“What for?”
“To select a gift for a girlfriend of yours who’s getting married. And I want you to call me Emilio.”
Ingrid literally exploded. Her laughter burst out uncontrollably. She put her head in her hands, and he couldn’t tell if she was laughing or crying.
“Okay, I’m taking you home,” the inspector said in a huff.
“No, wait a minute, come on.”
She blew her nose twice, wiped away her tears.
“Tell me what I’m supposed to do, Emilio.”
Montalbano explained.
The shop’s sign said:
“Good afternoon,” she said, but without the welcoming smile usually reserved for clients. “What can I do for you?”
Montalbano was certain she was not an employee but Signora Cappuccino in person.
“Good afternoon,” Ingrid replied. “A friend of ours is getting married, and Emilio and I would like to give her a silver platter as a present. Could I see what you have?”
“Certainly,” said Signora Cappuccino, and she began taking silver platters off the shelves, each one more vulgar than the last, and setting them down on the counter. Montalbano, meanwhile, was looking around “in a clearly suspicious manner,” as the newspapers and police reports like to say. Finally Ingrid called him over.
“Come, Emilio.”
Montalbano approached and Ingrid showed him two platters.
“I can’t decide between these two. Which do you prefer?”
While pretending to waver, the inspector noticed that Signora Cappuccino was stealing glances at him whenever she could. Maybe she’d recognized him, as he was hoping.
“Come on, Emilio, make up your mind,” Ingrid egged him on.
At last Montalbano made up his mind. As Signora Cappuccino was wrapping the platter, Ingrid had a brilliant idea of her own.
“Emilio, look, what a beautiful bowl! Wouldn’t that look good in our dining room?”
Montalbano shot a withering glance at her and muttered something incomprehensible.
“Come on, Emilio, please let’s buy it. I just love it!” Ingrid insisted, her eyes sparkling with amusement from the joke she was playing on him.
“Do you want it?” Signora Cappuccino asked him.
“Some other time,” the inspector said firmly.
Signora Cappuccino then moved over to the cash register and rang up the purchase. When Montalbano reached into the back pocket of his trousers to extract his wallet, it got stuck and all its contents fell to the floor. The inspector bent down to pick up the various bills, cards, and slips of paper.
Then he stood up and with his right foot slid a calling card he’d purposely left on the floor closer to the table supporting the cash register. The sham had been a perfect success. They left.
“You were so mean, Emilio, not to buy me that bowl!” Ingrid said, pretending to be upset when they got in the car. Then, changing her tone: “Was I good?”
“You were great.”
“What are we going to do with the platter?”
“You can keep it.”
“I’m not going to let you off so easily. Tonight we’re eating out. I’m taking you to a place where the fish is out of this world.”
Not a good idea. Montalbano was certain their playacting would yield immediate results, and he preferred to wait in his office.
“How about tomorrow night?”
“All right.”
“Ahh, Chief, Chief!” shrieked Catarella the moment Montalbano entered the office.
“What is it?”
“I been true the whole archive, Chief. I can’t see no more, I got spots in front o’ my eyeses. There in’t nobody otherwise that looks like the dead swimmer looks. Only Errera. Chief, in’t it possible it’s possibly Errera hisself?”
“Cat, the people in Cosenza told us Errera’s dead and buried!”
“Okay, Chief, but in’t it possible ’e came back to life and then went back to death in the water?”
“Are you trying to give me a headache, Cat?”
