“Inspector Montalbano’s residence. Who am I? I’m Sergeant Fazio. Oh, it’s you? Sorry, I didn’t recognize your voice. I’ll put him on right away.” He handed the inspector the receiver. “It’s Pasquano.”
Pasquano? When had Dr. Pasquano ever called him at home before? It must be something big.
3
“Hello? Montalbano here. What is it, Doctor?”
“Could you explain something for me?”
“I’m at your service.”
“How is that every other time you’ve kindly sent a corpse my way, you busted my balls demanding immediately to know the results of the autopsy, and this time you don’t give a flying fuck?”
“Well, what happened is—”
“I’ll tell you what happened. You decided that the dead body you hauled ashore belonged to some poor third- world bastard whose boat had capsized, one of the five hundred-plus corpses that are lately so crowding the Sicilian Channel that you can practically walk to Tunisia across the water. And you just washed your hands of it. Since, one more, one less, what’s the difference?”
“Doctor, if you want to vent your frustrations on me for something that didn’t go right, be my guest. But you know perfectly well that’s not how I feel about these things. Furthermore, this morning—”
“Ah, yes, this morning you were busy displaying your masculine attributes for the ‘Mr. Police Universe’ competition. I saw you on TeleVigata. I’m told you got very high—what’re they called?—very high audience ratings. My sincerest compliments.”
Pasquano was like that. Crass, obnoxious, aggressive, offputting. The inspector knew, however, that it was an instinctive, exasperated form of self-defense against everyone and everything. Montalbano counterattacked, adopting the requisite tone of voice.
“Doctor, could you tell me why you’re harassing me at home at this hour?”
Pasquano was appreciative.
“Because things are not what they seem.”
“Meaning?”
“For one, the dead man’s one of us.”
“Oh.”
“And secondly, in my opinion, he was murdered. I’ve only done a superficial examination, mind you; I haven’t opened him up yet.”
“Find any gunshot wounds?”
“No.”
“Stab wounds?”
“No.”
“Atom-bomb wounds?” asked Montalbano, losing patience. “What is this, Doc, a quiz? Would you just come out with it?”
“Come by tomorrow morning, and my illustrious colleague Mistretta, who’ll be performing the autopsy, will give you my opinion—which he doesn’t share, mind you.”
“Mistretta? Why, won’t you be there?”
“No, I won’t. I’m leaving tomorrow morning to see my sister, who’s not doing so well.”
Montalbano now understood why Pasquano had phoned him. As a gesture of courtesy and friendship. The doctor knew how much Montalbano detested Dr. Mistretta, an arrogant, presumptuous man.
“As I was saying,” Pasquano went on, “Mistretta doesn’t agree with me about the case, and I wanted to tell you in private what I thought.”
“I’ll be right over.”
“Where?”
“Over there, to your office.”
“I’m not at my office, I’m at home. We’re packing our bags.”
“Then I’ll come to your place.”
“No, it’s too messy here. Listen, let’s meet at the first bar on Viale Liberta, okay? But don’t make me waste too much time, because I have to get up early tomorrow.”
He got rid of Fazio, who had grown curious and demanded to know more, then quickly washed up, got in his car, and headed off to Montelusa. The first bar on Viale Liberta tended towards the squalid. Montalbano had been there only once, and that was more than enough. He went inside and immediately spotted Pasquano sitting at a table.
He sat down beside him.
“What’ll you have?” asked Pasquano, who was drinking an espresso.
“Same as you.”
They sat there in silence until the waiter arrived with the second demitasse.
