before, and that his own body heat was now releasing the scent of her skin from the cloth.
He tried to put up with this for a few minutes, but failed and had to get out of bed to avoid some perilous uprisings in the southerly regions.
A cold shower washed away those wicked thoughts.
When it came time to get dressed, a problem arose.
Adelina didn’t come on Sundays, and therefore, as far as eating was concerned, he had no choice but to go to Enzo’s. But one couldn’t get served at Enzo’s before twelve-thirty. He wouldn’t come out of the trattoria for another hour and a half; in other words, around two.
Would he have time to come back to Marinella and change clothes before Ingrid arrived? Being Swedish, she was sure to show up at three on the dot.
No, the best thing was to get dressed up now.
But how? Casual wear would do for the race, but what about the dinner? Could he bring along a small suitcase with a change of clothes? No, that would look silly.
He decided on a gray suit he had worn only twice, for a funeral and a wedding. He got dressed to the nines, putting on a fine shirt and tie, and sparkling shoes. He looked in the mirror and found himself comical.
He took it all off, down to his underpants, and sat down dejectedly on the bed.
All at once he thought he’d found a solution: call up Ingrid and say that he’d been shot at, luckily only grazed by the bullet, but he could no longer . . .
And what if she came running to Marinella? No problem. She would find him in bed with a great big bandage around his head. After all, he had a lifetime supply of gauze and elastic bandages in the house . . .
The upshot was that the inspector showed up at Enzo’s at twelve-thirty in his gray suit, but with such a face . . .
“What’s wrong, Inspector? Did somebody die?” Enzo asked him, seeing him dressed that way and wearing an expression fit for All Souls’ Day[6].
Montalbano cursed the saints under his breath, but didn’t answer the question. He ate without interest. By quarter to three he was back at home. He had just enough time to freshen up, and then Ingrid arrived.
“My, how elegant you are!” she said.
She was in jeans and a blouse.
“Is that what you’re wearing to the dinner, too?”
“Of course not! I’m going to change. I’ve brought everything along.”
Why was it so easy for women to take clothes on and off, while for men it was always such a complicated matter?
“Couldn’t you go a bit slower?”
“But I’m going very slow.”
He’d eaten almost nothing, and yet that little bit leapt up into his gullet every time Ingrid took a curve at seventy-five miles an hour or more.
“Where’s the horse race being held?”
“Outside of Fiacca.The Baron Piscopo di San Militello had a genuine hippodrome built for the occasion, just behind his villa. It’s small but fully equipped.”
“And who is the Baron Piscopo?”
“A very gentle, courteous man of about sixty, whose life is devoted to charitable works.”
“And he made all his money by being gentle?”
“He inherited his money from his father, a junior partner in a big German steel company, and made some good investments. Speaking of money, have you got any on you?”
Montalbano balked.
“You mean we have to pay to watch the race?”
“No, but you’re supposed to place a bet on the winner. It’s sort of obligatory.”
“Is there a pari-mutuel?”
“Don’t be silly! The money from the bets goes to charity.”
“And the people who win their bets, what do they get?”
“The woman who wins the race rewards everyone who bet on her with a kiss. But some won’t accept.”
“Why not?”
“They say it’s out of gallantry. But the fact of the matter is that sometimes the winner is downright ugly.”
“Do people wager a lot?”
“Not too much.”
“How much, more or less?”
“A thousand, two thousand euros. Some wager more, though.”
Shit! So what, for Ingrid, would constitute a large wager? A million euros? He felt himself beginning to sweat.
“But I haven’t . . .”
“You haven’t got that much?”
“In my pocket I’ve got maybe a hundred euros at the most.”
“Have you got your checkbook with you?”
“Yes.”
“That’s better. A check is more elegant.”
“All right, but for how much?”
“Make it out for a thousand.”
Say what you want about Montalbano, he certainly was not a cheapskate. But to throw away a thousand euros to watch a race in the middle of a sea of assholes really did not seem right to him.
When they were about three hundred yards from Baron Piscopo’s villa, they were stopped by a man in brand-spanking-new livery who looked like he’d stepped out of a seventeenth century painting.The one thing that clashed with the whole picture was that the man had the face of someone who had just walked out of Sing-Sing after a thirty-year stint in the cooler.
“You can’t go any further in your car,” said the convict.
“Why not?”
“There’s no more room.”
“What are we supposed to do?” asked Ingrid.
“You can walk. Juss leave me the keys an’ I’ll park it m’self.”
“You made us arrive late,” Ingrid lamented, as she grabbed a sort of bag from the trunk.
“I did?”
“Yes. Always saying, ‘Slow down, slow down . . . ’”
Cars parked on both sides of the road, cars cluttering the vast patio. In front of the main entrance to the enormous, three-story villa with a turret on one side stood another guy in livery covered with golden squiggles. The majordomo? He looked to be at least ninety-nine years old and, indeed, was leaning on a sort of shepherd’s crook to keep from collapsing.
“Hello, Armando,” Ingrid greeted him.
“Hello, signora. Everyone’s outside,” said Armando in a voice as thin as a spiderweb.
“We’ll join them straightaway. Here, please take this,” she said, handing him the bag,“and put it in Signora
