forward like a top and held his hand out to the inspector, who, in order to shake it, had to stretch forward lengthwise, belly resting on the desktop.
“Make yourself comfortable,” he said.
The bouquet of irises sat down. Montalbano couldn’t believe his nostrils. The man even smelled like the flower. Cursing to himself, the inspector got ready to waste an hour of his time. Or maybe less. Surely he could think up some excuse to get rid of the guy. In fact, it was best to lay the groundwork immediately.
“I’m very sorry, Mr. Pilate.”
“Spalato.”
Blasted Catarella!
“... Mr. Spalato, you’ve caught me on an impossibly busy day. I’ve got very little time—”
The journalist raised a plump little hand, which to the inspector’s surprise was not violet, but pink.
“I understand perfectly. I’ll take up very little of your time. I wanted to begin with a question—”
“No, let me ask a question first: why and about what did you wish to talk to me?”
“Well, Inspector, a few nights ago I happened to be on the landing wharf at the port when two navy patrol boats were unloading some illegal immigrants and . . . I caught sight of you there.”
“Oh, so that’s why?”
“Yes. And I asked myself if there was any chance that a famous detective like you—”
The man was mistaken. The first mention of praise and flattery always put Montalbano on his guard. He closed up like a sea urchin and became a ball of thorns.
“Look, I was there entirely by chance. A question of eyeglasses.”
“Eyeglasses?” the other said in astonishment. But then he gave a sly little smile. “I get it. You’re trying to throw me off the trail!”
Montalbano stood up.
“I told you the truth and you didn’t believe it. I think it would be a waste of my time and yours to proceed any further. Good day.”
The bouquet of irises stood up, looking suddenly wilted. With his little hand he shook the inspector’s, which was held out to him.
“Good day,” he sighed, shuffling towards the door.
All of a sudden Montalbano felt sorry for him.
“Listen, if you’re interested in the immigration problem, I can arrange for you to meet a colleague of mine who—”
“You mean Commissioner Riguccio? Thanks, but I’ve already spoken to him. He only sees the larger problem of illegal immigration and nothing else.”
“Why, is there some smaller problem we should be seeing inside a problem so large?”
“Yes, if one is willing to see it.”
“And what would that be?”
“The trafficking of immigrant children,” said Fonso Spalato, opening the door and going out.
Exactly the way it happens in cartoons, two of the journalist’s words—“trafficking” and “children”—materialized in black, as though printed in midair, the rest of the room and everything in it having disappeared inside a kind of milky light, and after one millionth of a second the two words became intertwined, turning into two snakes that scuffled, fused, changed color, then metamorphosed into a luminous globe from which a kind of lightning rod shot forth and struck Montalbano between the eyes.
“Jesus Christ!” he cried out, grabbing hold of the desk.
In less than a second, all the scattered pieces of the puzzle swimming around in his head fell into place, fitting perfectly together. Then all went back to normal, and everything resumed its usual shape and color. What did not return to normal was the inspector himself, because he couldn’t move and his mouth stubbornly refused to open and call the journalist back. At last he managed to grab the telephone.
“Stop that journalist!” he shouted hoarsely at Catarella.
As he was sitting back down, wiping the sweat from his brow, he heard pandemonium break out on the street below. Somebody (it must have been Catarella) was yelling:
“Stop, Pontius Pilate!”
Somebody else (it must have been the journalist) said:
“What have I done? Let go of me!”
A third person (obviously some asshole passing by) took advantage of the situation to cry out:
“Down with the police!”
At last the door to the inspector’s office flew open with a crash so loud that it visibly terrified the journalist who had just then appeared reluctantly in the doorway, pushed from behind by Catarella.
“Nabbed him, Chief!”
“What is going on? I don’t understand—”
