Rounding the Mark

by Andrea Camilleri

  “Come on, Mimì, don’t be childish! What, have you become jealous now?”

  Mimì gave him a long look.

  “Yes,” he said.

  And he left the room.

  “Send me Catarella!” the inspector shouted at him.

  “Your orders, Chief!” said Catarella, instantly materializing.

  “I think I remember you saying once that you often go visit a brother of yours who lives near Capo Russello.”

  “Yessir, Chief.”

  “Good. Can you explain to me how you get there?”

  “No need to ’splain, Chief. I can come wit you myself in poisson!”

  “Thanks, but this is something I have to take care of alone, no offense. So, can you explain to me how I get there?”

  “Yessir. You take the road to Montereale and go past it. Keep goin for a coupla miles and on the left y’see an arrow that says Capo Russello.”

  “Do I take that road?”

  “No sir. You c’ntinue. Next you’re gonna see an arrow that says Lampisa. That’s the road you take.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “Chief, that arrow that says Lampisa only says Lampisa in a manner o’ speakin. Forget about goin to Lampisa if you only follow that arrow.”

  “So what should I do?”

  “When you take the road to Lampisa, you go about a hundred fifty yards till you see a big iron gate that used to be there but isn’t there no more.”

  “How am I supposed to see a gate that isn’t there?”

  “Easy, Chief. ’Cause after where the gate used to be, there’s two rows of oak trees. That used to be the Baron Vella’s property, now it’s nobody’s property. When you come way to the back of that driveway an’ you see the belapidated ruins of the baron’s villa, you turn alla way around the last oak tree onna left. And not tree hunnert yards later you’re in Lampisa.”

  “And that’s the only way to get there?”

  “It depends.”

  “Depends on what?”

  “On if you’re walkin or drivin there.”

  “I’m driving.”

  “Then iss the only way, Chief.”

  “How far away is the sea?”

  “Not a hunnert yards, Chief.”

  To eat or not to eat? That was the question. Was it nobler in the mind to suffer the pangs of outrageous hunger or to hang it all and go stuff his belly at Enzo’s? The Shakespearian dilemma arose when he looked at his watch and noticed it was already eight o’clock. If he gave in to hunger, that would give him just barely an hour to devote to dinner. Which meant that he would have to eat with Chaplinesque speed. Now, one thing was certain, and that was that eating hastily was not eating. At best it was mere self-nourishment. An essential difference, since at that moment he felt no need to nourish himself the way an animal or a tree might. What he felt like doing was savoring bite after bite, taking as much time as was needed. No, there was no point. And, to avoid falling into temptation, once he got home he opened neither the refrigerator nor the oven. He took all his clothes off and went into the shower. Then he put on a pair of jeans and a Canadian bear-hunter’s shirt. It occurred to him that he didn’t know how things would go, and he wondered: to pack or not to pack? Perhaps it was better to bring his pistol. Then he picked out a dark-brown sport coat that had a spacious inner pocket and put this on. He didn’t want to alarm Ingrid if at some point he needed to fetch his weapon; better get it now. He went outside to the car, opened the glove compartment, grabbed the pistol, and slipped it in the inside pocket of the jacket. When he bent down to close the glove compartment, the gun slid out of the pocket and fell to the floor of the car. Montalbano cursed the saints, got down on his knees—because the gun had ended up under the seat—picked it up, locked the car, and went back in the house. Feeling hot with his jacket on, he took it off and set it down on the dining room table. He decided it was a good time to call Livia. He picked up the receiver, dialed the number, and just as the first ring began, the doorbell rang as well. To open or not to open? He hung up and went to open the door. It was Ingrid, a little early. More beautiful than ever, if that was possible. To kiss her or not to kiss her? The question was answered at once by the Swede, who kissed him.

  “How are you?”

  “I feel a little like Hamlet.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Never mind. Did you come in your husband’s car?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is it?”

  An utterly academic question. Montalbano didn’t know a bloody thing about cars. Or motors, for that matter.

  “A BMW 320.”

  “What color?”

  This question, on the other hand, had a specific purpose. Knowing what an asshole Ingrid’s husband was, he was likely to have had it painted in red, yellow, and green stripes with blue polka dots.

  “Dark grey.”

  Thank heavens. There was a chance they might not be spotted and shot right off the bat.

  “Have you had dinner?” asked Ingrid.

  “No. How about you?”

  “No, I haven’t either. Later, if there’s time, we could . . . By the way, what are we doing tonight?”

  “I’ll explain on the way there.”

  The telephone rang. It was Marzilla.

  “Inspector, the car they brought me is a Jaguar. I’ll be leaving my place in five minutes,” he said in a quavering voice.

  Then he hung up.

  “If you’re ready, we can go now,” said Montalbano.

  He put on his jacket with nonchalance, not realizing it was inside out. Naturally the gun slid out of the pocket and fell to the floor. Ingrid recoiled in fright.

  “Are you serious?” she asked.

  Following Catarella’s instructions, they didn’t miss a single turn. Half an hour after they’d left Marinella—half an hour which Montalbano used to fill Ingrid in—they arrived at the lane of oaks. They took this, and when they’d reached the end, they saw, by the light of the headlights, the ruins of a large villa.

  “Go straight,” said Montalbano. “Don’t follow the road and don’t turn left. We have to hide the car behind the villa.”

  Ingrid did as he said. Behind the villa was open, desolate country. She turned off the headlights and they got out. The moon lit their way. The night was so quiet, it was frightening. They didn’t even hear any dogs barking.

  “What now?” asked Ingrid.

  “We leave the car here and we go find a place from where we can see the lane, so we can watch the cars that go by.”

  “What cars?” said Ingrid. “Here we won’t even see any crickets go by.”

  They headed off.

  “Well, we can do what they do in movies,” said Ingrid again.

  “Why, what do they do in movies?”

  “Come on, Salvo, don’t you know? When the two police officers, a man and a woman, stake out a place, they pretend they’re lovers. They embrace and kiss, but they’re actually keeping watch.”

  Now they were right in front of the villa, about thirty yards from the oak tree where the road turned towards Lampisa. They sat down on the remains of a wall and Montalbano lit a cigarette. But he didn’t have time to finish it. A car had come down the lane, advancing slowly. Perhaps the driver didn’t know the road. Ingrid leapt to her feet, held her hand out to the inspector, pulled him to his feet, and wrapped her arms around him. The car approached very slowly. For Montalbano it was like being wholly enveloped by the branches of an apricot tree. The scent made his head spin, stirring up what there was to stir up in him. Ingrid held him very tightly. At one point she whispered in his ear:

  “Something’s moving.”

  “Where?” asked Montalbano, chin resting on her shoulder, nose drowning in her hair.

  “Between us, down below,” said Ingrid.

  Montalbano felt himself blush and tried to pull his hips back, but Ingrid kept him plastered against her.

  “Don’t be silly,” she said.

  For a sec
ond the car’s headlights shone directly on them, then it turned left at the last oak tree and disappeared.

  “That was your car, a Jaguar,” said Ingrid.

  Montalbano thanked the Good Lord that Marzilla had arrived in time. He couldn’t have held out another minute. Breathing heavily, he pulled away from Ingrid.

  It wasn’t a chase because at no point did Marzilla or the other two men in the Jaguar have the feeling that another car was following them. Ingrid was an exceptional driver. For as long as they were off the main road to Vigàta, she drove without headlights, guided only by the moonlight. She didn’t turn them on until they reached the main road, since she could easily hide in the traffic. Marzilla drove along briskly, though not overly fast, and this made it easier to shadow him. It was like following someone on foot. Marzilla’s Jaguar turned onto the road for Montelusa.

  “I feel like I’m out for a boring Sunday drive,” said Ingrid.

  Montalbano didn’t answer.

  “Why did you bring your gun?” she continued. “You haven’t been needing it much.”

  “Disappointed?”

  “Yes, I was hoping for something more exciting.”

  “Well, never fear. We’re not in the clear yet, something could still happen.”

  After Montelusa, the Jaguar took the road for Montechiaro.

  Ingrid yawned.

  “Ouf! I have half a mind to let them know we’re following them.”

  “Why?”

  “To shake things up a little.”

  “Don’t do anything stupid!”

  The Jaguar drove past Montechiaro and took the road that led to the coast.

  “You drive for a while,” said Ingrid. “I’m bored.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “First of all, because soon there won’t be any more cars on the road and you’ll have to turn off the headlights to avoid being spotted. And I can’t drive by moonlight.”

  “And second?”

  “And second, because you know this road a lot better than I do, especially at night.”

  Ingrid turned a moment to face him.

  “You know where they’re going?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “To the villa of your former friend Ninì D’Iunio, as he used to call himself.”

  The BMW swerved, almost ending up in a field, but Ingrid quickly got it under control. She said nothing. When they got to Spigonella, instead of taking the road the inspector knew, Ingrid turned right.

  “That’s not the—”

  “I know,” said Ingrid, “but we can’t keep following the Jaguar here. There’s only one road that goes to the promontory and the house. They would definitely see us.”

  “And so?”

  “So I’m taking us to a spot from where we can see the front of the house. And we’ll get there a little before they do.”

  Ingrid stopped the BMW at the edge of a cliff, behind a Moorish-style bungalow.

  “Let’s get out. They can’t see our car from here, but we’ll have an excellent view of them.”

  They went around the bungalow. On their left they had a clear view of the promontory and the road leading to the villa. Less than a minute later, the Jaguar pulled up to the closed gate. They heard two very brief toots of the horn, followed by a long one. Then the door on the ground floor opened, and against the light they saw the silhouette of a man going to open the gate. The Jaguar drove in, and the man walked back to the house, leaving the gate open.

  “Let’s go,” said Montalbano. “There’s nothing more to see here.”

  They got back in the car.

  “Now, turn on the motor,” said the inspector, “and, with headlights off, we’re going to go to . . . Do you remember that small red-and-white villa where Spigonella begins?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. We’re going to take up position there. To go back to Montechiaro, one has to drive by that spot.”

  “Who has to drive by that spot?”

  “The Jaguar.”

  Ingrid barely had time to get to the red-and-white house before the Jaguar went flying by at high speed, skidding at the curve.

  Apparently Marzilla wanted to put as much distance as possible between him and the men he’d driven to the villa.

  “What should I do?” asked Ingrid.

  “Now shalt thou prove thy mettle,” said Montalbano.

  “I didn’t get that. What did you say?”

  “Follow him. Use your horn, your brights, get up right behind him, pretend you’re going to ram him. You have to terrorize the man at the wheel.”

  “Leave it to me,” said Ingrid.

  For a stretch she drove on without headlights and at a safe distance; then, when the Jaguar disappeared behind a bend, she accelerated, turned on all available and imaginable headlamps, rounded the bend and started wildly honking the horn.

  Seeing that unexpected missile come up behind him must have frightened Marzilla out of his wits.

  First the Jaguar zigzagged, then it veered all the way to the right and off the road, thinking the other car wanted to pass it. But Ingrid did not pass him. Riding right on the Jaguar’s tail, she was flashing the brights on and off and continually blasting the horn. Desperate, Marzilla accelerated, but he couldn’t go much faster on that road. Ingrid didn’t let up; her BMW was like a mad dog.

  “What now?”

  “When you get a chance, pass him, make a U-turn in front of him, and stop in the middle of the road with your brights on.”

  “I could even do it right now. Put on your seat belt.”

  The BMW leapt forward, roared, passed the other car, drove on a bit, braked, skidded, then spun around on the force of the skid. The Jaguar, too, came to a skidding stop just a few yards away, in the glare of the BMW’s high beam. Montalbano pulled out his pistol, stuck his arm outside the window, and fired a shot in the air.

  “Turn off your headlights and come out with your hands up!” he shouted through the half-open car door.

  The Jaguar’s lights went off and Marzilla appeared with his hands in the air. Montalbano didn’t move. Marzilla was swaying like a tree in the wind.

  “He’s pissing his pants,” Ingrid commented.

  Montalbano remained motionless. Slowly, two big tears started to run down the medical worker’s face. He took a step forward, dragging his feet.

  “Have pity!”

  Montalbano didn’t answer.

  “Have pity, Don Pepè! What do you want from me? I did what you wanted!”

  Montalbano still wasn’t moving. Marzilla fell to his knees, hands folded in prayer.

  “Please don’t kill me! Please don’t kill me, Mr. Aguglia!”

  So the loan shark who was calling Marzilla and giving him orders was Don Pepè Aguglia, a well-known construction bigwig. They hadn’t needed any wiretaps to find out. Marzilla was now crouching, forehead on the ground, hands over his head. Montalbano finally decided to get out of the car. Which he did very slowly. Hearing his footsteps approach, Marzilla curled up even more, sobbing.

  “Look at me, asshole.”

  “No, no!”

  “Look at me!” Montalbano repeated, kicking him so hard in the ribs that Marzilla’s body was lifted up in the air and fell back down belly up. But he still kept his eyes desperately closed.

  “It’s Montalbano! Look at me!”

  It took Marzilla a moment to realize that the man standing before him was not Don Pepè Aguglia, but the inspector. He sat up, leaning back on one arm. He must have bitten his tongue, since a little blood trickled out the side of his mouth. He stank. He hadn’t only pissed his pants, he’d also shat himself.

  “Oh . . . it’s you? Why did you follow me?” asked Marzilla, stunned.

  “Me?” said Montalbano, innocent as a lamb. “It was a mistake. I wanted you to stop, and you started going faster! So I thought you had wicked intentions.”

  “What . . . what do you want from me?”

  �
��Tell me what language the two men you drove to the villa were speaking.”

  “Arabic, I think.”

  “Who told you which roads to take and where you were supposed to go?”

  “Just one of the men.”

  “Did it seem to you like he’d been here before?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Could you describe them to me?”

  “Only one of them, the guy who spoke. He didn’t have any teeth.”

  Jamil Zarzis, Gafsa’s lieutenant, had arrived.

  “Do you have a cell phone?”

  “Yes. It’s on the front seat of the car.”

  “Did anyone call you, or did you call anyone after you dropped the two men off?”

  “No sir.”

  Montalbano went up to the Jaguar, grabbed the cell phone, and put it in his pocket. Marzilla didn’t breathe.

  “Now get back in the car and go home.”

  Marzilla tried to stand up, but couldn’t.

  “Let me give you a hand,” said the inspector.

  He grabbed him by the hair and jerked him to his feet as the man cried out in pain. Then with a violent kick in the back he sent him reeling into the front seat of the Jaguar. Marzilla took a good five minutes to leave, so badly were his hands shaking. Montalbano waited until the red taillights disappeared before going back to Ingrid’s car and sitting beside her.

  “I didn’t know you were . . . capable of . . . ,” Ingrid muttered.

  “Of what?”

  “I don’t know how to put it. Of . . . being so nasty.”

  “Me neither,” said Montalbano.

  “What did the guy do?”

  “He did . . . he gave a shot to a little boy who didn’t want one,” was the best he could come up with.

  Ingrid looked completely perplexed.

  “So you take revenge on him because you were afraid of getting shots when you were a child?”