“Mimi, try to think for a minute. What are you going to do after you’re married? Stay in Vigata while Rebecca stays in Pavia?”
“C‘mon, get it straight! Her name is Rachele. No, she hasn’t requested a transfer. That would be premature.”
“But, sooner or later, she’ll have to, won’t she?”
Mimi took a deep breath, as if preparing to dive underwater.
“I don’t think she will.”
“And why not?”
“Because we’ve decided that I should be the one to ask for a transfer.”
Montalbano’s eyes turned into a serpent’s: motionless, gelid.
“Mimi, you’re a motherfucking sonofabitch. Last night, when you came to my house, you sang only half the Mass. You talked to me about marriage, not about reassignment. Which for me is the more important of the two. And which you know perfectly well.”
“I was going to tell you, Salvo, I swear it! If not for your crazy reaction, which threw me for a loop ...”
“Mimi, look me in the eye and tell me the whole truth: have you already put in your request?”
“I have, but—”
“And what did Bonetti-Alderighi say?”
“He said it would take a little time. And also that ... never mind.”
“Speak.”
“He said he was pleased, and that it was high time that band of mafiosi at Vigata Police—his exact words— started to break up.”
“And what’d you do?”
“Well ...”
“Come on, out with it.”
“I took back the request that was on his desk. I told him I needed to think it over.”
Montalbano sat there in silence for a spell. Mimi looked like he’d just walked out of a shower. The inspector then gestured towards the stack of pages Catarella had brought him.
“This is everything that was in Nene Sanfilippo’s computer. There’s a novel and a lot of letters—let’s call them love letters. Who better than you to read this stuff?”
4
Fazio rang to give him the name of the man who’d driven the bus from Vigata to Tindari and back: one Filippo Tortorici, son of Gioacchino and ... He stopped himself in time. Even over the telephone, he could sense the inspector’s growing exasperation. He added that the driver was out on a job, but Mr. Malaspina, with whom he was compiling a list of the people who’d gone on the excursion, had assured him he would send Tortorici on to police headquarters as soon as he got back, which would be around three in the afternoon. Montalbano looked at his watch: he had two free hours.
He automatically headed towards the Trattoria San Calogero.The owner put a seafood appetizer in front of him, and, without warning, the inspector felt a kind of pincer close the opening to his stomach. It was impossible to eat. In fact, the sight of the squid, baby octopus, and clams nauseated him. He sprang to his feet.
Calogero, the waiter-owner, came running up, worried.
“Inspector, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, Calo, I just don’t feel like eating anymore.”
“Don’t turn your nose up at that appetizer, Inspector. It doesn’t come any fresher!”
“I know. Please give it my apologies.”
“You don’t feel so good?”
An excuse came to mind.
“Ah, I don’t know. I feel a little chill, maybe I’m coming down with the flu.”
He left, knowing this time where he was headed. To the lighthouse, to sit down on the flat rock beneath it, which had become a kind of rock of tears. He had sat there the day before as well, when he couldn’t get that friend from ‘68 out his head, what was his name, he couldn’t remember. The rock of tears. And he had once shed tears in earnest there, liberating tears, when he first learned that his father was dying. Now he was back there again, because of another end foretold, over which he would shed no tears, but which deeply saddened him. An end, yes, that was not an exaggeration. It didn’t matter that Mimi had withdrawn his request for a transfer. The fact remained that he had submitted it at all.
Bonetti-Alderighi was a notorious imbecile, and he brilliantly confirmed this when he called the inspector’s police department a “band of mafiosi.” In reality it was a team, tightly knit and compact, a well-oiled machine, where every little cog had a function and—why not?—a personality of its own. And the belt that made the whole mechanism run was none other than Mimi Augello. One had to recognize the problem for what it was: a crack, the beginning of a break. The beginning of an end. How long would Mimi be able to hold out? Another two months? Three? Eventually he would give in to Rebecca’s tears and pressure—that is, Rachele’s tears and pressure—and
