Montalbano's First Case and Other Stories

by Andrea Camilleri

  Mimì turned pensive.

  “What’s wrong?” asked the inspector. “I can see how it might get a little complicated trying to persuade people to leave their homes . . . There might also be a few old fogeys who’ll be hard to move . . .”

  “No, that’s not the problem . . .” said Mimì.

  Montalbano immediately saw red. He hated that expression. He kept hearing it uttered more and more in almost every meeting, and whoever said it intended, more or less secretly, to lead the ongoing discussion astray. He restrained himself and made no fuss because the case he had on his hands was too important.

  “And what would be the problem?”

  “Once we’ve managed to get all these people into the movie theater, what then? Do you realize what we’ll be dealing with? Little children screaming and crying and raising hell, old folks needing to rest, men getting into scuffles . . .”

  “That’s not a problem. We’ll just show them a nice movie. One of those that everyone can watch. And you, who have a pretty good voice, maybe you can sing them a few songs.”

  He picked up the list of the people who were out of town and looked at it. The three Donzellos—Francesco, Tiziano, and Saverio—weren’t on it. He handed it to Augello.

  Mimì snatched it up and left the room without saying a word.

  7

  The following morning the inspector got to the office early, very early.

  “Ah, Chief Chief, ’ere’s still nobody ’ere, asseptin’ Fazio,” said Catarella as soon as he saw him.

  “Tell him to come to my office.”

  “Chief, the beforemintioned is sleepin’ in Isspecter Augello’s office,” Catarella informed him.

  Fazio was indeed in a deep sleep, his head resting on his folded arms on the desk.

  “Fazio!”

  “Huh?” said Fazio, raising his head but keeping his eyes closed.

  “While you’re at it, why don’t you have your bed brought here from home?”

  Fazio sat up, embarrassed.

  “Sorry, Chief, but last night I had to take turns with Gallo, and so—”

  “Why you? Couldn’t you have had Galluzzo do it? Speaking of which, I haven’t seen Signor Gallo for two days!”

  Fazio looked at him in surprise.

  “You mean nobody told you anything, Chief?”

  “No. What were they supposed to have told me?”

  “Gallo’s mother died the day before yesterday.”

  “What the hell! One of you could have had the decency to tell me! When is the funeral?”

  Fazio looked at his watch.

  “In three hours.”

  “Quick, go to the florist’s at once. I want a wreath. Tell him I’ll pay whatever he wants, but I want a wreath.”

  Three hours later, he attended the Requiem Mass and walked with the procession to the cemetery. He was about to leave after embracing Gallo when something occurred to him. He approached the sexton.

  “Can you tell me where Saverio Donzello is buried?”

  “In ’is grave, that’s where,” said the sexton, who, in keeping with literary tradition, was also a witty philosopher.

  The inspector didn’t feel like joking and gave him a dirty look, whereupon all the sexton’s philosophy disappeared.

  “Go down this path till you reach the end. Then immediately turn right and you’ll find yourself in front of the church that’s in the middle of the cemetery. Behind the church, almost attached to it, is the grave you’re looking for.”

  The grave wasn’t a grave but a proper family chapel, and a rather imposing structure at that. Near the top of the façade was a broad frieze, a sort of scroll bearing the words Famiglia Donzello. It was well maintained. The inspector stuck his head between the wrought-iron bars of the gate that served as the door, but the thick gray glass between the bars prevented him from seeing inside. He addressed a short prayer in his mind to Saverio Donzello, the Kabbalist, asking him to lend him a hand, then left the cemetery.

  He went to the Trattoria San Calogero but to the owner’s great consternation wasn’t able to eat a thing. His stomach was tied up in a knot, and even the smell of the fish on the plate before him bothered him.

  He took a long walk along the jetty, but he was pooped, at the end of his tether, tired and humiliated by his powerlessness, his inability to stop the plan of the man who thought he was God. He lucidly understood that he was forced to follow one step behind the mystery man’s folly. He was unable to come up with any idea that might enable him, if not to get a step ahead of his adversary, at least to keep pace with him. He could only play defensively. And this was a novelty that had caught him completely unprepared.

  The worst of it was that he was unable to change his feeling of frustration into anger. Anger, for him, was a powerful motivating force.

  He’d barely sat down at his desk when the door slammed violently against the wall. Naturally, it was Catarella.

  “Beg yer pardin, Chief, I loss my grip.”

  “What is it?”

  “’Ere’s summon wants a speak t’yiz poissonally in poisson. ’E says as how ’e’s gotta ’ave assolute priority! ’E’s says iss som’in rilly rilly oigint!”

  “Did he tell you his name?”

  “Yessir. Algida.”

  “Like the ice cream?”

  “’Ass right, Chief, jess like the ice cream.”

  “Did he tell you his last name?”

  “Yessir, Chief. Parapettàno.”

  Alcide Maraventano! If he was calling, it must mean he had something really big and truly urgent to tell him.

  “Ya wan’ me to put ’im on, Chief?”

  “No, I’ll come to your post.”

  He was afraid that Catarella, with his complicated maneuvers at the switchboard, might lose the connection. He grabbed the receiver with hands already sweaty from the tension.

  “Montalbano here. Where are you calling from, Signor Maraventano?”

  “From my house.”

  “You have a telephone?!”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. There’s a friend here who has one of those . . . whatever you call it . . .”

  “Cell phones?”

  “Yes, and so I took advantage of the opportunity. I wanted to tell you that I’ve thought long and hard about everything you told me and I’ve reached a conclusion.”

  Montalbano heard a strange noise at the other end, but it didn’t take long for him to figure out what it was. Maraventano was having a suck at his bottle. This irritated him. The old man was taking his time.

  “Would you please be so kind as to tell me what your conclusion was?”

  “My conclusion is this, my friend: What happens next, whatever it is, absolutely cannot occur, like the other things, during the first hours of Monday morning, because—”

  “Because the cycle must necessarily end on Saturday,” Montalbano concluded.

  He had managed, in a flash, to understand what had eluded his grasp when he was reading the Bible. Monday, the day that marked the beginning of Creation, couldn’t also mark the end!

  “Bravo!” exclaimed Alcide Maraventano. “I can see you understand perfectly. Remember: Whatever happens will happen before midnight on Saturday, because on Sunday our imbecile will have to rest. Along with many others, I fear. And bear in mind that the final contraction, in this individual’s confused mind, will necessarily coincide with its becoming a blinding light that nobody can look at. Have I made myself clear?”

  Perfectly clear. Feeling a sort of fever rising inside him, Montalbano didn’t thank the man, didn’t even say good-bye—he merely hung up and started yelling without realizing it.

  “Hey, what day is it? What day is it?”

  He had a gigantic calendar given to him by the Foderaro & Vadalà bakery right under his nose but couldn’t see it.<
br />
  “Iss the foist o’ the munt’!” Catarella blurted out, infected by the panic he could hear in the inspector’s voice.

  And therefore the following day was November 2, All Souls’ Day: the Day of the Dead. There was no mistaking this. Montalbano and Maraventano were right. He was immediately, utterly certain of it. How did the prayer that he’d just heard at the funeral go? It was the Credo, and it ended with:

  “From thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead . . .”

  And on November 2, the madman would have them all there at hand, the living and the dead, at the cemetery! And the last thing the living would see would be the manifestation of the ultimate light.

  Like the people of Hiroshima, he thought.

  All at once his wild agitation ceased, leaving a rational tension in its wake. He’d finally glimpsed a way to take the initiative, to throw his adversary off-balance. He was no longer one step behind. It was up to him to make the right move.

  “Send me Augello and Fazio at once,” he said to Catarella, going back into his office.

  “What’s going on?” asked Mimì, rushing in with Fazio behind him. “Catarella started yelling that you . . .”

  He took one look at Montalbano, who was pale as a corpse, got scared, and fell silent.

  “Now listen up, you two. New orders. Whatever is going to happen will happen tomorrow, Saturday, not Monday.”

  “How do you know that?” asked Augello.

  “Nobody told me, I just figured it out. I’d been thinking of this possibility and somebody just confirmed it for me. Fazio, remember that as soon as we’ve finished here, I want you to send Gallo to inform Mezzano that his movie theater must remain entirely at our disposal from nine o’clock this evening until midnight.”

  The two looked at each other in confusion.

  “This evening?!” asked Augello. “But you said yourself that the whole business should be over by Saturday!”

  “Mimì, this is the only chance we have of heading him off. If, for once, my hunch is correct, we’ll beat him to the punch. But it would be too complicated for me to explain my reasoning to you now. The less time we waste, the better, believe me. We have very little time left. So you and the others, get a move on and inform all the families. Tell them to be there at nine on the dot. They have five hours to get ready. If anyone’s sick, they should let us know, and we’ll have an ambulance come and pick them up. Mimì, I want you to stand outside the door to the cinema with the list and to check off people’s names as they come in. If someone doesn’t show up, tell Fazio, and he’ll look into locating them. Okay?”

  “Okay,” the other two said in unison.

  “I repeat: I want to be absolutely certain that by nine-thirty this evening, every person of concern will be inside that theater.”

  “What are we going to tell them this time?” asked Fazio.

  “The truth.”

  “Meaning?”

  “That if they don’t do what we tell them, they’ll be in mortal danger. They’ll come running, you’ll see.”

  “Can I make an observation?” asked Mimì.

  “Of course.”

  “This business of moving things up to Saturday is because of something you figured out, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now let’s assume for a minute that your reasoning is mistaken,” Augello continued. “The result will be that the maniac will do what he plans to do this Monday, just like all the previous Mondays. And if that’s the case, how are we going to persuade all those people to go back to the movie theater on Monday?”

  “We’ll tell them there’s a new movie for them to see,” said Montalbano. “And there’s a variety show before the film.”

  Carabinieri Lieutenant Romitelli listened in perfect silence to Montalbano’s story and then proceeded to engage in a systematic but no less useless reordering of everything on his desk. When he’d finished, he looked up at the inspector.

  “You put me in an awkward position,” he said, moving a folder from his left to his right.

  “Why do you say that?” asked Montalbano.

  “Inspector, I believe the story you just told me. I really do. And I’m ready to work together with you. But I have to inform my superiors, and you don’t want that, just as you don’t want to inform your own superiors. Am I right?”

  “Yes.”

  “We, however, are military officers.”

  “I understand,” said Montalbano.

  They sat there for a moment in silence.

  “But everything would be different,” Romitelli resumed, “if one of my patrols drove past the Cinema Mezzano and noticed, by chance, a huge crowd outside. In that case, it would be their duty to intervene and even, perhaps, to request reinforcements. Understand what I’m saying?”

  “Perfectly,” said Montalbano, standing up and shaking the lieutenant’s hand.

  Exiting the carabinieri compound, he felt relieved. He had also succeeded in getting the mayor to send some ten or so municipal cops. Alone with only his men, he would never have been able to control the hundreds of busybodies who were sure to turn up as soon as the news began to spread.

  The summoned families entered the movie theater between two noisy mobs that a contingent of carabinieri and municipal cops had trouble holding back. For no apparent reason, the whole affair had taken on a tone of festivity and mutual mockery between the people going in and those watching them.

  But there were also protests and whisperings among those summoned, especially the oldest of the lot. A young guy with long hair, earring, and beard came to a halt in front of the inspector and gave him the Fascist salute. Fazio dealt him a swift kick in the ass and the guy disappeared back into the crowd.

  As people were going in, the movie house slowly turned into something between a nursery school and an old folks’ home.

  At last the inspector was able to take the stage with Mimì following behind him. Aware of his woeful inability to speak in public, he was red in the face and his mouth was all puckered and dry, as if he’d just eaten a lemon.

  “I am Inspector Montalbano. I apologize for the inconvenience, but I’ve done this all in your . . . in your . . .”

  “Best interests,” Augello suggested.

  “. . . best interests. There’s a man who . . . a situation which . . . in short, I’m going to let my deputy explain.”

  He stepped down from the stage, drenched in sweat. Mimì was quick and to the point, explaining what needed to be explained and reassuring those present that they were safe inside the theater, as there were armed guards inside and out. He announced that a roll call would be taken, for greater security. Fazio then took the stage, list in hand, and stood beside Augello.

  Giggles and a variety of twitterings and commentaries could be heard in the audience. The tension had dropped considerably. The roll call wasn’t even half over when it hit a snag.

  “Francesco Donzello.”

  “Present.”

  “Saverio Donzello.”

  No reply.

  “Saverio Donzello?” Fazio repeated.

  Still no reply.

  “I’m Tiziano Donzello,” said a man of about seventy, standing up. “Francesco, who just answered, and Saverio are my sons.”

  Meanwhile Francesco Donzello had also stood up and started looking around for his brother.

  “I don’t see him.”

  “He was with me,” the father resumed. “The three of us came together and were just inside the theater when he turned to me and said he was going back outside for a second to buy cigarettes.”

  A violent shudder worse than if he’d had tertian fever shook the inspector from head to toe. No, Saverio Donzello’s absence was no accident. He was certain that he’d succeeded in making his adversary make his first false move.

  He shot l
ike an arrow towards the old man.

  “Does your son Saverio live alone or with you?”

  “He lives alone in the house that—”

  “Do you by any chance have the keys?”

  “Yes.”

  “Give them to me, and the address as well,” he ordered him.

  And while the man obeyed him without a peep, Montalbano turned to Mimì and Fazio, who were still on the stage, and said:

  “You two come with me. Have Gallo finish the roll call.”

  They dashed out of the movie theater. There were no more rubberneckers or idlers about. A stone’s throw away was the sign of a salt-and-tobacco shop. It had its shutter rolled halfway down. They all crouched and went in.

  “We’re closed now!” yelled the owner, seeing the three men appear before him all at once.

  “Police! Do you know a man named Saverio Donzello?”

  “Yes. He buys cigarettes here sometimes.”

  “Did you see him about an hour ago, an hour and a half?”

  “No, I haven’t seen him since yesterday.”

  “Are there other tobacco shops nearby?”

  “Yes, there’s another one on the next street over.”

  In his haste, Mimì Augello miscalculated the height of the shutter and crashed his head against it. He launched into a litany of curses. When they got to the other tobacco shop, the owner was locking up a display window full of pipes beside the entrance.

  “Do you know Saverio Donzello?” Fazio shouted from behind him.

  The tobacconist literally leapt into the air and turned around in fear.

  “What kind of fucking manners are these?”

  Fazio had no time to discuss etiquette. He grabbed the man by his jacket lapels and pushed him up against the display window.

  “Police. Do you know Saverio Donzello or don’t you?”

  “No,” the tobacconist said, terrified.

  “How many customers came in here over the last hour and a half?”

  “F . . . four.”

  “Do you remember what they bought?”

  “Wait. A woman bought a box of matches, Ragionier Anfuso bought two sheets of stamped paper, a girl bought an envelope and a stamp, and my cousin Filippu punched out a lottery card.”