The country air had whetted the inspector’s appetite. He looked at his watch. Just short of one o’clock. He headed towards the trattoria, then stopped short. What if some journalist got the brilliant idea to make his phone calls from Lower Brancato? No question, of course, that there would be any restaurants in Upper Brancato. But he didn’t feel like letting his stomach go empty for too long. The only solution was to run the risk and enter the trattoria in front of him.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone come out from behind the counter and stop to stare at him. The man, fat and forty, approached him with a big smile.
“But . . . aren’t you Inspector Montalbano?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“Iss a real plisure. I’m Michele Zarco.”
He declaimed his first and last names in the tone of someone known to one and all. But since the inspector kept staring at him without a word, he clarified:
“I’m Catarella’s cussin.”
o o o
Michele Zarco, land surveyor and vice mayor of Brancato, was his salvation. First, he brought him to his house for an informal meal—that is, to eat whatever was available. Nuttin spicial, as he put it. Signora Angila Zarco, a woman of few words, blonde to the point of looking washed out, served them cavatuna in tomato sauce that were eminently respectable, followed by coniglo all’agrodolce—sweet-and-sour rabbit—from the day before. Now, preparing coniglo all’agrodolce is a complicated matter, because everything depends on the right propor-tion of vinegar to honey and on making the pieces of rabbit blend properly with the caponata in which it must cook. Signora Zarco clearly knew how to go about this, and for good measure had thrown in a sprinkling of toasted ground almonds over the whole thing. On top of this, it is well-known that the coniglo all’agrodolce you eat the day it is made is one thing, but when eaten the next day it is something else entirely, because it gains considerably in flavor and aroma. In short, Montalbano had a feast.
Then Vice Mayor Zarco suggested they visit Upper Brancato, just to aid digestion. Naturally they went in Zarco’s car.
After taking a road that consisted of one sharp turn after another and looked like the X-ray of an intestine, they stopped in the middle of a cluster of houses that would have made an Expressionist set-designer’s day. Not a single house stood up straight. They all leaned to the left or the right at angles so extreme that the Tower of Pisa would have looked perfectly per-pendicular by comparison. Three or four houses were actually attached to the hillside and jutted out horizontally, as if they had suction cups holding them in place, hidden in the founda-tions. Two old men walked by talking to each other, but rather loudly, because one was listing sharply to the right, the other to the left. Perhaps they’d been conditioned by the inclina-tions of the houses in which they lived.
“Shall we go back home for coffee? The missus makes a good cup,” said Zarco, when he saw that Montalbano, under the influence of the surroundings, had started walking askew himself.
When Signora Angila opened the door for them, to Montalbano she looked like a child’s drawing: almost albino, her hair braided, her cheeks red. She seemed agitated.
“What’s wrong?” her husband asked.
“The TV just said the girl was released but the ransom wasn’t paid!”
“Really?!” asked the land surveyor, looking over at Montalbano.
The inspector shrugged and threw his hands up, as if to say he didn’t know the first thing about the whole affair.
“Oh, yes,” the woman went on. “They said the police found Mr. Peruzzo’s duffel bag, right near here, in fact, and it was filled with newspaper. The newsman wondered how and why the girl was freed. What’s clear is that piece of slime uncle of hers risked getting her killed!” No longer Antonio Peruzzo or “the engineer,” but “that piece of slime,” that unnamable shit, that excrescence of sewage. If Peruzzo had indeed wanted to gamble, he’d lost.
Although the girl had been freed, he was now forever prisoner of the utter, absolute contempt in which people held him.
o o o
The inspector decided not to return to the office but to go back home and watch the press conference in peace. When nearing the overpass, he drove very carefully, in case any stragglers had stayed behind. At any rate, the signs that a horde of policemen, journalists, photographers, and cameramen had passed through were everywhere: empty cans of Coca-Cola, broken beer bottles, crumpled packs of cigarettes. A garbage dump. They’d even broken the stone slab that covered the little well.
o o o
As he was opening the door to his house, he froze. He hadn’t called Livia all morning. He’d completely forgotten to tell her he wouldn’t make it home for lunch. A squabble was now inevitable, and he had no excuses. The house, however, was empty. Livia had gone out. Entering the bedroom, he saw her open suitcase, half full. He immediately remembered that Livia was supposed to return to Boccadasse the next morning. The vacation time she’d taken to stay beside him at the hospital and during his convalescence was over. He felt a sudden pang in his heart, and a wave of emotion swept over him, treacherous as usual. It was a good thing she wasn’t there. He could let himself go without shame. And let himself go he did.
Then he went and washed his face, after which he sat down in the chair in front of the telephone. He opened the phone book. The lawyer had two numbers, one for his home, the other for his office. Montalbano dialed the latter.
“Legal offices of Francesco Luna,” said a female voice.
“This is Inspector Montalbano. Is Mr. Luna there?”
“Yes, but he’s in a meeting. Let me see if he picks up.” Various noises, recorded music.
“My dear friend,” said Luna. “I can’t talk to you right now. Are you in your office?”
“No, I’m at home. You want the number?”
“Please.”
Montalbano gave it to him.
“I’ll call you back in about ten minutes,” said the lawyer.
o o o
The inspector noted that during their brief exchange, Luna didn’t once call him by his name or title. One could only imagine what sort of clients he was meeting with; no doubt they would have been troubled to hear the word inspector.
About half an hour passed, give or take a few minutes, before the phone rang.
“Inspector Montalbano? Please excuse the delay, but first I was with some people and then I thought I’d better call you from a safe phone.”
“What are you saying, Mr. Luna? Have the phones to your office been tapped?”
“I’m not sure, but the way things are going . . . What did you want to tell me?”
“Nothing you don’t already know.”
“Are you referring to the bag full of clippings?”
“Exactly. You realize, of course, that this development is a serious impediment to the resuscitation of Peruzzo’s reputation, to which you’d asked me to contribute.” Silence, as if they’d been cut off.
“Hello?” said Montalbano.
“I’m still here. Answer me sincerely, Inspector: Do you think that if I’d known there was only scrap paper inside that well, I would have told you and Inspector Minutolo?”
“No.”
“Well, the moment he heard the news, my client called me up, extremely upset. He was in tears. He realized that this discovery was like cementing his feet and throwing him into the sea. Death by drowning, with no chance of ever coming back to the surface. Inspector, that duffel bag was not his. He’d put his money in a suitcase.” “Can he prove it?”
“No.”
“And how does he explain that police found a duffel instead of a suitcase?”
“He can’t explain it.”
“And he’d put the money in this suitcase?”
“Of course. Let’s say roughly sixty-two bundles of five-hundred-euro bills totaling three million ninety-eight thousand euros and seventy-four cents, rounded off to the euro, and equaling six billion old lire.” “And you believe that?”
; “Inspector, I have to believe my client. But the point is not whether I believe him. It’s whether the public believes him.”
“But there may be a way to prove that your client is telling the truth.”
“Oh, really? What?”
“Simple. As you yourself said, Mr. Peruzzo had very little time to scrape together the ransom money. Therefore there must be bank documents with the related data attesting to the withdrawal of the amount. All you have to do is make these documents public, and your client will have proved his absolute good faith.” Deep silence.
“Did you hear me, Counsel?”
“Of course. It’s the same solution I promptly suggested to him myself.”
“So, as you can see—”
“There’s a problem.”
“What?”
“Mr. Peruzzo didn’t get the money from any banks.”
“Oh, no? Then where did he get it?”
“My client agreed not to reveal the names of those who so generously consented to assist him at this delicate moment.
In short, nothing was written down on paper.” Out of what filthy, stinking sewer had come the hand that gave Peruzzo the money?
“Then the situation seems hopeless to me.”
“To me, too, Inspector. So hopeless, in fact, that I’m beginning to wonder if my counsel is still of any use to Mr. Peruzzo.” So the rats, too, were getting ready to abandon the sinking ship.
o o o
The press conference began at five-thirty sharp. Behind a large table sat Minutolo, the judge, the commissioner, and Dr.
Lattes. The conference hall was packed with journalists, photographers, and cameramen. Nicolò Zito and Pippo Ragonese were there, too, at a proper distance from one another. The first to speak was Commissioner Bonetti-Alderighi, who thought it best to start at the beginning—that is, to explain how the kidnapping came about. He pointed out that this first part of the account was based on declarations made by the girl. On the evening of the abduction, Susanna Mistretta was returning home on her moped, along the road she normally took, when, at the intersection with the San Gerlando trail, right near her house, a car pulled up beside her and forced her to turn onto the dirt road to avoid collision. Upset and confused by the incident, Susanna barely had time to stop before two men got out of the car, their heads covered by ski masks. One of them lifted her bodily and threw her into the car.
Susanna was too stunned to react. The man removed her helmet, pressed a cotton wad to her nose and mouth, gagged her, tied her hands behind her back, and made her lie down at his feet.
In confusion, the girl heard the other man get back in the car, take the wheel, and drive off. At this point she lost consciousness. Investigators hypothesize that the second man had gone to remove the motorbike from the road.
When Susanna woke up, she was in total darkness. She was still gagged, but her hands had been untied. She realized she was in an isolated place. Moving about in the dark, she gathered that she’d been put inside some sort of concrete vat at least ten feet deep. There was an old mattress on the ground.
She spent the first night this way, despairing not so much over her own situation, but for her dying mother. Then she must have drifted off to sleep. She woke up when someone turned on a light, a lamp of the sort used by mechanics to light up a car’s motor. Two men in ski masks were watching her. One of them took out a small portable cassette recorder, and the other came down into the vat on a ladder. The man with the tape recorder said something while the other removed Susanna’s gag. She cried for help, and the gag was put back on. They returned a short while later. One of them came down the same ladder, removed her gag, then climbed back up. The other took a Polaroid snapshot of her. They never gagged her again. To bring her food—always canned—they always used the ladder, which they would lower each time. In one corner of the vat there was a pail for bodily functions. As of that moment the light remained on.
At no time during her confinement was Susanna subjected to any mistreatment. She had no way, however, to attend to her personal hygiene. Nor did she ever hear her abductors speak. And they never once answered her questions or addressed her in any manner. They didn’t even say she was about to be freed when they had her come up out of the vat.
Later Susanna was able to lead investigators to where she was released. And there, in fact, police found the rope and the handkerchief that had been used to gag her. In conclusion, the commissioner said, the girl was in fairly good condition, considering the terrible ordeal she’d just been through.
Lattes then pointed to a journalist, who stood up and asked why they couldn’t interview the girl.
“Because the investigation is still ongoing,” replied the judge.
“In short, was the ransom paid or not?” asked Zito.
“We’re not at liberty to reveal that right now,” the judge answered again.
At this point Pippo Ragonese stood up. His lips were pursed so tightly that the words came out compressed.
“I’d like n’t t’ask a quest’n b’t t’make a st’tm’nt—”
“Speak clearly!” shouted the Greek chorus of journalists.
“I want to make a statement, not to ask a question.
Shortly before I came here, our studios received a phone call that was forwarded to me. I recognized the voice of the same kidnapper who had phoned me before. He declared, and I quote, that the ransom had not been paid, and that although the person who was supposed to pay had tricked them, they had decided to set the girl free anyway, because they didn’t want to have a death on their conscience.” Mayhem broke out. People leapt to their feet, gesticulat-ing, other people ran out of the room, the judge inveighed against Ragonese. The uproar got so loud that you couldn’t understand a word anyone was saying. Montalbano turned off the television, went out on the veranda, and sat down.
o o o
Livia got home an hour later and found Salvo looking out at the sea. She didn’t seem the least bit angry.
“Where were you?”
“I dropped in to say hi to Beba and then went over to Kolymbetra. Promise me you’ll go there one of these days. And where were you? You didn’t even phone to say you weren’t coming home for lunch.” “I’m sorry, Livia, but—”
“Don’t apologize. I have no desire to quarrel with you.
These are our last few hours together, and I don’t want to spoil them.”
She flitted about the house a bit, then did something she almost never did. She went and sat on his lap and held him tight. She stayed there awhile, in silence. Then:
“Shall we go inside?” she whispered in his ear.
Before going into the bedroom Montalbano, for one reason or another, unplugged the telephone.
o o o
As they lay in each other’s arms, dinnertime passed. And after-dinnertime as well.
“I’m so happy Susanna’s kidnapping was solved before I left,” Livia said at a certain point.
“Yeah,” replied the inspector.
He’d managed to forget about the abduction for a few hours. But he was instinctively grateful to Livia for having reminded him of it. Why? What did gratitude have to do with it? He had no explanation.
As they ate they spoke little. Livia’s imminent departure weighed heavy on both their minds.
She got up from the table and went to finish packing. At some point he heard Livia call from the other room:
“Salvo, did you take the book of yours I was reading?”
“No.”
It was a novel by Simenon, Monsieur Hire.
Livia came and sat beside him on the veranda.
“I can’t find it. I wanted to bring it with me so I can finish it.”
The inspector had a hunch where it might be. He got up.
“Where are you going?”
“I’ll be right back.”
The book was where he thought it would be, in the bed room, caught between the wall and the head of the bed, having fallen off the nightstand. He bent down
, picked it up, and put it on top of the already closed suitcase. He went back out on the veranda.
“I found it,” he said, and started to sit back down.
“Where?” asked Livia.
Montalbano froze, thunderstruck. One foot slightly raised, body leaning slightly forward. As if in the throes of a back spasm. He held so still that Livia got scared.
“Salvo, what’s wrong?”
He was powerless to move. His legs had turned to lead, but his brain kept whirring, all the gears spinning at high speed, happy to be finally turning the right way.
“My God, Salvo, are you ill?”
“No.”
Ever so slowly, he felt his blood, no longer petrified, begin to flow again. He managed to sit down. But he had an expression of utter astonishment on his face and didn’t want Livia to see it.
He rested his head on her shoulder and said:
“Thanks.”
At that moment he understood why, earlier, when they were lying in bed, he’d felt a gratitude for which, at first, he’d had no explanation.
1 9 6
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15
When time’s mechanism jammed at three twenty-seven and forty seconds, Montalbano didn’t wake up, since he was already awake. He hadn’t been able to fall asleep. He would have liked to toss and turn in bed, letting himself be carried off by waves of thought following one upon the other like breakers in rough seas, but he was forcing himself not to disturb Livia, who’d fallen asleep almost at once, and therefore he couldn’t thrash his arms and legs about.
The alarm went off at six, the weather looked promising, and by seven-fifteen they were already on the road to Punta Raisi, the airport of Palermo. Livia drove. Along the way they spoke little or not at all. Montalbano was already far away, thinking about what he was itching to do, to determine whether the idea he’d had was an absurd fantasy or an equally wild reality. Livia was also lost in thought, worrying about what awaited her in Genoa, the backlog at work, the things left hanging because she’d suddenly needed to go to Vigàta for a long stay at Salvo’s side.
Before Livia entered the boarding area, they embraced in the crowd like two teenagers in love. As he held her in his arms, Montalbano felt two conflicting emotions that had no natural right to be together, yet there they were. On the one hand he felt deep sadness that Livia was leaving. Without a doubt the house in Marinella would underscore her absence at every turn, now that he was well on his way to becoming a man of a certain age and starting to feel the weight of solitude. On the other hand he felt rather pressed, anxious for Livia to leave right away, without further delay, so that he could race back to Vigàta to do what he had to do, totally free and no longer obliged to conform to her schedule or answer her questions.
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