The Track of Sand

by Andrea Camilleri

  He raced back to Vigàta, went to the station, and said to Catarella as he was passing by:

  “Call Fazio on his cell phone.”

  He barely had time to sit down before the telephone rang.

  “What is it, Chief ?”

  “Drop everything you’re doing and come here at once.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  It was now clear that he and Fazio had gone down the wrong path.

  The investigation into Licco’s alibi had been assigned not to him, Montalbano, but surely to the carabinieri, at the instruction of Giarrizzo. And equally surely, the Cuffaros had learned of the existence of this investigation by the men in black.

  This meant that, whatever behavior he displayed in court, it would never have the slightest influence on the outcome of the trial.

  Therefore all the pressure exerted on him—the ransacking of his house, the attempted arson, the anonymous phone call—had nothing to do with the Licco affair. So what, then, did they want from him?

  Fazio listened in absolute silence to the conclusions the inspector had drawn after his chat with Giarrizzo.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he said at the end.

  “No ‘maybe’ about it.”

  “We’ll have to wait and see what their next move is, after they failed to burn down your house.”

  Montalbano slapped his forehead.

  “They’ve already made their move! I forgot to tell you!”

  “What’d they do?”

  “I got an anonymous phone call.”

  And he repeated the message to Fazio.

  “The problem is, you don’t know what it is they want you to do.”

  “Let’s hope that their next move, as you say, will give us some idea. Have you managed to find out anything else about Gurreri?”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “I need more time. I’d like to confirm it.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “Apparently he was recruited about three months ago.”

  “By whom?”

  “The Cuffaros. Apparently they took on Gurreri to replace Licco.”

  “About three months ago, you say?”

  “Yes. Is that important?”

  “I don’t know yet, but these same three months keep popping up.Three months ago, Gurreri left his house; three months ago, the name of Licco’s mistress was discovered, the one who will provide Licco’s alibi; three months ago, Gurreri is recruited by the Cuffaros . . . Bah, I dunno.”

  “If you don’t have anything else to tell me,” said Fazio, standing up,“I’m going to go back and talk to a lady who’s a neighbor of Gurreri’s wife, who hates her guts. She had started telling me something, but then you rang me and I had to drop everything.”

  “Had she already told you anything?”

  “Yeah. She said Concetta Siragusa, for the last few months—”

  Montalbano leapt to his feet, eyes popping.

  “What did you say?”

  Fazio almost got scared.

  “Wha’d I say, Chief ?”

  “Repeat it!”

  “That Concetta Siragusa, Gurreri’s wife—”

  “Holy fucking shit!” said the inspector, falling heavily back into the chair.

  “Chief, you’re getting me worried! What is it?”

  “Wait, let me recover.”

  He fired up a cigarette. Fazio got up and shut the door.

  “First, I wanna know something,” said the inspector. “You were telling me the neighbor lady told you that for the last few months, Gurreri’s wife . . . And that’s where I interrupted you. Now continue.”

  “The neighbor was telling me that for some time now, Gurreri’s wife has seemed scared of her own shadow.”

  “Do you want to know for how long Gurreri’s wife has been scared?”

  “Sure. Do you know?”

  “For three months, Fazio. Exactly three months.”

  “But how do you know these things about Concetta Siragusa?”

  “I don’t know anything, but I can easily imagine them. And now I’ll tell you how it all went. Three months ago, someone from the Cuffaro clan approaches Gurreri, who’s a small-time crook, and asks him to join the family.The guy can’t believe it; it’s like getting a work contract with no time limit after years of temps.”

  “But wait a second, if I may. What use could the Cuffaros possibly have for someone like Gurreri, who’s not even all there in the head?”

  “I’ll get to that.The Cuffaros, however, impose a rather harsh condition on Gurreri.”

  “Namely?”

  “That Concetta Siragusa, his wife, provide an alibi for Licco.”

  This time it was Fazio’s turn to be shocked.

  “Who told you that Siragusa is Licco’s mistress?”

  “Giarrizzo. But he didn’t tell me her name; he wrote it down on a sheet of paper, which he pretended to leave on his desk.”

  “But what’s it mean?”

  “It means that the Cuffaros don’t give a flying fuck about Gurreri. It’s his wife they want. Who, at a certain point, is forced to play ball, willy nilly, even though she’s scared out of her wits. At the same time, the Cuffaros tell Gurreri that it’s best if he leaves his home; they’ll take care of finding him a safe place to stay.”

  He torched another cigarette. Fazio went and opened the window.

  “And since Gurreri, who now feels strong with the Cuffaros behind him, still wants to take revenge on Lo Duca, the family decides to lend him a hand. It’s the Cuffaros, not some loser like Gurreri, who staged the horse operation. So, to conclude: For the past three months, Licco has had the alibi he didn’t have before, and in the meanwhile, Gurreri has had the revenge he wanted. And they all lived happily ever after.”

  “And we—”

  “And we take it up the you-know-what. But I’ll tell you another thing,” Montalbano continued.

  “Tell me.”

  “At a certain point, Licco’s lawyers will call Gurreri as a witness.You can bet on that. In one way or another they’ll get him to talk on the stand. And Gurreri will swear that he has always known that his wife was Licco’s mistress, and that this was why he left his home in disgust, fed up with the constant quarrels with Concetta, who wouldn’t stop crying for her beau behind bars.”

  “Well, if that’s the way it is—”

  “How else could it be?”

  “—maybe you’d best go back to Giarrizzo.”

  “What for?”

  “To tell him what you’ve just told me.”

  “I’m not going back there, not even with a gun to my head . . . First of all, because he pointed out to me that it’s improper for me to talk to him. And, secondly, because he has assigned the supplementary investigation to the carabinieri. Let him figure things out with them. Now hurry back and finish your discussion with Concetta’s neighbor.”

  At eight o’clock on the dot, the phone rang.

  “Chief, that’d be the lady Esther Man.”

  Their date! He had completely forgotten about it! What was he going to do now? Should he say yes or no? He picked up the receiver, still undecided.

  “Salvo? This is Rachele. Have you overcome your reservations?”

  There was an ever so slight note of irony in her voice, which irritated him.

  “I still haven’t finished here.”

  You want to get wise with me? Then stew in your own juices.

  “Think you’ll manage to get away?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Maybe in an hour or so . . . But that’s probably too late for you to go out to eat.”

  He was hoping she would say that, in that case, it was better to meet another evening. Instead, Rachele said:

  “Okay, no problem. I can even eat at midnight, if need be.”

  O matre santa! How the hell was he going to spend the next hour with nothing to do in the office? Why had he played so hard to get? Most importantly, he was ravenous, eaten alive by his h
unger.

  “Wait. Can you hold on a second?”

  “Of course.”

  He set the receiver down on the desk, got up, went over to the window, and pretended to be talking audibly to someone.

  “What do you mean, you can’t find it? . . . Put it off till tomorrow morning? . . . Well, all right.”

  He turned around to go back to his desk, but then froze. Standing in the doorway was Catarella, who looked at him with an expression between concern and fear.

  “You feel okay, Chief ?”

  Without saying a word, Montalbano shot out one arm to signal that he should leave the room at once. Catarella disappeared.

  “Rachele? Luckily I’ve managed to break free. Where should we meet?”

  “Wherever you like.”

  “Have you got a car?”

  “Ingrid lent me hers.”

  How ready Ingrid was to facilitate his encounters with Rachele!

  “Why, doesn’t she need it?”

  “No, a friend of hers picked her up and will bring her home later.”

  He told her where they should meet. Before leaving the room, he picked up the magazine that Mimì Augello had brought him. It might help him rein in Rachele, if their conversation began to take a dangerous turn.

  13

  Arriving at the Marinella Bar, he noticed that Ingrid’s car was nowhere to be seen in the parking lot. Apparently Rachele was running late. She hardly had the same Swiss precision as her friend. He remained undecided as to whether he should wait for her outside or inside the bar. He felt a little uneasy about the encounter, there was no denying it. The fact was that, at fifty-six years and counting, never in his life had he met back up with a woman—one, moreover, entirely foreign to him—after having had hasty, er, sexual congress with her, as Prosecutor Tommaseo might call it.And the real reason he hadn’t wanted to return her phone calls was that he felt quite awkward talking to her. Awkward and a little ashamed to have shown this woman a side of himself that wasn’t really him.

  What should he say to her? How should he behave? What sort of expression should he wear?

  To steel himself a little, he got out of his car, entered the establishment, walked up to the bar, and asked Pino, the barman, for a whisky, neat.

  He had just finished downing it when he saw Pino’s face drop. Eyes fixed on the entrance, the barman was an open-mouthed statue, like Lou Ravi in a crèche, a glass in one hand, a dish towel in the other.

  The inspector turned around.

  Rachele had just walked in.

  She was so elegantly dressed, it was frightening. But her beauty was even more frightening.

  It was as if her presence had suddenly increased the wattage of the lights in the bar. Pino was frozen, unable to move.

  The inspector went up to greet her. And she proved very much the lady.

  “Ciao,” she said, smiling at him, her blue eyes sparkling with genuine pleasure at seeing him. “Here I am.”

  And she made no move to kiss him or be kissed by proffering her cheek.

  Montalbano was overwhelmed by a wave of gratitude, and immediately felt at ease.

  “Care for an aperitif ?”

  “I’d rather not.”

  Montalbano forgot to pay for the whisky. Pino was still in the same position, spellbound. In the parking lot, Rachele asked:

  “Have you decided where we’re going?”

  “Yes.To Montereale Marina.”

  “That’s on the road to Fiacca, isn’t it? Shall we take your car or Ingrid’s?”

  “Let’s take Ingrid’s. Would you mind driving? I feel a bit tired.”

  It wasn’t true, but he could already feel the effect of the whisky. How could two fingers of whisky possibly make his head spin? Maybe it was the mix of whisky and Rachele that was so deadly?

  They set off. Rachele drove with assurance. She went fast, naturally, but maintained a constant speed. It took them ten minutes to get to Montereale.

  “Now show me the way,” she said.

  Suddenly, again from the effect of that deadly mix, the inspector couldn’t remember how to get there.

  “I think you have to turn to the right.”

  The road on the right, which was not paved, came to an end in front of a farmhouse.

  “Then turn around and take the road on the left.”

  That wasn’t the right one, either, as it ended in front of the warehouse of the farmers’ cooperative.

  “Maybe we need to go straight,” Rachele concluded.

  And that, indeed, proved to be the right way.

  Another ten minutes later, they were seated at a table in a restaurant where the inspector had been several times before and always eaten well.

  The table they chose was under a pergola, at the edge of the beach. The sea was some thirty paces away, ever so lightly lapping the shore, making it clear that it had little desire to move. The stars were out, and there was not a cloud in the sky.

  At another table sat two men of about fifty. On one of them, the sight of Rachele had a quasi lethal effect: the wine he was drinking went down the wrong way, and he nearly died choking. His friend finally managed, in extremis, to help him regain his breath, by dint of a series of powerful slaps on the back.

  “They serve a white wine here that makes a nice aperitif as well . . . ,” said Montalbano.

  “If you’ll join me.”

  “Of course I will. Are you hungry?”

  “On the way down to Marinella from Montelusa I wasn’t, but I am now. It must be the sea air.”

  “I’m glad. I must confess that I’m always put off by women who don’t like to eat because they’re afraid to gain . . .”

  He stopped short. Why was he suddenly speaking so confidentially with Rachele? What was happening?

  “I’ve never followed diets,” said Rachele. “So far, at least, I’ve never needed to, luckily.”

  The waiter brought the wine. They downed their first glasses.

  “This is really good,” said Rachele.

  A couple about thirty years old walked in, looking around for a table. But as soon as the girl saw how her partner was eyeing Rachele, she took him by the arm and led him back into the indoor part of the restaurant.

  The waiter reappeared and, refilling the empty glasses, asked what they wanted to eat.

  “Will you be having a first course or an antipasto?”

  “Does the one exclude the other?” Rachele asked in turn.

  “They serve fifteen different kinds of antipasto here,” said Montalbano. “Which, frankly, I recommend.”

  “Fifteen?”

  “Maybe more.”

  “All right, then. Antipasto it is.”

  “And for the main course?” asked the waiter.

  “We’ll decide that later,” said Montalbano.

  “Shall I bring another bottle with the antipasti?”

  “I think you should.”

  A few minutes later, there wasn’t any room left on the table for so much as a needle.

  Shrimp, jumbo prawns, squid, smoked tuna, fried balls of nunnatu, sea urchins, mussels, clams, octopus morsels a strascinasale , octopus morsels affucati, tiny fried calamari, calamari and squidlets tossed in a salad with orange slices and celery, capers wrapped in anchovies, sardines a beccafico, swordfish carpaccio . . .

  The total silence in which they ate, occasionally exchanging glances of appreciation for the flavors and aromas, was interrupted only once, at the moment of transition to the anchovy-wrapped capers, when Rachele asked:

  “Is something wrong?”

  And Montalbano, feeling himself blush, said:

  “No.”

  For the previous few minutes he had been lost watching her mouth open and close, the fork going in, revealing for an instant the intimacy of a palate as pink as a cat’s, the fork coming back out empty but still clasped by glistening teeth, the mouth reclosing, the lips moving lightly, rhythmically, as she chewed. The mere sight of her mouth left one speechless. In a fla
sh Montalbano remembered the evening in Fiacca, when he fell under the spell of those lips by the light of her cigarette.

  When they had finished the antipasti, Rachele said:

  “Good God!”

  And she heaved a long sigh.

  “Everything all right?”

  “Couldn’t be better.”

  The waiter came to remove the dishes.

  “And what would you like as a main course?”

  “Couldn’t we wait a little?” Rachele asked.

  “As you wish.”

  The waiter walked away. Rachele remained silent.Then, all at once, she grabbed her pack of cigarettes and lighter, stood up, descended the two steps that led to the beach, removed her shoes with a simple motion of her legs and feet, and headed towards the sea. When she reached the water’s edge, she stopped, letting the sea caress her feet.

  She hadn’t told Montalbano to follow her. Just like that evening in Fiacca. And so the inspector remained seated at the table. Some ten minutes later, he saw her returning. Before ascending the two steps, she put her shoes back on.

  When she sat down before him, Montalbano had the impression that the blue of her eyes was slightly brighter than usual. Rachele looked at him and smiled.

  Then a tear that had remained half suspended fell from her left eye and rolled down her cheek.

  “I think a grain of sand must have got in my eye,” said Rachele, clearly fibbing.

  The waiter returned like a nightmare.

  “Has the lady decided?”

  “What have you got?” asked Montalbano.

  “We’ve got a mixed fish fry, grilled fish, swordfish however you like it, mullet alla livornese—”

  “I only want a salad,” said Rachele. Then, turning to the inspector: “Sorry, I just can’t eat any more.”

  “No problem. I’ll have a salad, too. However . . .”

  “However?” said the waiter.

  “Throw in some green and black olives, celery, carrots, capers, anything else the cook can think of.”

  “I’ll have mine that way, too,” declared Rachele.

  “Would you like another bottle?”

  There was enough left for two more glasses, one each.

  “For me, that’s enough,” she said.

  Montalbano gestured no, and the waiter left, perhaps mildly disappointed at the scantness of their order.