“No, why? I’m from Comitini.”
He might be from Comitini, Paterno, or Raffadali, it made no difference to Montalbano.
“You’re Inspector Montalbano, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Did Prosecutor Tommaseo phone you?”
“Yes,” the director admitted reluctantly. “But a phone call is a phone call. You know what I mean?”
“Yes, of course I know what you mean. For me, for example, a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.”
Cavaliere Morasco was unimpressed by the inspector’s learned quotation of Gertrude Stein.
“I see that we agree,” he said.
“In what sense, may I ask?”
“In the sense that
“Could you explain?”
“Certainly. Prosecutor Tommaseo phoned me to tell me that you have authorization to conduct investigations concerning a postal passbook belonging to the late Alfonso Griffo. That’s fine, though I consider this, how shall I say, an advance notice. Until I receive a request and written authorization, I cannot allow you to violate the postal code of secrecy.”
These words so steamed the inspector that for a moment he was in danger of taking off through the ceiling.
“I’ll come back later.”
He started to rise. The director stopped him with a gesture.
“Wait. There may be a solution. Could I see some identification?”
The danger of takeoff increased. With one hand, Montalbano anchored himself to the chair he was sitting in, and with the other he held out his ID card.
The Savoy bastard examined it at great length.
“After the prosecutor’s call, I imagined you’d come running here. So I drafted a declaration, which you will sign, and which says that you relieve me of all responsibility in the matter.”
“I’m happy to relieve you,” said the inspector.
He signed the declaration without reading it and put his ID card back in his pocket. Cavaliere Morasco stood up.
“Wait for me here. This will take about ten minutes.”
Before going out, he turned around and pointed to the photo of the president of the Republic.
“Did you see?”
“Yes,” said Montalbano, confused. “It’s Ciampi.”
“I wasn’t referring to the president, but to what’s written above him. Smo-king is strict-ly for-bid-den. I mean it. Don’t take advantage of my absence.”
As soon as the man closed the door, Montalbano felt a violent need to smoke. But it was forbidden, and rightly so, since, as everyone knows, passive cigarette smoke kills millions, whereas smog, dioxin, and lead in gasoline do not. He got up, went downstairs to the ground floor, happened to see three employees smoking, went outside, plunked himself on the sidewalk, smoked three cigarettes in a row, went back inside—now there were four employees smoking—climbed the stairs, walked down the deserted corridor, opened the door to the director’s office without knocking, and entered. Cavaliere Morasco, sitting at his desk, looked at him disapprovingly, shaking his head. Montalbano regained his chair with the same guilty look he used to have when he arrived late to school.
“We have the printout,” the director solemnly declared.
“Could I see it?”
Before giving it to him, the cavaliere checked to make sure the inspector’s liberating signature was still there on his desk.
But the inspector didn’t understand a single thing on the printout, especially because the figure at the bottom seemed excessive.
“Could you explain this for me?” he asked, again with the tone he used to use in school.
The director leaned forward, practically stretching his entire body across the desk, and snatched the paper out of the inspector’s hands in irritation.
“Everything is perfectly clear!” he said. “From the printout one can see that the monthly pension of Mr. and Mrs. Griffo came to three million lire or, broken down individually, one million eight hundred thousand for him, and one million two hundred thousand for her. At the time of collection, Mr. Griffo would withdraw his own pension, in cash, for their monthly needs, and leave his wife’s pension on deposit. This was their standard procedure. With a few rare exceptions, naturally.”
“But even assuming they were extremely tight and thrifty,” the inspector said, thinking aloud, “it still doesn’t add up. I believe I saw that there were almost a hundred million in that passbook!”
“You saw correctly. To be precise, ninety-eight million three hundred thousand lire. But there’s nothing so unusual about that.”
“There isn’t?”
“No, because, without fail, on the first of each month for the last two years, Alfonso Griffo would deposit two million lire. Which makes a total of forty-eight million, added to their usual savings.”
