“Perish the tot, Chief! What’m I sposta do wit’ dese photos?”
“Leave ’em here on the desk. We’ll give ’em to Fazio later.”
After two hours of fruitless waiting, an irresistible wave of somnolence came over him. He cleared a space amidst the papers, crossed his arms on the desk, laid his head down on them, and in the twinkling of an eye he was asleep. So deeply, in fact, that when the telephone rang and he reopened his eyes, for a few seconds he didn’t know where he was.
“H’lo, Chief. There’s somebody wants to talk to you poissonally in poisson.”
“Who is it?”
“That’s just it, Chief. He says he don’t wanna say what ’is name is.”
“Put ’im on . . . Montalbano here. Who is this?”
“Inspector, you came to my wife’s shop with a lady this afternoon.”
“I did?”
“Yes, sir, you did.”
“Excuse me, but would please tell me what your name is?”
“No.”
“Well, then, goodbye.”
He hung up. It was a dangerous move. It was possible that Marzilla had used up what courage he had and wouldn’t have the guts to call again. But apparently Marzilla had such a firm bite on the inspector’s bait that he needed to call back immediately.
“Inspector, excuse me for that call a minute ago. But try to understand my position. You came into my wife’s shop, and she recognized you immediately, even though you were in disguise and went by the name of Emilio. On top of that, my wife found one of your calling cards, which had fallen on the floor. You must admit, it’s enough to make a guy nervous!”
“Why?”
“Because it’s obvious you’re investigating something to do with me.”
“If that’s what you’re worried about, you can relax. The preliminary investigation is over.”
“And I can relax, you say?”
“Absolutely. Until tomorrow, at least.”
He could hear Marzilla’s breath stop short.
“What . . . what do you mean?”
“I mean that tomorrow I move on to the next phase. The operative phase.”
“And . . . what’s that mean?”
“You know how these things work, don’t you? Arrests, subpoenas, interrogations, prosecutors, reporters ...”
“But I have nothing to do with any of it!”
“With any of what?”
“But . . . but . . . but . . . I dunno, whatever you’re investigating . . . But then why did you come to the shop?”
“Oh, that? To buy a wedding present.”
“But why were you calling yourself Emilio?”
“The lady I was with likes to call me that. Listen, Marzilla, it’s late. I want to go home. See you tomorrow.”
He hung up. Was it possible to be any meaner? He would have bet his cojones that within the hour Marzilla would come knocking on his door. He could easily find the address by looking him up in the phone book. As he’d suspected, the ambulance man was up to his neck in what happened on the wharf. Somebody must have ordered him to find a way to get the woman and her three kids into the ambulance and then drop them off outside the hospital’s emergency ward. And he’d obeyed.
He got in the car and drove off with all the windows open. He needed to feel some cool, nocturnal sea air on his face.
An hour later, as he had lucidly foreseen, a car pulled up in front of his house. A car door slammed, then the doorbell rang. Opening the door, he was greeted by a different Marzilla from the one he’d seen in the hospital parking lot. Unshaven and haggard, he had a sickly air about him.
“I’m sorry if I—”
“I was expecting you. Come in.”
Montalbano had decided to change tactics, and Marzilla seemed confused by his politeness. He walked in, unsure, then didn’t so much sit down as collapse into the chair the inspector offered him.
“I’ll do the talking,” said Montalbano. “We’ll waste less time that way.”
The man made a vague gesture of resignation.
“The other evening, at the port, you knew in advance that an immigrant woman with three children would get off the boat and pretend to fall and hurt her leg. Your assignment was to wait there, have the ambulance ready, and not get tied up by some other job—and then to run up, diagnose a broken leg before the doctor could get there, put the woman and her three kids in the ambulance, and head back to Montelusa. Am I right? Answer only yes or
