“He shit his pants,” Mimi said. “He’s cooked.”
“Good,” said Montalbano. “Take him to Montelusa Central. On your way there, pull over at some point and look around, as if you’re fearing an ambush. When he’s in front of the commissioner, he has to tell us everything.”
“And what about you?”
“I escaped,” said the inspector, firing a shot in the air for good measure.
On the drive back to Marinella, he changed his mind. Turning the car around, he headed towards Montelusa. He took the outer belt and finally pulled up at 38 Via De Gasperi, home of his journalist friend, Nicolo Zito. Before buzzing the intercom, he checked his watch. Almost five in the morning. He had to buzz three long times before he heard Nicolo’s voice, sounding half-asleep and half-enraged.
“Montalbano here. I need to talk to you.”
“Wait for me downstairs, otherwise you’ll wake up the whole house.”
A few minutes later, sitting on a stair, Montalbano told him the whole story, with Zito interrupting him from time to time with comments like “Wait!” and “Oh, Christ!”
He needed an occasional pause. The story took his breath away.
“What do you want me to do?” Zito asked when the inspector had finally finished.
“This very morning, do a special report. Keep it vague. Say that Dr. Ingro apparently turned himself in because of an alleged involvement in illegal organs trafficking ... You have to trumpet the news, make sure it reaches the national papers and networks.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“That they’ll hush the whole thing up. Ingro has some very important friends. Too important. And one more favor. On the one o‘clock edition, pull out another story. Keeping it still vague, say that the fugitive Jacopo Sinagra, known as ’Japichinu,‘ has reportedly been murdered, and that he apparently belonged to the same organization that Dr. Ingro was working for.”
“But is it true?”
“I think so. I’m almost certain this is why his grandfather, Balduccio Sinagra, had him killed. Not because of any moral qualms, mind you. But because his grandson, fortified by his alliance with the new Mafia, could have had him liquidated whenever he wanted.”
It was seven in the morning when he finally managed to get to bed. He decided to sleep the whole morning. In the afternoon he would drive to Palermo to pick up Livia, on her way down from Genoa. He was able to sleep for two hours before the telephone woke him up. It was Mimi. But the inspector spoke first.
“Why did you guys follow me last night when I explicitly—”
“—when you explicitly tried to pull the wool over our eyes?” Augello finished his sentence. “But, Salvo, how can you possibly imagine that Fazio and I don’t know what you’re thinking? I ordered Fazio not to leave the area of the villa, even if I countermanded the order. We knew you’d be there sooner or later. And when you went out of your house, I followed behind you. I’d say we did the right thing.”
Montalbano accepted this and changed the subject.
“So, how’d it go?”
“What a fucking circus, Salvo. They all came running: the commissioner, the chief prosecutor ... And the doctor kept talking and talking ...They couldn’t make him stop ... I’ll see you later at the office and tell you the whole story.”
“My name never came up, right?”
“No, don’t worry. We explained that we happened to be passing by the villa when we noticed the gate and front door were wide open, which aroused our suspicion. But unfortunately the hitman escaped. See you later.”
“I won’t be in today.”
“The fact is,” said Mimi, embarrassed, “I won’t be in to morrow.”
“Where are you going?”
“To Tindari. Since Beba has to go there, as usual, for work ...”
And maybe, on the way, he’d buy himself a set of kitchenware.
What Montalbano remembered of Tindari was the small, mysterious Greek theater and the beach shaped like a pink-fingered hand ... If Livia stayed a few days, an excursion to Tindari might not be a bad idea.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This entire book—names, surnames (especially surnames), situations—is invented out of whole cloth. Any coincidence whatsoever is due to the fact that my imagination is limited.
This book is dedicated to Orazio Costa, my teacher and friend.
NOTES
2 Charles Martel: Mayor of the Palace of the Kingdom of the Franks and unifier, with his son Pepin the Short and grandson Charle magne, of the Frankish realm. A fierce warrior and field general (Martel means “hammer”), Charles stemmed the Arab advance into France at the Battle of Tours (more accurately the Battle of Poitiers) in 732.
2 the state monopoly: In Italy, all tobacco products,
