old folks had forgotten to close it. It got me worried. With the door open like that, those two might hear something. And so I went up to the door, fixin’ to close it softly. There was a piece of paper on the door, or at least I thought it was a piece of paper, like when you go out and write ‘I’ll be right back,’ or something like that.”
“And so what was written on it?”
“I don’t remember now. All I can think of is one word: general.”
“And the guy that lives there, Di Giovanni, is he a general?”
“I don’t know, I guess he could be.”
“Go on.”
“So I was about to close it nice and softly, but the temptation of that half-open door was too strong. The entrance hall was dark, as was the living and dining room. But I could see a light on in the bedroom. So I went up to it and nearly had a heart attack. There, lying on the double bed, all dressed up, was a dead woman. An old woman.”
“How could you tell she was dead?”
“Inspector, the lady had her hands folded over her breast with a rosary wrapped around her fingers, and she had a kerchief knotted over her head to keep her mouth shut. Her eyes were closed. But the best is yet to come. There was a chair at the foot of her bed with a man sitting in it, with his back to me. The poor guy was crying. He must have been her husband.”
“You were unlucky, Orà, what can I say? The man was keeping vigil over his dead wife.”
“Of course. But then, at a certain point, he picked up something he’d been holding in his lap and pointed it at his head. It was a gun, Inspector.”
“Good God! And what did you do?”
“Fortunately, as I was standing there not knowing what to think, the man seemed to change his mind and lowered the hand holding the gun. Maybe he chickened out at the last minute. And so I started walking backwards without making a sound and returned to the entrance hall and went out, slamming the door so hard it sounded like a cannon blast. That way he could forget about killing himself for a while. An’ then I called you.”
Montalbano didn’t speak right away. He was thinking. By that point the widower had probably already shot himself. Or else he was still sitting there, wavering between staying alive and taking himself out of the game. The inspector made up his mind and turned the key in the ignition.
“Where are we going?” Orazio Genco asked him.
“To Giugiù Loreto’s garage. Where did you leave your bike?”
“Don’t worry about that, Inspector, it’s chained to a pole.”
Montalbano pulled up in front of the garage.
“Did you close the front door yourself?”
“Yes, when I went to call you.”
“Can you tell if you can see any light behind the shutters?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Now listen, Orazio. I want you to get out of the car, open the front door, go inside and see what’s happening in that apartment. Don’t let anyone hear you, no matter what you see.”
“An’ what about you?”
“I’ll be your lookout.”
Orazio laughed so hard he started coughing. When he’d calmed down, he got out of the car, crossed the street, opened the building’s front door in a flash, and closed it behind him. It had stopped raining, but the wind had picked up. Montalbano lit a cigarette. After just ten minutes Orazio Genco came back out, closed the door behind him, hurried across the street, opened the car door, and got in. He was trembling, but not from the cold.
“Let
’s get out of here.”
Montalbano obeyed.
“What’s wrong?”
“I got really scared.”
“So speak!”
“The door was closed, an’ so I opened it an’ . . .”
“Was the piece of paper still there?”
“Yes. An’ so I went in. Everything was the same as before. The light was still on in the bedroom. I went up to it . . . Inspector, the dead lady wasn’t dead!”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean what I mean. This time, he was dead. The general. Laid out on the bed like his wife was before, with the rosary and the kerchief round his head.”
“Did you see any blood?”
“No, the man’s face looked clean.”
“And the wife, the dead lady who wasn’t dead, what was she doing?”
“She was sitting in a chair at the foot of the bed, pointing a gun at her head and crying.”
“You wouldn’t be putting me on, Orazio, would you?”
“Why would I do that, Inspector?”
“All right, let’s go. I’ll drive you home. Forget about the bike for tonight, it’s too cold.”
Are an elderly couple, husband and wife, free to do whatever comes into their heads in the privacy of their own home at night? To dress up as Indians, run around on all fours, or hang upside down from the ceiling? Of course they are. So what? If Orazio Genco hadn’t become concerned, he, Montalbano, wouldn’t have known a thing about any of this and would have slept soundly and peacefully for the three hours remaining, instead of tossing and turning in bed as he was now doing, cursing the saints and growing more and more agitated. There was no getting around it: Faced with a situation that didn’t add up, he was like Orazio Genco in front of a door ajar. He had to go inside, to discover the whys and wherefores. What did that sort of ceremony mean?
“Fazio! Come to my office at once!” he yelled upon entering the station. The morning was worse than the night before, cold and gloomy.
“Fazio’s not in, Chief,” said Gallo, coming into his office.
“And where is he?”
“There was a shootout last night, and a member of the Sinagra family got killed. It was predictable, you know how it is: First it’s someone from one family, then it’s the turn of someone from the other family.”
“Is Augello with Fazio?”
“Yessir. The only people here are me, Galluzzo, and Catarella.”
“Listen, Gallo, do you know where Giugiù Loreto’s garage is?”
“I certainly do.”
“Above the garage there are two apartments. Tanino Bracceri lives in one, and an elderly couple lives in the other. I want to know everything there is to know about them. Now get moving.”
“All right, Chief. The husband’s name is Andrea Di Giovanni, eighty-four years old, retired, a native of Vigàta. The wife is Emanuela, née Zaccaria, born in Rome, eighty-two, also retired. No children. They keep to themselves, but I don’t think they have such a bad time of it, in that the whole building belongs to Di Giovanni, who inherited it from his father. He sold one apartment to Tanino Bracceri but hung on to the one he lives in, as well as the garage, which he rents to Giugiù Loreto. They used to live in Rome, but they moved here about fifteen years ago.”
“Was he a general?”
“Who?”
“What do you mean, who? This Di Giovanni guy, was he a general?”
“Where’d you ever get that idea? They were actors, both of them. Giugiù told me their living room is full of photos from the theater and the movies. They told Giugiù they’ve worked with some of the biggest stars but always as . . . wait, let me look, I wrote it down here . . . always as character actors.”
Apparently they practiced to stay sharp. And they would rehearse old scenes they’d played long before. Maybe they were repeating the scene that had been the biggest success of their careers, the one that had won the loudest applause . . . No, no way. That wasn’t possible; the switching of the roles made no sense. There had to be an explanation, and Montalbano wanted to know what it was. Whenever he butted up against an enigma, there was no way out. He would have to find an excuse for going and talking to the Di Giovannis.
The door crashed violently against the wall, giving the inspector a start and inspiring overwhelming homicidal desires in him.
“Cat, I’ve told you a thousand times . . .”
“I’m rilly rilly sorry, Chief, my ’and slipped.”
“What is it?”
“Orazzio Genico’s ’ere, the thief, sayin’ as how ’e wants a talk t’yiz poissonally in poisson. Iss possible ’e wants a toin ’isself up.”
“You mean turn himself in, Cat. Show him in.”
Orazio Genco came in.
“You know I didn’t sleep a wink last night, Inspector?” he said immediately.
“Me neither, as far as that goes.”
“Well, just half an hour ago I was having a coffee with an old friend who got arrested by the carabinieri and put away for three years, and at some point he said to me: ‘They didn’t even catch me red-handed! I was only rehearsing!’ And the sound of that word, rehearsing, made me remember what was written on the piece of paper taped to the old couple’s door. Now I can see it clearly: The sign said General rehearsal. And that was why I thought the guy might be a general.”
Montalbano thanked Orazio Genco and sent him off. A few minutes later Fazio appeared.
“You were looking for me, Chief?”
“Yes. Apparently you were out with Mimì, looking into a murder. There’s just one thing I want to know: How come neither you nor Inspector Augello deigned to inform me that there’d been a homicide?”
“What are you talking about, Chief? Do you know how many times we tried to call you at home? There was never any answer. Had you unplugged the telephone?”
No, he hadn’t unplugged the telephone. He’d been out with a burglar, acting as his lookout.
“Tell me about this little killing, Fazio.”
The matter of the murder kept him busy until five o’clock that evening. Then the Di Giovanni business came back to him. And it worried him. They’d written on the door that they were doing a general rehearsal: a dress rehearsal. Which meant that the following day was opening night, when they would perform in earnest. But what, for the Di Giovannis, would the real performance be? Perhaps the enactment of what they’d rehearsed the night before—in other words, a real death and a real suicide? In alarm, he grabbed the telephone directory.
“Hello, is this the Di Giovanni home? I’m Inspector Montalbano.”
“Yes, I’m Andrea Di Giovanni, what can I do for you?”
“I would like to talk to you.”
“But what are you an inspector of?”
“The police.”
“Oh. And what do the police want from me?”
“Nothing of any importance. I’m just personally curious about something.”
“Curious about what?”
He had an idea.
“I found out entirely by chance that you were both actors.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I have a personal passion for the theater and the cinema. I would like to know—”
“You’re quite welcome to come and see us, Inspector. There isn’t a single person in this town, not one, who understands the theater.”
“Can I come by your place in about an hour, no later?”
“Whenever you like.”
The wife looked like an unfledged baby bird fallen from the nest, the husband like a sort of hairless, half-blind Saint Bernard. The apartment sparkled, and was in perfect order. They sat him down in a small armchair, while they themselves settled in, one right next to the other, on the sofa, their normal position when watching the television in front of them. Montalbano’s ey
es fell on one of the hundred or so photographs covering the walls.
“Isn’t that Ruggero Ruggeri in Pirandello’s The Pleasure of Honesty?” he asked.
And as of that moment came an avalanche of names and titles: Sem Benelli in The Jesters’ Supper and Six Characters in Search of an Author, also by Pirandello; Ugo Betti in Corruption in the Courthouse, together with Ruggeri, Ricci, Maltagliati, Cervi, Melnati, Viarisio, Besozzi . . . The parade lasted an hour and some, by which time Montalbano was in a daze and the elderly couple delighted and rejuvenated.
There was a pause, during which Montalbano gladly accepted the glass of whisky offered him from a bottle that had apparently been bought in a hurry by Signor Di Giovanni for the occasion. When they resumed the conversation they changed the subject to movies, which the elderly couple did not hold in high regard, television even less.
“Don’t you ever see what they broadcast, Inspector? Pop songs and quiz shows. It’s once in a blue moon if they ever show a play, and when they do, it makes us want to cry.”
And now that the subject of performance had been exhausted, Montalbano had to ask the question for which he had come to their home.
Montalbano's First Case and Other Stories Page 17