defend them. “But it’s a beautiful poem.” If they hadn’t restrained him, Carlo Martello would’ve broken his nose with one of his deadly punches. But why hadn’t that poem bothered him? Had he read his future as a cop in it? At any rate, over the years he’d seen his friends, the legendary comrades from ‘68, all turn “reasonable.” And by dint of reason, their abstract fury had softened and finally settled into concrete acquiescence. And now, with the exception of one who, with extraordinary dignity, had been putting up with trials and incarceration for over a decade for a crime he’d neither committed nor ordered, and another who’d died in obscure circumstances, the rest had all made out rather well, hopping from left to right and back again, ending up as chief editors of newspapers, television producers, high government functionaries, senators and chamber deputies. Unable to change society, they’d changed themselves. Or perhaps they hadn’t even needed to change, since in ’68 they had only been playacting, donning the costumes and masks of revolutionaries.
That appointment of Carlo Martello-Militello had really not gone down well. Especially because it had triggered another thought in his mind, by far the most troubling of all.
A gust of wind rattled the shutter. No, he wouldn’t close it, not even at the command of the Almighty. Fazio was always hassling him about it.
“Chief, excuse me for saying so, but you’re really asking for trouble! You not only live in an isolated house, you also leave your window open at night! So if anyone wants to do you harm—and there are people out there who do —they can come right in, whenever and however they please!”
Then there was that other hassle named Livia.
“No, Salvo, not at night, no!”
“But don’t you, in Boccadasse, sleep with the window open?”
“What’s that got to do with anything? First of all, I live on the third floor, and, secondly, in Boccadasse we don’t have all the burglars you have here.”
And so, when Livia called him one night, all upset, to tell him that the burglars of Boccadasse had cleaned out her apartment when she was out, he gave silent thanks to Genoa’s thieves, then managed to express his dismay, though not as much as he should have.
The telephone started ringing.
His first reaction was to shut his eyes even more tightly, but it didn’t work. It’s a well-known fact that sight and hearing are not the same thing. He should have plugged his ears, but he preferred to bury his head under the pillow. Nothing doing. The ringing, faint and distant, continued. He got up, cursing the saints, went into the other room, and picked up the receiver.
“Montalbano here. I should say hello, but I won’t. I’m not ready to.”
There was a long silence at the other end. Then the sound of the phone hanging up. What now, after that brilliant move? Go back to bed and continue to stew over the new president of Interbanco, who, when he was still Comrade Martello, once publicly shat on a tray full of ten-thousand-lire notes? Or put on his bathing suit and have a nice swim in the freezing water? He opted for the second course. It might help him simmer down. He jumped in the water and immediately became half-paralyzed. Would he ever get it through his head that, at age fifty, this was no longer a good idea? That the time for such bravado was over? He headed gloomily back to the house and could already hear the phone ringing from thirty feet away His only choice was to accept things as they were. And, for starters, to answer the phone.
It was Fazio.
“Tell me something. Was it you who called fifteen minutes ago?”
“No, Chief, it was Catarella. He said you said you weren’t ready to say hello. So I let a little time pass and then called back myself. Feel ready now, Chief?”
“How can you be so funny first thing in the morning, Fazio? Are you at the office?”
“No, Chief. Somebody got killed. Zap!”
“What’s that supposed to mean, ‘zap’?”
“He got shot.”
“No. A pistol shot goes ‘bang,’ a
“Then it was a bang, Chief Just one shot. To the face.”
“Where are you?”
“At the scene of the crime. Isn’t that what they call it? Via Cavour 44.You know where it is?”
“Yeah, I know. Was he shot at home?”
“He was just coming home, sticking his key in the front door. They left him sprawling on the sidewalk.”
Can a murder ever be said to happen at the right moment? No, never. A death is always a death. Nevertheless, it was a concrete, incontrovertible fact that Montalbano, while driving to Via Cavour 44, felt his bad mood passing. Jumping right into an investigation would help to chase away the dark thoughts that had cluttered his mind upon awakening.
When he got there he had to fight his way through the crowd. Like flies drawn to shit, even though it was barely daybreak, an excited throng of men and women blocked the street.There was even a girl with a baby in her arms.The little thing gaped wide-eyed at the scene, and the mother’s teaching methods made his cojones spin.
“Everybody out of here!”
