10
He had just finished savoring the
“I’ve been on the phone for the last half hour with Beba. She’s desperate and can’t stop crying.”
“But why?”
“Because Mimi is treating her very badly. He screams and yells and it’s not at all clear what he wants. This morning he made a terrible scene. Beba thinks these nighttime stakeouts are wearing him out.”
“Did you tell her they’ll be over soon?”
“Yes, but in the meantime . . . poor Beba . . . But, tell me something, Salvo. Has Mimi done any stakeouts like these in the past?”
“Sure, dozens.”
“And he’s never reacted this way before?”
“Never.”
“So, why is it that now . . . Bah! Couldn’t it be that something else is going on in his life?”
An alarm bell went off in the inspector’s head.
“Like what?”
“I dunno . . . maybe he’s fallen in love with someone else . . . Mimi used to fall in love so easily . . . Maybe, between the exhaustion from his stakeouts and the uneasiness he feels around Beba...”
For heaven’s sake, that idea wasn’t supposed to even graze Livia’s consciousness! It could compromise everything!
“I’m sorry, Livia, but when could he have met this other woman? He hasn’t got the time for it. Think about it. At the moment, he spends his nights on stakeouts or at home, and during the day he’s at the office...”
“You’re right. But why suddenly all these stakeouts, and all on Mimi’s shoulders?”
Shit! Livia was becoming dangerous. Guided by her feminine sense of smell, she was getting close to the truth. There were two ways to throw her off the scent: either start yelling like a madman that the rise in crime was not his fault, or else try to reason with her calmly. If he did the former, the conversation would end in a blowout, and Livia would simply harden her position; whereas, with the latter, maybe...
“Well, the situation here has practically become a state of emergency, you know . . . There’s a band of fugitives roaming the countryside . . . We’ve already caught one person, thanks to Mimi, in fact. And it’s not true that it’s all on Mimi’s shoulders. He’s been going out every other night, more or less. On his nights off, he’s replaced by someone else.”
All lies. But Livia seemed to have been convinced.
Before going to bed, he turned on the television. The purse-lipped mouth of Pippo Ragonese’s chicken-ass face was saying something related to him.
“. . . and I certainly am not referring to possible developments in the investigation of the dismembered murder victim found in the area called
Those words disturbed the inspector greatly as they began to sink in. Internal misunderstandings. Clearly Ragonese had got wind, in one way or another, of what was happening in the department because of Mimi. He knew only half the story. And it was absolutely crucial to stop him before he knew all of it. But how? The inspector would have to think about this.
The following morning he got dressed up, even putting on a tie. It didn’t seem right to go see Dolores Alfano dressed casually, having, as he did, to give her news that, no matter how you looked at it, was bad.
But since it was still too early—a few minutes to nine—to pay her a call, the inspector dropped by the station first.
“Ahh Chief Chief! Y’look so fancy when y’get dressed up all fancy!” Catarella commented in admiration.
“Anyone here?”
“Yessir. Fazio.”
“Send him to me.”
Fazio came in, looked at him, and asked:
“You on your way to see Signora Alfano?”
“Yeah, in a little bit. And you’re coming too.”
Fazio was unprepared for this.
“But . . . why? Aren’t you enough?”
“Didn’t you say yourself that she bites? If you’re there too, you might help keep her still and prevent her from biting me.”
“Whatever you say, Chief. Meanwhile, I’ve already seen Morici.”
“So soon?”
“Yeah, Chief. Yesterday he was told he had to go to Palermo for a week, and so he phoned me and moved the appointment up to seven o’clock this morning.”
