Montalbano opened up, telling him every last thing, from the ill-fated evening on the wharf to his last meeting with Marzilla.
“There are quite a few greenhouses in Montechiaro,” said Fazio, “with a hundred or so illegals working there. Maybe that’s where the kid ran away from. The place where the car ran him down is only about five kilometers away.”
“Could you look into it?” the inspector ventured. “But without telling anyone here at the station.”
“I can try,” said Fazio.
“You got something in mind?”
“Well . . . I could try drawing up a list of people renting out houses—no, not houses, I mean stables, cellars, sewers!—to illegals. They cram them in, ten at a time, in crawl spaces without windows! They do it under the table and charge them thousands. But maybe I could come up with something. Once I’ve got a list, I’ll ask around if any of these illegals was recently joined by his wife . . . It’s not going to be easy, I can tell you straight away.”
“I know. I’m very grateful for your help.”
But Fazio didn’t get up from his chair.
“What about tonight?” he asked.
The inspector immediately understood but assumed an angelic expression.
“What do you mean?” he said.
“Where’s Marzilla going to pick up that guy at ten-thirty?”
Montalbano told him.
“And what are you going to do?”
“Me? What am I supposed to do? Nothing.”
“Chief, you wouldn’t be cooking up some brilliant scheme now, would you?”
“No, no, don’t worry!”
“Bah!” said Fazio, getting up.
In front of the door, he stopped and turned around.
“Look, Chief, if you want, I’m free tonight and—”
“Jeez, what a pain! You’re obsessed!”
“As if I didn’t know you,” Fazio muttered, opening the door and going out.
“Turn on the television, quick!” he ordered Enzo as soon as he entered the trattoria.
The restaurateur looked at him in astonishment.
“What is this? Every time you come in and it’s on, you want it turned off, and now that you find it off, you want it on?”
“You can turn the sound off,” Montalbano conceded.
Nicolo Zito kept his promise. At a certain point in the newscast (a collision between two tractor-trailors, a collapsed house, a man with his head split open for reasons that were unclear, a car on fire, a baby buggy overturned in the middle of the street, a woman tearing her hair out, a workman who fell from a scaffold, a man shot in a bar), the photo of Errera with the mustache appeared. Which meant all clear for Beba’s little drama sketch. Meanwhile, all those images on the screen had the effect of spoiling his appetite. Before going back to the office, he went on a consolatory walk to the lighthouse.
The door crashed, the plaster fell, Montalbano jumped, Catarella appeared. Ritual over.
“What the fuck! One of these days you’re going to bring down the whole building!”
“I beck y’ partin and fuggiveness, Chief, but when I’m ousside y’ door, I git ixcited and my hand slips.”
“What makes you so excited?”
“Everyting ’bout you, Chief.”
“What do you want?”
“Pontius Pilate’s ’ere.”
“Send him in. And hold all calls.”
“Even from the c’mishner?”
“Yes.”
“Even from Miss Livia?”
“Cat, I’m not here for anyone, can you get that through your head or do I have to do it for you?”
“Got it, Chief.”
14
Montalbano stood up to welcome the journalist and stopped halfway, dumbstruck. What appeared in the doorway had first looked to him like a gigantic, walking bouquet of irises. In reality, it turned out to be a man of about fifty, dressed entirely in shades of blue-violet, a kind of round little pipsqueak, with round face, round belly, round eyes, round glasses, round smile. The only thing not round was his mouth; the lips were so big and red that they looked fake, as though painted. The man could certainly have had great success as a clown in a circus. He shot
