15
“Who’s that?” asked Mimi, watching Fonso Spalato walk away down the corridor.
“An angel,” replied Montalbano.
“Right! In those clothes?”
“Why not? Do you think angels should only dress the way they do in the paintings of Melozzo da Forli? Haven’t you ever seen that Frank Capra movie called . . . wait . . .”
“Never mind,” said Mimi, who was obviously on edge. “I wanted to tell you that Tommaseo phoned. I told him we’d be handling the case, but he wouldn’t give us authorization to search the villa, nor would he consent to tapping Marzilla’s phone. So the whole performance you orchestrated didn’t help one goddamned bit.”
“That’s okay, we’ll work on our own. But could you explain why you’re in such a bad mood?”
“You want to know why I’m in a bad mood?” Augello fired back at him. “Because I listened to Beba’s phone call to Tommaseo and I heard the kind of questions that pig asked her. I was standing there with my ear glued to the receiver. When she finished telling him what she’d seen, he started asking things like, ‘Were you alone in the car?’ To which Beba replied with embarrassment, ‘No, I was with my boyfriend.’ So he said: ‘What were you doing?’ And Beba, pretending to be even more embarrassed, ‘Well, you know . . .’ So the pig says, ‘Were you making love?’ Beba answers in a faint voice, ‘Yes . . .’ And he asks, ‘Was the relation consummated?’ Here Beba hesitated a moment, and so the swine explained to her that there were certain important facts he had to know in order to clarify the situation as much as possible. And at that point she stopped holding back and started getting into it. You have no idea the kinds of details she came out with! And the more she said, the more the pig got worked up! He actually wanted Beba to come in and testify in person! He wanted to know her name and what she looked like. To cut it short, after she hung up, we ended up quarreling. My question is, where did she dig up some of those details?”
“Come on, Mimi, don’t be childish! What, have you become jealous now?”
Mimi gave him a long look.
“Yes,” he said.
And he left the room.
“Send me Catarella!” the inspector shouted at him.
“Your orders, Chief!” said Catarella, instantly materializing.
“I think I remember you saying once that you often go visit a brother of yours who lives near Capo Russello.”
“Yessir, Chief.”
“Good. Can you explain to me how you get there?”
“No need to ’splain, Chief. I can come wit you myself in poisson!”
“Thanks, but this is something I have to take care of alone, no offense. So, can you explain to me how I get there?”
“Yessir. You take the road to Montereale and go past it. Keep goin for a coupla miles and on the left y’see an arrow that says Capo Russello.”
“Do I take that road?”
“No sir. You c’ntinue. Next you’re gonna see an arrow that says Lampisa. That’s the road you take.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“Chief, that arrow that says Lampisa only says Lampisa in a manner o’ speakin. Forget about goin to Lampisa if you only follow that arrow.”
“So what should I do?”
“When you take the road to Lampisa, you go about a hundred fifty yards till you see a big iron gate that used to be there but isn’t there no more.”
“How am I supposed to see a gate that isn’t there?”
“Easy, Chief. ’Cause after where the gate used to be, there’s two rows of oak trees. That used to be the Baron Vella’s property, now it’s nobody’s property. When you come way to the back of that driveway an’ you see the belapidated ruins of the baron’s villa, you turn alla way around the last oak tree onna left. And not tree hunnert yards later you’re in Lampisa.”
“And that’s the only way to get there?”
“It depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“On if you’re walkin or drivin there.”
“I’m driving.”
“Then iss the only way, Chief.”
“How far away is the sea?”
“Not a hunnert yards, Chief.”
To eat or not to eat? That was the question. Was it nobler in the mind to suffer the pangs of outrageous hunger or to hang it all and go stuff his belly at Enzo’s? The Shakespearian dilemma arose when he looked at his watch and noticed it was already eight o’clock. If he gave in to hunger, that would give him just barely an hour to devote to dinner. Which meant that he would have to eat with Chaplinesque speed. Now, one thing was certain, and that was that eating hastily was not eating. At best it was mere self-nourishment. An essential difference, since at that moment he felt no need to nourish himself the way an animal or a tree might. What he felt like doing was savoring bite after bite, taking as much time as was needed. No, there was no point. And, to avoid falling into temptation, once he got home he opened neither
