do nothing about it. Whenever he thought he’d lost his telephone connection, he went into a terrible panic, like a child abandoned in a starship adrift in space.
“Hello! Hello!” he started yelling.
“Don’t shout! I’m here!” she said.
“Can you explain to me why-”
“Not over the telephone.”
“Try.”
“I said no.”
“Well then let’s meet, if you don’t mind! There’s also something I have to ask you about the
Another pause.
This time, however, Montalbano heard her breathing.
“Do you want to have dinner together?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“But not at your house.”
“All right. We can go wherever you like.”
“Then let’s go to that restaurant in Montereale you mentioned to me.”
“All right. Let’s do this: you come here to the station, and we can take my car to-”
“No. Just tell me how to get to this restaurant. We can meet there. But give me about an hour; I still need to change.”
What had got into Laura? Why had her mood changed so drastically? He couldn’t figure it out.
About ten minutes later, the phone rang.
“Ahh Chief Chief! Ahh Chief!”
Bad sign. Whenever Catarella intoned these lamentations, it meant that Mister C’mishner, as he reverently called him, was on the line.
“Does the commissioner want me?” Montalbano asked.
“Yessir, Chief! An’ iss rilly urgint!”
“Tell him I’m not in my office.”
The commissioner was likely to tell him to come to Montelusa, which would make him miss his appointment with Laura.
“
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Wha’ss wrong izzat when I gotta tella lie to hizzoner the c’mishner, iss like I’m c’mittin’ a mortal sin!”
“So just go and confess!”
Forty-five minutes later, he was about to get up and leave when Fazio came in.
“Chief, I have a very good friend who’s a carabiniere, and I took the liberty of-”
“What did you do?”
“I asked him what they planned to do with Shaikiri.”
“And how did you explain your interest in him?”
“I told him he was a friend of mine and that whenever he drank he lost his head, and I apologized for him.”
“And what did the guy say?”
“They released him at five o’clock this afternoon. He was charged with assault and resisting arrest. What should I do? Go look for him at Giacomino’s tavern?”
“Go there at once and forget about Ricca.”
He’d already stood up when the phone rang. To answer or not to answer? That was the question. Prudence suggested that it was best not to answer, but since he had given Laura this very number, he thought it might be her saying she had changed her mind, and so he picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Ah, Inspector Montalbano, what luck to find you in your office! Did you just get back?”
“This very moment.”
It was that humongous pain in the ass Dr. Lattes, called
“Well, my friend, the commissioner has gone and left me with the task of contacting you.”
“What can I do for you, Doctor?”
“We urgently need to do a complete review of documents lost during that sort of flood that damaged your offices the other day.”
“I see.”
“Would you have an hour or so, or perhaps an hour and a half, to devote to this?”
“When?”
“Right now. It’s something we could even do over the phone. You need only have a list of the lost documents at hand. Let’s start by doing a summary check, which will later serve as…”
Montalbano felt lost. He would have to cancel the dinner engagement with Laura!
No, he would not submit to this revenge of the bureaucracy.
But how? How would he ever wriggle out of this?
Perhaps only a good improvised performance could save him. He would do the tragic-actor thing, and he got off to a flying start.
“No! No! Alas! Woe is me! I don’t have the time!” he said in a despairing voice.
It made an immediate impression on Lattes.
“Good God, Inspector! What’s wrong?”
“I just now got a call from my wife!”
“And?”
“She phoned me from the hospital, alas!”
“But what happened?”
“It’s my youngest, little Gianfrancesco. He’s very sick and I must immediately-”
Dr. Lattes didn’t hesitate for a second.
“For heaven’s sake, Montalbano! Go, and hurry! I shall pray to the Blessed Virgin for your little… What did you say his name was?”
Montalbano couldn’t remember. He blurted out the first name that came to mind.
“Gianantonio.”
“But didn’t you say Gianfrancesco?”
“You see? I can’t even think straight! Gianantonio is the oldest, and he’s fine, thank God!”
“Go! Go! Don’t waste any more time! And good luck! And tomorrow I want a full report, don’t forget.”
Montalbano was off like a rocket to Montereale.
But after barely a mile and a half, the car stalled. There wasn’t a drop of gasoline left in the tank. Fortunately there was a filling station a couple of hundred yards up the road.
He got out of the car, grabbed a jerry can from the trunk, ran to the gas station, filled up the can, paid, ran back to the car, poured in the gas, started up the car, stopped at the station again, filled up the tank, and drove off-cursing the saints all the while.
When he got to the restaurant, all sweaty and out of breath, Laura was already sitting at a table, nervously
