the names and phone numbers of Elena Sclafani, his sister, Michela, and many others the inspector didn’t know. He looked at the page for the previous Monday. Pardo had written,9 pm E.Thus what Elena had told him about her rendezvous with Angelo was true. He set the little datebook aside as well and picked up the phone.
“Montalbano here, Cat. Lemme talk to Fazio.”
“Straightaway, Chief.”
“Fazio, could you come meet me right now at Angelo Pardo’s place?”
“On the terrace?”
“No, downstairs, in the apartment.”
“I’m on my way.”
“Oh, and bring Catarella along with you.”
“Catarella?!”
“Why, can’t he be moved?”
The desk had three drawers. He opened the one on the right. Here, too, papers and documents relating to the man’s career as—what was that again?—ah, yes, as a “pharmaceutical industry informer.” The one in the middle wouldn’t open. It was locked, and the key was nowhere to be seen. Probably Michela had taken it. What a goddamn idiot he’d been! He was about to open the drawer on the left when the telephone on the desk rang so suddenly and loudly that it scared him. He picked up the receiver.
“Yes?” he said, squeezing his nostrils with the index fin-ger and thumb of his right hand to alter his voice.
“You got a cold?”
“Yes.”
“Izzat why you din’t come lass night, scumbag? I’ll be waitin f’r ya t’night. And ya better come, even if you got pneumonia.”
End of phone call. A man of few but dangerous words. A commanding voice. Surely some doctor upset at a pharmaceutical informer’s failure to show would not call him a scumbag. Montalbano picked up the big datebook and looked at the page for the previous day, Thursday. The part for the evening was blank. There was no writing. Whereas the morning part featured an appointment in Fanara with a certain Dr. Caruana.
He was about to open the left-hand drawer when the phone rang again. Montalbano began to suspect that there was some sort of connection between the drawer and the telephone.
“Yes?” he said, doing the same rigmarole with his nostrils.
“Dr. Angelo Pardo?”
The voice of a woman, fiftyish and stern. “Yes, it’s me.”
“Your voice sounds strange.” “A cold.”
“Ah. I’m a nurse with Dr. Caruana in Fanara. The doctor waited a long time for you yesterday morning, and you didn’t even have the courtesy to inform us you weren’t coming.”
“Please give my apologies to Dr. Caruana, but this cold…I’ll get back in tou—”
He interrupted himself. Wasn’t he taking this a bit too far? How could the dead man he was pretending to be ever get back in touch?
“Hello?” said the nurse.
“I’ll call back as soon as I can. Good day.”
He hung up. An entirely different tone from that used by the unknown man in the first phone call. Very interesting. But would he ever succeed in opening the drawer? He moved his hand carefully, keeping it out of the telephone’s view.
This time he succeeded.
It was stuffed full of papers. Every possible and imagina-ble kind of receipt of the sort that help keep a household running: rent, electricity, gas, telephone, maintenance. But nothing concerning him, Angelo, personally in person, as Catarella would say. Maybe he’d kept the papers and things more directly related to his own life in the middle drawer.
He closed the left-hand drawer, and the telephone rang. Perhaps the phone had realized a bit late that he’d tricked it, and it was now taking revenge.
“Yes?”
Again with nostrils plugged.
“What the hell happened to you, asshole?”
Male voice, fortyish, angry. He was about to respond when the other continued:
“Hold on a second, I’ve got a call on the other line.”
Montalbano pricked his ears but could only hear a confused murmur. Then two words loud and clear:
“Holy shit!”
Then the other hung up. What did it mean? Scumbag and asshole. It was anyone’s guess how a third anonymous caller might define Angelo. At that moment the intercom next to the front door rang. The inspector went and buzzed open the door downstairs. It was Fazio and Catarella.
“Ahh, Chief, Chief! Fazio tol’ me you was needin’ me poissonally in poisson!”
