“But if he wasn’t with you—”
“May I, Chief ?” asked Fazio, interrupting. “Our friend here, Contrera, called his son as soon as he discovered the body, and—”
“Yes, but how did he call him?”
“With this,” said the peasant, pulling a cell phone out of his pocket.
Montalbano balked.The peasant was dressed like an old-time peasant: fustian trousers, hobnail boots, collarless shirt, and vest. The gadget seemed out of place in hands so callused they looked like a relief map of the Alps.
“So why didn’t you call us directly yourself ?”
“First of all,” replied the peasant,“alls I know how to call with this thing is my son; an’ seccunly, how’s I sposta know your phone number?”
“The cell phone,” Fazio again explained, “was a gift from Signor Contrera’s son, who’s afraid that his father, given his age—”
“My boy Cosimo’s a nitwit. ’N accountant an’ a nitwit. He oughta worry ’bout his own hide an’ not mine,” the peasant declared.
“Did you get this man’s name, address, and phone number?” Montalbano asked Fazio.
“Yeah, Chief.”
“Then you can go now,” Montalbano said to Contrera.
The peasant gave a military salute and mounted his donkey.
“Have you informed everyone?”
“Already done, Chief.”
“Let’s hope they arrive soon.”
“Chief, it’s gonna take another half hour at least, even if all goes well.”
Montalbano made a snap decision.
“Gallo!”
“Orders, Chief.”
“How far are we from Giardina here?”
“By this road, I’d say fifteen minutes.”
“Let’s go have a cup of coffee. You guys want me to bring you some?”
“No thanks,” Fazio and Galluzzo replied in unison, with the flavor of the bread and tumazzo still in their mouths.
“I told you not to speed!”
“So who’s speeding?”
And, indeed, after some ten minutes of bouncing along at fifty miles an hour, the car, just like that, ended up nose-first in a ditch as wide as the road itself, with the rear wheels practically spinning in air.
The maneuvers to get unstuck—between heaving and hoeing, cursing and shouting, with Gallo at the wheel one minute, Montalbano the next, shirts drenched with sweat—took a good half hour. On top of this, the left fender had bent and was rubbing against the tire. Gallo was finally forced to drive slowly.
In short, between one thing and another, by the time they got back to Spinoccia, over an hour had passed.
They were all there, except for Prosecutor Tommaseo. His absence worried Montalbano. It was anybody’s guess when the guy might show up, and he was liable to waste the inspector’s whole morning. He drove worse than a blind man, crashing into every other tree he saw.
“Any news of Tommaseo?” Montalbano asked Fazio.
“Tommaseo’s already gone!”
What, had he become Fangio on the Carrera Panamericana?
“Luckily he hitched a ride with Dr. Pasquano,” Fazio continued. “He gave the go-ahead for the body to be removed, and got a lift back to Montelusa from Galluzzo.”
When Forensics had finished shooting their first series of photos, Pasquano had the body turned over. The victim must have been about fifty, maybe slightly less.There was no exit wound on his chest from the bullet that had killed him.
“You know him?” the inspector asked Fazio.
“No.”
Dr. Pasquano finished examining the body, cursing the flies buzzing back and forth between the corpse and his face.
“What can you tell me, Doctor?”
Pasquano pretended not to have heard him. Montalbano repeated the question, pretending in turn that the doctor hadn’t heard him. Pasquano gave Montalbano a dirty look, removing his gloves. He was all sweaty and red in the face.
“What can I tell you? It’s a beautiful day.”
“Gorgeous, isn’t it? What can you tell me about the dead man?”
“You’re a bigger pain in the ass than these flies, you know that? What the hell do you want me to tell you?”
He must have lost at poker the night before, at the club. Montalbano summoned his patience and dug in.
“Tell you what, Doctor. While you’re talking, I’ll wipe away your sweat, chase away the flies, and every so often kiss your forehead.”
Pasquano started laughing. Then, in a single breath, he said:
“He was killed by a single shot to the shoulder.And you didn’t need me to tell you that.The bullet did not exit the body. And you didn’t need me to tell you that, either. He wasn’t shot at this location because—and you can figure this out all by yourself, too—a man doesn’t go walking outside in his underpants, not even on a shitty dirt road like this one. He’s probably been dead—and this, too, you have enough experience to figure out for yourself—for at least twenty-four hours. As for the bite on his arm, any idiot can see that it was a dog.To conclude, there was no need for you to force me to speak, making me waste my breath and busting my balls to hell and back. Have I made myself clear?”
“Perfectly.”
“And a good day to one and all.”
He turned his back, got in his car, and drove away.
Vanni Arquà, chief of Forensics, kept having his men waste roll after roll of film for no reason. Of the thousands of shots taken, only two or three would prove important. Fed up, the inspector decided to go back to town. After all, what was he doing there?
“I’m leaving,” he said to Fazio.“I’ll see you at the station. Gallo, come on, can we go?”
He said nothing to Arquà, who, for his part, hadn’t greeted him upon arriving.You certainly couldn’t say they were fond of each other.
In the effort he had made to pull the car out of the ditch, the dust had not only soiled his clothes, it had filtered through his shirt, and the sweat made it stick to his skin.
He didn’t feel like spending the day at the station in that condition. It was, moreover, almost noon.
“Take me to Marinella,” he said to Gallo.
Opening the front door, he realized at once that Adelina had finished her work and gone.
He went straight into the bathroom, got undressed, took a shower, tossed the dirty clothes into the hamper, then went into the bedroom and opened the armoire to pick a clean suit. He noticed that one of the pairs of trousers was still in the plastic dry-cleaners’ bag; apparently Adelina had picked them up that same morning. He decided to wear them with a jacket he liked, and to break in one of the shirts he had just bought.
Then he got back into the car and drove to Enzo’s trattoria.
Since it was still early, there was only one customer in the room aside from him.The television was reporting that the dead body of an unknown man had been found by a fisherman in a canebrake in the district of Spinoccia. Police had ruled his death a crime, as clear signs of strangulation had been detected around the man’s neck. It also appeared, though had not yet been confirmed, that the killer had ferociously bitten the corpse all over. The case was being investigated by Chief Inspector Salvo Montalbano. More details on the next newscast.
And so, this time, too, the television had done his job for him, which was to convey information dressed up in details and circumstances that were either completely wrong, utterly false, or pure fantasy.And yet the public swallowed it all. Why did the TV people do it? To make an already horrifying crime as hair-raising as possible? It was no longer enough to report a death; they had to provoke horror. After all, hadn’t the United States unleashed a war based on lies, stupidities, and mystifications that the most important figures in the country swore to by all that was holy in front of the whole world’s television cameras? After which, those same television cameras, and the people behind them, on their own, put the icing on the cake.And by the way, that anthrax case, what ever became of that? How was it
that, from one day to the next, everybody stopped talking about it?
“Excuse me, but, if the other customer doesn’t mind, could you please turn off the television?”
Enzo went over to the other client, who, turning towards the inspector, declared:
“Yeah, you can turn it off. I don’t give a shit about that stuff.”
Fat and about fifty, the man was eating a triple serving of spaghetti with clam sauce.
The inspector ate the same thing. Followed by the usual mullets.
When he came out of the trattoria, he decided there was no need for a stroll along the jetty, and so returned to the office, where he had a mountain of papers to sign.
By the time he had finished most of his bureaucratic chores, it was already well past five o’clock. He decided to do the rest the following day. As he was setting down his ballpoint, the telephone rang. Montalbano looked at it with suspicion. For some time now, he was becoming more and more convinced that all telephones were endowed with an autonomous, thinking brain. There was no other way to explain the fact that telephones were ringing with increasing frequency at either the most opportune or the most inopportune moments, and never at moments when you weren’t doing anything.
“Ahh Chief, Chief! That’d be the lady Esther Man. Do I put ’er true?”
“Yes . . . Ciao, Rachele. How are you doing?”
“Great. And you?”
“Me too.Where are you?”
“In Montelusa. But I’m about to leave.”
“You’re going back to Rome? But you said—”
“No, Salvo, I’m just going to Fiacca.”
The sudden pang of jealousy he felt was unwarranted. Worse than that, it was totally unjustified. There was no reason in the world for him to feel that way.
“I’m going with Ingrid, to attend to some business.”
“Do you have business interests in Fiacca?”
“No. I meant sentimental business.”
And this could mean only one thing: that she was going there to give Guido his walking papers.
“But we’ll be back this evening. Shall we get together tomorrow?”
“Let’s try.”
15
Barely five minutes later, the telephone rang again.
“Ahh, Chief! ’At’d be Dr. Pisquano.”
“On the line?”
“Yissir.”
“Put ’im on.”
“How is it you haven’t busted my balls yet today?” Pasquano began, with the courtesy for which he was famous.
“Why should I have done that?”
“To find out the results of the autopsy.”
“Whose?”
“Montalbano, this is a clear sign of old age. A sign that your brain cells are disintegrating with increasing speed. The first symptom is memory loss. Did you know that? For example, does it sometimes happen that you’ll do something one minute, and the next minute you’ll forget that you did it?”
“No. But aren’t you, Doctor, five years older than me?”
“Yes, but the actual age doesn’t mean anything. There are people who are already old at twenty. In any case, I think it’s clear to all concerned that you’re the more doddering of the two of us.”
“Thanks.You want to tell me what autopsy you’re talking about?”
“This morning’s corpse.”
“Oh, no, you don’t, Doctor! The last thing I might imagine was that you would perform that autopsy so soon! What, were you good friends with the dead man or something? Normally you let days and days go by before—”
“This time I happened to have two free hours before lunchtime, and so I got him out of my hair. It turns out there are two minor new developments, with respect to what I told you this morning. The first is that I’ve recovered the bullet and sent it at once to Forensics, who, naturally, won’t have any news on it until after the next presidential election.”
“But the last one was barely three months ago!”
“Precisely.”
It was true. He recalled that he’d sent them the iron clubs used to kill the horse for fingerprints, but still hadn’t heard back from them.
“And what’s the second development?”
“I found some traces of cotton wool inside the wound.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that the one who shot him is not the same person as the one who dumped him by the roadside.”
“Care to elaborate on that a little?”
“Gladly, especially considering the age of the person involved.”
“Whose age?”
“Yours, of course. That’s another product of aging: increasingly slow to comprehend.”
“Doctor, why don’t you go get—”
“I wish! It might improve my luck at poker! Anyway, I was explaining that, in my opinion, someone shot the soon-to-be dead man, gravely injuring him. Then a friend, or an accomplice, or somebody, took him home and tried in one way or another to stanch the blood flowing out of the wound. But the victim must have died shortly thereafter. So the helper waited until dark and then loaded the body into his car and dumped it in the open countryside, as far as possible from his house.”
“It’s a plausible hypothesis.”
“Thanks for understanding without need of further explanation.”
“Listen, Doctor. Any distinguishing marks?”
“Appendectomy scar.”
“That should help in the identification.”
“The identification of whom?”
“The dead man, who else?”
“The dead man never had an appendectomy!”
“But you just said he did!”
“You see, my friend? That’s another sign of aging.You asked me the question in such a confused way that I thought you were asking me if I had any distinguishing marks.”
Pasquano was just pulling his leg. He amused himself trying to get on Montalbano’s nerves.
“All right, Doctor, now that we’ve cleared up that misunderstanding, I will repeat my question, as straightforwardly as possible, so that it won’t require too much mental effort on your part, which could be fatal: Did the dead body on which you performed the autopsy today have any distinguishing marks?”
“I’d say it most certainly did.”
“Could you please tell me what those are?”
“No. It’s something I’d rather put in writing.”
“But when will I get your report?”
“When I have the time and the desire to write it.”
And there was no way to persuade him otherwise.
The inspector stayed a little while longer at the office, and then, as there was still no sign or word from either Fazio or Augello, he went home.
Shortly before he was about to go to bed, Livia phoned. This time, too, things did not go well.The conversation did not end in a squabble, but barely missed.
Words were no longer enough to help them get along and understand each other. It was as if their words, if you looked them up in the dictionary, had different and opposite definitions depending on whether he or Livia was using them.And these double meanings were a continual cause of confusion, misunderstandings, and quarrels.
But if they got together and were able to remain silent, one beside the other, things completely changed. It was as if their bodies started first to sniff each other, to pick up the other’s scent from a distance, then to speak to one another, with complete understanding, in a wordless language made up of small signs such as a leg moving an inch or two to get closer to the other, or a head leaning ever so slightly towards the other head. And, inevitably, the two bodies, still silent, would end up in a desperate embrace.
He slept poorly and was even startled awake by a nightmare in the middle of the night. How was it possible that he had gone years and years without even the slightest thought about horses and horse racing, and now he was actually dreaming about them?
He found himself in a hippodrome with three tracks running parallel
to one another. With him was Commissioner Bonetti-Alderighi, impeccably dressed in riding clothes. For his part, Montalbano was unshaven and disheveled, in a shabby suit with one torn sleeve. He looked like a panhandler on the street.The grandstand was packed with people shouting and gesticulating.
“Augello, put on your glasses before mounting!” Bonetti-Alderighi commanded him.
“I’m not Augello. I’m Montalbano.”
“It makes no difference, put them on just the same! Can’t you see you’re blind as a bat?”
“I can’t put ’em on, I lost ’em onna way ’ere, I got holes in m’ pockets,” he replied, feeling ashamed.
“Penalty! You spoke in dialect!” shouted a voice, as if from a loudspeaker.
“You see the trouble you’re getting me in?” the commissioner reproached him.
“I’m sorry.”
“Get the horse!”
He turned to grab the horse, but realized it was made of bronze and half collapsed, sitting on its haunches, exactly like the RAI horse.
“How can I?”
“Grab it by the mane!”
The instant his hand touched the mane, the horse thrust its head between the inspector’s legs, hoisted him up on its neck, and raised its head, making him slide down the neck, so that he ended up mounted, but backwards, facing the animal’s haunches.
He heard laughing from the grandstand. Feeling insulted, with great effort he turned around, grabbing the mane as hard as he could, because the horse, having now become flesh and blood, was not saddled and had no reins.
Someone fired some sort of cannon, and the horse set off at a gallop towards the middle track between the other two.
“No! No!” Bonetti-Alderighi yelled.
“No! No!” the people in the grandstand repeated.
“You’re on the wrong track,” Bonetti-Alderighi yelled.
Everyone was gesticulating, but he couldn’t make out the gestures and saw only blurry splotches of color, since he had lost his glasses. He realized the horse was doing something wrong, but how do you tell a horse it’s doing something wrong? And why wasn’t it the right track?
He understood why a moment later, when the animal began to walk with great effort.The track was made of sand, the same kind of sand as a beach. But very fine and deep, so that the horse’s hooves sank further into it with each step until they were completely submerged. A track of sand. Why was this happening to him, of all people? He tried to turn the animal’s head to the left, so that it would take the other track. But he suddenly realized that the other, parallel tracks were gone; the hippodrome with its fences and grandstand had vanished, and even the track he was on was no longer there, because it had all become an ocean of sand.
The Track of Sand Page 15